Carson, Calif. – Former University of Colorado runner Jorge Torres failed to make the U.S. team for this summer’s world track and field championships Friday night, finishing fourth in the 5,000 meters.
The top three in the race qualified for the world championships, led by Tim Broe of Ann Arbor, Mich., who finished in 13 minutes, 12.7 seconds. Broe finished 11th in the Athens Olympics last summer.
Ian Dobson was second (13:15:33) and his Stanford teammate, Ryan Hall, was third (13:16.03). Hall recently won the NCAA title and Dobson was runner-up.
Torres, who represented the U.S. in the event in the 2003 world championships, finished in 13:25.
Torres blamed a tactical error for failing to make the team. Of the top three finishers, only Broe had previously achieved the world championships “A” standard (13:21.5). Runners who finish in the top three but don’t have the A standard have to go out and get it by July 25, a risky position to be in, so the top three set a blistering pace on a chilly night in Southern California.
“I should have gone with them,” Torres said. “I didn’t think they were going to stay at that pace. I made a bad call. I didn’t have enough to catch them. I’m so upset right now, I really don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Torres won the NCAA cross country title for CU in 2002. Another former NCAA cross country champ for CU, Adam Goucher, finished eighth Friday night in 13:27.65. Goucher broke a long association with coach Mark Wetmore last summer and moved to Oregon.
“I just didn’t have it tonight,” Goucher said. “I knew it was going to go fast. The bottom line is I let them gap me and then I ran over half the race breaking the wind for everybody. What are you going to do? You can’t do that. You can’t give gaps. They ran a great race.”
Goucher’s recent performances have been his best in years, so he was shocked at Friday night’s outcome.
“I honestly didn’t think anybody could beat me,” Goucher said. “I’ll run faster than all of these guys by the end of the summer, guarantee it. Sometimes you have a bad race, that’s just the way it goes.”
Olympic marathon bronze medalist Deena Kastor, a four-time U.S. champion in the 10,000, finished fourth in the women’s 10,000 and failed to make the world championships team. Kastor blamed a foot injury she suffered in May that forced her to pull out of the Bolder Boulder and severely impacted her training. Kastor wore a boot on her foot for two weeks and was able to resume running only two weeks ago.
“I knew it was going to be one of my most challenging races, which it was,” said Kastor, a former Alamosa resident. “But I would have been really sorry if I hadn’t gone out and given it a shot.”
Former Durango resident and Western State grad Elva Dryer, who took Kastor’s spot in the Bolder Boulder and won it, was fifth in the 10,000 and former Greeley Central runner Anne Bersagel was 13th.
