| Watch over 50 IAAF Events Live and On-Demand at WCSN.com |
Teams from the USA will be taking on strong challengers at Monday's DICK’S Sporting Goods BolderBOULDER 10-K's 11th International Team Challenge, traditionally the top road race in the United States on Memorial Day. The race, which is held in Boulder, Colo., and has over 50,000 entrants, will be run for the 30th time.
Olympic Trials marathon champions Ryan Hall and Deena Kastor lead their respective American squads, backed up by Jorge and Edwardo Torres, and Elva Dryer and Colleen De Reuck. For both Hall and Kastor, the race will be their first since finishing important marathons last April. Hall ran a sparkling 2:06:17 personal best at the Flora London Marathon, finishing fifth, while Kastor won the Olympic Trials in Boston. Both athletes will run the Olympic Marathon in Bejing.
Powerful teams from Romania and Japan will give the American women a run for their money. The Romanian team consists of marathon stars Constantina Tomescu-Dita, Lidia Simon and Luminita Talpos. Ditto for the Japanese team with Yuri Kano, Kiyoko Shimahara and Takami Ominami. All of these athletes train in Boulder.
Male and female teams are scored using cross country scoring with three athletes scoring per team. The Ethiopians and Americans went 1-2 in both the men's and women's races last year. Ethiopia scored 13 points in both races while the American men scored 20 and the women 22.
This year's International Team Challenge will not be held separately from the mass race as it has for the past ten years. Instead, the pros will line up with everyone else from a common start. They will be competing for a $110,600 prize money purse (awards are paid for both individual and team performaces), plus newly introduced time bonuses and primes at the one mile and four mile points on the course.
Boulder's high altitude (1631m/5351 ft.) makes achieving fast times difficult. It's interesting to note that both Hall and Kastor will actually be coming down from the higher altitude of Mammoth Lakes, giving them a potential advantage. Kastor has won the race three times, in 2001, '02 and '03.
The course records for the traditional point-to-point course were both set by Kenyans in 1995: 27:52 by Josephat Machuka and 32:13 by Delillah Asiago.
Know someone else who's interested in running and triathlon?
