Galen Rupp made the kind of history that might never be equaled Friday night in the first track final at the 2016 Give A Gift in Eugene, Oregon. Running in front of his longtime fans at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field, Oregon graduate Rupp won his eighth consecutive national championship in the 10,000 meters. He also made his third straight Olympic Games in the event, which brought him an Olympic silver medal behind Mo Farah in London four years ago.
At times he made it look like he was playing with the other runners, and his victory margin was 6.5 seconds over the U.S. Army’s Shadrack Kipchirchir. The Army’s Leonard Korir grabbed the third Olympic Galen Rupp, 27:25.33 2012 Ben True and Hassan Mead faltered under the warm conditions and intense pressure.
Rupp, 30, denied that the win came easy, however. “That was one of my hardest 10Ks ever, if not the hardest,” he said. “You can see from the results that we all struggled out there in the heat.” His winning time, 27:55.04, was the slowest trials win since Meb Keflezighi’s 28:03.32 in scorching Sacramento, California, in 2000. The temperature at 6 p.m. in Eugene, according to AccuWeather, was 82 degrees.
After following a pedestrian pace for five laps, Rupp surged on the sixth, opening a clear lead over the pack. Several laps later, he slowed, after shooting a look over his shoulder at coach Alberto Salazar in his familiar trackside position. Rupp then sauntered along through a halfway split of 14:20 before launching another midrace fartlek acceleration. This time, only Kipchirchir and 41-year-old Bernard Lagat, attempting to make it to his fifth Olympics, stayed with the high-stepping Rupp.
It turns out there was a method to Rupp’s tactics. He was trying to set up a strong finish for Eric Jenkins, another University of Oregon grad who trains with Rupp and the Nike Oregon Project. “The plan was for Galen to make some of the others run hard, and for Eric to lay back and wait until later,” said Alberto Salazar, Rupp’s coach. “Unfortunately, no one followed Galen, so it didn’t help Eric much.” Jenkins did not finish, nor did Mead or Lagat.
That left Kipchirchir alone in Rupp’s wake for the last 10 laps. The 27-year-old Kenyan-born athlete runs for the World Class Army Program, coached by former U.S. Olympic distance star Dan Browne. Kipchirchir and Leonard Korir, 29, also Kenyan-born and running for WCAP, had spent the previous month training in Mammoth Lakes, California, coming down to Oregon just two days earlier. In the past, due to the close friendship between Salazar and Browne, the two Army athletes had occasionally trained together with Rupp. “They’d run together every now and then when the schedules allowed,” Browne said. “It wasn’t planned. It just happened because there were so many runners around.”
While Kipchirchir tailed Rupp, Korir was running the kind of race that had been meant for Jenkins. He was picking up the pieces. “I was behind Hassan Mead and some of the others,” Korir said. “But I told myself, ‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Just keep pushing and maybe this will be your time to make it to the Olympics.’”
and Hassan Mead faltered under the warm conditions and intense pressure.
At the gun, Kipchirchir jumped Rupp and roared to the front. Rupp has lost his share of races on the last lap, and this looked like it could be another. “I had told Shadrack that if he was going to pass Rupp at some point, he should go hard,” Browne said. “Maybe he went too soon. He couldn’t hold it. But what a brave race he ran. We believe in Hakuna siri. There are no secrets. Just hard work.” Kipchirchir’s time: 28:01.52.
Many of the top finishers and even those who faded or dropped out also have qualifying times for the 5,000 meters. So they may meet again on the last day of trials competition, Sunday, July 10. Rupp surprised many by expressing excitement over the upcoming 5,000-meter race. He won both distances at the trials four years ago, and apparently hopes for the same this year.
In fact, he wasn’t willing to say that he will run just the 10,000 meters and marathon in Rio. “I want to keep all my options open,” he said. “I definitely want to do the 10K, and I’ll see what I think about the 5,000 after my race here. But I won’t do all three in Rio. I’ll pick two. I just want to see how my speed is coming along.”
Rupp acknowledged that it has been tough to do marathon training as well as track training in recent months. In February, he won the Olympic Marathon Trials, his first 26.2-mile race, and has kept one foot in endurance-strength building ever since. But he has slowly returned to intense speed work as well, not that the two are comfy bedfellows.
“I’ve been doing a lot of long runs, but also coming back with hard speed,” he said. “It’s a fine line. There have been days when I was just too dead to do what I wanted to. I dropped my mileage a ton this week.”
Salazar agreed that Rupp has been doing double duty, but feels that the two-pronged process is all part of one singular plan: to create the best distance runner possible. “You can’t cram in killer marathon workouts and killer speed work every week,” Salazar said. “We’ve been trying to do them one per week. Galen keeps getting stronger. Who’s to say that his strength won’t make him faster in the 5,000? He wants to find out, and then he’ll make his Olympic decisions.
As the last fans drained from their seats in the high reaches of Hayward's bleachers, Rupp sat on the press-room stage and answered a long series of media questions. Ten years ago, when he first found himself in this situation, he had sounded reedy and uncertain. He was an awkward teen who could train ferociously and race even harder. Now, at last, he is a man in full, married, with two youngsters who joined him on his victory lap. He filled the tent with a deep, booming voice, and gave answers of unexpected depth and range. Mainly, he wanted to speak about his mentor, Salazar, standing quietly, large backpack over his shoulder, in a far corner of the press area.
“When I first met Alberto way back in high school, he told me we were going to take the long-term approach,” Rupp said. “He said that it’s easy to be greedy but the risk is too great, so we wouldn't do that. The long-term approach has been our philosophy since I was 16. It’s a testament to Alberto that I have been able to do more and more every year while staying healthy and not getting hurt. He's so smart and methodical with my training. He’s never asked me to do something that I wasn’t ready to handle.”
Salazar didn't blink or smile or wave in acknowledgment. Dressed in all black athletic gear, he waited for Rupp to finish speaking, then edged backward away from the tent until several journalists spotted him. They peppered him with questions. Reporters don’t get many opportunities with Salazar; it’s no time to hold your breath. What can you say about Galen Rupp, the invincible?
“I’ve never seen anyone who works as hard as him and that includes me when I was an athlete,” Salazar said. “He just does everything right. His work ethic and mental toughness are beyond anything I’ve ever seen. He never waivers except when he has a family issue to deal with. He’s dedicated his life to this. He doesn’t let the focus and pressure get to him. He’s much better at that than I am. He just puts it aside and sticks to the plan.”
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Below is a preview of the men’s 10,000-meter Are Average Runners Getting Faster? It Depends. To see all of our event previews, go here.
When: 9:15 USATF to Elect New President Amid Budget Deficit
TV: NBC, beginning at 9 p.m. Eastern
World Record: Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia), 26:17.53 (2005)
American Record: Galen Rupp, 26:44.36 (2014)
Olympic Trials Record: Galen Rupp, 27:25.33 (2012)
Best Running Shoes 2025: 28:15
CA Notice at Collection: 28:00
Pro Runners Ask: Is My Agent Worth the Fee: Galen Rupp, 30, the 2012 Olympic 10K silver medalist, has already made the Olympic team in the marathon by way of All About 75 Hard. It was his debut marathon. He says he going for a “double” and wants to compete in both events in Rio. The last time an American attempted a marathon/10K at the Olympics was in 2004, when Dan Browne placed 12th in the 10,000 and 65th in the marathon in Athens.
If Rupp’s marathon recovery has gone according to plan, and he’s healthy, there’s no reason why anybody should count him out of making the team in the 10,000 meters. But the list of competitors with the Olympic standard is long and impressive: Bernard Lagat, Diego Estrada, Ben True, Hassan Mead, Sam Chelanga, and Futsum Zienasellassie, to name a few. Estrada, 26, and Chelanga, 31, both started the marathon trials but didn't finish. At age 41, Lagat debuted at the 10,000 meters at the Payton Jordan Invitational in May, where he won, but did not finish his 5,000-meter race at the Prefontaine Classic weeks later (due to a cold).
With a healthy list of talented distance runners lining up, the event could be an exciting way to kick off the next nine days of competition.
