Bosshard Earns All-American Status In 10K

DES MOINES, Iowa - Joe Bosshard, a redshirt sophomore for the University of Colorado, recorded the fourth fastest time ever by a Buffalo in the 10,000-meter run as he earned an eighth-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championship on Friday afternoon.

Bosshard earned All-American status in the process while finishing the race in 28 minutes, 41.56 seconds, bettering his previous personal best of 28:52.85 by more than 10 seconds. He now ranks fourth on a prestigious list behind Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein (27:38.50), Ted Castaneda (28:30.6) and Bret Schoolmeester (28:33.31). This is Bosshard's second All-American honor in the 10k and his third overall. He was sixth in the 10k last season as a freshman and was an All-American in cross country this past fall.

Iona's Leonard Korir won the race in 28:07.63, just .23 seconds off the 31-year-old stadium record. The top three finishers, Korir, Liberty's Sam Chelenga (28:12.18) and Arizona's Stephen Sambu (28:19.61) separated themselves from the chase pack around the midway point, leaving the rest of the field to battle it out.

Around the time those three separated from the pack, Bosshard had moved into fifth-place after carefully working his way up through the first half of the race. He was leading the chase pack with three laps to go before falling to eighth where he would finish. Bosshard finished 23.08 seconds ahead of ninth-place finisher Jeff Schimer (Southern Illinois) who crossed the finish in 29:04.64.

"I'm pretty satisfied with how it went," Bosshard said. "We kind of knew the top three going into it and we let them go around the 5k mark. I did my work leading that second pack and I might have pushed it too hard causing me a place or two at the end, but I'm happy with it. I didn't finish too strong, but I held on and to get on the podium with this field is a great honor."

The 10k was finally run after numerous delays on Thursday night when it was originally set to go before being postponed until Friday. The race was set to take place at 3 p.m. on Friday and was pushed back to a 4:30 start after yet another weather delay. The men got lucky since shortly after their race finished there was another lightning strike in the area forcing the meet to go into another hour-long delay.

"You can't get mad at lightning," Bosshard said. "The delays might have affected some people, but I didn't feel it affected me at all. I wasn't going to let that [weather delays] affect a whole season of hard work."

Bosshard isn't done at nationals yet as he is scheduled to compete in the men's 5k on Saturday at 12:21 p.m., so he won't have much time to rest. He will see five familiar faces in that race as Korir, Chelanga, Stanford's Chris Derrick, Florida State's Ciaran O'Liaonaird and Stanford's Elliott Health all qualified for both events.

"I'll be running on tired legs and I'll give it a good effort," Bosshard said. "But I'm not the only one in that situation. I just want to finish strong and have a good race."

The Buffs will also have Emma Coburn and Shalaya Kipp racing in the women's steeplechase finals on Saturday at 11:54 a.m. CBS will broadcast the championship live from 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

NCAA OUTDOOR TRACK & FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS

Des Moines, Iowa (Drake Stadium)

Track Events (CU Athletes Only)

Men's 10,000-Meters (Finals): (1. Leonard Korir, Iona, 28:07.63) 8. Joe Bosshard, 28:41.56