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The final yr’s high American and fourth-place finisher has been coping with damage for the reason that fall.
Conner Mantz, the American record-holder anticipated to be a high contender at this month’s Boston Marathon, introduced Tuesday that he’s withdrawing from the race.
Final yr’s high American and fourth-place finisher has been coping with damage for the reason that fall, with disrupted coaching in current weeks.
“Sadly, my health has not progressed nicely sufficient for me to have the ability to race the upcoming Boston Marathon at my greatest,” Mantz stated. “I’m very disenchanted however stay up for being again racing quickly.”
The Utah native had a spectacular 2025, setting American data within the half marathon (59 minutes, 17 seconds) and marathon (2:04:43). The latter efficiency broke a 23-year-old file as Mantz took fourth on the Chicago Marathon in October.
Mantz was one of many stars of final yr’s Boston Marathon, pushing the tempo for the pack chasing John Korir. Mantz set a private greatest of two:05:08 however needed to accept fourth in a dash end with Kenya’s Cybrian Kotut and Tanzania’s Alphonce Felix Simbu.
The 29-year-old Mantz was anticipated to be the highest American contender in Boston once more this yr, however accidents derailed his coaching. Mantz handled a sacral stress fracture within the aftermath of the Chicago Marathon that saved him off the roads till late January.
Mantz has at all times shared most (if not all) of his coaching on the working social media app Strava, and his working appeared to be returning to regular by means of the beginning of March, earlier than out of the blue really fizzling out and vanishing after March 11.
Mantz’s withdrawal leaves coaching accomplice Clayton Younger as the highest American contender on Patriots Day. Younger’s private greatest of two:07:04, set in a seventh-place end in Boston final yr, is the second-best of the remaining Individuals.
Two-time Olympic medalist Galen Rupp is the one American with a greater private greatest — a 2:06:07 in Prague in 2018 — however the 39-year-old hasn’t raced on the highest stage since a second-place end in Chicago in 2021.
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