KIMbia Athletics

Battling a very competitive field in Atlanta on Saturday, Lineth Chepkurui, was able to score a huge win, a fast time, and a hefty paycheck at the Atlanta Journal Constitution Peachtree Road Race.  The 21 year old Chepkurui kept a phenomenal 2009 going by edging out Ethiopia’s Meseret Mengsitu by just one second while also running a PB time of 31:31. She also collected $32,500 in race earnings after sharing a $35,000 bonus prize purse from the Professional Road Racing Organization with the men’s winner, Sammy Kitwara. Lineth became eligible for the purse by winning other PRRO road races earlier in the year. Lineth’s KIMbia mate, Elva Dryer, placed 18th overall and was 6th American in the women’s race.

With the win, Lineth has added one more reason for her to be considered the most feared young Kenyan on the road. Just this year she has won Peachtree, Cherry Blossom, Crescent City, and Bloomsday, a veritable “who’s who” of non-marathon American road races.

In the men’s race, Boaz Cheboiywo was an impressive 5th* 4th place in 28:05. James Carney ran 28:19 finishing 10th* 9th overall and was 3rd American in the Peachtree race, which served as the USATF 10k National Championship. Abdi Abdirahman won the US Championship in 28:11 and Anthony Famiglietti was 2nd in 28:15.

*Updated results after 4th place finisher, Tadese Tola was DQ’d for unsportsmanlike conduct after elbowing Boaz in the final 30 meters of the race.
Full Results for Peachtree here.

As many American track fans caught their breath on a weekend falling between college conference and regional championship weekends, and professional track meets on each coast, KIMbia athletes still found themselves plenty busy in competition at several excellent, if less widely-covered, events.

With many KIMbia athletes making their States-side homes in Boulder, it was fitting to have so many of them run before the hometown crowd.  Each year, following an all-comers citizens’ race, the pros take to Boulder’s streets in a race scored by national affiliation, and, this year Millicent Gathoni — the defending champion — and Jane Gayunki led the Kenyan team, finishing 5th and 8th, respectively. In the men’s competition, KIMbia was represented on Team Kenya, Team USA, Team Commonwealth, and Team Colorado, with John Yuda our first finisher, notching a 3rd-place finish for Team Commonwealth.  Boulder-resident James Carney followed Yuda and was the first American finisher in 4th place. Other Top 10 finishes came from Gilbert Okari (6th) and Charles Munyeki (7th), both competing for Kenya.  Locally-based Jason Hartmann took 12th as a member of Team Colorado, and Fasil Bizuneh would represent Team USA in 15th. Read the full article

KIMbia’s youngest American athlete, Evan Jager, continued a strong early season of competition Saturday with a personal best of 3:40.60 in the 1500.  Jager finished 8th  in a strong international field that included three Olympians at the Adidas Track Classic in Carson, CA.  Following his 13:29 5000m PR of a few weeks ago in Stanford, Jager has started his 2009 campaign brilliantly. 

After spending a year at the University of Wisconsin in 2007-’08, Jager decided to forego his college eligibility last year and turn professional, following his coach, Jerry Schumacher, to Portland.  He currently resides in Portland as part of the Oregon Track Club.

 In road racing news, Lineth Chepkurui narrowly missed out on her fourth huge road race win of the year and John Yuda finished third in an impressive field at the infamous Bay to Breakers 12k in San Francisco, CA.  Chepkurui finished second in 38:35, losing to Teyba Erkesso of Kenya by just 6 seconds.  Lineth defeated third place American and Olympic Bronze Medallist Deena Kastor by 29 seconds.

On the opposite coast, KIMbia’s Boaz Cheboiywo finished third clocking a time of 28:31 at the New York Road Runners Healthy Kidney 10k in Central Park.  Tadese Tola, the Healthy Kidney champion, smashed the Central Park 10k course record in 27:48.

Capping off a fantastic weekend for KIMbia, John Yuda and Lineth Chepkurui captured the men’s and women’s titles in the Lilac Bloomsday Run Sunday morning.  This year was the 33rd running of the historic 12k Bloomsday Race, through the streets of Spokane, Washington.

This is the first major road championship for Yuda since his win in the 2005 BUPA Great South Run.  Yuda had appeared very fit in training and, after finishing 7th in his last major race — the Dong-A marathon back in October 2008 — Sunday’s result is an extremely positive sign validating his return to form. Unofficially, his winning time was 34:36.

For Chepkurui, on the other hand, Sunday was another fantastic result in what has already been an amazing 2009.  This was her second straight Bloomsday title after winning in Spokane last year.  Already in 2009, Lineth has won the Cherry Blossom 10 miler, finished 4th in the IAAF World Cross Country Championship, and most recently, won the Crescent City Classic 10k in early April. Her unofficial time of 38:35 — as reported by the Spokane Spokesman-Review — would be just 4 seconds shy of the course record.

Initial report from The Spokesman-Review here. 
Full results here.
To see all KIMbia results… Read the full article

Fittest Female Athlete in the World is a short-list discussion and Lineth Chepkurui surely belongs among the candidates.  On the heels of a 4th-place finish at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships and a dominating victory at the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile, Chepkurui showed her fine form once again on Saturday, winning the 2009 Cresecent City Classic 10k in New Orleans, with a time of 32:24.   The native of Bomet, Kenya only opened the decisive 3-second margin in the final stretch, claiming a narrow victory over countrywoman and defending champion Genoviva Kigen.

After a week playing travel ping-pong from Kenya to Boulder to Louisiana, fellow KIMbia teammate Millicent Gathoni clocked 34:09 to place 12th.

[ Results ]

Runningtimes.com has just posted a new profile of two-time Olympian and KIMbia athlete Elva Dryer as she prepares for the Boston Marathon. Dryer is returning to Boston after competing in the Olympic marathon trials there last year, where she was forced to drop out before mile 20. Elva reports that her training for next week’s race has gone well, and talks about competing at an elite level at age 37, plus why she decided to run Boston this year. Stay tuned for updates on Elva’s race on April 20th.

In other news, The Oregonian conducted an interview with Jerry Schumacher, coach of Matt Tegenkamp, Chris Solinsky, Tim Nelson and Simon Bairu, on their website yesterday. Schumacher discusses Tegenkamp and Solinsky’s recent knee injuries (severed PCL for Chris, “wear and tear” irritation from running in the snow for Matt) but says they’re both healthy and training hard now.

One last note: for residents of Washington, D.C., two area TV stations will broadcast last weekend’s Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run, won by KIMbia’s Lineth Chepkurui. Coverage will be available on WJLA from 11:30am to noon and NewsChannel 8 from 1pm to 1:30. Thanks to Race Results Weekly for the heads-up.

Lineth successfully defended her Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run title Sunday in Washington, D.C. She ran 53:32, a full 23 seconds up on 2nd-placer Belaynesh Gebre and nearly a minute faster than her winning time from last year.

The past week has been pretty good to Lineth: on March 28th, she ran what is arguably the best race so far of her young career to finish fourth at the world cross country championships in Amman, Jordan before heading back to Kenya and then to Washington. (You can check out results from Amman here; Lineth was only a few seconds out of the bronze medal position but helped Kenya to a dominating win over Ethiopia in the women’s senior race.)  After a weather-related flight delay in Nairobi, Lineth arrived late to the United States and hardly slept Saturday night. It didn’t seem to matter. Women’s results are here.

Jason Hartman’s 48:03 was good for 14th place and first American honors. He also wins a trip to the Himeji Castle 10 Mile Race in Japan. The Washington Post has a good recap of the race, and here are men’s results.

Lineth continued her impressive winter cross country campaign on Saturday, winning the women’s 8K race at the always highly competitive Kenyan Armed Forces Cross Country Championships in Nairobi. Representing Moi Air Base, Lineth ran 29:10 for the 8K course to easily turn back her closest pursuers, Penina Arusei (29:41) and former track world champion Sally Barsosio (29:50).

Meanwhile, in Houston this morning, Fasil Bizuneh ran a strong 1:02:40 to take sixth at the Houston Half Marathon, which served as the American championship. Despite running alone almost the entire way, Fasil was only 10 seconds off the personal best for the distance he set while placing at Houston two years ago.

Lineth cruised to a convincing win at Saturday’s Athletics Kenya cross country meet in Nyahururu. Running at more than 7,000 feet of altitude, Lineth showed she’s well on the road to recovery from injury with a 25:48 win on the 8K course. Her closest competitor, Joice Wanjiku, was 44 seconds back.

Lineth’s next big races are the Armed Forces championships and the national meet. Her performances in those races will help determine whether she runs in March’s world championships in Amman, Jordan.

More details and results are here.

John Korir and Lineth Chepkurui won this morning’s Bay to Breakers 12K in San Francisco, often called the world’s largest road race (once you factor in the thousands of unofficial entrants–it is San Francisco, after all). Korir ran 34:24 to repeat his victory of last year. For good measure, he was also the first man to the top of the infamous Hayes Street Hill. John Yuda was third in 35:03, behind Moroccan Ridouane Harroufi (34:28), who won the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler last month over Johns Korir and Yuda. Our Julius Koskei was 4th in 35:56.

Lineth won yet another major American race, adding the Bay to Breakers title to victories at Cherry Blossom in April and the Bloomsday 12K two weeks ago. She ran 39:22 to keep the women’s title in the KIMbia family one year after Edna Kiplagat, who recently gave birth, won here.

Lineth was among the elite women given a headstart of 4 minutes and 40 seconds over the rest of the field. Korir caught her in the last mile to win the race-within-a-race equalizer bonus.