Remember a year ago, when the winners were “another” Joanie named Nesbit and some unknown British guy named Dave Murphy?
Well, the “real” Joan Benoit Samuelson was back and better than ever, and all of the smiling faces in the town yesterday, few were as bright, as genuine and as exultant as that worn by Murphy as he crossed the finish line to win his second straight Falmouth Road Race.
He was smiling all right. The man got rid of demons with the winning performance. He, like Benoit, made $6,000 in first place prize money.
Murphy not only defended his title, but he did it by beating a field some dubbed the finest non-marathon field ever assembled on U.S. soil.
And whatever else becomes of his splendid victory yesterday, nobody can say his win here, last year was a fluke in a weak field, as has been alleged.
Murphy admitted feeling a bit of redemption after the race.
“I was kind of upset when people were saying the field was rubbish last year,” he said, “Just because Alberto Salazar wasn’t here …. That was disrespectful towards me and toward all the athletes. And I’m very pleased to regain the title.”
The only smile to compare with Murphy’s yesterday belonged to Benoit, who overcame the self-doubts that accompany an off year to break away from the women’s field early, winning by a full 35 seconds and in the process breaking her course record of 36:21, set in 1983.
High School Reunion
Benoit turned in a speedy 36:17.7 after flying into town Saturday night following her high school reunion in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Perhaps unbeatable on this course, she won her sixth Falmouth championship yesterday.
A true champion, Murphy joins the elite company of Benoit, Frank Shorter (64th [birthday] yesterday), Bill Rodgers and Alberto Salazar as a repeat winner.
Dave Murphy crossing the finish line
He beat the best athletes race directors could bring to Falmouth, and did it with a time of 32:02, 15 seconds faster than his 32:17 effort last year. In running it he became the fastest man over the 7.1 miles other than Salazar, whose 1981 and ’82 times are the only faster record performances.
“I’m just pleased to come out on top against such a strong field,” he said.
In what has become his Falmouth trademark, the ever confident and willowy champion waited for Australian Rob de Castella to make the push before making his own final surge.
The final Falmouth Heights hill was all that awaited de Castella, the front-runner at the time, Murphy and Englishman Steve Jones. They were the only runners still in contention, having survived the war of attrition that racing in the lead pack has become.
There had been a pack of 10, then eight, then six, then five, and then four. Then for the last couple of miles, the back-and-forth lead-taking characteristic of the entire race continued, with pre-race favorite Mike Musyoki of Kenya the only other runner with a chance to win.
But he too succumbed to the pace and the humid heat that had done in everyone else along the way in this tactically run race.
What remained was a three-man sprint to the finish, a trio of Queens subjects: Jones, a Welshman in the British Royal Airforce; Murphy a Kentuckian originally from northwest England; and de Castella, an Australian living and training in Boulder, Colo.
From the 10K mark on Falmouth Heights Road, the three were literally neck and neck. They ran the final stretch toward the water, any one of them still in position to take first with the right play.
De Castella made a move going into the first big hill, right after the Falmouth Yacht Club turn. Unfortunately, he said afterward, he thought that was the hill leading up to the finish line.
It wasn’t.
“I tried to run the last mile and up the hill pretty hard,” de Castella said. “I just got a bit tired up at the top …. I was impressed with Murphy. He’s pretty strong.”
Murphy remembered the flat stretch before the crest of the hill and the way he burst past Curp there a year ago to take first in the final yards of the race.
When the Aussie dealt his cards, Murphy waited.
“I took his own game to him,” he said. “Steve and I broke him there.”
In fact, Jones went after de Castella first. Murphy saw him over his shoulder and surged past him with a kick just before the crest of the hill. He rode that momentum on the downhill to beat his countryman by four seconds.
“I never felt it was sewn up on the hill until I crossed that finish line,” Murphy said.
Jones, who said he did not quite have the adrenaline after setting a world record in the half marathon last weekend, knew the jig was up when Murphy passed him.