From Tommy Manning, U.S. Mountain Running Team

ITALY - After two days of staying inside the hotel all day because of very cold temperatures (30s), nonstop rain, and snow in the mountains, we finally had blue skies and warm weather for our race.

The highlight of the day was obviously the US women - Melody Fairchild, Stevie Kremer, Brandy Erholtz and Morgan Arritola combined to capture the team gold medal with a dominating performance. Arritolla finished third as the U.S. team placed three runners among the top eight!

The men should have been on the podium too.  We finished fourth as a team and were 13 points behind Russia.  Our guys finished 9th, 12th, 15th, 51st, 60th (me), and 89th.  Eric Blake (CT) was in front of me and both of us have finished top-20 before and definitely should have been top-30.  If either of us had done our job, we would have easily beat Russia and won the bronze medal.

Usually I'd be pretty fired up about finishing 60th, but I did not run a bad race.  I was happy with my effort.  I ran strong, I ran well, I thought I ran a smart race, and I was absolutely shocked I was so far back.

About half way through the race a fan on the side of the mountain pointed at me and said "sixty one."  I was like what? seriously? am I really in 61st place?  I thought I was sitting about 30th.  Each of the following miles I passed a few runners, but a few passed me also.

I really think if I had started faster and been top-20 (or top-30) at half way, then I would have remained there and finished top-20 (or 30).  There's nothing I can do about that now; it sure is a bummer we did not podium though. 

(PikesPeakSports.us site manager Tim Bergsten contributed to this report)