#25 What A Year! Top 25 Moments This Year (XC-Outdoor)

This year has been one for the record books! With so many great races, events, and of course performances, we had to take our time compiling this list. Check out all the moments here and let us know what you think about it both in our poll (to be listed when #1 is released) and via #MileStatTop25

#25 Weini Kelati ties her shoes twice, wins Oatlands!

Early in the XC season each year we have one of the largest and most competitive invitationals in the state, Oatlands. At a meet of this magnitude you can usually pick then winner from past results but this year was different. There was a runner entered from Heritage (Leesburg), more specifically from Eritrea who had supposedly ran 9:12 for 3,000m! This runner of course turned out to be superstar Weini Kelati.

She was not only a newcomer to VA XC but also this was her first raced as an American competitor, high school athlete, and in cross country. Needless to say we did not know what to expect.

The craze in the race started immediately, the reactions were priceless! She went through the first mile at 5:26 at Oatlands! This is not a generally easy course but she was absolutely destroying it and her competition. Everyone could not believe that this new girl was running this fast in trainers too!

The craze of course peaked after the race once we found out that she had not only run 18:12, which is #2 all-time at this event, but that she had stopped twice to tie her shoes.

Following this race Weini went on a 5 race winning streak until she met Libby Davidson. Weini eventually made Foot Locker Nationals and was just shy of finishing with an All-American spot indoors at nationals when she broke 17:00 indoors.

Check out the race here: