Sehome High graduate qualifies for 2020 Olympics with strong run at U.S. trials
Sehome High School graduate Jacob Riley qualified for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo in the marathon by finishing second in the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials Saturday in Atlanta.
Riley, who now lives in Boulder, Colorado, finished second in 2 hours, 10 minutes, 2 seconds — less than a minute behind race winner Galen Rupp’s 2:09:20. Third place Abdi Abdirahman was just a second behind Riley.
Riley, 31, pulled ahead of Abdirahman in the race’s final stretch.
His time Saturday bettered his previous marathon best of 2:10:36 by 34 seconds, according to his bio on atlanta2020trials.com.
The top three men’s and women’s finishers Saturday earned trips to the Olympics.
Bellingham Distance Project runner Courtney Olson placed 54th in the women’s marathon with a time of 2:41:36.
Riley graduated from Sehome High School in 2007 after winning the Class 2A boys’ cross country individual state championship as a senior. He then moved on to Stanford to continue his college running career.
Riley also competed in the 2016 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, finishing 15th, according to a letsrun.com story about Saturday’s qualifying run.
An Achilles injury in the 10,000 meters at the 2016 track trials limited him to 12th place, and he decided not to run again until he was fully healthy, letsrun.com reported. That process ended up taking three years, during which time he had Achilles surgery and relocated from Michigan to Washington state to Colorado.
“For me, the biggest thing has been kind of learning how to compete again,” Riley told podiumrunner.com about the time off before Saturday’s race. “I kind of forgot how much it hurts to try cover moves in a race than to stay with a pace. I didn’t think it was going to be as much of a learning experience coming back, and I’m just starting to get back into a rhythm of racing.”
Once healthy, Riley qualified for Saturday’s trial with his previous best time last October at the Bank of American Chicago Marathon, where he finished ninth.
The key in Saturday’s trial, according to letsrun.com, was a decision to hang back after Rupp pushed the pace around 15 miles in to the race. Riley said he began to question his decision when he was 39 seconds behind the third and final qualifying spot with about six miles remaining, but then he began to surge and saw runners ahead of him start to struggle.
But Riley faced one last challenge in the closing meters of Saturday’s race, according to letsrun.com, when he decided to take a small American flag volunteers were handing out. Abdirahman did not, and 2016 Olympian Leonard Korir was charging hard from a few seconds behind.
“I regretted after I took it,” Riley told letsrun.com. “I was like, ooh, I’m kind of calling my shot right now.”
Riley managed to hold on to second place, despite battling wind he called, “brutal,” in a post-race interview with the Atlanta Track Club, and secure his spot in the Tokyo Olympics.
Four Bellingham-born athletes have previously competed in the Olympics, according to sports-reference.com:
▪ Paul Jessup finished eighth in the men’s discus at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
▪ Roy Rubin advanced to the semifinal with the U.S. men’s coxed four rowing team in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.
▪ Fred Luke finished eighth in the men’s javelin at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
▪ Angeli VanLaanen finished 11th in the women’s freestyle skiing halfpipe at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
This story was originally published March 2, 2020 at 7:43 AM.
