Minnesotans Have Rich History in Olympic Marathon Trials

By Jim Ferstle
The last time either the men's or women's Olympic Trials were in Houston, a Minnesotan won. Janis Klecker was the surprise victor in 1992 on a rainy day that featured drama, sportsmanship, and plenty of surprises.

Klecker had slipped and fallen at the 16-mile water stop, only to be helped up by the eventual runner-up, Cathy O'Brien, a 1988 Olympian in the marathon who made her second team. Klecker won in 2:30:12, a personal best, but the eyes of Texas were on a transplanted Californian who had spent the majority of her long career as a middle distance runner, US running legend and eventual third-place finisher Francie Larrieu, then 39, who was living in Dallas and made her fifth Olympic team by virtue of her third-place finish.

Larrieu was chosen to the the US flagbearer at the Barcelona Games. Klecker went on to become a dentist, and give birth to six children with husband Barney Klecker. In her running, Janis followed the example of her mother, Mae Horns, who was an outstanding Masters runner, and the mother/daughter twosome were familiar figures on the Minnesota running scene.

In the men's Olympic trials in 1992, another Minnesota doctor to be, Bob Kempainen, made his first Olympic team despite having limited training due to a stress fracture that minimized his training. In 1996, however, Kempainen matched Klecker's feat by winning the Olympic Trials in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2:12:45. Kempainen, who is now a pulmonologist and critical care physician, etched himself into Trials history, however, because of an upset stomach.

Just as Klecker had gotten up after a fall, Kempainen had to overcome "hurling" portions of his fluid replacement drinks several times on national television as he ran the final miles of the race. "This guy is the toughest human being on the face of the earth," said Keith Brantly, who finished third in 2:13:22. "I would have started crying and stopped."

In 1996 Minnesota barely missed having two representatives on the team as current University of Minnesota men's track and cross country coach, Steve Plasencia, finished just behind Brantley in 2:14:20. Plasencia was already a two-time Olympian at 10,000 meters on the track, having made the team in 1988 and '92. For Kempainen, the victory in the trials also helped with his medical school tuition, as first prize was $100,000, then the highest winners' purse in the sport.

The financial incentive was not there in 1968 when another Minnesota legend, Ron Daws, made the Olympic team in the marathon with a third place finish in the first time a US Olympic trials marathon where the team was solely selected by those who finished in the first three spots. Other years there were trials races, but the team was selected by a committee instead of by the finish of those running a trials race. Like both Klecker and Kempainen, Daws was not a clear favorite to win an Olympic berth, but he used his wits to win an Olympic spot by a mere four seconds.

"I didn't make as many mistakes," said Daws. He also had a little luck as a sciatic nerve condition forced him to rest ten days prior to the trials, rather than attempt to get in more training. "I was fit and rested," he said, rather than fit, but fatigued due to the stress of what was at stake and the natural tendency of most elite athletes to overtrain. The injury, he said "saved my life," or at least his place on the team.

Daws' mentor, another University of Minnesota product, Buddy Edelen, was arguably the best marathoner in the world in the mid 1960s. Edelen was the first man to run under 2:15 for the marathon, a world recordholder, who had won an Olympic trials race in 91 degree heat by 20 minutes in 1964. But Edelen overtrained, was injured, and could only finish sixth in the Tokyo Games in 1964. The Chicago Tribune's Olympic writer Phil Hersh recently ranked Edelen as the fourth best US marathoner ever. Edelen was a pioneer in the sport who refined training for the event and provided a road map for those who would follow him.

Perhaps the most physically gifted of all Minnesota male marathoners, however, missed his chance at Olympic glory at the distance for political, not athletic reasons. Then US President, Jimmy Carter issued an edict in 1980 that the US would not participate in the Summer Games that year because they were being held in the Soviet Union, which had invaded Afghanistan. Thus, there was no team at the Games that summer, but the US still had trials.

The marathon trials were held in Buffalo, New York on May 24 and were won by Tony Sandoval in 2:10:19. Bjorklund was furious at Carter for the boycott and did not participate. Instead he went to a race he helped found, the Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, and, on June 21, ran Grandma's as a protest. Fueled by anger, Bjorklund ran solo the entire race, and broke the course record by more than four minutes in a time of 2:10:20.

Bjorklund had made his statement and helped launch Grandma's onto the national scene. But, although he had participated in the 1976 Games on the track at 10,000 meters, the Olympic flame had been extinguished for Bjorklund by the boycott.