Lobo Legend Weini Kelati Finishes 15th at World XC Championships

BELGRADE, Serbia – New Mexico Cross Country / Track & Field alumni Weini Kelati was the fastest American finisher at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships at the Park of Friendship in Belgrade, Serbia on Saturday, placing 15th with a 32:53 time.

A two-time NCAA Champion and 13-time All-American during her time with the Lobos (2017-2020), Kelati battled hot conditions near the river Danube to crack the Top 15 in a field of 84 women and reassert her dominance in the American running scene once again. After going out with the leaders and finishing the first two-kilometer lap in 12th place, Kelati picked up the pace in the second and moved up to seventh with a 5:56 split, maintaining her position through 6K in 18:29 and 8K in 24:47. But with temperatures surpassing 80° F and humidity of nearly 50%, fatigue took its toll and the 27-year-old dropped back to finish in 15th. The U.S. women finished fourth in the team score with 113 points — Kenya produced all three medalists to win with a miniscule team score of 10, with Ethiopia edging Uganda for second.

“I felt good because I was hoping to go out with the first group, but the heat got me really bad and I was like ‘oh my goodness’,” Kelati said post-race. “At some point I was going to stop.

“I was like ‘Nope, if I stop, we’re not going to score as a team — let’s finish it.”

Kelati improved from a 21st-place finish and 35:48 time at last year’s Cross Country Championships in Australia, her second time competing for the U.S. after finishing seventh in the 5K at the road racing world championships last October in Riga, Latvia.

“I did not know what the result (was), but I was very happy when I saw I got to 15 because I said it — I said it and I did it,” Kelati said. “So proud.”

Saturday’s result comes two weeks after Kelati ran a new personal best (30:33.82) to secure the Olympic-qualifying standard at Sound Running’s The TEN on March 16 – the same meet at which Habtom Samuel ran the new second-fastest men’s 10,000m race in NCAA history. Earlier in the year, Kelati set a new American record in her first Half Marathon at the Aramco Houston Half Marathon on Jan. 14 (1:06:25) en route to a fourth-place finish, also setting a new North American record for 20 km (63:05 in the process). She followed that up with a first-place finish at USA Cross Country Championships (32:59) in Richmond, Va. less than a week later on Jan. 20.

That 30:33.82 time from March 16 – the sixth-fastest in USATF history – already netted Kelati the qualifying standard ahead of this summer’s 2024 Olympics in Paris. In June, she’ll be racing for a spot on the U.S. team in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters on the track in the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon.

Kelati remains one of, if not the most decorated alum in Lobo XC/T&F history over her four-year career from 2017-2020 – in that span, she accumulated 13 All-Americans, four school track records, five Mountain West records (four in track), six Mountain West Conference individual titles (two in cross country, four in track), a team NCAA cross country championship in 2017, two individual NCAA titles (10,000m, XC) and countless regional, conference and national awards. She decided to forego her remaining eligibility and turn professional in December of 2020 after the COVID pandemic canceled an NCAA Indoor Championships meet for which she qualified in three different events. Born in Eritrea, Kelati became a naturalized U.S. citizen in June of 2021, changing her national sports allegiance to the United States – she has lived in the U.S. since 2014.