Courtesy of New Mexico Athletics

VERONA, Wis. — It’s November 23, 2024, and no one would mistake it for any other time of year at Zimmer Championship Course.

The early morning chill and dampness from melted snow that blanketed the course 48 hours prior to NCAA Cross Country Championships are at odds with the jittery energy of over 8,000 in attendance, spilling up against the barriers at every possible vantage point to watch a dramatic men’s 10K race hurtling towards its climax.

The first man to bound around the corner – Harvard’s Graham Blanks – receives a raucous applause from the expansive crowd as he crosses the finish line first for his second individual NCAA title in as many years. After studying the topography of the course, Blanks had used the rolling hills to his tactical advantage late to pull away from the pack and none could reel him in as he became only the 12th man in NCAA history to win individual titles back-to-back.

But interestingly enough, the crowd’s volume only increases for the second-place finisher – Habtom Samuel, the Eritrean sophomore and reigning outdoor 10K champion from New Mexico – as he comes down the stretch just behind, nearly closing the gap in the final 200 meters while fending off a late challenge down the stretch from Furman’s Dylan Schubert. 

Schubert uses the last of his energy to take the No. 2 position briefly before Samuel immediately responds, surging around and past him just before the NCAA logo that marks 100 meters to go before leaving him well behind.

But truth be told, it’s not the commanding overtake that energizes the crowd.  It’s the fact that Samuel has one shoe on.

With blood visible on both feet, Samuel points at his shoeless foot and pumps his fist triumphantly before crossing the line and immediately embracing Blanks, with whom he had become friends in competition in their multiple go-rounds in the last year.

After getting “spiked” (struck by the sharp spikes on the bottom of other competitors’ shoes) multiple times on both feet and losing his left shoe in the process halfway through the race, Samuel ran the next 5 kilometers without altering his pace. With open wounds on both feet and all the complications of running with one bare foot in the frigid northern weather, he had to expend extra energy just to stay in contention with a front pack that immediately attempted to drop him when he first lost his shoe. 

“At first my mind was not really good … my shoe is off, so what can I do? And I know the guys are really fast … but my coaches are everywhere saying ‘you can do this, just keep trying your best.’

“So I said, ‘Yes, I’ll try my best.”

Samuel’s left shoe fell off around the 5K mark and was later found by a fan in attendance and returned after Samuel was forced to leave it behind.

So Habtom outkicked them all regardless, putting down the third-fastest closing 1K split of the entire field to come within two seconds of actually winning it all. He needed four stitches after the fact and could’ve sustained much worse damage had the wet conditions not softened the grassy surface.

The crowd knows that Graham Blanks has just done something that puts him in rarefied air among NCAA distance runners all-time. But they also just watched Samuel do the unthinkable in a completely different way.

“I’m happy I finished the same as last year, but at the same time I’m also not really happy because this time was really a perfect time to be a champion,” Samuel said after the race.

 “… Just not my day today. But I’m so happy to finish runner-up.”

True, he had only matched his finish from 2023 in his first NCAA Championships, finishing second to the same man in the process. But there was something distinctly elevated about the achievement this time. A runner-up – impressive as the feat was, especially considering the increasing amount of high-level talent – rarely got this much fanfare.

The prior season’s performance put him on the map, but the race he ran in Madison amplified the legacy of Samuel’s character in a way few are able to do within the confines of competition. He now had something imbued within his legacy that will never be taken away from him – the same way a trophy can’t.

By some amalgam of misfortune and poeticism, the unrelenting will of a 21-year-old that had defeated every obstacle in the way of turning his inconceivable dream into the finish line at his feet was impossible to ignore.

Habtom had become the man who nearly won it all with one shoe.