The pool of American talent in the women’s marathon is so deep that the top three finishers at the Olympic Marathon Trials were completely unexpected and utterly logical at the same time.
Aliphine Tuliamuk, 30, who runs with Northern Arizona Elite (NAZ), in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Molly Seidel, 25, a Boston-based runner who was making her marathon debut, cracked the race open with a 5:17 22nd mile.
Tuliamuk ultimately pulled away from Seidel in the final stretch to win in 2:27:23. Seidel was second in 2:27:31, and Sally Kipyego, who stayed closest to their move, held on for third, in 2:28:52.
Des Linden, a two-time Olympian, closed hard but couldn’t catch Kipyego, finishing fourth in 2:29:03.
A pack of 12 runners—including prerace favorites Molly Huddle, Emily Sisson, Sara Hall, Emma Bates, and Laura Thweatt—stayed together well past halfway, sharing the lead over the relentlessly undulating Atlanta course, which featured more than 1,300 feet of elevation gain (and the same descent). Gusting winds from all directions added another wrinkle.
At the end, Tuliamuk was the strongest, and it didn’t surprise her coach, Ben Rosario, or her NAZ Elite teammates, Steph Bruce in sixth and Kellyn Taylor in eighth. At the ends of workouts over the past six weeks, Tuliamuk was gapping Bruce and Taylor. Rosario couldn’t contain his excitement and yesterday whispered to a couple of friends that he thought she would win.
“This was my best buildup ever,” Tuliamuk said. “Every workout I did it just felt so smooth. I just didn’t know the extent of my fitness.”
A native of Kenya, Tuliamuk became a U.S. citizen in 2016. She moved to Flagstaff to join NAZ in the beginning of 2018, and in the summer of 2019, she suffered a stress fracture in her femur. Unable to train, she took up crocheting, and learned to make beanies. She crafted a pair of red, white, and blue ones for herself today, one for the early miles of the race, before she got warm and tossed it to the side, and one for the post-race festivities, should she make the team.
Seidel has been a talent for years—she won the Foot Locker Cross Country Championship in 2011 when she was in high school, then won multiple NCAA titles while at Notre Dame. But as her success grew, she struggled with disordered eating, which led to multiple injuries. Instead of signing a pro contract at the end of her senior year, she entered a recovery program.
But she emerged healthier and put in a pair of impressive half marathons on the way to Atlanta. She admitted she was as shocked as anyone to find herself on the team for Japan.
“Going into it, I was just trying to keep a clear head,” she said. “Truthfully, I wasn’t really thinking a lot the first half of the race. My coach and I have a little saying, ‘No brain, no pain.’ I was just trying to float through it. Not paying attention to miles, not paying attention to pace, just going off feel.”
Her parents, Fritz and Anne Seidel, were in to cheer on their daughter from Wisconsin, holding a giant cutout of her head on a stick. As she moved to the front with Tuliamuk, Anne Seidel prayed novenas. The effort was showing on Seidel’s face as she grimaced through the final uphills.
Kipyego, 34, meanwhile, had a completely different road to the team. It’s not her first Olympics—she won a silver medal in the 10,000 meters representing Kenya in 2012—but it’s her first time as an American.
She made her marathon debut in New York in 2016, finishing second, and later discovering she was pregnant during the race. It took her almost two years to recover from the birth of her daughter, Emma, in 2017. The Berlin Marathon last September, where she ran a PR of 2:25:10, was the first time she felt like herself racing again.
Kipyego went to Texas Tech and always intended to become an American citizen, a decision which had nothing to do with running. She moved here 15 years ago and the process took until 2017. She said because she was an athlete and had her degree, she was able to turn pro and support her extended family back in Kenya.
“For me to represent this country, it’s a privilege, it’s an honor, I am beyond words,” Kipyego said. “I can’t even express it. I am really grateful and I have said this so many times. I wanted to run for this great nation because of the privileges and opportunities this country has afforded me.”
For Linden, it was difficult to find herself in fourth, after so many years of success and devoting herself to studying and mastering the distance. She’s the alternate for the Olympic team should any of the top three develop an injury and be unable to run. She expressed no regrets in the mixed zone after the races. “I fought all day long,” she said. “I gave it everything.”
Sarah Lorge Butler is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World Sarah Lorge Butler, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
