GALEN RUPP — USA LONG DISANCE STAR

Galen Rupp ran almost evenly with the guys up front. He knew the course, and being from nearby Portland, he was anxious to get going in this, the initial worlds track and field championship ever held in the United States.

Undoubtedly American’s finest distance runner, he looked out of place among the other top-notch runners lined up at the start Sunday morning in neighboring Springfield. At 5-foot-11, He was just a bit taller than the rest. He weighed in at 135 pounds, which was his usual weight. And was the only one all in white from top to bottom with USA on the front of his jersey, and smiling and waving and lifting his cap.

He is now 36 years old, married with four children, and had already run every long distance in existence. He had run in four Olympics, in 2008 in Beijing, 2012 in London, in 2016 in Rio de Janero, and in 2020 in Atlanta. In high school at Portland Catholic, he was a Catholic of German descent and after starting off with the soccer team, he went on to establish state running records from the 1,500 to the 3,500. He was named high school Athlete of the Year numerous times.

He was a legend there and continued to excel at the University of Oregon, where he was NCAA champion four times in the distances, the longest at 10,000 meters, as well as winning the 26-mile, 385-yard marathon four-straight times. He said he was mostly comfortable wearing light running shoes and switched from ASICS to Brooks to Nike.

Here, he was hoping to go under two hours eight minutes, but settled for 16th place in the time of 2:09.36, still one of his better marathon times, but he said later that he would have run faster if his good start hadn’t become a disappointing finish.

“I made my way up the main road as one of the frontrunners,” he said, “and stayed up there until we crossed over into Martin Luther King Drive, and then I wasn’t feeling that comfortable. So, I was first traveling at about a 2:08 or better pace until I slowed down. I remember the guy from Israel moving past me, and then came two guys from Moracco and one from Japan. For the next mile or so, I was alongside the runner from Kenya.”

But he still was employing his usual very high kick, but with less speed.

The weather for a marathon was good. When the gun sounded at 7:15 in the wee small hours, it was about 60 degrees and the sun was right up there.

He recalls fellow American Eikanah Kibet later coming up behind him, and he said this encouraged him to shake a leg. Kibet wound up in 24th place in 2:11.20.

The third American to place among the original 70 runners from 30 nations was Colin Mickow, and he took 46th in 2:16.36, a personal best for him, while Kibet was just slightly behind his all-time best. Eighteen starters did not finish, and so for the USA it was a good run as they all started and finished, and with the race ending on Martin Luther King Drive.

Ethiopia had a stellar run by taking the first two places. The winner, Tamirat Tola, clocked 2:05.36 and teammate Mosinet Geremew was right behind in 2:06.44.

Then came Belgium’s Bashir Abdi in 2:06.48 as he raced step-by-step with the two Ethiopians in the final meters. Fourth place was a record-breaker for Canada’s Cameron Levins as his time of 2:07.09 wiped out his country’s previous fastest time of 2:10.07. In his land’s world qualifying championship race, he ran 2:11flat.

Ethiopia also had the sixth-place runner to give it along with Belgium, Canada, Brazil, Israel, Uganda and the United State three finishers each. Kenya, Japan and Morocco had two apiece.

The leading Israeli runner, Maru Teferi, placed 11th, and his time of 2:07.59 was only two splits of a second off his country record set in 2020, and he and the eight that finished ahead of him were the seven-minute runners behind the pair that ran six minutes and the lone five-minute champion.

The starter was former USA marathon legend Frank Shorter, who was top of the heap back in the early to mid 70s. After he fired the gun, he quickly became the first one to cheer the field. At the finish, he again led the cheers after taking the “shorter” route from the start to the finish.

And if you have another famous Rupp family name in mind, that would be former University of Kentucky head basketball coach Adolph Rupp, no relation.

And cheers for all these years that finally brought the worlds to the United States of America soil. And kudos for Galen Rupp for all these years spent as our finest distance runner. No doubt he isn’t about to slow down.