January 23, 2024

Rotich, Pearson, Bor Top Six at USA XC Championships To Qualify for World Champs

Boulder Road Runners win masters M70+ team title

photo: USATF

Results

On Saturday (20-Jan) 24 athletes from Colorado competed in the USATF Cross Country Championships in Richmond, VA. 460 athletes from 40 states competed in the championships.

Six races were conducted - Open Men (10 km), Open Women (10 km), U20 Men (8 km), U20 Women (6 km), Masters Men 8 km, and Masters Women (6 km).

Athletes in the open and U20 races were competing for spots on Team USA the World Athletics Championships in Belgrade, Serbia in March. The top 6 in each race race were invited to represent the U.S. at the world championships.

The highlights for the Coloradans in Richmond were having three athletes (Anthony Rotich, Morgan Pearson, Emmanuel Bor) qualifying for the world championships and the team victory by the Boulder Road Runners men's 70+ team.

OPEN MEN - 10 km
Emmanuel Bor of Colorado Springs came to Richmond as the defending champion in the men's race. From the gun, the men’s field formed a tight pack up front, with 20 men running together during the race's early stages. Coloradans Hillary Bor, Emmanuel Bor, Morgan Pearson, and Anthony Rotich, along with eventual winner Cooper Teare (Virginia) and eventual third-place finisher Ahmed Muhumed (Arizona) all took turns up front through the first 5 km of the race, making sure the pace was honest.

Nearing 8 km, Pearson jumped to the lead and really started to push the pace as he opened up a small lead, with Teare in tow, and Muhumed and Rotich right behind them. Pearson tried valiantly to break the field between 8 km and 9 km but couldn’t put sizable space between himself and the other top contenders.

With 1 km to go, Teare put his head down and started a furious kick to the finish. Pearson, Rotich, and Muhumed were all a stride or two behind, but over the final kilometer, Teare opened up a gap on his competition to claim the title in 29:07.

Rotich, who placed third at the 2023 USATF Cross Country Championships, held off Muhumed and Pearson over the final portion of the race to earn second in 29:12. Muhumed continued to show why he’s one of the rising stars in American distance running with a 29:12.6 third-place effort, while Pearson, a professional triathlete, showed his tremendous fitness with a fourth-place time of 29:16.

Defending champion Emmanuel Bor couldn’t maintain the pace with 2 km to go, dropping back to fifth in 29:27 but still securing a spot on Team USA for the second straight year.

Other top-20 finishers were: Anthony Camerieri (8th, Unattached, 29:35), Andrew Hunter (9th, Unattached, 29:38, Hillary Bor (11th, Unattached, 29:47), Benard Keter (17th, U.S. Army, 30:37), Joseph Berriatua (18th, Tinman Elite, 30:38) and Aaron Templeton (20th, Unattached, 30:53).

OPEN WOMEN - 10 km
In the open women's race, Colett Rampf (U.S. Army) finished 16th with Lara Powell (U.S. Army) and Katherine Ward (Air Force) finishing 27th and 41st, respectively.

U20 WOMEN - 6 km
In the U20 women's competition, Madeline Castillo covered the 6 km course in 24:13 to finish 25th.

MASTERS MEN - 8 km
In the masters competition, the Boulder Road Runners men's 70+ team won for the second straight year. They scored 12 points which was the same team score for the Philadelphia Track Club but won on the tie-breaker (best finisher by the team's third and final scorer). They were led by Doug Bell's fifth-place finish (37:06) in the 70-74. Gary Ostwald (2nd in the 75-79) was their second scorer stopping the clock at 38:34 while Richard Katz (3rd; 75-79) rounded out the team scoring with a time of 39:43. Jan Frisby (Boulder Road Runners) finished fifth in the 75-79 division running 43:08.

In the 65-69 division, 2023 Colorado Athlete of the Year, Roger Sayre (Boulder Road Runners) finished fourth running 32:44. John Blaser (Boulder Road Runners) finished 11th running 36:01

MASTERS WOMEN - 6 km
In the women's competition, Tracy Guest covered the 6 km course in 27:55 to finish seventh in the 50-54 division.