KIMbia Athletics

There’s nothing better than surveying the previous fifty-two weeks of your life and realizing how fun and gratifying they were. Here’s a look back at just a handful of the memories we at KIMbia Athletics will take away from 2011. If you had your own memory from the year that included us or our athletes, please share it below!

10. Tim Nelson Steps Down and Beats Top-Flight 3000m Field in Seattle
Who doesn’t love a good underdog story? Nelly shocked American running fans when he dispatched middle-distance specialists German Fernandez, Alan Webb, and World Championship bronze-medalist-to-be Matt Centrowitz in a 3000m far below his comfort zone distances… and with a blistering kick, to boot. Read the full article

With January’s Olympic Marathon Trials keeping most elite American distance runners off of fall marathon starting-lines, the New York Road Runners injected some domestic star-power into the New York City Marathon weekend with a new professional 5k road event. Called the Dash to the Finish, Britain’s Chris Thompson of the Oregon Track Club took home top honors, while Andrew Bumbalough placed fifth in 13:59, six seconds back. With a course that went past New York City landmarks throughout Midtown — including the crossroads of the world, Times Square — the event was approached by Bumbalough and teammates Matt Tegenkamp, Evan Jager and Lopez Lomong, as a fun way to check their fitness and stay excited about their running, as they continued the thankless job of packing in the miles, back home. Tegenkamp took 7th in 14:02 with Lomong 8th and Jager 10th.

Each of the athletes will be buckling down in off-season base-building mode for the coming months, with no immediate plans for indoor competitions on the books.

Despite a promising early season that saw four athletes qualify for the US team headed to Daegu, the 2011 World Championships ended up a somewhat lackluster affair for the members of KIMbia Athletics.

Beginning on a down note, Chris Solinsky and Delilah DiCrescenzo had to withdraw from the competition due to injuries — though Solinsky’s withdrawal opened the door for teammate Andrew Bumbalough to make the trip. Once there, Bumbalough drew the second of two heats for the 5000m, a race which featured three more competitors than the other heat and, eventually, a mid-race fall that seemed to unsettle the quick early pace. After things slowed dramatically in the fourth kilometer, Bumbi came home in 13:44, a time placing him 9th in the heat and just a few seconds outside of qualifying via time.

In the 10,000m, despite possessing the fitness that powered a 30:59 solo effort at the US Championships, and a 14:45 in Paris, Shalane Flanagan placed 7th in 31:25, while teammate Matt Tegenkamp took 10th on the Men’s side. If the performances were behind what we have seen from Flanagan and Tegenkamp in previous world-level championships (notably, Flanagan’s Olympic Bronze in 2008, and Tegenkamp’s 4th Place in the Osaka World Championship 5000m in 2007), the meet did mark Teg’s first tussle with the 10,000m distance at this level.

Moreover, Daegu also capped a year in which Bumbalough made both the cross country and the outdoor track World Championship teams for the first time as a senior athlete, after representing the US on the junior level in each discipline. Beyond that impressive achievement, the experience at Worlds will surely serve the young athlete well, having made breakthroughs on the track (14-second 5000m PB) and cross country (2nd at US Champs) this year.

Four track standouts from KIMbia Athletics will officially be representing the United States at the 2011 IAAF World Championships, after the USATF announced its delegation for Worlds today. Oregon Track Club member Shalane Flanagan will spearhead the KIMbia contingent headed to South Korea, as the runaway 10,000m Champion at June’s US Championships. With an Olympic Bronze in the same event in 2008 — and after earning the bronze medal at the World Cross Country Championships early this spring — Flanagan is undoubtedly one of the best American hopes for a medal in the distance events. Meanwhile, OTC teammate Matt Tegenkamp will also contend the 10,000 in Daegu, while Chris Solinsky takes the line in “The Five.”

Coming from the opposite American coast, NJNYTC’s Delilah DiCrescenzo rounds out the women’s steeplechase squad, and will go to Asia with a solid third place finish in Lucerne as her most recent steeple result. She plans to run the Falmouth Mile on August 13th as a final tune-up before Worlds.

Once in South Korea, Team KIMbia will be getting right down to business: heats in the women’s steeple start on the first day of competition, with the women’s 10,000m final taking place that evening. Read the full article

The KIMbia performances highlighting this year’s US Championships included four qualifiers to Worlds and one US title, plus one alternate spot and two other top-five finishes.

W10,000m — If you wanted a demonstration of the term “putting on a clinic,” Shalane Flanagan delivered one in the 10,000m, taking the lead almost immediately and methodically clipping off 74-second laps. No other athlete in the field tried seriously to match her pace, and she ended up soloing an extremely impressive 30:59.97 to dominate the field and claim yet another US title. That mark is the 6th-fastest American performance ever.

M10,000m — Matt Tegenkamp, possessor of the world-class gear-change that netted him 4th-place and 8th-place finishes at previous World Championships, was poised to strike late in a very pedestrian 10,000m. Read the full article