As they filed across the finish line Friday night, the 25 finishers of the 10,000m stopped, took some deep breaths and checked their times.
Well, all but Abdi.
Champion Abdi Abdirahman didn’t stop after clinching his fourth U.S. outdoor title in 27:41.89, sprinting for another hundred meters, catching a T-shirt tossed to him from a suite and running hell-bent in lane eight of the backstretch all the way to the steeplechase water pit before dousing himself in a cold water celebration.
After holding off a push from challenger Galen Rupp of Oregon, second in 27:43.11, and Jorge Torres, third in 27:46.33 – along with much of the Rupp-friendly crowd of 20,936 – Abdirahman deserved a celebration.
“It feels great. I was so hot when I was running, I was on fire,” Abdirahman said. “I just tried to cool myself down.”
Four days short of a month after Abdirahman ran the second-fastest 10,000m in U.S. history at the Prefontaine Classic, he started the race in first and rarely let go of the top spot. The top three finishers separated themselves from a second chase pack of eight runners a little more than halfway through the race, which Abdirahman came through at 13:49.
“My coach told me, he said, ‘You better take the pretenders out of the race, let it be a man’s race,’” a still damp Abdirahman said.
Rupp repeatedly peered over his left shoulder in the final two miles, but no one was catching the front runners, more than 35 meters ahead in the last mile.
The trio pushed past the finish line with a mile remaining together just before Rupp surged past Torres for second, then hung on the leader’s right shoulder, waiting for his chance to pass. It came with 800 meters to go, right in front of a roaring west grandstand.
The crowd loved the bold move – but Abdirahman was having nothing of it, overtaking Rupp with 400 meters to go and holding his two-second gap until the finish line.
“I was feeling good at that point, and you just gotta go for it,” said Rupp, who became the second Duck this Trials to advance to the Olympics. “I figured, what the heck?”
Abdirahman made his third Olympic team for the U.S., while Rupp and Torres made their first.
2004 Olympic marathon silver-medalist Meb Keflezighi did not qualify, finishing in 13th place.
A.G. Kruger’s win in the hammer throw was a steady, measured effort. Improving on each of his first five throws; his only non-improvement came on his last throw, when his Olympic Trials title was a guarantee. Kruger entered the meet with the only Olympic ‘A’ standard throw in the United States this year, and automatically qualified with his win, throwing 248-9.
Even Kruger’s worst throw, his last, would have been good enough for third. He’d put the competition away long before his sixth toss, however.
“My thoughts all year were win it and I’m in it,” the 28-year-old with the shaved head and goatee said. His win secured his third-straight U.S. outdoor title in the hammer.
Kevin McMahon, 36, entered second place with his second throw of the afternoon, improving his hold on second on the fourth attempt. He and third place finisher Thomas Freeman – who threw 241-5 to qualify – had Friday’s final to meet the standard but couldn’t. McMahon competed at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics, while it would have been Freeman’s first games.
The throwers bemoaned the high ‘A’ standard of 257-6, which only 13 throwers in the world have met in 2008.
“I’m not saying that they need to change it, but how high do they need to set it?” McMahon said. “I don’t know how that helps the sport to make it so unbelievably far.”
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