By Romaine Soh
Moments after Galen Rupp secured his second spot on the Olympic team in the 10,000 meters on Friday, he declared his intention to compete in Monday’s 5,000-meter prelims at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials.
“Just keeping my options open,” said the two-time Olympian, who qualified for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in the marathon in February.
However, he does not plan to triple in the Olympics, saying that three events would be way too much for him. The last American to double in the 10,000 meters and marathon at the Olympics is Frank Shorter, who won the marathon and placed fifth in the 10,000 meters at the 1972 Olympics.
The Nike Oregon Project runner won the race on Friday evening at Hayward Field in a season’s best of 27 minutes, 55:04 seconds. Rounding off the podium were U.S. Army runners Shadrack Kipchirchir and Leonard Korir, who placed second and third, respectively, with times of 28:01:52 and 28:16:97.
A new visual on Rupp was black kinesiology tape stuck on his arms and legs, a sight way more common among sprinters than distance runners.
“It’s just a little bit extra that helps you out,” he said. “I’m happy to try it.”
Going into the race, Rupp was the only one who had raced the 10,000 meters at the previous Olympics. He made his first major move after the first two kilometers to put some distance between him and his competitors, but his rivals were not about to let him off so easy. Two laps later, Diego Estrada led the charging pack after Rupp, with the former taking over lead duty.
“I didn’t want to make it easy,” said Rupp of his multiple surges.
Rupp then took charge of the second half of the race with Kipchirchir and Bernard Lagat in tow. However, Lagat was unable to keep up with the pace, and the blistering heat filtered out contenders such as Lagat, Hassan Mead and Eric Jenkins. Korir, who finished basic military training just six weeks ago, was nowhere near the front pack for the most part of the race, but realized he had a shot of making the Olympic team with eight laps to go.
“I told myself, ‘Don’t worry, keep trying, keep going,’” said Korir.
With some tough Army training under his belt, Kipchirchir persevered through the heat to keep pace with Rupp. On the final lap, he challenged Rupp for the lead, but Rupp’s devastating kick left him in the dust.
“I didn’t want to let them [the U.S. Army] down,” said Kipchirchir, who credited the Army for giving them a lot of support such as providing them time to train with the Army World Class Athlete Program.
In preparation for the heat, the Army duo had done their workouts during the warmer hours of the day. During their month-long altitude stint in Mammoth Lakes, California, the combination of altitude, strong winds and purposely doing their workouts during the hotter hours melded high heat tolerance in both Kipchirchir and Korir.
“They are warriors,” said the Army coach Daniel Browne.
Browne, who said he is relatively new to the coaching scene, feels that there is a strong camaraderie in the distance community. He takes coaching tips from Alberto Salazar, Rupp’s coach, with whom the U.S. Army shares training space at the Nike campus in Beaverton.
“There is a lot of good dynamics going on,” said Browne. “I see some of my guys running with, like, Mo Farah and Cam Levins.”
Rupp credited Salazar for taking the long-term approach in grooming him to be where he is today. Salazar has worked with Rupp since high school, and Rupp is now ranked seventh in the world for the 10,000 meters.
“He never asked me to do too much or something that I couldn’t handle,” said Rupp.
