Shalane Flanagan and Meb Keflezighi won the women’s and men’s Olympic marathon trials on Saturday in Houston, Texas, in what were the most competitive Olympic selection races in U.S. history. Flanagan, 30, will compete in her third Olympic games after to defeat pre-race co-favorite Desiree Davila by 17 seconds. Kara Goucher took the third qualifying position in 2:26:06. Flanagan’s time bettered the existing Olympic trials marathon record by more than three minutes. Keflezighi, 36, also qualified for his third Olympic team in an upset victory (2:09:30) and Abdi Abdirahman (2:09:42). Keflezighi won a silver medal in the 2004 Olympic marathon but failed to qualify for the 2008 games. Twenty men finished faster than the Olympic “A” standard of 2:15, the most ever in the history of the trials.
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