Posted: November 19, 2007

Athletics: Kipyego Dominates At NCAA Cross Country Championships

From David Monti © 2007 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com From gun to tape, the women's division of today's NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships had only one leader: Sally Kipyego of Texas Tech. The junior from Kenya ran away from the field to defend her individual title in 19:30.9 (unofficial) over the 6 km course in Terre Haute, Ind. "No, I wasn't worried," said Kipyego when asked by CSTV's Craig Virgin about how she felt in the first kilometer of the race. "I ran my fist mile slower than last year." In a three-way battle for second place, Colorado's Jenny Barringer pulled away from Florida State's Susan Kuijken of the Netherlands and the University of Iowa's Diane Nukuri of Burundi to finish behind Kipyego for the second consecutive year in 19:47.8. Kuijken finished third in 19:57.3, her only cross country defeat of the year. In the team competition, Stanford won their fourth women's team title in the last five years, giving senior Ari Lambie four team titles in her collegiate career (she sat out the 2004 race). "There's always pressure," said a tearful Lambie in her television interview as she hugged her teammates. Stanford easily defeated second place University of Oregon, who won the men's team title, 145 points to 177. NOTE: Look for complete results and and a longer story in today's RRW from correspondent MIKE SCOTT who is in Terre Haute today --Ed. Subscribe to the Runner's Web Weekly Digest