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Leonard Korir wins second straight title at Great Edinburgh XCountry International Challenge

Published by
DyeStat.com   Jan 13th 2018, 5:11pm
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Korir keeps U.S. streak alive in senior men's race

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Leonard Korir has found the Great Edinburgh XCountry International Challenge to be very much to his liking. 

The U.S. Army runner won at Holyrood Park for the second straight year, taking the 8-kilometer men's victory Saturday in 24 minutes, 32 seconds. 

"This race takes a lot out of you," Korir said in a post-race interview. "I knew if I stayed patient I was going to win." 

It was the sixth straight individual win for the U.S. men. Three-time winner Garrett Heath was sixth for the U.S. and followed by teammates Emmanual Bor and Chris Derrick in seventh and eighth.  

Europe squeezed out a 47-50 victory over the United States. Great Britain was third with 74 points.

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John Nepolitan's Photos - Senior | Junior

Molly Seidel ran up among the leaders throughout the 6-kilometer women's race and finished third behind Turkey's Yasemin Can and Great Britain's Emelia Gorecka. Can, representing Europe, ran 20:58 and won for the second straight year. Gorecka was two seconds back and Seidel clocked 21:04.

"It's kind of de ja vu in the best way," Seidel told USATF.tv. "I never thought I'd get to do this race again. It's such a great experience, to do this as a junior and now to come back and do a little bit longer race but on that same course running against some of the same people I was running against as a junior."

Seidel also placed third when she came to Edinburgh in 2012 as part of the first U.S. U20 women's team.

"My biggest goal (today) was to get out with those leaders and just stay with them," she said. "I tried to put it all out there from the beginning."

Europe put three in the top five and won the team title with 42 points. Great Britain was second with 52 and the U.S. was third with 81. 

Kelsey Chmiel of Saratoga Springs NY, the Nike Cross Nationals runner-up last month, won the junior women's race, running 14:10 for 4 kilometers. 

"I wasn't really sure how fast we were going to try and go out, so when I saw I was up near the front I wanted to make sure I wasn't going out too hard," said Chmiel, the first U.S. winner of the race since Makena Morley in 2015. 

Claudia Lane finished seventh in 14:30 and Katelynne Hart was ninth in 14:34. Dutch runner Jasmijn Lau, who was second last year and competed for the University of Portland in the fall, placed third behind European teammate Mariana Machado of Portugal, both clocking 14:13.

Team Great Britain edged the U.S. for the team title, 26 to 27. 

In the junior men's race, Europe went 1-2 led by Norway's Simen Halle Haugen, who coved the 6-kilometer distance in 19:13. 

Danny Kilrea led the U.S. squad with a fourth-place finish in 19:24 and Aledo TX sophomore Graydon Morris was second for the team in eighth place. It was only the second time that the U.S. had missed an individual medal since the U20 competition was added in 2012. 

Europe scored 18 points for the team win, followed by Great Britain (30) and the U.S. (32).

Great Britain won the Stewart Cup International 4x1k co-ed relay in 11:33, giving Laura Muir a fourth consecutive victory at Holyrood Park. The U.S. team, consisting of Will Geoghegan, Travis Mahoney, Ayla Granados and Rebecca Mehra, finished seventh in 12:11.



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