Brooks XC Nationals: Bartlett delivers another incredible performance for 2nd place
Blair Bartlett (Lawrenceville) leads in the middle of the girls championship race at Brooks XC Nationals 2025. | Raymond Tran for MileSplit
Blair Bartlett’s legendary cross country season continued on Saturday with an exciting 2nd-place finish at the Brooks XC National Championship!
The Brooks XC National Championship served as the highly anticipated rematch between the Lawrenceville junior and US #1 Natasza Dudek out of Michigan, after Dudek edged Bartlett for the win at Nike Cross Nationals last week. In many ways, round two played out the same way as round one: Dudek and Bartlett ran side-by-side at the front for most of the race, they took turns pushing the pace, they both ran extraordinarily fast to go sub-17:00, and Dudek barely held off Bartlett down the homestretch to break the tape. The narrow margin of victory — 1.6 seconds — was even the exact same as at NXN.
In other ways, Bartlett’s race in San Diego this week was even more impressive and exciting than in Portland last week. She got out better in this race, hitting the front right from the gun and setting the aggressive early tempo alongside Dudek. While at Nike she was never in sole possession of 1st place, at Brooks she put a stride or two on Dudek for parts of the second mile. And Bartlett also responded better to Dudek’s late-race moves: when a big surge at 4K saw Dudek open up a 2-second gap, Bartlett slowly reeled her back in and pulled dead even with her going into the final 400m. That set the two superstars up for a heart-racing final straightaway.
See below for an excerpt from Bartlett’s post-race interview:
With this result, Bartlett keeps adding to her legacy. Her result of 2nd place in 16:57.1 is the second-best place and time of any New Jersey girl, behind only the 16:43.7 that Janet Smith ran to win this championship in 1983. In fact, Bartlett’s time is #15 all-time on this historic course.
Allison Lee (WWP North) climbs a hill at the Brooks XC National Championships 2025. | Raymond Tran for MileSplit
Also qualifying for this prestigious meet was WWP North senior Allison Lee! Lee closed out her high school XC career on a high note by taking 37th place in 18:33.1. She did well to move up almost ten spots during the second mile, and her finishing time this year was 17 seconds faster than at this meet last year.