Tanner Norman Emerges As Colorado's Top Dog
Two Colorado cross country state champions met yesterday at the Centaurus Cross Country Festival: defending Class 5A state champ Isaac Green of Monarch and defending Class 4A champ Tanner Norman. Recap below by Alan Versaw for CO MileSplit:
Shortly after the mile (and free of the overwhelming majority of the quirky sections of the course), Tanner Norman made a surge. A few went with him at first, but his surge came with enough intensity to quickly thin out the ranks of contenders. By two miles, Isaac Green was the only one left within shouting distance.
Not only was Green within shouting distance, he was practically in Norman's back pocket, waiting for the kill. Both Norman and Green rolled through two miles at several seconds under 10 minutes.
Norman and Green continued to battle in close quarters through another half of a lap around Waneka Lake before Norman was finally gained some separation over the last half mile.
At the end, Norman's 15:39 tied Cerake Geberkidane's meet record from 2012 and beat Green by 11 seconds. For his part, Green improved his all-time #4 mark for the meet by nine seconds. Although Green lost a place in the meet records to Norman, he managed to maintain the #4 position overall by leapfrogging Adam Sinda.