Edward Kemboi takes first place at NCAA Outdoor Championship
Senior Edward Kemboi runs the final leg of the men’s 4×800-meter relay at the Drake Relays on April 24 in Des Moines. The team finished sixth overall in the event.
June 12, 2015
After failing to place above fifth at the NCAA Outdoor Championship in his last three tries, Edward Kemboi made one last lunge to the finish to take his first NCAA Outdoor Championship in his ISU career, winning the 800-meter race with a 1:49.26 time.
He was the first national champion for the ISU men’s track and field team since 1996 when Dmitry Drozdov won the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
The senior from Kenya had previously tied the best time in the 2015 NCAA outdoor season and broke the all-time preliminary record time with 1:45.48 in the preliminaries on Wednesday in Eugene, Ore.
He carried that success into Friday and made sure to add his signature to the finish. He took first place with 150 meters left to go and never looked back, winning by one-tenth of a second.
“I’ve been training all day every day,” Kemboi said on the ESPN broadcast. “Since last year’s loss, I was like, ‘you know what, I’m going to go back and train.'”
The win makes him the third ISU athlete to win both the indoor and outdoor national title and the second athlete in two years to sweep the 800 in the NCAA.
