CNN CNN

  • E-mail
  • Save
6 Stories on Mebrahtom Keflezighi
Search this topic

SI.com: Brian Cazeneuve: NY marathon winner Meb Keflezighi deserves more respect

As Meb Keflezighi raced his final meters of the New York City Marathon on Sunday, he pointed to the USA singlet he chose to wear for the race. He did not point to a company logo; he pointed to the place he calls home. After breaking the tape, he crossed himself and sprawled on the pavement to kiss the ground that propelled him. This was a celebration-in-waiting. The gentleman runner had become the first U.S. athlete to win the country's most celebrated distance race since 1982.

First U.S. man since 1982 wins NYC race

For the first time since 1982, an American man won the New York City Marathon on Sunday.

SI.com: David Epstein: Keflezighi posts an historic win for a fallen friend

If you're 34-year-old Meb Keflezighi, what tribute could you possibly come up with that would be a fitting honor for your friend and training partner Ryan Shay, who collapsed and died in November 2007 during the U.S. Olympic marathon trials in New York City?

SI.com: Tim Layden: Waiting for closure

Someday there will be healing. There is always healing in the end. Ryan Shay died in Central Park six days ago during the U.S. Olympic marathon trials and he will be laid to rest Sunday in his native northern Michigan. That is a place, he often told his coaches and training partners, where he dreamed of building a cabin in the woods and living quietly with his family when his professional running career was over.

SI.com: David Epstein: Make or break trials

"Live like a clock," were the words of famed Villanova running coach Jumbo Elliot. So who set Khalid Khannouchi's clock such that the former marathon world-record holder was tearing around the Central Park reservoir each night at 1 a.m. from mid-September through the first two weeks of October?

SI.com: Tim Layden: Running community puzzled by Shay's death

Three runners took seats at a press conference table late Saturday morning. In the middle was Ryan Hall, 25, who had just delivered a transcendent performance in winning the U.S. men's Olympic marathon trials. On a relentlessly hilly Central Park course, Hall had run the second half of his race in a withering one hour, two minutes and 45 seconds and finished in a Trials record of 2:09:02, validating his position as the most promising young distance runner in the country and potentially the first native-born U.S. runner to challenge the best marathoners in the world in more than two decades. He had run the last quarter mile shaking his fists and waving to the crowd gathered on the finishing slope.

Advertisement
Quick Job Search :
keyword(s):
enter city: