INDIANAPOLIS - Team USA will travel this week to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
for the 2008 IAAF / CAIXA World Half Marathon Championships on Sunday,
October 12. A total of 51 IAAF Member Federations have entered teams for
the championships.
Representing Team USA for the first time, 2008 national 20 km champion
Jill Steffens (Athens, Ga.) will lead Team USA's women. Also making
their first appearances for Team USA at the World Half Marathon
Championships will be Kristen Nicolini Lehmkuhle (Minneapolis, Minn.),
who was fifth at this year's USA Half Marathon Championships, and
masters standout Stephanie Herbst Lucke (Atlanta, Ga.), a former NCAA
champion who was fourth at the USA 20 km Championships last month.
The Hansons-Brooks duo of Dot McMahan (Rochester Hills, Mich.) and
Melissa White (Rochester Hills, Mich.) will bring previous World Half
Marathon Championships experience to the team, with McMahan having
represented the U.S. at the 2005 championships in Edmonton, Canada,
where she finished 48th. White competed at the 2004 event in New Dehli,
India where she placed 36th.
The men's team will be made up of five men who met team qualifying
standards at the USA Half Marathon Championships in Houston. Led by
runner-up Jason Lehmkuhle (Minneapolis, Minn.), the men's team also
includes Steve Sundell (Redwood City, Calif.), Patrick Gildea
(Knoxville, Tenn.), Rod Koborsi (Washington, D.C.) and Ryan Kirkpatrick
(Colorado Springs, Colo.), who finished third, fifth, sixth and seventh,
respectively.
Featuring $245,000 in individual and team prize money, the women's
championship race will take place 30 minutes before the men's race,
which will be held in conjunction with the Rio de Janeiro Half Marathon,
featuring 16,000 participants.
For more information on the 2008 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships
visit USATF.org.
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