Flanagan feeling great after bronze

BEIJING - As Marblehead's Shalane Flanagan crossed the finish line in an American-record 30 minutes 22.22 seconds, her expression switched from elated disbelief to confusion. She wanted to celebrate, but wasn't sure she should. The leaders in the women's 10,000-meter field lapped so many runners Flanagan lost track of her place. She figured either third or fourth. In the finish area, Flanagan held up three fingers and shouted, "Am I three? Am I third?" A track official nodded.

With confirmation she won the bronze medal in the 10,000 at the National Stadium yesterday morning, Flanagan returned to a state of elated disbelief. While she entered the third 10,000 race of her career with the fastest time in the world this season, American distance runners have rarely made the Olympic podium. More than that, Flanagan suffered a severe case of food poisoning earlier this week at the US track team training camp in Dalian. Initially, there was some question of whether she would even race.

"I was sick three days ago with some [gastrointestinal] issues, so I'm really happy to be feeling as good as I am right now," said Flanagan after the race. "It was bad. I was vomiting and had GI issues . . . I was supposed to fly out from our training camp on Wednesday and I couldn't even get on the flight."

For six hours Monday, Flanagan could not keep food down. Her coach, John Cook, and her husband, Steve Edwards, worked to keep her hydrated. Cook flew in Dr. Alan King from Sarasota, Fla., for help, but he did not arrive until Thursday with medication to increase her electrolyte levels. Flanagan did not train Tuesday or Wednesday because as soon as she started to run, it disturbed her stomach. Finally, on Thursday, she made it through a slow 6-mile run and strides afterward.

"When we were in Dalian, a lot of kids got sick," said Cook. "There were five people every day that got sick. It was a nice training camp, but I just don't think they could control the food. I don't want to make a big deal out of this. They did the best they could. For her, [the food poisoning] came at a good time because we were done training. It came at a bad time because, as far as recovery is concerned, we just didn't have a whole lot of time."

Knowing the hard work that went into preparing for the Olympics, Cook was so depressed about the situation that he stayed away from Flanagan. He didn't want to unnerve her days before the race.

Adding to his frustration and concern, 1,500-meter runner Shannon Rowbury, another athlete he coaches, was affected by the same food-borne illness, but to a lesser extent. Cook said 400-meter favorite Sanya Richards also suffered some ill effects from the food in Dalian. Richards started competition in the first round of the 400 early this morning. Rowbury takes to the track for the first time Tuesday.

Edwards put a positive spin on the illness, claiming it helped his wife rest and provided a welcome distraction from the pressure-packed Olympics. As a full-time, one-man support team and training partner, Edwards knows what she needs.

"There is something to say for forced rest," said Edwards. "All these Olympic athletes are really hard workers and sometimes they don't know how to take time to rest. So, I think the forced rest leading up to this was actually a good thing. It got her mind off the race and onto getting healthy again. She was able to get in 10, 12 hours of sleep at night, which, by the looks of it, that's what her body needed. I wouldn't have changed anything. Good for her eating the poisonous food, I guess. It all works out in the end. I wouldn't have changed a thing."

But that is a lot easier to say after watching Flanagan win bronze in the Beijing heat and humidity, albeit on one of the coolest, clearest nights of the Games so far. While American 10,000 entrants Kara Goucher and Amy Yoder-Begley wore cooling vests before the competition to lower their core temperature, Flanagan elected not to use one. It seemed the stomach problems made Flanagan tougher. For Cook, the desire to forgo a cooling vest was one of the first indications of that.

"We never discussed dropping out," said Cook. "We were very positive. She was very positive in the warm-up area. She didn't even want to wear an ice vest. It was good karma . . . She's starting to talk like me now, which is not good, and she said, '[Expletive], we don't need to use the ice vest.' We kind of hard-nosed it. The emotions we went through, we were just going to tough this thing out, and she did."

The field reached the 1-kilometer mark in three minutes, and that was the first and only split Flanagan checked. She knew the fast pace would work to her advantage. She went with her instincts the rest of the race. The lead pack passed the halfway point in 15:09.98 with Flanagan comfortably in eighth and Goucher in 11th. As the pace dropped during the second half, Flanagan moved up, methodically picking off one runner after the next.

With three laps remaining, Flanagan moved into fourth place and set her sights on Kenya's Linet Chepkwemoi Masai. Flanagan passed Masai with approximately 800 meters to go for the bronze. Flanagan finished almost 30 seconds behind Ethiopia's Tirunesh Dibaba (29:54.66) and Turkey's Elvan Abeylegesse (29:56.34). With an astounding kick that helped secure an Olympic record, Dibaba easily dropped Abeylegesse on the final lap to take the gold.

"There was a point in the middle of the race where I thought, 'This could really go well or really bad,' " said Flanagan. "It started to hurt, and I just found my happy place and thought of my favorite run at home. I thought, 'What am I holding it back for? There's nothing to hold it back for. I'm just going to let it go.' "

Added Edwards: "It was not only her best time-performance race. It was by far the smartest race she's ever run in her career. Strategically, she ran it perfectly."

In races longer than 800 meters, Flanagan's bronze is only the second US Olympic medal since 1984, men or women. Lynn Jennings won bronze in the 10,000 in 1992. With Goucher's bronze at the 2007 world championships in Osaka, Japan, Flanagan's bronze marked the second consecutive major international championship where an American woman won a medal in the 10,000.

"I hate the word 'fluke' and my medal had people using the word fluke," said Goucher, who finished 10th in a personal-best 30:55.16. "Shalane showed the strength of US distance running is no fluke."

Both Flanagan and Goucher plan to be back on the track for the 5,000, which starts Tuesday. Flanagan still considers herself a 5,000 runner, though she knows it will be tough to recover from her bronze medal run and race well next week.

"I'm still hungry to keep racing," said Flanagan. "It's such a fun race. I really enjoy the shorter races. I feel like a really well-rounded athlete doing some of the shorter races. What a special occasion to perform. I don't see myself passing it up. I flew all the way over here and I'm just going to run as hard as I can, and see wherever that gets me."

Shira Springer can be reached at springer@globe.com.

Distant memory

American Shalane Flanagan's bronze medal in the 10,000 meters was only the second for an American woman in the Olympic distance events since the 1988 Games in Seoul.

1992 - 10,000 meters
Gold Derartu Tulu, Ethiopia
Silver Elana Meyer, South Africa
Bronze Lynn Jennings, US

2008 - 10,000 meters
Gold Tirunesh Dibaba, Ethiopia
Silver Elvan Abeylegesse, Turkey
Bronze Shalane Flanagan, US