Sports

John Nunn Wins Dramatic Duel for Spot on Olympic Team in 50-Kilometer Walk

Chula Vistan outlasts Cuyamaca College coach Tim Seaman of Imperial Beach at Santee race.

Updated at 9:50 p.m. Jan. 22, 2012

Santee played host to one of the most dramatic Olympic Trials in racewalk history Sunday as John Nunn of Chula Vista outlegged Tim Seaman of Imperial Beach for a lone spot on the U.S. Olympic team in the 50-kilometer walk.

Dunn finished the 31-mile slog in a little over 4 hours to beat the qualifying standard by nearly 5 minutes—and punch his ticket for the 2012 London Games.

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Ben Shorey of Kenosha, WI, was third on the 40-lap course on Mast Boulevard east of Magnolia, where Santana High School cheerleaders and Councilman Jack Dale encouraged a dozen entrants from the 7:30 a.m. start to the last finisher after noon.

Erin Taylor-Talcott of Owego, NY, broke several American records on the way to finishing sixth—and hoping one of the five men ahead of her would forgo a trip to the IAAF World Race Walking Cup in Russia in May so she could compete as the first American woman at the 50K distance.

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“You know it has been a long road to get back,” Nunn said. “I didn’t make the team in 2008 and it was a hard push. My daughter [Ella] was 6 months old when I went in ’04, and I really wanted to give her a chance to come and see it again.

“It is a dream come true to make it again, and to know she can experience that and have it in her mind for the rest of her life to go and see me compete in the Olympics.”

Nunn and Seaman, Olympians at the 20-kilometer distance, pushed each other throughout the race just south of Santana High School with several changes of the lead as both walked well under the Olympic “B” standard of 4 hours, 9 minutes. 

[If all three top finishers met the “A” standard of 3 hours, 59 minutes, the second- and third-place finishers could have gone to London as well.]

Seaman, a six-year resident of Imperial Beach, finished second in 4:05:50. The duo led the way for the top five men to better the previous course record of 4:28:53 set in 2009 by current race director Philip Dunn.

Seaman, cross country coach at Cuyamaca College in Rancho San Diego, said: “Very few people believed in me; the boys from Cuyamaca were out here today and they really, really motivated me and I couldn’t have done it without them. I’m 39 years old, [and] I almost got my PR. 

“I did the best I could, and I couldn’t have done better.”

The athletes were greeted to near perfect conditions in the high 40s and 50s as they covered the 1.25-kilometer (a little more than three-quarters of a mile) loop on westbound Mast Boulevard between Magnolia Avenue and Jeremy Street.

San Diego’s Meb Keflezighi, recent winner of the Olympic Trials marathon in Houston, also cheered the walkers in the longest track and field event offered in the Olympics.

From the early stages of the race a pack of five men emerged: Nunn, Seaman, Ben Shorey (Kenosha, Wisc.),  Patrick Stroupe (Armstrong, MO) and Erich Cordero (Pompano Beach, FL). The men remained within feet of each other with no one separating from the others.

The group pushed the pace to come through the halfway point well under the Olympic “B” standard pace of 4:09. At 25K, the top four men split 1:38:50, with Cordero falling back slightly to 1:39:23.

At 35K, the race began in earnest as Nunn surged ahead of his competitors to quickly build a 30-meter lead over Seaman. Nunn held his lead for nearly 6 miles before Seaman was able to reel him back in to take the lead at the 45K mark.

From there it was a two-man race as the two walked shoulder-to-shoulder for the next two laps of the course. The two veterans pushed one another and extended their lead as the pulled out of sight of Shorey and Stroupe.

Going into the bell lap, Nunn pulled away by nearly 50 meters over Seaman and never looked back as he extended his lead by one minute and 12 seconds to win the Olympic Trials and set the course record of 4:04:38.

Nunn’s time improves his personal best by nearly 10 minutes.

Seaman finished as the runner-up in 4:05:50, while Shorey rounded out the medals by taking third in 4:17:40.

“It went well,” Shorey said. “I wanted to go and see what I could do. We were all walking for a B [standard] and I tried to go as long as I could with the other guys, but they both have way more training years on me.  It is just going to be a few more years for me. The people were awesome today, the course was great.”


Stroupe set a personal best by more than seven minutes to finish fourth in 4:19:43, and Cordero finished fifth in 4:28:04.

The fast pace of the day also produced numerous American Records.

Talcott not only became the first woman allowed to compete as a guest in the 50K Olympic Trials, but also recorded three American Records en route to her historic finish in front of several hundred onlookers.

Talcott first established the 25K record in 2:13:38 before bettering her own 35K record in 3:08:33 and finally setting the 50K record by nearly six minutes with her sixth-place finish of 4:33:22.

“It is pretty cool to set the records,” she said. “I was hoping for two of them, but I didn’t even know about the third—the 25k. But that’s mostly because it hadn’t been in the books.

“I’m most proud of getting here; it was a fight to get here and luckily there were enough people that saw the bigger vision. It was a chance for women to show that we can do this too. There is inequality in our sport and it is time to see if we can get that fixed.”

Talcott had hopes that  one of the finishers ahead of her would opt against joining the 5-person team for the IAAF World Cup race in Russia, so she could go.

A press release from USATF contributed to this report.

Official results:

Place Name Number Age Sex City State Finish Pace 1 JOHN NUNN 2 33 M SAN DIEGO CA 4:04:38 7:53 2 TIM SEAMAN 5 39 M IMPERIAL BEACH CA 4:05:50 7:55 3 BEN SHOREY 1 29 M KENOSHI WI 4:17:40 8:18 4 PATRICK STROUPE 6 27 M ARMSTRONG MO 4:19:43 8:22 5 ERICH CORDERO 7 36 M POMPANO BEACH FL 4:28:04 8:38 6 ERIN TAYLOR-TALCOTT 13 33 F OWEGO NY 4:33:22 8:48 7 ALLEN JAMES 4 47 M SANBORN NY 4:39:24 9:00 8 RAY SHARP 8 52 M HOUGHTON MI 4:41:45 9:05 9 MICHAEL MANNOZZI 10 25 M BOARDMAN OH 4:48:19 9:17 10 DAVE MCGOVERN 11 46 M LOCUST VALLEY NY 5:24:18 10:27


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