Galen Rupp

DAEGU, SOUTH KOREA – Galen Rupp went into the men’s 5000 final at the World Championships with the tenth-best time this season out of the 16 finalists. That is exactly where he finished in the race; however, Rupp was moved up one spot when Imane Merga of Ethiopia, who had finished third, was disqualified for pushing.

Rupp’s Oregon Track Club training partner, Mo Farah of Great Britain, won the race in 13:23.36, holding off Bernard Lagat of the United States in the stretch run. Rupp’s time in his first 5000 global final was 13:28.64.

The men’s 5000 was one of six finals on a rousing final day of the championships, which saw the United States win 25 total medals, just one less than its best total ever at the world meet.

Mo Farah	Bernard Lagat	Imane Merga

The 5K race went very much as expected, with a slow pace early becoming very fast over the last two laps. Rupp ran much of the middle part of the race in second place, but had dropped back to fifth with a mile to go.
Rupp tried to put himself in the mix in the last 800 meters, but couldn’t match the closing speed of Farah, Lagat and the other leaders.

The 25-year-old former Oregon star said he wasn’t upset by the outcome, and took a long term view of his performance here.

“It’s better to for it (at the end). If you die, you die . . . I need to keep working on my strength. I think (training) is going well.”

Rupp, who finished seventh in the 10,000 earlier in the championships, said he will run one more 10,000 meter race in Brussels, Belgium before returning home.

Farah started training with Rupp under his long time coach Alberto Salazar earlier this year, and is Salazar’s first athlete to win a world gold.

“I’m just so happy for Mo,” Salazar said. “I know the pressure that was on him to win . . . He and Galen get along really well and are great training partners.