|
INDIANAPOLIS - Alberto Salazar, who led Galen Rupp, Dathan Ritzenhein and Kara Goucher to career best performances this past season, has been named the 2009 Nike Coach of the Year by USA Track & Field. Salazar will be honored Saturday, December 5 at the Jesse Owens Awards and Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, held in conjunction with USA Track & Field's 2009 Annual Meeting in Indianapolis.
A three-time New York City Marathon winner and National Track & Field Hall of Famer as an athlete, Salazar in recent years has led The Oregon Project, sponsored by Nike, which is dedicated to providing the means for U.S. distance runners to be successful. Located at the Nike World Campus in Beaverton, Ore., Salazar utilizes Nike's state of the art facilities and sports scientists in working with his athletes.
Within the last 12 months, Salazar prodigy Galen Rupp completed his collegiate career at the University of Oregon in fine fashion by first winning the NCAA Cross Country men's individual title in the fall of 2008. In 2009, Rupp was a triple winner at the NCAA Indoor Championships, in the mile, 5,000 and distance medley relay, captured the NCAA 10,000m and 5000m outdoor titles and also won the 10,000 for the first time in his career at the USA Outdoor Championships in Eugene in his final race in an Oregon Ducks singlet. Rupp finished his season with an eighth-place finish in the 10,000 meters at the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Germany.
Also in 2009, Rupp set the American and collegiate indoor 5,000m record at the Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark., with his time of 13:18.12, and at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games he set the American collegiate 3,000m record of 7:44.69. He also joined fellow Oregon teammates Matt Centrowitz, Andrew Wheating and Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott in setting the outdoor collegiate 4x1-mile relay record of 16:03.24.
Two-time Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein announced that Salazar would be his new coach shortly after finishing second to Rupp in the 10,000 meters at the 2009 USA Outdoor Championships, and it didn't take long for them to produce incredible results.
|
