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New Balance Grand Prix<br />
they pushed each other away from the<br />
rest of the field. Kiplagat’s countryman,<br />
Caleb Ndiku, who stood defiantly<br />
next to Gebremeskel at the start,<br />
had taken the lead with seven laps to<br />
go and was the one responsible for<br />
the consistent up ticks, as if to challenge<br />
those behind him to dare to<br />
keep pace. He even gave Gebremeskel<br />
a little room on the outside coming<br />
off the final turn, but that turned out to<br />
be merely a tease, as Ndiku put 2<br />
more meters on last year’s champ and<br />
won with a 7:38.29. Centrowitz hung<br />
tough and placed 7 th in the field of 12<br />
in 7:46.19, but it showed that if he is to<br />
hang with the world’s best when they<br />
really decide to run a gutsy race, he’s<br />
going to have to get just a little faster.<br />
In the women’s 1000 meter, there was<br />
a decidedly local feel to the race as<br />
Maine’s Anna Pierce was looking for<br />
redemption following her abysmal<br />
4:39 3 rd place showing at the US Open<br />
in New York a week earlier. While she<br />
didn’t get it completely in the form of<br />
a victory, the former US 800 meter<br />
champ (2010) did get a more respectable<br />
result in a closer battle, finishing<br />
in 2:38.91 and staying in contention<br />
the whole race behind eventual winner<br />
Btissam Lakhouad (2:38.14) and<br />
Morgan Uceny (2:38.44.)<br />
Meanwhile, on the infield at the Reggie<br />
Lewis Center, Jenn Suhr, the far<br />
and away favorite to win her event,<br />
was going for the American record in<br />
the Pole Vault. The crowd clapped<br />
rhythmically for her as she flew down<br />
the runway and ascended cleanly<br />
over the 16 foot high bar, never touching<br />
it as she came down already smiling<br />
as the audience went wild with the<br />
loudest roar of the night. It was Suhr’s<br />
3 rd time setting the American record<br />
at “The Reg” and it came, fittingly, on<br />
her 30 th birthday, as if somehow she<br />
needed to know she was just getting<br />
stronger at an age when many athletes<br />
who have relied on speed and<br />
power are beginning to see those elements<br />
escape. Driven on by the<br />
adrenaline of the crowd, Suhr, who<br />
admitted afterward she was conscious<br />
of some soreness in her Achilles, gave<br />
the world record of 16-4 ¾ one shot<br />
before calling it a night.<br />
The stage was ready for the night’s<br />
big show, the Men’s Mile, which featured<br />
a talented if odd hodgepodge of<br />
some of the world’s best runners trying<br />
their hand at an unfamiliar distance.<br />
This was to be a curious throwdown<br />
between training partners and<br />
rivals Mo Farah and Galen Rupp, with<br />
the added drama of last year’s surprise<br />
victor, Russell Brown, in the<br />
mix and certainly capable if all things<br />
went right. Of course, that was the<br />
catch. The gun cracked and by the 3 rd<br />
turn, Farah was out front and on pace<br />
to run 3:54. However, his feet (he said<br />
someone clipped him, though replays<br />
proved inconclusive of that assertion)<br />
got tangled and he went down coming<br />
off the 4 th turn and nearly took everyone<br />
with him as he rolled in a ball for<br />
5 or 6 meters before getting up and<br />
sprinting back into the race. Rupp,<br />
who was now in the lead, kept looking<br />
over his shoulder and seemed to slow<br />
the pace to allow his friend to comeback.<br />
By two more laps, Farah was<br />
back in the hunt, and by the final lap,<br />
he looked as if he might actually have<br />
a chance at the win. However, the fatigue<br />
of the energy expense necessary<br />
to climb back in was evident, and<br />
he simply ran out of gas. Rupp looked<br />
no better as he came off the final turn;<br />
he was passed by up-and-coming<br />
Irishman Ciaran O’Lionaird, who<br />
had been carefully waiting on his<br />
shoulder for the latter half of the race,<br />
executing his move perfectly and<br />
besting the American 10,000 record<br />
holder by just over 1 second, as Taylor<br />
Milne also came by hard on Rupp<br />
and finished 2nd. Farah finished 4th<br />
with an astonishing (given the circumstance)<br />
PR of 3:57 and Brown was 5 th ,<br />
failing to break 4:00 (4:00.79) as he<br />
was obviously a victim of the mess<br />
that had occurred earlier.<br />
Finally, to bring the show to a close,<br />
the other absurdly fast Ethiopian<br />
woman in the building toed the line<br />
next to last year’s 3000 meter winner<br />
and current 1500 world champ Jenny<br />
Simpson. The other two notables in<br />
the race were American Sara Hall,<br />
who last year went into the meet with<br />
a virus and threw up multiple times<br />
during her race and Ethiopian rookie<br />
Gotytom Gebreslase. Again, the<br />
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