Ben Blankenship arrived without fanfare at TrackTown Tuesday in Eugene Tuesday, just days after breaking the world record in the U.S. men’s distance medley relay at the World Relays in the Bahamas. He wasn’t greeted by crowds or loud cheers, but was able to slip into the room while shaking hands with friends and acquaintances who congratulated him on the accomplishment. Except for the long hair protruding from under his baseball hat, he blended into the crowd.
Sunday evening, Blankenship, who runs for Eugene’s Oregon Track Club Elite, was far more prominent. He ran the 1,600-meter anchor leg of the distance medley relay in 3 minutes 51.24 seconds to help Team USA break the world record which has been held by Kenya since 2006. Their total time of 9:15.50 beat the old record by .06 seconds.
Blankenship and his teammates, Kyle Merber, Brycen Spratling and Brandon Johnson, accomplished this in spite of being relatively unknown to each other. “I knew of them, but I don’t think any of us have overlapped before,” Blankenship said. “We were kind of a random bunch of kids just coming together to try to make something good happen.”
They delivered. With Merber jumping up and down on the sidelines yards before Blankenship crossed the finish line, Blankenship held off fading Kenyan runner Timothy Cheruiyot to win by 1.7 seconds. “All my teammates ran so well,” Blankenship said. “Everybody kind of kept their end of the leg going, and I just didn’t want to let them down.”
All three top teams, the Americans, Kenyans, and Australians, handed off to the anchor legs about the same time. Blankenship gained more than a passing mention in the race recaps by motioning for Cheruiyot to take the lead as both tried to move to the inside after the baton pass.
“The key was to get Ben the baton in the position for him to be able to close well,” said Vin Lananna, president of TrackTown USA, who was the middle-distance coach for the world relays. “We knew he could do it.”
Blankenship fell behind after Cheruiyot went out fast, running the first 400 meters in 51.6 seconds. But he worked his way back up into contention and around Cheruiyot with about 230 yards to go.
“I really had no expectations,” Blankenship said. “My goal going into all races is to be competitive, and if I can be competitive then hopefully something can come out of it.”
Being competitive can only get runners so far, though, and this was a race that saw some incredibly fast lap splits by young runners. Lananna said of Blankenship, “He ran a very intelligent race, and that’s been his M.O. through the years.”
Blankenship, a Minnesota native, just finished the most successful indoor season of his career and has been focusing on his training. Right before the World Relays, Blankenship finished altitude training in Flagstaff, Arizona, with OTC Elite Team and coach Mark Rowland.
He will compete in the Diamond League in Shanghai being held next week and has his sights set on the world championships in Beijing. “My biggest goal is just to make the team,” he said. “Nothing that I do in the next six or seven weeks will make any difference if I don’t make the team.”
For the moment, though, Blankenship gets to enjoy his new world record. “Hopefully not my last, but we’ll see,” he said. “They’re tough to get.”
By: Lindsay Rossmiller
