Amy Cragg won the women’s Olympic Marathon Trials Saturday in Los Angeles, with a time of 2:28:20. Desiree Linden was second, and Shalane Flanagan finished third. Flanagan, who struggled in the last two miles, collapsed momentarily at the finish and was treated for heat-related illness.
With temperatures reaching 75 degrees in the last hour of the race, according to AccuWeather, it was the hottest Olympic Marathon Trials on record. The top three finishers will represent the United States at the Rio Games in August.
Flanagan and Cragg, Bowerman Track Club teammates, separated themselves from the women’s pack decisively at mile 12 with a 5:24 mile, and seemed destined for an easy victory until Flanagan started faltering in the later miles. Their gap was as long as a minute over Linden at mile 19. But in the 24th mile, Flanagan faded and Cragg took the lead. Cragg repeatedly looked over her shoulder, trying to urge her training partner on. Linden strode past Flanagan in the 25th mile.
"It's the hardest marathon I've probably ever run in terms of the last six miles being the hardest," Flanagan said in a prepared statement through USA Track & Field. "I just got done getting an IV. I've never had one of those before."
Cragg finished fourth in the 2012 marathon trials and has been working to redeem her performance ever since. She reluctantly left Flanagan in the last mile as she saw Linden coming up on them.
"Four years ago it was pretty heartbreaking finishing fourth," Cragg said. "I'm so excited to get out there and represent the United States in Rio."
Although it was mentally difficult to watch Flanagan and Cragg create such a sizeable gap on the chase pack, Linden said she trusted the race plan her coaches created and decided it was best to stick to it. She wanted to keep a 5:40-per-mile pace and thought that anything faster would be unsustainable in the heat.
"That was the toughest 26.2...it felt so much longer," Linden said. "It was an absolute grind out there."
Kara Goucher, a longtime fan favorite who made Olympic teams in 2008 and 2012, finished in the dreaded fourth-place spot, crossing the finish line with her head up, but tears flowing. She has spent the past few years battling injuries and regaining the fitness of her top performances.
"I felt pretty good," she said. "It's been a long time since I've been in a race like this so I felt a little like a rookie."
Kellyn Taylor, 29, of Flagstaff, Arizona, made the first move to break up the pack early in the race. She debuted in the marathon last year in Houston with a 2:28:40.
"That was not initially the plan. Now I'm not sure it was the right call," she said, after the race, later adding, "Amy and Shalane started hammering, running 5:20s, 5:30s. It would have been a terrible mistake to go with them."
Cragg, 32, joined the Bowerman group in Portland, Oregon, in the fall, and has clearly adjusted well to the new team and coach Jerry Schumacher's training philosophy. At the 2012 marathon trials she placed fourth, but made the U.S. team in the 10,000 meters. Since she debuted in the marathon in 2011, she has only tied her 2:27:03 personal record at the 2014 Chicago Marathon, but has yet to beat it. She and Linden have a long-standing friendship and were teammates at Arizona State University.
Linden, 32, from Rochester Hills, Michigan, made the 2012 Olympic team in the marathon by placing second at the trials, but had to drop out of the race in London due to an injury. Since then she’s been rebuilding her form and fitness gradually, most recently finishing the 2015 Boston Marathon in fourth place with a 2:25:39. Before the marathon trials this year she made it clear she wanted to win her first U.S. championship title, but that the first goal was to make the Olympic team. She has many notable second-place finishes (and now can add one more to her list), including her 2011 sprint down Boylston Street, where she was nipped by two seconds at the finish line, racing her personal best time of 2:22:38.
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Flanagan, 33, earned her fourth trip to the Olympics on Saturday with a 2:29:19. She said before the trials that if she makes the team, it will likely be her last chance to compete in the Games. Many considered her a shoe-in, because she was the fastest qualifier by almost three minutes, with a 2:21:14 personal best. She came into the race in Los Angeles as the trials defending champion, though she struggled through the early part of her training for this race due to a stress reaction in her foot.
Living in Portland, Oregon, Flanagan holds American records at indoor and outdoor 3,000 meters, indoor 5,000 meters, and 10,000 meters. On the roads, she is the American record-holder at 15K and 10K. Her 2:22:02 at the 2014 Boston Marathon is the fastest time by an American woman in the race’s history.
She and Cragg trained step-for-step with each other through the build up to the trials and said that if they found themselves in a position to work together on Saturday, they would. Indeed, they both helped each other through some dark places during the race to ensure they could train together again for the Rio Games.
"On the third lap I started going through a rough patch. Shalane said, ‘We got this. We’re going to be right there for each other. We’re going to get on the team,’" Cragg said. "On the last lap she started going through a rough patch as well. It was the same thing—she did it for me, I’m going to do it for her."
