LAGAT TO MAKE CARLSBAD 5000 DEBUT
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2014 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved - Used with permission.

ALBUQUERQUE (20-Feb) -- Two-time Olympic medalist Bernard Lagat will take to the roads after completing his indoor season and tackle the Carlsbad 5000 on Sunday, March 30.  For the 39 year-old Lagat, Carlsbad will be his first 5-kilometer road race.

"I'm happy to finally make it to the start line of the Carlsbad 5000," Lagat said through a media release. "It's been on my radar for some time, but we just never managed to get there to toe the line. It's a truly iconic U.S. road race with a great history of world records with many of the finest athletes of all time adding their names to the list of champions."

Lagat, who just ran the fastest-ever indoor 2000m by an American at the Millrose Games last Saturday (4:54.74), will be here in Albuquerque this weekend to try to win his fourth USA indoor 3000m title.  Should he finish first or second in Saturday's race, he'll qualify for the IAAF World Championships in Sopot, Poland, in March.  There he hopes to defend the world indoor title he won in 2012 in Istanbul.

"I'm looking forward to racing on the West Coast after what I hope is a successful defense of my world indoor title over 3000 meters," Lagat added.

At the race in Carlsbad, where the men's world record has been set four times, Lagat will try to break Marc Davis's USA record of 13:24 which was set in Carlsbad in 1996.  The closest any American has come to that mark in recent years was in 2009 when Olympic steeplechaser Anthony Famiglietti ran 13:28, also at Carlsbad.

Lagat's appearance at Carlsbad was made possible by a dramatic policy reversal at the company which organizes the event, Competitor Group Inc.  Last September, the San Diego-based event organizer slashed its elite athlete budget, but then abruptly restored it early this year in the midst of a management shake-up.  Long-time senior vice-president Tracy Sundlun was instrumental in restoring the funding for top athletes like Lagat.

"All of us at Competitor Group are thrilled that Bernard will finally be running the Carlsbad 5000 this year," said Sundlun through a statement.  "He is one of the world's best athletes and an even better person. Running fans in Southern California are going to be in for a real treat."

The last American man to win Carlsbad was Doug Padilla in 1990.  Ethiopia's Dejene Gebremeskel, the 2012 Olympic Games 5000m silver medalist, has won the race the last three years in a row.


PHOTO: Bernard Lagat winning the 2013 USA 5000m title in Des Moines, Iowa (photo by Chris Lotsbom for Race Results Weekly)