Women's winner overtakes defending champ on final sprint
Air Force captain Metzger wins closest race ever
By Marc Pendleton
Dayton Daily News
September 21, 2003
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE - Trailing by four minutes with three miles remaining in Saturday's U.S. Air Force Marathon, Jill Metzger drifted into a runner's high.
"I thought, how neat it would be to have a sprint to the finish," she said. "I thought that would be amazing. I was foreshadowing my own race."
Metzger rallied past Hilliard resident and defending champion Sandy Hundley in the final 60 meters to incredibly win the women's race in three hours, five minutes and 35 seconds. The stunning rundown was the closest finish in the seven years of this event, which drew about 3,000 runners from 48 states and eight countries.
Belgium 's Hendrik Vanloon was the overall winner in 2:37.44.
Metzger was second to Hundley in 2002. That was the women's order for all but the closing seconds of the 26.2-mile race throughout the base. Metzger dropped to 6:45-minute miles over the final 5k and finally caught sight of Hundley with about 500 meters left. She still trailed by about 28 seconds, but was closing fast on the unsuspecting leader.
"It's a military tactic, the element of surprise," said Metzger, an Air Force captain at Ramstein, Germany . "It's a defensive mechanism that is very, very successful (as an) offense-defense. The only disadvantage is I'd been sprinting a lot longer, so I had to be really quiet when I came up behind her. I waited until I saw the finish line in sight, and I started kicking."
Metzger, 30, unloaded a full sprint down the final straight. Hundley, 43, never knew what passed her.
"I saw the finish and I thought, 'Oh, well I've got it," said Hundley, a South African native who works in a Dublin day-care center. "I looked over and didn't see anybody behind me. I thought, 'This is fantastic,' and then, there she came. Out of nowhere."
"I had no idea until she ran past me at the finish. She was going so quickly and I thought, 'She's got that pace going already, it's going to be no good for me to even try.' But, good luck to her. She had what it took."
Hundley finished just six seconds behind. Both women were about 10 minutes faster than last year, thanks to the cool temperatures and ideal weather.
• Vanloon was fourth here in 1998, and he hadn't run a marathon since representing Belgium in the '99 World Championships at Croatia. Like runners in many European nations, he had been rotated off the national team. But that all changed in early August when Belgium's top two runners were sidelined with injuries, including last year's runner-up here, Guido Bocklandt.
On just three long runs of 15 miles and an average of 40 weekly miles - for only five of the six previous weeks - he overtook defending champ Jeff Gibson at the midpoint.
"Then I take no risks and the time doesn't matter anymore," said Vanloon, 38, and a master sergeant with the 10th Tactical Wing of the Kleine-Brogel NATO base in Belgium . "Who knows? Now I see I can still do it. Now I must train again and make the best and we shall see."
• Oliver Weiss, Kevin Korondi and Johnson Sexton drew the most vocal support - the entire Virginia Tech men's soccer team. The Hokies defeated Dayton 2-0 Friday. Weiss (3:23.50) is the had coach. Korondi (3:25.47) and Sexton (3:59.57) are assistants.
"To see these guys - just a massive group of orange a half-mile from the finish line - was just amazing," Sexton said. "All I wanted to do was break four hours, and I couldn't have done it without them."