Sports

Berkeley Runner Claims Spotlight in Olympic Trials 10K

UPDATE: Berkeley's Deborah Maier takes 5th in heat and advances to final in 5000 meters at Olympic Trials.

Story updated at 6:25 p.m. Monday.

Berkeley's Deborah Maier took fifth place in the heat and advanced to final in 5000 meters at Olympic Trials, clocking a time of 15:43.54.

The Berkeley woman, running a race new to her, had the Trials crowd abuzz Friday night in the women’s 10,000-meter finals. 

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“I’m not a huge fan of going out superslow,” Maier said in Eugene, OR, after leading more than half the 6.2-mile race, sometimes by 30 meters.

“I figured: I don’t have an ‘A’ [Olympic qualifying] standard. I’m in college. I don’t have any expectation of making the Olympics. So why not go for it?”

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So she did.

The 21-year-old UC Berkeley junior, an All-American, noticed American record holder Shalane Flanagan slowing the pace to 80 seconds a lap after a mile or so, and “I figured I would take [the lead] for a while.”

The while lasted about 20 minutes of her 32-minute, 25-second race—until she was passed with less than 2 miles to go as a misting rain fell on the 23 entrants.

Not long after that point, Maier, wearing hip number 24 though one qualifier didn’t start, said she began feeling sorry for herself, “and kind of gave up the last few miles.”

After the race, she confessed to thinking: “Maybe I should just drop out,”  figuring she wasn’t on pace to run the Olympic standard 31:45 needed to make the team as a second- or third-placer.

But she snapped out of that funk, and later recalled her freshman coach Magdalena Lewy-Boulet telling her before the race: “You belong here. Give it your all.”

So she turned it on again—albeit “a little too late,” and took ninth.

“I don’t regret taking it out to make the pace pretty honest,” she said. 

Maier’s best time in the track 10,000 is 32:12.47, but she’s specialized in shorter distances. In fact, she’s also entered in the 5,000 at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field later in the meet.

Having battled back from a stress fracture in her lower back and hip injuries, she has exceeded expectations.

Last week, Tony Sandoval, Cal’s director of track and field, was quoted as hailing Maier’s maturity.

“If I looked at the 30 years I’ve been at Cal, I’ve maybe had two or three athletes who’ve had that same kind of poise — it is rare,” Sandoval told a reporter. 

For Maier’s part, the race strategy was simple: “I always feel like in the championship races, you might as well go for it.”


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