Unknown Wins; Jones Drops Out

Who is she?

The question bounced off the Columbia pavement Saturday morning as unknown runner Jenny Spangler clicked off mile after mile in the Olympic Trials women’s marathon she was destined to win in a shocking upset.

Ponytail bobbing, arms churning, Spangler went with the leaders at the beginning of the race. By mile 8, there were five of them - four elite runners who were supposed to be there and Spangler.

The other four runners “started gabbing,” said pre-race favorite and third-place finisher Anne Marie Lauck.

Spangler, 32, didn’t say a word.

“No one knew who I was,” said the former teenage phenom, who had nearly disappeared from long-distance running for the past 13 years. “So I wasn’t about to say anything.”

At the end, however, she could barely stop talking. Spangler won the U.S. Olympic Trials, qualified for the Olympic team and took home $45,000 with her victory and a fast time of 2:29.54 over a difficult course.

Linda Somers finished second, 12 seconds behind Spangler in 2:30.06. Lauck was third in 2:31.18. All three made the Olympic team.

Spokane’s Kim Jones, expected to challenge for an Olympic berth, was injured and failed to finish.

But the headlines afterward all belonged to Spangler. Pick your favorite inspirational sports movie: “Rocky,” “Rudy,” “Hoosiers.” Spangler’s script was just as good.

“I knew she was either stupid or for real, running that fast around mile 16,” said Lauck, who admitted she didn’t even know Spangler’s last name until someone told it to her at the finish line.

It turned out Spangler was very real. She blew by the remaining contenders with a 5:22 mile at Mile 16, then held the lead the rest of the way as every other runner kept hoping for the faltering that never came.

Why did no one believe in Spangler?

Because the women’s marathoners have an unofficial caste system - race numbers.

The qualifiers with the best times received the lowest numbers - Lauck had No. 2, for instance, and eventual second-place finisher Somers had No. 7.

Then there was Spangler, No. 61 - meaning her qualifying time was 61st-best in this field.

“I knew if I took off at some point they’d probably just let me go and figure I’d come back to them,” Spangler said giddily. “I mean, I was No. 61! So when I took the lead, I was scared for a few miles. I was going, ‘What am I doing up here?’ “

Preparing to win the race, it turned out.

Spangler, from Gurnee, Ill., had been a high school running prodigy. In 1983, at age 19, she won a marathon in Minnesota with a time of 2:33.52.

“I thought then, wow, I’m going to have years of great success,” Spangler said. “And it didn’t work out that way. Things happened.”

In 1984, Spangler might have had a chance at making the Olympic team but broke a foot midway through the Olympic Trials. She gamely ran the rest of the way, but finished 17th.

In 1986, she married a fellow student at the University of Iowa. But as her marriage gradually went sour, so did her running.

In 1988 at the Trials, Spangler finished in the 40s. After that she didn’t run competitively at all for six years, due mainly to the continued strain of the marriage and the pursuit of her master’s degree in business.

Then in 1993, Spangler’s life turned around. She got divorced, found a boyfriend who also ran and got back into the game.

“I had really missed it,” she said.

“She ran this great time in a half-marathon in 1993,” Spangler’s boyfriend Miki Tosic said, “and I looked at her and said, ‘Don’t you need to take just one more shot at this?’

When Spangler finished Saturday, becoming the United States’ first track Olympian, she lifted her hands to her face and cried.

“I had tears in my eyes once I got close to the finish line,” she said. “I mean, I’ve watched the Olympics since I was little.”

Now she will run in them. And everyone will know her name.