Evan Jager had an impressive start on his return to racing after a 6-month absence, the Olympic silver medalist running his first cross country race in more than a decade in Tallahassee, Florida.
Jager finished fourth in the men's 10,000m race at the USATF Cross Country Championships, his time of 29:31.5 just behind bronze medalist Stanley Kebenei (29:31.4). The race was won by Leonard Korir in 29:16.6 ahead of Galen Rupp, 29:17.8.
Among those impressed by Jager's performance was Letsrun.com, who wrote: "Jager ran a very nice race to take fourth, especially since this race was well out of his comfort zone — only his second race ever above 5k, and his first cross country race since his senior year of high school over 11 years ago. He couldn’t hang with the true 10k guys Korir and Rupp, but he was in the lead group throughout and closed well for fourth place.
“I was pretty much as surprised as everyone else hearing the news that I was gonna be racing here,” Jager said in a piece he filmed with USATF before the meet. “I was totally taken aback. Took me a couple days to wrap my head around the possibility of actually running cross country again.”