2015 LRC Year-End Rankings, Men’s 10,000: Surprise, Surprise – Mo Farah And Galen Rupp Are The World And US #1s
By LetsRun.com
December 29, 2015
Last year, we didn’t do a 10,000 ranking as hardly any were run. This year, we’ll do one but do so quickly. The Worlds/Olympic 10,000 is basically the race for the event save for people trying to pick up a qualifier at another 10,000.
The rankings are pretty easy to do as Worlds was a fast race. Thus there was a ton of overlap between the top 10 finishers at Worlds and the top 10 fastest 10,000 runners on the year.
| Top 10 Times on Year 1 26:50.97 Mohamed Farah GBR Pre 2 26:51.86 Paul Tanui KEN Pre 3 26:52.65 Geoffrey KamwororKEN Pre 4 27:04.77 Bedan Karoki KEN WC 5 27:07.51 Cam Levins CAN Pre 6 27:08.91 Galen Rupp USA WC 7 27:17.18 Muktar Edris ETH NC 8 27:17.63 Imane Merga ETH NC 9 27:17.91 Geoffrey Kirui KEN Pre 10 27:18.86 Mosinet Geremew ETH NC |
Top 10 Finishers At Worlds 1 Mohamed Farah GBR 27:01.13 2 Geoffrey Kamworor KEN 27:01.76 3 Paul Tanui KEN 27:02.83 4 Bedan Karoki KEN 27:04.77 5 Galen Rupp USA 27:08.91 6 Abrar Osman ERI 27:43.21 7 Ali Kaya TUR 27:43.69 8 Timothy Toroitich UGA 27:44.90 9 Joshua Cheptegei UGA 27:48.89 10 Muktar Edris ETH 27:54.47 |
The guys in bold appear in both lists and almost certainly have to appear in our list below.
So using that, here you go. There is zero reason to say the top five guys at Worlds aren’t the top five 10,000 runners in our rankings – in the same order they finished at Worlds.
Mo Farah wins in Beijing *More Beijing 10k Photos
1. Mo Farah – GBR – 32 years old – Ran fastest time of year and won Worlds. No brainer.
2. Geoffrey Kamworor – KEN – 23 years old – Was 2nd at Worlds and ran 3rd fastest time of the year.
3. Paul Tanui – KEN – 25 years old – Was 3rd at Worlds and ran 2nd fastest time of the year.
4. Bedan Karoki – KEN – 25 years old – Ran 4th fastest time of year at Worlds to get 4th.
5. Galen Rupp – USA – 29 years old – On the track, he clearly didn’t seem to be distracted by the BBC/Pro Publica/WADA investigation into his training camp. Ran 6th fastest time of year at Worlds to get 5th. He also won his 7th straight US 10,000 title.
After the top five, it takes a little bit of work, but not much.
6. Ali Kaya – TUR – 21 years old – The former Kenyan was 7th at Worlds but we’re moving him up one spot to #6 as he lost to our #7 pick Abrar Osman by just .48 at Worlds and Kaya had two other good 10ks on the year. Before Worlds, he ran a then world-leading 27:24 to win the Turkish champs by 24+ seconds and then he won the European U-23 title by more than minute in 27:53.
7. Abrar Osman – ERI – 21 years old – The 6th placer from Worlds drops down one spot as he only ran 27:41 on the year, but when he did that he won the Golden Spike race in the Netherlands by 30+ seconds to punch his ticket to Worlds so we’re not punishing him too much.
8. Muktar Edris – ETH – 21 years old – He was 10th at Worlds but he won the Ethiopian Trials in 27:17 (#7 on the year).
9. Mosinet Geremew – ETH – 23 years old – He was 11th at Worlds and ran the 10th fastest time on the year thanks to his 27:18 for third at the Ethiopian Trials.
10. Cam Levins – CAN – 26 years old – He put up the 5th fastest time of the year (27:07.51) when he got 4th at Pre but only ended up 14th at Worlds. Given the fact he set a national record (he’s now the third-fastest white guy ever, behind Rupp and Chris Solinsky), we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt over our two honorable mention picks, although that may not be entirely fair to Tebalu Zawude, who was solid twice at 10,000 this year. Of course, this is a good reminder life isn’t fair. It certainly helps Levins that he gets to train with these two guys:
Honorable Mention
Tebalu Zawude – ETH – 28 years old – Twice ran in the 27:20s as he was 5th at the Ethiopian trials in 27:20 and then won the All-Africa Games in 27:27.
Timothy Torotich – UGA – 24 years old – Only ran 27:39 at Pre but ended up 8th at Worlds. Also won the Ugandan champs by 30+ seconds in 28:25. It’s worth noting he lost to Levins by 32.20 seconds at Pre but beat him by 30.09 seconds at Worlds.
US Top 5
As we mentioned in September, it was a great year for US 10,000 meter running as the 10 sub-28s were the second-most in US history.
1. Galen Rupp – see above.
2. Ben True – 2nd at USAs, 4th fastest American on year thanks to 27:43.79 (2nd place) at Payton Jordan.
3. Hassan Mead – 3rd at USAs, 2nd American at Worlds (15th overall). Also 3rd fastest American on year thanks to 27:33.04 at Pre.
4. Aron Rono – 6th at USAs, took home the silver at Pan American Games (beating Shadrack Kipchirchir). 28:24 sb.
5. Shadrack Kipchirchir – 4th at USAs, 16th at Worlds (same time as Mead). 4th at Pan Ams. 28:16 sb.
Honorable Mention
Diego Estrada wins the 2015 USA Half-Marathon Championships in Houston in 1:00:51 in his debut at the distance (photo by David Monti for Race Results Weekly)
Diego Estrada – 2nd fastest American on year at Pre (27:30.53) but only 8th at USAs. If you think he should be in the top five over Rono or Kipchirchir, you’ve got a decent argument but we didn’t want to leave off guys who either a) went to Worlds or b) earned a medal for the US.
LRC All 2015 Year-End Rankings *LRC All 2014 Year-End Rankings
*LRC US 10,000 Recap: Galen Rupp Wins His 7th Straight US 10,000 Crown; Ben True 2nd; Hassan Mead Third
*LRC 2015 WC 10,000 Recap Six in a Row for Mo! Kenyan Team Tactics Not Enough To Stop The Invincible Mo Farah in Men’s 10,000