Falmouth, MA. – Pictures from the lead man’s vehicle at the 47th New Balance Falmouth Road Race on old Cape Cod. U.S. Army’s Leonard Korir (32:11) wins his first Falmouth after finishing second twice and third two other times. Four time champion Stephen Sambu of Kenya takes 2nd (32:29) with fellow Kenyan Edward Cheserek in his his first Falmouth taking third (32:30) and former NCAA steeplechase champ Mason Ferlic out of Michigan in 4th (32:54) on a warm, muggy morning.
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Falmouth, MA. – Tomorrow’s 47th New Balance Falmouth Road Race men’s competition will have a throwback look to it as the top three seeds are all Kenyan-born, but American schooled athletes. Since Joe Nzau of the University of Wyoming became the first Kenyan champion at Falmouth in 1983, that’s how we became acquainted with the first generation of great Kenyan runners who emerged in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.
Four-time Falmouth champion Stephen Sambu (2013–2017) was a nine-time All-American at the University of Arizona. Twice runner up to Sambu in Falmouth and also twice third, including last year, Leonard Korir was a two-time NCAA champion at Iona in 2011. And Falmouth debutante Edward Cheserek was a record-breaking 17-time NCAA titleist at the University of Oregon.
Defending champion Ben Flanagan of Canada out of the University of Michigan is back in town this year but injured so we won’t be running just doing personal appearances at the expo.
Just got word that Clayton Young, BYU’s NCAA 10,000 meter champ in Austin this June has been added to the start list. That’s the same position Ben Flanagan held coming into Falmouth 2018 out of Ann Arbor.
So far in 2019 Sambu has not been the athlete he has been in the past. Rather than winning, he’s been taking thirds (BAA10 K), fourths (Bix 7), and sevenths (Peachtree). But at age 31, he’s transitioning to the marathon heading toward the New York City Marathon in November. That transition is often attended by a slowing in speed as distance in training piles up. (more…)
Cape Elizabeth, ME. –
Kenyans Joyciline Jepkosgei and Alex Korio broke free early and cruised home to easy wins today at the 22nd TD Beach to Beacon 10K. Joyciline finished and 31:05, a fine, but not spectacular time on an ideal day with start temperatures under 70°F no breeze and low humidity. The victory is equal to her win last week at the Quad City Times Bix 7 Road Race in Davenport, Iowa.
In the men’s race, Alex Korio took control of the race from the airhorn start and within the first half–mile the competition had been whittled to four with Korio fronting fellow Kenyan Jarius Birech, Belgian Bashar Abdi, and Australian Brett Robinson.
They hustled through the opening mile in 4:24. Last year under heavy humidity New Zealand’s Jake Robertson blitzed a 4:15 opener on his way to a runaway 27:37 win, the third fastest time in race history. But the opening mile has fallen as fast as 4:08 in the past when going out very hard with the tactic of the day. It has also gone out as slow as 4:51 when the heat was on.
Today, Korio opened his winning margin as the course turned right off Route 77 onto Old Ocean House Road. Mile 2 tumbled in 4:30 (8:54) with the third mile evaporating in 4:21 (13:15).
Korio was a late entrant into the race, only arriving last night at 7 PM from Kenya. Several Kenyan athletes who had been okayed for travel visas six weeks ago did not receive them until yesterday, while 2016 third-place finisher William Sitonic was involved in a minor car accident on his way to the Nairobi airport. Though the accident was not serious, it was enough to keep him off the flight and at home.
Korio’s leads swelled to 14 seconds as he passed 5K in 14:43. And now it was a matter of time
The 4th mile fell in 4:24 and five in 4:22, and suddenly the course record was at least within sniffing distance. But though he pushed, Alex could only notch the second fastest time in Beach to Beacon history, winning in 27:34, six seconds shy of Gilbert Okari’s 2003 course record.
But his winning margin of 54 seconds over runner up Jairus Birech (27:34 to 28:28) was an event record, beating last year’s 50-second margin by Jake Robertson over Stephen Sambu. Bashir Abdi finished third in 28:35, and Brett Robinson fourth in 28:43, coming home just as they started out in the first mile.
World record holder at 10K Joyciline Jepkosgei (29:43) made quick work of the other women, winning over defending champion Sandrafelis Chebet 31:05 to 31:37. Charlotte “Charley” Purdue of the UK took third and 32:17.
In the American male division, a real battle was fought until the final mile when Scott Fauble of Northern Arizona Elite (28:58) of Flagstaff bested Bowerman TC standouts Andrew Bumbalough (29:00)and Chris Derrick (29:02) with Saucony-sponsored Noah Droddy of Boulder, Colorado finishing 4th in the American division. Overall the Americans finished in sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth overall.
In the women’s American division, 2015 bronze medalist in the world championships in 10,000m Emily Infeld took fourth overall and top American. Second-place went to Becky Wade of Colorado who was seventh overall. Third-place to Katie Newton of the BAA out of Belmont, Massachusetts in ninth place.
Skies turned gray as the awards were handed out, but the spirit of the day and that of race founder Joan Benoit Samuelson provided plenty of cheer to the 8000 competitors in Maine’s largest road race and one of the world’s most prestigious.
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Cape Elizabeth, ME. – Like many a natural born American, I had one parent who was not.
In the waning gray days of World War II, Eastern Europe was a place of devastation and dislocation. In that tumult, my parents – he an American army officer who had escaped from German POW camp, and she a member of the Polish Home Army – met and married in February 1945 after a courtship of only ten days.
“In wartime,“ Pop once told me, “you don’t analyze, you act.“
Ten days later Mom and Pop were forced to split up, he heading east in search of an American mission, she remaining behind with only a handwritten note identifying her as the wife of an American soldier while asking anyone who could to help.
It took the better part of 1945 for Mom to escape Russian occupied Poland and make her way to Nuremberg, Germany where she found refuge with General George Patton’s Third Army. It was in late 1945, then, that she finally sailed for America hoping she would recognize the man she had married nearly a year before. Such are the rippling effects of war and its many deprivations and dislocations.
Mom finally arrived in St. Louis, Missouri in January 1946 and by June 1951 was a mother of three native-born American kids living in a newly built suburban home. But she did not become an American citizen until 1972 some 26 years later. Though she loved America and all it had given her, she was forever a proud Pole, too.
“How do you renounce who you are?” she once said when I asked why it had taken her so long to apply for citizenship, as renouncing former allegiances was one of the requirements of American citizenship.
This is a long way around to recognizing that America still remains the most unique country in the world, the only nation born of an idea rather than of blood or soil. But it is also an acknowledgment that America is not alone in generating patriotic feelings in the hearts of its people, especially those who were forced leave because circumstances beyond their control had given them no choice but to go.
So when the American president – whose mother was born in Scotland and grandfather in Bavaria – fomented a chant of “send her back“ from xenophobic followers against a Somali-born U.S. Congress person, it flew in the face that America has shown the world throughout its history.
Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) came to the United States from Somalia with her family as a ten year-old in 1992. She is the Somali-born U.S. Congress person President Trump’s followers want to “send back” after she made comments they found critical of Israel and America.
Four-time U.S. Olympic distance runner Abdi Abdirahman also fled war-torn Somalia with his family when he was only three years old. After existing in a Kenyan refugee camp for five years, the family found asylum in the USA in 1985.
Today, Abdi is working toward bringing the sport that has defined his adult years back to his homeland, because though he is a proud American, and eager capitalist, he remains a loving son of Somalia, too. (more…)
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