Broe Caps Olympic Debut with 11th Place in 5,000 Meters
8/28/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track & Field, Olympics
ATHENS, Greece -- University of Michigan men's track and field volunteer assistant coach Tim Broe capped his first career Olympic Games by claiming 11th place in the 5,000-meter run final on Saturday (Aug. 28) at the Olympic Stadium. Broe, who was the first time qualifier during the first round of the event, registered a time of 13:33.06.
Broe ran among the leaders for the first two laps -- even leading the race for 200 meters -- as the 15-man field came through the first 1,000 meters at a very slow 2:58.46 pace. As the pace accelerated through the second 1,000 meters by nearly 21 seconds, Broe was not able to respond and continued to fall back into the pack as the leaders clocked a 5:35.99 split at the 2,000-meter mark.
Despite running near the rear of the field through much of the second half of the race, Broe never fell far behind the lead pack as Ethopia's Kenenisa Bekele and Kenya's Eliud Kipchoge continued to push the pace, clocking splits of 8:18.89 at 3,000 meters and 10:48.62 at 4,000 meters. Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj took control of the race at the bell, clocking a 0.52 split over the last 400 meters to move past Bekele down the final stretch to claim his second gold medal of the 2004 Olympic Games. After slightly falling off the back, Broe regained ground to move back to the last position of the pack, crossing the line 18.67 seconds behind El Guerrouj but only 1.25 seconds after ninth-place Hicham Bellani of Morocco.
Results
5,000-meter Run (Final) 1. Hicham El Guerrouj, Morocco 13:14.39 2. Kenenisa Bekele, Ethopia 13:14.59 3. Eliud Kipchoge, Kenya 13:15.10 4. Gebre Egziabher Gebremariam, Ethopia 13:15.35 5. Dejene Berhanu, Ethopia 13:16.92 6. John Kibowen, Kenya 13:18.24 7. Zersenay Tadesse, Eritrea 13:24.31 8. Craig Mottram, Australia 13:25.70 9. Hicham Bellani, Morocco 13:31.81 10. Ali Said Sief, Algeria 13:32.57 11. Tim Broe, USA 13:33.06 12. Alistair Ian Cragg, Ireland 13:43.06 13. Abderrahim Goumri, Morocco 13:47.27 14. Samir Moussaoui, Algeria 14:02.01 -- Abraham Chebii, Kenya DNF
QUOTES
Volunteer Assistant Coach Tim Broe
On his Olympic experience ... The last six weeks could not have worked out much better for me. My goal was to get here and make the final, which I did. I would have loved to be in the heat of that race and I hate being an also-ran, but my legs were just really tired from the other night I think. I am proud of myself for fighting to the end, because the way I felt, it would have been really easy to just bag it and let go after 3,000 meters, but I hung in there. It would have been really nice to break into that top 10, but it just was not in me this time. I cannot believe all the support that I have gotten whilst I have been here, and I am looking forward to getting in a good fall of healthy training and getting myself ready to do something really special for next year."
