Galen Rupp will count on his finishing speed in London

The distance runner from Portland, Ore., is used to precipitation. Rupp won the 10,000 meters at the U.S. Olympic trials in nearby Eugene in a downpour.

He knows that several of the medal favorites in his events will be runners from African countries, who prefer the hot climate over cold and rain.

"So I'd definitely welcome that if that was the case," he says of the cool, damp conditions expected for London. The Games will be held July 27-Aug. 12.

Rupp can let it rip in dry weather, too. He also won the trials 5,000 with a blistering 52-second final lap to beat Bernard Lagat for the first time in more than a dozen tries and break the Olympic trials record set by the legendary Steve Prefontaine on the same track in 1972.

Based on those performances, Rupp could break a 48-year drought. No American has won an Olympic medal in his events since Billy Mills' famous upset victory in the 10,000 in 1964.

Rupp, 26, the American 10K record holder, has been coached by marathon great Alberto Salazar for his entire career, now as part of the Nike Oregon Project.

"It's dumb luck, I guess, but he was coach at my high school when I ran cross country my freshman year," Rupp said.

Realizing he needed to concentrate on one sport if he wanted to excel, he chose running over soccer.

"Alberto never pressured me," Rupp said. "When you have a world record holder telling you that you could be good at running ? you might have a bright future ? that obviously weighs a lot on your decision."

I was on Cloud 9 after the 5,000. First I was just hoping to make the Olympic team, and then to win the race and hear afterwards that I got Steve Prefontaine's record, it was unbelievable. He's obviously an inspiration to all runners, especially to me. Being from the state of Oregon, he's always someone I looked up to.

I've been running against Bernard (Lagat) for a long time, and he's pretty much owned me up to this point, so it was good to finally be up there with him. I was really happy just to get the win in that race.

Whenever I've met Billy Mills, he always says, "Don't ever count yourself out. I wasn't expected to win or anything, but I ended up staying within myself and finishing hard. You never know what can happen in a race." So that's a good message for sure.

It would be great to get a medal over there, but we've always taken a real long term approach. My coach Alberto Salazar preached that from Day 1. We've done everything I think that we can to put myself in a good position to do well, but you just have to control what you can. Three great guys could have the most unbelievable race and you could run the best race of your life and finish fourth.

I'm hoping to be there with a lap to go. We've been working on my finishing speed a lot so we'll see what happens at that point. You've just got to be ready to sprint and try to save as much energy as you can during the race so you can use it in the last little bit.

I still play soccer a lot. Mo Farah (of Great Britain), the guy I train with, we're always kicking a soccer ball around before workouts. Alberto gets mad at us. He's like, "Don't get hurt," and "You guys better start warming up now."

I've got a lot of shoes. My wife gives me a really hard time about that. I've probably got 30-35 pairs of just Air Jordans. I don't know if you'd say it's a collection because I wear them. I don't run in them, but I usually wear them around during the day.

There's no relation between me and (former Kentucky basketball coach) Adolph Rupp. Lots have asked me that. Sometimes when I feel like messing around with people I'll tell them that there is, "They named that court after my grandfather or something like that."

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