Edward Cheserek spent the entire spring fielding questions about his health as fans and media speculated that his reign of collegiate dominance may be coming to an end.
On Friday, the runner that Oregon fans call ‘King Ches’ put all those concerns to rest.
Cheserek won the 5,000 meters in 13 minutes, 25.59 seconds at the NCAA Championships at Hayward Field Friday evening to capture his second title in two days and the 15th of his career. He now owns the most individual national titles ever by an NCAA athlete.
“What do you say about him at this point?” Oregon head coach Robert Johnson said. “It’s really special when you start to include his body of work and what he did during the indoor season as well.”
In a loaded field, Cheserek sat patiently for 11 laps as those around him either showed their hand either too early or too late. With 250 meters to go, Cheserek broke into a kick and moved from third to first. And with 150 meters left, the race was essentially over. Cheserek extended his lead to 30 meters and sent the Hayward crowd into a frenzy.
“I didn’t want to take the lead too early,” Cheserek, who also won the 10,000-meter on Wednesday evening, said. “I was just worried about the last 200. I wanted to run the last 200 as fast as I could.”
Patrick Tiernan of Villanova took an early lead and set the pace for much of the race as Cheserek sat on his hip with several other runners. Ultimately no runner made a move to breakaway from the pack until the final lap, when Cheserek took charge. By that point, it was too late for the rest of the group to track down Cheserek, who has now won three straight NCAA 5k titles.
Stanford sophomore Sean McGorty owned the fastest time in the nation coming into the meet and finished second in 13:26.10. Tiernan finished third in 13:27.07 and Oregon sophomore Jake Leingang placed 18th 14:01.30.
“I guess with the fact that he went at two laps, I thought that he might be panicking a bit,” Tiernan said. “Maybe he wasn’t as comfortable as he usually is. I was just confident that I would have the legs to go.
“Turns out I didn’t in the last 200 compared to previous races.”
Cheserek’s two-title performance this week was a thrilling end to what has been the toughest season of his career. Cheserek didn’t win a race until the Pac-12 Championships on May 14th, and owned just the 31st fastest 5,000 time in the nation coming into the meet.
There were numerous times during the season when, on the final lap of a race, Cheserek would find himself racing for a win, only to let an opponent pull away without giving chase like he normally would. Midway through the year, Cheserek said he was not racing at 100 percent, and he confirmed that on Friday.
“When I finished indoor, I took like a week break and then came back,” Cheserek said. “And my hamstring just felt really tight and had swelling… We had six weeks of training and I missed three weeks.”
With the Olympic Trials approaching, Cheserek is still awaiting word on whether or not he will receive a U.S. citizenship. He also has the choice of forgoing his senior season at Oregon to turn pro early.
For now, the most decorated runner in NCAA history still has his focus set on adding to his pile of titles.
“I feel, you know, there’s one more year to go,” Cheserek said. “I just want to keep getting more and more.”
Follow Jarrid on Twitter @jarrid_denney