Pro runner Allie Ostrander came up less than a second shy of making the final of the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase at the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, Friday night, finishing 17th out of 42 total runners across three heats.
In her first world championships, Ostrander finished seventh in the second heat race with a new personal best of 9 minutes, 30.85 seconds. The top three finishers in each heat automatically advance to Monday’s final, with the next six fastest times also making it in.
The last runner to make the cut was Canada’s Genevieve Lalonde, who finished in 9:30.01, and Ostrander was 0.84 seconds behind.
Current world record holder Beatrice Chepkoech of Kenya set the fastest time of the day at 9:18.01. Team USA qualified two runners to the final, including the second-fastest runner of the day in Courtney Frerichs (9:18.42) and sixth-fastest Emma Coburn (9:23.40).
Ostrander, a 2015 Kenai Central grad, left a year of eligibility on the table at Boise State in 2019 to turn professional, but not before winning a third straight NCAA Div. I championship in the steeplechase event, the first female athlete to accomplish that. Ostrander graduated Boise with a degree in Kinesiology.
