Women's 10,000m Amy Hastings Outkicks Suprising Natosha Rogers and Shalane Flanagan for Redemption
By LetsRun.com
June 22, 2012
The women's Olympic Trials 10,000m came down to a final 100m three way battle between Olympic bronze medallist Shalane Flanagan, reigning NCAA champion Natosha Rogers of Texas A&M and fourth place finisher at the Olympic Marathon Trials Amy Hastings. With 200 remaining, Rogers had made a big move to take the lead, but instead of the American record holder Flanagan responding during the final 100, it was Hastings who dug deep to get the win and put the agony of just missing the Olympics in the marathon behind her.
Flanagan will run the marathon at the Trials, and Rogers did not run under the Olympic "A" standard of 31:45.00, so that meant the only other two women in the field with the "A" standard, Flanagan's teammate, Lisa Uhl who finished fourth, and American immigrant success story Janet Cherobon-Bawcom will join Hastings on the Olympic team at 10,000m.
Hastings was almost giddy after the race saying, "The majority of the race it (the mindset) was just 'top 3, top 3, top 3,', but at the very end everything just shut off and it went back to every race I've ever run -'try to win it.' Mostly we're just going to London and that's awesome and crazy and ridiculous."
There was a lot of drama before the final 100m, as there was a fall involving Rogers, an untied shoe by Lisa Uhl, and some team tactics by Shalane Flanagan. We give a blow by blow and analysis below.
Race Starts Out Brisk, Lisa Uhl Shoes Comes Untied and Chaos Then Ensues
Wendy Thomas took the field through in a brisk 73.9 and very quickly there was a four-woman breakaway: Thomas, Deb Maier of Cal, NCAA Champion Natosha Rogers of Texas A&M and Alisha Williams (who, at 32:03, had the Olympic B but not the Olympic A). By 1000 meters (3:10.0), the pack, led by Shalane Flanagan had bridged the gap. Thomas, relatively new to competitive track racing, seemed to have gone out
too fast. As the pace continued to slow, Flanagan, moved to the lead
as the pack approached the 1600, going through in an 80.1 and 5:09.3.
One major development in the first three laps, however: Nike’s Lisa Uhl shoe came untied. Afterwards, said she asked Shalane Flanagan for advice and Flanagan told her "Lisa you've got to tie it" and added "I'm going to the front and going to slow it down for you." Uhl would drop nearly a straightaway behind at the mile mark.
With Flanagan slowing the field up front as they neared the mile, a pile-up was not entirely unexpected and Rogers went down hard to the track just before 1600. Rogers bounced back up quickly in a heart-beat and surged very quickly to regain her spot near the front, although she had a visible welt on her hip. Farther back, Uhl was moving back into contact more patiently, her shoe laces now tied.
After the mile and the Rogers fall, Deborah Maier of Cal threw in a 76.5 to open up a 25 meter lead on Flanagan and the pack, who appeared to be waiting for Uhl.
At 2400, Uhl had worked her way back to the top chase group: Flanagan, Amy Hastings, Rogers, Williams, Meaghan Nelson of Iowa State, Janet Cherobon-Bawcom and Uhl were at the front of the chasers but the group remained 50 meters behind Maier.
After Maier hit 3200 in 10:17 and a 77.9 lap, Flanagan was starting to pull the rest of the peloton back into the lead with a 76.5 as they hit 3200 in 10:20 as the lead was down to 20 meters. Then, just when it seemed they would catch Maier, Flanagan slowed things down to 80+ 400 pace. Heading into 5k, the chances of hitting the Olympic A of 31:45 seemed to be going out the window, although in 2008 the top three women closed very fast after a 16:10 opening 5K to hit the standard, so there still remained the remote possibility that a concerted effort could bring the "A" standard back into play.
Maier hit 5K in 16:14, and the chase pack was only two seconds back. At 5200, Amy Hastings surged to the lead with Alisha Williams (still in need of the Olympic A) tucked right behind in second. The slowish early pace had shed very few: 19 still remained attached to the lead.
Hastings kept the pace honest with a series of 77 second laps and the large lead pack slowly strung out heading into four miles. Behind Hastings was Williams, Flanagan, collegiates Maier and Rogers, and Uhl as they hit four miles in 20:46.8, a 5:09 mile for Hastings and Flanagan.
With two miles to go, the field needed 9:42 for the final 2 miles to hit the Olympic A standard and it was soon clear this wasn't going to happen. Hastings was relentless up-front but things still hadn't come close to the the necessary pace (which, over 25 laps, was 76 a lap). At this stage, the lead pack was Hastings (Olympic A), Williams, Flanagan (Olympic A), Maier, Rogers, Uhl (Olympic A), Tara Erdmann, Janet Cherobon-Bawcom (Olympic A) and Kellyn Johnson.
With 5 to go, a clear-cut lead pack was established: Hastings, Flanagan, Uhl, Williams, Rogers, Erdmann and Cherobon-Bawcom, although the latter was starting to get dropped. Since Cherbon-Bawcom had the Olympic A and Flanagan had already stated that she would not run the 10K at the Olympics itself, it appeared that all she would need to do was finish to earn a spot on the team.
With two to go, a gutsy Rogers moved into second with Flanagan hot on her heels.
With 600 to go it was down to four: Hastings, Flanagan, Rogers, Uhl with Erdmann 15 meters back, then Williams and 30 meters further back to Cherobon-Bawcom. The top 3 were not racing for Olympic spots, but rather for the national championship.
3 Woman Race the Final 200m
With 200 to go, Rogers went for the win. Just before the turn, she managed to get ahead of Flanagan as Flanagan had to cut her stride a bit when Rogers came in for the turn. Rogers and Flanagan were battling for the win 200 meters out but Hastings was smartly biding her time and waiting to respond until the final 100m. Hastings responded with what looked like a fit of agony, with her face clinched and eyes nearly shut, with a big move of her own as she took back the lead coming off the Bowerman Turn to take the
win. Rogers was inspirational in holding off American record-holder and defending Trials Champion Flanagan. Rogers ran an epic race, recovering from a fall to set a 40 second PR (two weeks after a 60 second PR to win the NCAAs) but because of the Olympic qualifying rules, will not make the
team.
The national title and sweet redemption was Hastings. Not only had she overcome finishing 4th at the Olympic Marathon Trials, but the win here represented the culmination of the resurrection of her career. Hastings the 2007 NCAA indoor 5000m champion had only run 16:39 in 2010. She turned to the marathon in 2011 and debuted with an impressive 2:27:03. That in turn was followed up with an impressive track campaign that put her on the World 5000m team in Daegu. Hastings like Paula Radcliffe and many others, got faster on the track after turning to the marathon.
Hastings may have gotten the win and the ticket to London but Rogers turned a lot of heads. This was only the fourth 10,000m of her career and it followed on the heels of her NCAA victory. Rogers first 10k was in the 34 minute range (34:18), her second was in the 33s (33:47), her 3rd in the 32s (32:41) and her fourth in the 31s (31:59). Super impressive. She showed no intimidation when kicking trying for the win. Afterwards, Rogers indicated her focus was on racing not the "A" standard saying, "I just was going to race today and compete and hope the "A" standard came with it."
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Splits, results, parting thoughts and interviews appear below. More interviews on our youtube page.
Parting Thought #1: People want to know why track and field isn't more popular. Well imagine if the rules changed all the time in the NBA of MLB. We're sure they'd suffer in popularity as well. What are we talking about? Well if this was a world championship year, the US team would be Hastings, Rogers and Uhl as you can take two As and a B. But since it's an Olympic team, you can't take a B so we have a different team. That makes no sense.
Parting Thought #2: In 18th place was Katie McGregor. The former NCAA champ at Michigan had been the unlucky 4th place finisher at the last two Olympic Trials at 10,000m. Now her career will end without an Olympic birth.
Parting Thought #3: Want to know how you can take 20+ seconds off your 5k pr and 1:13 off your 10k at age 30? Then watch the Alisha Williams interview below and you'll see that hard work pays off. If you too dedicate your life to running, trusting your coach (Scott Simmons with a little help from Renato Canova) and increasing your mileage from 65 to 100 mpw.
Parting Thought #4: We caught up with Janet Cherobon-Bawcom (video below) and she said she has been very sick of late and had bronchitis. The night befor the race, she woke up, blew her nose and blood came out. She thought about telling her husband and maybe going to the ER but figured he'd just freak out so she just raced anyway.
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Results
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Leader's Splits 73.9 (Thomas) |
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