By Nancy Hobbs, American Trail Running Association Executive Director
At today’s (Sunday, September 5, 2010) World Mountain Running Championships in Kamnik, Slovenia, held over a 12 kilometer course with nearly 4300 feet of vertical gain, the U.S. men tallied 71 points to take the silver medal with their best team finish to date.
The U.S. has sent a men's team to the mountain running championships (until 2009 known as the World Mountain Running Trophy) since 1990. In the past three uphill years (the course alternates between uphill terrain in even-numbered years and up/down terrain in odd-numbered years), the team has scored 102 points in 2004 to place eighth, 113 points in 2006 to place fifth, 76 points in 2008 to take the bronze
medal.
“The bronze medal was so exciting because it was our first medal,” said five-time team member Rickey Gates (2006-2010) who finished in 52nd position with a time of 1:04:03, “The silver is exciting and shows that
we’re stepping it up. Americans are seeing that mountain running is a
‘real’ sport and internationally, people will consider USA a threat from
her on out and this is really exciting for our program.”

Read about the U.S. Women's fourh-place finish

Max King who finished in 16th timed in 1:00:50 as the second Team USA
scoring team member behind Joe Gray who was 10th timed in 59:27, said,
“This (course) makes road running look like a walk in the park. Today I
tried to just maintain on the steep parts. I had a 10 meter lead on the
field in the first kilometer, then I started to get caught which I knew
would happen. I figured I’d go out fast on the road section because I
wanted to have some space once the terrain got steeper.
“It was a pretty good race for me. I feel like my hill running was a
lot stronger than three months ago. When we turned the last corner
(about 50 meters from the finish) I thought, ‘I got him’ (referring to
the Italian runner and former World Champion Marco DeGasperi).” King
stayed with DeGasperi stride for stride then passed him with 10 meters
to go. “That was about as good as I could have raced today.”
Third scoring member of Team USA Tommy Manning who finished 18th with a
time of 1:01:09, loved the course and was elated with his finish. “I’m
totally in shock. I thought I was in 40th, then someone on course said
18th. I had a goal of finishing in the top 25 and thought that would be
unrealistic. I crushed it so I feel awesome. More importantly, if we
medal I’ll be happy for like seven years!”
Eric Blake rounded out the scoring finishing in fourth position for
Team USA in 27th position with a time of 1:02:04. “Personally I wasn’t
feeling very good in the race. I was just grinding up the course. I knew
I was the fourth for USA at about 10k to go and that we had a good
chance to medal. Knowing that the three guys in front of me were running
really good races was an extra incentive – a real motivator.”
Said Chris Lundstrom, 59th overall timed in 1:04:34, “It was great to
be exposed to a higher level of mountain running competition. It was a
really intense race. I got out in good position, but lost quite a few
places on the steeper sections in the middle of the course. I certainly
learned a lot about mountain running.”
Full results available at this link.