At the first day of running finals at the US Indoor Championships in Boston Jen
Toomey showed that she is the number one at 1,500 m in the US. In a race that
was not very fast at first the field remained together until after 600 m. Then
a group of six got away from the rest. Toomey and McWilliams tried to break
away from the rest multiple times, but the others followed again and again.
Finally in the last lap, Jen Toomey attacked and did break away from her
opponents. Treniere Clement and Jenelle Deatherage tried to follow her, but
weren’t successful. Toomey won in 4:13,25 minutes. Clement got second
place (4:14,20) and Christin Wurth (4:14,74) was third.
At the 1,500 m men’s race a newcomer won the indoor title. The young
Scott McGowan showed that one has to pay attention to him this year. Especially
because these were his first major championships. In 3:44,06 minutes he won in
front of Rob Myers (3:45,18) and the actual favourite Charlie Gruber who came
in after 3:36,11. McGowan and Myers got away from the rest and in the last lap
newcomer McGowan sprinted to a clear victory.
The men’s 3,000 m began with a false start. After the next start
succeeded the field stayed together and reached a 1,000 m time of 2:39. After
the 2,000 m mark (5:18) a group of three, among them Bolota Asmerom and
Jonathon Riley, got away. Asmerom tried to break away from Riley but failed.
The distance between them and the rest of the field increased. Before the last
lap Riley overtook Bolota and increased the pace. Asmerom tried to follow but
failed to do so. Jonathon Riley won in 7:53,73 in front of Bolota Asmerom who
got second place in 7:53,81.Third was Luke Watson in 7:57,23.
The most thrilling race was the women’s 3,000 m. Favourite and two
times Olympian Shayne Culpepper and Amy Rudolph started the race relatively
slow. In the seventh lap Amy Rudolph tried to get away and increased the pace.
Culpepper followed immediately and both increased the pace more and more.
Lauren Fleshman tried to stay close to the leading duo and finally caught up
with them. After the tenth lap Shayne Culpepper tried to get away from Rudolph
and Fleshman. Shayne couldn’t get the leading position, instead Fleshman
took over with two laps to go. Amy Rudolph had problems to follow Fleshman and
Culpepper.
With a lap time of 36 seconds the pace increased once more, and Culpepper
finally got away from Fleshman and Rudolph. She won with a new personal best
time of 8:55,57. Amy Rudolph became second (8:57,42), Lauren Fleshman finished
third in 8:59,93 which also is a personal best. MARISA REICH