Favorites Don't Disappoint at USA Olympic Marathon Trials

by Sam Grotewold

After all the speculation leading up to Saturday's U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men's Marathon, after all the handicapping of the field and the guessing about which three athletes in the starting group of 86 would walk away with a pass to compete in the Olympic Games in Athens this summer, most people overlooked the potential scenario that was staring them right in the face.

That scenario, of course, was that the three spots would go to the three top seeds in the field, the three athletes who had entered with the fastest qualifying times: Colorado's Alan Culpepper, California's Meb Keflezighi, and Oregon's Dan Browne. One, two, three. But it's been said that the only thing certain in the marathon is that nothing is certain, and the road is too long, the miles too unforgiving, to have it end that easily. Everything was up for grabs, wasn't it?

In the end, it turns out, no. Culpepper, who had the fastest qualifying time coming into the race, won the trials race in Birmingham, Alabama, in 2:11:42. Keflezighi—seeded second—finished second, five seconds behind Culpepper, and Browne, ranked third, finished third in 2:12:02. One, two, three.

The simplicity of the final results, though, belies the complicated and exciting manner in which the three athletes arrived at their final positions. On a cold and blustery day, a tightly bunched group of athletes began a long straightaway into Birmingham's city center, where they would then complete three identical 5.3-mile loops to arrive at the finish line exactly 26 miles, 385 yards later. The sole dissenter from this very large early pack was New Mexico's Teddy Mitchell, considered by some to be a dark-horse pick to make the team. Mitchell opened up a 150-meter gap on the rest of the field in the first 10K, but by mile 7 he was caught by Michigan's Brian Sell, with the rest of the pack quickly gaining.

Though Mitchell was soon swallowed up and later dropped out of the race, Sell continued to press the pace as the athletes began the first of the three downtown loops. Amazingly, Sell, who had run only one marathon previously, was increasing his lead over the best distance runners in America. By mile 16, Sell's advantage was a full minute.

Despite his relative inexperience in the marathon, Sell was no less formidable in the minds of his competitors. As a member of the Brooks-Hansons Olympic Distance Project in the Detroit metro area, Sell has posted a string of impressive races at shorter distances, including a runner-up finish to Keflezighi at the USA 20K Championships last Labor Day in New Haven.

"There was a moment where I was definitely concerned," Culpepper would later say. "I wanted to go after him and I definitely felt like I could go quicker, but I didn't want to have to battle that wind by myself." The cracks, though, had already started to show in Sell's armor. Culpepper, Keflezighi, Browne, and Trent Briney—Sell's Brooks-Hansons teammate—cut 10 seconds off his lead over the course of the next mile, and continued to slice away at the gap. By 20 miles, the group had gotten by a flagging Sell, who would finish 13th in a 2:17:20 personal best.

"I don't have any regrets," Sell said after the race. "My plan was to run 2:12 pace, and I did that for quite a while, and I learned a lot in those final miles."

Culpepper, the reigning USA 10,000-meter champion, meanwhile, was waging a fierce battle with Keflezighi—the American record holder at 10,000 meters—and Browne. By 23 miles, Browne had fallen a few strides behind the two leaders, who would continue to run shoulder to shoulder until Culpepper managed to grab the advantage in the final 100 meters.

"After having the closest finish of my life with Meb after 25 laps," Culpepper said, a reference to last year's 10,000-meter national track championship race in which Culpepper edged Keflezighi by two seconds, "I expected things to be a little more spread out after 26 miles. I guess not," he laughed.

Browne, who was a lieutenant in the Army and still serves in Oregon's National Guard, was emotionally spent after his finish. "I ran this race to make the team, but I also ran it to honor my friends who have died in Iraq," he said. "With three miles to go I was feeling pretty rough, but I thought of them and I knew that I would finish."

Briney, running the race of his life, finished fourth in 2:12:35, a personal best by more than eight minutes. Clint Verran, a teammate of Sell and Briney, rounded out the top five.

Though the athletes will now take a few days to think about anything but running before beginning the training that will take them to the starting line of the Olympic Games Marathon on August 29, a major hurdle has been cleared on the road to Athens. And after all the pre-race speculation, all of the prognosticating and predictions, everything turned out to be much simpler than we all thought.

One. Two. Three.

Sam Grotewold is the Web editor of New York Road Runners