HILTZ GETS KALAKAUA MERRIE MILE WIN IN FRANTIC SPRINT FINISH
By Rich Sands, By Rich Sands, @thatrichsands.bsky.social
(c) 2024 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved – Used with permission.
HONOLULU (07-Dec) — For the first time in the history of the Kalakaua Merrie Mile, athletes in the women’s division came out on top in the race’s distinctive battle of the sexes format. Nikki Hiltz led a sweep of the first three places, holding off a fast-closing Hobbs Kessler, the fastest man who ended up fourth overall.
In the eighth edition of this race –held in conjunction with Sunday’s Honolulu Marathon– the professional women’s field was given a head start over the men of approximately 32 seconds. That’s two seconds more than last year, when Hiltz finished fifth overall, behind four men.
The addition of pacemakers added another wrinkle this year, with Amaris Tyynismaa towing the women through the first half and Abe Alvarado leading the men out. That helped keep the pace honest, particularly for the women. “We’re not in peak fitness at this time of year and a lot of us haven’t raced for a long time, so you don’t really know what kind of shape you’re in,” said Sinclaire Johnson, the 2022 U.S. champion in the 1500. “So it was nice to have a pacer to set that tone.”
The flat out-and-back course along Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki features a hairpin turn just past the halfway point, and at that point the women could see that men were closing the gap. That’s when Weini Kelati, a U.S. Olympian in the 10,000 meters, decided it was time to switch gears. “I saw the men coming and I said we really have to get this because they beat us every year,” said Kelati, who was third among the women in 2023 and was coming off a win in the prestigious Manchester Road Race in Connecticut on Thanksgiving Day. “So I was really pushing the pace. We had to do it all together.”
Even as the leaders accelerated, Kessler, who finished fifth in the Olympic 1500 meters in Paris in August, remained optimistic. “I really thought we had the women with about a quarter mile to go,” he said. “But we didn’t close it as fast as I thought we would.”
Still, as the athletes in the women’s field battled each other, they remained on alert for their pursuers. “The last 50 meters the crowd was so loud, so I wasn’t really sure how close the men were,” Johnson said. “But I couldn’t see anyone around us.”
In the end they had just enough of a gap to get to the finish ahead. In a furious battle, Hiltz held off Kelati…
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