Kara Goucher

Age: 29 (July 9, 1978)
College: University of Colorado
Hometown: Duluth, MN
Residence: Portland OR
Coach: Alberto Salazar
Affiliation: Nike
Event: Mile (4:46.45 indoor Personal Best, 2006)

Career Highlights

• Bronze Medalist, 2007 World Championships, 10,000m
• Ranked #3 in the world for 2007 at 10,000m
• Ranked #1 in the US for 2007 at 10,000m, #2 at 3000m and #4 at 5000m
• Fastest half marathon by an American (1:06.57, 2007)
• #2 on US 10,000m all-time list (31:17.12, 2006)
• Runner-up, 2006 US Championships, 5000m
• 2000 NCAA Champion, 3000m, 5000m and Cross Country

Her Story

Kara Grgas-Wheeler started running in the seventh grade because she wanted to win the Triple A award, for Arts, Athletics and Academics. She already played the French horn, and was a self-professed “nerd” with a 4.0 grade average. So she joined the cross country team because they didn’t cut anybody. Seven Minnesota Class AA cross country titles later, she went on to star at the University of Colorado, and last summer rose to stardom when she became the first American woman to win a World Championship medal at 10,000 meters, surpassing her goal of finishing in the top five. “My coach [Alberto Salazar] and I felt like I was ready to run with the best in the world,” she explained later.

Kara’s historic medal was just the beginning of a five-week stretch that also saw Kara set personal bests at 3000 meters (8:34.99) and 5000 meters (14:55.02) and run the fastest half marathon ever by an American woman. In doing so, she defeated none other than Paula Radcliffe at the BUPA Great North Run in Newcastle, England. It was Kara’s first race longer than 10K, and only her third road race ever.

Craig Mottram

Represents: Australia
Age: 27 (June 18, 1980)
Residence: Melbourne/London
Coach: Nic Bideau
Affiliation: Nike
Event: 3000m (7:32.19 outdoor Personal Best, 2006) NR
(7:34.50 indoor Personal Best, 2007) NR

Career Highlights

• Bronze Medalist, 2005 World Championships 5000m
• Two-time Olympian (2000, 2004)
• National Record-holder in the Mile, 2-Mile, 2000m, 3000m, 5000m and 3000m indoors
• 2-time World Cup 3000m Champion
• Silver Medalist, 2006 Commonwealth Games

His Story

When this gregarious 27-year-old Aussie known as “Buster” toes the line, he’s ready to mix it up, as he showed here last year in challenging Bernard Lagat until the final 100 meters of the Wanamaker Mile. Known more as a 3000m-5000m runner, Mottram – at 6-3 – was thought to be doomed by the steeply banked Millrose track. He wasn’t. This time he comes to Millrose not only with a year’s experience, but off a 3000-meter win at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games in which he broke his own national record and laid down the fastest indoor 3000 meters (7:34.50 ) ever run on US soil. That record breaks the mark held by the legendary Haile Gebrselassie.

A national-class triathlete as a teenager, Mottram in 1998 found that training for three events was a drain on his studies so he decided to focus on running. Good plan. Within months, he’d broken the Under-20 National Record for 3000m, and by 2000 made his nation’s Olympic team at 5000m. In 2005, he became the first non-African to win a World Championships medal at 5000m since 1987 when he ran to bronze in Helsinki. He is perhaps the best distance runner in Australian history.

Mottram’s hopes to repeat in 2007 on the World Championships podium were dimmed when he sustained a hamstring injury two weeks before the competition, but he has already been named to the Australian team for the Olympics later this summer.

Bernard Lagat

Represents: USA
Age: 33 (December 12, 1974)
Hometown: Kapsebet, Kenya
Residence: Tucson AZ
Coach: James Li
Affiliation: Nike
Event: Mile (3:47.28 outdoor Personal Best, 2001)
(3:49.89 indoor Personal Best, 2005) AR

Career Highlights

• 2007 World Champion, 1500m and 5000m
• Silver Medalist, 2004 Olympics, 1500m
• Bronze Medalist, 2000 Olympics, 1500m
• Silver Medalist, 2001 World Championships, 1500m
• American Record-holder in the 1500m outdoors (3:29.30); 1500m and Mile indoors
• 2004 World Indoor Champion, 3000m
• 5-time winner Wanamaker Mile
• Wanamaker Mile Record-holder (3:52.87, 2005)

Background

Bernard Lagat returns to Madison Square Garden on Friday in search of his sixth Wanamaker Mile victory. If he succeeds, the Kenyan-born American will be only one away from tying the legendary Eamonn Coghlan’s mark of seven wins – a total many thought would never be broken, or perhaps even approached.

That’s not to say that Lagat has had no competition. Although some Wanamakers have ended up in a duel between Lagat and the clock, last year’s came down to a duel between Lagat and Australia’s Craig Mottram. Known more for success at longer distances, Mottram nonetheless was in the lead well into the final lap before Lagat passed him on the backstraight. It was a race that Marcus O’Sullivan – himself a six-time Wanamaker winner – later called the best mile he’d seen in a long time. Lagat’s winning time was 3:54.26.

But the Wanamaker win was just the beginning for Lagat in 2007. After making the US team for the World Championships at both 1500m and 5000m, Lagat went on to notch emotional victories at both distances in Osaka to become the first man in history to hold both titles at the same time. “A million years of treasure in five days for me” is how the statesman-like Lagat described his unprecedented feat. He finished the year ranked #2 in the world at 1500m, #4 in the world at 5000m and #1 in the US in both.

Jenn Stuczynski

Age: 25 (February 5, 1982)
College: Roberts Wesleyan
Hometown: Fredonia, NY
Residence: Rochester, NY
Coach: Rick Suhr
Affiliation: adidas
Event: Pole Vault (4.88m/16 feet outdoors, Personal Best, 2007) American Record;
(4.72m/15 feet, 5.75 inches indoors, Personal Best, 2007)

Career Highlights

• American Record-holder
• #2 in the World All-Time
• 2-time US Outdoor Champion (2006, 2007)
• 2-time US Indoor Champion, (2005, 2007)

Her Story

Jenn Stuczynski’s rise has been so meteoric, it’s hard to remember that she was a complete unknown when she won the national title at the 2005 USA Indoor Championships. Less than 2 ½ years later, on May 20, 2007, she vaulted 15 feet, 10.5 inches to end Stacy Dragila’s 11-year reign as the American Record-holder, and two weeks later, on June 2, broke her own mark when she became the first American woman to vault 16 feet. That mark ties her as the #2 woman all-time with Svetlana Feofanova, trailing only Yelena Isinbayeva.

An all-around athlete, Stuczynski came to the pole vault late, vaulting for less than a year before she won that first US title in 2005. A softball player as a young girl, she went on to become a New York state high school champion in the pentathlon, and graduated as her college’s all-time leading scorer in basketball. It was after admiring Stuczynski’s toughness in a pick-up basketball game against men that Rick Suhr approached her about giving the pole vault a try.

Raised in the unforgiving winters of upstate New York, Stuczynski hones that toughness by training all winter in a cold, dimly lit quonset hut, a long tunnel tacked on for the run-up before the last two steps bring her into the main hut, its windows boarded up to preserve what little warmth is provided by a propane heater. “Everything is way outdated,” she says. “Even the radio has a tuner that only goes down, it doesn’t go up. Snow blows in through the door onto the pad. But it’s our training place and we love it.”

Coming off ankle and back injuries that forced her to withdraw from the World Championship final last summer, Stuczynski won the Reebok Boston Indoor Games last weekend, taking a crack at the indoor American Record (4.81m/15 feet, 9.25 inches) in the process.