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Razorback Report: Cross country runner named National Athlete of the Week

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Taylor Hodges|
Arkansas's Timothy Chesondin sets a new course record at the 37th annual Chile Pepper Festival.
Arkansas's Timothy Chesondin sets a new course record at the 37th annual Chile Pepper Festival. | Arkansas Communications

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Arkansas Razorbacks

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas cross country runner Timothy Chesondin set a new course record at the 37th Chile Pepper Festival this past weekend.

Chesondin won the 8,000-meter race with a time that was fourth-tenths of a second faster than the mark of 22-minutes, 57-seconds, set 2024 by Arkansas’s Kirami Yego.

It was a performance impressive enough for him to be named the USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week.

In improving his previous time of 23:23.6 on the Agri Park course from placing third in the 2024 Chile Pepper Festival, Chesondin finished 16 seconds ahead of teammate Brian Masai, the runner-up in 23:10.2, to claim the 2025 individual title.

Chesondin becomes the first Razorback to receive the men’s national cross country honor since Stanley Kebenei in 2013.

Chesondin’s performance was just part of a larger effort by the Razorbacks to capture the men’s title at the Chile Pepper Festival.

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“First and foremost it’s about winning,” Arkansas men’s coach Chris Bucknam said . “We want to win the race, that’s what we line up to do. That’s our No. 1 priority.

“I’m very happy with our performance, placing four in the top five. Very pleased with how we ran, for the most part as a team. But as you can see we have a big gap between our fourth and fifth guy. We have a lot of work to do to close that gap.”

Buckham made sure there was no doubt about the legitimacy of what took place.

"Timothy set a course record on a warm day," Buckham said. "The course is in great shape and so he basically ran by himself pretty much the whole way. This is an accurate 8k course, so it’s an accurate assessment of where he’s at.”

Yesterday’s Results

No games played.

Today’s Schedule

No games scheduled.

Did You Notice?

  • Mondays mean lots of overreactions from fans, even fans of teams on a bye week. But Monday's also mean there's going to be a new episode of SEC Shorts and SEC Roll Call. Check out both YouTube series if you need a laugh.
  • Arkansas soccer moved up in at least one of the major top 25 polls for women's college soccer after its 4-2 comeback win against then-No. 13 Mississippi State. The Razorbacks (7-2-3, 5-0-1 SEC) are now ranked No. 6 overall in the TopDrawerSoccer Women's College Soccer National Rankings. They're the second-highest ranked SEC team behind No. 3 Tennessee (11-1-1, 5-1 SEC).
  • The SEC announced the kick-off time for Arkansas’s game against No. 5 Texas A&M on Monday, scheduling the game for 2:30 p.m. The game will be televised on ESPN.
  • The 2026 season opens in less than 100 days for Arkansas gymnastics, and the full schedule has been released. The Razorbacks are set to compete in 11 regular season meets with five at home in Bud Walton Arena, including eight SEC matches. The season starts with a trip north as Arkansas is set to take on the Minnesota Golden Gophers in Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 10.

We’ll Leave You With This

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Taylor Hodges
TAYLOR HODGES

Award-winning sports editor, writer, columnist, and photographer with 15 years’ experience offering his opinion and insight about the sports world in Mississippi and Texas, but he was taken to Razorback pep rallies at Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth before he could walk. Taylor has covered all levels of sports, from small high schools in the Mississippi Delta to NFL games. Follow Taylor on Twitter and Facebook.

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