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Following her failure to finish the 10,000m at the 1988 Olympic Games due
to a foot injury, Ingrid Kristiansen returned to competition in 1989
seemingly as good as ever. On 1 July at the Bislett Games in Oslo, the
venue of many of her earlier world records, she won the 10,000m in 30min
48.51 sec (see photo above). This was the fastest time of the
year and the third fastest in history, and she was the only woman who
had ever run faster. On 9 September at the World Cup in Barcelona, she
was narrowly beaten by Kathrin Ullrich (East Germany) in the 10,000m,
with the rest of the field over 30 seconds behind. On the road she won
her second Boston marathon by over 4 minutes in 2hr 24min 33sec on 17
April, and returned to the USA in November to win the New York City
marathon in 2hr 25min 30sec, the two fastest times of 1989.
She gave
birth to her daughter and second child Marte on 1 August 1990, and
consequently did not compete during the 1990 season. She returned to
competition in 1991 with some good performance, but it was obvious that
age and parental responsibilities were catching up with her. At the
Boston marathon on 15 April, she came 6th in 2hr 29min 24sec behind
Wanda Panfil (Poland) in the fastest race of the year. She clocked
15min 33.39sec to win the Norwegian national 5,000m championships at Fana
on 4 August, and six days later, at Hechtel, she won a 10,000m event in
31min 20.28sec. These times ranked her respectively 7th and 4th over
these distances in 1991. In the 10,000m at the 1991 World Championships
in Tokyo on 30 August, a race run in extremely hot and humid conditions,
she finished 7th behind Liz McColgan (Great Britain) in the her final
international competition. (Ron Casey) She retired in 1993.
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