By Kylee O’Connor
In last year’s world championship 10,000-meter run, Molly Huddle celebrated too early. Fellow American Emily Infeld moved past Huddle as she raised her arms in celebration and took the bronze medal.
This year, Huddle made sure to run straight through the finish line as she won the 10,000 Saturday at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials at Hayward Field.
Huddle finished in 31 minutes, 41.62 seconds, about 4.5 seconds ahead of lnfeld, who ran 31:46.09. Marielle Hall finished third in a time of 31:54.77 to round out the three-person team for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
“What happened last year, I was just mad at myself,” Huddle said.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. I’m just trying to move past it and not dwell on it, not let it steal any more from me by you know, fixating on it.”
During this year’s trials, Huddle wanted to “stay out of trouble.” She immediately took the lead and kept it throughout the race. Infeld and Hall both started out around eighth or ninth place and slowly made their way toward the front of the pack. Eighteen laps into the race, the lead pack included six, but just two laps later, the pack had dwindled to three: Huddle, Infeld and Hall.
With two laps to go, Huddle and Infeld broke from Hall. It wasn’t until 350 meters to go when Huddle pulled away from Infeld to win by around 20 meters.
“Molly’s the one who I’ve looked up to a ton,” Infeld said. “She’s just amazing and a fierce competitor—just the top of the class, top of the field. I know she’s going to do amazing in Rio, and Marielle as well is just phenomenal.”
Going into that final lap, Huddle said she knew that Infeld had a strong kick and she “didn’t want to leave anything to chance.”
“I tried to just stay on the inside,” she said. “As long as I was in the top three, that took a lot of stress off of me. I thought if Emily passes me, she passes me.”
Going into Rio, Huddle, Infeld and Hall all understand the level of competition that they are going into. Recent Ethiopian and Kenyan 10,000-meter results show that it will probably take a 30:20—just under the American record—to medal, according to Huddle. The top time in the world is 30:07, run by Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana.
“I could have a great day and finish eighth—it’s just too hard to say at this point,” Huddle said.
