KINGSPORT - It's hard to stay hidden in a race field when you're wearing a bib sporting a big numeral "1."
Thanks to an extraordinarily dense and tenacious elite field, Kenya's Julius Kiptoo was able to stay concealed until Morroco's Mohamed Fadil forced him to make his move.
Kiptoo then lived up to his top billing, winning the Indian Path Medical Center & Sun Trust Bank Crazy 8's 8K run in 23:00 flat at J. Fred Johnson Stadium Saturday night.
"I had to hide behind them because I knew they were coming for me. That's why you didn't see me in front until the last mile," said Kiptoo, who finished second in last year's Crazy 8's. "It is like I said yesterday. These people are tough. The chance of winning was so slim. But it was good I won.".
The women's race was won by Romania's Luminita Talpos, who clocked a 25:57.
"It went good for me. I'm happy to be the winner," said Talpos, making her first appearance in the Crazy 8's field.
It probably won't be her last.
"I like it too much," she added. "Maybe every year I come back. It is very nice."
While Saturday's race was the 25th running of the Crazy 8's, it was the debut of a newly-reconfigured race course. As such, Kiptoo and Talpos both established new course records.
However, the 8K world records - the male mark of 22:02.2 set in Kingsport by Kenyan Peter Gituka in 1996 and the female mark of 24:27.8 set by Moroccan Asmae Leghzaoui in the 2002 Crazy 8's - remained untouched.
David Cheromei of Virginia Intermont College volunteered as the race pacesetter. He was four seconds ahead of the world-record pace at the first mile (4:22).
The women's group, led at that point by Talpos, was only seconds off world-record pace after the first mile (5:57).
The men's elite pack leaders - obviously taking the high heat and humidity into consideration - held back early on to pursue their own race strategy.
By mile two - now 13 seconds off the world-record pace - Cheromei started to feel the effects as a cluster of 10 elite runners finally overtook him.
By mile three it was clear there would be no world record in the offing for either the men or the women, but it was clear who was taking command of the women's field. Talpos started to pull ahead and never looked back.
On Warpath Drive, between mile three and mile four, a group of around 10 elite men continued to race in tight formation. Tom Coughenour, the former track coach at Dobyns-Bennett High School, commented that it was the biggest lead pack he'd ever seen at that point in the Crazy 8's.
And for a moment, that pack was led by an American: Ed Moran of Williamsburg, Va.
"It was hot, but we ran pretty controlled the entire way," Moran said. "The heat didn't play too much of a factor for me. I train in Williamsburg, which I like to think is the humidity capital of the world."
And it gets pretty hot in Morocco. Into the fourth mile, Fadil - making his second U.S. race appearance and first in an international road race - made his big move. As he started to put distance between himself and the pack, Kiptoo knew the time for playing possum was over.
The Kenyan caught Fadil in the final tenth of a mile and the two sprinted the last 100 yards to the finish in front of a screaming crowd in J. Fred Johnson Stadium.
"It couldn't have gone better. This is absolutely awesome," said Hank Brown, Crazy 8's co-director. "The course ran beautifully. The crowd was fantastic. The stadium finish is much more than we could have ever anticipated. I've been to a lot of races around the country and around the world and I've never seen a finish like this."
Fadil was one second behind Kiptoo.
"Even though we did the course yesterday, I was so confused. I didn't know where I was heading," said Kiptoo, who greatly enjoyed the crowd support throughout the race. "I appreciate all the cheers. Tell them we are so happy about that."
Men
1 Julius Kiptoo KEN 23:00
2 Mohamed Fadil MAR 23:01
3 Karim Elmabchour MAR 23:10
4 Jacob Yator KEN 23:11
5 Ed Moran VA 23:12
6 Richard Kiplagat KEN 23:12
7 George Misoi KEN 23:17
8 Benson Cheruiyot KEN 23:19
Women
1 Luminita Talpos ROM 25:57
2 Alemtsehay Misganaw ETH 26:52
3 Melissa Cook TX 27:18
4 Claudia Camargo ARG 27:41
5 Malika Mejdoub MAR 28:18
6 Meskerm Legesse ETH 28:19
7 Anna Shadler NE 28:20
8 Desiree Davila MI 28:32
Masters Male
1 Todd Hamby NC 28:35
Masters Female
1 Janice Addison SC 32:08