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USA Track & Field
Close Call on Oregon Highway for Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein
Photo by Jane Monti: Kalin and Dathan Ritzenhein after the 2007 Healthy Kidney 10K in New York City
By David Monti (c) 2011 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Used with permission.
(25-May)--Three-time USA men's cross country champion (2005, 2008, 2010) and 2009 world half-marathon bronze medallist Dathan Ritzenhein, 28, of Portland, OR counted himself lucky this morning after an out of control car grazed his at high speed on an Oregon highway last night.
"I was driving back from dropping the family off at the airport (they were going to Michigan), and I was going down the freeway when a big old car came flying up two lanes over," Ritzenhein recounted in an e-mail to Race Results Weekly today.
Ritzenhein was driving westbound on Interstate 84 from Portland International Airport about 10:00 pm.
"Their tire blew out and they started swerving all over and came across three lanes and smashed into the cement going probably 75 mph," Ritzenhein continued. "It just grazed the hitch on (the rear of) my car. One more inch and it would have been very bad!"
Dathan Ritzenhein, who has two children, was unhurt but mentally shaken up.
"Very creepy when the headlights are shining right into the window feet away!" he wrote. "Way too close."
The 28 year-old Dathan Ritzenhein, who is coached by Alberto Salazar, is still making his way back from the foot surgery he underwent earlier this year. Salazar recently told the Oregonian newspaper that Ritzenhein was planning to run the 10,000m at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships on Thursday, June 23.Dathan Ritzenhein placed ninth (2:11:59, top American) in the men's marathon at the Beijing Olympic Games. He also competed in the 10,000m at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
Photo at left by www.photorun.net: Dathan Ritzenhein winning his third men's national cross country title in 2010.