Running News Daily

Elle St. Pierre Upsets World Record-Holder to Win First World Championship Title

A year after giving birth, St. Pierre won gold in the 3,000 meters at the World Indoor Championships.

On Saturday, March 2, Elle St. Pierre threw down an electrifying kick to beat two-time world champion Gudaf Tsegay for gold at the 2024 World Indoor Championships. Running for Team USA, St. Pierre won the women’s 3,000 meters in 8:20.87, breaking the American record and championship record. Ethiopia’s Tsegay finished second in 8:21.13, and Beatrice Chepkoech ran a Kenyan national record when she placed third in 8:22.68, rounding out the podium of a thrilling race at Commonwealth Arena in Glasgow, Scotland.

The event began with Tsegay setting an aggressive early pace. With the 5,000-meter world record-holder out in front, Chepkoech, St. Pierre, and Jessica Hull of Australia followed. Running patiently, St. Pierre maintained contact in fourth place for much of the race. Together, the pack passed through the first 1600 meters in 4:29.

By 2,000 meters, the top four created a gap between the rest of the field. With two laps remaining, Tsegay attempted to break away from her rivals but she couldn’t shake Chepkoech and St. Pierre, who looked ready to strike at any moment.

At the bell, St. Pierre began to make her move to the front. To the cheers of a roaring crowd, the 29-year-old passed the Olympic bronze medalist on the homestretch. St. Pierre is the first American in history to win gold in the event. She is now No. 3 on the world all-time list two years after earning silver at the 2022 World Indoor Championships.

“It’s a dream come true,” St. Pierre told reporters after the race. “I don’t think it’s fully sunk in quite yet, but it feels amazing to be here with my family and my teammate, Emily [Mackay], and my coach in Scotland.”

In the mixed zone, St. Pierre said she expected a fast race but knew she could use her miler speed to close well if she put herself in position with the leaders, and that’s exactly what she did.

The victory took place two days before her son, Ivan, celebrates his first birthday. St. Pierre said not racing much last summer allowed her to build up mileage, resulting in a stunning postpartum comeback. “Having a baby has only made me stronger,” she said.

St. Pierre’s increased strength was evident three weeks prior to the World Championships. At the 2024 Millrose Games on February 11, the two-time world indoor medalist broke her own American record when she won the women’s Wanamaker mile in 4:16.41.

With the 2024 Paris Olympics fast approaching, St. Pierre looks poised to make a major leap from her 10th-place finish in the 1500 meters at the Tokyo Games.

ST. PIERRE'S MILE RECORD EARNS HER USATF ATHLETE OF THE WEEK HONORS

INDIANAPOLIS — Bettering her own American record* in the women's mile, Elle St. Pierre (Enosburg, Vermont/USATF New England) earned recognition as the 5th USATF Athlete of the Week award winner for 2024.In only her second track race since giving birth to a son last March, St. Pierre clipped almost a half-second off her own AR in the mile to win the Millrose Games in 4:16.41. She became the third fastest woman ever and her en route 1500 time of 4:00.34 puts her second on the all-time U.S. indoor performer list.St. Pierre, the 2022 World Indoor Championships silver medalist in the 3000 and an Olympian at Tokyo in the 1500, beat a star-studded field at Millrose, making a strong move with 300 to go to pass Australia's Jessica Hull and take the lead. Her final quarter-mile of 61.33 put away a group of women who behind her set four national records and eight lifetime bests. Other top performances from last week:

Grant Fisher lowered the American best in the men's 2 mile with an 8:03.62 to place second at the Millrose Games. He is now the No. 3 all-time world performer. En route, his 7:30.88 for 3000 moved him to No. 3 on the all-time U.S. performer list.

Alicia Monson lowered the American best in the women's 2 mile at the Millrose Games, placing third in 9:09.70. She is now the No. 5 all-time world performer.

Yared Nuguse won the men's mile at the Millrose Games in 3:47.83, the third fastest time ever indoors, and the second fastest by an American. His en route 3:33.43 for 1500 was the third fastest ever by an American.

Brandon Miller won the men's 600 at the Kirby Elite meet in Albuquerque in 1:14.03, making him the No. 2 all-time world performer.

Nia Akins won the women's 600 at the Kirby Elite meet in Albuquerque in a world-leading 1:24.32 to move to No. 8 on the all-time world performer list.

Grant Holloway continued his 10-year winning streak in the men's 60H with a 7.32 at the Liévin World Indoor Tour - Gold meet in France. He tied the fourth-fastest time ever and only one man besides him has ever run faster.

*All records subject to verification by the USATF Records Committee. Now in its 23nd year, USATF’s Athlete of the Week program is designed to recognize outstanding performers at all levels of the sport. USATF names a new honoree each week when there are high-level competitions and features the athlete on USATF.org. Selections are based on top performances and results from the previous week.2024 Winners: January 17, Weini Kelati; January 24, Cooper Teare; January 31, Nico Young; February 7, Fiona O'Keeffe; February 14, Elle St. Pierre.

American sprint legend claims top athletes are avoiding each other at major meetings due to low pay

Sprint legend Michael Johnson feels top athletes have been skipping meetings pitting them against their bitter rivals because there is not enough incentive to entice them.

American sprint legend Michael Johnson believes top athletes would not be skipping meetings against their bitter rivals over some flimsy reasons if the pay was good.

Johnson has been an advocate of better pay for athletes, calling on World Athletics to improve on their welfare, while also urging runners to speak out so that they can be taken seriously by the powers that be.

While commenting on sentiments made by multiple world champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who claimed he could beat his bitter rival Josh Kerr while blindfolded, a fan said it was highly unlikely that the two runners will clash any time soon because athletics authorities ‘do not like the idea.’

“One of them is definitely pulling out with an “injury” bc [because] there is no way we are going to get this good of a moment from the track and field gods,” said the fans.

Replying to the comment, Johnson said: “If the money goes up, the “injuries” will go down.”

It is another dig aimed at those in charge of the sport, ramping up the pressure on the need for athletes to get better pay so that fans have an opportunity to witness the best competing against each other.

Johnson, who won four Olympic Gold medals and eight World Championship titles, fired one of his many salvos last month when fans appeared to casually dismiss track and field athletes as amateurs.

“The number of people in the replies who think a track & field Olympic and World Champion is an amateur athlete is a major indictment of those in charge of the sport,” Johnson posted on social media after Pole vault Olympic and world champion Katie Moon had questioned why the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission had never nominated a female athlete for the Athlete of the Year award.

Ingebrigtsen stocked the fires on Friday when responding to Kerr’s impressive outing at the 2024 Millrose Games.

Kerr of Great Britain set a new indoor two-mile world record, running 8:00.67 to take down Mo Farah’s time of 8:03.40.

However, Ingebrigtsen seemed to dismiss his performance, claiming he could have beaten him in the two-mile “blindfolded” despite the fact that Kerr defeated him to claim 1,500m gold at the 2023 World Championships.

World 60m hurdles records for Holloway and Jones in Albuquerque

By running the fastest time in hurdling history on Friday (16), Grant Holloway also extended one of the sport’s longest stretches of dominance.

On the first day of the US Indoor Championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Holloway ran 7.27* in the heats to break his own 60m hurdles world record before skipping the final hours later because he was already assured of a berth on the US team bound for the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow next month. 

The victory was Holloway’s 60th consecutive at the senior 60m hurdles, part of an astounding, decade-long streak that has left him still the only hurdler all time to dip under 7.30, a feat he has now achieved three times. That longevity and speed ensures he will arrive at Glasgow the prohibitive favourite to win a second straight world indoor gold medal – what he called the “main goal” of this season.

“I knew it was going to be a good one after I got out of the blocks,” Holloway said. “My main thing was just to continue going through with my steps and my rhythm. I wasn’t too upset about it but, you know, 7.27 at a nice track is always a good thing.”

With Holloway a spectator for Friday’s final, Trey Cunningham’s comeback season continued with a personal best 7.39 to claim his first national indoor title. The silver medallist at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Oregon, Cunningham was hobbled by an injured back and hamstring in 2023, but has returned to form. 

Holloway’s world record run came only 20 minutes after another. Tia Jones equalled the women’s world record in the 60m hurdles by clocking 7.67* in the heats to match the mark set by Devynne Charlton of The Bahamas just five days earlier at the Millrose Games.

After crossing the finish line and bouncing off the facility’s protective padding, Jones glanced at the clock and initially turned away – before doing a double-take when recognising she had just equalled Charlton’s mark. 

In the final more than two hours later, Jones nearly matched her record yet again. Her winning time of 7.68 was 0.10 ahead of Jasmine Jones.

They were not the only favourites to win convincingly on the championships’ first day.

World-leading marks were set by Daniel Haugh, whose weight throw of 26.35m also broke the US record; Chase Jackson, who led the shot put from her first attempt and won it on her third with a mark of 20.02m; and long jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall, who described herself as “shocked” after leaping a personal best of 7.18m. Despite acknowledging that she was struggling with her approach on her final four jumps, Davis-Woodhall’s mark moves her to No.6 on the all-time list indoors.

“I think we have more in the tank,” said Davis-Woodall. 

In the pole vault, Chris Nilsen set a US Championships record with his winning vault of 6.00m, ahead of Sam Kendricks, who cleared 5.95m. Nilsen missed once and Kendricks twice at a US record height of 6.05m, before Nilsen raised the bar to 6.10m and missed two more attempts at the record. In one of the night’s few instances where a top contender stumbled, KC Lightfoot finished eighth on 5.65m.

Elle St. Pierre, the only racer in the 3000m with the World Indoor Championships standard, ran alone for much of the final to win in 8:54.40, nearly nine seconds ahead of second-placed Josette Andrews. Countries are allowed two entrants per event for the World Indoor Championships – unless they also have a wild card entry in certain disciplines due to athletes winning the World Indoor Tour in 2023 or 2024, as is the case for Holloway – and competitors must either own their event’s qualifying standard or, if not, advance via world ranking.

Expecting a tactical race, St. Pierre, who was accustomed to racing at Albuquerque’s altitude after months of training at elevation in Arizona, took control of the pace early. If she qualifies for the World Indoor Championships in the 1500m as well, St. Pierre indicated she “would just focus on the 3km” in Glasgow.

Like St. Pierre, Yared Nuguse entered his own 3000m final as the only racer already owning the standard for the World Indoor Championships. Unlike St. Pierre, he waited out a slower, more strategic race with his kick to win in 7:55.76.

Running in fifth through 1400m, Nuguse moved up to stay patient in second until taking the lead entering the bell lap. He never let it go by closing the final 400m in 54.39 to edge Olin Hacker, who was second in 7:56.22. Nuguse set the US mile record last year, but said he and his coach had aimed for the 3000m in Glasgow out of a desire to maintain the strength he’d accumulated during winter training.

Will Nuguse race Josh Kerr in Glasgow, in what would be a showdown of top 1500m medal contenders stepping up to a longer distance? Kerr, fresh off running 8:00.67 for two miles at the Millrose Games, has not tipped his hand. 

“Honestly, I like the suspense factor,” Nuguse said. “Maybe he’ll be there, maybe he won’t. It’s great.”

Vashti Cunningham’s reign in the high jump continued, needing only three jumps and never missing en route to winning her eighth consecutive indoor national title at 1.92m. Cunningham will enter Glasgow in position to add to her gold and silver medals earned at previous World Indoor Championships, as her season’s best of 1.97m is tied for third-best in the world this season. 

The men’s high jump saw another repeat champion, as Shelby McEwen leapt 2.28m to retain his title. McEwen has not yet met the World Indoor Championships standard of 2.34m, but could advance based on world ranking.

In other finals, Chris Carter won the men’s triple jump on his last attempt, though his mark of 16.49m remains short of the world indoor standard. Nick Christie claimed the men’s 3000m race walk in 11:56.06, and Miranda Melville claimed the women’s title in 13:55.24.

Women’s 60m hurdles world record falls at 2024 Millrose Games

Bahamian hurdler Devynne Charlton broke the women's 60m hurdles world record, which has stood since 2008.

Bahamian hurdler Devynne Charlton kicked off Sunday’s Millrose Games in New York City in record-setting style. Charlton broke the women’s 60m hurdles world record in 7.67 seconds, surpassing the previous record set by Sweden’s Susanna Kallur in 2008 by a hundredth of a second.

Charlton, the world indoor silver medalist in the 60m hurdles event, secured her victory by 0.12 of a second over the two-time world 100m hurdles champion Danielle Williams of Jamaica, with American Tia Jones taking third place in the same time of 7.80 seconds.

“I knew I had it in me, but it took a lot to put that race together,” said Charlton in a post-race interview with NBC Sports. “I felt good in my prep leading up to today. I got the start that I needed. I just held it. I can’t say it was more than that.”

With only three weeks remaining until the 2024 World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Charlton is poised to be one of the favorites to win the women’s 60m hurdles.

Charlton is the sole Bahamian athlete to hold a world indoor record.

In the men’s 60m, Andre De Grasse finished eighth in a season’s best time of 6.62 seconds, only 0.02 seconds off his personal best of 6.62 from 2015. 

Josh Kerr breaks Mo Farah's indoor two-mile record at Millrose Games Feb 11

Great Britain's Josh Kerr broke Mo Farah's world two-mile indoor record as he won at the Millrose Games in New York.

World 1500m gold medallist Kerr ran eight minutes 0.67 seconds to beat Farah's mark of 8:03.40 from 2015.

"It was always going to be really tough, small margins," Kerr, 26, said.

Kerr's fellow Scot Laura Muir set a new British indoor record as she won the women's two-mile race after Ethiopia's Medina Eisa was disqualified.

Eisa was first home in New York but cut in too early on the opening lap.

Muir, 30, was promoted from second to first after finishing in nine minutes and 4.84 seconds.

The Olympic 1500m silver medallist, who won the Wanamaker Mile at last year's Millrose Games, will look to win the world indoor title in Glasgow next month.

In the men's two-mile race, Kerr charged at the finish to defeat Grant Fisher, who set an American national record of 8:03.62.

Farah set the previous world indoor best at Birmingham nine years ago.

"I had to roll with the punches at the start of my career - pretty good but not world class," said Kerr. 

"And then to be world class and now world champion... I'm having fun with it, creating big goals to get myself out the door and prove I'm not all talk."

World record holder Christian Coleman going for third victory at Millrose Games

World record holder Christian Coleman will be aiming for his third straight victory at the Millrose Games after bagging wins in 2022 and 2023.

World record-holder Christian Coleman will be seeking his third straight 60m victory at the Millrose Games, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in New York on Sunday, February 11.

Coleman will be opening his season at the event after a mixed 2023 season where he lost some races and emerged victorious in others.

He completed his season at the Prefontaine Classic, the Diamond League final meeting where he stunned triple World Champion Noah Lyles.

At the Millrose Games, he will be up against Canada’s Olympic 200m champion Andre De Grasse, who has not run the 60m at Millrose since 2016.

Jamaica’s Ackeem Blake, who set a PB of 6.45 in his first-ever indoor 60m race last weekend in Boston, should also prove to be a nightmare for the American.

Meanwhile, Tia Jones turned heads in Boston last week when she sped to victory in the 60m hurdles, clocking 7.72 – just 0.04 shy of the world indoor record.

At the Millrose Games, Jones will take on the likes of two-time world champion Danielle Williams, two-time world indoor champion Nia Ali, defending Millrose champion Devynne Charlton of The Bahamas, and NCAA champion Ackera Nugent of Jamaica.

Sprint sensation Julien Alfred is opening her season after an incredible 2023 campaign. The Saint Lucian star, who was undefeated last year in the 60m and 100m until placing fifth in the 100m at the World Championships in Budapest, will line up against Jamaicans Shashalee Forbes and Briana Williams and US contenders Tamara Clark and English Gardner.

In the men’s 60m hurdles, 2022 world silver medallist Trey Cunningham of the US, who is second on the world list, will take on a strong slate that includes 2023 world bronze medallist Daniel Roberts.

On her part, Alicia Monson broke the North American record in the 3000m last year at Millrose and is on a mission to win her third straight title on this track – with a record perhaps in a different event.

The two-mile distance is one more lap than 3000m and her ultimate goal is the continental record of 9:10.28. Monson will be in fast company with Olympic 1500m silver medalist Laura Muir of Great Britain, US mile record-holder Nikki Hiltz, and world U20 5000m champion Medina Eisa of Ethiopia.

World indoor silver medalist Elle St Pierre will vie for her third title in the women’s Wanamaker Mile with the race being a rematch between herself, and Jessica Hull of Australia, who won their showdown in the 3000m last week with an Oceanian indoor record.

Olympic 800m bronze medalist Raevyn Rogers, who contested the 400m last week in Boston, returns to her specialty at Millrose and will face Jamaica’s Natoya Goule-Toppin.

Noah Kibet and Bryce Hoppel, the world indoor silver and bronze medalists respectively, will clash in the men’s 800m.

Josh Kerr puts Jakob Ingebrigtsen's beef aside as he focuses on next assignment

Scottish middle-distance runner Josh Kerr is not focusing on Jakob Ingebrigtsen's comments about him as he is eyeing another major assignment where he will attempt to attack the two-mile world record.

Reigning World 1500m champion Josh Kerr is not focusing on track rival Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s sentiments as he gears up for the Millrose Games on Sunday, February 11.

Kerr and Ingebrigtsen started their beef last year after the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary where the Scottish man bet the Norwegian to second place in the 1500m.

Kerr then rekindled the beef saying that Ingebrigtsen has a lot to work on when it comes to his manners on and off the track.

The Scot emphasised that the Norwegian has a “high ego” and is used to being surrounded by “yes men”, making it difficult for him to understand that there is a difference between respect and antipathy.

The reigning World 5000m champion, Ingebrigtsen has been out of competition due to an injury and he just made a comeback to the limelight announcing that he is expecting a child with his wife.

As per Letsrun.com, Ingebrigtsen also addressed Kerr, noting that he thinks the latter is just looking for attention ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris, France.

He said: “I realized that there was “something,” but I can’t quite say what it was. Let’s call it a desperate attempt. And I don’t think that was so smart. It might look silly at some point.”

However, Kerr seems unshaken by his sentiments and he is firmly eyeing his next assignment where he intends to make history.

He will tackle the two miles with Mo Farah’s world record of 8:03.40 in his sights. Kerr will be up against US 5000m and 10,000m record-holder Grant Fisher and Olympic 1500m sixth-placer Cole Hocker, New Zealander Geordie Beamish, and former US 1500m champion Cooper Teare.

“In February, I’m still coming off really high base training and I still want to be toward 5000m at that time of year. A two-mile just fits in perfectly where it is a bit speedier, but it’s not the mile,” he said as per Athletics Weekly.

Kenyan runner gets four-year ban for sending doppelgänger to take drug test

The former indoor 600m world record holder, Michael Saruni of Kenya, was handed a four-year ban on Feb. 1, by the Anti-Doping Association of Kenya (ADAK) for sending a friend to impersonate him during a drug test at the 2022 Kenyan Trials for the 2022 World Championships.

According to the ADAK report, Saruni was found guilty of “evading sample collection, or without compelling justification, refusing, and running away.” In June 2022, the ADAK Doping Control Officer (DCO) notified Saruni that he was to undergo doping control after competing in the 800m final at the Kenyan trials, and was required to provide blood and urine samples. “It was further alleged that the athlete adamantly evaded, refused, and failed to give a sample or submit to sample collection and by collusion or trickery escaped or left the venue.”

The ADAK panel added that Saruni asked a lookalike to impersonate him and provide a sample on his behalf. According to the report, Saruni had locked himself in a toilet stall. Then the DCO allegedly watched someone moving to Saruni’s stall. When approached to identify, he ran for it and allegedly jumped over a perimeter wall at the venue. Saruni claimed he had never been summoned by testers at the Kenyan trials. He is banned until Aug. 30, 2027.

Saruni was the former world record holder for 600m indoors, with a personal best of 1:14.79. He is also the Kenyan national record holder for 800m indoors, running 1:43.98 at the 2019 Millrose Games.

Although we are only two months into 2024, Saruni’s suspension could be an early candidate for the craziest doping ban of the year. I wonder if he and his doppelgänger are still friends, or if he got a refund for his services, since the lookalike didn’t pull it off.

There are currently 75 Kenyan athletes on the AIU’s Global List of Ineligible Persons. The Kenyan government is in the second year of its $25 million, five-year campaign to test more athletes and eliminate doping in athletics. The AIU is working with the Kenyan government, Athletics Kenya and ADAK to combat the issue.

Rhasidat Adeleke and Talitha Diggs head to Millrose Games

The past two women’s NCAA 400m champions, Rhasidat Adeleke and Talitha Diggs, will line up for a 300m clash at the Millrose Games in New York on February 11.

Racing them at this season’s penultimate World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting will be Jamaica’s Leah Anderson and Candice McLeod.

Adeleke has already made a strong start to 2024 as she ran 7.15 for 60m and 22.49 for 200m to improve her own Irish indoor records in Albuquerque on 20 January.

The 21-year-old, who finished fourth in the world 400m final last year in Budapest, has raced 300m once before, in 2022 when she ran a national record of 36.87.

In New York she’ll go up against the athlete who preceded her as NCAA 400m champion, Diggs.

USA’s Diggs is set to make her season debut at this weekend’s World Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Boston, where she will also race the 300m.

New York offers a rematch as her PB of 36.37 was set when winning ahead of Adeleke in Clemson in 2022.

Anderson finished third in last year’s Millrose Games 300m in 36.68, while Olympic and world 4x400m medallist McLeod is set to race the distance for the first time.

Joining the already announced Alicia Monson in the two-mile race in New York will be North American mile record-holder Nikki Hiltz, who won the US 1500m title last year and started 2024 by running 2:34.09 for 1000m.

They will race against a field featuring USA’s Emily Infeld and Courtney Wayment, Japan’s Nozomi Tanaka, and Ethiopia’s Medina Eisa and Melknat Wudu.

In the high jump, the previously announced Yaroslava Mahuchikh will compete against 2016 world indoor champion Vashti Cunningham, NCAA champion Charity Griffith and Asian Games champion Safina Sadullayeva.

Stellar Field Assembled to Challenge Yared Nuguse in the NYRR Men's Wanamaker Mile

The 116th Millrose Games is now just 19 days away, as the eyes of the global athletics community will once again return to the Nike Track & Field Center at The Armory. As always, the meet will conclude with the NYRR Men’s Wanamaker Mile, a legendary race with over a century of tradition.

The Millrose Games is scheduled to take place on Sunday, February 11th.

Previously announced as the headliner for this race is defending champion Yared Nuguese, the American record holder in the mile indoors and outdoors. Nuguse has his eyes on the world record of 3:47.01, but he will have to contend with a number of the best athletes in the world if he is to win his second straight Wanamaker title, including two additional 1500m finalists from last summer’s World Championships.

“[The world record] feels like a goal that’s within my grasp of achieving.” said Nuguse. “Not only am I stronger and smarter than I was last year, but I feel like I will be able to attack this race with a lot more confidence to chase the world record. When I went to Millrose for the first time, I was just chasing the American record. So changing that mindset, just seeing how far I’ve come, it feels like a very real possibility at this point.”

The elite athletes lining up to challenge Nuguse are as follows:

-Mario Garcia Romo was last year’s runner-up, and he is the 2022 1500m champion for Spain and a two-time World Championship finalist.

-Neil Gourley is a three-time British 1500m champion, and he holds the European indoor mile record.

-George Mills placed third in the mile at the Diamond League final, moving up to third on the all-time British list, before also placing second at the NYRR 5th Avenue Mile.

-Hobbs Kessler is the reigning World Road Mile champion, and he also holds the national high school indoor mile record.

-Andrew Coscoran is an Olympian and the Irish record holder over 1500m.

-Adam Spencer of the University of Wisconsin and Australia holds the NCAA 1500m record.

-Sam Prakel is the US Road Mile champion, and he placed fourth nationally in the 1500m.

-Charles Philibert-Thiboutot is a Canadian Olympian and the 2023 NACAC 1500m champion.

The winner of the mile at the Dr. Sander Invitational this Saturday, January 27th will be added to the NYRR Wanamaker Mile field as well.

Stay tuned over the coming weeks before the 116th Millrose Games, as the world-class start lists are finalized. Top athletes already confirmed to compete include Laura Muir, Elle Purrier-St. Pierre, Dina Asher-Smith, Julien Alfred, Alicia Monson, Grant Fisher, Danielle Williams, Josh Kerr, Cooper Teare, Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Christian Coleman, Andre De Grasse, Nia Ali, Chris Nilsen, and KC Lightfoot, with even more Olympians and World Championship medalists still to come.

As always, the Millrose Games will feature the absolute best athletes in the sport, including dozens of Olympians and world champions. The Millrose Games is a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meet. With highest-level competition at the youth, high school, collegiate, club, and professional levels, there is truly something for everyone at the Millrose Games. 

Tickets can be purchased at https://www.millrosegames.org/ 

Over a year after suffering season ending injury, Dina Asher-Smith makes a comeback into uncharted territory at Millrose Games

Every day, we are getting closer to one of the most anticipated events, The Millrose Games 2024. The track and field world is amped up to witness the thrilling performances of top-notch athletes in all the exciting events. Among this one athlete that has grabbed every track and field enthusiast’s attention is Dina Asher-Smith. This British Sprinter is ready to make a spectacular comeback in the 2024 iteration of the Millrose Games after facing trials and tribulations due to her hamstring injury. 

After sustaining an injury at the World Championships in Oregon, the athlete had to pull out from several events. However, after a year of grappling, Dina Asher-Smith has announced her participation in the Millrose Games 2024. Let’s have a panoramic view of the same. 

Dina Asher-Smith to participate in two events at the Millrose Games.

The British Sprinter Dina Asher-Smith faced a tough time after her hamstring Injury in 2022 as she had to pull out from the Commonwealth Games. She sustained this injury while performing at the 4x100m relay. However, more than a year after this incident, the Olympian has added her name to the Millrose Games giving a great start to her 2024 season. A US track and field Insider took to their X account to announce the same. 

The post carried, “Dina Asher-Smith will be running the 60m at the Millrose Games on February 11th!” Apart from this, the champion has added her name to the 4x400m as well. She is extremely excited to showcase her skills here at one of the most prestigious track and field competitions. 

She expressed, “The Millrose Games is one of the most prestigious and historic indoor competitions in the USA, and I am looking forward to racing there for the first time.” Dina Asher-Smith further added, “I am really enjoying my new training setup in Austin, and I’m looking forward to a big year in 2024”. This competition is going to be a great one as some of the most anticipated races will be held among the top-notch athletes. 

Athletes to compete with the British Olympian at the Millrose Games 2024 

The Millrose Games will be held on the February 11, 2024 at the Armory in NYC. The Armory this year will witness great races yet again with some of the notable athletes participating in the event. The 60m will be one of the anticipated races as along with Dina Asher-Smith, other renowned athletes will also be gracing the event. 

The first name on the list of the 60m event is the first woman in NCAA to break the seven-second barrier over the 60m, Julien Alfred. This Saint Lucian Sprinter is the Joint North American holder for the 60 meters. Then is the Olympian American athlete English Gardner. The Jamaican athlete Briana Williams will also be competing.

Other athletes like Shashalee Forbes, Tamari Davis, Marybeth Sant-Price, and Celera Barnes will be a part of the competition. The track and field enthusiasts cannot wait to witness which athlete will sprint towards victory and take the gold home. 

Four Olympic Medalists Set to Toe the Line in the Women's 60m at the 116th Millrose Games

With just over three weeks to go until the running of the 116th Millrose Games, the excitement for this spectacular event has never been greater. One of the deepest races of the afternoon will be the Women’s 60 Meter Dash, which features no fewer than four Olympic medalists, in addition to an NCAA champion, last year’s runner-up, and more.

The 116th Millrose Games will take place at the Nike Track & Field Center at The Armory on Sunday, February 11th. 

The stellar field is as follows: 

-Dina Asher-Smith is the 2019 World Champion in the 200m. She is a two-time Olympic bronze medalist, and her 2019 gold is one of five World Championship medals that she owns. Asher-Smith holds the British records in the 60m, 100m, and 200m. 

“The Millrose Games is one of the most prestigious and historic indoor competitions in the USA, and I am looking forward to racing there for the first time,” said Asher-Smith. “I am really enjoying my new training set up in Austin, and I’m looking forward to a big year in 2024.” 

-Julien Alfred was a seven-time NCAA champion at the University of Texas. Her 60m best is not only the NCAA record, it also equals the North American record. In her first season as a professional, Alfred finished fifth in the 100m at the 2023 World Championships, representing St. Lucia. 

-English Gardner is an Olympic gold medalist on the 4x100m relay in 2016. A local favorite from New Jersey, she is the tenth-fastest woman in history in the 100m, and she won this race at the Millrose Games in 2019. 

-Briana Williams won Olympic gold on the 4x100m relay for Jamaica in 2021, and she is a two-time World Junior Champion. 

-Shashalee Forbes is an Olympic silver medalist on the 4x100m relay, and she won the 200m Jamaican championship in 2017. 

-Tamari Davis placed second in this race at last year’s Millrose Games, before winning a gold medal on the 4x100m relay at the World Championships. 

-Marybeth Sant-Price is the 60m bronze medalist at the 2022 World Indoor Championships. 

-Celera Barnes is an NACAC champion on the 4x100m relay. 

Stay tuned over the coming weeks before the 116th Millrose Games, as the world-class start lists are finalized. Top athletes already confirmed to compete include Laura Muir, Elle Purrier-St. Pierre, Yared Nuguse, Alicia Monson, Grant Fisher, Danielle Williams, Josh Kerr, Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Christian Coleman, Keni Harrison, Andre De Grasse, Nia Ali, Chris Nilsen, and KC Lightfoot, with even more Olympians and World Championship medalists still to come. 

As always, the Millrose Games will feature the absolute best athletes in the sport, including dozens of Olympians and world champions. The Millrose Games is a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meet. With highest-level competition at the youth, high school, collegiate, club, and professional levels, there is truly something for everyone at the Millrose Games. 

Elle St Pierre will toe the line again at the Millrose Games

World indoor silver medalist Elle St Pierre set a meeting and North American record of 4:16.85 to win the Wanamaker Mile in 2020. The 2024 indoor season marks St Pierre’s return to the track following the birth of her first child.

Two-time world indoor silver medalist Axumawit Embaye is also in the line-up, alongside 2022 US 1500m champion Sinclaire Johnson, British 1500m champion Katie Snowden, 2023 Wanamaker Mile runner-up Josette Andrews, Australian record-holder Jessica Hull, Olympic finalist Marta Perez, and two-time NCAA champion Sage Hurta-Klecker.

Olympic 1500m silver medalist Laura Muir made her Wanamaker Mile debut last year, winning in 4:20.15. The 2022 world bronze medalist holds the British record for the distance outdoors with the 4:15.24 she clocked last year.

Other top athletes already confirmed to compete include Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Danielle Williams, Nia Ali, Andre De Grasse, Josh Kerr, Keni Harrison, Chris Nilsen, KC Lightfoot, Yared Nuguse, Alicia Monson, Grant Fisher and Christian Coleman.

Laura Muir returns to defend wanamaker mile title at 2024 Millrose Games

Great Britain’s Laura Muir, the Olympic 1500m silver medalist and three-time 1500m world championship medalist, will return to the 116th Millrose Games at The Armory on Feb. 11 to defend her NYRR Wanamaker Mile title.

Here’s what you need to know:

– Last year, Muir closed the race with a 30.99s final lap to win in 4:20.15 over Josette Andrews, who will also be returning after back-to-back runner-up finishes. Muir made her Millrose Games debut last year after a stunning 4:14.8 victory at the 2022 Fifth Avenue Mile. Muir is keeping a tight indoor schedule as she gets ready for the 3000m at the 2024 World Indoor Championships in Glasgow. She just ran 8:34.39 for 3000m at the Cardiff Metropolitan University Christmas Classic on Dec. 19.

– The Wanamaker Mile event record is the 4:16.85 American record set by Elinor Purrier St. Pierre in the 2020 edition of the meet. She will return to The Armory after missing last year’s indoor season while being pregnant with her son, Ivan. She gave birth in March and then returned to racing at the 5th Avenue Mile in September with a 4:23 for seventh place. Purrier -St. Pierre also won the 2019 2022 edition of the Wanamaker Mile with a 4:19.30 victory.

– The field will also include 2023 World Championship 1500m finalists: Jessica Hull (7th in Budapest) and Katie Snowden (8th in Budapest).

– Ethiopia’s Axumawit Embaye, a two-time World Indoor silver medalist in the 1500m, will make her Millrose Games debut. Last year, she ran season’s bests of 4:00.98 for 1500m and 4:24.01 for the mile. She notched a personal best of 15:04.41 for 5000m at the Stockholm Diamond League.

Beatrice Chepkoech to open her indoor track season against two Ethiopian youngsters

Beatrice Chepkoech will be pitted against two Ethiopian youngsters in the women's 1500m at the ORLEN Copernicus Cup, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting.

Ethiopian youngsters Diribe Welteji, and Freweyni Hailu will be up against Beatrice Chepkoech in the women’s 1500m field at the ORLEN Copernicus Cup, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting, in Torun, Poland, on February 6.

21-year-old Welteji set a world record when winning the mile at the World Athletics Road Running Championships in Riga in October, as she clocked 4:20.98 as her compatriot Hailu finished second with Faith Kipyegon completing the podium.

Welteji and Hailu will team up again in Torun where they will be up against the world 3000m steeplechase record-holder Chepkoech. Other strong opponents in the field include Ethiopia’s world indoor 1500m bronze medallist Hirut Meshesha and Uganda’s 2019 world 800m champion Halimah Nakaayi.

Welteji has proven to be a master in the 1500m and she also doubles up as the World 1500m silver medallist, having finished runner-up to Kipyegon in Budapest in August. She will surely be the one to watch when the race begins.

Meshesha has the quickest short track PB of the quintet, having clocked 4:02.01 in Lievin last year, finishing second and one place ahead of Hailu who set a PB of 4:02.47. Chepkoech ran her national record of 4:02.09 in 2020.

Meanwhile, multiple US record-holder Grant Fisher will take on the already announced world champion Josh Kerr in the two-mile race at the Millrose Games, also a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold event.

The race on February 11 is set to be paced with the world indoor two-mile best of 8:03.40 as the target. Joining them on the start line will be USA’s Joe Klecker, Cooper Teare, and Dylan Jacobs. New Zealand’s George Beamish, Australia’s Morgan McDonald, and Ky Robinson will also be in the mix and will be joined by Britain’s Matthew Stonier, Japan’s Keita Satoh, Ethiopia’s Samuel Firewu and Addisu Yihune, and Sam Parsons of Germany.

Yared Nuguse will run 2024 Millrose Games and says mile World Record is a very real possibility

U.S. outdoor mile record holder Yared Nuguse will return to the Armory Track and Field Center in New York City for the 116th Millrose Games as he looks to defend his men’s Wanamaker Mile title.

Here’s what you need to know:

– The Wanamaker Mile has been contested at the Millrose Games since 1926.

– Last year, Nuguse made his Millrose Games debut and won and set a U.S. indoor mile record of 3:47.38. He barely missed the world record of 3:47.01 set by Yomif Kejelcha in 2019.

– Nuguse put together a career year in 2023 with: a 7:28.23 for 3000m indoors (American record); a personal best of 3:29.02 for 1500m (the fastest performance by an American-born runner); 3:43.97 outdoor mile (an American record and the fourth-fastest performance in history; a victory at the London Diamond League 1500m and a fifth place finish in the 1500m final at the World Championships. Most recently, he ran 3:56.58 at the Merrie Mile in Honolulu to come just .45 seconds shy of breaking the road mile world record.

– Nuguse was the first American to win since Eric Jenkins’ 2017 victory. Nuguse will look to become the first man to win back-to-back Wanamaker Mile titles since Matthew Centrowitz’s 2016 and 2015 victories.

The Millrose Games is the sixth stop on the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold calendar.

Livestream and television broadcast details will be announced in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more Millrose Games athlete announcements as the pro fields come together.

Tickets to the 116th Millrose Games can be purchased online at millrosegames.org. For more information on all Armory Track events, visit armorytrack.com.

Britain’s world 1500m champion Josh Kerr returns to New York targeting fast two miles

Britain’s world 1500m champion Josh Kerr will headline the men’s two mile field when he returns to the Millrose Games, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold event, for the fifth time on February 11.

Kerr, the Olympic bronze medallist, ran 3:48.87 for the mile in Boston in 2022 and sits fourth on the world indoor all-time list for the discipline. He will look to make a similar statement in the two-mile event when he races at The Armory in New York in February.

He won the 3000m at this year’s Millrose Games, his season opener, in 7:33.47 and went on to take the world 1500m title in Budapest. Kerr was second in the Millrose Games mile in 2022, while he was also second and fourth in that discipline in New York in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

The world indoor two-mile best is 8:03.40, set by Britain’s Mo Farah in Birmingham in 2015.

“There's going to be a fantastic field and it will be paced at the two-mile world record,” Kerr told CitiusMag. “Currently, I'm in fantastic shape. I'm having an amazing fall and dealing with everything new and everything that's exciting, amazing and also terrible about being a world champion. I'm very excited for it.”

More than 50 meetings feature on the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Tour calendar, including seven Gold level events, in a season that culminates with the World Athletics Indoor Championships Glasgow 24.

Other athletes already confirmed for next year’s Tour include world gold medallists Noah Lyles, Jake Wightman and Gabby Thomas, who will all compete at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston on February 4.

The Fight Over the Olympic Trials Start Time Has Ended. But the Real Issue Runs Deeper.

Following significant athlete pushback, USA Track & Field moved the race’s start time earlier. But the governing body also needs to offer Trials host cities a better deal to prevent similar issues in the future. 

It’s become a tradition of sorts that every Olympic Games needs to be preceded by stories of scandal and intrigue, so it’s perversely appropriate that the lead-up to the Olympic Team Trials marathon next February has been plagued with its own mini-fiasco.

It began this past summer, after it was announced that the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials marathon would take place shortly after noon on February 3, 2024. Not everyone was thrilled with the late start as the Trials are happening in Orlando. For some, staging a competitive, high-stakes marathon in the middle of the day in Florida seemed like a blatant disregard for athlete health.

In September, nearly 100 Trials participants co-signed a letter from the Athletes Advisory Committee to USA Track & Field leadership requesting that the race start time be moved to 6 or 7 A.M. to protect the participants from potential heat-related illness and injury. Following a private meeting with USATF CEO Max Siegel, the Athlete Advisory Committee was initially optimistic that the start times would be changed. However, two weeks ago, the Committee publicly reprimanded the Greater Orlando Sports Commission (GO Sports), the local organization responsible for putting on the Trials race. In a letter that was shared with the public, Trials athletes expressed their chagrin that while USATF and their television partners at NBC seemed amenable to an earlier start time of 10 A.M., GO Sports was refusing to budge on a noon start, unless they were compensated to the tune of $700,000.

“It is difficult to find words capable of expressing how angry and disappointed the athletes are to hear the ultimate hurdle they face is with the Greater Orlando Sports Commission,” the letter from the athletes read. In response, the owners of Track Shack, an Orlando-based running specialty store and event management company that is co-hosting the Trials, published an open letter of their own in which they maintained that they had been unfairly “blindsided” by the eleventh-hour request to move up the start time. The local organizers had repeatedly been told by USATF that a noon start was “non-negotiable,” largely due to the economic incentives of having a live TV broadcast of the race at a desirable time slot, and had developed their business model accordingly. This week, however, USATF announced that all parties had agreed on a 10 A.M. start after all. So much for non-negotiable.

As far as scandals go, an argument over the appropriate start time of a 26.2-mile road race isn’t exactly edge-of-your-seat type stuff. When I spoke to Rich Kenah, the CEO of the Atlanta Track Club and race director for the last Olympic Trials race, he told me that while “any opportunity for our sport to be ‘above the fold’ so to speak, tends to be good, when the challenges of our business are front and center, I think it has a detrimental effect on future opportunities for the sport to grow and flourish.”

Kenah is cautious not to make too much out of the start time debacle. He says that there’s almost always some sticking point when a local organizing committee has to coordinate with USATF in a way that satisfies the needs of their Olympic and broadcast partners. For Kenah, the larger issue, and the root cause of these more minor friction points, is a Trials business model that always puts the entire financial burden on the host.

For anyone who wants a detailed analysis of why that model is not sustainable, I’d recommend Jonathan Gault’s extensive report, published last year on Letsrun.com. In brief, the problem of the current Trials model is that it appears to mimic, albeit on a vastly smaller scale, the parasitic behavior of the International Olympic Committee, which takes in billions in sponsor and television revenue, while the host city is left to bankroll the lion’s share of the Games. While the cost of hosting the Olympic Trials might “only” be around two or three million dollars, that’s a hefty price tag for a running events company like the ATC, which has few viable ways to generate revenue from the event. (The local organizer cannot secure sponsorship agreements that threaten the exclusivity of USATF and USOPC partners, which leaves them with limited options.) In addition to being on the hook for all the operational and logistical costs of staging a world-class marathon, the local organizing committee is required to pick up the bill for stuff that, one would think, could be at least partially subsidized by USATF—like athlete prize money (at more than $500,000, this is one of the larger costs of staging the event) and event promotion ($75,000 minimum). As a final insult to injury, the Trials host needs to pay USATF a $100,000 rights fee.

With both the Olympic Games and the marathon Trials, prospective hosts are of course promised that staging the event will be a boon for the local economy. (The “Request for Proposal” guidebook for the 2024 Trials estimates that the “economic impact” of the event is around $20 million for the host city.) Arguably the bigger selling point is the sheer prestige of being associated with the Olympic brand. Hosting a Trials race can potentially elevate the profile of a city’s signature marathon.

Prestige, however, is a fickle thing. It’s no secret that the chorus of pushback against the Olympics has only grown louder in recent years, as more and more prospective host cities have retracted their bids. The Trials race—frequently touted as America’s greatest marathon—seems to be in danger of a similar fate. Only two cities were ever cited as showing any interest in hosting the 2024 edition; after Chattanooga was disqualified in another mini-scandal that is still playing out, Orlando seemed to be the winner by default. This does not bode particularly well for the future.

When it comes to fixing the Olympics, one idea that is frequently proposed is to give the Games a permanent home, or to rotate it between just a few cities; the idea is that this could help reduce costs by having a pre-set infrastructure already in place. What’s more, it could eliminate the rigmarole of the bidding process. Could something similar be the salvation for the U.S. Trials marathon? At the very least, having the race in the same location each time would allow the host to fine-tune their event with each iteration-—a win for the athletes. For better or worse, we already have a de facto permanent home for the Olympic Trials in track and field, which next summer will be staged in Eugene for the fifth consecutive time.

Brant Kotch, the former race director of the Houston Marathon who oversaw the city’s hosting of the Olympic Trials in 2012, told me that when his team tried to host the event again in 2016, part of their pitch was that they wanted to “make Houston the Eugene of long-distance road racing.”  When Houston hosted in 2012, the event was a massive success; they had perfect weather and big-time performances from the stars of the sport. And, thanks largely to a million dollar grant from the state of Texas to help subsidize large-scale sporting events, they were able to host the race without taking too much of a financial hit. According to Kotch, Houston had a solid bid to host the 2016 Trials (one that was apparently unanimously approved by USATF’s Long Distance Running Division), but USATF’s leadership ultimately decided to give the race to Los Angeles. When we spoke, Kotch still sounded slightly bitter about being passed over.

Houston hasn’t tried to host the race again. There are some logistical reasons for this—for one, massive downtown construction projects in the intervening years have made the 2012 course obsolete—but economics are a significant factor. As someone open to the idea of a permanent home for the Trials, Kotch says that the only way that this will work, long-term, is for the sport’s national governing body to help subsidize the race: “With respect to its Olympic Trials, USATF has to pony up some amount of money. This is distance running. You can’t sell any tickets.”

Kenah agrees. He thinks that it would be in everyone’s best interest if USATF would incite competition between prospective host cities by promising some kind of revenue share system from one of its marquee events. (USATF did not respond to a request for comment on the suggestion that it should shoulder more of the cost to host the Trials.)

“Right now, you cannot make money hosting the Olympic Trials marathon,” Kenah told me. “I don’t care who you are or where you are, it’s just not possible with the current model.”

When I floated the idea of hosting the Olympic Trials marathon in the same place every Olympic cycle, Kenah told me that he was still very much in favor of moving the event to different cities. He mentioned that his father took him to see the Millrose Games in New York City when he was a kid. There was a distinct physical thrill to witnessing professional track and field up close that made him fall in love with the sport for life. (Kenah made the U.S. Olympic Team in 2000 and ran the 800-meters at the Sydney Olympics.)

“There is nothing better than experiencing the sport in person,” Kenah says. “If we had an Olympic Trials marathon in cities around the country, big and small, we would expose the sport in a very real, experiential way that otherwise kids of the next generation would not get. But that can be only accomplished if the current business model is just blown up.”

Athing Mu a surprise entrant for Pre Classic Diamond League final

The entries for this weekend’s Prefontaine Classic, which will serve as the 2023 Diamond League final, were announced on Tuesday and they included a surprising name: Athing Mu.

The last time we saw Mu, the 2021 Olympic and 2022 world champion at 800 meters, she had just finished third in the 800m at the World Championships in Budapest on August 27 and looked set to end her season.

“I can go home and finally go on vacation and stop thinking about track & field,” Mu said after the race.

Whether it’s because Mu changed her mind or her sponsor Nike put its foot down (many Nike athletes are required to compete at the Prefontaine Classic as part of their contract), it sure looks like Mu is thinking about track & field again. She is listed among the entrants for the women’s 800 meters (Sunday, 5:19 p.m. ET) alongside world champion Mary Moraa of Kenya and Worlds silver medalist Keely Hodgkinson of Great Britain.

Just because Mu is on the start list does not guarantee that she is competing. She was supposed to run the Millrose Games in February but withdrew the week of the meet. She was listed among the entrants at the Music City Track Carnival in June — something she claimed to have no knowledge of — but did not compete there and also withdrew from the Ed Murphey Classic in August.

Just because Mu is on the start list does not guarantee that she is competing. She was supposed to run the Millrose Games in February but withdrew the week of the meet. She was listed among the entrants at the Music City Track Carnival in June — something she claimed to have no knowledge of — but did not compete there and also withdrew from the Ed Murphey Classic in August.

Furthermore, it’s not as if Mu’s name just showed up on the start list. Mu has competed in just three meets in 2023, none of them Diamond Leagues, meaning she did not qualify for the Diamond League final. The only way she could have been granted a lane is by wild card — the US, as host country, gets one bonus entry in every event, determined by the meet director. If Mu was not going to take her spot, Prefontaine meet directors Michael Reilly and John Capriotti would have found another American to use the wild card rather than waste it on Mu.

All of this suddenly makes the women’s 800 one of the most compelling events of the meet. The last two Mu-Hodgkinson-Moraa matchups — the 2022 and 2023 world finals — were both fantastic races. Now we get to see how Mu will respond to her third-place finish in Budapest — the first 800-meter defeat of her professional career. And American fans will get to see Mu once more this season in just the third Diamond League appearance of her life. The first two went pretty well: in her DL debut at the 2021 Pre Classic, Mu set an American record of 1:55.04. In DL #2 in Rome last year, Mu won in 1:57.01, more than two seconds up on Moraa.

How will she fare in #3? If all goes to plan, we won’t have to wait long to find out.

10 Reasons to Start Following Track and Field This Year

The 2023 season should be full of record-breaking performances from the sport’s biggest stars. Here are the most important things to know. 

Track is back, and if the results from the indoor season and early outdoor meets are any indication, it should be another year of eye-popping results around 400-meter ovals this summer.

Why is track and field relevant to the average recreational runner?

Perhaps you’re running some of the same distances in your training and racing. Or maybe you have a connection to some of the events from your youth, days in gym class or on the playground. From a human performance perspective, no sport showcases the all-out speed, red-line endurance, max power, dynamic agility, and meticulous bodily control as track and field does.

Here’s a primer on the most awe-inspiring athletes and events of this summer’s track season. Because, come on: with a sport that includes events as multifaceted as the pole vault, as primal as the shot put, and as wild as the 3,000-meter steeplechase—a 1.8-mile race with 28 fixed barriers to hurdle and seven water pits to jump—what’s not to like?

One of the many things that makes track and field so special is that it’s one of the most diverse sports on the planet, both culturally and athletically.

Last summer, athletes from a record 29 different countries earned medals in the 25 different running, jumping, and throwing events at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

At the highest level, there are athletes of all shapes and sizes from every culture and socioeconomic background. While there certainly are racial and cultural stereotypes that need dissolving and vast inequality among competing countries, from a performance point of view the sport is largely meritocratic, based on the time or distance achieved in a given competition.

Watching American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone masterfully win the 400-meter hurdles in a world-record time last summer in front of a deafening crowd at Hayward Field in Eugene was a riveting experience. It was vastly different than watching Grenada’s Anderson Peters win the javelin world title with a career-best throw of 90.54 meters on his final attempt to beat India’s Neeraj Chopra, but both had edge-of-your-seat excitement, athletic excellence, and cultural significance.

One of the knocks against track and field in recent years is that it hasn’t done enough to attract casual fans the way professional football, basketball, hockey, and soccer have. Following the On Track Fest, the USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix on May 26-27 in Los Angeles is trying to up the ante by combining a mix of elite-level competition, an interactive fan festival, and top-tier musical performances.

Billed as the one of the deepest track meets ever held on U.S. soil, it will feature a star-studded 400-meter face-off featuring Americans Michael Norman, the reigning world champion, and Kirani James, a three-time Olympic medalist from Grenada, and a women’s 100-meter hurdles clash with world champion Tobi Amusan of Nigeria, Olympic silver medalist Keni Harrison of the U.S., and Olympic gold medalist Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico.

Saturday’s action will be broadcast live on NBC Sports from 4:30 P.M. to 6 P.M. ET and be followed by a concert event called the Legends Jam, which will include appearances from some legendary athletes and be headlined by Grammy-winning singer Judith Hill.

American sprint sensation Sha’Carri Richardson will be racing the 100-meter dash at the USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix. You probably remember her for her perceived failures more than the astounding times she’s actually achieved on the track.

Two years ago, the sprinter from Dallas blew away the field in the 100-meter dash at the U.S. Olympic Trials with a 10.86 effort, but then she was famously suspended after testing positive for cannabis (which is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of banned substances) and missed the Tokyo Olympics as a result. (She admitted using the drug to cope with the pressure of qualifying for the Olympics while also mourning the recent death of her biological mother.)

Then last year, despite strong early season performances, Richardson failed to make the finals of the 100-meter or 200-meter at the U.S. championships, so she missed out on running in the first world championships held on American soil.

This year, the 23-year-old sprinter appears to be locked in and better than ever, posting a world-leading 10.76 100-meter time on May 5 in Doha (she also ran an eye-popping 10.57 with an over-the-limit tailwind on April 9 in Florida) and posted the second-fastest time in the 200-meter (22.07) on May 13 at a meet in Kenya.

If she keeps it all together, expect Richardson to finally contend with elite Jamaican sprinters Shericka Jackson and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in the 100 and 4×100-meter relay in August at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

A few years ago, American sprinter Fred Kerley was on his way to becoming one of the world’s best 400-meter runners. But he wanted more than that. What he really had his heart set on was becoming the world’s fastest man, a moniker that goes with the most dominant sprinter in the 100-meter dash.

Ignoring doubters, Kerley retooled his training and earned the silver medal in the 100-meter at the Tokyo Olympics (.04 seconds behind Italy’s Marcell Jacobs) and then continued his ascent last year by winning the U.S. championships (in 9.76, the sixth-fastest time in history) and world championships (9.86).

The 28-year-old from San Antonio, Texas, also became one of just two other runners (along with American Michael Norman and South African Wayde van Niekerk) to ever run sub-10 seconds in the 100-meter, sub-20 seconds in the 200-meter, and sub-44 seconds in the 400-meter. So far this year, Kerley has two of the four fastest 100-meter times of the season, including a speedy 9.88 on May 21 in Japan.

After trading barbs on social media this spring, Kerley and Jacobs are expected to face off in an epic 100-meter showdown on May 28 at a Diamond League meet in Rabat, Morocco, marking the first time the Olympic gold medalist and the world champion in the men’s 100m face off since the 2012 Olympic final, when Jamaican Usain Bolt beat countryman Yohan Blake. American Trayvon Bromell, the silver medalist at last year’s world championships, is also in the field, so it should be an extraordinary tilt.

If you’re a gambler, bet on Kerley to win that one and eventually get close to Bolt’s 9.58 world record. (To do so, he’ll be running faster than 26 miles per hour!) But don’t count out Kenya’s Ferdinand Omanyala, the early world leader (9.84), or fellow American sub-9.9 guys Bromell, Norman, Christian Coleman, and Noah Lyles at the 2023 World Athletics Championships on August 20, in Budapest. Depending on which three Americans join Kerley (who has an automatic qualifier) at the world championships, it’s actually quite likely the U.S. could sweep the top four spots in the 100 in Budapest.

If you’ve ever wanted to see the world’s top track and field stars competing live in the U.S., this is the year to do it. The May 26-27 USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix meet and June 3-4 Portland Track Festival are part of what might be the mosst compelling outdoor track season ever held on U.S. soil.

If you’re looking for an athlete to marvel at, start with Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the gold medalist in the 400-meter hurdles at the Olympics in 2021 and World Athletics Championships last summer. She’s been one of the sport’s rising stars since she was a teenager and yet she’s only 23. Her trajectory is still rising—especially since she moved to Los Angeles to train under coach Bob Kersee. Driven by her strong faith, McLaughlin-Levrone is the personification of hard work, grace and competitiveness.

This year she’ll temporarily step away from her primary event to show off her pure sprinting prowess when she opens her season in a “flat” 400-meter race at the Diamond League meet in Paris on June 9. Her personal best in the 400-meter is 50.07 seconds, set when she was a freshman at the University of Kentucky, but she clocked a speedy 50.68 while running over hurdles, en route to a world-record setting win at last summer’s world championships.

Her best 400-meter split as part of a 4×400-meter relay is 47.91, so it’s within reason to think she could be one of several runners to challenge the long-standing world record of 47.60 set in 1985 by East German Marita Koch. Because McLaughlin-Levrone has an automatic qualifier to the world championships in the 400-meter hurdles, she will likely run the open 400-meter at the U.S. championships and decide after the meet which one she’ll focus on.

American 800-meter ace Athing Mu has looked unbeatable for the past several years as she won Olympic gold in the event at the Tokyo Olympics and last year’s world championships. In fact, she has been unbeatable, having won 13 straight races since she dropped out of a mile race at the Millrose Games in January 2022. Going back to 2020 (when she was a senior in high school) and 2021 (during her one season at Texas A&M), she’s finished first in 51 of her past 53 races (relays included), with her only loss being a narrow runner-up finish to Kaelin Roberts in the 400-meter at the 2021 NCAA indoor championships.

Mu, who is also coached by Kersee and trains with McLaughlin-Levrone, seems to be the most likely athlete to challenge the women’s 800-meter world record of 1:53.28, set in 1983 by the Czech Republic’s Jarmila Kratochvílová. It’s the longest standing record in track and field, and only two runners have come within a second of it in the past 15 years. Her personal best of 1:55.04 is an American record and the eighth-fastest time in history. She’s still only 20 years old, so she has many years to keep improving and other historic opportunities ahead of her.

Mu said earlier this year she’d like to try a 400-800-meter double at an Olympics or world championships if the schedule permits—it’s only been done once successfully by Cuba’s Alberto Juantorena at the 1976 Games—but her coach has said she might attempt a 800-1,500-meter double next year at the Paris Olympics.

This year, Mu will run the 1,500 meters at the USATF Championships in July, but will likely defend her 800-meter title at the world championships in Budapest, as well as potentially running on the U.S. women’s 4×400-meter relay and the mixed-gender 4×400-meter relay (with McLaughlin-Levrone) for an opportunity to win three gold medals in a single championships.

With apologies to quarterback extraordinaire Patrick Mahomes, gymnastics all-arounder Simone Biles, and skiing superstar Mikela Shiffrin, pole vaulter Armand Duplantis just might be the most dynamically talented athlete in the world. That’s because he’s the world’s most dominant athlete (and has set six world records) in arguably the most demanding discipline, not only in track and field but quite possibly in any sport. No sport discipline involves such a dynamic combination of speed, power, precision and agility, and Duplantis, who is only 23, is already the greatest of all-time.

Prove me wrong or watch him set his latest world record (6.22 meters or 20 feet, 5 inches) at an indoor meet on February 25 in Clermont-Ferrand, France. That’s the equivalent of vaulting onto the roof of a two-story building, and in his case, often with room to spare.

Duplantis, who grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, to athletic parents with Swedish and Finnish heritage, represents Sweden in international competitions. He started pole vaulting at age three, set his first of 11 age-group world-best marks at age seven, and won an NCAA title in 2019 as a freshman competing for LSU before turning pro.

All indications are that North Carolina State junior Katelyn Tuohy could become the next American running star. All she has done since she was young is win races and break records.

After winning the NCAA outdoor 5,000-meter a year ago, she won the NCAA cross country title in November. During the indoor track season this past winter, she set a new collegiate mile record (4:24.26) and won both the 3,000-meter and 5,000-meter title at the NCAA indoor championships in March. On May 7, the 21-year-old from Thiells, New York, broke the NCAA outdoor 5,000-meter record by 17 seconds, clocking 15:03.12 at the Sound Running On Track Fest.

Tuohy will be running both the 1,500-meter and 5,000-meter at the NCAA East Regional May 24-27 in Jacksonville, Florida, with the hopes of eventually advancing to the finals of both events at the June 7-10 NCAA Division I championship meet in Austin, Texas.

University of Arkansas junior Britton Wilson is a top collegiate star who is ready for prime time at the pro level. She won the 400-meter in a world-leading and collegiate record time of 49.13 in mid-May at the SEC Championships, where she also won the 400-meter hurdles (53.23) in a world-leading time. The 22-year-old from Richmond, Virginia, was the runner-up in the 400-meter hurdles at last year’s U.S. championships and fifth in the world championships, and could contend for a spot on Team USA in either event at the July 6-9 U.S. championships.

Kerley and Lyles are expected to square off in a 200-meter race at the USATF New York Grand Prix meet on June 24 at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island in New York City. There are also two high-level Puma American Track League meets in Tennessee—the Music City Track Carnival June 2 in Nashville and the Ed Murphey Classic August 4-5 in Memphis—and two Under Armour Sunset Tour meets organized by Sound Running on July 22 in Los Angeles and July 29 in Baltimore.

The best U.S. meet of the year, though, will be the USATF Outdoor Championships held July 6-9 in Eugene, Oregon, where American athletes will be vying for top-three finishes to earn a chance to compete for Team USA at the 2023 World Athletics Championships August 19-27 in Budapest.

The U.S. season will culminate with the September 16-17 Pre Classic in Eugene, Oregon, a two two-day meet that will double as the finals of the international Diamond League circuit and should include many of the top athletes who will be representing their countries in next summer’s Paris Olympics. (And if you want to see the country’s top high school athletes run unfathomable times for teenagers, check out the Brooks PR Invitational on June 14 in Seattle, Washington.)

At the June 2 Diamond League meet in Rome, Italy, the men’s field in the 5,000-meter run will have what might be the fastest field ever assembled, with 13 runners who have personal best times of 12:59 or faster.

The field will be headlined by Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda, who lowered the world record to 12:35.36 in Monaco three years ago. (That’s a pace of 4:03 per mile!). But it will also include Kenya’s Jacob Krop (12:45.71) and Nicholas Kipkorir (12:46.33), Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha (12:46.79), American Grant Fisher (12:46.79), Canadian Mohammed Ahmed (12:47.20), and Guatemalan-American Luis Grijalva (13:02.94), among others. With a big prize purse at stake and pacesetters ramping up the speed from the start, it should be a race for the ages.

Eilish McColgan (30:00.87) and Alicia Monson (30:03.82) Break National Records At The TEN

The British and American records in the women’s 10,000 meters both went down late Saturday night in California as Eilish McColgan outdueled Alicia Monson over the final lap of The TEN in San Juan Capistrano. McColgan, the Commonwealth Games champion at 10,000 who is building up for her marathon debut in London on April 23, was only added to the field this week but felt confident in her fitness after five weeks of altitude training in Colorado. It proved an inspired decision as she ran 30:00.87 to narrowly break Paula Radcliffe’s British record of 30:01.09 set in August 2002.

A few seconds behind McColgan, Alicia Monson nabbed her second American record of 2023, running 30:03.82 to smash the previous record of 30:13.17 set by Molly Huddle in the 2016 Olympic final in Rio. Three weeks ago, Monson ran 8:25.05 at the Millrose Games to break the American indoor (and overall) record for 3,000 meters.

Both women were also safely under the 30:40 standard for the 2023 World Championships and 2024 Olympics on a good night for running fast (50-degree temps, still conditions).

Monson and her camp had billed the race as an American record attempt and they enlisted her On Athletics Club teammate Josette Andrews (a 14:51 5k runner) to handle pacing duties, along with Eleanor Fulton. When Andrews dropped out at 5k (15:09 for McColgan and Monson), they were actually a few seconds behind AR pace, but Monson took over and righted the ship, dropping the pace from 73-second laps to 72’s, then 71’s. By the bell, which Monson reached in the lead thanks to a 70.45 penultimate lap, the question was not whether the AR would go down, but whether either woman would break 30:00 – and of course, who would win the race?

McColgan, who had clung faithfully to Monson throughout the race, finally went wide on the backstraight of the bell lap and passed Monson, and the American had no response as McColgan powered to victory with a 64.87 last 400m. Monson could not match that speed, closing out her effort in 67.99, and though she did not win, her American record was very well-deserved after so much grinding from the front.

No one else earned the World/Olympic standard, but a trio of Americans earned big personal bests in 3rd-4th-5th. Running just her second 10k, 2021 NCAA 5k champ Elly Henes won the battle for 3rd in 30:48.26 to edge 2022 Worlds team member Natosha Rogers (30:48.69) as both women moved ahead of Emily Sisson (30:49.57) and Deena Kastor (30:50.32) into 6th and 7th on the all-time US list. Rogers’ Puma Elite teammate Fiona O’Keeffe also got a pb in 5th, running 30:55.05 to become the 11th American woman to go sub-31.

Results (Analysis at bottom)

1 Eilish McColgan Asics 30:00.86 #$WRLD

2 Alicia Monson On Athletics Club 30:03.82 #$WRLD

3 Elly Henes Adidas 30:48.26

4 Natosha Rogers Puma Elite 30:48.69

5 Fiona O’Keeffe Puma Elite 30:55.05

6 Laura Galvan Hoka 31:04.08

7 Dominique Scott Adidas 31:14.00

8 Carrie Verdon TEAM Boulder 31:52.94

9 Susanna Sullivan unattached 31:55.80

10 Amy Davis-Green Hansons-Brooks ODP 32:10.59

11 Katie Izzo Adidas 32:22.47

12 Jeralyn Poe Tracksmith 32:39.10

Men’s race

The men’s race came down to a battle of the last two US 10,000-meter champions: Woody Kincaid and Joe Klecker. Just as he did five weeks ago over 5,000 meters in Boston, Kincaid earned the victory, though he made his move slightly earlier this time around, taking the lead with 900m to run and holding off Klecker on the last lap, closing in 55.96 to Klecker’s 56.92 as Kincaid ran 27:06.37 to Klecker’s 27:07.57. Both men ran personal bests (they now sit #5 and #7 on the all-time US list) and both hit the 2023 World Championship standard of 27:10, but neither was able to earn the Olympic standard of 27:00.

Klecker and Kincaid both went in with the aim of hitting the Olympic standard and joining Grant Fisher, Galen Rupp, and Chris Solinsky as the only American members of the sub-27:00 club. Klecker’s OAC teammate Ollie Hoare was the main pacemaker (though there were several: Ehab El-Sandali, Amon Kemboi, and Athanas Kioko all helped out) and he took them through 5k in 13:35, at which point British Olympian Sam Atkin, running with the lead pack, surprisingly dropped out.

When Hoare stepped off after covering 6400m in 17:23.90 (27:11 pace), sub-27:00 was within striking distance. But Klecker, despite working hard, could not increase the pace, and Kincaid showed no interest in sharing the lead despite Klecker motioning for him to do so.

By a mile to go, Klecker and Kincaid had dropped everyone else, and Kincaid, sensing the World standard slipping away, hit the front with 900 to go. Klecker stuck right with him, however, and it wasn’t until the final turn that Kincaid was able to gain real separation as both men closed well to get under the World standard – though not the Olympic standard.

Kioko, who stayed in the race, was the best of the rest, running 27:23.84 for 3rd, holding off Conner Mantz, who ran 27:25.30 in the midst of his Boston Marathon buildup (just .07 off his personal best from this meet last year).

Results (analysis below results)  *Lap by lap splits

1 Woody Kincaid Nike 27:06.37 WRLD

2 Joe Klecker On Athletics Club 27:07.57 WRLD

3 Athanas Kioko pacer 27:23.84

4 Connor Mantz Nike 27:25.30

5 Jonas Raess On Athletics Club 27:26.40

6 Ren Tazawa Komazawa Univ 27:28.04

7 Nils Voigt Puma 27:30.01

8 Sam Chelagna US Army WCAP 27:38.02

9 Luis Grijalva Hoka 27:42.56

10 Alex Masai Hoka NAZ Elite 27:42.80

11 Wesley Kiptoo Hoka NAZ Elite 27:45.81

12 Ben Flanagan On Running 27:49.67

13 Kanta Shimizu Subaru 27:51.23

14 Benjamin Eidenschink unattached 27:51.74

15 Tatsuhiko Ito Honda 27:54.64

16 Aaron Bienenfeld unattached 27:55.96

17 Ahmed Muhumed unattached 27:56.99

18 Frank Lara Altra/Roots Running Project 28:00.75

19 Emmanuel Bor unattached 28:01.09

20 Alberto Gonzalez Mindez Guatemala 28:30.63

21 Zach Panning Hansons-Brooks ODP 28:35.52

Why B+ Workouts Are Better Than A+ Workouts

An Olympic coach describes why training harder usually doesn’t lead to racing faster.

It’s natural to think that, the harder your workouts are, the faster you’ll race. It’s also wrong to think that.

I’ll illustrate this idea with some personal history. When I ran at the University of Maryland, almost all of our workouts were super hard, nearly race-level efforts. Some guys on the team actually set personal bests in workouts. If you were grading our workouts, you’d give us an A+.

That might sound great, but we consistently underperformed in races. Then, dissatisfied with our results, we would try to run our next workout even harder. We’d arrive at our next race physically and mentally exhausted, and we’d again underperform. Then we would be back at it in practice a few days later, eager to prove to ourselves that we were better than our race results showed. And so on.

A lot of guys had multiple injuries. I managed to stay injury-free but never raced like I thought I should. I graduated from college in 1988 without having qualified for the NCAA cross-country championship.

After college I was fortunate enough to join the Nike Boston club, coached by Bob Sevene. I did most of my workouts with that group while running most other days of the week with a bunch of pros in Providence, Rhode Island. I started realizing there was another way. Bob’s workouts never had me going to the well. We might do 10 kilometers of fast running in a session, but under control. Workouts like three 2-mile repeats at around half-marathon pace, or lots of 800-meter repeats at around 10K pace, were typical. If you were grading these workouts, you’d give them a B+. I remember thinking, “This is too easy.”

A Lightbulb Moment

After about two months of this type of training in the winter of 1988/89, I ran an indoor 3,000-meter race as a tune-up before the U.S. qualifying race for the world cross-country championship. I battled Sydney Maree, an Olympian and former world-record holder, in that 3K. Although Sydney outkicked me, I ran a personal best by 10 seconds. I thought, “Wait, how did I just set this massive 3K PR after almost never running that fast in practice?”

The 12K cross-country race was even more eye-opening. I finished third, behind Olympians Pat Porter and Ed Eyestone. I still can’t believe that result—third in the country, behind two guys who were Olympians, even though less than a year earlier I hadn’t even qualified for the collegiate cross-country championship. I proved that race wasn’t a fluke a month later at the world meet, where I finished 39th and was again third American, beating people like a former 10K world-record holder. I thought, “You don’t go from not making the NCAA meet to placing high at the world championship just because of one more year of maturity. It has to be the training.”

My belief in the value of consistent B+ workouts only grew when I moved to Boulder, Colorado, in the early 1990s and started training with people like Arturo Barrios, who had set world records at 10K and the hour run. I couldn’t believe how easy some of his workouts were for how good he was! I could match him stride for stride in them, and he was more than a minute faster than me at 10K. I also saw that marathoners like Mark Plaatjes and Rob de Castella, both world champions at the distance, and Steve Jones, who once held the marathon world record, almost never did the sort of A+ workouts we did in college. They went about their business week after week, stringing together B+ workout after B+ workout, while staying healthy, mentally fresh, and able to take on the best runners in the world.

Why Be a B+ Trainer

I’m not completely opposed to A+ workouts. I prescribe them in some conditions, as you’ll soon see. In general, though, I think almost all of your sessions should be at that B+ level. A+ workouts are really hard mentally. Just anticipating having to go to the well once or twice a week in training can be exhausting. I’m a big believer in the idea that you have only so much willpower. If you’re using all your fight in training, when you get to a race you’re mentally worn out; you can’t bear down and get the job done. 

The second big reason I favor regular B+ workouts is that A+ workouts take a greater physical toll. It’s a lot easier to pull a muscle or tweak a tendon or get really sore from all-out workouts. It’s rare for someone on the New Balance Boston team, the elite group I coach, to miss even one workout because they’re nursing a niggle or are otherwise too beat up from training. It doesn’t matter how big a fitness boost you get from a workout if you can’t make it to the starting line healthy.

Think of A+ and B+ workouts as the difference between what you can do and what you should do. Say you can run 40:00 for 10K. On a really good day, you could probably do a workout of 20 400-meter repeats in 90 seconds with a 200-meter jog between. But it would be a major effort. You’d almost always be better off breaking that workout into two sets of 10 repeats, running 95 seconds per repeat in the first set, taking a five-minute break, and then running 92 or 93 seconds per repeat in the second set.

The B+ version will have you walking away feeling good about yourself and eager for your next workout. The A+ version might really beat you up and lead to the beginning of an injury a couple of days later. And that assumes you finish the workout. You might wind up exhausted after 16 repeats, and then get down on yourself for slowing or cutting the workout short.

Immediately after a B+ workout, you’ll feel tired, and you’ll know you’ve worked hard, but you’ll feel like you could have done one or two more repeats at the same pace without killing yourself. I love it when my team says, “Really, that’s it? I could do more.” That tells me I have them working in that sweet spot. If they say they can’t complete the workout, or if they’re rolling around on the ground after, I asked too much of them.

On the day after a B+ workout, it’s okay to be a little tired, but you shouldn’t be super sore. You shouldn’t be dreading that day’s run because you’re physically and mentally exhausted. You should feel like saying, “I’m happy to take it easy today, but I’m also happy to run.” One of the signs that you’re doing too many A+ workouts is that you’re not looking forward to training. After all, most of us run because we love it.

You’ll see this principle of B+ workouts building on one another in the training schedules of my book, Personal Best Running. Few of the hard sessions should cause you to shudder or wonder if you can complete them. You’ll instead see a steady progression of hard-enough workouts that will advance your fitness week by week while leaving you fresh enough to absorb and enjoy your training.

An Occasional A+ Effort

The schedules within the book do contain the occasional A+ workout. For example, week 9 of the 12-week 10K schedules calls for either a tune-up race or a workout of three miles continuous at 10K pace. The latter is hard! That’s the first half of a 10K, on your own, while deep in serious training. Similarly, you’ll see this on the Tuesday workout in the penultimate week of the mile schedules found in the book. It includes two 800-meter repeats at your mile race pace. If that’s not an A+ workout, I don’t know what is.

Doing a workout that hard once in a great while steels you mentally for racing. I most often have runners do them as an important race approaches, especially if they haven’t raced for a while. For example, in January 2022, Elle St. Pierre and Heather MacLean were scheduled to race the mile at the Millrose Games. It was to be their first race since the Tokyo Olympics five months earlier. I wanted them to experience some of the stress and strain of racing before the big stage of Millrose. Eight days before the meet, I had them start a workout with a 1-kilometer time trial. They both ran 2:34, which is fast enough to win most races at the distance. The following week, Elle won her second consecutive Millrose mile title.

I think there will be some innovation in this area because of super shoes—the plated, higher-stack models with next-generation midsole cushioning. They allow you to run faster while not incurring as much muscle damage. So there might be more frequent A+ workouts in my runners’ future. But there’s still the toll of hammering all of your workouts and being flat mentally when it’s time to race. 

It can be tempting to post epic workouts on Strava or elsewhere online. Just remember that they give out medals for races, not workouts.

Adapted with permission from Personal Best Running, by Mark Coogan and Scott Douglas.

Should sub-four be no more?

Over the weekend at Boston University’s David Hemery Valentine Invitational, 52 runners went sub-four in the men’s mile, including five Canadians: Cameron Proceviat, Matthew Beaudet, Charlie Dannatt, Alec Purnell and Foster Malleck. With the advancement of super shoes and the responsiveness of the Boston indoor track, the sub-four-minute mile is still impressive, but is it as remarkable as it used to be?

Last week, Track and Field News, a database that has kept track of sub-four miles since Roger Bannister became the first man to break the barrier in 1954, announced it would no longer update its chronological list of runners who break the barrier. The site released a statement: “The advent of super-shoes has bombarded the 4:00 barrier into something no longer relevant for tracking, although many new members would have made it even without high-tech footwear.”According to an article in Outside, the original decision to scrap the list was based on the (non-scientific) belief that the sub-four stat had lost popularity.

In a later article, Track and Field News editor Garry Hill told Outside: “In retrospect, I now think the opposite might be true, as modern shoes/tracks/training have combined to make a shot at a sub-4:00 now a reasonable goal for a lot more people.”

At the 2023 Millrose Games in NYC, U.S. Olympian Yared Nuguse ran the second-fastest mile in history, clocking 3:47.38, a new North American record, and only milliseconds off the indoor mile world record of 3:47.01. The American track and field community celebrated the mark, but faster times also bring quicker standards and higher expectations.In the past five years, shoe technology and track surfaces have changed, and running must adapt with it.

The Boston University track, which was built in 2002, is unusual in that it was built to the maximum allowable specifications (in terms of the surface, the 18.5 degree steepness of the banked turns); it is considered one of the best tracks in the world for middle distance runners chasing fast times.And while these super spikes bring faster times, what are the athletes supposed to do? Buy old shoes to simulate Bannister’s iconic 1954 race with leather spikes on a cinder track?

As mile times for elite middle-distance runners now stray into the high-3:40s and low-3:50s, the sub-four mile matters less and less; but, like breaking three hours for a marathon or 20-minutes for a 5K, any competitive distance runners will always want their mile time to start with a three. That will never change.

After an online uproar, Track and Field News relented, and said they would continue to keep track of sub-four-milers in their database. To this day, it is still a feat only 75 Canadian men have accomplished (indoor and outdoor)—enough to fill a school bus. No matter how many runners break four, it will always be a barrier many will chase.

Nuguse breaks North American indoor mile record at Millrose Games

Yared Nuguse ran the second-fastest indoor mile in history as three national records fell or were equalled in a thrilling men’s Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games. Alicia Monson also set an area record in the 3000m, while Abby Steiner claimed a US record in the 300m at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in New York on Saturday (11).

In the infield, Ryan Crouser demonstrated his effective new shot put technique and Katie Moon returned to her winning ways in the pole vault before a roaring crowd that also cheered runners in competitions from U8 through high school and college.

As always, the men’s Wanamaker mile culminated the meeting, and Nuguse ran away with the race in a world-leading 3:47.38 to claim his second area record of the season to go along with the 3000m.

Pace setter Erik Sowinski brought the runners through half way in 1:52.99 – just as he had been asked – with Nuguse and training mates Mario Garcia Romo and Olli Hoare in the lead group. But Nuguse turned on the jets and covered the final quarter of the race in 54.23, breaking the meeting record, facility record, and crushing Bernard Lagat’s 15-year-old US indoor record of 3:49.98.

“Running that race the way we did,” Nuguse said, “all three of us right there up for the first half of the race, I felt good knowing I had my closest guys having my back. And then that last part was give it everything I had and I was able to close with something crazy and get it.”

Great Britain’s Neil Gourley ran a PB of 3:49.46 to move to sixth on the world indoor all-time list, and Hoare equalled the Oceanian record with 3:50.83. New Zealand’s Sam Tanner ran a PB of 3:51.70, while Romo’s 3:51.79 was a Spanish record.

Yuguse has now eclipsed Hicham El Guerrouj on the all-time list; only Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha has run faster, clocking 3:47.01 in 2019.

“I’m always excited to see what else I can do next,” Nuguse said. “There was definitely a nice confidence boost. After that 3000m (where he broke the US record), I was feeling pretty confident already, but to do this in the event that I love the most and the one that I feel like I’m going for at the world championships, that makes me feel even better.”

Laura Muir won the women’s Wanamaker Mile in 4:20.15, followed by Josette Andrews in 4.20.88. Muir, the Olympic silver medallist, led for most of the race, then Andrews hit the front with two laps to go. But the Briton kicked again on the final lap and went on to win comfortably.

Sprint sensations

World record-holder Christian Coleman took a bow after winning the men’s 60m in a season’s best of 6.47. “I feel like this is what I do best and I came to put on a show,” he said.

Noah Lyles was charged with a false start and ran the race under protest, clocking 6.53, although the time would not count. Lyles, the US record-holder in the 200m outdoors, admitted a little bit of movement, but said his feet never left the pad. “I got a time that I’m very happy to see,” Lyles said. “Everybody knows I’m just here to play around. I’m not a 60-metre runner, but if I can take some heads, I’m going to do it.”

Jamaica’s Travis Williams was awarded second place with a PB of 6.59, followed by Josephus Lyles, Noah’s younger brother, also with a PB of 6.59. Williams edged Lyles by .003.

Aleia Hobbs set an Armory record of 7.04 to win her fourth straight competition, having clocked a world-leading 6.98 at the end of January. Teenager Tamari Davis was second in a PB of 7.08, followed by Marybeth Sant-Price in 7.11, Mikiah Brisco at 7.13 and 17-year-old Shawnti Jackson in 7.16.

“I don’t think my start was as good as it’s been, but I was patient,” Hobbs said.

In only her second 300m, Steiner broke the US record, clocking 35.54 to easily go under Quanera Hayes’ time of 35.71 from 2017. Steiner held off a spirited challenge from Brittany Brown, who ran 36.13.

“It’s definitely one of those races I think you learn a little bit about every time you run it,” said Steiner, who set the collegiate record in her first race.

Although this 300m is her last of the season, she still wants the world record of 35.45, shared by Shaunae Miller-Uibo and Irina Privalova. “I clean up my start a little bit,” Steiner said, “and I think it’s there.”

World indoor champion Jereem Richards of Trinidad & Tobago ran a season’s best of 45.84 to avenge the previous week’s loss to  Noah Williams, who clocked 46.20. In Boston, they were separated by only .004 as both ran 45.88.

Devynne Charlton won the women’s 60m hurdles in 7.91, while Tonea Marshall ran a season’s best of 7.94 and Sharika Nelvis clocked 7.96 to edge Olympic silver medallist Nia Ali in 7.97.

Giants of track and field prepare for battle at Millrose Games

print showdowns, the world’s greatest shot putters and magnificent mile fields highlight the Millrose Games, this season’s fourth World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting, in New York on Saturday (11).

Fresh off a PB and 60m win in Boston, world 200m champion Noah Lyles takes on 60m world record holder and defending Millrose champion Christian Coleman at The Armory, which boasts the nickname ‘The Fastest Track in the World’.

Shot putters Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs open their 2023 campaigns by resuming their fierce rivalry, essentially picking up where they left off last September in Switzerland. As the women’s shot returns to Millrose for the first time since 2003, the event couldn’t ask for a better field led by Chase Ealey, the world champion and world indoor silver medallist.

According to tradition, the Rudin Wanamaker Miles cap the storied meeting, which was founded in 1908. A national record might be needed to win the men’s race, but which country will take the honours? Defending champion Ollie Hoare of Australia, USA’s Yared Nuguse, Sam Tanner of New Zealand and Mario Garcia Romo of Spain are top contenders. Great Britain’s Olympic and world medallist Laura Muir is the favourite in the women’s mile, having already claimed a New York record on the road.

Straight down the middle

Although The Armory is far from the neon lights of Times Square, it’s still a hop, step and a jump from Broadway – and perhaps no athlete enjoys putting on a show more than Lyles.

At the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix Boston, he posted a PB of 6.51, edging Trayvon Bromell by .002. Coleman clocked 6.71 in Fayetteville two weeks ago to open his season, well off his world record of 6.34 set in 2018 when he was also world indoor champion. Lyles, the Olympic 200m bronze medallist, has been working on his start in a bid to double in the 100m and 200m at the World Athletics Championships later this year in Budapest.

Lyles will also attempt to avenge an early season loss to his younger brother Josephus in Florida. Ronnie Baker, the third-fastest 60m runner in history and 2018 world indoor bronze medallist, won this event in 2018 and 2020. Ackeem Blake of Jamaica, Miles Lewis, the Puerto Rican record-holder, and Kendal Williams, who defeated Lyles in Florida but lost to him in Boston, are also in the field.

Aleia Hobbs is seeking her second straight win in the women’s 60m after exploding to a meeting record 7.02 in Boston. She also owns the world-leading time of 6.98, run in Fayetteville in late January. In Boston, Hobbs held off world indoor silver medallist Mikiah Brisco and Celera Barnes, who get another chance to defeat her at Millrose.

Melissa Jefferson, who edged Hobbs in the 100m at last year’s USA Championships; world indoor bronze medallist Marybeth Sant-Price, and English Gardner are also in the field. Shawnti Jackson was third at Millrose last year, setting a national high school record of 7.18, and will look to improve both her placement and her time.

Olympic silver medallist Keni Harrison, the Millrose 60m hurdles winner in 2020, will take on 2019 world champion Nia Ali, heptathlete Anna Hall, and Olympians Anna Cockrell, Devynne Charlton and Cindy Sember.

Ring rivalry renewed

The road to Budapest begins for the top shot putters on the planet. World and Olympic champion Crouser will face Kovacs, a double outdoor world champion and two-time Olympic silver medallist.

While Crouser has won at Millrose three years in a row and holds both the indoor and outdoor world records, he knows his compatriot is always in the hunt to topple him. Kovacs set the world-leading mark in 2022 while moving to second on the all-time list and winning the Diamond league final in Zurich. At the season-ending meeting for both, Kovacs won at Bellinzona with a toss of 22.19m, with Crouser next at 22.00m. Tripp Piperi and Nick Ponzio of Italy round out the field.

Ealey had a dream season in 2022, building on her world indoor silver to take the world title in Oregon and then capture the Diamond League title. Compatriots Maggie Ewen, the 2021 Diamond League champion, and Jessica Woodard will challenge Ealey for the first Millrose crown in 20 years, along with Canada’s Commonwealth champion Sarah Mitton.

The women’s pole vault features Katie Moon (formerly Nageotte) and Katerina Stefanidi, the last two Olympic gold medallists. However, in their previous meeting, the Greek vaulter was third and the Tokyo champion placed fourth in Boston, with Bridget Williams and Gabriela Leon going 1-2. All four athletes will be on the runway at Millrose.

Steiner seeks another record

The rarely run 300m has become something of a specialty for USA’s Abby Steiner. She already holds the NCAA record and is targeting the national record of 35.71 in her first indoor season as a professional. Two weekends ago, Steiner raced to a 400m victory in Fayetteville in 50.59. The world record of 35.45 is shared by Irina Privalova and Shaunae Miller-Uibo, with the Bahamian clocking her winning time in 2018 at Millrose. Jenna Prandini, Steiner’s teammate on the victorious 4x100m relay in Oregon, and 2019 world 200m silver medallist Brittany Brown offer strong competition.

The men’s 400m could be another duel between USA’s Noah Williams and Trinidad & Tobago’s world indoor champion Jereem Richards. In Boston, both clocked 45.88, but Williams surged on the inside to win by .004. Michael Cherry, fourth in the 400m in Tokyo and an Olympic and world gold medallist at 4x400m, opens his season at Millrose, along with the fourth man in the field, Bryce Deadmon, another Olympic and world gold medallist on relays.

Going the distance

The great Paavo Nurmi raced at the Millrose Games nearly 100 years ago and the distance races never disappoint. Of course, the signature event is the Rudin Wanamaker Mile.

After recently setting a North American indoor record over 3000m, Yared Nuguse is in a New York state of mind to break another continental record: Bernard Lagat’s 3:49.89 in the indoor mile. Nuguse and training partners Hoare and Romo are hoping for a fast pace to propel them into the record books. Hoare set an Oceanian record of 3:50.83 in winning the 2022 Wanamaker Mile and is the Commonwealth 1500m champion. Other contenders include Tanner, a three-time New Zealand champion; Great Britain’s Neil Gourley, whose home straight sprint led to a world-leading 3:52.84 in Boston; 2022 US indoor 1500m champion Cole Hocker, Johnny Gregorek, Sam Prakel and Kenya’s Eliud Kipsang.

Muir had a US indoor race debut in Boston, clocking 8:40.34 in the 3000m, and now is dropping back down to more familiar territory. The world and Olympic medallist in the 1500m set a course record of 4:14.8 on the road in the Fifth Avenue Mile in 2022. At Millrose, the record is 4:16.85, set by Elle Purrier St Pierre in 2020, which is the third-fastest indoor mile in history after Gudaf Tsegay’s 4:16.16 in Torun. In a deep field, Muir will be challenged by training partner and Olympic 800m finalist Jemma Reekie, and US champion Sinclaire Johnson.

In the men’s 3000m, Geordie Beamish and Cooper Teare, who went 1-2 last year, return to the Armory track where they will try to fend off Josh Kerr, the Olympic 1500m bronze medallist; Joe Klecker, Guatemala’s Luis Grijalva and Nico Young.

Alicia Monson, defending Millrose champion in the women’s 3000m, faces national indoor 5000m record-holder Elise Cranny with Karissa Schweizer’s national indoor 3000m record of 8:25.70 in their sights. Monson set a Millrose Games and Armory record last year of 8:31.62 en route to a stellar outdoor season. Katelyn Tuohy recently set an NCAA mile record of 4:24.26 in a race won by Monson; she’s primed for another test against the pros. European champion and 2019 world bronze medallist Konstanze Klosterhalfen won the Wanamaker mile in 2019 and has the fastest 3000m time in the field, clocking 8:20.07 outdoors.

Streaks at stake for Wilson

In the 600m, world indoor 800m champion Ajee’ Wilson will attempt to extend some impressive winning streaks.

Since losing to Alysia Montano in the 600m at the 2013 Millrose Games, she has won 17 straight races at The Armory, including seven at Millrose. She also has won 15 straight races indoors, most recently the 800m in Boston with a time of 2:00.45. Wilson is the second-fastest woman in history in the 600m outdoors and could threaten Keely Hodgkinson’s newly minted world indoor best of 1:23.41. The fastest performer in the field this season Shamier Little, the 2015 world silver medallist in the 400m hurdles, who clocked 1:24.65. 

The men’s 800m will be a rematch between world indoor silver medallist Noah Kibet, still just 18 years of age, and world indoor bronze medallist Bryce Hoppel, the defending Millrose champion. The loaded field includes his compatriots Clayton Murphy, the 2016 Olympic bronze medallist, world indoor finalist Isaiah Harris, Great Britain’s Kyle Langford, Mexico’s Tonatiu Lopez and Irish record-holder Mark English. Cade Flatt, the second-fastest US high school runner at this distance, is also in the field.

One of the world’s best middle distance runners will be absent from the Millrose Games this Saturday

On Monday, Olympic and World Champion 800m runner Athing Mu announced on social media that she would not be running at the Millrose Games, instead, she will be focusing on preparing for the outdoor track and field season.

“My team and I have made the decision to no longer compete at the Millrose Games this weekend,” Mu said on Twitter. “ Instead, we are focusing on gearing up to be at my optimum for the outdoor season, especially, the upcoming World Championships. Wishing everyone participating the best of luck.”

Mu was scheduled to compete in the women’s 600m, competing against some of the world’s best talent, including Ajee Wilson, Shamier Little and Natoya Goule. Mu has the third fastest time in history in the 600m and the American record, with her personal best time of 1:23.57.

Mu, who is entering her second season as a professional, is coming off of a fantastic season, which included a World Championship gold medal at the World Championships in Oregon last summer. 

She made the move to train under the legendary coach Bobby Kersee last fall. Mu holds the American record in 800m with her personal best time of 1:55.04.

Two-time Olympian Natoya Goule set to compete at Millrose Games

Two-time  Olympian  Natoya Goule has  joined  the  list  of  athletes   down  to  compete  at  the Millrose Games   set  to  take  place  in  three  weeks  time  on  February  11  at  the   Nike Track & Field Center at the Armory  in  New  York.

The  national  800  meters  record  holder  Goule  will  join  several  Olympians and national champions   at  the  meet  including  world  and  Olympic  800  meters  champion  Athing  Mu  of the USA to  contest  the  women’s  600  meters  event.

World  Championships  semi-finalist  Ackeem  Blake   is  also  listed  to  compete at  the World Athletics Indoor Tour gold meet  where  he   will    compete  against Christian Coleman, Noah Lyles, and Ronnie Baker, three of the best sprinters in the world, ……………….in the  men’s  60  meters  dash

Olympic  sprint  relay  gold  medalist  Briana  Williams   will  line up  against   the U.S. Olympic bronze medalist and sprint sensation Gabby Thomas in the women’s 60 meters  and  Olympic  finalist  Christopher  Taylor  will  take  on  800  meters  World  Champion  Donavan Brazier  in  the  men’s  400  meters.

Athing Mu stars in Millrose Games 600m

Athing Mu is already the second-fastest women’s indoor 600m runner of all time and the US middle distance star could make another statement when she returns to the Millrose Games, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting, in New York on February 11.

It was in 2019, at the age of just 16, that Mu clocked 1:23.57 at the US Indoor Championships to miss the world 600m best by just 0.13.

Since then, she has become an Olympic and world champion in the 800m and has taken her PB in that discipline to 1:55.04, the US record.

The 800m final at the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 on 24 July last year, which Mu won in 1:56.30, was her most recent race and she will now be looking for another strong indoor season in a year that offers her the chance to defend that world title in Budapest.

“The women’s 600m will be one of the highlights of this year’s Millrose Games, and we are delighted to welcome Athing back to the track she grew up on,” said Millrose Games director Ray Flynn.

However, Mu will have to contend with athletes including her US compatriot Shamier Little and Jamaica’s Natoya Goule if she is to secure more success.

Hurdles specialist Little, the 2015 world 400m hurdles silver medallist, will look to continue testing herself in the flat event over a slightly longer distance, after opening her season with a world-leading 600m time of 1:24.65 last weekend.

While Goule, who has an indoor 600m best of 1:25.35, was the fourth-place finisher in the 800m at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22 and also finished fifth at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon last year.

They will be joined by Olivia Baker and Sophia Gorriaran in the 600m field.

Also in action in New York will be Chase Ealey, as she returns to compete in front of a home crowd as the world shot put champion.

Recently announced for the opening meeting in the 2023 World Indoor Tour Gold series in Karlsruhe on 27 January, Ealey has now also been confirmed for the Millrose Games, where the world champion and world indoor silver medallist will take on her US compatriots Maggie Ewen and Jessica Woodard, plus Canada’s Commonwealth and NACAC champion Sarah Mitton.

It means fans will be treated to two thrilling shot put showdowns in New York, with Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs already announced for the men’s contest.

“I am really excited to have the Millrose Games as my first competition in the US as the world champion,” said Ealey. “I hope that with the success of the male and female competition, people will love our event indoors!”

The Armory Rebranded as the Nike Track & Field Center

It’s arguably the most famous indoor track in the country. And now, the Armory Track in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood has been rebranded the Nike Track & Field Center at the Armory.

On Thursday, the sporting goods giant officially unveiled the name as part of a multilayered partnership intended to enhance and expand opportunities for children of all ages to take part in the track’s running activities. These include CityTrack, Little Feet and Tiny Feet programs for elementary and middle school kids, an Armory College Prep program for high school students and Armory College Prep Middle School and Great Minds programs for younger children.

More than 1 million miles are run on The Armory track each year and the venerable complex has played host to countless Olympic and World medal athletes who have set more records there than at any other indoor track. It is also the site of the famed Millrose Games.

“The synergy between our organization and Nike cannot be overstated,” said Jonathan Schindel, copresident of The Armory Foundation. “Keeping kids physically, mentally, culturally, socially and intellectually fit during their school years, and beyond, is paramount. The best way to achieve this is to develop healthy, well-rounded children who are prepared for success in and out of the classroom, instill in them a love and passion for movement, and provide them with fun opportunities to develop this passion. Now thanks to Nike, we will be able to ensure that children in our neighboring communities of Washington Heights, Inwood and Harlem will continue to have such opportunities, while enabling us to expand our outreach.”

The Armory Foundation copresident Rita Finkel added that the track will also benefit from Nike’s “expertise in running, youth play, sports and movement,” as well as its relationships with many of the top athletes and events including the Nike Indoor Nationals, the top high school indoor event.

“Our partnership with The Armory Foundation underscores Nike’s deep commitment to ensuring that communities have access to running and opportunities to play and stay active,” said Roderick Blaylock, vice president of NYC Nike Inc. “The Armory is not only one of the preeminent track and field facilities in the world, but it also has a long history of preparing students as young as fourth grade for higher education and college. Rooted in our belief that running and sports have the power to bring people together, we are teaming up with The Armory to champion community and athletes.”

Among the upcoming events at the track will be the HBCU Showcase on Jan. 14 where high school students will learn about campus life at approximately 20 prestigious Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as the Millrose Games on Feb. 15 and the Nike Indoor Nationals, slated for March 10 to 12.

The event also served to introduce the Nike ZoomX Invincible Run Flyknit 3 running shoe.

Ollie Hoare to defend Wanamaker mile title at Millrose Games

Organizers of the Millrose Games have announced that Ollie Hoare will defend his Wanamaker Mile title at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in New York on February 11.

Hoare, the Commonwealth 1500m champion, won last year’s Wanamaker mile in an Oceanian indoor record of 3:50.83.

“I’m thrilled to be able to come back and defend my Wanamaker title,” said the Australian. “It will be great to be out there competing at one of my favorite mile races in the world.”

He will take on a field that includes 2021 US 1500m champion and Olympic finalist Cole Hocker, European bronze medalist Mario Garcia Romo of Spain, US Olympian Yared Nuguse, NCAA record-holder Eliud Kipsang of Kenya, 2017 world finalist Johnny Gregorek, three-time New Zealand champion Sam Tanner, world indoor and outdoor finalist Neil Gourley, as well as USA’s Josh Thompson, Sam Prakel and Drew Hunter.

Bryce Hoppel and Noah Kibet head Millrose Games 800m

Bryce Hoppel and Noah Kibet will renew their rivalry at the Millrose Games, the fourth Gold level meeting in this season’s World Athletics Indoor Tour, in New York on February 11.

Hoppel is back to defend his Millrose Games 800m title, now as a world indoor bronze medallist. The 25-year-old, who won US titles indoors and outdoors in 2022, claimed the first global medal of his career in Belgrade, where he clocked 1:46.51 to finish third in a race won by Spain’s Mariano Garcia.

Second in that Belgrade final was Kibet, who at the age of 17 became the youngest ever track medallist in World Indoor Championships history. Now aged 18, the Kenyan seeks further indoor success in New York. Kibet ran 1:46.35 to win his world indoor medal and also claimed bronze at the World Athletics U20 Championships in Nairobi in 2021.

Looking to challenge them both will be Clayton Murphy, the 2016 Olympic bronze medallist and fourth-fastest US athlete in the history of the event. Murphy made a second Olympic final in Tokyo and is also a six-time national champion.

Lining up alongside them will be Isaiah Harris, who finished runner-up behind Hoppel at last year’s US Indoor Championships, and Kyle Langford, Britain’s 2018 Commonwealth silver medallist.

Also in the field are Mexican record-holder Jesus Tonatiu Lopez, Irish record-holder Mark English and USA’s Cade Flatt.

Already announced for the meeting are showdowns in the pole vault between Katie Moon, Sandi Morris and Katerina Stefanidi, and in the shot put between Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs. The women's 300m will feature Abby Steiner, Jenna Prandini and Brittany Brown, while the women’s 3000m will star Konstanze Klosterhalfen and Alicia Monson. Two-time world 200m champion Noah Lyles will race for more sprint success in the 60m and Laura Muir will race the Rudin Women’s Wanamaker Mile.

The Many Gifts of Joe Kleinerman

Runner. Soldier. Coach. NYRR founder. Administrator. Advocate. Volunteer.Joe Kleinerman was all these things, and more. He gave so much to running and to NYRR. We run to celebrate and honor him at the annual Joe Kleinerman 10K

An Early Start in Running

Joe was born in 1912 in Spring Valley, NY, the youngest of four children in a family recently immigrated from Ukraine. He grew up in New York City and started running as a teenager after he and one of his brothers attended the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden. Joe captained the cross country team at DeWitt Clinton High School, where he also ran track (half-mile and mile). During the summers he trained at Macombs Dam Park in the Bronx.He competed for City College, then won an athletic scholarship to Kansas State University. It was the mid-1930s, the depths of the Great Depression, and when Joe received a job offer with the U.S. Postal Service back in NYC, he could ill afford to turn it down. He returned home to take the job and would remain a Postal Service employee for 32 years. And he continued to run. Joe joined the Millrose Athletic Association and became one of their standout competitors, placing in the top 10 at the Boston Marathon 1941 and 1942 and running a best time of 2 hours and 38 minutes. In an interview years later he noted: “That’s 2:38 with sneakers, on dirt roads, and without any water stops!” 

He served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, including 19 months with the 599th Airborne in the South Pacific. He once placed fifth in a 1-mile race in Hawaii on a course laid out by another NYC serviceman also named Joe – last name DiMaggio. 

"Joe ran hundreds of races before injuries caused him to stop competing at age 53. He stopped running at age 70 but was able to resume light jogging after knee-replacement surgery in his 80s. 

From Competitor to Coach

Joe became the assistant coach of Millrose in 1958 and head coach in 1967. He enthusiastically recruited runners to Millrose, making the team a powerhouse, and was known to many as “Coach” for the rest of his life.At Joe’s memorial service, longtime Millrose runner and 1974 New York City Marathon winner Norb Sander recalled, “Joe was a great coach. He did not intrude. He didn’t criticize you. He was behind the scenes always to make sure that things went smoothly.”

Administrator and NYRR FounderJoe’s interest in working “behind the scenes” led him increasingly toward the administrative side of road racing. In the 1950s all competitive running in the U.S. was governed by the Amateur Athletics Union (AAU), which prohibited women from running distances over a mile, repeatedly failed to take a stand against racial segregation, and discouraged age-group competition. These regressive restrictions and biases frustrated Joe and other runners. In 1958 they formed the Road Runners Club of America (RRCA) to administer road racing. 

Later that year Joe, Ted Corbitt, Harry Murphy, and about 40 other runners founded NYRR, then known as the Road Runners Club – New York Association. Joe served as NYRR’s vice president and secretary. He's pictured above with Corbitt and New York City Marathon co-founder Vince Chiappetta. He never sought the limelight, preferring to work behind the scenes. Joe directed and scored countless races and meets – a laborious and task in an era when all recordkeeping was done by hand. 

Advocate and VolunteerJoe also worked tirelessly to make running more inclusive and equitable. In 1967, along with Nina Kuscsik and New York City Marathon co-founder Vince Chiappetta, he successfully led a movement to allow women to run AAU-sanctioned races longer than a mile. Later he helped put together a U.S. women’s team for the fabled London-to-Brighton 52-mile road race in England – and saw a dream fulfilled when the women won the race. 

Together with Ted Corbitt and others he introduced “veterans” races for runners age 35 and older as well as ultramarathon (50K and 50-mile) national championships. As far as it’s known, Joe never received any compensation for his thousands of hours of service to running. In his old age he remained close to the NYC racing scene and to NYRR’s offices on East 89th Street, where the lobby was named after him following his 90th birthday. He loved to tell stories and to marvel at the growth of running and NYRR over the decades."I considered Joe the heart and soul of Road Runners Club – New York Association," said Gary Corbitt, the son of Ted Corbitt. "Many of the innovation the sport enjoys today were started in New York in the 1960s. My father felt that Joe put in more volunteer hours for the betterment of our sport than anyone else worldwide."

Joe died on Veterans Day in 2003 at age 91. At his memorial service, friends shared their memories of a man who lived large, his gruff manner belying a boundlessly generous spirit. “He barked,” recalled Joe’s Millrose teammate John Garlepp. “If you don’t get the bark, there’s something wrong, either he’s not feeling well or he doesn’t like you.”

Joe's niece, Ruth Kleinrock, said at the service, "Having an uncle who was so instrumental in the sport of running, especially women's running, is something of which my sisters and I will always be proud."Joe Kleinerman dedicated his life to running and creating opportunities for all. We’re grateful to him for it.

Laura Muir headlines Millrose Games Wanamaker Mile

Laura Muir will race the Rudin Women’s Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games when she makes her debut at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in New York on February 11.

Muir won her long-awaited Olympic silver medal in Tokyo, then backed it up with a bronze medal at the World Athletics Championships Oregon22. The 29-year-old is a six-time European gold medallist, two-time Diamond League champion and the 2022 Commonwealth Games champion in the 1500m. In total, she holds six British records indoors and outdoors.

Muir blasted a 4:14.8 road mile last September at her most recent race in New York City, setting the course record for the 5th Avenue Mile. The Wanamaker Mile event record of 4:16.85 was set by Elinor Purrier St. Pierre in 2020, that mark also being the US record and second-fastest indoor mile in history.

“This will be my first time racing at the Millrose Games, so I am really excited as it has been a competition that I have wanted to do for a long time,” said Muir, who will also compete at the World Indoor Tour Gold meetings in Boston and Birmingham. “I have very fond memories of racing in the city, and I cannot wait to return and tackle the same distance indoors.”

As always, the Wanamaker Mile will feature a deep field of talented runners hungry for an upset victory. Athletes to watch include US 1500m champion Sinclaire Johnson, British indoor mile record-holder Jemma Reekie, Josette Norris, Sage Hurta-Klecker, Nikki Hiltz, Medina Eisa, Allie Wilson, Lucia Stafford, Sintayehu Vissa, Marta Pen Freitas and Helen Schlachtenhaufen.

These are the latest stars announced for the Millrose Games, joining the showdowns in the pole vault between Katie Moon, Sandi Morris and Katerina Stefanidi, and in the shot put, featuring Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs. The women's 300m will feature Abby Steiner, Jenna Prandini and Brittany Brown, and the women’s 3000m will star Konstanze Klosterhalfen and Alicia Monson. In the men’s 60m, two-time world 200m champion Noah Lyles will race for more sprint success.

Christian Coleman, Noah Lyles and Ronnie Baker to Clash in Epic 60m at 2023 Millrose Games

The 115th Millrose Games, the world’s most historic indoor track & field event is only six weeks away. The Men’s 60m will surely be one of the most anticipated races of the entire meet, as Christian Coleman, Noah Lyles, and Ronnie Baker, three of the best sprinters in the world, will be taking their talents to the infield straightaway at the iconic New Balance Track & Field Center at The Armory.

The 115th Millrose Games is scheduled for Saturday, February 11th.

Coleman is the defending Millrose Games champion, World Record holder, and 2018 World Indoor Champion in the 60m. His lightning-quick starting ability makes him nearly unstoppable over this short distance, and he set the current world record of 6.34 seconds in 2018. Outdoors, he has two World Championship gold medals and three silver medals in the 100m and 4x100m relay.

Lyles is the reigning back-to-back World Champion, American Record holder, and the third-fastest man ever in the 200m. He also claimed the Olympic bronze medal in Tokyo. Lyles, the 2022 USATF Male Athlete of the Year, has been open about his pursuit of the world records held by Usain Bolt, and by dropping down in distance to challenge the short-sprint specialists, he hopes to continue improving his start and putting the pieces together for another year of dominance.

Baker is the third-fastest 60m runner in history, and one of the most consistent sprinters competing on the circuit. He is an Olympic finalist, World Indoor bronze medalist, and two-time NCAA champion. Baker is no stranger to the Millrose Games stage, winning the 60m in both 2018 and 2020.

Other athletes in the field include:

–Josephus Lyles, Noah’s younger brother. Lyles is a former World Junior Champion, and he placed fifth in the 200m final at this year’s USATF Outdoor Championships.

–Ackeem Blake of Jamaica, NACAC 100m Champion, and semifinalist at the World Championships.

–Miles Lewis, the 60m national record holder for Puerto Rico.

As always, the Millrose Games will feature the absolute best athletes in the sport, including dozens of Olympians and world champions. Some of the big names already announced include Alicia Monson, Konstanze Klosterhalfen, Abby Steiner, Jenna Prandini, Geordie Beamish, Cooper Teare, Josh Kerr, Katie Nageotte, Sandi Morris, Katerina Stefanidi, Ryan Crouser, and Joe Kovacs, with many more still to come.

The Millrose Games is a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meet. With the highest-level competition at the youth, high school, collegiate, club, and professional levels, there is truly something for everyone at the Millrose Games.

Alicia Monson and Konstanze Klosterhalfen headline Millrose Games 3000m

Alicia Monson will defend her 3000m title against a field including Konstanze Klosterhalfen when she returns to the Millrose Games, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting, in New York on February 11.

Monson ran away from the field in 2022, setting a meeting record of 8:31.62. That performance would prove to be a springboard to more success for the 24-year-old, who went on to have the best season of her career outdoors, running personal bests at 3000m, 5000m and 10,000m, competing at the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 and placing in the top five at three Diamond League meetings. 

"I’m looking forward to coming back to defend the 3000m this year," said Monson. "The atmosphere in The Armory makes for an awesome start to the track season."

Her main challenger may be Klosterhalfen, this year's European 5000m champion and the 2019 world bronze medalist. Klosterhalfen holds eight national records for Germany and won the 2019 Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games. 

Other athletes to watch include Katelyn Tuohy, Elly Henes, Courtney Wayment, Whittni Orton Morgan and Fantaye Belayneh, Ethiopian champion and African Championships silver medalist in the 5000m.

These are the latest stars announced for the Millrose Games, joining the showdowns in the pole vault between Katie Nageotte, Sandi Morris, and Katerina Stefanidi, and in the shot put, featuring Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs. The men’s 3000m, meanwhile, will star Geordie Beamish, Cooper Teare and Josh Kerr, while the women's 300m will feature Abby Steiner, Jenna Prandini and Brittany Brown.

Steiner, Prandini and Brown to race Millrose Games 300m

Global medalists Abby Steiner, Jenna Prandini and Brittany Brown are set to clash in the 300m when the 115th Millrose Games, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting, takes place in New York on February 11.

Steiner, the NCAA indoor 300m record-holder, had a breakthrough campaign in 2022. The 23-year-old completed her collegiate career at the University of Kentucky with four NCAA titles, setting a US indoor record and outdoor NCAA record in the 200m. She then lowered her PB to win the US 200m title, qualifying for the World Athletics Championships Oregon22, where she finished fifth and also formed part of USA’s victorious 4x100m and 4x400m teams.

“I am beyond excited to be running at this historic meet for the first time in my professional career,” said Steiner. “I’m looking forward to the atmosphere, fans, and great competition that Millrose always provides!”

Steiner ran her NCAA indoor 300m record of 35.80 in December 2021. The US best of 35.71 is held by Quanera Hayes, while the world best of 35.45 was equalled at the Millrose Games in 2018 by Shaunae Miller-Uibo. Both of these marks could come under threat in New York in February.

Among those challenging Steiner in this Millrose Games signature event will be her fellow world 4x100m gold medallist Prandini and 2019 world 200m silver medallist Brown.

Prandini is a three-time NCAA gold medallist for the University of Oregon, as well as a two-time US 200m champion. As well as winning world 4x100m gold in Oregon, she also claimed Olympic 4x100m silver in Tokyo.

Brown claimed her world 200m medal in Doha in 2019 and more recently won the 200m title at the NACAC Championships in The Bahamas.

Also in the women’s 300m field at the Millrose Games will be Cynthia Bolingo, Belgium’s 2019 European indoor 400m silver medallist.

These are the latest stars announced for the Millrose Games, joining the showdowns in the pole vault between Katie Nageotte, Sandi Morris, and Katerina Stefanidi, and in the shot put, featuring Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs. The men’s 3000m, meanwhile, will star Geordie Beamish, Cooper Teare and Josh Kerr.

Beamish, Teare, and Kerr will highlight Millrose Games 3000m

The Millrose Games will welcome a stacked 3000m field to the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in New York on February 11.

New Zealand’s Geordie Beamish, who holds the national indoor records for 3000m and 5000m, won last year’s race in thrilling fashion, going from fifth to first on the final lap with a furious kick to win in 7:39.50.

US 1500m champion Cooper Teare finished second in that race, and he will also return to the Millrose stage with revenge on his mind. “I’m beyond excited to be returning to the Millrose Games to experience the electric crowds and fast times,” said Teare.

While the rematch of last year’s tight finish is enticing enough, there are numerous other athletes who are more than capable of winning this race.

Olympic 1500m bronze medalist Josh Kerr finished second in the mile at the Millrose Games last year, then went on to set a European indoor record of 3:48.87 at that distance.

Guatemala’s Luis Grijalva was fourth over 3000m at last year’s Millrose Games, and he repeated that position over 5000m at the World Championships in Oregon.

Joe Klecker, Morgan McDonald, Olin Hacker and Dylan Jacobs – all past winners of NCAA titles – are also in the field, as is Nico Young, who recently finished second at this year’s NCAA Cross Country Championships.

These are the latest stars announced for the Millrose Games, joining the showdowns in the pole vault between Katie Nageotte, Sandi Morris, and Katerina Stefanidi, and in the shot put, featuring Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs.

Why You Should Jog the Recovery in Interval Workouts

I used to train with a group that spanned the spectrum from milers to marathoners, all at a similar competitive level. For large stretches of autumn and winter, we could all train together in some approximation of harmony. But during track sessions, tensions would sometimes mount. The milers would start gapping the marathoners during shorter intervals-and in retaliation, the marathoners would push the recovery jogs to prevent the milers from catching their breath before the next rep. It was a nice illustration of different methods and mindsets about recovery.

A new study from researchers in Spain delves into this culture clash, comparing active (jogging) and passive (standing around) recovery between repeats during interval workouts. It's the latest in a long line of such studies, which have on the whole produced a confusing and contradictory body of research. This one doesn't offer any final answers, but it may help clarify which questions are worth asking.

The study was published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology (where it's free to read online) by a research team led by Eliseo Iglesias-Soler of the University of A Corua in Spain. It had 11 well-trained distance runners do a workout of 4 x 2:00 at their maximum aerobic speed, with 2:00 of either rest or jogging between intervals. They ran the workouts on an outdoor track, with a bike pacing them at their prescribed speeds (including during the jog rest, which was at 80 percent of their second ventilatory threshold). They also did five two-footed jumps immediately after each rep, which was supposed to assess their neuromuscular function, but seems like an odd thing to insert in the middle of a workout when you're trying to understand recovery dynamics.

Here's the key piece of data from one of the runners, showing his oxygen usage (VO2) as the workout progressed:

You can see that he uses more oxygen when he's running hard, and less when he's recovering. You can also see that he uses more oxygen during the jog recoveries (black lines) than the complete rests (red lines). The interesting part is the peaks. The whole point of interval workouts, according to one school of thought, is that it allows you to spend more time in the extreme zone, shown here as dotted lines between 90 and 100 percent of VO2 max, compared to just going out and running as hard as you can until you drop. The rest between reps enables you to suffer more rather than less.

In this case, the red peaks are higher than the black peaks: taking a complete rest enables this runner to spend more time in the extreme zone. Overall, the average results are ambiguous, though the complete rest does seem (with borderline statistical significance) to enable the runners to spend more time at peak VO2. On the other hand, perceived effort measured immediately after each hard repeat is lower with complete rest. As a result, the researchers conclude that complete rest is preferable for this type of workout: you get similar cardiorespiratory benefits but it feels easier.

There are a few caveats, though. One is that identical speeds were prescribed for the repeats. Perhaps the slightly lower VO2 values with active recovery mean that, if speeds were freely chosen, you'd actually run a faster workout with jog rests. This is, after all, one of the main rationales used to justify jog recoveries: the low-intensity exercise keeps blood flowing, which eliminates metabolic waste products such as lactate and protons more quickly, and thus enables you to go faster in the next interval. (The idea that lactate causes muscular fatigue has fallen out of favor, but it's still plausible that lactate levels are correlated with performance-impairing metabolites.)

In this study, lactate levels were only measured after the workout was over, and they were indeed significantly higher (6.93 vs. 6.24 mmol/L) in the complete rest condition. But a 2014 study tracked them every 45 seconds during a three-minute recovery period after an all-out 30-second interval. Lactate levels were initially identical for complete rest and easy cycling, but started to diverge after about two minutes. This suggests that the physiological benefits of active recovery kick in around then.

But all this, in turn, raises a deeper physiological (or perhaps philosophical) question: Is it better to make your workout harder or easier? You could argue that standing completely still is the best option because your muscles will be bathed in lactate and you'll get practice running under those conditions. Or you could argue that jogging is better, because you'll be training your body to eliminate lactate from the bloodstream more quickly, and enabling your legs to run faster. The only real way to resolve this debate is to forget about physiological measures and do a training study: get a bunch of people, train half of them with jog recoveries, half of them with complete rest, and see who makes the biggest improvements. It would be a very hard study to do.

In reality, there's unlikely to be a single best answer for how to recover between intervals. Instead, understanding the physiology of recovery gives you some tools to decide what's appropriate for a given session with given goals. If your goal is simply to run the workout as fast as possible, then you're probably better off walking the recovery or standing still if the recovery is short-a minute or less, say. That's because complete rest helps restore phosphocreatine, which is the instant energy that fuels sprints and the initial seconds of longer runs. If you're taking a couple minutes or more, then light jogging is likely to help you run fastest, thanks to the enhanced blood flow clearing lactate and other metabolites.

Then there's the mental dimension. In Once a Runner, Quenton Cassidy bends over in exhaustion after winning the Millrose Games. His mentor comes over to chastise him: "Don't you grab those knees, boy Here are your sweats, get 'em on. But don't you grab those knees though because you got to run a little of that off. You have just become the Wanamaker Mile champion and you got to let them know"

I only started jogging recoveries after college, and it was initially a big adjustment. It's a mental challenge to finish a hard interval and then force yourself to keep jogging-which, I suspect, is why the effort ratings were a little higher in the new Spanish study. But once you get over that hump, you realize that it's not actually any harder physically. And there's something intangible about finishing a hard interval with a training group, and seeing half of them bend over in distress while you jog calmly onward. I'm not saying you should get competitive with your training partners-but if the goal is racing, then it doesn't hurt now and then to subtly let them (and yourself) know

Josh Kerr hopes to make history at Hayward Field

Josh Kerr knows the history, that long line of British middle-distance greats who all but monopolised the men’s 1500m back in the 1980s. Those names – Seb Coe, Cram, Ovett, Elliott – conjure up memories of grainy footage, the kind Kerr has watched countless times on YouTube. 

Now that he’s run faster than them all – his PB of 3:29.05 is behind only Mo Farah on the British all-time list – Kerr feels part of that lineage, especially after winning an Olympic bronze medal last year. 

But as much as he appreciates the achievements of past generations, the 24-year-old Scot is keen to kickstart a new golden era.

“Myself and (Jake) Wightman, we’ve run faster than all those guys but they’re not known for how fast they ran, they’re known for what medals they won and what colours they are,” says Kerr. “We hadn’t won an Olympic medal in 33 years and hopefully we’re moving back into an era people will remember as the Kerr-Wightman era. I want to leave a stamp on the 1500 and grab that British record as an extra.

“But,” he adds, “it’s mostly about medals.”

The game is changing these days. In the decade preceding the 2019 World Championships, the quickest winning time in a global 1500m final was 3:33.61, and in just two out of seven championships did the winner come home in under 3:35. 

Then there was Doha, where Timothy Cheruiyot blitzed a solo 3:29.26 to take gold. Two years later in Tokyo, Jakob Ingebrigtsen outkicked and outlasted Cheruiyot to set an Olympic record of 3:28.32.

Cheruiyot is 26, Ingebrigtsen is 21. Neither is going anywhere any time soon, and both are at their best when the pace is hard from the gun, which means that when it comes to global finals, the future is almost certainly fast. 

Kerr knows this, and he prepares accordingly. 

“The 1500 has evolved over the last two or three years,” he says. “We have to be strong and we train like a 5km athlete. That helps, knowing I’m going to get better round by round. It’s exciting for people to watch and it’s really hard for us racing, but that’s what we’re there for: to find the best. 

“I do believe the world and Olympic champions over the next three or four years will be true champions – who are the best at the distance. Jakob last year was the best and he showed that in the final and Cheruiyot was second and I was third: those are honest, clear-cut, black-and-white results, and you can’t ask for anything more.”

Kerr prepared for Tokyo in his typical manner, racking up 65-70 miles (104-112km) a week in training, along with two gym sessions. It’s been his approach since 2018, when he joined the Brooks Beasts in Seattle and began training with coach Danny Mackey. 

Being a three-time NCAA champion for the University of New Mexico, the Scottish athlete had a wealth of options in the professional ranks. Why did he choose the Brooks Beasts? It came down to his trust in Mackey. 

“I’ve had the most amazing, honest conversations with him,” says Kerr. “He knows me very well, I know him very well. He said, ‘this is the coach I am, we’re not the flashiest group but you come here, you’ll get better.’ He stayed true to that promise. I’ve got six seconds quicker since I’ve gone there.

“The training isn’t massively intense but what I do really well: my injury rate is really low and I’m able to stack a bunch of days together and it ends up being a phenomenal fitness level.”

That was exactly what Kerr carried to Tokyo, and while his 1500m PB of 3:31.55 had many underrating him at the time, his workouts convinced him he was ready to run 3:28. 

“I thought, ‘you know what, the best way to run that is evenly,’” says Kerr. “I wasn’t planning on being so far at the back after the first lap but it was just so fast.”

Kerr narrowly avoided disaster in the heats, scraping through as a non-automatic qualifier, but he was far more convincing in the semifinal, finishing a close third.

After the first lap of the final, with Ingebrigtsen pouring it on from the outset, Kerr was 10th, splitting 57.3 seconds. By 800m he’d moved up to seventh. By 1200m, he was fourth, and ready to take aim at the big two out front – Ingebrigtsen and Cheruiyot – along with Abel Kipsang of Kenya. Kerr waited until the home straight before going for broke, overtaking Kipsang and finishing just 0.04 behind Cheruiyot. 

“I was hoping for a better medal than the one I got,” he says now.  

After the Games, he went to Albuquerque, USA, to spend time with his fiancee and a few weeks later he returned to Scotland. The last six months have been a “whirlwind”, but after a few weeks off Kerr was back into base training to prepare for better things again in 2022. 

“It’s about building the motivation back up, climbing back up the hill with fitness and trying to show some better performances,” he says. “And hopefully better colour of medals.”

He had just one race set in stone for the indoor season: the Wanamaker Mile at last month's Millrose Games, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold event. After biding his time for seven laps, Kerr powered to the lead at the bell, but couldn’t hold off the vicious surge of longtime rival Ollie Hoare, who won in 3:50.83 with Kerr second in 3:52.27, just shy of Peter Elliott’s British record of 3:52.02. 

“First one of the season is always going to be a bit rocky but I told myself I’d be aggressive, I’d push,” says Kerr. “I may have pushed a little bit too early, but I gave it my all. I like to press a little bit and see who falls apart, and it might be me. I’m not scared of anyone or any distance or any race.”

That may be Kerr’s only race of the indoor season. With an outdoor season overflowing with medal opportunities, he’s giving that his prime focus. 

His main targets are the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 in July and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. Only after that will he make a decision on the European Championships in Munich. 

“Because that’s enough for my brain to explode,” he says. “We’ll take it step by step.”

When he speaks of such championships, Kerr does so with a calm but resolute confidence that he can beat whoever he faces. It’s not surprising, given he has a habit of toppling favourites. 

When he lined up in the mile at the 2017 NCAA Indoor Championships, he was a 19-year-old with a 1500m personal best of 3:41.08 – an athlete no one expected to challenge the all-conquering Ed Cheserek. 

When Kerr surged past Cheserek with two laps to run, the ESPN commentator all but dismissed his chances: “That’s Josh Kerr, the New Mexico freshman, and that may just be a freshman move.” 

But it wasn’t. Kerr ran Cheserek into the ground during the final lap, coming home a distant winner. He added the NCAA title outdoors that year – winning the 1500m at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon – and repeated his indoor win in 2018. Those successes taught him he could contend at global level. 

“You have that mindset of wanting to be the champ, to go after the fastest guys,” he says. “You don’t care who anyone is, and if you have that fearless mentality you’re going to be fine in the pros. But if you always look at stats and look up to these guys, you’re going to find it hard to toe the line against them.”

Does he believe he can match Ingebrigtsen and Cheruiyot this summer?

“Yeah, definitely,” he says. “It’s quite funny, but people were saying, ‘any other Olympics you’d have won with the times,’ but they’re different races. The 1500m is exploding because of the way we’re running these races. Those guys are doing great things for the sport.”

Kerr knows those two will likely be the men to beat again in Eugene this summer. He’s not yet raced in the new-and-improved Hayward Field, but is relishing the chance to do so.

“It’s over the top,” he laughs. “It’s a phenomenal facility and I’m excited to go there and run fast. It’s built for fast times and for history to be made, and that’s what’s going to happen this year.” 

He knows his sport’s history, but he also knows his own, and Kerr can extrapolate plenty from it about what might lie ahead.

“I was 37th (at the World Championships) in 2017, sixth in 2019, and third (at the Olympics) in 2021,” he says. “So in 2022 the trajectory is looking like second or first. That’s always what I’m going for. I’m always looking for progress.”

Sara Hall on Tokyo Marathon, Her Busy Schedule, & What’s Written on Her Bathroom Mirror Right Now

Few professional runners will have a busier first seven months of 2022 than Sara Hall. The 38-year-old American kicked off the year by running 67:15 to break the American half marathon record in Houston on January 16 and on March 6 ventured to Tokyo in an attempt to break the American record in the marathon. While Hall was on record pace through halfway (69:29), she faded over the second half but still ran 2:22:56 to finish 8th overall in the Japanese capital.

Hall is not resting on her laurels, however, as she will race the NYC Half on Sunday before tackling the Boston Marathon on April 18 and the World Championships marathon in Eugene on July 18. LetsRun.com caught up with Hall after she returned home from Tokyo last week to discuss her racing schedule, how she keeps improving deep into her 30s, how much faster she thinks Americans can run with the supershoes, and what goals she has written on her bathroom mirror.

You ran the Tokyo Marathon over the weekend. I assume you’re back stateside at this point. How are you feeling, and how is your body feeling after the race?

It feels pretty good. I would say pretty similar to other flat marathons I’ve done, maybe a little bit more sore on my right side, just with my knee, I think it’s been pulling a little more weight. But thankfully the knee came out of it really well and that was the main concern going in. And so I’m really excited to regroup toward the NYC Half and Boston, assuming I can stay healthy and have good training.

I emailed Ryan (Hall’s husband and coach) before the race and he mentioned that you fell and injured that knee in training a few weeks ago. How much did it affect your preparations for Tokyo, and how much, if at all, did it affect you during the race?

It didn’t affect me at all in the race. I didn’t feel it at all, thankfully. But it was one of those weird things where it just kind of dragged on. I didn’t expect it to be as much of an issue as it was but it was a pretty big setback at a pretty important time. It was hard to quantify how much it affected [my buildup] but I didn’t get in as much in the fourth and third weeks before the race. 

With 10 days out from the race, I was feeling really good and it was finally responding really well to training. So I felt really good going into the race and was optimistic that all the training I had done prior to the knee was still in me and I’d be okay and I still wanted to stick to my original goal and stuff. But unfortunately, I wasn’t quite able to hold the pace I thought I would be capable of out there.

You just ran Tokyo and you’ve got a pretty busy schedule in 2022. You’ve got the NYC Half next weekend and then Boston and then the Worlds in July. You didn’t have to run Boston, but you are running it, so what made you want to run that race?

Well because it’s Boston. I’ve only gotten to run Boston once, it was absolutely incredible as an American out there and [a race where] I really saw Ryan come alive running in his career, probably his favorite spot. The one time I ran it, it was off really limited training off a stress fracture, so I didn’t really get the full experience because I crashed and burned pretty hard. But yeah, I think also having the chance to compete in a marathon, I definitely want some more opportunities for that. I really loved London [in 2020, when Hall finished 2nd] where I just got to compete out there and time was out the window. I think [ahead of] Worlds, [Boston] gives me another opportunity to do that. But really it’s just for the fun of it. I just love racing marathons and am really excited to experience it out there.

Your best marathons so far have come on flat courses. You mentioned you didn’t run as well as you liked in Boston (in 2019, when Hall was 15th), that was also coming off of injury. Do you think you’re a better flat runner than hill runner? And do you expect you might be able to do better on the hills this time around? Have you changed anything that you think might be able to help you succeed on the hills in Boston?

I feel good about the uphills. I do need some more downhill training between now and then, especially because I was starting to do that right when the knee happened, and then that was the absolute worst thing for the knee at the time so I definitely feel a little behind on that, and I think that’s a big factor in Boston to handle the pounding early on of the downhills. It’s a net downhill course. So looking to continue that, and I’m going to really need to stay on top of my recovery, my protein intake with the MuscleTech Pure Series because that eccentric load just really beats you up, so it’s just a fine balance with that. But I’m hoping also the supershoes factor will help, just because it’s my first hilly marathon in a super-cushioned shoe and that, I know from training, helps with the pounding component.

You turn 39 a few days before the Boston Marathon, but you’re not really slowing down very much – you just ran an American record in the half marathon in January. How much longer do you think you can keep going at this level?

It’s a good question. It is kind of surreal to think I’m going to be a masters [athlete] in a year. [laughs] I would have never thought I’d still be competing as a masters. It’s something I try not to think about – I learned this from Terrence Mahon, one of my coaches early on. Deena [Kastor] was joking about being old and he was like, “Deena, once you start saying you’re old, you start the clock.”

I was only, like, 23 at the time, but for some reason that stuck with me, that what you speak about yourself and expect makes a big difference. So I’ve just tried to be really intentional about not joking about that or expecting to slow down. My body’s still handling training really well, I’m finding ways to train smarter because I can’t really train harder or necessarily do more than I’m doing. Obviously my therapist John Ball in Phoenix has helped me so much with staying injury-free. That’s really the biggest limiter. Later in life, you can keep building aerobic capacity for a lot of years, but it’s really just can you stay healthy? So that’s a big focus. Recovering from training, obviously protein intake with MuscleTech, the recovery part is just an art that I’ve continued to try to perfect over the years. So I’m optimistic that my best marathons are still ahead. 

You mentioned training smarter because there’s a limit to how hard you can train. Can you give me an example of something that you feel has helped you in that area to train smarter?

There’s some outside-the-box-stuff I do that I don’t really talk about because they’re my secret weapons. But I feel like those things are really what has allowed me to have the realistic jump I had in Berlin (in 2019 when Hall lowered her pb from 2:26 to 2:22) and I’ve really continued to do more and more of that type of training. They’re kind of secret, but I think what’s helped me is getting outside the groupthink of marathon training in the US. And that goes back to running Boston and Worlds and all these races. There’s a culture of we do things a certain way, but for me, I’ve been able to train in Kenya and Ethiopia and I’m just a curious person. I like to come up with outside-the-box stuff and Ryan’s similar. So I think some of that has really benefited me, having different perspectives and trying different things. 

Since the supershoes came along a few years ago, we’ve seen the half marathon and marathon world records have drop quite precipitously. Recently, we’ve also seen the American records in those events have been lowered in those events, but not quite as much. How much lower do you think those records can go? Now that pretty much every American has access to some form of supershoe, what kind of times do you think Americans can run in those events?

That’s a good question. I think how I felt in Houston after that (where Hall ran 67:15 to break the AR in the half and Keira D’Amato ran 2:19:12 to break the AR in the marathon), and this sounds ambitious, but Josh [Cox, her agent] and Ryan and I are like, maybe breaking 2:18, that might be possible at some point. I’m not there yet, but thinking if you can just keep chipping away little bits. Definitely, the later stages of the marathon, [the shoes] just save your legs. And I think if I can do that, definitely some of these other people – Keira, the people that are running well – can do that too.

As far as the half, I think I can break 67:00. I’m sure other people can too. So we’ll see. Probably under 66:00 eventually, which sounds nuts.

Maybe not as nuts now that the world record is 62:52, right?

Correct, yeah.

You’ve run all of the World Marathon Majors. You’re running the World Championships this year. I know you’d like to run the Olympics one day. Are there any other races on your bucket list that you haven’t gotten to do yet?

Really it’s the Olympics at this point for me. I’d like to podium at a major in the US, but I’ve gotten to experience them all. NYC Half is one that surprisingly I’ve never run and I’ve won all the marquee New York races like the Fifth Avenue Mile and Millrose Games and Mini 10K and Dash to the Finish 5K. And obviously, the marathon is the hardest one to win, so that one and the Half, that would be amazing to go for those at some point. But just to experience the Half will be fun next weekend.

I have one more question. You’re famous for writing your goals on your bathroom mirror. So I’ve got to ask you: what’s written there right now?

Well my Tokyo goals got erased. So now I just have Boston and a picture of a medal and Worlds and a picture of a medal there right now. Those are really gonna be really insanely hard goals. And I think my personality is one where going into Tokyo, it wasn’t an ideal buildup but I’m still gonna just go out there and go for it.

And that has its hard parts with that personality, because you struggle with disappointment a lot. Medalling in those races, that’s a really big ask. But at the same time, you do have those moments where it does come together like those Houston days or the London Marathon days, so I’m going to keep taking big swings and having fun with the process.

Global 1500m champions Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Samuel Tefera ready to clash in Belgrade

Two global champions are on a collision course in the men’s 1500m at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22, with Olympic gold medallist Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway looking to depose Ethiopia’s Samuel Tefera as the world indoor champion.

Based on their recent clash in Lievin, where Ingebrigtsen broke Tefera’s world indoor 1500m record, clocking 3:30.60, the pressure and expectation will rest with the 21-year-old Norwegian. That Lievin race was Ingebrigtsen’s sole outing of the indoor season, and he looked majestic as he bounded away from Tefera over the final 300 metres after the pacemaker stepped aside.

A championship final, of course, will present a very different challenge, but Ingebrigtsen showed in Tokyo and at last year’s European Indoor Championships that he has the tactical nous to go with his physical gifts. With his long-time rival Timothy Cheruiyot bypassing the indoor season, he will likely have to do his own pace-making if he wants a fast final, the kind of race in which he has become nigh-on unbeatable.

Tefera, however, will not go down without a considerable fight, and the 22-year-old Ethiopian gave Ingebrigtsen a much better race in Lievin than the three-second margin of victory suggested.

Perhaps Ingebrigtsen’s biggest challenger, though, will be Kenya’s Abel Kipsang. He finished fourth in the Olympic final last year and showed impressive indoor credentials when taking victory in Birmingham last month in 3:34.57. A recent 1:45.84 clocking for 800m outdoors in Nairobi signals he’s got the speed to be a threat here.

The British challenge will be led by Neil Gourley, who clocked 3:35.32 in Boston last month and who was runner-up in a slow 1500m final at the British Indoor Championships. He will be joined by George Mills, who impressed in Birmingham last month when clocking a PB of 3:36.03 against a world-class field.

Another athlete keen to see a fast final will be Oliver Hoare, the Australian who clocked a 3:50.83 mile to win at the Millrose Games in New York in January. In that race he powered away from Olympic bronze medallist Josh Kerr, showing the kind of closing speed and strength that will make him dangerous, particularly in a fast race.

Spain’s Ignacio Fontes, like Hoare, was an Olympic finalist last year and he booked his place here with a runner-up finish behind Adel Mechaal at the Spanish Indoor Championships, with Mechaal later electing to focus on the 3000m in Belgrade.

Germany’s Robert Farken is another who’ll have high expectations after the 24-year-old lowered his PB to 3:35.44 in Birmingham last month, while Ethiopia’s Teddese Lemi clocked an indoor PB of 3:35.84 last month and has 1:44 800m speed – which should prove useful in this realm.

Ireland’s Andrew Coscoran will be hoping to reproduce the form that saw him take victory in Staten Island last month with a 3:53.64 mile, where he was followed in third place by compatriot Luke McCann, who will join him in Belgrade.

The US charge will be led by Josh Thompson and Sam Prakel, who finished second and fourth respectively at their national championships.

World champion Noah Lyles targets fast finish to season in Birmingham

Double world champion Noah Lyles headlines the men’s 60m at the Müller Indoor Grand Prix Birmingham – a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting – at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham on February 19.

The 24-year-old, who was the fastest man in the world over 200m in 2021 (19.52), is ranked fourth on the global all-time list (19.50). He ran a 60m personal best of 6.56 for victory in the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on 6 February and will line up in Birmingham alongside his fellow US sprinter Ronnie Baker, the bronze medalist in the 60m at the 2018 World Indoor Championships. Baker, who has a PB of 6.40 from 2018, opened his season with third place at the Millrose Games on January 29.

"I’ve run on the US indoor circuit this year, and this meet will be the final one for me," said Olympic 200m bronze medalist Lyles, who will compete at the Müller Indoor Grand Prix for the first time. "I have seen a lot of fast times come from the Birmingham track, and I’m looking forward to running there. 

"My main focus this year is on defending my titles at the World Athletics Championships this summer and continuing to get better. Every training session and every race is working towards achieving that goal, and this race fits right into that." 

The British contingent in Birmingham will be led by reigning national indoor champion Andy Robertson.

The Müller Indoor Grand Prix is the fifth meeting of the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold series. There are seven Gold level meetings across the series, which started with Karlsruhe on 28 January and concludes in Madrid on March 2. 

Other athletes set to compete in Birmingham include five-time Olympic gold medalist Elaine Thompson-Herah, Olympic pole vault champion Mondo Duplantis, world indoor 60m hurdles record-holder Grant Holloway, Olympic 1500m silver medalist Laura Muir and Olympic 800m silver medalist Keely Hodgkinson.

100m Olympic champion Marcell Lamont Jacobs wins his first race back since Olympics

The world’s fastest man, Marcell Lamont Jacobs, returned to the track in Germany on Friday to compete for the first time since his gold-medal-winning 100m performance in Tokyo. Jacobs ran an impressive 6.51 seconds over 60m to take the win at the ISTAF Indoor Meet in Berlin.

Jacobs had an ideal first race back, as he got out of the blocks well, using his power in his first few strides to separate himself from the field. His time of 6.51 seconds is only .04 seconds off the Italian national record he set in March of 2021. Arthur Cissé of the Ivory Coast was second in 6.60 and France’s Jimmy Vicaut was third in 6.61.

The reigning Olympic champion will have his eyes on the 60m title at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, next month. Jacobs time is the fifth-fastest this year behind Christian Coleman and Treyvon Bromell of the U.S.

Coleman is the current 100m world champion, who just returned to competition last weekend at the NYC Millrose Games, after being suspended for a year due to missing a drug test in 2019.

Coleman ended up having to miss the Tokyo Olympics because of the suspension. All eyes will be on the 60m battle between Jacobs and Coleman at the World Indoor Championships.

The craziest active streaks in running

On Jan. 29, New Zealand’s Nick Willis ran another sub-4 minute mile at the NYC Millrose Games for the 20th consecutive year. This achievement is something only a few runners have come close to, which has sparked us to find the craziest active running streaks.

Nick Willis – 20 years of sub-4 minute miles

Willis first ran sub-4 during his undergrad at the University of Michigan in 2003 (3:58.15). At last weekend’s Millrose Games, Willis broke four minutes for the 63rd time in his career (3:59.71), which marked the 20th consecutive year he has run sub-4 miles. Willis is New Zealand’s only two-time Olympic medallist in the 1,500 metres, winning a silver medal in Beijing and bronze in Rio. In 2020, Willis passed his countryman, Sir John Walker, who previously held the consecutive sub-4 mile record of 18 years.

Simon Laporte – 46 years of running every day

At 46 years, the Notre-Dame des Prairies, Que. runner holds the longest active run streak in Canada. Laporte began his streak on Nov. 27, 1975, and hasn’t missed a day since. The 70-year-old run streaker has no plans to stop anytime soon, and he is planning for his streak to reach 50 in 2025. The longest active streak in the world is held by Jon Sutherland of Utah. Sutherland’s run streak of 52.7 years recently passed the legendary record set by Ron Hill (52.1) last year.

Streak Runners International (SRI) says for runs to qualify as a streak, they must cover at least one mile (1.61 kilometres) each day. The run may occur on the road, track, trails, or treadmill, but a minimum of one mile must be completed.

Lois Bastien – 41.8 years of running every day

Bastien holds the longest-standing women’s run streak record, at 42 years. She is now 79 and still runs every day in her home state of Florida.

Ben Beach – 54 consecutive Boston Marathons

Although Beach does not have the record for most Boston Marathon finishes (58), the 72-year-old marathoner does have the record for most consecutive Boston Marathons (54). Beach ran his first Boston in 1967 when he was 18. This year, Beach completed his 54th consecutive Boston Marathon, finishing in 5:47:27.

Allyson Felix – Five straight Olympic Games with a medal in track and field 

U.S. sprinter Allyson Felix is one of the greatest female Olympians ever. She has not only represented her country at five straight Olympic Games, but she has also medalled at all of them (seven gold, three silver and one bronze) – a feat that no other female athlete has accomplished in track and field. Although Felix intended that Tokyo would be her last Olympics, her streak will remain active until Paris 2024, where Jamaican sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will get the chance to equal her at five consecutive Olympics with a medal.

Karl Meltzer – a 20-year streak of winning a 100-mile race

Meltzer, 54, has been on the elite ultramarathon scene for more than 20 years. With his most recent win this year at the Beast of the East 100-miler, he has won a 100-miler for 20 consecutive years, bringing his career total to 45 wins over 100 miles. This is an unprecedented number, and the only person who can top it (for now, at least) is Meltzer himself.

Jake Wightman will lead strong 1500m line-up at Müller Indoor Grand Prix

Birmingham event on February 19 features Wightman, Neil Gourley, Piers Copeland, Charlie Da’Vall Grice and more

Olympic finalist Jake Wightman leads a strong British contingent in the men’s 1500m at the Müller Indoor Grand Prix – a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting – at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham on Saturday February 19.

The European and Commonwealth bronze medalist was 10th in Tokyo and is the Scottish indoor 1500m record-holder (3:34.48). The British record, held by Peter Elliott since 1990, is 3:34.20.

In what promises to be an enthralling domestic showdown, Wightman, who opened his season with a 7:50.97 3000m PB at the BMC Grand Prix in Sheffield on January 9, is joined by Piers Copeland, Archie Davis, Neil Gourley, Charlie Da’Vall Grice, George Mills and James West.

In-form Gourley, a World Championships finalist in Doha 2019, ran an outright 5000m PB (13:34.35) – the best indoor performance by a Scottish athlete over the distance – in Boston in December, and most recently clocked an impressive 7:48.94 3000m PB at the Razorback Invitational in Arizona on January 28. His 3:35.79 1500m best, which ranks him seventh on the Scottish all-time list, was achieved at the World Indoor Tour meeting in Toruń, Poland, 12 months ago.

Da’Vall Grice, Olympic 1500m finalist in Rio 2016, is the British indoor 1000m record-holder (2:17.20) with a 1500m PB indoors of 3:38.95, while Copeland is the Welsh indoor record-holder over 1500m (3:38.55). Both athletes are European Indoor Championships finalists, finishing fifth in 2015 and 2021 respectively.

West, who opened his season with a 7:59.96 3000m at the Millrose Games, has run 3:36.93; Mills is the reigning national indoor 1500m champion and has a best of 3:39.25; and Davis has an indoor 1500m best of 3:41.18.

“After running 3000m indoors, I’m looking forward to dropping back down to 1500m and hopefully challenging my Scottish record,” said 27-year-old Wightman.

“This is a special time for British endurance running and it’s a privilege to have the opportunity to compete against these guys in Birmingham. We’ve seen what’s possible by our athletes on the global stage and that provides us with inspiration every day to do even better. I hope we can deliver some fast times, possibly even a British record, and a great race for the home crowd.”

The Müller Indoor Grand Prix is the fifth meeting of the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Tour (Gold). There are seven ‘Gold’ level meetings across the series which started with Karlsruhe on 28 January and concludes in Madrid on 2 March.

Throughout the series, each athlete’s best three results will count towards their overall point score. The athlete with the most points in each scoring discipline at the end of the tour will be declared the winner and will be awarded a USD$10,000 bonus along with a wild card entry for the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade (March 2022).

National record-holder Tonatiu Lopez, on track and making history for Mexico

For all its strength across the sporting spectrum, Mexico has had scant success of late on the track when it comes to major championships. At the Tokyo Olympics, the nation of 128 million fielded full teams across the marathons and race walks, but had just one male competitor on the track. 

That athlete was Jesus Tonatiu Lopez, a 24-year-old whose Games came to an end in the semifinals of the 800m, a tactical mistake costing him precious fractions of a second and leaving him wondering what might have been. Lopez finished third, just 0.03 behind Emmanuel Korir of Kenya and 0.17 behind Patryk Dobek of Poland – who went on to win gold and bronze respectively. 

“I cried,” says Lopez, who made his 2022 debut at the Millrose Games, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting, on Saturday (29). “I felt very frustrated. I knew maybe I could be in that race.”

Over the coming months, he’ll have ample opportunity to make amends, with Lopez targeting the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22 in March and the World Athletics Championships Eugene 22 in July. 

“I’m not looking for a big achievement,” he says of Belgrade. “To compete with the best in the world is going to be helpful; I’ll get a lot of experience. In Eugene, I want to make the final. Obviously I want a medal, but I try to not stress myself with (such a) specific objective.”

On the build-up to Tokyo, the medal question was often put to him by Mexican journalists, and Lopez did his best to play down expectations. 

“I don’t like to talk like that,” he says. “I just want to run the best I can. I’m going to do my best, but of course with my best race I can get a medal.”

The past 12 months have taught him as much. 

Through 2020 and 2021 Lopez has taken many small steps that, ultimately, led to one giant leap into world-class territory. In May last year he lowered his national record to 1:44.40 and then two months later, he hacked almost a full second off that mark, clocking 1:43.44 in Marietta, USA. 

It sounds strange, but Lopez was actually happier after the first race. The reason? 

“When I ran 1:43, that same day was (the) Monaco (Diamond League meeting), and (Nijel) Amos ran 1:42.91,” he says. “I wanted to be there, so I was frustrated. I thought I could run faster.”

What led to his breakthrough? Lopez’s story is similar to many other athletes who had their worlds turned upside down in 2020, forced to reassess his approach, rebuild his fitness and return better than ever once racing resumed.

“I think the pandemic helped me,” he says. 

In 2019 he set a Mexican record of 1:45.03 shortly before the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, but he was struck down with injury in the heats at that championships and failed to finish. 

“In 2020 our philosophy was to get better in the things we do well and fix the things we don’t do well,” he says. “It was to get better in our weaknesses. I was not giving it everything I had (before) and I felt I needed to give a little more to get better.”

Lopez is a full-time athlete these days and trains in Hermosillo, a city of 800,000 people, located in the state of Sonora in northwest Mexico. It’s also where he grew up, first finding athletics at the age of seven, brought to it by his parents, Claudia Alvarez and Ramon Enrique. 

At the time, he was playing American football, putting his speed to good use as a running back, and in those early years he “didn’t really care so much” about athletics. His parents, though, made sure he stayed the course. 

“They obligated me to train,” he says. “When I was a boy I wanted to (play) American football, soccer, but they were like, ‘no, you’re going to be a track and field athlete.’”

There was no athletics background in his family, but his coach knew talent when he saw it. In 2013 Lopez – then 15 – competed at the World U18 Championships in Donetsk, Ukraine, and it left an indelible mark. 

“I realized: I want to do this all my life,” he says. 

At 16 he lowered his best to 1:50.33, and competed at the World U20 Championships in Eugene, USA. At 17 he was running 1:48.13. At 18: 1:46.57. 

In 2017 he made his first World Championships at senior level, competing in London before going on to win the World University Games title in Taipei. By then he was a student at the University of Sonora, studying physical culture and sports and training under Conrado Soto, who still coaches him today. 

Lopez would rise early, training at 6am before his classes, steadily progressing each month, each year. The sporting and academic demands meant he wasn’t able to work on the side, but support from his parents – who started him out on this path – has never wavered. 

“Even with not much money, they gave me what I needed to put me in the city where I need to compete,” he says. “The first years were very difficult but thanks to them I was able to be consistent from year to year. They were also always there for me for emotional support. All this, I owe to my parents.”

As he told his story, Lopez was sitting trackside in the Armory, New York City, ahead of the Millrose Games. He’d never raced on a 200m indoor track before but Lopez ran well to finish sixth in 1:48.60.

“It was a very fierce competition but I’m satisfied,” he said. “I can get better and I know what I need to do to be better next time.”

Given his pedigree as a teenager, he had a range of options available to study in the US but Lopez overlooked them in favor of staying at home. “My coach was great, I had my family, my home,” he says. “I don’t need to go to other places when I have everything in Hermosillo.”

Growing up, he had few compatriots to look up to who were mixing it at the top level in middle-distance events, but Lopez is hoping his presence on that stage – both now and in the future – will inspire many others to follow. 

“I always wanted that,” he says. “Every competition, I want to have people by my side. It took me a long time to believe I could compete with the (world’s best), but one year ago I really believed. I can compete with them.”

Nick Willis runs sub-four minute mile for 20th consecutive year

Nick Willis ran a sub-four minute mile at the Millrose Games in New York- 20 seasons after first breaking the barrier in 2003.

New Zealand track and field great Nick Willis has earned $25,000 for an athletics charity after completing 20 years of sub-four minute miles.

The 38-year-old finished ninth in the Wanamaker men’s mile at the Millrose Games indoor meet in New York City on Saturday January 29 in 3min 59.7sec.

It was in 2006 that Willis experienced international success for the first time, claiming 1500m gold at the Commonwealth Games in 3:38.49 ahead of Canada’s Nathan Brannen and Australia’s Mark Fountain. That same year, he lowered his mile personal best to 3:52.75. 

In 2007, Willis made his first world 1500m final, placing 10th in Osaka in 3:36.13.

The following year, Willis ran what he considers one of his best races to improve his mile personal best to 3:50.66, finishing second behind Kenya’s Shadrack Korir at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon. Two months after that, he went on to claim 1500m silver at the Beijing Olympics in China.

At the following 2012 Olympic Games, Willis had the privilege of being his country’s flag bearer during the opening ceremony held at the London Stadium. He finished ninth in the Olympic 1500m final and had a season's best of 3:51.77 for the mile.

In 2014 at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, Willis earned 1500m bronze, his third straight Commonwealth medal after the one he had taken in Delhi four years prior. It was also in 2014 that he set his lifetime best of 3:49.83 in the mile, which stood as the Oceanian record until July 2021.

In 2015, Willis clocked a still-standing Oceanian record of 3:51.46 for the indoor mile, and a national 1500m record of 3:29.66 at the Herculis Diamond League meeting in Monaco. That same year he finished sixth with 3:35.46 in the 1500m final at the World Championships in Beijing, his best placing in the competition.

The following year, Willis added two global medals to his tally with a 1500m bronze at the World Indoor Championships in Portland and an Olympic 1500m bronze in Rio.

At 38, Willis was the oldest athlete in the 1500m field at the Tokyo Olympics, where he placed ninth in his semifinal in a season’s best of 3:35.41.

Earlier in 2021, he had already broken the record of 19 consecutive years of sub-four-minute miles. And he finally went on to improve that record to 20 on 29 January 2022 with his 3:59.71 run.

Craig Engels, Running’s Most Committed Party Animal, Returns to Nike—and Running Fast

Craig Engels explains what he can about his new four-year deal and heads to Millrose Games in good shape.

Craig Engels, the fun-loving 1500-meter runner who never misses a party, inked a new deal with Nike in the early days of 2022. It’s a four-year agreement, taking him through 2026.

But he went through a lot of soul-searching before he decided to return to running at a high level.

Engels, 27, finished fourth by half a second in the 1500 meters last June at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, just missing the team bound for Tokyo.

In the days afterward, he was adrift. “Everything I worked towards [was] over,” he told Runner’s World during one of several recent interviews. “I didn’t know what to do with myself. Which—I don’t know what emotion that is. It wasn’t sadness. More like, what do I do?”

He spent the rest of the summer racing on the track and road circuit in the U.S. He helped pace men who were trying to break 4:00 in the mile, and he encouraged facial hair growth. And still, he raced at a high level, although neither Engels nor his coach, Pete Julian, would say that his training resembled what it was before the Trials.

“We had to change things up,” Julian told Runner’s World last September, “had to piece together workouts in between to keep him so he could at least finish a mile. That’s what Craig needed at the moment.”

On August 14, he finished second at a mile in Falmouth, Massachusetts, clocking 3:53.97. Six days later he finished second again in the international mile at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, in 3:55.41.

That runner-up finish at Pre came as a result of a premature celebration. He waved to the crowd at the top of the home stretch, but Geordie Beamish of New Zealand sailed by him with a few meters to go.

They hugged it out on the track and then took a victory lap.

“That’s Craig,” Julian said. “He makes mistakes along the way, it’s why he’s so damn popular. I’ve never seen anybody do something as dumb as wave to the crowd and then get beat and still get to take a victory lap. Pretty classic, right? There’s one guy in the world who can do that, and that’s Craig.”

After Pre, Engels shut down his season. In the fall, he returned to the University of Mississippi to finish the final semester of classes he needed to complete his MBA.

While Engels was in Oxford, Mississippi, he trained with Ole Miss cross-country coach Ryan Vanhoy, who had coached him in college, and the Ole Miss team. They logged high mileage and did a lot of long strength-based workouts. Meanwhile, Engels pondered his future.

Engels flirted with retirement, and Julian said Engels was sincere in his questioning, asking himself: “Is this something that I want to do?”

Running the Numbers

As Engels got back into shape and finished his classes, he began the process of negotiating a new contract. Initially, he tried to do it alone. He said he parted ways with his first agent, Ray Flynn, via email between rounds of the 1500 at the Olympic Trials.

Reached by text message, Flynn said, “It’s all good with Craig and I. Happy to see him doing well.”

Engels said he had long struggled with the role of agents in pro running and the fee they charge—15 percent of everything, including sponsorship deals, appearance fees, and prize money—for negotiating what often turns out to be a single contract with a shoe company.

“A lot of these agents were athletes,” Engels said. “I don’t know how they possibly sleep at night, taking 15 percent. NFL agents are capped out at three [percent].”

But as Engels talked to shoe company executives and weighed various offers and training situations, he realized he needed someone to review the contracts—“the lawyer jargon,” he calls it. “I was getting a little stressed,” he said.

So he hired Mark Wetmore as his agent, who also represents Engels’s teammate Donavan Brazier, among others. Wetmore immediately increased the value of the offers Engels had started negotiating on his own behalf.

Engels signed with Nike again. At the end of the four-year deal, he’ll have run professionally for 9 years, and he said it will be his last contract.

The terms of the deal are private—Engels had to sign a nondisclosure agreement, as most athletes do, which also limits the knowledge athletes have about their value in the market.

All he could say about it? “I definitely had some great offers on the table, which led to a very good contract for myself.”

Engels said if it were up to him, he’d post the details of his contract on Instagram to his 97,000 followers. Such knowledge would only help other runners, he says, while the current system benefits agents.

The Athlete Changes the Coach

Engels also returned to train with Julian and his team, recently named the Union Athletics Club (UAC). The club is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, but between altitude stints, training camps, and races, they’re rarely there for long.

He is now doing the bulk of his workouts with Charlie Hunter, who is on the UAC, and Craig Nowak, who trains with the group but isn’t officially on the roster. The group has been training in San Luis Obispo, California—team member Jordan Hasay’s hometown—and enjoying sunny skies and warm weather, and preparing to race the Millrose Games. Engels is entered in the mile.

“I’m in pretty good shape, yeah,” he said. “I don’t want to talk too much before it happens. I’m in pretty good shape.”

After Millrose, UAC hosts an indoor meet in Spokane, Washington, the Lilac Grand Prix, on February 11. The U.S. indoor championships are back in Spokane two weeks after that.

Julian, for one, is glad to count Engels on the roster. He told Runner’s World that Engels has “completely changed” the way he coaches.

“He’s made me realize that making [something] enjoyable and working hard don’t have to be separated, don’t have to be mutually exclusive,” Julian said. “The two things can exist. And we can be really great. But by being able to enjoy ourselves and being able to have some fun. To not take ourselves as seriously, but at the same time, take what we’re doing very seriously. You can do both.”

That’s a startling admission from Julian, who was a longtime assistant coach to Alberto Salazar. He was viewed as in relentless pursuit of every advantage for his athletes. Salazar is now banned from coaching Olympians permanently by SafeSport and serving a four-year ban for anti-doping offenses.

“[Engels has] made me realize that, hey, we can add some color to our lives,” Julian continued. “We’re not curing pediatric cancer here. We’re running around in half tights on a 400-meter circle. Coming from my own background, I’ve had to realize that, too, [with] my own coaching the last four or five years. You know what? Everyone needs to chill out a little bit. Let’s quit trying to eat our own and actually try to promote the sport and race really, really fast.”

One small way that Engels has changed the team? He prefers FaceTime to phone calls. Julian said Engels likes to see people, likes to smile at them. The FaceTime habit has spread throughout the group, so now, anytime anybody communicates on the team, it’s always by FaceTime. “That started from Craig,” he said.

Critics of Engels—who is an unabashed beer drinker, hot-tub soaker, RV driver, and mullet wearer—don’t see the work that he does, his coach says. And they don’t see how hard he tries.

“He did everything he could to make that Olympic team,” Julian said. “He’s done everything he can to make the sport better. He puts forth an amazing effort and he tries to win. But he’s not a robot, either.”

Kenyan Hellen Obiri to move up to the marathon with On

Over the weekend in Northern Ireland, two-time Olympic silver medalist from Kenya, Hellen Obiri, surprised the running world by winning the World Athletics Cross Country Tour Silver event, but not while wearing a Nike singlet. She was instead representing On – a brand that has recently been taking the world of athletics by storm, growing their team of elite-level sponsored athletes, including Canada’s Ben Flanagan.

A year and a half ago, On launched its first professional team, called On Athletics Club, coached by American distance runner Dathan Ritzenhein. “You need world-class athletes to build world-class products,” says Steve DeKoker, On’s head of global sports marketing. “Our goal is to build On as a global brand, and we need world-class athletes to help us develop.” Obiri’s signing is a huge acquisition for the Swiss sporting brand – she is the only athlete ever to win a world indoor, world outdoor and world XC title.

Ben Flanagan signs with On

“We want people that will fit the brand’s competitive values,” says DeKoker. “Both Obiri and Flanagan checked those boxes.” In her debut race wearing On product, the defending world cross country champion won the 8K easily in 26:44.

Obiri will head to the World Athletics Memorial Agnes Tirop XC race in Eldoret, Kenya on Feb. 12, before taking a shot at another 5,000m medal this summer at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, Ore. “She will move up to the marathon distance in the fall of 2022,” DeKoker says. “And we will have our new premium-plated racing shoe on display for her debut.”

“The full expectation is to develop and supply our athletes with the top-of-the-line product to enhance their performance,” says DeKoker. “There are multiple On super-spikes scheduled to be released this year, with Alicia Monson racing in a pair this weekend at the NYC Millrose Games.”

Both Monson and Flanagan are two recent NCAA champions that DeKoker had his eyes on since they won their titles in 2018 and 2019. “When we found out Flanagan’s contract was up with Reebok, we knew we wanted to support him,” DeKoker says. “We feel he will have the Canadian half-marathon or marathon record in no time.”

For now, the brand plans to go all in to be competitive with the top distance brands on the roads and track, then dipping their feet in the sprint distances for the 2028 LA Olympics.