(6-22-09) Courtesy Running USA Wire #50-06-09, by Dan Brannen - Kami Semick of Bend, Ore. early Saturday morning, June 20 became the second American, man or woman, to win a world ultramarathon title, taking control early and running away from the rest of the world's top women at the IAU 100K World Cup in 7 hours, 37 minutes, 24 second. Irina Vishnevskaya of Russia was a distant runner-up in 7:46:26. Semick, 43, made the only possible improvement she could have over her surprise silver medal at last year's version of the 62-mile world championship, and over the multi-loop course, she led the U.S. women to the second national team gold medal in U.S. history. Fellow Americans Devon Crosby-Helms and Meghan Arbogast placed 4th and 5th to seal the team victory for Team USA. The dominance of the U.S. distaff squad (taking 4 of the top 7 places) was the biggest surprise of the night, and rekindled memories of 1995, when the USA's Ann Trason, Donna Perkins and Chrissy Duryea similarly crushed the global women's national team field at the World Cup.
For the second straight year, multi-ultra national champion Michael Wardian of Arlington, Va. was the top U.S. man as he finished 6th in 6:53:17. Yasukazu Miyazato of Japan won the world title in 6:40:44 over Jonas Buud of Sweden who was a close runner-up (6:41:50). Miyazato, like Semick, led the way to his country's team title.
23rd IAU 100K World Cup
Torhout, BEL, Fri-Sat, June 19-20, 2009
WOMEN
1) Kami Semick (USA), 7:37:24
2) Irina Vishnevskaya (RUS), 7:46:26
3) Monica Carlin (ITA), 7:53:58
4) Devon Crosby-Helms (USA), 7:59:17
5) Meghan Arbogast (USA), 8:04:29
6) Helena Crossan (IRL), 8:04:40
7) Carolyn Smith (USA), 8:07:03
8) Branka Hajek (GER), 8:07:49
9) Mai Fujisawa (JPN), 8:08:48
10) Yoko Yamazawa (JPN), 8:10:05
Other U.S.
19) Connie Gardner (USA), 8:42:37
TEAM
1) USA, 23:41:10
2) Russia, 24:32:06
3) Japan, 24:41:21
MEN
1) Yasukazu Miyazato (JPN), 6:40:44
2) Jonas Buud (SWE), 6:41:50
3) Giorgio Calcaterra (ITA), 6:42:05
4) Marco Boffo (ITA), 6:45:39
5) Masakazu Takahashi (JPN), 6:51:18
6) Michael Wardian (USA), 6:53:17
7) Christophe Buquet (FRA), 6:55:46
8) Angel Jimenez (ESP), 6:55:59
9) Eric Legat (FRA), 6:57:07
10) Alexey Izmaylov (RUS), 6:58:46
Other U.S.
19) Todd Braje (USA), 7:15:13
34) Howard Nippert (USA), 7:40:06
55) Chad Ricklefs (USA), 8:17:31
TEAM
1) Japan, 20:31:01
2) Italy, 20:43:12
3) France, 21:00:46
Deeper results at: www.iau.org.tw
