Marathon meltdown
Twenty-one of the 99 runners failed to finish the race, and only nine ran under 2 hours, 20 minutes in difficult conditions on a hilly course.
Monday, May 8, 2000
Todd Jones
Dispatch Sports Reporter
PITTSBURGH -- There was a victorious runner, and there were other heroic performances in brutally hot conditions. Yet, in the end, disappointment was the overriding feeling for participants and officials at the 2000 U.S. Olympic men's marathon trials.

Rod DeHaven
Even the winner, Rod DeHaven, couldn't totally enjoy making his first Olympic team by winning yesterday's 26.2 mile race. He described his victory as bittersweet.
"I'm the only one going, which leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth,'' said DeHaven, a 33-year- old computer programmer from Madison, Wis.
DeHaven's winning time of 2 hours, 15 minutes and 30 seconds was not under the 2:14 "A'' standard established last year by the International Amateur Athletic Federation, which means he'll be the United States' lone runner in the Oct. 1 marathon at the 2000 Sydney Games.
Only in 1896, when Arthur Blake represented the United States in the first Olympic Games, has our nation had a one-man marathon team. The United States has sent a full three-man squad to every Olympics since 1968, when it first used a process of filling the team with the first three runners in a trials race.
"Maybe this is the low point in our country for the marathon,'' DeHaven said. "Maybe we'll go up from here.''
The United States would have sent a three-man team to Sydney if the top three runners yesterday ran under 2:14. But second-place finisher Peter De La Cerda ran 2:16:18, and Mark Coogan, a '96 Olympic marathoner, took third place in 2:17:04. So De La Cerda, of Alamosa, Colo., settled for being named an Olympic alternate, and Coogan went home to Frederick, Md., with nothing.
De La Cerda, normally a half-marathoner paid to "rabbit'' a full marathon pace, tempered his disappointment with the knowledge that he ran a personal best time in finishing his second marathon.
Coogan wasn't as upbeat, saying he collapsed a few yards past the finish line more from disappointment than exhaustion. "It's pretty sad,'' he said. "I made the team but can't go.''
Neither can David Morris or Joe LeMay, the only two Americans who entered the trials having broken the 2:14 standard during the trials qualification period. Under IAAF rules, both would have made the U.S. team no matter how they finished yesterday if DeHaven had broken 2:14.
Morris, the U.S. marathon record- holder, and LeMay both could have made the U.S. team by winning in any time yesterday, but they struggled with two of the worst performances of their careers.
Morris, in third place halfway through the race, finished 38th in 2:29:26 -- a time 19:54 slower than his U.S. record. LeMay finished 61st in 2:36:42, after qualifying for the trials in 2:13:55.
"The weather was definitely a factor,'' LeMay said. "I was running on survival pace just to finish from 8 miles.''
Twenty-one of the 99 runners failed to finish the race, and only nine ran under 2:20 (the world record is 2:05.42) in difficult conditions on a hilly course. Humidity was 84 percent and the temperature 61 degrees when the race began at 7:55 a.m. Temperatures soared near 80 degrees -- 26 above normal in Pittsburgh on May 7 -- by race's end.
DeHaven said he knew after hearing the weather forecast Saturday night that no one would break 2:14, and so he ran -- on three hours' sleep -- a conservative first half to save energy.
Todd Reeser, who ended up not finishing, took a 10-second lead and was on pace to run a 2:13:50 after 10 miles. From there, the pace dropped as De La Cerda and Eddy Hellebuyck -- who finished fifth -- took the lead early in the uphill 11th mile.
"I wanted to go after that standard,'' said De La Cerda, who thought 2:14 was still reachable until fatigue hit him around the 20-mile mark.
By that 20-mile mark, De La Cerda had spent 5 miles running alone. His lead had topped out at 42 seconds after 15 miles, but DeHaven slowly made up ground. DeHaven said he knew he'd win at the 18-mile mark, even though he was in second place, trailing by 30 seconds.
DeHaven took the lead 1:55:28 into the race, passing De La Cerda after 22 miles. He cruised home alone from there, not worrying about trying to reach the 2:14 standard -- which he could have achieved only by running the final mile in 4:47.
"At 24 miles I felt I could coast in,'' he said.
So he'll be a one-man team in Sydney -- the United States' first in 104 years -- just as Christine Clark will be the only U.S. woman marathoner in the Olympics after shocking everyone in the Feb. 27 U.S. trials. Her 2:33:3 time that was seven minutes faster than her previous best but 31 seconds slower than the A standard. Who says there's no "I'' in "team?''
"It's sort of a sad day,'' said Danny Grimes, chairman of men's long-distance running for USA Track and Field. "I think everybody is a little disappointed about what happened today. Everything went wrong.''