Top 2 From A Year Ago Commit To The 2018 Manchester Road Race

MANCHESTER, CT —The top two finishers at last year’s Manchester Road Race will be back in town on Thanksgiving morning.

Race officials announced today that defending champion Paul Chelimo and runner-up Kirubel Erassa have both entered the 2018 MRR.

Chelimo, an Olympic silver medalist, won the 4.748-mile race last year with a time of 21:32. Erassa, an All-American runner at Oklahoma State University, placed second in 21:34.

Chelimo, 27, won the silver medal in the 5000 meters at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games and was bronze medalist in the 5,000 meters at the 2017 World Championships in London. Chelimo ran the 5,000 meters last summer at a meet in Brussels in 12:57.55, the fourth fastest time ever recorded in that event by an American. He was an All-American runner at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and now competes for the U.S. Army as a member of its World Class Athlete Program.

The Manchester Road Race Committee also announced today that former champion and two-time Olympic medalist Nick Willis will also compete in the race. Willis, a University of Michigan All-American who won Olympic silver and bronze medals in the 1,500 meters representing his native New Zealand, broke the tape at the 2005 MRR in 21:50.

A dozen Olympic athletes have now signed up to run in Manchester this Thanksgiving.

“Our elite field this year will feature some of the best distance runners in the world,” said Dr. Tris Carta, President of the Manchester Road Race Committee. “We anticipate that we’ll have another highly competitive and exciting road race.”

The 82nd Manchester Road Race will tale place at 10 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day (November 22, 2018).

The race starts and finishes on Main Street, in front of St. James Church.

Online entry applications and more information about the event are available at:

• www.manchesterroadrace.com.

Photo Credit: Chris Dehnel

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