Blair Bartlett of Lawrenceville concluded one of the greatest cross-country seasons in New Jersey history by leading the United States women's squad to a fourth-place at the Under-20 World Athletics Cross-Country Championships on Saturday at Appalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee, Florida.
Bartlett, a junior who was the only high school runner on the team, ran 20:36 to finish a very strong 16th in the 6K race in a field of 66 runner to spark the U.S. to a 4th place finish with 107 points. Uganda and Kenya each finished with 29 points, with Uganda earning the gold medal on a tiebreaker as their fifth runner finished one place ahead of Kenya's fifth. Japan was third with 87.
This was the first time since 1992 that the World XC Championships was run on U.S. soil.
The impressive finish by Bartlett puts an exclamation point on a season for the ages.
Bartlett, in her first year of XC after giving up tennis, won the Nike Northeast Regional Championship in November in 17:00.6, making her the second fastest runner in Bowdoin Park history behind only the great Katelyn Tuohy. She followed that up with back-to-back runner-up finishes at both the Nike Cross National Championships and the Brooks National Championships!!!
