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Siba, Maton Win at Newburyport

by Dave Camire
Complete Results

Newburyport, MA - Have you ever been in a situation where you worked your butt off at a job while the guy sitting next to you seemingly did half the work? Then at review time he got a bigger raise! That must have been how Rachid Tbahi felt at yesterday's Yankee Homecoming 10-Miler. Tbahi, who is a former winner of this race, led from the starting gun until he entered the grounds at Newburyport High School It was a that point that his fellow Morrocan countrymen, Houssine Siba, shifted into high gear and to a six second victory in 49:06.

Houssine Siba with Jon Pearson

The women's race, on the other hand, developed quite differently. Mime Corcoran, who placed third overall, thought she was in the hunt for the lead in the early stages of the race. "I went out at what I thought was hard," she said. "My coach (Bob Sevene) told me if you're going to run, then run hard. After several miles we found out that we were 3 minutes behind the lead woman." That "lead woman" was Michelle Maton of Pembroke Pines, Florida. Maton is somewhat of a mystery woman in these parts. According to race director Jon Pearson, "This is the first time an unknown has won the race." Before the start of the race, Pearson knew it would be a wide open race when he was informed that defending champion Mary Lynn Currier pulled out due to an illness. Long after the last runner finished, Pearson was still asking if anyone knew Maton.

The Master's division was won by a couple of North Shore runners, John Barbour of Rockport (52:11) and Gillian Horovitz of Gloucester (1:00:32). Barbour was quite pleased with his time. "I don't run for time anymore, I'm way beyond the PR stage," he said. Nevertheless, Barbour's times have been very consistant at Yankee. He ran 52:08 in 1993 and 52:20 in 1994. Barbour suspected he was rounding into shape after running a 17 miler at Cape Cod last weekend followed by a 13 miler the next day. "The 13 miles felt easy after the 17 mile day," he added.

This year's race had the largest field in the history of the event. The ten miler had 2508 entrants while the accompanying three miler had 1100 entrants. This represented an increase of over 400 runners from the previous year.Pearson attributes much of the increase to the large number of runners entering on race day. Next year, the race route will change slightly due to traffic restriction crossing over Route I-95. The start and finish, however, will remain the same with the exception of a little more time between the start of the two races.

This was the second race in the USATF-New England Grand Prix Series. USATF Managing Director Steve Viatones seemed very happy with the outcome. "This is the longest time we're ever had between Grand Prix races" he said. That won't be the situation for the next Grand Prix race which takes place in Salem, MA on August 10.

Praise for the race was universal among competitors. Ken Robichand, president of the North Medford Club summed up the night and race by saying, "as good as ever, excellent weather -- if they had beer, it would be a NMC race."