2002 USA Outdoor Championships - Day One Report

By Parker Morse

Mebrahtom ("Meb") Keflezighi won another USATF title at 10,000m Friday night in Palo Alto, the scene of his American Record last year. If this race was a movie, it would be a sequel, and it would be at least the fifth installment in the series. From the first laps the race developed in almost exactly the same way as the last two 10,000m championships and the previous two cross country championships, with Meb, Abdi Abdirahman and Alan Culpepper separating early from the field, working together to build an insurmountable lead, then splitting the race up among themselves.

Like any good sequel, the broad outline was the same, but the development was a little different. This year, Culpepper began to fall off the pace after 6k, and didn't contribute to the race at the front over the last two miles, though the gap never grew bigger than eight seconds. Meb and Abdi shared the pace until the last lap, with Meb taking the bell with just over a stride's length lead. With 200m to go, Meb found high gear sooner than Abdi wanted, and opened the lead to a full second, which he held to the finish. Meb finished in 27:31.68 to Abdi's 27:42.83. Meb closed with a 60.5 final lap to Abdi's 61.4; Culpepper was third in 27:48.09.

"Running fast was the main goal," said Abdi after the race. "It's Stanford, so hey, we don't want to come to the track and run like, 28:30, 28:40. We want to give a good show to the crowd, that was our main goal." And a good time it was; the last time the USATF Championship was won in a sub-28 clocking was 1979 when Craig Virgin ran a 27:39.4 then-American Record.

Meb may have been the winner, but Abdi did most of the talking for his friendly rival and sometime training partner. "Meb has run 27:13," he said. "I've never run that fast, but my main goal is to run under 27:20. Hopefully I will. But Meb's goal is to run under 27."

When asked when that sub-27 might come, Keflezighi replied, "Definitely not this year. I'm not doing any more 10ks this year. I'm going to do Paris and Rome, some 5ks... then get ready for a marathon."

The women's 10,000m was nothing short of a blowout, as Jen Rhines took the lead within the first lap and ran solo to her first USATF track championship. Rhines' lead was four or five seconds for the first four kilometers as Milena Glusac, Katie McGregor and Kim Fitchen worked together to stay in contact, but by 6k she had fifteen seconds and she didn't lose ground again. Rhines' final time was 31:57.38, seventeen seconds over Glusac in 32:15.09 and McGregor in 32:17.49.

In the absence of AR-holder Deena Drossin, Rhines finally got to prove that she could dominate a race as well as any woman. Afterward, she admitted that she was ready to wait until quite late in the race, but nobody else wanted to lead.

"I wasn't sure what I was going to do, if I was going to go out hard and go from the gun, or wait until the last twelve or eight laps. But nobody really took it off the line, so I decided to just go. I was hoping to run a little quicker today, I thought I was in shape to run a PR. But I was happy to win."

Friday afternoon's action was almost as interesting for the races which weren't run. Small fields led meet management to cancel rounds in the women's 800m, 1,500m and steeplechase, skipping to semi-finals for the first and directly to finals for the other two. The men's fields in all three races were trimmed slightly in afternoon rounds. All the usual suspects advanced in the men's steeple, including Tim Broe, Tony Cosey, Robert Gary, Anthony Famiglietti, and Mark Croghan; two top collegians, Daniel Lincoln of Arkansas and Steve Slattery of Colorado, also advanced.

In the men's 800m, Paul McMullen was one of the unlucky third of the field which didn't advance; Khadevis Robinson led qualifying with a 1:48.58.

Brian Berryhill led the 1,500m qualifying, winning the first heat in 3:42.60. 2000 Olympic Trials winner Gabe Jennings led the second heat through three perfect 60-second laps before fading to eighth, and replayed his ignominous NCAA exit by missing qualifying for the final by .03s. The normally talkative Jennings was so stunned that he left the mixed zone without a word.

"You know, I just want to go out there and win," said Berryhill. "At the indoor championships, I had a tough one. I took the lead way too early, and lactic acid built up a lot in the last 150 meters. I just want to relax again, enjoy the races like I did winning the NCAA last year, and get back to that form."

JUNIORS

USATF also crowned Junior champions in the men's 10,000m and women's 5,000m late Friday night. Dan Glaz, a freshman at Ohio State University, pulled away from a pack of five with just under two miles to go. As Glaz extended his lead, Georgetown's Charlie Millioen went set off in pursuit, ending up only two and a half seconds adrift, 30:15.22 to Glaz's 30:12.77. "I saw Dan pulling away," said Millioen, "but I looked at my coach and he told me to wait." The top six finishers all bettered the 30:30 qualifying standard for next month's World Junior Championships.

The women's 5,000m came down to the final laps, as a large pack grew progressively smaller over the last five laps. 2001 junior cross country champion Laura Zeigle made a strong move at the bell and opened a gap on 2002 cross country champ Maria Cicero of Boston College, but Lindsay Zinn of Purdue was the one with the wheels to overtake Zeigle with 200m to go. Zinn finished in 16:37.72, and Zeigle barely held off Clara Horowitz's kick, 16:46.32 to 16:46.60.

"I have a bad tendency to go out too fast and get burned in the last laps," said Zinn. "So I tried to stay away from that. The first lap was killing me, because we went out so slow, but I just stuck to the leader."

Juniors ran qualifying for Saturday finals in the 1,500m and 800m. Kathryn Anderson of BYU posted the fastest 1,500m time for women, running 4:29.02 ahead of New Hampshire's Chantelle Dron in 4:30.92. Lindsey Egerdahl of Washington won the slower heat in 4:33.46. Evelyn Dwyer ran 2:09.51 to set the 800m standard, with Ashley Caldwell close behind. Yfa Kretzschmar of San Francisco, who advanced with a 2:10.37, holds dual citizenship with England, and may compete in that country's Junior championships if she can't make the U.S. team.

The men's 1,500m times were topped by Adam Perkins' 3:52.83 in the first, faster heat, with Stanford's Justin Romaniuk right behind. Chris Lukezic of Washington ran the most dramatic race, waiting until the bell lap of the second heat before kicking easily away from Peter Meindl to win that heat in 3:54.07. He will bear watching in Saturday's final. The 800m qualifying was led by Richard Smith of South Lakes HS in Virginia, who ran 1:50.90 in the first heat.