USATF 10 Mile Championships Presented by Toyota

The 2021 Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run is excited to host this year’s USATF 10 Mile Championships hosted by Toyota! With $26,000 in U.S. championship prize money on offer as well as a $10,000 bonus for an American Record (the bonus will be split if both the male and female winners break the American records), road racing fans can look forward to hotly contested races among both the men and women. 

On the Women’s side,  Jenny Simpson, three-time Olympian (2008, 2012 and 2016 bronze medalist) and three-time World Championship medalist (gold in 2011, silver in 2013 and 2017) will be making her long distance road racing debut with us in Washington, DC on September 12. While Jenny is no stranger to racing one mile on the roads — having won seven straight NYRR Fifth Avenue Mile events from 2013-19, and eight overall — she’ll be racing ten times as far on our flat, fast course.

While Keira D’Amato, who set American and World Records for 10 miles (51:23) at last November’s Up Dawg 10 Mile has withdrawn from Cherry Blossom in favor of continued training for the 2021 Bank of America Chicago Marathon, Simpson will face plenty of top-flight competition. Jordan Hasay now boasts the fastest personal best among the American women (52:49). Three other
Americans have run 54:00 or faster: Natosha Rogers (53:45), Diane Nukuri (53:56), and Annie Frisbie (54:00). 

As of today, 16 elite American women are entered in the USATF 10 Mile Championships. The women will start 12 minutes before the men so performances will be eligible for ratification as women’s-only records. This eliminates any benefit of being paced by males and also provides increased visibility for these talented female athletes.

On the men’s side, Futsum Zienasellassie will be defending the USATF 10 Mile Championship he won in Minneapolis in 2019 (the last time American runners competed for this title, thanks to Covid-19). His winning time of 46:55 is one of four sub-47:00 marks among the American men entered in the race. Chris Derrick boasts the fastest personal best (46:53), which he ran at CUCB in 2018 when he was top American and fifth overall. Abbabiya Simbassa ran 46:57 to place second behind Zienasellassie in Minneapolis in 2019, and Kiya Dandena ran 46:58 in 2017 at CUCB. The current pending men’s American record is 45:54 set by Galen Rupp last fall. Rupp’s time bettered Greg Meyer’s time of 46:13 from the 1983 Cherry Blossom Ten Mile.

Use the links below to view the Bios of all of the Elite Men’s and Women’s fields: