Molly Seidel - OLYMPIAN!

2/29/2020
 
February 29, 2020

Molly Seidel (Saucony) ran negative splits on a challenging course and secured her first Olympic Team berth with a second place finish in the US Olympic Team Marathon Trails held in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sunday.
    
Over a hilly course 3 lap route made more difficult by strong wind gusts that blew over signs and barricades, the Bostonian clocked 2:27:31, just 8 seconds behind winner Aliphine Tuliamuk, her training partner while spending part of the winter in Arizona.  The race silver medalist was one of the few women qualifying for the Trials by achieving a tough half-marathon time, and Sunday's race was her first full marathon. 

A multi-time NCAA Champions, she prefaced her Olympic team honor with some local successes since moving to the New England association.  Her first professional win was the 2017 Mayor's Cup Cross Country race, and she won the 2019 USATF-New England 10km Championship at the Lone Gull 10K in a huge course record.

In the men's race, Galen Rupp (Eugene, OR) won in a time of 2:09:20 for a second consecutive Trials victory.   He broke the tape 42 seconds ahead of Jacob Riley, who held off Abdi Abdirahman by just one second, 2:10:02 to 2:10:03; Abdi recordied a new US Masters Record. 

Top local male was Jonas Hampton of Newton MA.   The full-time civil engineer was eighth in a personal record 2:12:10, one place and four seconds ahead of Colin Bennie (Reebok Boston). 

Results of New England association athletes can be found here. 
A number of competitors had local connections via high school, college, or time training in the association.