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The USTFCCCA has announced this year's NCAA All-Americans:
Division I men | Division I women | Division II | Division III
Mike Scott has posted his post-NCAA Championships analysis of the Division I women's race, as well as a graph (PDF) comparing teams' mid-race scores to their finishing scores.
Posted by Alison Wade at 10:19 a.m. | Tags: 2006 NCAA Cross Country | Comments (2)
Ian Dobson and Shalane Flanagan kicked to wins today at the Manchester Road Race in Manchester, Connecticut. Simon Bairu finished second in the men's race after leading for more than three miles of the race, and Mary Cullen finished second among the women.
Flanagan's victory marked a successful comeback from foot surgery, and Manchester was her first race in more than a year.
Our photos of the race are posted here, though the quality and quantity are limited due to the heavy rain.
2006 Manchester Road Race results
Posted by Alison Wade at 1:00 p.m. | Tags: Running Photos, Race Reports, Race Results | Comments (3)
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Posted by Alison Wade at 12:10 p.m. | Tags: Site News | Comments (0)
As of around midnight, all of our NCAA photos are now posted here. Due to the volume of photos, they are divided into six separate galleries.
Other NCAA photos can be found on the following web sites:
www.TrackAndFieldPhoto.com gallery one (Randy Miyazaki), and gallery two (Tim O'Dowd)
www.PrettySporty.com
Sean Hartnett's web site
Kirby Lee and Tim O'Dowd's photos on TrackShark.com
Posted by Alison Wade at 11:55 a.m. | Tags: Running Photos | Comments (0)
Sally Kipyego of Texas Tech demolished the women's field at the 2006 NCAA Cross Country Championships, hosted by Indiana State University in Terre Haute on November 20. Kipyego, a sophomore transfer from South Plains Junior College, opened a gap in the first kilometer of the 6k race and was in sight but out of reach of the rest of the field for the duration of the race. Her 26-second lead at halfway held steady to the finish, and she became the first Kenyan woman to win the NCAA Division I Cross Country title. "I feel so awesome right now," said Kipyego with a big smile after the race. "I wanted so much to be a champion today. I knew it would be tough, but everyone's going through that mud. I had an advantage in the front; I didn't need to push people around, I could see the course clearly and decide where to run. I didn't think I would win, but I knew I had the ability."
Kipyego started running as a 15-year-old in 2000, and in 2001 represented Kenya as a junior at the World Cross Country Championships where she finished eighth, but in 2002 she didn't make the team. A stress fracture in 2003 kept her out that year and off the 2004 team as well. 2005 was "my first year running better again. I'm just coming into my own," she said. "I'd love to see more Kenyan women coming to study and run in the U.S. Hopefully this will help them see the advantages."
Kipyego's pursuers were many, as the soft and muddy course slowed the chase pack and kept them from stringing out until late in the race. Stanford's Arianna Lambie bid to overtake Kipyego in the last two kilometers, but chasing the former Kenyan junior internationalist alone was too much for Lambie. As the runners entered the final 500m closing straight, she found herself in the cross hairs of Colorado's NCAA steeplechase champion Jenny Barringer, whose barrier strength gave her the staying power to run Lambie down.
"I like to think I didn't make one big move," said Barringer. "At 4k, I thought to myself, 'You've only got 2,000m left, you'd better get going.' I put my mind in high gear. I don't remember passing most of them. I think I dug as deep today as I ever have in my life." Barringer noted that Kipyego "beat me by 45 seconds both times I raced her," but added, "It's tough coming in knowing that, [but] I was hoping I would be underestimated because of that. I was definitely out here with aspirations to do my best...but there's a slab of reality that comes with [the two losses]."
Yale junior Lindsay Donaldson also caught Lambie in the closing meters, but fourth place was enough for Stanford. Dominant all season, Stanford was the overwhelming favorite to retain their team title, but their performance in Terre Haute was not what it might have been. With 195 points, Stanford became the highest-scoring womens' team to win the NCAA title, with a 28 point lead over Barringer's Colorado squad. The previous highest winning score was 146 points for Stanford in 2005.
Still, two titles in two years at Stanford is an enviable record for Tegen. "I didn't get to tell my ladies until last kilometer that it's a low-scoring game, not a high-scoring game," said coach Peter Tegen afterward. "We wanted to be sure nobody did anything heroic, that everyone just ran to their ability, because that would do the job. They had to do what they do well, what they'd done all season long. I'm not so sure we can continue that game, of seeing how high we can score and still win."
Posted by Parker Morse at 11:58 a.m. | Tags: Race Reports, 2006 NCAA Cross Country | Comments (0)
"Ever since Friday, people have been telling me, 'It's muddy, it's perfect for you,'" said University of Colorado coach Mark Wetmore, alluding to the 2004 NCAA Cross Country Championships at the same Terre Haute course, where mud and a soft course helped Colorado close strong in the last miles to upset favored Wisconsin for the title. "I don't know," Wetmore continued. "Boulder is a desert." After a near-repeat at this year's championship, including the mud, the favored Wisconsin squad, and the late Colorado victory, the Buffaloes' reputation for being "good in mud" will be hard to shake. Wetmore suspects a deeper reason. "There's no Jorge [Torres] on this team, no Dathan [Ritzenhein], no Adam [Goucher], or if there is, I haven't brought it out yet. Every team has their own necessity, due to their talent and how they train. We're pretty good at sticking to what works for us," he explained, alluding to Colorado's traditional altitude-trained late-race strength. "We can't go out in 4:25. We just have to hope we can bring it back from whatever our deficit is in the last two kilometers."
And with the course as soggy as it was, and already chewed up from the women's race, it was no surprise to anyone that the lead pack was large at halfway and remained so well into the second of two 5k circuits. When BYU's Josh Rohatinsky moved around the 7k mark, though, it was clear that even the relatively slow pace in the chopped-up ground was sapping the energy of the leaders. Rohatinsky broke the pack up immediately, with Stanford's Neftalem Araia covering the move and the rest spreading out behind. Rohatinsky pulled away from Araia in the last kilometer, and though Araia pushed hard to catch him in the final straight, "He was still pulling away from me," he said afterward.
"The first 4k or 5k, to be honest, I didn't feel very good," said Rohatinsky. "[BYU] Coach [Ed] Eyestone said he had a feeling something would happen around 7k. If I'm in contact with 2k or 3k to go, that's when I'm dangerous, and luckily for me, that's how it worked out. When we were coming around the last corner, I took a peek behind me and saw nobody was there. Then I took a peek on the straightaway, and saw Nef was 20 or 30 [meters] behind, and I told myself, 'Just don't fall down.'"
"For me, it gave me the confidence that I can win big races like this," Rohatinsky continued, saying his next major race would be the USA Cross Country Championships in Boulder in February.
In winning, Rohatinsky became the first NCAA Cross Country Champion coached by a NCAA cross country champion. Eyestone was BYU's last male champion, winning the meet in 1984.
Utah had a good day in the men's race, with third place going to Jess Baumgartner of Southern Utah University. So unknown reporters had to ask the spelling of his name, the junior explained that he had shadowed Rohatinsky in so many races this fall, he figured he would follow the same strategy in Terre Haute. When Rohatinsky and Araia broke away, he followed, splitting the gap between them and the chase pack. "I was chasing Nef, and I just ran out of room," he said. "I knew I could be up there," explained Baumgartner. "I'm excited for what will come next."
Colorado (94) upended Wisconsin (142) by 48 points, after many coaches in Sunday's press conference discussed their chances in an otherwise-even field where, Wetmore said before the race, Wisconsin was "half a head taller." Many observers pointed to the implosion of Wisconsin's track champion Chris Solinsky, who finished 73rd and scored 49 points for Wisconsin, as the biggest factor. But Solinsky would have to have placed first or second for Wisconsin to win outright. Moving Solinsky to first and leaving everything else the same subtracts 48 points from Wisconsin's score, but adds three as Solinsky displaces three of his own teammates, bringing Wisconsin to 97; Colorado would lose five points to score 99. To extend Wetmore's figure of speech, if Wisconsin was taller, Colorado stepped up.
The "even field" materialized in the lower places, with Stanford, Oregon and Arkansas finishing with 195, 196, and 196 points respectively; Iona, in third, had 172.
Posted by Parker Morse at 11:46 a.m. | Tags: Race Reports, 2006 NCAA Cross Country | Comments (0)
Texas Tech's Sally Kipyego ran away from the field to win the NCAA Cross Country Championships this afternoon in Terre Haute, Indiana. Heavily favored Stanford defended their team title, led by the fourth-place finish of Arianna Lambie. BYU's Josh Rohatinsky made a late-race push to win the men's championship over Stanford's Neftalem Araia. In a replay of the 2004 championship, Colorado upset favorites Wisconsin to take the team title.
We'll be posting more details and photos Tuesday, as soon as technology and travel schedules allow.
Posted by Parker Morse at 2:57 p.m. | Tags: 2006 NCAA Cross Country | Comments (0)
"I'd like to look at moving NCAAs off of a Monday." That sentence wouldn't be remarkable coming from any fan of a championship team who has had to take vacation days or skip classes to watch their runners on the biggest stage. It carries a bit more weight coming from the lips of Vin Lananna, current custodian of the University of Oregon running tradition and architect of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials. Lananna's public job description may not literally include "raising the profile of distance running in the U.S.," but it might as well, and Lananna thinks changing a scheduling quirk that goes back more than 35 years is worth considering.
"We've tried to move to Saturday," added Arkansas' John McDonnell. "We've always been told that we'll be lost in the football noise, or that we can't get a golf course on Saturday. Well, we're not running on a golf course tomorrow."
Indeed, of the past four NCAA cross country sites, only two have been golf courses, and Indiana State has signaled their willingness to keep holding the meet at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center for as long as the NCAA wants.
"Imagine the crowd if we had the meet on a Saturday," said McDonnell. "You'd have a hard time keeping them off the course. That's what we need in this sport."
Another change discussed, albeit with less authority, in Sunday's press conferences was the idea of increasing the distance of the women's championship race. Currently, the men's race is 10k, the women's 6k.
Stanford's Peter Tegen, who coaches both teams, noted that parity might not be as great as it looks. "The men are trying to avoid having to run every single race at the longer distance. That should tell us something. If we talk seriously about changing the date, the race distance will play a role [because of reduced recovery time between Regionals and Nationals]."
Athletes' reaction to the idea was guarded. "It would only be fair if we had to run 8k," said Stanford's Arianna Lambie. "Women middle-distance runners have a better chance [to do well in cross country] than men do. If cross country wants to be more of a distance event, that would be the way to go."
For NC State's Julia Lucas, that's just the point. "I would love to move up to 10k," she said. "I feel like that would benefit me. But as for the whole women's competition, our talent pool is much less condensed [across distances] than the men's is. I think it would make a less entertaining race for the spectators, so I think we should stay at this distance for at least a few more years."
Posted by Parker Morse at 6:55 p.m. | Tags: 2006 NCAA Cross Country | Comments (1)
While all the coaches in the men's press conference wanted to talk about the conditional favorite for that race, the only women's coach interested in talking about Stanford's domination this season was their coach, Peter Tegen - and he wanted to downplay it. "The rankings are out the window," said Tegen, whose women received all but one first-place vote across all the polls conducted this season. "We take it as an important race," Tegen continued, "but we don't think about pressure put on our shoulders by anyone else." Stanford's Arianna Lambie echoed her coach, calling Monday's race, "just another race."
Coach Lance Harter of the second-ranked University of Arkansas observed that his squad was mostly young and lacked a front-runner - "Interchangeable parts," he called them. "It remains to be seen if that carries over to a nationals situation. Naiveté will hopefully continue, and we'll try to do what we can with a young crew."
Asked about the conditions, Pre-Nationals winner Julia Lucas observed, "It's real cross country. The course is definitely going to be a factor in the race. Everyone runs the same conditions, so I'm going to be thinking about my competitors more than the course, because if I let go for a second, they will trample me. I know they look sweet here, but..."
Lucas will be thinking about scoring minimal points for her team, as NC State comes in ranked third, but Sally Kipyego is leading a Texas Tech team ranked 13th, and hasn't had a competitor closer than twenty-seven seconds behind all year. Kipyego pointed out that she finished eighth for Kenya as a junior at the 2001 World Cross Country Championships in Ostend, which featured some of the muddiest World Cross conditions in recent memory.
Posted by Parker Morse at 6:40 p.m. | Tags: 2006 NCAA Cross Country, Event Previews | Comments (1)
With the start of the 2007 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships less than 24 hours away, athletes and coaches from some of the top teams agreed that the men's field was as close as it had been in years. "Wisconsin is half a head taller than everyone else," conceded Colorado coach Mark Wetmore, "but there are five or six very even teams here." Oregon's Vin Lananna and Arkansas' John McDonnell agreed with Wetmore's analysis. "Wisconsin will be tough to beat," said Lananna. "We're happy to have a shot at it if Wisconsin trips over themselves," said McDonnell.
But it was Josh McDougal of Liberty, a three-time Pre-Nationals winner, who pointed to the factor most likely to sort out that even field: the course conditions. After days of rain, the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center outside Terre Haute is saturated. Though the sun came out on Sunday afternoon, conditions for Monday's races are most likely to resemble the 2004 NCAA meet here, where favored Wisconsin stumbled in the last mile. McDougal said, "I remember those Colorado guys flying us in the last few kilometers like we were standing still."
McDonnell observed that the soft going would probably keep the front runners closely packed. "It won't be that fast up front." The athletes mostly agreed that the race was likely to come down to the final mile, though Neftalem Araia of Stanford, an Indianapolis native who raced here in high school, observed that he planned to "try to make these guys hurt as much as possible."
"The first time I ran this course," Araia recounted, "I ran 18:35 for 5k; it was 100 degrees. It was my first varsity cross country race. The next time, I had just taken the SATs, and I didn't warm up because I was late. Every time I've run here, it's been stressful. The conditions have always been ridiculous. So I smile, because it's like, 'What's going to happen today, what's going to be the challenge?' It's not like [outdoors] in Sacramento, where you don't hear anyone in the crowd; it's lined with our friends, it's lined with our family. I could buy in to it, and grimace and die and hurt, but smiling makes it easier."
Posted by Parker Morse at 6:17 p.m. | Tags: 2006 NCAA Cross Country, Event Previews | Comments (0)