BEIJING -- A year ago, Anna Willard didn't make the finals of the 3,000-meter steeplechase in her first venture into international competition, the world championships in Osaka, Japan.

So she set a goal: Get to the Olympics and make the finals.

That she did, qualifying Friday for the inaugural steeplechase finals.

After her performance Sunday, she is determined to improve even more.

Willard, the Greenwood native and Telstar High graduate, finished 10th in the Olympics steeplechase Sunday night in 9 minutes, 25.63 seconds, unable to keep up with the world-record pace the leaders raced all night.

It was a perfect night for running -- cool, no breeze, a full moon hanging over National Stadium -- and Willard kept to her game plan.

She has one of the best kicks in the final 500 meters, so she just wanted to stay close enough to use it. But the leaders would have no part of it.

Russia's Gulnara Galkina-Samitova went out fast and ended up becoming the first woman to break nine minutes in the event, winning in 8:58.81 seconds.

The lead pack kept pulling away, but Willard didn't want to push it.

"I knew that they were going to go after it," she said. "I didn't want to get caught in that because if I went out with them it would have been an ugly last two laps.

"So I just made sure, just stay off the pack, don't feel I have to go all-out and don't feel I'm out of the race just because I'm in the back. I knew that I could keep going and pass the women who had gone out too fast."

For some reason, and Willard's not sure why, that didn't happen.

"Everything was working to plan, I actually felt decent," she said. "It just didn't seem like I was picking it up at all. Maybe the women in front were picking it up. I mean, I did all I could."

Fellow American Jenny Barringer felt the same thing about the pace -- that it would be fast -- and she didn't want to get caught up with it either. Barringer finished ninth in 9:22.26, breaking the American record Willard set in the U.S. trials (9:27.59) on July 3.

The difference between the two was that Barringer was able to find that extra push down the stretch that Willard couldn't.

"There was a point with about two laps to go where I said I need to run on the edge like I haven't before," Barringer said. "I needed to risk it because if you're not going to do it in the Olympics finals with beautiful weather, when else are you going to do it? I crossed the finish line excited but absolutely exhausted."

Willard will leave the Olympics in three days. She will return to the United States for a week and then head to Europe to compete in the 1,500 meters. No more steeplechases this year.

"There are only a finite number of steeplechases you can do in a year," she said.

And she will think about what happened. Overall, she said, she accomplished many goals. She won the U.S. trials and made it to the Olympic finals.

"So I guess in the whole scheme of things I accomplished that goal," she said.

But like last year, her season didn't end like she wanted.

"You did what you wanted to the year before but then you get to the finals and realize you didn't do that well," she said. "So next year (the goal is) making the finals (in the worlds) and doing a lot better than (10th)."