Collis Birmingham (file photo).
OLYMPIC contender Collis Birmingham has missed an Olympic A-qualifier for 10,000m in California.
Birmingham clocked a time of 28 minutes, 6.63 seconds – narrowly outside the B-qualifier of 28:05.00 – at the Peyton Jordan Invitational Track and Field meet yesterday afternoon, Ballarat time.
The Olympic A-standard is 27:45.00.
Birmingham, from Ballarat, has already qualified to race 5000m at the London Olympics.
The 27-year-old finished 18th in the first section race for the distance at Stanford.
Birmingham had approached the race in a bid to win back the Australian 10,000m record he held a year ago.
Training partner Ben St Lawrence smashed Birmingham’s record of 27:29.73 with a run of 27:24.95 at the Peyton Jordan last year.
Birmingham later conceded on social networking site Twitter he mave have pushed too hard in the race lead-up but his lesson was learnt.
Southern Utah runner Cam Lewis captured this year’s Peyton Jordan title in 27:27.96.
The pace was slow early with Birmingham clocking 11:08 at the four-kilometre mark, just outside A-standard pace.
By the half-way mark he was back on the A-standard, running through the five-kilometre mark at 13:53.
Birmingham’s pace had dropped with two kilometres to go and he fell back in the pack.
Fellow Victorians Dave McNeill was 20th in 28:09.58 and Harry Summers was 21st with a personal best time of 28:13.23.
St Lawrence did not contest this year’s Peyton Jordan.
Birmingham is based in Philadelphia in the United States for his Olympic preparations.
He captured the Boston Mile men’s elite title a fortnight ago.
