Clayton Young and Conner Mantz were in no hurry Saturday to leave the finish line of the Olympic men’s marathon. For as long as the Utah runners could, they stood on the lavender matting laid out in front of Les Invalides, doling out handshakes or hugs to any athlete who finished after them.
They had quite a few to get to.
Making their Olympic debuts, the two former BYU athletes finished in the top 10 in a field of 82 runners from 41 countries. In an effort reminiscent of the United States marathon trials, they ran the entire 26.2 miles within eyesight of one another before Mantz broke away on the home stretch to take eighth in 2 hours, 8 minutes, 12 seconds. Young, soaking in the crowd with a huge smile and his hand over his heart, loped in at ninth in 2:08:44.
“If you would have asked me that beforehand what I thought [those times] would do on this course, I would have said, ‘Oh, they’re going home with a medal with that time,’” said Ed Eyestone, who coaches both Mantz and Young as well as the BYU men’s track and cross country teams. “Yeah, I think they worked hard.”
Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola, an alternate, won the race by breaking the Olympic record. Tola was added to the roster five weeks ago after 2024 Boston Marathon winner Sisay Lemma dropped out due to injury. Tola’s time of 2:06:26 cut 6 seconds off the previous record, set in 2008 by Kenya’s Samuel Kamau Wanjiru.
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This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.