The American Distance Project will be staging the Firefly Recovery 5,000m on Thursday, March 04, 2021, at the Virginia Beach Sports Complex with the goals of not just chasing Olympic and U.S. Olympic Trials qualifying marks, but with an eye on the American Indoor Record for 5,000-meters.
The two-race event will be run on Virginia Beach’s new 200-meter hydraulically banked indoor track and will make use of the state-of-the-art Light Speed Pacing System, an innovative tool designed to assist runners to set target paces.
Rio Olympic Silver Medalist Paul Chelimo (Nike), who’s owns a 5,000m outdoor best of 12:57.55, will lead the charge in an event that was designed with strict Covid-19 mitigation precautions, including not allowing spectators nor competitors from outside the American Distance Project’s training group bubble.
The field with its eye on Galen Rupp’s American Record of 13:01.26 set in 2014 is stacked with athletes from the U.S. Army’s World Class Athlete Program including fellow US Rio Olympian Leonard Korir (13:15.45); NCAA champions Lawi Lalang (13:00.95) and Anthony Rotich (13:31.95); US National Team members Emmanuel Bor (13:10.23), Elkanah Kibet (13:44.59), Frankline Tonui (13:45.52), Benard Keter (13:58.80), Augustus Maiyo (13:53.88) and Michael Jordan (14:13.34); as well as the U.S. Air Force’s Daniel Kirwa (13:58.3.)
A women’s 5,000m will also be held including the U.S. Army WCAP’s Ednah Kurgat (15:14.78), an NCAA cross country champion, as well as Elvin Kibet (15:27.74).
“This year has been extremely hard on the soldier-athletes who have missed out on other competitions due to strict travel restrictions,” said ADP coach Scott Simmons, “so, to address Covid safety concerns, we decided we would stage our own event in a city with very low Covid transmission rates and go the extra mile to mitigate risk.”
“We were happy when Firefly Recovery came on board as a title sponsor,” continued Simmons, “as the staging of a USATF sanctioned event is not easy.”
“We are proud to support the American Distance Project and their world class athletes in the Firefly Recovery 5,000m,” said Firefly Recovery CEO Anthony Kjenstad. “As the fireflyTM device has become a proven recovery device for both elite and everyday runners, we are excited to help these athletes train harder and recover faster with affordable and portable recovery.”