Kiptoo Wins USTFCCCA Bill Bergan Award

AMES, Iowa – Iowa State's Wesley Kiptoo picked up yet another honor for his outstanding cross country season, as the Cyclone junior and NCAA XC Championships bronze medalist was named the winner of the USTFCCCA's Bill Bergan Award, given to the Midwest Region's Outstanding Men's Cross Country Runner. This marks the third-straight cross country season that a Cyclone has won the award named after the legendary former ISU head coach, with Edwin Kurgat winning the previous two years.

Kiptoo was among the best in the country across the elongated 2020-21 cross country season, winning four of the five competitions he took part in. He was the winner at the Bob Timmons Classic, the OSU Cowboy Jamboree, the FSU Winter XC Classic and the Big 12 Championships on the season, with all four of those victories coming by at least 13 seconds.

This past weekend, Kiptoo was attempting a challenging, and (for obvious reasons) unpresented double. On Friday at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships, Kiptoo dominated the field en route to the national title in a meet-record time of 13:23.77. Less than 72 hours later on the cross country course, Kiptoo was back trying to get another victory, but came up a little short as he came home in third place to lead the Cyclone cross country squad to eighth place as a team and earning his first All-America honors on the cross country course.