RUNNING USA – Ethiopian Sweep at 37th Running of the BolderBOULDER

BOULDER, Colo. (May 25, 2015) – BolderBOULDER, America’s All-Time Best 10K, today announced that 52,015 walkers, joggers and runners registered for the 2015 race this Memorial Day and approximately 46,542 racers crossed the finish line.

The race also accounts for an additional 2,600 service men and women that participated in BolderBOULDER military satellite races around the world, but does not calculate these numbers into the overall total.

“We had close to 1,000 people register on race day and we had 99 wave starts, the most in BolderBOULDER history,” said race director Cliff Bosley.

The elite wheelchair race began at 6:50 a.m. this morning and the BolderBOULDER “A” wave started promptly at 6:55 a.m.  Ben Payne of Colorado Springs won the men’s citizen’s race and Brittni Hutton of Alamosa was the first female finisher of the finisher’s race.

Following the BolderBOULDER road race was the International Team Challenge. The BolderBOULDER established the International Team Challenge in 1998 and it includes professional runners from all over the world that compete on three-person teams in a team by country format, for one of the largest non-marathon prize purse races in the country. This year’s total prize purse is valued at $162,750 after bonuses and is one of the largest prize purses in race history.

This year’s men’s individual International Team Challenge winner was Belete Assefa from Ethiopia finishing the race in 29:04.13 and the women’s winner was Meskerem Assefa also from Ethiopia with a time of 32:31.09. The men’s team from Ethiopia and the women’s team from Ethiopia also claimed first in both the team competitions.

New to the International Team Challenge in 2015, the American athletes that raced were not placed on to teams until they crossed the finish line, creating an exciting race within a race. Team USA Men’s and Women’s both took home second place and finished in the top three teams for the sixth straight year.

The event finished with a tremendous Memorial Day Tribute at the University of Colorado Folsom Field with over 100,000 people in attendance. Skydivers each carrying a flag from a US military branch landed in the center of the stadium and following, Rear Admiral Kerry Metz conducted an enlistment ceremony with over 100 recruits. The ceremony also honored four World War II veterans, Riveter turned engineer Ruth Millis of Lakewood, WASP Betty Lotowicz of Boulder and two Tuskegee Airmen; Franklin Macon and Lieutenant Colonel James Harvey. The day was then capped with a flyover from two rare Navy F-16’s traveling all the way aggressor unit at Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center in Fallon, NV.

RUNNING USA