:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/shawmedia/GLJN35GTBZH5LHGV6UT27QV3UU.jpg)
Evan Jager may not have the youthful bounce and speed he once had, but his racing mind is sharper than ever.
As Jager came over the last water jump in Sunday night’s 3,000-meter men’s steeplechase final at the USA Track and Field Olympic Trials, he was adeptly able to assess what was in front of him.
Kenneth Rooks was going to win, Matthew Wilkinson had second place secured and BYU sophomore James Corrigan was in third.
Jager, in the midst of a furious kick over the final 200 meters, which he started in seventh place, quickly figured out what his finishing fourth might mean.
“I was just fighting for the best position possible and coming off the last water jump with 100 meters to go,” said Jager, a 2007 Jacobs graduate “I did actually realize that third place was the BYU kid, and I was pretty sure he was not high enough in the [world] rankings, and I kind of realized I really needed to fight for fourth place because I would have a shot at going.
“It all happened very quickly, but I was able to process that. I kind of realized that and really fought for fourth place.”
Jager finished fourth in 8:28.73, holding off Yasin Sado (8:29.04), Duncan Hamilton (8:29.20), Joey Berriatua (8:29.95) and Anthony Rotich (8:30.14).
Because Corrigan has not run the Olympic-qualifying standard and his world steeplechase ranking is outside the top 100, Jager is in line to make Team USA for a third time. Rooks was ranked 24th in the world and Wilkinson was 36th.
“First and second place are high enough in the world rankings that they’ll definitely go,” said Jager, who is ranked 43rd. “I’m high enough that if I had finished third, I would have been on the team. Because [Corrigan’s] world ranking is so low, his only shot at going is running the standard. He has until June 30th to run the Olympics-qualifying standard (8:15.00).”
Corrigan is set to run in the Penn Relays Summer Showcase on Saturday at Philadelphia’s Franklin Field. The men’s steeplechase is set for 8 p.m.
Jager finished sixth in the 2012 London Olympics and was silver medalist in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. He missed the Tokyo Olympics because an injury kept him from the U.S. Olympic Trials.
Jager is the most accomplished steeplechaser in American history and another Olympic qualification would be fitting for the 35-year-old’s career.
“It would be huge. I haven’t run in the Olympics since 2016. I definitely would not have envisioned the end of my career playing out this way,” Jager said. “I want to go out with good results and be competing as best I can for where I’m at now.
“Not that I took it for granted in the first two Olympics that I went to, but I was so focused on my competition and the results of running at the Olympics, trying to do the best I could, that I didn’t take the full time to take it all in and really just appreciate and enjoy being at the Olympics. So, to get the chance to do that toward the end of my career would be really, really cool.”
Jager has the top eight steeplechase times in U.S. history, so considering the ages of the younger runners at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field this week, he likely inspired some of them to run the grueling race which has 28 barriers and seven water jumps over almost 2 miles.
“I haven’t really thought about it that way. I just look at them as the next era of competitors I’ve had to compete against,” Jager said. “I haven’t put too much thought into whether these guys looked up to me or anything like that. But the steeple field right now in the U.S. is very strong. It’s cool to see the field being very, very competitive right now.”