Runners have the best of times at 2003 Series Championship
Complete race results | The Championship in photos

Julia Stamps nears the finish and a Series title.

NEW YORK (October 4, 2003) - Sometimes, the best things in life and sport hang by the slimmest of threads.

With the top competitors in the corporate world running the fastest overall race in the 21 years of the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge Championship, two of the biggest winners on a day of champions followed extremely unlikely scripts to titles.

New York’s Julia Stamps claimed her biggest championship since the days when she was a California teen with such prodigious talent and accomplishments that she was labeled America’s next Mary Decker. Stamps brightened a cloudy day with a radiant smile after winning the female individual title in 19:37. And England’s perennial Championship powerhouse Royal Mail Letters won its sixth consecutive female team title. But, even though their margin of victory was more than four minutes, victory was hardly a certain thing.

“We didn’t have our best runner here,” said Royal Mail’s Carolyn Doe. “Bev Jenkins is running the world half-marathon championship this weekend, so I had to replace her. But, I’m injured. I have a knee problem that I’ll have an operation for next month. So, it put some pressure on me because I knew I had to get around the course for the team.”

Added teammate Trudi Thomson, “We couldn’t have done this without her finishing. This is just great because so many times when you run, it’s an individual thing. This was a team effort and we couldn’t be happier.”

Their happy thoughts were shared by many on a day when 20 men broke 18 minutes, 22 former JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge individual champions ran, and the Series flew the flags of two new countries who will join the Corporate Challenge Series in 2004 – Singapore and South Africa.

The 21st annual Championship was the concluding event of the 27th season of the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge Series. Exactly 477 of the fastest corporate racers in the world took part the 3.5-mile Park Avenue course in midtown Manhattan.

As JPMorgan Chase's David Nolan speaks, flags fly from the United States and the Series' two new countries in 2004 - Singapore and South Africa.

Joining Stamps and the Royal Mail Letters’ female team in the winner’s circle were Frankfurt’s Roche Diagnostics Group, male champion Chris Davies of England, and Davies’ Royal Mail Letters male team.

“I wish we had a bit longer time here to celebrate,” said both Thomson and Davies, “but we’re heading back to England tomorrow. Today, we’re heading to the Empire State Building.”

Davies helped his own cause and that of his team by jumping out to a torrid start. He quickly built a huge lead and won easily, despite a late-race charge from 2000 male champion David Cullum of Merrill Lynch, San Francisco.

“That was my plan,” said Davies, fresh from being rated Britain’s No. 1 5,000-meter distance runner on the roads. “I’m comfortable with going out fast.”

“No,” he laughed when asked if he ever thought he had gone out too fast after it looked like he was in a different race. “I peeked around some turns during the race to check where everyone was, but I was never worried I had gone out too fast. That was my plan and that’s the way I like to run.”

Davies' quick 16:13 helped Royal Mail add the male team title by a mere nine seconds over runnerup Super Runner’s Shop of New York. Royal Mail’s 1:09:34 reflected individual times of 16:13, 17:33 (Gareth Deacon), 17:35 (James Jackson), and 18:13 (Peter Damon). San Francisco’s Merrill Lynch, the 2000 champions, was a close third in 1:10:15.

Meanwhile, Roche Diagnostics Group won the mixed team title for the fourth year in five, and the third in a row. The Frankfurt team powered past Saucony, Inc., of Boston to win in 1:18:38.

“This is great,” said Roche’s Matthias Koerner. “The experience of winning never gets old. We were nervous before the race, during the race, and after - here before the winners were announced.”

“What a super experience,” added teammate Katja Potthof. “We run right in the center of New York. It’s great.”

But, perhaps the most heartfelt feelings after victory came from Stamps. To her, just being able to run again after having that taken away from her because of a serious injury, was a victory in itself. The female Series title was icing on the cake.

Six in a row: Royal Mail Letters women's team, from left, Claire Martin, Carolyn Doe, Shirley Griffiths, and Trudi Thomson

Stamps, working as an assistant broker to the managing director at New York’s Bear Stearns, surprised many when, after years of absence from the running scene, she showed up in Central Park and won the second and third New York races this season. At the Series Championship, she took the early lead, was caught briefly at mile two by England’s Claire Martin, then sped away to victory in 19:37, more than a minute better than her last winning time in the third regular season New York race.

“I think I’m a little faster now and that this course is a little easier than Central Park,” said Stamps.

That she is able to run at all, and certainly at this level, is a remarkable, feel-good story. Stamps ran 9:16 for 3,000 meters, was a 4:39 miler, won the Kinney National Cross Country Championship in San Diego as a high school sophomore, and was a five-time NCAA national champion at Stanford her freshman and sophomore years. Then, injuries forced her to the sidelines her junior year. As a senior, she suffered severe injuries in a horrific accident while skateboarding. It was to change her life.

“My left leg was fractured in more than 100 places,” she said. “I had a halo (just like the more common neck halo) put on my leg for more than nine months. I wasn’t able to walk for a year and a half.”

The All-American, quintessential California girl closed a chapter of her young life. She moved to New York, began to learn the brokerage industry at Bear Stearns, found a boyfriend, and ... in June of 2002 took her first tentative steps back as a runner.

“It was everything to me,” she said of her feelings at that moment. “My love of running just came back stronger than ever. When you’re deprived of something so simple, so basic, then you get it back, you realize that it is a huge gift. I loved running, am loving it, more than ever.”

Her life, she admits, is far different now than it might have been. Still just 24, she has found a balance with her career at Bear Stearns and her rekindled commitment to running.

“That’s why this victory means so much to me,” she said. “There’s a beautiful balance in my life now with work and running, and this event reflects that perfectly.”

Next week, Stamps will take many additional steps in her running comeback when she races in the Chicago Marathon.

“Who knows,” she says, “what will happen?”

Life has taught her that the only certainty is change, and that you need to appreciate the good times when they come. She, and many others, did just that at the 2003 JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge Championship.