The 2012 Olympic Trials marathon was held in Houston, Texas on January 14th, 2012, and was televised nationally
For the first time ever, both the men’s and women’s Olympic Trials Marathon were held on the same day at the same event, at the Houston to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
The qualifying race sends the top 3 men and 3 women to the London games. These 6 came from fairly large fields of contestants… 110 men, 191 women competed in the marathon.
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The Men’s Marathon:
Ryan Hall took the early, dominate lead… (Sorting out the posers, as they say).
While Hall set the men’s pace with a few of them breaking away from the pack at the 3 mile mark.
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The men were pacing sub 5-minute miles and then Meb Keflezighi moved to the front, with Hall drafting him.
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The men’s lead pack dwindled to five men at the 53-minute mark of their race:.
- Abdi Abdirahman
- Ryan Hall,
- Dathan Ritzenhein,
- Meb Keflezighi
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At the 1:25 mark, there were 4 men in the break away pack.
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On the commencement of the 3rd lap, Dathan Ritzenhein started dropping off, with analysts extrapolating as to whether he was saving gas or not.
At the 1:44 mark, the men which broke away were Ryan Hall, Abdi Abdirahman and Meb Keflezighi.
At this point, they looked like the three going on, but it was still early.
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In the last few miles, the front three spread out, with Meb Keflezighi looking just as strong as he did when the marathon started.
Ryan Hall started to lag back from Keflezighi, but not by much. But the worrisome bit was Abdi Abdirahman, who looked like he was struggling a bit. He had a 25 second gap over Ritzenheim (Ritz), and by the end, Ritz had closed up the gap and when they crossed the finish line, they were seconds apart, with Ritz finishing fourth.
Ritz showed his frustration at the line, obviously, upset about missing the team by so little.
Marathon Results; Top-3:
- Meb Keflezighi won, getting on his third Olypmic team… (2:09:08)
- Ryan Hall was second, (2:09:30)
- Abdi Abdirahman came in third (2:09:47)
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The Women’s Marathon:
After the initial start, it took a while for the 20-across pack to thin out, but then there was a break out pack of eight or nine women, led by Desiree Davila, Shalane Flanagan, & Amy Hastings, as the group paced out initially at a 6:15 mile.
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At the 7-mile mark, some of the ladies leading the pack:
- Desiree Davila,
- Shalane Flanagan,
- Amy Hastings,
- Kera Goucher,
- Serena Burla,
- Deena Kastor,
- Katie McGregor,
- Janet Cherobon-Bawcom, and
- Adriana Nelson.
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Davila, Flanagan, Serena Burla led the eight woman pack at the 10-mile mark and later Burla and Nelson faded out.
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At the 1:15 mark of the women’s race Kastor dropped back… Flanagan, Davila, Hastigs and Goucher were in the rabbbit or lead pack.
At the 1:32 mark on the women’s side, it was Davila, Goucher and Flanagan and Hastings.
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At the 2:04 mark of the women’s marathon, Davila and Flanagan were pulling away from Goucher… but Goucher had nothing to worry about… there was no one in sight behind her. With Hastings, in fourth, could only hope for some misfortune to occur to one of the front-three.
As the time wound down, Flanagan started to pull away a little bit from Davila, Goucher who was even farther back.
Marathon Results, Top-3:
- Shalane Flanagan crossed the line first, at 2:25:38 (Trials record)
- Desiree Davila crossed 2nd (2:25:55),
- Kara Goucher third (2:26:06).
And crossing 4th, was Amy Hastings (2:27:17).
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The United States Olympic Marathon team headed to London are:
Meb Keflezighi;
Ryan Hall;
Abdi Abdirahman;
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Shalane Flanagan;
Desiree Davila;
Kara Goucher.
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On a side note, Menlo Park, CA was represented in the qualifier by Ashley Carroll, who finished just under 19 minutes behind the leaders, at 2:44:29 & in the men’s race, Chris Chavez finished in 2:20:18
Houston Marathon Results from the Houston2012.com website.
