Former Oregon Duck Galen Rupp finishes 19th in marathon at World Athletics Championships
Galen Rupp made his World Athletics Championships debut in the marathon on Sunday and was the first athlete representing the U.S. to cross the finish line.
Rupp, a former University of Oregon star and Portland native finished 19th in Eugene in a time of 2 hours, 9 minutes, 36 seconds in his long-awaited return to the marathon. Sunday marked Rupp’s first race since March.
Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia won in 2:05:37 and set a World Athletics Championships record in the process — surpassing the previous record of 2:06:54 set by Kenyan Abel Kirui in 2009. Rupp hung with the lead pack for over an hour and was seen running with the leaders as late as the 14-mile mark.
But he slowly started to fade as the race went on.
Earlier this month, Sarah Lorge Butler of Runner’s World reported that Rupp, 36, has been dealing with a herniated disc and a pinched nerve in his back for the past year. Then, in June, he tested positive for COVID, which affected his training in the leadup to the World Championships.
On Sunday, it appeared that the back injury may have been a factor for Rupp, who looked to be running through pain for much of the race.
“I just missed too much time, I think, training,” Rupp said told Scott Douglas of Runner’s World on Sunday. “It’s been a very up-and-down last few months. I had to fight through. This was obviously a tough one. Proud of myself to get across the finish line.”
This marked Rupp’s sixth appearance at the World Championships and first since 2015. The last time he raced at the event, he placed fifth in both the 5,000 and 10,000 in Bejing.
The next year, Rupp began to make a career transition toward the marathon. He placed fifth in the 10,000 at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016 and then shocked the track and field world by finishing third in the marathon.
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The next year, Rupp became the first American since 2002 to win the Chicago Marathon, and he placed second there in 2021.
In recent years, Rupp’s career has been surrounded by controversy. His longtime coach and the founder of the Nike Oregon Project, Alberto Salazar, received a four-year ban from the sport in 2019 due to doping violations. In 2021, Salazar was banned from the sport for life for “sexual misconduct and emotional misconduct.”
Rupp has never failed a drug test and has denied any wrongdoing throughout his career. He now trains under Northern Arizona coach Matt Smith.
At Oregon, Rupp established himself as one of the greatest runners in collegiate history. As a senior during the 2008-09 seasons, he became the first collegian ever to win six NCAA titles in one academic calendar year after winning the cross-country NCAA meet, the indoor 3,000- and 5,000-meter titles, running the anchor leg of the title-winning distance medley relay team, and winning the 5,000-meter and 10,000-meter outdoor titles.
In 2014, at Hayward Field in Eugene, Rupp broke the American record at 10,000 meters with a time of 26:44.36.
That record stood for eight years until Grant Fisher of Nike’s Bowerman Track Club broke it in 2022.
