WOLFE, KELATI PASS USATF SENIOR TITS
By Rich Sands, @thatrichsands.bsky.social
(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved, used by permission.
NOTE: This story was written remotely – Ed.
(Dec-06) — Parker Wolfe and Wayne Kelati won the USATF 10-K titles Saturday in Portland, Ore., and will lead the USATF team to the 2026 World Track and Field Championships on January 10 in Tallahassee, Florida. In the worlds.
The top six finishers in the 10-K race earned spots on the team, while the top two men and top two women in the 2-K race qualified for the medley relay. This is the first time the United States has hosted the World Cup since 1992, when the match was held at Franklin Park in Boston.
Parts of the Glendover golf course were muddy and chewed up from heavy rain in the days leading up to the meet, as well as from the Nike Cross Nationals (NXN) high school championship races held earlier in the day. “When I saw the mud, the hills, I said this is a real khachkar,” Kelati said.
In the men’s 10-K, Rocky Hansen took the front straight. Two weeks after finishing second at the NCAA Championships, the Wake Forest junior seemed determined to push the pace. In the 3-K, he led a group of six that broke away from the field, including early race favorites Nico Young and Graham Blanks, as well as Wesley Kiptu, Ahmed Muhumed and Wolff. Former Kenyan Kiptu qualified to represent the United States in October.
Hansen led the pack through the 5K in 14:27.5, and he opened a small gap by 6-K. “It was a tight and sore program,” Hansen told LetsRun.com. “The pros were actually in my wheelhouse now because I’ve done four races before this… The pros, most of them, haven’t raced in over a year, so it’s a unique situation where I’m the one with the advantage.”
Kipto, Muhumed and Wolf continued the chase while Young and Blanks began to fall behind. Kipto slipped and lost momentum going up a muddy hill just before the 8-K and briefly lost momentum. It was a two-man race with less than a kilometer to go, with Wolf shadowing Hansen. Wolfe finally started to accelerate and quickly opened up a comfortable edge over the final half mile. He broke the tape in 29:16.4, ahead of Hansen (29:24.8), Kipto (29:27.7) and Muhumed (29:33.7). Young (29:41.6) edged Blanks (29:45.0) for fifth in the final. The team’s first alternate will be seventh-placed Liam Murphy (29:59.4).
“I was just trying to stay in touch with him,” Wolff said of Hansen’s pursuit of the race during the Runnerspace.com broadcast. “He was ready for this, he’s been competing all season, so I was just trying to switch it off. And when we got to 800, I just felt like there was a little more in the tank going up those hills.”
For Wolf, the win offered some redemption after she finished third in the 5,000 meters at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials but fell short of qualifying standards for the Summer Games. “I’ve been looking to make the team since missing Paris, so this is a fun experience and I’m ready to represent the USA,” said the recent North Carolina graduate, who missed this year’s track and field championship season due to injury.
In the women’s 10-K, Emma Grace Hurley surged to the front in the first lap, with 2023 NCAA champion Parker Walby and Kelat leading the chasing pack, followed by two former NCAA winners, Karissa Schweitzer and Edna Kurgat.
Shortly after the 4-K, Kelati, Katie Izzo and Kurgat began to break away from the pack. Izzo led the trio at the halfway point in 16:43.9, with Hurley, Valbi, Schweitzer, Grace Hartman and Emily Venters close behind.
In the sixth kilometer, Kelati and Izzo broke away from Kurgat, and a few minutes later Kelati used the wave to take sole control of the lead. Kurgat ran alone in third while a group of four battled for the final three team spots: Hurley, Venters, Schweitzer and Hartmann.
Kelati, a 2024 Olympic 10,000-meter Olympian and American half-marathon record holder, continued to hold on to her lead in the closing stages to win convincingly in 33:45.5 for her second national cross country title. Izzo finished second (34:00.9), while Kurgat (34:09.9), Schweitzer (34:16.2), Venters (34:20.7) and Hartman (34:25.7) rounded out the rest of the team spots. Elise Stern (34:33.1) finished seventh and will be the first alternate for Tallahassee. Hurley (34:40.9), who set the pace quickly, and Valby (34:48.9) finished ninth and 10th.
“I’m over the moon because I thought last year would be my last cross-country race, but when I heard it was going to be in the USA, I thought why not lead Team USA, go there and show them we can do it.” said Kelati, who finished 14th at the 2024 World Championships after winning the U.S. title that year.
In the men’s 2-K, Strand moved to the front early, followed by Wes Porter, Craig Engels and Vincent Ciatey. After a brief challenge from Liam Marrow, Strand and Porter pulled away and dueled over the final 400m with Strand winning 5:25.8 – 5:26.5. “Today wasn’t necessarily about making the world team, it was about going out there, giving it my best effort, running hard, and if I make the world team, that’s a bonus,” said Strand, the runner-up in the 1,500 meters at the NCAA and USATF championships this season. “NCAA Cross trained me to keep my foot on the gas the whole time. And if you can keep your foot on the gas the whole time for the 10-K, you can definitely do it for the 2K, so that was my plan.”
Porter, who ran on Virginia’s NCAA Indoor Championships distance medley team in March, will join Strand on the men’s leg of the Worlds medley relay. Garrett McQuiddy (5:33.6) finished 3rd, followed by Sam Gilman (5:34.5) and Ciatey (5:35.5).
Just before the halfway mark of the women’s 2-K race, Morris began to pull away, with Emily Mackay and Annika Reiss trying to hang on, and Sage Hurta-Klecker, an 800-meter finalist at the World Athletics Championships in September, several paces behind.
McKay started to struggle (he would finish seventh) and Hurta-Klecker finished second. Morris extended her lead on the final climb to win in 6:19.4, while Hurta-Klecker held off a fast-closing Reiss, 6:22.9 – 6:23.1, to take second place in the women’s medley relay. Gracie Hyde (6:28.4) and Kaylee Delay (6:29.0) rounded out the top five.
“I’ve worked so hard and I feel like I’ve always been on the outside of success,” said Morris, who finished ninth in the 1,500 at the USATF Championships this summer and then won the New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile in September. “So to finally have it come together for my first year as a pro is really exciting.”
There were also races for the under-20s, with the University of Texas’ Aidan Torres winning the men’s 8-K in 25:10.8 and Duke’s Victoria Garcia winning the women’s 6-K in 21:07.0.
