In a rousing finish that had more than 5,000 spectators on their feet at Hayward Field on Friday night, Oregon distance phenom Galen Rupp once again rewrote the record books, and did so in dramatic fashion en route to first place in the Oregon Invitational’s Bill McChesney Memorial Twilight 5,000m race.
The race began with Oregon sophomore Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott and junior Mike McGrath leading the pack. By the seventh lap, Kiptoo-Biwott dropped off, and Nike’s Jonathan Riley had taken the lead.
The tension picked up on Lap 11 as Rupp and Wisconsin’s Chris Solinsky, the reigning NCAA 5,000m champion, broke away from the rest of the runners to go mano-a-mano under the bright newly installed lights illuminating the track.
With two laps to go, Solinsky took the lead on the backstretch, Rupp following closely behind him. As they headed into the bell lap, Solinsky began to pull away from Rupp, and the Oregon junior trailed the Badger as the two headed down the straightway toward the finish line.
But in a fitful mistake as they approached the finish, Solinsky looked over his shoulder, noticed his opponent gaining, and tried in vain to up the tempo for the last few meters as a surging Rupp strided past him to hit the tape in a new personal best time of 13:30.49.
Solinsky fell across the line milliseconds later, clocking in at 13:30.54. Both athletes met the Olympic ‘A’ Standard mark of 13:33.00, and came just shy of the USA Championships ‘A’ standard mark of 13:30.00.
Afterwards Solinsky and Rupp said the noisy home crowd had had a big effect on the outcome of the race.
In Solinsky’s case, the crowd made him nervous, and his look behind him ended up costing him the win.
“At the end, I started to hear the crowd get into it, and then I did the ultimate ‘no-no’ and turned my head back,” Solinsky said. “After that I felt my body tighten up a little bit and basically kind of flung myself across the finish line.”
Rupp started the race knowing that he’d have his hands full fending off Solinsky, and he said the crowd helped to fuel him toward the finish.
“I had a lot of doubts about today in my mind; I knew they were going to be there but I just try my best to keep fighting through them,” he said. “My main focus is just on myself during the race and it was a good race. Solinsky’s proven himself a great competitor, so I’m fortunate to come away with the win.
“The fans here are really amazing. I pretty much owe this to them. They’re the ones that really pull me through this.”
Not to be outdone, the rest of the Ducks produced more excitement over the weekend.
Senior Ryan Brandel continued his stellar season when he took first place in the javelin throw with a 226-11 effort on Friday night. On Saturday, the spotlight fell on the Oregon sprinters as Jared Huske managed a 14.79 first-place finish in the 110m hurdles, and Marcus Dillon and Phil Alexander both ran season-best times to second place in the 200m and 400m sprints, respectively.
To end the meet, Alexander and Dillon combined forces with Ashton Eaton and Chad Barlow in the 4x400m.
Alexander got the Ducks off to a slow start, completing the first leg in more than 48 seconds, even though he’d run the 400m in 47.30 earlier that afternoon.
The Ducks were in third place behind the Oregon Track Club and Utah State when Eaton, the second runner, handed off to Barlow.
Motivated by what he considered a sub-par 49.07 performance in his individual 400m event earlier, Barlow ran the third leg in a little more than 47 seconds to pull the Ducks into second place with one runner to go.
The baton slapped into Dillon’s hand, and the anchor man took off, legs churning as he worked to open the lead between himself and former Duck Matt Scherer, now competing for the Oregon Track Club.
Dillon brought it home for the Ducks in a winning time of 3:10.94 and with an unofficial split of 46.40 – his best 400m performance of the season. And he did it nursing an injured hip.
“My hip’s killing me right now,” he said after the race. “But it’s coming together, with my patience. And when (the hip’s) better, we’re looking at 45’s.”
[email protected]