September 11, 2004 AMERICANS NIPPERT, RIDDLE SHINE AT 100K WORLD CUP Winschoten, The Netherlands: At today's 100K World Cup, run on a flat, 10km loop around this small city in the northeast part of the country, Americans Howard Nippert and Anne Riddle finally broke through after flirting around the edges of world-class success for over half a decade each. Nippert, of Blacksburg, Virginia bettered his 100K personal best by some 18 minutes in recording a remarkably even-paced 6:43:12 to take 7th overall in this most competitive of kilometric century events. His distaff American counterpart achieved her personal best by 15 minutes, becoming the first American woman in 5 years to break 8 hours for the 62.1 mile distance. The Asheville, North Carolina resident notched a 7:56:48 to finish 6th among women, almost evenly matching her two 50K splits. In a race where the early pace is always furious, the attrition rate high, and the average second half slowdown curve about 10-12%, the American pair's 2-3% late-race deceleration had them apparently coming out of nowhere to mow through hordes of the world's finest ultrarunners from every continent. Riddle's American National teammates Nikki Kimball of Livingston, Montana and Ann Heaslett of Madison, Wisconsin ran 8:27:22 and 8:36:08, respectively to leave them just shy of the team medals podium. Italy's Mario Ardemagni (6:18:22) and Russia's Tatiano Zhyrkova (7:10:33) were crowned the new individual World Champions. Check the LIVE webcast of today's concurrent American National 100 Mile Championship (www.americanultra.org) for interspersed reports on how the the World 100K race developed, and for complete results of American runners.