To watch a replay of the race, click HERE.
FINAL RESULTS

SEARCY – Harding alum Janet Cherobon-Bawcom shattered her personal-best time and placed 12th in the 10,000 meters at the 2012 Olympics on Friday in London.

Cherobon-Bawcom, Harding's first-ever graduate to appear in the Olympic Games, finished in 31 minutes, 12.68 seconds. She placed second of the three American runners, just under two seconds behind 11th-place Amy Hastings (31:10.69).

Cherobon-Bawcom qualified for the Olympics by running a previous personal-best time of 31:33.50 in Palo Alto, Calif., in April. She was one of only four Americans to run below the Olympic “A” standard of 31:45.00.

In her career at Harding from 2002-05, Cherobon-Bawcom won three Division II national championships, including the outdoor 10,000 meters in 2005. Her time in that race was 34:21.80. She was also a six-time All-American in track and field.

Tirunish Dibaba of Ethiopia won her second consecutive Olympic gold medal in the 10,000 meters. She finished in 30:20.75, ahead of Kenyans Sally Kipyego (30:26.37) and Vivian Cheruiyot (30:30.44).

Cherobon-Bawcom, the 2011 U.S. road-racing national champion, ran with the lead pack of 15 runners through the first 4,000 meters. Midway through the race she was near the back of that group.

As the race continued, the lead pack thinned out, and the three American runners ran together through the last half of the race.

Twenty-one runners finished the race with 10 of them setting new personal bests on a cool, 59-degree night in London. The race started at 9:30 p.m. local time.

A crowd of more than 300 fans and friends, including Cherobon-Bawcom's sister Joan Cheptum, watched the race on two giant-screen televisions in Harding's Charles White Dining Hall. Jocelyn Tovar of KARK News 4, the NBC affiliate in Little Rock, was on hand for the watch party and filmed a segment to air on tonight's newscasts.