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Third place in his first professional road race (Italy I think). Close third behind Lebid (probably best non-African CC runner in world) and Baldini. Very impressive. I think 1st through 3rd were in the 28:20-28:40 range. Not the best times, but considering the company, impressive.
Hopefully he will stay healthy.
Glad to hear he's off to a solid start. I got to watch and talk to him a bit when I worked one of his high school meets a couple years back. Nice kid, and a scary ability to push himself through pain.
There's something neat about getting to watch the elites while they're still in high school trying to figure it all out. Even then, 90% of the time you can figure out who's going to be a special runner/thrower/jumper and those kids are joys to watch.
Report from the IAAF web site:
http://www.iaaf.org/news/Kind=2/newsId=28127.html
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FLA Jill: Jan 2, 05 16:57
I think you have to put the times in perspective, I read somewhere else that it's a hard course and I believe all three guys were under the original course record (although I could be wrong). I agree though the guy is a beast, in a few years I predict he is going to be one hell of a marathoner, but he'll probably give the Olympic 10K a go first.
I agree about the times. I don't care if they ran 30:30 for 10k, given the fact that he 1) pushed the pace and 2) finished so close to such strong runners - very impressive.
Many people criticized Ritz for taking a spot at Athens given his injuries, it is good to see him making good and I look forward to an AR for the 10k on the track.
your dead on with putting the times into perspective... this course was said to be extremely tough, and with Ritz pushing the pace with guys like baldini running shows scary potential. I think this race is more than proof that if Ritz can stay healthy the sky is the limit for this guy..