Kelati Named Mountain Region Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year
USTFCCCA RELEASE
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— Sophomore Weini Kelati has been named the Mountain Region Women’s Track Athlete of the Year by the USTFCCCA as announced on Friday.
The latest accolade is the third regional athlete of the year award this academic year for Kelati, who was selected in cross country as well as the indoor season, giving the Lobo runner the season sweep in the award.
Kelati’s honor marks the second straight year that the Lobos have swept the regional indoor and outdoor track athlete of the year as Ednah Kurgat and Josh Kerr won both awards in 2018. In addition, the distance runner is the third UNM women’s track athlete to win the region athlete of the year honor, joining Kurgat and Courtney Frerichs, who won the outdoor award in 2016.
Kelati earns the distinction after being ranked first nationally in the 5000 at 15:23.46 and third nationally in the 10,000 with a time of 32:09.10. Both of those results were significant in that they broke established records.
Her time in the 5000 broke the meet record and the stadium record at the Bryan Clay Invitational by 15.96 seconds, while her time in the 10,000 broke the Mountain West Championships record by more than 20 seconds. Kelati won the 10,000-meter Mountain West title by 2:08.46 en route to her first conference outdoor title, and in addition broke the UNM school record by 6.63 seconds. Her 10,000 time was also memorable in that Kelati became the fastest women over 10,000-meters in a race that was contested outside of Cobb Track & Angell Field on the campus of Stanford University.
The sophomore was named MW Track Athlete of the Week for the week of April 23 as a result of her record-breaking performance at the Bryan Clay Invitational.
Up next for Kelati is the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, to be held June 5-8 in Austin, Texas, where she will be competing in both the 10,000-meter and the 5000-meter, and will be making a consecutive appearance after running the 5000 in 2018.