Taking The Fifth

Just a week ago, Armory Track reported that World Championships gold medalist Jenny Simpson was headlining the women's field in the Fifth Avenue Mile on Saturday along the southeast edge of Central Park.

It turns out that she is going to have to share that billing as Diamond League 1,500-meter champion Morgan Uceny, who owns the fastest time in the world this year, has joined the dash down the avenue.

Simpson was a surprise winner in Daegu. Uceny, who had won two DL races at the time, was more of a pre-race favorite, but she was tripped up when another runner fell at her feet with about 500 meters left, causing her to go down as well and ending her dreams for gold. Simpson won with a strong sprint down the homestretch followed by Great Britain's Hannah England, who will also run down Fifth Avenue.

"I got over the fall in Daegu because I knew that there was nothing I could have done to avoid it," Uceny wrote to Barbara Huebner of the NYRR Marathon News Service. "I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course I think I would have come home with a medal, but instead of getting caught up in the "would haves" and "what ifs," I focused on the task ahead, which was winning the Diamond League title."

An Indiana native who graduated from Cornell, Uceny did just that last Friday in Brussels, running a personal-best 4:00.06 to take the season-long crown.

She closed the 2010 season on Fifth Avenue as well, finishing sixth. "I remember thinking it wasn't going to feel hard since it was a net downhill. But I was dead wrong! It was a tough race for me, but now I know what to expect," she said.