NYRR New York Mini 10K Athlete Bios

Ann Alyanak United States Age: 28 Alyanak is Purdue University’s school record-holder at 5000 meters and was the 2002 Big Ten 10,000-meter champion. She returned to Ohio after graduation and is currently the head coach for the women’s cross country team at the University of Dayton. At the USA Marathon Championships held within the Boston Marathon in April, Alyanak finished ninth overall (second in the USA Championships), in 2:38:55, a personal best by more than nine minutes. The time gives Alyanak the “A” standard for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, to be held in Boston next April, and also earned her a spot on the U.S. team for the IAAF World Championships in Japan later this summer.



Claudia Camargo Argentina Age: 36 There’s hardly a weekend throughout the year that doesn’t see Camargo, a resident of Danbury, CT, near the top of the results of a road race somewhere in the country. She had a breakout season in 2006, finishing sixth at the inaugural NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE, and 13th (in a personal best 2:35:04) at the ING New York City Marathon. Camargo is a two-time national champion in her native Argentina, and holds the national record for 5K. She was the 2006 NYRR Fred Lebow Runner of the Year.



Lidiya Grigoryeva Russia Age: 33 Possessing some of the best track credentials in the Mini field, Grigoryeva has come into her own on the roads as well, notching a fifth-place finish in the ING New York City Marathon 2006 and solid marathon wins in Paris, Los Angeles, and a windy and rainy 2007 Boston Marathon, the latter over two time ING New York City Marathon winner Jelena Prokopcuka. The 2006 European Championships 10,000-meter bronze medalist races sparingly, choosing instead to stay at home to train and be with her husband and 5-year-old twin daughters. This will be her first Mini appearance.



Benita Johnson Australia Age: 27 A former member of Australia’s junior international field hockey squad, Johnson hails from Mackay, the same Queensland town that produced 2000 Olympic 400-meter champion Cathy Freeman. The 2004 IAAF World Cross Country gold medalist had a stellar season in 2006, finishing fourth in both the short- and long-course races at World Cross, winning the Freihofer’s Run for Women, finishing second to Catherine Ndereba at the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE, and setting an Australian record (her eighth) at the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon. Johnson, who splits her time between Australia and England, was fourth in the Mini last year and third in 2005. She won the Freihofer's Run for Women 5k on June 2.



Yuri Kano Japan Age: 28 Kano, a graduate of Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, holds personal bests of 31:53.07 for 10,000 meters and 1:10:28 for the half-marathon, and debuted at the marathon in Osaka earlier this year in a sparkling 2:24:43. She was the surprise fifth-place finisher in the 2005 Mini, and she took fourth in last year’s inaugural NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE.



Hilda Kibet Kenya Age: 26 Kibet has quietly developed into one of the best 10K/half-marathon racers in the world; perhaps owing to her status as three-time Mini winner Lornah Kiplagat’s cousin and training partner! She missed a large chunk of 2006 with injuries but has returned strongly in 2007, winning four races so far and currently sitting at #2 on the year’s 10K performance list…one spot behind her cousin.



Lornah Kipligat Netherlands Age: 33 Defending champion One of the most dominant road racers of all time, Kiplagat has been on an absolute tear since her victory (her third) at last year’s Mini, winning two World Championships gold medals, establishing two world bests, and capturing her third title at the Peachtree Road Race and her fourth at the World’s Best 10K in Puerto Rico. A native of Kenya, she became a Dutch citizen in 2003 and has since set Dutch records at distances from 5K to the marathon. Kiplagat, known as “Simba” for her gentle demeanor and ferocious training, uses her prize-money winnings to fund her High Altitude Training Center for young athletes near Iten, Kenya. She is the only woman in history to win the highly competitive Peachtree and Falmouth road races in the same year, a feat she has now accomplished three times. Kiplagat and her husband, Pieter Langerhorst, split their time between Kenya and the Netherlands.



Megumi Oshima Japan Age: 31 The former Megumi Tanaka, Oshima has twice competed in the Olympic Games for Japan and finished 10th in the 2005 World Championships Marathon, helping Japan to the silver medal in the team race. The bronze medalist at 10,000 meters in the 1998 Asian Games, Oshima helped host country Japan to the bronze medal at the 2006 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Fukuoka. This will be her first Mini.



Mari Ozaki Japan Age: 31 Ozaki finished second (for the second time) at the Osaka Ladies International Marathon in January, which qualified her for the Japanese team at the IAAF World Championships in that same city later this summer. Ozaki was 15th in the 2005 IAAF World Championships, helping Japan to the silver medal, and holds a personal best of 2:23:30 from the 2003 Osaka Marathon. She is running the Mini for the first time.



Jelena Prokopcuka Latvia Age: 30 The Mini marks Prokopcuka’s first return to New York since defending her title at the ING New York City Marathon 2006.The two-time Olympian is easily her country’s most recognizable and popular athlete, and has received several awards for her contributions to sport in Latvia. Prokopcuka won her third consecutive BUPA Great Edinburgh Run 10K earlier this year, just a few weeks after notching her second consecutive runner-up finish at the Boston Marathon. The notoriously strong finisher currently sits atop the World Marathon Majors leader board. Her husband, coach, and training partner is Aleksandr Prokopcuk, the fastest men’s marathoner in Latvian history.



Nina Rillstone New Zealand Age: 32 Although Rillstone had already begun running by the time she was a teenager, it was a magazine article on countrywoman (and 1992 Olympic bronze medalist) Lorraine Moller that sparked her interest in seeing just how fast she could go. After establishing the New Zealand half-marathon record in 2005 and running the fastest marathon by a Kiwi in 20 years in her debut at the distance last spring, Rillstone stayed with Moller at her home in Colorado in the weeks leading up to the ING New York City Marathon, where she ran a controlled race to close well and finish seventh in 2:31:19. This will be her first Mini.



Kiyoko Shimahara Japan Age: 30 Shimahara dropped out of April’s Flora London Marathon in warm conditions, but had already been named to the Japanese squad to compete at the IAAF World Championships later this summer by virtue of her silver-medal performance at the Asian Games in Qatar last December. Shimahara, who was fifth in the 2006 Boston Marathon, is running the Mini for the first time.



Silvia Skvortsova Russia Age: 30 Skvortsova first came to prominence during the spring of 2005, when she outran most of a world-class field at the World’s Best 10K in Puerto Rico (finishing second to fellow Mini competitor Lornah Kiplagat) and won the Rome Marathon a month later. She was expecting to be named to the Russian team at last year’s IAAF World Road Running Championships, but when her name wasn’t announced she instead went to the inaugural Rock ’N’ Roll San Jose Half-Marathon, which she won in a Russian national record 1:09:17. She was eigth at the Freihofer's Run for Women 8k on June 2.



Kim Smith New Zealand Age: 25 New Zealand native Smith comes to the Mini from Providence, Rhode Island, where she won four NCAA titles and set the NCAA 5000-meter record at Providence College. The 2004 Olympian at 10,000 meters spent the early part of the 2006 season out of commission, first with an injured Achilles tendon and then with a blood clot in her lung, but she rounded into shape quickly upon her return to competition, establishing personal bests at 3000 and 5000 meters (the later another New Zealand record, her fifth), and finishing fourth at the IAAF World Cup in Athletics before a runner-up result in the Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile. Smith recently set a New Zealand 10,000-meter record (31:20.63) at the Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational in California, and placed second at the Reebok Grand Prix 5000 meters (15:15.22).



Mara Yamauchi Great Britain Age: 33 Yamauchi has notched two sixth-place finishes at the Flora London Marathon and she ran to the bronze medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Australia. Yamauchi, whose husband, Shige, is Japanese, lived in Japan for nearly five years, working in the British Embassy there, and still returns regularly to train and race. She has prepared for the Mini, her first, in Boulder, Colorado, and finished fifth in the Bolder Boulder 10K on Memorial Day. Yamauchi was fifth (15:52) at the Freihofers Run for Women 5k on June 2, and will compete in the 10,000 meters at the IAAF World Championships in Osaka this year.