12
Thursday, June 14 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SPORTS
With 100 meters to go in the
men’s 10,000-meter national
championship
race,
Ben
Flanagan was in second place
and on the move.
Trailing pre-meet favorite
Vincent Kiprop of Alabama,
the fifth-year senior on the
Michigan men’s track and
field team found an extra
gear. He began to accelerate,
narrowing the gap with each
stride.
With just 10 meters to go,
Flanagan
overtook
Kiprop,
and he held on to win the race
by 0.46 seconds, completing
the race in 28:34.54.
After beginning the race as
the No. 23 seed in a 24-man
field, he was the national
champion.
And
the
first
thing
he
wanted to do was see his mom.
“As soon as I crossed the
finish line, the first thing that
crossed my mind was I was
like, ‘Oh my gosh, I want to
share this moment with my
mom so bad,’ ” Flanagan said
in a conference call Thursday.
“She gets so nervous for
these races and having her here
to watch that performance and
obviously my dad and my uncle
as well, meant so much to me.
But that was the first thing I
thought about as soon as the
race was over. I was like, ‘I
gotta go see my mom, because
I know how much she’s gonna
enjoy this moment and I really
want to share it with her.’ ”
A gritty race from Flanagan
was a fitting end to a collegiate
career riddled with adversity.
He shattered his previous
personal-best
time
by
39
seconds.
“Obviously this was a huge
breakthrough race for me,
and I’m so ecstatic about it,”
Flanagan said. “But going into
the race, I knew that I really
did believe I had a shot at it…
It was just an amazing day.”
Flanagan’s
run
to
the
national title was long —
longer than he ever would
have imagined. After a strong
2016 season that culminated
in 14th place at the NCAA
Outdoor
Championships
in
the 10,000-meter, he found
himself battling through a foot
injury the following fall. Then
he was diagnosed with a sacral
stress fracture in his back, and
his hopes of improving on his
2016 placing were dashed.
But
he
kept
working,
fighting
to
stay
positive
throughout his rehab and find
his way back onto the track. It
paid off, and he now embodies
Bo
Schembechler’s
iconic
quote, “Those who stay will be
champions.”
“In those moments when
things are at their toughest,
at the peak of the injury when
you don’t really know what
the future holds, and things
are a little bit uncertain,
you’ve just gotta take those
small victories and those just
kind of start to snowball on
each other,” Flanagan said.
“Luckily, things really started
to come around this season.”
Things
started
coming
around when Flanagan began
his postseason campaign with
a Big Ten title in the 10,000-
meter — his second title in
three years in the event after
earning his first in 2016. He
shaved more than a minute
off that Big Ten-winning time
at the NCAA East Region
preliminaries — going from
30:23.86 to 29:17.24 — to place
third and set up his chance at
a national title.
“I
think
the
biggest
takeaway
I
had
from
my
injuries is that you just can’t
take any moment for granted,”
Flanagan said. “That was kind
of my mentality this entire
season after the setbacks and
the
adversity
and
coming
back, and then having another
setback.
“At Big Tens it felt great,
regionals it felt even better,
and I just went into every
single race like, ‘You know
what, we’ve got another day,
the body’s cooperating again,
just enjoy the moment and
have fun with it.’ And coming
into nationals, still feeling
healthy and ready to roll, I
just really wanted to take
advantage of the opportunity
and have as much fun and
enjoy the moment.”
***
Several
of
Flanagan’s
teammates joined him at the
NCAA outdoor championships
—
fifth-year
senior
Grant
Cartwright,
junior
Andrew
Liskowitz,
junior
Taylor
McLaughlin,
and
redshirt
sophomore Brandon Piwinski.
Cartwright and Liskowitz
both
competed
in
the
shotput,
placing
11th
and
14th, respectively. Cartwright
tossed a career-best 19.61m
in the semifinals but missed
qualifying for the final by just
two placings.
“He’s always been a leader.
He’s always come through in
the clutch situations like 90%
of the time and he sure did it
in this championship phase
of the season,” said Michigan
coach
Jerry
Clayton.
“To
perform
well
at
the
Big
Tens, then come back to the
preliminary rounds with a
personal best, and then come
here to the NCAA meet with
another personal best. … That
mark would have probably
made
the
final
any
year
previous to this.”
Piwinski battled wind and
rain in his high jump final and
finished in a three-way tie for
18th, earning him honorable
mention All-American honors.
“Brandon coming in just
getting to the meet was quite an
accomplishment with what he
did at the preliminary round,”
Clayton said. “Then coming in
here competing under pretty
adverse conditions with the
rain, I thought he did a good
job. … I feel that he competed
well under those conditions
and that’s all you could ask
and that’s the best he could
do.”
McLaughlin placed second
in the semifinal of the 400-
meter hurdles to qualify for
the final, then took more than
half a second off his qualifying
time to place fifth with a time
of 49:59 — his career-best time
in an NCAA championship.
Flanagan’s
win
and
McLaughlin’s placing earned
the Wolverines a total of 14
points toward the team title
— placing them 20th out of 69
teams.
***
More than 12 hours after
winning his title, Flanagan
could
not
contain
his
excitement over the result.
“It was awesome to finish
my collegiate career in the
best way I could ever imagine,
I’m so excited about that,”
Flanagan
said.
“(NCAA
competition) has been such
a high priority for me the
past five years, my dedication
to Michigan’s program and
doing everything I could to
represent the Michigan block
‘M’ to the best of my abilities.”
And there’s no better way to
represent the block ‘M’ than
by winning a national title.
BAILEY JOHNSON
Daily Sports Writer
ALEC COHEN / DAILY
DESIGN BY JACK SILBERMAN
Flanagan wins
national championship
in 10,000-meter
SOMETHING TO
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