Broken Arrow 3.5K Ascent: Anna Gibson Owns the Women's Race from Start to Finish

• Gibson wins in 27:33 (12:40/mi avg), finishing 1:33 ahead of runner-up Joyce Muthoni Njeru — the largest gap on the women's podium.
• Top-3 sweep on the final segment: Gibson, Njeru, and Jade Belzberg posted the three fastest women's splits on the Snow King→Finish stretch, in exactly the same order they crossed the line.
• Njeru and Belzberg separated by just 17 seconds (29:06 vs. 29:23) for 2nd and 3rd among the women.
• Pema Franchi Antelme, age 12, finished 5th among 162 women in 30:37 — ahead of Hillary Allen and every other finisher in the field.

Anna Gibson led wire-to-wire. She held the top women's spot from the gun and never let it slip, finishing in 27:33 at a 12:40/mi clip — a pace that, across a course climbing through thin air between roughly 6,300 and 8,000 feet, was simply untouchable. Her Snow King→Finish split was the fastest among all women, sealing a win that was never seriously threatened.

Behind her, Joyce Muthoni Njeru of Kenya ran a composed and controlled race to claim 2nd in 29:06, while Jade Belzberg of Fort Langley, BC held off the rest of the field to take 3rd in 29:23. The 17-second gap between them made for the tightest battle on the podium, with both athletes also posting the 2nd- and 3rd-fastest women's closing splits — a clean sweep that suggests the podium trio had a clear gear the rest of the field couldn't match.

The subplot of the day belonged to 12-year-old Pema Franchi Antelme from Cuenca, Ecuador, who crossed in 30:37 to finish 5th among the women. She posted the 7th-fastest women's split on the final segment and finished ahead of experienced mountain runners including Hillary Allen (6th, 30:41) and Jessica Brazeau (7th, 30:56). The gap between Antelme and Allen was just four seconds — a margin that, at this elevation and on this terrain, is extraordinary regardless of age.