With three laps to go in the women’s 5,000-meter final, Shalane Flanagan turned a six-woman race into a three-woman sprint for first.
Pushing the pace from the 72- to 73-second range it had been sitting at for most of the race, Flanagan, Jen Rhines and Kara Goucher ran the final three laps in an average of 66 seconds. It was still anybody’s race coming off the Bowerman Curve when Goucher powered by a spent Flanagan and Rhines, the Hayward Field-record crowd of 20,936 roaring as she did so.
Goucher, a three-time U.S. runner-up, including the 10,000m race last Friday, won her first title when she crossed the line exactly one second in front of Rhines in 15 minutes, 1.02 seconds.
“We all ran really strong tonight,” Rhines said. “Kara was the one though that had the most left.”
Flanagan, the 10,000m champion last week, was third in 15:02.81.
All three have the Olympic ‘A’ standard and will represent the United States in Beijing.
“I was more nervous for this race than the 10K,” Goucher said. “I just knew it was going to hurt. The crowd makes you feel so good here. I don’t want to race anywhere else after this.”
The three runners dropped with three laps to go – Sara Slattery, Lauren Fleshman and Arianna Lambie – finished fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively.
Slattery doesn’t have the Olympic ‘A’ standard of 15:09.00, so if either Goucher or Flanagan decide to focus on just the 10,000m, Fleshman would be the next in line.
Fleshman, who runs for Oregon Track Club Elite, wasn’t able to respond to Flanagan’s move.
“I did the best I could today,” she said. “I was just so dead. My body just wouldn’t respond, so I started running defensively. I just didn’t have it.”
In the women’s high jump, the battle between Amy Acuff and Chaunte Howard came down to who missed when. Acuff cleared the first five bars of the competition, but was unable to clear after that.
Howard, meanwhile, missed her first attempt at 6 feet, 0.5 inches – she passed at the opening height of 5-10.5 – then never missed again until she had the competition won.
Acuff’s first miss came at 6-4.75, after Howard had already cleared that height. She passed on her next two attempts to try at the next height. Howard’s clearance of 6-5.5 clinched the competition when Acuff couldn’t get over the bar on her two remaining attempts.
Howard, the 2006 U.S. champion, had to battle to get back in shape after having a baby in 2007.
“The hardest part was getting my body back in shape,” she said. “One day it all started to click again and it has all gone well from there.
“I feel very excited. I did exactly what I needed to do.”
Third place went to Sharon Day. She and Dierdre Mullen both made it at 6-3.25, but Mullen did it in fewer attempts. Day, who had the ‘A’ standard previously, had to watch as Mullen passed her final two attempts at 6-4 to instead take them at the ‘A’ standard height of 6-4.75, a height she needed to clear to make the Olympic team.
“I was definitely crying a little bit,” Day said. “I was sitting next to a friend of mine and was like, ‘Please hold my hand on Deirdre’s last jump.’”
Acuff, who made her fourth Olympic team, said today was the most stressful of her five Olympic Trials.
“This was probably the most stressful just because this is probably my last Olympics,” she said. “I just am so happy and relieved. Now I can relax and focus on the Olympics which is always less stressful than the Olympic Trials.”
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