Jumpin’ Josephat! He’s Back 1994 Bloomsday Champion Tries To Be First Repeat Winner

Winning Bloomsday puts the champion in elite company. Josephat Machuka is out to join an even more select field.

The 1994 Bloomsday champion will be back in Spokane for Sunday’s 12K race with an eye on becoming the first runner in the 19 year history of the event to win back-to-back titles.

Machuka, a 19-year-old from Kenyan, edged Armando Quintanilla last year when five runners reached the top of Doomsday Hill together. Quintanilla, 27, from Mexico City, is also returning.

Machuka finished the 7.46-mile run in 33 minutes, 59 seconds, 3 seconds ahead of Quintanilla.

Another Kenyan, 34-year-old Yobes Ondieki, is returning to Spokane for the first time since winning the 1992 race. Ondieki set the course record of 33:55 that was tied by Arturo Barrios in 1993.

The only male runner to capture two Bloomsday titles is Jon Sinclair, who won in 1983 and 1986. Sinclair, 37, from Fort Collins, Colo., will run Bloomsday for the 13th time this year.

Another well-known entry is Josephat Kapkory, who won the 1994 NCAA Indoor 3,000-meter run for Washington State University. Kapkory, a native of Kenya now living in Pullman, is just beginning to run road races. He could be the third Cougar winner of Bloomsday, the others being Henry Rono and Peter Koeich.

Olga Appell will not defend her title, but the women’s race should be very competitive with Nadia Prasad and Jane Omora returning.

Prasad, 27, a French citizen living in Cedar City, Utah, was second last year and then upset Appell in the Bolder Boulder 10K a month later. Omora, a 23-year old Kenyan, was third in last year’s race.

Appell finished in 38:45 with Prasad coming in at 39:05 and Omora at 39:37.

Also expected to be a factor are a pair of Bloomsday rookies.

Delillah Asiago, a 23-year-old Kenyan, won the Crescent City Classic in New Orleans on April 22. Olga Markova has made her mark in longer races, winning the Boston Marathon in 1992 and 1993 and finishing second in the 1991 and 1992 New York City Marathon, but the 26-year-old from St. Petersburg, Russia, was runner-up to Asiago in New Orleans last month.

Kim Jones of Spokane, the third fastest American marathoner of all time, is hoping to improve on her best-ever eighth-place Bloomsday finish. For a change, she is not recovering from running the recent Boston Marathon.

The elite women racers will begin 15 minutes before the men to make it easier for spectators to follow the race.

“We felt some of the top performances the women turned in got lost in the crowd,” said Don Kardong, who is in charge of the elite fields for Bloomsday.

In the masters division, two-time defending champion Nick Rose is back, as is 1992 women’s winner Carol McLatchie. Rose, 43, is from England; McLatchie, 43, is from Houston.

Craig Blanchette, who won his eighth straight wheelchair title last year and said his goal was 10 straight, will again face Australian Paul Wiggins. After Blanchette won in a photo finish last year, Wiggins protested the race, but Blanchette’s record-setting win (26 minutes, 46 seconds) held up.

Blanchette, 26, is now living in Cheney.

Crowd favorite Jean Driscoll, a 26-year-old from Champaign, Ill., is returning to go after her seventh straight wheel chair title. She recently won the Boston Marathon. She set the Bloomsday record of 32:56 in 1992.

The quad division of wheelchair racers has been divided into two groups, T-1, the highest level of disability, and T-2.

Wheelchair racers will have a 1K time trial on Saturday to establish the starting grid for Sunday’s race. Saturday’s time trial begins at 8:30 a.m. at the east end of the Kardong Bridge on the Centennial Trail. The racers head towards downtown at 1-minute intervals.