The Olympic Team Is Chosen: Hall, Ritzenhein, and Sell Qualify for Beijing

A great race is overshadowed by the tragic death of Ryan Shay

The long, hard race is over, and the men’s U.S. Olympic marathon team for the 2008 Beijing Games has been chosen. And one of the contenders, Ryan Shay of Flagstaff, AZ, died after collapsing just past the five-mile mark. The shock of his death darkened a day that should only have been one for celebration in the running community.

After five hard-fought laps of a hilly Central Park circuit in cold, windy conditions, three very strong men, Ryan Hall, Dathan Ritzenhein, and Brian Sell, have secured the qualifying spots. There has been a great deal of talk about American distance running’s return to excellence, and these new Olympians made this a race that lived up to the promise.

Hall, 25, of Mammoth Lakes, CA, broke from a pack of five near the 17-mile mark and left the field strung out in his wake on the way to a performance of the finest caliber. With a beautiful flowing stride, he glided away from the fastest field ever assembled for these Trials, reaching yet another level in his rise toward the very highest of the sport. Ritzenhein, 24, of Eugene, OR, a young man who has long been expected to lead his country’s runners back to greatness, and who, like Hall, was running in only his second marathon, remained focused after Hall’s decisive move and kept solid control of second place to the line.

The race for third behind these two was complex and surprising. Several men were still in contention late in the race, but the veteran Sell, 29, of Rochester Hills, MI, defied expectations by stepping out of his familiar front-running role. He powered past several top contenders, including 2004 Olympians Meb Keflezighi and Dan Browne and American record-holder Khalid Khannouchi, to claim the final Olympic spot and justify the faith that his close-knit Hansons-Brooks Distance Project team have long had in him.

The scene just after their finish was joyous. Ritzenhein stood just past the line with his arms and eyes raised to the sky after his three-minute personal best, and his fans in the nearby bleachers began a chant of “Ritz! Ritz! Ritz!” Meanwhile, Hall was running a victory lap down and back along the finishing straight, slapping hands with rows of spectators and seeming unfazed by the 26.2 miles that he had just run at 4:55 per mile. Sell finished 33 seconds after Ritzenhein, to the special cheers reserved to underdog crowd favorites. He brushed Ritz’s shoulder with a hand in congratulation and then walked back along the stadium-seats full of applauding fans, draped in an American flag that validated his years of rare dedication.

They are a team with legitimate hopes of high finishes, even medals, in Beijing. Hall’s winning time of 2:09:02 hints at near-unlimited marathon potential. He ran the race’s second half in a devastating 1:02:45, on a course of virtually incessant rolling hills and blind turns, and he looked relaxed doing it. Even with a first two miles at warmup pace (11:00), and an eased-up finish as he waved to crowds along West Drive, he broke Tony Sandoval’s Olympic Trials record of 2:10:19 by a minute and 17 seconds. The mark had stood for 27 years. At the news conference after the race, Ritzenhein said that his learning curve was still big; surely, at age 24 and after only two marathons, he’s right. Sell is a man who continues to rise to greater and greater occasions, and his calm, steady demeanor makes him seem unflappable even in the face of the world’s biggest athletic event, which now awaits him next year.

Ritzenhein and Hall come from the same recent generation of high school prodigies who have become college stars and then hopeful young pros. Sell is from a different world: He was an unnoticed 4:28 miler in high school and, although he won several Northeastern Conference championships in track for St. Francis College in Pennsylvania, he needed an unwavering belief in himself to pursue the highest goals in running while surrounded by people like Hall, Ritzenhein, Keflezighi, and Abdirahman. Rather than concede that he couldn’t compete with such talent, he ran more than 150 miles per week for years to build the strength he would need. “If it’s still slow at five, six miles, I’m going to have to push the pace,” he said before the race. “I’m not going to outkick guys who’ve run a minute and a half faster for 10K than I have.” The pace did stay slow for the early miles, and Sell did go to the front and make it honest. And he outkicked the 27-minute 10K guys. Four of them.

Ritzenhein put an end to any doubt that he could master the marathon’s crucial closing stages. For a man with his credentials—two-time national high school cross-country champion, 2003 NCAA cross country champion, 2005 USA Cross Country champion—his 2:14:01 debut at the ING New York City Marathon 2006 was considered a failure; in that race, he lost contact with the lead pack in the final four miles. He ran longer and harder in his Olympic Trials preparations, and he exhibited a composure at the same stage of this second try that proved him not only vastly talented but cool-headed and deeply committed.

The day was undeniably Hall’s. He won by a huge 2 minutes and 5 seconds, and he ran the 10,000 meters between 25K and 35K in 29:16 (4:48 per mile), through the part of a marathon where even top runners often struggle to maintain pace. Taking into account the hills, the wind, and his complete isolation for the last third of the race, he must be considered capable of a time several minutes faster in ideal conditions and with competitors pushing him through the final stages. He won’t get the conditions in Beijing, where heat, humidity, and pollution make the climate anathema to distance running, but he will get the competition.

Even their places on the Olympic team could not gladden the qualifiers as they heard a tearful Mary Wittenberg, New York Road Runners’ CEO and the race director here, announce that their fellow Olympic Trials athlete Ryan Shay had died. Hall, a former roommate of Shay’s, had the perspective and grace to say, “This is a sport, and it’s fun, but my thoughts and prayers are with Ryan Shay and his family.” The New York running community and NYRR join him in offering the deepest condolences to Ryan Shay’s wife, Alicia, and his family and friends. “No one ran harder than he did,” said Hall. “I’m going to be thinking of him when I’m out there training.”