On the latest episode of The CITIUS MAG Podcast, we sit down with Laurent Meuwly, the head coach for sprints, hurdles, and relays at the Dutch Olympic Training Centre in Papendal. He has been with the Dutch program since 2019, and the group he has built includes Femke Broeders-Bol, Lieke Klaver, Nadine Visser, and a rotating cast of international athletes including Australian sprint star Torrie Lewis.

Under his guidance, Dutch relay teams have become a dominant force on the world stage, and his athletes have collected world titles, Olympic medals, and European records across the flat 400, the 400 hurdles, and now — in her first season of competition at the distance — the 800 meters. That last one is the main reason we wanted him on.

When Femke Broeders-Bol made the decision to move up to the 800 this season, it was Laurent who had already been thinking about this moment since he first started working with her. He actually talked her out of making the switch a year earlier than she wanted to — she wanted to go right after the Paris Olympics, he convinced her to stay at 400 hurdles for one more season, win a second world title, and leave that chapter on a high note. Then came the transition.

This interview was done one day after Femke ran 1:54 — putting her within the top ten on the all-time list. Laurent is candid about everything: what he kept from Femke’s 400 hurdles training and what he changed, why her mileage stays around 60 kilometers a week, the mental adjustment of still being only halfway through the race after one full lap, why the world record conversation will eventually shift from who breaks it to conversations about 1:52.

Everyone’s been interested in the Femke Broeders-Bol 800m transition and we’ve got the inside scoop. The following interview has been edited lightly for clarity. You can listen to the conversation in its entirety on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows.

CITIUS MAG: Maybe let’s start with your background a little bit, so that people know the context. You’ve been part of the Dutch training setup since 2019 and before that you started coaching from a very young age.

Laurent Meuwly: Yes, I’ve been coaching since I was 18 years old. You know how it starts: you’re in a club and there’s a need for coaches for the younger athletes. I started there once a week, then twice, then three to five times a week. And then I took different steps towards a regional training center, a national training center, national coach in Switzerland. And now, for seven years, I’ve been the national coach for the events you mentioned — sprints, hurdles and relays — in the Netherlands, but also with an international group of athletes around this, also training in Papendal.

CITIUS MAG: And is that partly supported by the Dutch federation, in the sense that it’s great for them to have international athletes who can help bring up the level of the Dutch athletes? How does that dynamic work?

Laurent Meuwly: Yeah, I think it took some convincing, like usual. Everywhere, federations or official training centers are a bit protective and reluctant about having foreign athletes mixed in with their national athletes. But I think I could rapidly prove that we can build something where athletes help each other to grow and make each other better. Of course, on competition day each one looks after himself or herself and runs as fast as possible, but the rest of the year it definitely helps to have athletes on the same level pushing each other to beat the rest of the athletes. I think we have a great atmosphere in the group. Everyone sees the advantage of having this mix and this competition every day in training, because it’s almost unique in Europe to have this kind of density of performance, with everyone looking in the same direction with the same high-performance culture.

CITIUS MAG: Maybe we’ll start with Femke, because we know that’s a big area of interest for a lot of people. So in terms of Femke, you announced very publicly that she was going to transition to the 800 meters in the autumn last year, after the season ended. How long had that been in the works and when did you actually start thinking about the training for it?

Laurent Meuwly: I think when I met Femke for the first time in 2019, I already had the feeling that her qualities would fit the 400 hurdles for sure, which is already a little bit longer than the flat 400, and maybe the 800 meters. Then, working with her, I realized that this was the reality. She’s very good in endurance. She has a very efficient way of running. After many successful years in the 400 hurdles, we discussed this transition to the 800 more seriously.

It’s quite funny that after the Paris Olympics she was the one who wanted to start this project already, because Paris was not that successful — only a bronze medal, but we expected more. She said, “OK, let’s change now to the 800.” And I talked her out of it, because I thought it would be better to finish on a high note, with something positive. So we found a new challenge: we mirrored the race on the 400 hurdles. She won another year of the Diamond League, but also became world champion in the 400 hurdles for the second time. And I think that was the perfect end of the 400 hurdles story, to then go to the 800.

About the training, of course I had already been thinking about what it means, and what I want to do to find the right balance between keeping her strengths and her qualities and, of course, improving the weaknesses she has compared to other middle-distance athletes.

CITIUS MAG: You worked with Eveline Saalberg to transition her from a sub-51 400 runner to a 2:02 800 runner and this year a 2:00 800 runner. What did you learn from that that you were then able to apply to Femke as well?

Laurent Meuwly: I think it looks like a similar story, but they are still quite different. With Eveline, we realised that improving her speed even more would be difficult, but that she could probably still improve her 400-meter time by training almost 800-meter-style. That’s what we did over two years, and this year she improved her personal best in the 400 to 50.84 in Birmingham, although she trained mainly for the 800. We still need to discuss what that means for the future.

But it’s not really the same. It’s not like Eveline was the guinea pig for Femke, because they are quite different, and even in 800-meter training we have to adapt and do some sessions differently. Of course I discussed it with colleagues and with physiologists, but I know Femke best, having worked with her since 2019, and I think that’s the important part. When you start listening to people about how they think you should train an athlete like her for the 800, you realise very quickly that they don’t get exactly what kind of athlete you have in your hands, and maybe they would be too extreme, because they think, “OK, the 800 is physiologically completely different from the 400.” For me, it was always important to make this step while keeping what makes her different from all the other 800-meter athletes, and I think now, after 10 races, we can say we were able to do that.

CITIUS MAG: And given what’s happened, how have your expectations, your thinking and your goals evolved? You must have had some goals when you started this project, and an idea of what you thought you might be able to do in the first year, and I assume you’ve far exceeded those. Femke said to me the other day that you’d said to her, “I don’t even know what your ceiling is any more, so just go and do what you’re doing.”

Laurent Meuwly: Yeah, I think the athletes I’m coaching would say I’m a very competitive coach, and what she ran now in Zurich was a bit what I expected for this first season — which is a very fast time, top 10 in the world ever. But from Femke’s side, she wanted to take it a little bit easier in terms of how much pressure she would put on herself with goals for the first year, because it’s unknown territory. She knows that not only physiologically but also tactically she has to learn a lot for this event. And she has been under pressure for years now, indoors and outdoors, to win gold medals and to beat world records, and she kind of wanted to enjoy this transition, because that gives her — at least for a season — a bit of the outsider role, and not too many expectations on her shoulders.

For myself as a coach, if I guided her towards this new direction, it’s because I knew she’s able to be one of the best in the world. Therefore I’m not really surprised. Of course, she did a lot of things really well, it was an impressive performance and I would have signed for it at the beginning of the season. But if I reflect on the amazing athlete she is and the qualities she has, I’m not completely surprised.

CITIUS MAG: And the training transition — what has it been? What did you change, and what did you keep the same from what she was doing for the 400 hurdles?

Laurent Meuwly: Very important for me was to keep her strength level. Everyone knows now, with social media and so on, that she’s an athlete who can clean 100 kilos (220 lbs), for example, which is quite impressive for a middle-distance athlete. But also her speed qualities: We still have speed during the whole year, from the first day of training. That’s the only thing we needed to adapt a bit with the injury she had in February, so that was not really optimal for the preparation towards the summer, but it’s something very important in the training. And of course, having a personal best of 49.17 in the flat 400, I also want her to keep the speed reserve she has compared to other athletes with personal bests of 51 or 52 seconds. That’s how we plan the training.

Obviously we knew we had to improve her aerobic qualities, and that this would take time, and that it would also be risky to change too drastically, because it can lead to injury or overtraining. We didn’t know how her body would respond, so we made some steps in this direction, but that’s definitely the part where there is still the most potential to improve.

CITIUS MAG: You’ve obviously seen the tweet I posted when Femke said, in one of the interviews in the mixed zone yesterday, that her long-run pace is 5:30 per kilometer and her threshold pace is around 4:20 on a good day. There are all these people who are distance runners training for their own marathons saying, “Oh, I can do that” — and obviously they cannot run 1:54 for 800 meters.

It might be good for you to explain how that all works together, because she’s a very different athlete to any typical distance runner who might be an 800m/1500m type or a 15:00 5000m type. So how does that all work together in the training?

Laurent Meuwly: Yeah, first of all, those numbers are right. I also read that people were questioning whether it was LT1 or LT2. No, it’s LT2. And when she runs 7, 8 — sometimes, very rarely, 10 — kilometers, it’s around 5:30, even 5:45 per kilometer. For us it was really important to follow the physiological component. So, we did tests. We trained with zones. Because it was really important that this aerobic part would not lead to overtraining and then get in the way of other qualities.

So yes, she is very different, because runners who run half marathons and marathons could run a lot faster than her in aerobic sessions. But she’s a lot faster, of course, than all the 800-meter runners at the moment on the track, and this is what makes her very different. That’s mainly, at the moment, how she’s performing at the level we see her perform. Obviously for the future this needs to improve, but improve without losing the qualities she has. So it’s not going to be huge steps, it’s going to be one step at a time.

We also realized that because she’s running that slowly, the long runs are not so interesting. So we did a lot of biking instead — first of all because she has a lot more fun on the bike than running that slow, because she really feels strange running so slowly. From threshold up to VO2 it’s obviously running, but it’s already faster and feels faster. She has to improve this basic part to also increase the ceiling. That’s what we know we have to do in the coming season.

CITIUS MAG: So what is her current mileage and where are you looking to get to over this coming winter as she builds for the future?

Laurent Meuwly: I think before her injury in February she was doing a maximum of 60 kilometers a week. From March on it has been less, because we were more on the bike. There were weeks where she could not run at all, so there was a lot of bike. We even did threshold on the bike, VO2 on the bike, until we could progressively introduce those sessions running again.

But I don’t see her running up to 80 or 100 kilometers a week, and I also don’t see that it’s interesting. Again, she needs to be fresh enough for the sessions that help improve or maintain her qualities. Therefore I think she won’t run more than 60 kilometers a week, maybe 70. She will keep doing bike for the volume, or cross-trainer. But this direction is not going to change.

CITIUS MAG: We’ve seen the likes of Keely Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter Bell, who are obviously some of the top 800m runners in the world, do a lot of bike as well. So I guess it’s something that works for 800m training.

Laurent Meuwly: Yeah, it’s a good balance. You add some volume in the aerobic work without having more pressure on the lower body — the shins, the tendons, the feet. And especially for Femke, who is running so slowly, it is not really interesting. It’s good to improve efficiency at a slower pace too, but I don’t think this is the main focus, and I think the bike card that we are playing is quite interesting.

CITIUS MAG: And one other area people have been talking about, and I did ask her about it: she looks so easy when she’s running an 800, right? And then you have the other 800-meter runners who look like they’re dying, and she’s just very calm. But also, when she is in that last 50m, it doesn’t look like she’s accelerating or that her arms are moving. So have you had to do anything to work on her form, or change her form in any way, transitioning from the hurdles and the flat 400 to the 800?

Laurent Meuwly: Yeah. I think if we look from our first outdoor race in Ostrava to Lausanne or Zurich, we can already see some changes. We are working on a higher frequency. We are working on faster arm movements, better arm movements, and this is coming slowly, but it’s coming. You have to imagine that when we went from 15 steps to 14 steps in the 400 hurdles, it was the exact opposite: we went from a 2.15-meter stride length to 2.30, and now she has to go back to 2.15 or 2.10. So it’s not that easy to change quickly, but she is a fast learner and I already see some improvements since the beginning of the season. And of course that’s going to be something we work on in the coming year as well.

CITIUS MAG: Another part, I guess, is nutrition, which becomes relevant in a different way when you’re doing a longer distance. Obviously bicarb is a big thing — is she doing bicarb? Are there any other nutrition changes she’s had to make in transitioning?

Laurent Meuwly: Actually, in the supplements, there are no changes, because we were doing bicarb already for the 400 meters and the 400 hurdles. But in the nutrition, in the amount of carbs that she’s eating, of course there is an increase, because she is training more volume and she needs more carbs. So that was an interesting challenge with our nutritionist and also the physiologist: to test the different zones and how many carbs she’s using, to find the right balance and the right fuelling strategy during sessions and after sessions. We took it very seriously and very professionally, and I think this also helped her to improve, and to be healthy and able to afford this new load of training.

CITIUS MAG: That is the big thing, right — staying healthy when you’re changing the training this drastically. You obviously did have that little hiccup after indoors. What else do you have to do for injury prevention?

Laurent Meuwly: Yeah, I think we tried to stay in known territory as much as possible, so to keep doing what we were doing before wherever it’s possible, and to be very careful about what we are adding with the new kind of sessions we’ve been doing. I think we will never know how the injury came in February, but the amount of runs she was doing in one session, in the lactic session, is bigger than in the 400 meters.

We all think injuries come from running more mileage, but for her it was not the case. It was not because she ran many kilometers — that would have been a different kind of injury as well. The injury she got was more like a sudden moment. I think she lost control of her way of running during a specific session, and that’s how the injury came. And that’s also the biggest change in the very specific work: the volume in one session is bigger for the 800 than it is for the 400. So we also know now that those are the sessions where we have to be careful and make sure that she keeps control under fatigue.

CITIUS MAG: She mentioned that they are longer reps and shorter recovery, but I assume a slightly slower pace in many cases.

Laurent Meuwly: Yeah, of course, everything is slow for her compared to what she has been doing before. The challenge at the beginning was to feel the pace and to be a bit more defensive. In the first weeks when we were doing specific work, I always asked her to start quite defensively and to progress, because the speed is not the problem: over one, two, three repetitions she can be a lot faster than what is required. But if I want to have enough volume in this area, then that’s the challenge. It took some weeks, but I think now she manages it very well and controls the pace for the specific 800 sessions.

CITIUS MAG: And if we take it now to the races she has done and the progression she has had: initially she started out in a lot of the races just following Audrey or Keely, and she’s obviously grown in confidence about what she can do in those races. She’s been open about the fact that in that third 200m she was maybe a bit scared to push it, because she was worried about what would happen in the last 200m. So how has that changed, and what work have you had to do?

Laurent Meuwly: Yeah, of course. It’s interesting when we look back: I think she has been second in all the Diamond Leagues she took part in. Who would have thought that you start a new event, you go directly onto the biggest stage, and there you are, top two in every race? We could also have chosen another path — go to silver meets or gold meets and find different races.

Obviously the first one was tough. Audrey Werro was already there running for a fast time. And for Femke, at the beginning, what was difficult was to have the right point of view in a race. Because in the 400 it’s one lap. But after one lap of the 800 you’re only halfway, and it hurts already, and the finish line is quite far. So it was really a mental game, to understand that even if your body and your mind give you a sign — “oh, it’s tough” — you need to go through it for a longer time than in the 400. In the 400 you arrive at 300/350, and then you hit the wall. But in the 800 it is not that sudden, it lasts for long. And you need not to be afraid, already at 500 or at 600, to attack, even though you would like to protect yourself and wait even longer. I think this was the thing she had to learn for three, four, five competitions.

Watch Femke Broeders-Bol and Audrey Werro’s first head-to-head race in Ostrava below:

For the tactical part, I was never really worried, because a lot of people were saying, “Yeah, with her stride, when she’s going to be in the pack…”, and also about the tactical decisions. But you know, she can open very fast, so she would always be in front somewhere — position one, two, three. I was never thinking about teaching her how to run in the middle of the pack and not be blocked and not be stuck, because even in a heat or in a slow race she can take the lead and manage the race from the front, which she did in Hengelo and which she did in the heat in Birmingham perfectly. And in all the fast races she’s just going to take a position in front. For her, to open in 26 for the first 200 meters is no problem, if necessary. So then she’s going to sit there and manage the race from the front. So this part was quite easy.

I think another athlete — not with her qualities — would have more trouble adapting to this event. It was really more about going through this painful feeling you have early in the race, and having to go through it for long, and also not always being in reaction, but anticipating a bit the moment where an attack would come, even if it’s from far. And I think now, if we look at the last two or three races, she is there from this point of view as well.

CITIUS MAG: Yeah, that’s interesting. In Zurich yesterday she tried a slightly different strategy: she took the lead ahead of Audrey. Was that a deliberate change in strategy that you had planned, or was it just how things happened on the day?

Watch Audrey Werro vs. Femke Broeders-Bol at the Zurich Diamond League below:

Laurent Meuwly: Yeah, there were two reasons for that. First of all, it’s a season to learn, so we wanted to try everything. And after, like you said, most of the races following, it was time to take some initiative and see how the race goes when she’s taking the initiative. That was one reason.

The second reason: In this race we had Georgia Hunter Bell and we didn’t know how fast Audrey wanted to do the first 400 or 500 meters. But what we knew is that if it were not fast enough, Georgia would be very dangerous over the last 150m. Therefore we also wanted to have a tough race, to be sure that if she could not win, she could at least be second and not have to sprint against Georgia over the last 150m. So those were the two reasons why she went in front, or behind the pacemaker.

CITIUS MAG: And I guess the other thing that was interesting in Lausanne — it was really great to see — was that last 100 meters, which was really quick. I think she was faster than Audrey by 0.7 of a second, and quicker than anyone else in the race by one and a half seconds over that last hundred. That shows she still has that speed. Obviously that was a marginally slower race, but that has to be her superpower, really, right? If you’re able to produce that kind of close in an 800 meter race, you can compete for the win wherever you are.

Watch Audrey Werro vs. Femke Broeders-Bol at the Lausanne Diamond League below:

Laurent Meuwly: Yeah, but I think you also mentioned earlier the change of rhythm. We still need to remember that it’s the first year and that she’s not there aerobically. Because sprinting over the last 100 or 150 meters, or changing rhythm over 200, is not only about speed — and it’s usually not really about speed, it’s about what you still have in the tank to do it. And for this you need good aerobic qualities.

So I really think that once she has developed this part even more, she is going to be able to use this weapon she has, because she knows how to run fast, even better than she is able to do it now. So for this, we need to be a bit more patient.

CITIUS MAG: And in terms of pacing: in the last couple of races you’ve had Myrte van der Schoot, who’s in your training group as well, doing the pacemaking, and she paced in Paris too. So she’s paced a couple of these incredibly fast races. How does the whole dynamic work in terms of setting the pace, and how does it all work together?

Laurent Meuwly: In Paris they were looking for a pacemaker and it was the first time Myrte did it. Everyone was really nervous, because that was the first time we were speaking about 1:53 pace — including the meet director, who told me, “But are you sure she can do it?” And I said, “Yeah, I can guarantee she can do it for 500 meters without problem.” He did trust me, and he was very happy after the race. He said, “Yeah, that was an amazing job.” She did 530 meters, I think. And then we chose her for Lausanne, where I’m involved in the athlete management, and Audrey chose her for Zurich as well, also because of the good work in Paris.

At the moment, of course, it’s the best athlete in the field who is deciding what the pace is. But as you could see in Zurich, then there is a race. So the pacemaker goes in front, usually a bit too fast for the first 200 or 300 meters because everyone is pushing, and she needs to take the lead and then try to manage not to drop the pace too much, but also not to go too fast. And there, this time, Femke decided to go in front, and she was in front until 600, I think. So there are race situations, but for now, of course, the pace is decided by the best athlete in the field. That’s usually how it works.

Or, in the case of Marco Arop for example, by the man — you have a guy who likes to run in front. He’s not always winning, but he’s kind of a guarantee for the others that the race is going to be fast. And then he might decide the pace, even if he’s maybe not the best in the race, but the others know he’s going to go. Because what you don’t want is someone who is asking for a very fast pace and then not following it. That would be stupid.

So for now, if we want to approach the world record, there won’t be 10 pacemakers who are able to do this. I think Myrte is one of the ones who can, if needed, even go to 600 meters or close to it. And that’s probably what is required for a world record in the coming months or years — and maybe one day even faster than that. So that’s definitely going to be a challenge, to find those athletes, because they will need more speed as well. The women’s 800 meters is becoming a very long sprint.

CITIUS MAG: Yep, absolutely. And I guess that works in Femke’s favour now, because every Diamond League race at the very least is becoming that kind of sprint. We saw at the European Championships as well that it was very much a sprint — each race was incredibly fast, the rounds were crazy. How did you approach the rounds, and managing rounds? Because that’s obviously something different as well for Femke, running rounds versus running a one-off 800.

Laurent Meuwly: First of all, it was always our goal during this first season to have different kinds of 800 meters, which is difficult if you go to Diamond Leagues only, because then most of the time it’s as fast as possible: it’s a fast pace and you follow and you try to survive. But we had the chance in Hengelo to have a race where she had to take control when the pacemaker was out, and that was already after 400 meters. So she led the race from the front, at a not-so-fast tempo but increasing over the last 300 meters and finishing sprinting.

Watch Femke Broeders-Bol run at the Continental Tour in Hengelo below:

And we had the Birmingham heat, which was a bit the same. She went in front to avoid being pushed or blocked, and then from this position she controlled the race and made sure she would qualify. Actually her heat was the slowest, because no one challenged her. I was a bit surprised: they all stayed with her, even though they knew they needed to run faster to have a chance to qualify by time. But it was good for her, she could save a lot of energy.

Watch Femke Broeders-Bol run in the heats of the European Championships in Birmingham below:

And then in the semi-final she was with Keely, and there it was clear for us: you take her shoulder and stay there, a little bit on the outside, to be able to make a move if someone wants to attack the two of you. But probably Keely is making sure the pace is fast enough, and if you just stay there then you are going to qualify.

Watch Femke Broeders-Bol and Keely Hodgkinson in the semifinal of the European Championships in Birmingham:

So yeah, we tried different tactics already, with Zurich now front-running as well, and that gives us a lot of information for the coming years.

CITIUS MAG: We’re going to see Femke in Brussels and then in Budapest as well. My final question on the 800 was: what do you think is the best way to break the world record?

You talked about the pacing up to 600m, but obviously between these athletes that are now there — Keely, Audrey, Femke — it looks very much like it’s on the table. What do you think is the way for that race to play out? Do you think a competitive race, or do you think it probably needs one athlete to be by themselves? Because in Zurich yesterday, for example, having Femke there meant Audrey closed really well, because she had to close well to get ahead of Femke. But then also, when Femke was at the front on the back straight, maybe it was a little bit slower than Audrey wanted to go on that back straight as well. So there’s a little bit of plus and minus when it’s really competitive. What do you think is the best way to get that world record?

Laurent Meuwly: I think it depends which athlete’s point of view we are looking at it from. It’s not the same for Georgia, Keely, Lilian Odira, Femke or Audrey. I think it’s slightly different. I think in a year it’s going to be different again.

If we look at a competitive race, it needs to be competitive like Stockholm, where the top athletes battling for the fast times are not disturbing each other. If you remember Stockholm, the pacemaker went out and disturbed Audrey a little bit, but Keely used this momentum to attack. Audrey followed, and then at 120 meters she went out and passed Keely. But there were no contacts, there were no moments where one was disturbing the other. In Zurich, we also had two athletes who wanted to run fast, but there was contact at 600 meters. There were moments where maybe one wanted to get the other, but the other is countering, so you cannot really do whatever you want.

Watch Keely Hodgkinson vs. Audrey Werro in the Stockholm Diamond League:

So being competitive is helping, of course, but it needs to be only positively helping — and this is really difficult, because if two athletes want to win the world record in the same race, it’s quite difficult, for sure. If you don’t have this, you need to have either someone who is very strong over the last 200 meters, or a pacemaker who can do the job to 600 and someone who can finish the job. That’s how I see it.

And we’ve been speaking a lot about the world record. We are now only half a second, a bit less, away from it. But that’s still a step. I think now we are speaking a lot about when and who and how, but if I look at the road to LA, I think we are going to be speaking more about 1:52 times than about who broke the world record. So it might be a different tactic also.

CITIUS MAG: That for all of us is going to be incredibly exciting.

Listen to the full episode with Laurent Meuwly here.

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By David Melly

It’s only fitting that a dramatic 2026 U.S. Championships would end on a particularly breathtaking moment.

Coming off the final hurdle of the 110m hurdles final, 19-year-old Samford sophomore Bradley Franklin looked poised to win the U.S. title, having gotten a step on World champion Cordell Tinch. But Tinch is a gamer, and he managed to find an extra burst to draw even with his young rival as both men lunched for the line. The results took forever to pop up as the officials sorted things out, but when they finally did, both athletes were credited with a 13.00 finish time. Tinch just barely eked out the win by 0.004 seconds, surprisingly just his first U.S. title even though he’s won a global gold and a Diamond League final.

It was a perfect cap to a weekend full of close finishes, in events ranging in distance from the 100m to the 10,000m. In seemingly every race, runners were lunging, leaning, and diving at the finish line, and in countless field events, the final throw or jump of the competition upset the finish order. Distance runners used tremendous kicks to dethrone early leaders, like Nia Akins in the 800m and Emily Mackay in the 5000m. It was a great return to form for Akins, who missed time earlier this spring after getting in a car accident, and for middle-distance specialists like Mackay and Vince Ciattei, moving up in distance and gambling that a championship pace would work in their favor paid off.

Not every event was decided by a slim margin, however. Valarie Sion extended her epic streak of U.S. discus titles to eight straight with a 69.57m throw and a two-meter margin of victory, and Jordan Geist was the only man over 22 meters in the shot put, a barrier he broke four times in one series. Despite still being in high school, Cooper Lutkenhaus is in another league entirely from his competition, winning the 800m by over a full second, and three-time World champ Melissa Jefferson-Wooden blew away the competition in the 200m by the time she came off the curve, clocking 21.69 for the win (more on that below).

The drama wasn’t always positive, however. Unfortunately, Noah Lyles was unable to pull off the 100m-200m double as a hamstring cramp caused him to walk in the 200m final, opening the door for USC’s Garrett Kaalund to become the first collegian winner in nearly two decades, running 20.04. And Tara Davis-Woodhall thought she’d pulled out another stunning sixth-round victory in the long jump, leaping 7.16m on her last attempt to move up from third to first, only for that jump to later be ruled a foul after she’d celebrated, been given the medal, and left the track. Ultimately, she moved back down to third behind winner Alyssa Jones, losing her first competition in nearly three years.

It wouldn’t be track and field without the highs and the lows. With the 2026 edition of USAs in the books, there will be plenty to remember, analyze, and use as fodder for debate as we move into the second part of the summer season.

Chris Chavez, Kyle Merber, Mac Fleet, and Anderson Emerole put a bow on all the action with one final daily report from outside Icahn on the CITIUS MAG Podcast, and Anderson and Paul Hof-Mahoney rounded out the last day of competition with reflections and takes from all the athletes in the mixed zone on our YouTube channel continues with dozens of new athlete interviews every day. If you find yourself getting nostalgic already, stay locked in on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky to get more clips and takeaways from the meet.

Event of the Day: Men’s 5000m

Vince Ciattei has a 5000m personal best of 13:13.20 and would likely finish half a lap behind the winner in a fast Diamond League race. But shame on any strength-based distance runner who thought that, in a race won in 13:46.75, they could go kick-for-kick with the 3:30 1500m runner who’s been honing his speed on the international circuit all spring.

With no Grant Fisher to key off of and few, if any, runners in the field willing to do the hard work of keeping things honest, the men crawled around the track for 3k before Sean McGorty and then Ryan Schoppe started pushing the pace. That played perfectly into the hands of runners like Ciattei, runner-up Cooper Teare, and Sam Prakel, who were able to both close in 2:22 for the final 1000m and 26 seconds for the last 200m. The lack of qualifying heats made it downright tantalizing for the 1500m runners to double back and cash in on a little extra glory, and ironically for Ciattei and Prakel, they both finished higher in their “weaker” event.

It was lovely to see Ciattei, a 31-year-old journeyman who’s been methodically improving bit by bit for years, finally get his flowers. The signs were all there after Ciattei finished third in the indoor 1500m and took eventual U.S. champ Nathan Green to the line in a mile in Ostrava, but it still took the stars aligning for Ciattei to put the pieces together once and for all. Here’s hoping he can channel the confidence built by this season into next year, where we can start booking his tickets on U.S. teams.

Athlete of the Day: Melissa Jefferson-Wooden

Before the meet began, there was a little bit of moaning in the sprint fandom when it was announced that Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Sha’Carri Richardson would be splitting up the 100m and 200m at USAS rather than facing off directly, but the result was two stellar performances that only increased the hype for the inevitable rematch of their race at the Prefontaine Classic.

Jefferson-Wooden is maybe the best curve runner in the world right now, a skill honed from years of leading off Team USA’s 4x100m, and by the time she caught sight of the finish line it was clear that the time was going to be special. She ended up breaking the tape in a stadium-record 21.69, just 0.01 seconds off her lifetime best set en route to World gold in Tokyo last fall. Once upon a time, the 25-year-old Jefferson-Wooden was considered a 100-meter specialist, but just like her St. Lucian rival Julien Alfred, she’s completely minimized any difference between her two primary events as she’s gotten stronger throughout her pro career.

Just two years ago, MJW’s 200m best was 22.46, but now it almost feels inevitable that she’ll one day run close to a full second faster. And after a slightly-delayed start to the 2026 season, it’s thrilling to know that she’s hopefully got a full and fruitful summer of sprinting still to come.

Thank you!

Any track meet is only as good as the energy the fans bring, so thank you to everybody who showed up to Icahn, tuned in from home, or followed along with us on social media to make for such an exciting weekend.

A special thanks to New Balance for their partnership throughout this weekend, helping us bring the unique New York vibes to this year’s U.S. Outdoor Championship. From our group run, to our trips to and from the track, to the claps and cheers in the CITIUS MAG fan section, you made it an absolute party from start to finish.

If you find yourself in town, make sure to stop by any of New Balance’s local spots, especially the community Run Hub just steps away from the best running routes in Central Park, and wherever you are in the world, make your run faster and more comfortable with the just-released SuperComp Rebel. We’ve been wearing them all weekend and can’t get enough — they’re perfect for mileage at any speed and distance.

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.

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By David Melly

“Slow it down. SLOW IT DOWN.”

That was the half-facetious, half-sincere chant ringing throughout Icahn Stadium during the early laps of last night’s 1500m finals, as a tight pack of the country’s best middle-distance runners got into a “who can jog the most casual” contest. Both the men’s and women’s 1500m finals were insanely tactical, and as a result, insanely entertaining: less than a tenth of a second separated Nikki Hiltz from third-placer Emily Mackay, and a whopping nine men crammed themselves between 3:50.27 and 3:50.99 in a race won by Nathan Green.

Small margins are more common in the 100m hurdles, but what is far rarer is an Olympic long jumper ending up on the podium. That’s just what happened Saturday, though, as Tara Davis-Woodhall took third in the final in 12.57 behind runner-up Alaysha Johnson (12.42) and first-time winner Alia Armstrong (12.38).

All in all, it was a great night for greats. Hiltz and Sandi Morris each won their tenth U.S. titles (Morris leapt a season’s best 5.90m in the pole vault), and Chase Jackson did one better, claiming an incredible 11th national gold in the shot put with a 20.55m winning throw. Morris’s first U.S. title came indoors back in 2016, meaning she’s been winning on the senior level for an entire decade.

It wasn’t all about the old heads, however: the steeplechase finals were won by a pair of rising stars who were both still in college in the last 13 months. 24-year-old Lexy Halladay-Lowry defended her title in 9:12.54, pulling away from runner-up Gabbi Jennings over the final 600 meters, whereas Nathan Mountain had to dive at the line, claiming his first big win as a pro in 8:13.81 just six weeks after finishing eighth in the NCAA final.

The 400ms were a tale of two races: the women’s final was as predictable as can be thanks to Aaliyah Butler’s dominance and 49.93 winning time, but the men’s race was full of controversy. At first, it seemed like the underdog dream had come true for Justin Robinson, an unsponsored 24-year-old who initially set a lifetime best 44.31 for the win, but a few minutes later the news came out that he’d been DQ’ed for a lane violation and the victory was awarded instead to Chris Bailey. A real shame for Robinson, but at least now he knows for sure he’s capable of competing with — and beating — the nation’s best.

Chris Chavez, Kyle Merber, Mac Fleet, and Anderson Emerole had a ball breaking down yesterday’s finals in another edition of the CITIUS MAG Podcast, and Anderson and Paul Hof-Mahoney are continuing to fill our YouTube channel continues with dozens of new athlete interviews every day. Make sure to follow along on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky as we continue to bring you live action as the weekend of running, jumping, and throwing continues.

Event of the Day: Men’s 1500m

The joke about male milers is that every single one of them thinks they have the best kick in any race, and even though we all know intellectually there can only be one, it’s still fun to watch them sort it out on the track.

Six of the 1500m finalists closed their final 1500m in under 52 seconds, and the fastest of all was collegian Rheinhardt Harrison, still repping his NAU kit, who moved up seven spots in the last lap to finish third in 3:50.65 thanks to a 51.52 split. But he didn’t win the positioning game; that was Nathan Green, who’s shown time and time again (and has two NCAA titles to prove it) that he’s got the tactical genius to go with his speed. Green hit the bell in front of a large pack and therefore was able to ride the rail to the finish, a critical difference maker as both Harrison in third and Ciattei in second ran faster for their final 400m.

Sure, it’s fun to watch records fall in finals, but variety is the spice of life. And after last year’s final was won by Jonah Koech in 3:30.17, why not mix it up and put up a winning time TWENTY SECONDS slower just for fun?

Athlete of the Day: Nikki Hiltz

As we saw in the men’s race, anything can happen in a tactical 1500m. But in pretty much any style of domestic 1500m over the last four years, exactly one thing has happened: Nikki Hiltz has won.

Whether it’s a 4:17.10 at U.S. Indoors in 2023 or a 3:55.33 at the 2024 Olympic Trials, Hiltz gets the job done. This time around, it was somewhere in between, with runner-up Addy Wiley and third-placer Emily Mackay pushing Hiltz all the way to the line and forcing the now eight-time defending champ to both uncork a 58.80 final 400m and win the positioning battle. But that’s just how hard it is to beat Hiltz, who hasn’t lost a national championship since 2022, and is even starting to take down bigger and bigger fish, like Faith Kipyegon at the Pre Classic.

At a certain point, the “greatest of all time” question has to be raised. Jenny Simpson has more global medals (including a World gold in 2011) and Hiltz does not currently have the American record in either the 1500m or the mile, but few, if any, milers in history have the championship resume that they’ve put together. Until another U.S. champion emerges in the event, win after win just strengthens the argument that Hiltz deserves mention among the best middle-distance runners in U.S. history.

What to Watch on Day 4

Sunday is full of finals as the U.S. championships wrap up and look to end on a high note. Winners will be decided in events ranging in distance from the 100m hurdles to the 5000m, and the last five field event champions will be crowned.

The biggest stars of the infield are all on Day 4, including Tara Davis-Woodhall in the long jump, Valarie Sion in the discus, Joe Kovacs in the shot put, and Sam Kendricks in the pole vault. And of course there’s plenty of star power on the track, as Parker Valby makes her first appearance in the women’s 5000m and athletes like Noah Lyles and Grant Fisher double back.

It’s a shot and sweet one, with all the track action packed in between 4pm and 6pm E.T., so tune in and beat the Sunday scaries with the best track and field the country has to offer. Get it before it’s gone!

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.

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By David Melly

The theme of USAs last night was quality over quantity.

Sure, there were only two finals on the track, but they were truly thrilling. When the biggest sprint stars in the sport, Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson, show up on a national start line, we’re pretty much guaranteed to get something special, and that’s exactly what happened.

The evening’s weather had great sprinting conditions from start to finish, but for most of the semifinals, that included a hefty tailwind that kept pushing races over the legal limit of 2.0 meters per second. But conditions behaved for the 100-meter finals, and as a result, there were no asterisks around the blazing-fast winning times.

First, Richardson used the strong form she’s been showing off since mid-June to easily dispatch a strong field, equalling her season’s best of 10.77 with a huge 0.13 second margin of victory over runner-up Kayla White. A few minutes later, Lyles also brought his best stuff, equalling his lifetime best 9.79 from that epic final at the Paris Olympics to beat Ronnie Baker, Kenny Bednarek, Christian Coleman, and more.

The more-full-than-yesterday stands got quite the show, with both Richardson and Lyles using the stage to trot back down the homestretch and hype up the crowd, mirroring the high-energy giddiness of the fans that always seems to follow a stellar track performance. Let’s hope the good vibes continue into Saturday and Sunday as the schedule gets increasingly finals-focused.

In the prelims, the 400ms went mostly according to form. Aaliyah Butler showed why she’s the favorite in the women’s race, leading all qualifiers in 50.53. The big bummer of the men’s heats was that 2024 Olympic champ Quincy Hall still seems not to be back to top form, as the 27-year-old who’s battled injuries the last two seasons only ran 46.47 and didn’t advance.

It was a similarly mixed bag in the men’s 800m prelims, as World Indoor champ Cooper Lutkenhaus easily made the final but 2025 U.S. champ Donavan Brazier did not. Lutkenhaus won’t be the only high schooler competing, as Paige Sheppard snuck into the women’s final as the last qualifier in 2:00.99 as well. Up front, now-former high school phenom Roisin Willis displayed the kind of form that suggests she may be well-positioned to repeat, kicking her way to the only sub-2 on the day at 1:59.83.

On the infield, Tyus Wilson equalled his lifetime-best leap of 2.29m to claim the high jump title and Euphenie Andre improved her PB by a whopping 21 centimeters to win the women’s triple jump in 13.93m. The multi athletes wrapped up two days of work as well, with Erin Marsh claiming her first U.S. heptathlon title thanks to a 6,059 point haul and Garrett Scantling notching his third in the decathlon, scoring 8,526. Both competitions were decided in the final event, with Marsh and Scantling doing what they needed to do in the 800m and 1500m, respectively, to seal the deal.

Chris Chavez, Kyle Merber, Mac Fleet, and Anderson Emerole unpacked all the action in the second daily CITIUS MAG Podcast, and our YouTube channel continues to be full of mixed-zone interviews with all the top athletes. Make sure to follow along on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky as we continue to bring you live action as the weekend of running, jumping, and throwing continues.

Event of the Day: Men’s 100m

First off, we all owe Ronnie Baker a bit of an apology. Heading into the weekend, the men’s 100m was billed as a three-man battle between Lyles, Bednarek, and Coleman, but Baker, known primarily as a 60-meter specialist, managed to run his fastest 100m in five years at just the right time, clocking a 9.88 to just beat out Bednarek for silver by 5/1000ths of a second.

Lyles hasn’t had a particularly flashy season to date by his own high standards, but he’s been putting out solid run after solid run, and so his eighth national title should come as no surprise. What was a bit surprising, however, was how fast he ran: Lyles had only dipped under 9.80 once before in his career, and he did it twice in a little over an hour, running a wind-aided 9.76 in the semis (the fastest all-conditions time of his career) and then following it up with a wind-legal 9.79 in the final.

When Lyles is in contention with great starters like Baker and Coleman by 40 meters, the race is pretty much over as none of them can match his top speed. And that’s exactly what happened, showing the 2024 Olympic champ hasn’t lost any sauce off his fastball in championship settings, even in an “off” year.

Athlete of the Day: Sha’Carri Richardson

Because sprinters like World champ Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Olympic champ Julien Alfred have been running so well all season, it almost felt like Sha’Carri Richardson was flying a bit under the radar this year — which is crazy, because she’d run under 10.80 twice already before last night.

Sometimes it feels like the narrative around Richardson is that she doesn’t race often or that she can be streaky, but in her last four U.S. Championships she’s finished first in the 100m three times (she didn’t race the final last year as she had a bye into Worlds). That kind of consistency is hard to come by in the short sprints, and now that we’re closing in on seven or eight years of the Sha’Carri Richardson pro career, it’s worth applauding that she’s pretty unambiguously been one of the best 100-meter runners of the last decade. Her resume isn’t flawless, but it’s grown to be quite lengthy, and that’s saying something.

What to Watch on Day 3

Saturday will be a great day for middle-distance fans, as the finals of the 1500m and steeplechase are both set for this afternoon. If you prefer the hurdles, fear not: the women’s 100H and 400H and men’s 400H all kick off their racing.

A national champion will be crowned in the men’s and women’s 400m, and World champ Melissa Jefferson-Wooden opens up her USAs campaign in the first round of the 200m. Noah Lyles is set to double back to the event where he’s the two-time defending champ, and he’ll be heavily favored to threepeat.

Plenty of field finals are on offer, with finals of the men’s javelin, discus, and triple jump and the women’s pole vault. But the most exciting throwing event of all may be the shot put, where Chase Jackson has been performing incredibly well all season and could put up a huge mark in pursuit of her fifth outdoor title. This one’s more of an afternoon event, with the track events getting underway at 2pm, so kick back and enjoy the ride.

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.

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By David Melly

Start spreading the news… because the U.S. national championship for track and field has officially landed on the East Coast, taking over Randall’s Island and Icahn Stadium for the next four days of action.

As the sun set over the Harlem River, U.S. titles were handed out in the men’s and women’s 10,000m, men’s long jump and hammer throw, and women’s javelin. The finals were set in the 1500ms and the steeplechase, and we got our first look at Noah Lyles, Sha’Carri Richardson, and more of the country’s best sprinters in the first round of the 100m.

The most memorable moment of Day 1 wasn’t exactly a feat of history-making speed — it was the 1:39.55 first 400 meters of a ridiculously tactical women’s 10,000m final, where the field crawled through halfway over 18 minutes before Sydney Vaught took control and never looked back, covering the second half in 15:21 to break the field and the tape with a 33:30.60 victory.

In the men’s race, a similarly slow early pace (16:12 through halfway) seemed to be playing perfectly into Grant Fisher’s hands, but after he dropped a 60-second lap with 4k to go to winnow his rivals down to Drew Bosley and Woody Kincaid, the pace over the final laps slacked just enough that Kincaid was able to uncork his signature finishing speed to lethal effect, closing in 25.95 for the final 200m to beat Fisher to the line, 30:13.66 to 30:14.66. While Fisher has two Olympic medals, he only has one U.S. 10,000m title, and Kincaid picks up his third at the age of 33.

Despite a relatively light program, there was plenty of drama in the middle-distance prelims, as pre-race contenders like Sam Prakel and Gracie Morris found themselves on the wrong side of the time cutoffs in the men’s and women’s 1500m, respectively. Nikki Hiltz had no problem advancing to the final in their heat in pursuit of a fourth straight U.S. outdoor title, and Andy Powell disciples had a romp of a time with the men’s heats, as four of the twelve finalists are current or former UW Huskies.

The biggest shock of the day came in the men’s steeple prelims, because for the first time since 2022 there will be a new national champion. Kenneth Rooks failed to advance to the final after a spotty 2026 season to date, which opens the door for someone like Parker Stokes, who led all qualifiers, or last year’s third-placer Benard Keter to claim the title.

Chris Chavez, Kyle Merber, and Mac Fleet unpacked all the action in the first daily CITIUS MAG Podcast, and our YouTube channel is full of mixed-zone interviews with all the top athletes. Make sure to follow along on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky as we continue to bring you live action as the weekend of running, jumping, and throwing continues.

Event of the Day: Men’s 10,000m

What is this, 2021? Five years ago, Woody Kincaid outkicked Grant Fisher, then teammates at Bowerman Track Club, to win his first U.S. title over 10,000m, and last night felt like a bit of deja vu, albeit in a race that was won over two minutes slower than the 2021 edition.

Fisher’s injection of pace at 6000m — from 78-second 400ms to 60-second ones — may have been a bit of a tactical miscalculation, as the leader for much of the second half of the race let the tempo slow back to 67s and nearly let the chase pack back into contention before Bosley took the lead with 600m to go. And while Kincaid’s 2026 results (season’s bests of 13:12.94 and 27:20.74) didn’t suggest he’d be able to hang with Fisher at any pace, anyone who’s seen the Woody kick in action knows that it’s always a possibility and, when fully employed, is damn near impossible to beat. It’s a great redemption arc for a runner who’s probably been thinking about a shift to the roads lately, and a great reason to keep Fisher hungry and pushing for more.

Athlete of the Day: Sydney Vaught

Sydney Vaught first emerged into the broader track and field consciousness this year with her impressive solo 15:02.52 effort to win the SEC 5000m title indoors, but the now-graduated Arkansas Razorback had yet to make a splash on the professional scene since wrapping up her collegiate eligibility. After a ninth-place finish at the Peachtree Road Race on the Fourth of July, it was more clear than ever that strength is her strength, which she proved for the fans in Icahn with an impressive display of front-running to win the war of attrition.

Vaught is the kind of runner who this year’s USAs is built to showcase: someone who didn’t always get her flowers behind the likes of Jane Hedengren, Doris Lemngole, and Pamela Kosgei in the collegiate ranks, but whose talent and racing prowess was unmistakable if you were paying attention. As she ventures into her first full season of professional running, she’ll now have the confidence booster of knowing that she can hack it on any level, and as the competition gets better and better, she can keep rising to the occasion.

What to Watch on Day 2

The biggest headlines of Day 2 in NYC will be the finals of the men’s and women’s 100m, featuring a clash between Noah Lyles, Christian Coleman, and Kenny Bednarek on the men’s side and Sha’Carri Richardson as the heavy favorite on the women’s. We’ll also get the conclusion of the decathlon and heptathlon, where Kyle Garland looks to defend his title on the men’s side and a new winner will be named on the women’s.

World Indoor champ Cooper Lutkenhaus will begin his campaign for his first U.S. outdoor title as racing kicks off in the 800m, and a stacked women’s 800m has no clear favorite — although defending champ Roisin Willis has been running well all season. We’ll see the first rounds of the 400m and the finals of the women’s hammer throw and triple jump and men’s long jump. Don’t miss a moment!

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.

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On July 18th at the London Diamond League, in front of 60,000 people, Josh Kerr ran 3:42.66 to break Hicham El Guerrouj’s record that had stood for 27 years. He did it by publicly calling his shot four months in advance, first targeting the specific date and venue before he had even finished rehabbing the calf he tore at the World Championships in Tokyo last September.

Kerr is already one of the most decorated middle-distance runners of his generation as the 2023 World champion, two-time Olympic medalist, and two-time World Indoor champion at 3000 meters. But the world record puts him in a new category entirely. He is now the seventh Brit to hold the mile world record, and the first since 1985, joining a line that runs through Roger Bannister, Seb Coe, and Steve Ovett. The race commentator on the world feed, Tim Hutchings, called it “the ballsiest world record in the history of middle-distance racing.” It’s hard to disagree with that assessment.

We had the chance to chat with Kerr for The CITIUS MAG Podcast to unpack the performance and the full arc of his Project 222 with Brooks. The following interview has been transcribed and edited lightly for clarity. You can listen to the interview on The CITIUS MAG Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows. You can also watch it on The CITIUS MAG Youtube channel.

CHRIS CHAVEZ: I’m sure with the fifty-plus interviews you’ve done in the last couple of days, it’s settled in at this point?

JOSH KERR: Yeah, I think so. Listening to yourself talk about it for a while helps for sure. But it’s been really fun. It’s been great to see people outside of the sport get into this a little bit and understand what our sport is really about—pushing the boundaries of things. So it’s been a good journey.

KYLE MERBER: What has been the outlet or interview that gave you a pinch-me moment—where you thought, wow, people are paying attention to track and field right now?

JK: The media usually breaks in waves. That evening it’s all very quick—Sky News, BBC, live stuff. Then it becomes more chat-show and podcast territory. We’ve got some really good stuff in the pipeline. Even just Elon tweeting about it—that’s cool. Someone showed me and I was like, “Should I tweet back?” I haven’t tweeted in like fifteen years.

CC: Your last tweet is actually a retweet of photo of you and me running in Santa Monica from 2023, which is kind of crazy.

JK: The boys. Just didn’t feel right to change it. Left it as it was.

CC: Let’s unpack the day. Calling your shot four months out is something you’ve done before, but it sounds like it really started to weigh on the team about six weeks out. What exactly made the pressure feel different at that point?

JK: Five to six weeks out was when I ran that last 800m and it didn’t quite go the way we wanted. But for me personally, the pressure never felt that different—because I don’t listen to outside noise. I wake up in the morning, I chat to the people I see in person, and that’s it. But that’s not how my wife works, that’s not how my parents work, that’s not how Danny works. They see the externals a lot more than I do. And you can see it in how I was coached—Danny put some pressure on me in certain workouts, referencing what numbers we were targeting. So I could feel it through the people around me.

But I genuinely don’t care about anyone else’s perception. I was trying to do something no one had done. I was trying to bring a positive moment to this sport. And I was trying my absolute best. If I’d run 3:43.4 or even 3:43-high, that would have been my best. I would have looked around and said: that record was just better than me today, and I’m sorry this wasn’t the moment you expected—but that’s all I had. If that’s your approach, you’re not scared. You go in with a whole heart and a full cup and you just send it. Whatever the result is feels like a Christmas present. That’s always how I’ve felt going into big races.

KM: How much of the fact that this was an off year played into calling the shot? You’ve been running global championships for nearly a decade. Was this the thing you needed to keep yourself honest when the normal motivation of a major championships isn’t there?

JK: Yeah, it was a balance of things. Obviously Tokyo didn’t go the way we wanted—but the prep camp had gone really well. So I was still on crutches when we went in to present to Brooks and just said: July 18th, let’s do it. They laughed at first. I’m going to release the presentation at some point—no NDAs. I asked for a nice big sexy bonus. They laughed initially. Then I said: but I will have run the world record. And they went: yeah, okay. Once World Indoors happened, the ball really started rolling—they were like, “This guy’s still pretty good.” So it was a crazy process, but really fun.

CC: Did you wear a suit to the Brooks presentation?

JK: Something similar, but with a Brooks shirt underneath. You’ve got to keep the main thing the main thing. Brooks shoes on for sure. Their chief marketing officer Melanie Allen is incredible—they brought it to leadership, got the budget approved for marketing and shoe development, and they bought in massively from that point on.

CC: On the spike—they shared that it was designed to give you the feeling of running downhill. Walk me through what the testing and science actually showed about your particular foot strike.

JK: My initial question to them was: a 120-pound female 800m runner and me at six foot two—are those two spikes made with the same foam density? Because I don’t think they should be. And they are. I was like: I need something that doesn’t compress out under my power and just bounce it back up. I need foam that’s actually built for me.

So we got the foam super dense and hard. And then—their claim, in my dumbed-down version—they cut the brakes off the back of the spike. So if I’m not running 55s or faster, the spike doesn’t perform well for me. It also holds me into the plate where I pronate, so they built up the inside of the right spike. And if I heel strike, there’s nowhere for the heel to land—the back half simply isn’t there. It forces me to run the way I need to run to go 3:42.

KM: I’ve heard some people say the reason you broke the record is the spike. When you hear that, do you say “No, I’m just that good”—or is it “Yeah, this is exactly why I pitched the idea to Brooks! Let’s sell some shoes!”?

JK: Both, honestly. They deserve every bit of credit they’re getting. They worked incredibly hard. But if you put most people in that spike, it’s not going to happen. At the same time, if we don’t have those spikes, we might have been on the wrong side of the number. The conditions weren’t ideal: a pacer dropping out five or six days before, a bit of wind. Those spikes made up the margin. It was genuinely a team effort in every sense.

CC: So we’ve got the spike, the custom speed suit, the pacing, the training, the mental performance coach. And bicarb—are you using it?

JK: Yeah, I use it. I don’t promote it because I’m not contracted to anyone on that side, but you can see it in the videos if you look. I started about a year and a half, two years ago—I didn’t use it at the Paris Olympics. But my new PBs have all come with it.

The mental performance coach side is huge. Julian Florez or my wife Larimar recorded part of our big whiteboard meeting in Albuquerque—me, Danny, Drew Windell, who’s joining as an assistant coach for the Brooks Beasts—I probably just released that before they were ready to announce it, but he’s awesome—and Brannon Kidder. We sat down and debated the splits for about an hour. When we’d figured it all out, the job was done. And I was forced to put the whiteboard away. Two weeks before the race, the work is done. Jose, my performance coach, kept saying: ‘You cannot be in analytical mode and in flow state at the same time.’ The cramming stops. You trust what’s already been built.

And I’ll be honest: I felt pretty rough most of the week leading up to it. Travel, caffeine cleanse, all that stuff. But as soon as I started running fast in warmups, I felt great. The worse the pre-race week, the better the race. We’ve all been there.

KM: Coming off a disappointing World Championships—straining your calf, getting eliminated in the semis—you just seemed to take it on the chin without excuses and immediately recalibrate. How key was the performance coach at that moment?

JK: I think the biggest thing was realizing no one cares. Not in a callous way—in a freeing way. I wanted to retain my World title. I didn’t. I put myself in the wrong position, went over on my calf, and that was it. And I thought: I don’t want to be remembered for being that guy who turns his adversity into Instagram edits. I let my team down because of my positioning. That was on me.

The thing Danny always says—he’s a huge UFC guy—is: Before I shut the cage door, let me do everything I can for you. And once everyone has done their job and the cage door closes, it’s entirely on you. I love that feeling. When the team has delivered everything, and now it’s just me—that’s when it’s time to go.

Then I went straight to vacation in Japan on crutches. Like, how bad is life really?

CC: Take me to the night before—when you’re finalizing the last race plan. How did that meeting go?

JK: We’d already done the big decision meeting three to four weeks out in Albuquerque. The job is done with two weeks to go. The night before was really just Jose keeping me out of my analytical brain. The splits were locked. My whiteboard had every possible split imaginable—literally months of math, because the extra nine meters of a mile versus a 1500m makes the math extraordinarily difficult. But once we agreed on the splits in that room, I folded the whiteboard away and didn’t look at it again.

The splits we had planned: 55.1, 55.4, 55.7, 54.9—targeting 3:42.9 flat. (What he actually ran: 55.3, 1:51.1, 2:46.5, 3:41.4 at 1600m, then 3:42.66).

The first lap was fast because of me—I wanted to get out well, and we pushed the first 209-meter segment to a 27.4 rather than the planned 27.7. From 209 to the 800, we had it at 27.7. Then slightly slower, then slightly faster again. I knew those checkpoint splits so well that if I needed to come up for air and glance, I could check one number, know exactly what it meant, and immediately go back to work.

At 300 meters to go, I needed to be at 3:01. Got it at 3:01. Anything under 3:28 [with 100 meters to go] and you’re in the promised land. After that, it’s just straight down the last hundred.

KM: When did you know that you had it?

JK: Honestly, the 1200m time trial was probably the easiest one I’ve ever done. Afterward I went up to Jose and said: I wanted that to feel harder, and I don’t know why. And he said: talk to me about that. And I said: I wanted it to feel real, but it didn’t feel real because it wasn’t that hard. And the question he kept asking me was: what if it was easy? And in the race—it just felt right. The body knew the pace. It was flowing.

KM: For me, those 4x800m workouts were the first signal. Then the 1200m time trial was when I thought: Unless there’s a thunderstorm, it’s happening.

CC: The 1200m time trial is what converted me.

JK: Yeah, it was a great one. And the 1:44 helped a bit too.

KM: Given this performance, and the fact that your training approach is quite different from Jakob’s threshold-heavy model—what would you hope coaches or athletes would take away from what you do?

JK: The threshold training has a lot of science behind it and I get it. But athletes are sometimes treated as the rule when they should be treated as the exception. I’m not saying this is the right way to train—it works for me. What I would really push back on is young athletes doing lactate testing. You need to internalize effort and pace first. Before you’re chasing specific zones based on blood lactate, you should be able to run a 400 and know within a second or two what split you’re going to run. Learning what pace feels like—truly internalizing it—is critical. Because when you get to a race and you’re front-running, you need to know your splits without a device telling you. That element gets lost when younger athletes are just trying to stay in their lactate bands. I don’t get that. Explore different training modalities—just learn the fundamentals first.

CC: Two moments from the race I want to dive a bit deeper into. One: just before the gun, you crack a smile. Two: With 150 meters to go, you go completely deaf. That last one you’ve talked about before was at the Paris Olympics was the other time it happened. What’s going on internally in both of those moments?

JK: I’m a very present athlete. There aren’t many times in your career where you have 60,000 people expecting you to run a mile world record—that’s never going to happen to me again. And I was told to enjoy it. I had an absolute blast. I was talking to Brandon on the start line, saying things I now realize he couldn’t quite hear—which nearly changed the trajectory of what we were trying to do. Jose kept asking: “What if it was easy?” So I said to Brandon at the start: What if it was easy? And he heard: Take it easy? I was like: no, disaster. But it was fun.

With 150 to go—I wasn’t fighting the body. The big thing we work on is a non-judgmental mind. Whatever emotion comes up, you greet it at the door. If doubt comes in: okay, I understand why you’re here, here’s why we’ve prepared for this moment—and then it flows through. Nothing gets sticky.

The hearing thing is a weird one. In Paris it happened so early in the race. In London it happened so late. I think it has to be mental versus physical—I’m still exploring it. But I was just kind of out of body, watching myself, the body running the splits it knew by heart from thousands of repetitions in training.

CC: Has Hicham El Guerrouj reached out?

JK: He was supposed to be there. I heard he wasn’t allowed into the country. I don’t know what happened. He hasn’t reached out. I’ve never spoken to him. I honestly always thought more about Roger Bannister than El Guerrouj. He’s the greatest of all time. He’s the reason people care about the mile. That was just the guy I kept thinking about. As for Hicham—I was told he removed it from his Instagram bio. So he’s being respectful, I guess.

CC: And finally: When’s the next 1500m?

JK: Commonwealth Games next week—Wednesday and Saturday. After that, I’ll sit down with Julian and Danny and chat about what’s possible. I genuinely feel fresh and I want to keep going. There’s a conversation to be had about wild card access to World Ultimate Championships in September—my world ranking is essentially a No. 1,000,000 right now, no points in the qualifying window. Danny has some concerns about flying too close to the sun, which I understand. But I want to race. As soon as race plans are set, we’ll announce them.

Listen to the full episode with Josh Kerr on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or watch on YouTube here.

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By Chris Chavez & David Melly

With the World Cup now in the rearview, it’s time for track and field to take center stage in New York City. The 2026 USATF Outdoor Championships run July 23-26 at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island. This marks the first time nationals have been held in New York since 1991.

Kudos to NYRR, Central Park Track Club, USATF New York, and the Randall’s Island Park Alliance for taking on the championships and making the case that the meet belongs back east. If these organizations are able to showcase interest from a city where run clubs meet everywhere and every day, then there’s hope USATF would want to bring the national championships here as well—ideally in a year when World Championship or Olympic team spots are on the line.

For the first time since 2018, there’s no traditional World Championship or Olympic berth at stake at nationals. But the weekend still matters since athletes can boost their World Ranking if they are chasing spots at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championships—set to take place inBudapest this September—and there’s $27,500 in prize money per event ($8,800 for the win) up for grabs.

Not everyone is making the trip. Olympic 1500m and World 5000m champion Cole Hocker, Olympic 200m champion Gabby Thomas, Olympic 100m hurdles champion Masai Russell and 110m hurdles world record holder Ja’Kobe Tharpe are among the big names sitting this one out. But there’s still some star power in the fields.

200m World champion Noah Lyles and 200m Olympic silver medalist Kenny Bednarek renew their rivalry in the 100m. Lyles is also chasing a record sixth national title in the 200m. Training partners Sha’Carri Richardson and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden—the last two 100m World champions—headline the women’s sprints. Long jump Olympic champion Tara Davis-Woodhall pulls double duty in the long jump and 100m hurdles. Olympic champions Quincy Hall (400m) and Valarie Sion (discus) are entered. Grant Fisher and Parker Valby lead the distance contingent. 17-year-old Cooper Lutkenhaus, the youngest individual World champion in track and field history, will also certainly draw eyes as he seeks his first national title.

We’ll get into all of it below… But first! Here’s your guide on how to watch the action (All times Eastern):

Thursday

• 11:30 a.m. – USATF.TV

Friday

• 12 p.m. – USATF.TV

• 6-8 p.m. – Peacock, NBCSN

Saturday

• 10 a.m. – USATF.TV

• 2-6 p.m. – NBC, Peacock

Sunday

• 12:30 p.m. – USATF.TV

• 4-6 p.m. – NBC, Peacock

CITIUS MAG has teamed up with New Balance for this year’s championships, so keep an eye on the broadcast for the CITIUS MAG x New Balance cheer section. If you’re in the area, join us for a group run on Friday, July 24 at 7 a.m. from New Balance’s Upper West Side store (210 Columbus Ave). Full details here.

And throughout the championships, we’ve got you covered across social media, a daily newsletter recapping all the action, plus daily episodes of The CITIUS MAG Podcast breaking down and reacting to the best moments.

Women’s Sprints

We won’t be getting a highly-anticipated rematch of Sha’Carri Richardson vs. Melissa Jefferson-Wooden this time around, unfortunately, as the two Star Athletics stars are splitting the difference rather than facing off in the 100m for the first time since their 1-2 finish at the Pre Classic.

Jefferson-Wooden is running only the 200m and Richardson is running only the 100m, where both should be favored. Their training partner Kayla White could also land on the podium in both, particularly after White’s 21.92 last week in Hungary. Other names to watch in the 200m include Anavia Battle and McKenzie Long, stalwarts on the pro circuit, as well as Brittany Brown, who hasn’t raced all season but is making her debut at USAs. A resurgent Cambrea Sturgis, the double NCAA champ from 2021, is having her best season in years and could be a factor in one or both events.

The 400m could see a Butler 1-2 as Aaliyah Butler and Sanaria Butler (no relation) are the top seeds. Aaliyah will be highly favored for the win as she’s the only entrant under 49 seconds this year, and if she can take Marileidy Paulino to the line like she did in Monaco she should be able to handle any domestic challengers. Sanaria is a more variable prospect, as she ran sub-50 back in April for Arkansas but only finished sixth at NCAAs. More proven commodities like Alexis Holmes and fellow Razorback alum Britton Wilson may end up displacing her even if they haven’t run super fast yet this season.

The 100m hurdles are wide open thanks to the absence of Masai Russell, which means that any of the second- through fifth-place finishers from USAs last year could end up on top: Grace Stark, Alaysha Johnson, Keni Harrison, or Tonea Marshall, also the top four seeds on the entry list. Of that group, Stark has been the most consistent, but don’t sleep on long jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall, who finished as the top American in this event at the LA Grand Prix.

In the 400m hurdles, the fan favorite will surely be 36-year-old Queens native Dalilah Muhammad to defend her U.S. title, but she was beaten by training partner Anna Cockrell in their most recent race at the LA Grand Prix. With Jasmine Jones scratching and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone enjoying new motherhood, either Muhammad or Cockrell will almost certainly come home with the win.

Men’s Sprints

The men’s short sprints are one area in which the top talent is not taking a pass. Noah Lyles, Kenny Bednarek, and Christian Coleman are all slated to contest the 100m, and Lyles is doubling back to the 200m (assuming he contests all the rounds) where he’s a heavy favorite to win his sixth U.S. title. In the 100m, it should be an even fight: Bednarek has the fastest wind-aided mark of the group at 9.72 (+2.4), but he finished behind Coleman at the Pre Classic. Lyles has run 9.88, but in his most recent race he took second behind Trayvon Bromell, who isn’t competing.

The 400m could be similarly close, as Chris Bailey is the fastest by season’s best at 44.06 but he and Khaleb McRae finished just 0.02 seconds apart at last year’s USAs. Potential spoilers include veterans Vernon Norwood, Bryce Deadmon, and the ever enigmatic Quincy Hall. The 2024 Olympic champ has battled injuries and raced sparingly the last two seasons, only posting a season’s best of 45.51, but we all know he has the talent to be in the mix for the win if he lands in New York even close to full health.

In the 110m hurdles, the absence of Ja’Kobe Tharp, Grant Holloway, and Trey Cunningham dampens some of the star power, but reigning World champ Cordell Tinch will still face two other sub-13 men in the form of Jamal Britt, who’s been running great on the Europe circuit as of late, and Kendrick Smallwood, the NCAA runner-up for Texas. Smallwood didn’t have a great race in Paris after NCAAs, so the most consistent men on the start line are decidedly Britt and Tinch. The longer hurdles event will likely feature three men far ahead of the rest of the field, as Caleb Dean, Chris Robinson, and CJ Allen lead all qualifiers, but what order they finish in is anyone’s guess. Dean has run the fastest of that group, with a season’s best of 47.42, but his last race in London was a bit of a dud, finishing last in 50.45.

Women’s Distance

When Roisin Willis won the 800m at last year’s U.S. championship, she was far from an unknown quantity as a two-time NCAA champ, but it was still a surprise. This year, she won’t enter as an underdog; she’ll have a target on her back after setting the American record indoors and clocking the top time outdoors. But there’s not a lot of breathing room behind her: Willis’s SB is 1:57.56, and Addison Wiley is right on her heels at 1:57.70. A more tactical race could favor the hard closers, like Nikki Hiltz, who’d be doubling back from the 1500m the day before, or Meghan Hunter. And we can’t forget Willis’s former teammate, Juliette Whittaker, who didn’t have a great NCAAs but can be up front with the best of ‘em if all goes well here.

In the 1500m, it’s Hiltz’s world and we’re just living in it. They’ve claimed every indoor and outdoor U.S. title going back to 2023, and as the fastest entrant by both personal and lifetime best with a lethal kick, they can win any kind of race. They’ll still need to dispatch fellow sub-four runners Emily MacKay and Heather MacLean, but that’s exactly what happened at the Pre Classic, when Hiltz took down Faith Kipyegon, along with the rest of the 2025 World Championship podium. If someone else does break up that trio, a good bet would be Gracie Morris, who’s the third fastest by season’s best and has been getting better and better ever since she turned pro.

MacKay is set to take on the likes of Shelby Houlihan and Parker Valby should she double back to the 5000m. If it’s a kicker’s race, Houlihan has to be considered the favorite. Valby has proven to have the best strength among U.S. 5000m runners this year with her 14:39 personal best from the LA Grand Prix. The 10,000m, on the other hand, is one of the most wide-open events of the whole meet, with stalwarts like Elise Cranny, Weini Kelati, and Karissa Schweizer all opting out. The very first track final on the schedule is a true toss-up, with no former champions and a tight grouping of entrants in the 32:20 range. The lack of non-collegiate 10,000ms this year makes the entrants’ recent form a bit of a guessing game, but if anyone has an edge it might be Allie Buchalski, who has the fastest time of the year with a third-place 31:29.06 run from the TEN.

Similarly, the women’s steeple will be one to watch, but the talent is a bit more concentrated at the top of the list. Gabbi Jennings is the fastest seed and finished top American in three of her four steeples this season, but her most recent race at the Pre Classic landed her third American (tenth overall) behind Lexy Halladay-Lowry and Emma Coburn. Coburn is the savvy vet who’s been methodically making her way back into form, and it would be quite the comeback story to see the 35-year-old pick up her 11th U.S. title. To do so, she’d have to beat both Halladay-Lowry and Jennings as well as other strong contenders like Courtney Wayment, Kaylee Mitchell, and Gracie Hyde. This is one of those races where there almost certainly will be a group of four or five runners in contention at the bell and a lot could change over the last few barriers.

Men’s Distance

Sadly, a late scratch from Brandon Miller, fresh off a huge lifetime best in London, means we won’t get a rematch between the Brooks Beast and World Indoor champ Cooper Lutkenhaus. Instead, Lutkenhaus will face off once again with last year’s U.S. champ, Donavan Brazier, and as improbable as it still sounds, the 17-year-old high schooler has to be considered the heavy favorite. A tactical race could allow a spoiler like Sean Dolan or 2024 800m Olympian Hobbs Kessler into the race, but Lutkenhaus and Brazier would be unwise to let things get tactical when they both can easily run away from this field.

A Nuguse and Hocker-less 1500m means this is anyone’s race, and it’ll somewhat be billed as a clash of generations as NCAA standouts like Simeon Birnbaum and Gary Martin take on seasoned racers like Vince Ciattei and Sam Prakel. But the smart money is probably on tactical maestro Nathan Green, who’s translated his collegiate championship-racing savvy into a few medium-profile pro wins this season, including the U.S. title indoors. But Green did get beat straight-out by Ciattei back in May, so he’s far from a lock. And while Birnbaum DNFed the mile at the London Diamond League, he looked so invincible on the collegiate level this season that it wouldn’t be a total surprise to see him continue his winning ways if there’s anything left in the tank.

For as credentialed as Grant Fisher is, it may surprise you to remember that he only has three total U.S. titles and isn’t the defending champ in either the 5000m or the 10,000m. But neither Nico Young nor Cole Hocker are contesting USAs, and with Graham Blanks skipping the event as well, it feels highly likely that Fisher will repeat his double-win performance from 2024. On paper, Fisher’s biggest threats should come from his former training partners, Woody Kincaid and Sean McGorty (McGorty is only entered in the 5000m), but neither man has laid down any particularly notable races thus far in 2026. The 5000m is a more interesting affair, as it’s attracted more speed-based guys like Martin, Liam Murphy, and Cooper Teare. A really tactical race could get interesting, but it’s likely in Fisher’s best interest to wind this thing up from two or three laps out to reduce the likelihood of chaotic outcomes.

Theoretically, the men’s steeple could deliver Kenneth Rooks his fourth straight U.S. title, but Rooks hasn’t looked like himself this season and only has a season’s best of 8:21.35. The guy who has looked the best, and consistently so, has been Matthew Wilkinson, who’s run four solid Diamond Leagues and hasn’t lost to an American yet. He finished fourth last year and the other two guys ahead of him, Dan Michalski and Benard Keter, could also factor into the top three on a good day. The other three names worth mentioning are Olympian James Corrigan, Yasin Sado, who won two strong domestic steeplechases this season, both in 8:15, plus Nathan Mountain, who went 8:11.92 earlier this season, the third fastest NCAA mark ever.

Women’s Field

Olympic champs Tara Davis-Woodhall and Valarie Sion are the highest-profile athletes slated to compete in NYC, and they’ll both be heavily favored to win—although Sion’s fortunes may have changed somewhat after Cierra Jackson’s huge Diamond League record throw in London last weekend. In all likelihood, Jackson will regress to the mean somewhat, as tends to be the case in the discus. But if she truly has broken through to another level, she and Sion will be set for an epic battle.

In the shot put, Chase Jackson will also be a heavy favorite as the two-time defending champ holds the farthest season’s best (20.74m) by well over a meter. Barring a disastrous performance, she’ll be well-positioned to three-peat, which would give her her 11th U.S. title overall.

The high jump will see a rematch between Vashti Cunningham and Charity Hufnagel, with Hufnagel denying Cunningham the title indoors for the first time in a decade. At their most recent matchup, both women cleared 1.85m at the Ed Murphey Classic (Cunningham beat out Hufnagel on countback), so it’s likely to be another close duel.

With Katie Moon and the Moll twins skipping USAs, Sandi Morris looks well positioned to defend her U.S. title in the pole vault. But even if they had shown up, Morris would be hard to beat as she showed fine form in her most recent competition, winning the Pre Classic in a season’s best 4.85m. Emily Grove did finish ahead of Morris at the Rabat Diamond League, however, so she’s shown the ability to beat the 9x national champ when the stars align.

Men’s Field

The men’s shot put competition will be much tighter than the women’s, as Ryan Crouser is out for the season with an elbow injury and five men have thrown between 21.76m and 22.58m this season. The head of that pack is Joe Kovacs, but he only finished fifth indoors and his most recent outing at the Pre Classic landed him eight overall (fourth American). Jordan Geist has been the most consistent top American at major competitions, so he could add his first U.S. title to a season that also brought him World Indoor silver.

Intriguingly, 2025 World 110H champ Cordell Tinch is pulling a “reverse Tara” and is declared in the long jump as well as the hurdles. He’s tied for the top entry seed with his 8.29m season’s best from indoors, and though he hasn’t long jumped in competition since March, he’s got the talent to claim an unexpected double U.S. title if it all works out in his favor. He’ll have to beat a bunch of promising collegians and a few experienced vets to do it—the latter category including Marquis Dendy, Will Williams, and Jarrion Lawson, among others.

In the triple jump, the two 17-meter jumpers in the field will take on a rising collegiate star, as Russell Robinson and Salif Mane, the top two finishers from 2025, square off against Brandon Green, Jr., the 2025 NCAA champ. He was also top American at both indoor and outdoor NCAAs this year for Oklahoma.

Five men have leapt 5.90m or higher in the pole vault, and although Sam Kendricks hasn’t been back over six meters recently, he’s riding high on a season’s best and surprise win over Mondo Duplantis at the London DL. If he can hang onto that momentum one more week, he’ll be tough to beat. U.S. Indoor champ Zach Bradford has the top vault of 2026 with his winning 6.01m mark there, but he hasn’t been back up to those same heights outdoors. Chris Nilsen is riding the opposite trend of Kendricks, as he’s jumped well all season but landed a dud in London, but perhaps he can write that one off as a momentary blip and get back in the mix for the win.

Multi Events

With no World Championship to force multi-athletes to put their bodies on the line over two days multiple times a season, the heptathlon field is a bit lighter at the top end, with 2025 World champion Anna Hall and last year’s runner-up Taliyah Brooks not returning. The top returner is Allie Jones, who finished third in 2025, but the 2026 U.S. leader is Erin Marsh at 6,305 points and the top American at Gotzis was Lexie Keller. Both Marsh and Keller have already completed multiple heptathlons this season, so assuming fatigue isn’t an issue, they’ll be well-practiced and ready to contend for the win alongside Jones.

The decathlon has less of a power vacuum, with Kyle Garland and Heath Baldwin, who finished 1-2 last year, both declared to compete. Garland is probably the favorite to defend, but other podium threats include three-time NCAA champ Peyton Bair and 2022 World bronze medalist Zachery Ziemek. The biggest dark horse of all, of course, is Garrett Scantling, who returned from a three-year ban last year but DNFed USAs after only two events. Now 33 years old, the 2021 Olympic Trials champ is a total mystery in terms of what kind of form he’s bringing, but at his best he can contend for the win.

You can bookmark our Instagram schedule post here. Here is the schedule of events to watch:

Day One – Thursday, July 23

• 4:15 p.m. – Men’s 100m (1st Round)

• 4:48 p.m. – Women’s 100m (1st Round)

• 5:21 p.m. – Men’s 1,500m (1st Round)

• 5:40 p.m. – Women’s Javelin Throw (Final)

• 5:52 p.m. – Women’s 1,500m (1st Round)

• 6:10 p.m. – Men’s Long Jump (Final)

• 7:12 p.m. – Men’s 3,000m Steeplechase (1st Round)

• 7:43 p.m. – Women’s 3,000m Steeplechase (1st Round)

• 8:05 p.m. – Men’s Hammer Throw (Final)

• 8:16 p.m. – Women’s 10,000m (Final)

• 8:58 p.m. – Men’s 10,000m (Final)

Day Two – Friday, July 24

• 4:45 p.m. – Women’s 100m Hurdles (1st Round)

• 5:19 p.m. – Women’s 400m (1st Round)

• 5:41 p.m. – Men’s 400m (1st Round)

• 5:45 p.m. – Men’s High Jump (Final)

• 6:05 p.m. – Women’s Triple Jump (Final)

• 6:18 p.m. – Women’s 100m (Semi-Final)

• 6:40 p.m. – Men’s 100m (Semi-Final)

• 7:02 p.m. – Men’s 800m (1st Round)

• 7:23 p.m. – Women’s 800m (1st Round)

• 7:45 p.m. – Women’s 100m (Final)

• 7:53 p.m. – Men’s 100m (Final)

• 8:10 p.m. – Women’s Hammer Throw (Final)

Day Three – Saturday, July 25

• 1:10 p.m. – Men’s Javelin Throw (Final)

• 1:40 p.m. – Men’s 110m Hurdles (1st Round)

• 2:13 p.m. – Women’s 200m (1st Round)

• 2:15 p.m. – Men’s Triple Jump (Final)

• 2:37 p.m. – Men’s 200m (1st Round)

• 3:01 p.m. – Women’s 400m (Final)

• 3:09 p.m. – Men’s 400m (Final)

• 3:33 p.m. – Women’s 100m Hurdles (Semi-Final)

• 3:40 p.m. – Men’s Discus Throw (Final)

• 3:50 p.m. – Women’s Pole Vault (Final)

• 3:58 p.m. – Women’s 3,000m Steeplechase (Final)

• 4:15 p.m. – Men’s 3,000m Steeplechase (Final)

• 4:31 p.m. – Men’s 400m Hurdles (1st Round)

• 4:40 p.m. – Women’s Shot Put (Final)

• 4:56 p.m. – Women’s 400m Hurdles (1st Round)

• 5:30 p.m. – Men’s 1,500m (Final)

• 5:40 p.m. – Women’s 1,500m (Final)

• 5:52 p.m. – Women’s 100m Hurdles (Final)

Day Four – Sunday, July 26

• 3:20 p.m. – Women’s Discus Throw (Final)

• 3:30 p.m. – Men’s Pole Vault (Final)

• 3:45 p.m. – Women’s High Jump (Final)

• 4:03 p.m. – Men’s 110m Hurdles (Semi-Final)

• 4:05 p.m. – Women’s Long Jump (Final)

• 4:25 p.m. – Women’s 800m (Final)

• 4:33 p.m. – Men’s 800m (Final)

• 4:41 p.m. – Women’s 5,000m (Final)

• 4:45 p.m. – Men’s Shot Put (Final)

• 5:03 p.m. – Men’s 400m Hurdles (Final)

• 5:11 p.m. – Women’s 400m Hurdles (Final)

• 5:19 p.m. – Men’s 5,000m (Final)

• 5:39 p.m. – Men’s 200m (Final)

• 5:47 p.m. – Women’s 200m (Final)

• 5:55 p.m. – Men’s 110m Hurdles (Final)

Decathlon / Heptathlon

Thursday, July 23

• 12:52 p.m. – Men’s Decathlon 100m

• 1:13 p.m. – Women’s Heptathlon 100m Hurdles

• 2:00 p.m. – Men’s Decathlon Long Jump

• 2:15 p.m. – Women’s Heptathlon High Jump

• 3:15 p.m. – Men’s Decathlon Shot Put

• 4:20 p.m. – Women’s Heptathlon Shot Put

• 4:30 p.m. – Men’s Decathlon High Jump

• 6:26 p.m. – Women’s Heptathlon 200m

• 6:49 p.m. – Men’s Decathlon 400m

Friday, July 24th

• 12:30 p.m. – Men’s Decathlon 110m Hurdles

• 1:30 p.m. – Men’s Decathlon Discus Throw

• 2:00 p.m. – Women’s Heptathlon Long Jump

• 3:15 p.m. – Men’s Decathlon Pole Vault

• 3:45 p.m. – Women’s Heptathlon Javelin Throw

• 6:03 p.m. – Women’s Heptathlon 800m

• 6:15 p.m. – Men’s Decathlon Javelin Throw

• 8:01 p.m. – Men’s Decathlon 1,500m

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Josh Kerr, the 2023 1500m World champion, called his shot in March, built an entire year around one number, and then delivered on every promise of Project 222 in front of 60,000 people at London Stadium. His final time was 3:42.66, making him the first person in history to break 3:43, and surpassing Hicham El Guerrouj’s 3:43.13, set in Rome back in 1999.

How it went down:

Pacer Brannon Kidder hit 400m in 54.75, on world record tempo, led through 800m in 1:50.63, then stepped aside to allow Žan Rudolf to press on for another 200m, per Kerr’s instruction. Kerr hit 1200m in 2:46.39 and reached 1500m in 3:27.62—faster than his own British record for the distance—before closing to the line alone. Yared Nuguse tracked him through the middle stages but couldn’t match the closing pace, finishing second in 3:45.69. Jake Heyward was third in a PB of 3:46.73 and Robert Farken fourth in a German record of 3:46.82.

Instant reaction:

Kyle Merber: I’ve lost elements of my voice. I was screaming at the television. There was so much anticipation. I felt like I didn’t care about anything else today. The entire meet, I was like: can we just get to the mile? People were running well and there were great races and I enjoyed it, but this was the only thing I cared about in my life for the last few days. It was incredible. So well delivered.

I called my daughter in from the other room and said, “you’re going to want to be able to tell people one day that you saw this moment.” I don’t want to speak in too much hyperbole, but it was a genuinely memorable moment even for those of us watching at home.

Chris Chavez: Major kudos to Josh and Keely Hodgkinson for hyping this meet so far in advance. Josh appeared on this podcast back in March and announced he was going after the record—that’s so much time to build the fitness, to risk getting injured, to put yourself out there. And historically, when he’s called his shot, he’s delivered. He did it at Millrose, too.

There was a discussion in our group chat during the meet about how many people don’t like Josh, and your point was that that’s actually fine—it makes you root for him even more, and that’s what sports are. Not every athlete is this universally beloved figure. There were people rooting hard for Yared in this race. But Josh built something without ducking any competition.

The balls to call it in March. Tim Hutchings said on the broadcast this was the ballsiest world record to go after. And it keeps you accountable. That’s the whole thing. It’s an off year.

Kyle Merber: Normally, you’d need a World Championship or an Olympic medal to really motivate you, especially someone who’s been doing it as long as Josh has—he’s 28 and has been extremely good for the last decade. To find that motivating thing, announce that you’re going to do it—that keeps you so honest in all those moments in March and April and May when you might otherwise let things slide a little. It puts all the pressure on yourself. It forces you to be perfect and find those one-percent margins everywhere.

Josh Kerr vs. Hicham El Guerrouj’s Race Execution

El Guerrouj’s record was one of the most celebrated in track and field, having been set in Rome in 1999, just ahead of Noah Ngeny second in 3:43.40. It survived 27 years and the entirety of the superspike era until today. Kerr breaking it “at home” in London, in front of 60,000 people, with his training partner as the pacer, is one of the defining moments of the 2026 season and arguably the biggest mile/metric mile record in a generation.

Kyle Merber: One of the things I love about this so much is how different Josh approached this vs. El Guerrouj getting the record. El Guerrouj had a full-on race with Noah Ngeny—he had to win that race to get the world record. Josh did it solo for the last 600 meters. That’s incredible. The pacers did their job. And there is a world in which Josh breaks 3:42 today if he’d had a rabbit going another few hundred meters and someone to race the last 200. Running 3:42.66 with the last 600 all by himself, completely away from the field—nobody runs their best times doing that. So I love the way he did it.

The difference in how Josh and El Guerrouj approach the sport is also fascinating. El Guerrouj raced constantly—his 10th best time in the 1500 is 3:28.37. He was always racing. Josh races every now and then, circles things on the calendar, and when he races, he goes hard. When you think about their profiles—El Guerrouj won Olympic gold in the 5000m, was a 1:47 800 guy who closed faster than almost anyone. Josh comes at it with lower mileage, more speed-oriented, an 800m/1500m type who has expanded up. Different methodologies, same destination.

Chris Chavez: Josh and Coach Danny Mackey have done a tremendous job each time of being in the best shape for whatever they’ve circled as the big moment. It’s only missed when he’s been injured—like last year, when a calf issue in the semifinal took away what could have been a really special World Championship moment. This was his Super Bowl. Everything that comes after is riding off of this fitness.

Kyle Merber: Since 2020, Josh has just been there. Always. Consistently on the medal stand, breaking records. His only real blips were 2022 in Eugene, where he made the final but had a rough race, and then last year’s injury at Worlds. Other than that, almost nothing has missed.

The Greatest Of All-Time Conversation

Hicham El Guerrouj’s Résumé:

800m – 1:47.18, 1000m – 2:16.85, 1500m – 3:26.00 WR, 1500m (Indoor) – 3:31.18, Mile – 3:43.13, Mile (Indoor) – 3:48.45, 2000m – 4:44.79, 3000m – 7:23.09, 3000m (Indoor) – 7:33.73, Two Miles (Indoor) – 8:06.61, 5000m – 12:50.24

🥇 Olympic Games (2 Gold, 1 Silver) – 🥇 2004 – 1500m, 🥇 2004 – 5000m, 🥈 2000 – 1500m

🥇 World Championships (4 Gold, 2 Silver) – 🥇 1997 – 1500m, 🥇 1999 – 1500m, 🥇 2001 – 1500m, 🥇 2003 – 1500m, 🥈 1995 – 1500m, 🥈 2003 – 5000m

🥇 World Indoor Championships (3 Gold) – 🥇 1995 – 1500m, 🥇 1997 – 1500m, 🥇 2001 – 3000m

Josh Kerr’s Résumé:

800m – 1:44.60, 800m (Indoor) – 1:46.64, 1000m – 2:17.60, 1500m – 3:27.79, 1500m (Indoor) – 3:32.86, Mile – 3:42.66 WR, Mile (Indoor) – 3:48.87, Road Mile – 3:44, 3000m – 8:08.4, 3000m (Indoor) – 7:30.14, Two Miles (Indoor) – 8:00.67 WR, 5000m – 13:23.78

🥈 Olympic Games (1 Silver, 1 Bronze) – 🥈 2024 – 1500m, 🥉 2021 – 1500m

🥇 World Championships (1 Gold) – 🥇 2023 – 1500m

🥇 World Indoor Championships (2 Gold) – 🥇 2024 – 3000m, 🥇 2026 – 3000m

Noureddine Morceli Résumé:

800m – 1:44.79, 800m (Indoor) – 1:47.70, 1000m – 2:13.73, 1000m (Indoor) – 2:15.26, 1500m – 3:27.37, 1500m (Indoor) – 3:34.16, Mile – 3:44.39, Mile (Indoor) – 3:50.70, 2000m – 4:47.88, 3000m – 7:25.11, 5000m – 13:03.85

🥇 Olympic Games (1 Gold) – 🥇 1996 – 1500m

🥇 World Championships (3 Gold) – 🥇 1991 – 1500m, 🥇 1993 – 1500m, 🥇 1995 – 1500m

🥇 World Indoor Championships (1 Gold) – 🥇 1991 – 1500m

Chris Chavez: The value of an Olympic gold medal is so high in these conversations, and that’s the one missing piece for Josh. He came so close in 2024. You’ll have critics pointing to the total body of work—not as many sub-3:28s as El Guerrouj, not as many sub-3:29s. But that’s partly because he’s in a different era where he’s not necessarily getting out there as often. As of right now—I wonder if he moves up to number two all-time behind El Guerrouj until he potentially snags the 1500 world record from him. But the problem is he has two Olympic medals and neither of them is gold. It’s genuinely hard.

Kyle Merber: The question becomes: has he usurped Noureddine Morceli? Morceli held the mile world record prior to El Guerrouj, won the Atlanta Olympics in ‘96, Worlds in ‘95, ‘93, ‘91. He has four global championship golds and a World Indoor 1500 title. But Josh has now run faster in the mile. They’re pretty close. I think within two years, Josh will overtake Morceli.

Chris Chavez: Important to note, though, that so many of those marks and performances were set before proper testing for EPO existed, before the Athlete Biological Passport, way before super shoes. People are allowed to have their level of skepticism. Neither El Guerrouj nor Morceli has ever failed a drug test or served a suspension. But what I would say is: Josh getting drug tested right after this race—blood, urine, all of it, take a stool sample if you want—and getting the ratification in a couple of weeks, that’s going to add another layer of legitimacy. Josh has always been a very vocal critic of doping, has no TUEs on record, is pro-clean sport all the way. That actually drives more points toward him in the legacy argument. We have greater confidence in performances being done the right way in this era.

Kyle Merber: Can I just say that the anti-Josh Kerr rhetoric that exists out there is so misplaced and wrong. Everything Josh does is good for the sport. He’s transparent. He shares everything. He does things the right way. Even if you root against him because you like Jakob Ingebrigtsen or Cole Hocker or Yared, he makes people care. And that’s so good. But I also want to step back and say: the persona he has (the wrestling trash talk, the confident declarations), it’s clearly something he knows generates interest. But every teammate loves him. Everyone I know who has interacted with Josh respects him. People have been completely fooled by a little bit of trash talk. He makes you care in a sport that desperately needs people to make you care. Hopefully, today won some people over to the pro-Josh camp.

Although we need some anti-Josh [sentiment] out there because it makes it interesting and just a bit more balanced.

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.

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For the last time until mid-August, we can say that there’s a Diamond League on deck this week. Thankfully, the 73rd edition of the creatively-named London Athletics Meet is guaranteed to be a great one before the circuit goes on break for national championships, the Commonwealth Games, and then the European Championships.

Middle distance world record pursuits headline the most prominent events of Saturday’s action, but we caution you against overlooking some thrilling sprint fields and a “quality over quantity” offering for the field events.

The action gets underway inside the Olympic Stadium in London on Saturday, July 18. The first Diamond League event starts at 8:04am EDT, with the broadcast window running from 9-11am EDT. Results and start lists can be found here.

Men’s Mile: Nuguse aims to spoil Kerr’s world record party

Hicham El Guerrouj’s 3:43.13 world record in the mile has stood for nearly 10,000 days, but Saturday’s race is set to be one of most deliberate attempts we’ve to stop it from reaching that monumental anniversary. We dedicated an entire section of this week’s edition of The Lap Count to Josh Kerr’s bold pursuit of the record in his “Project 222” pursuit alongside Brooks, so let’s use this to talk about the other studs in the field.

Kerr doesn’t have the fastest PB in the field, and he’s actually well over a second back of Yared Nuguse’s No. 4 all-time mark of 3:43.97 from the Pre Classic in 2023. While Kerr’s fitness in terms of racing miles is somewhat unknown this year, nobody has given us a clearer picture of where he’s at over 1609m than Nuguse. The 27-year-old has raced the Wanamaker Mile, the Dream Mile, and the Bowerman Mile, finishing runner-up in each but also getting progressively faster each time out. Nuguse’s fearlessness should serve him well in this one, just as it did in Eugene nearly three years ago.

Given the publicity around Kerr’s historic goals and the fact that his Brooks Beasts teammate Brannon Kidder is part of the pace team, it’s probably fair to assume that the Scot will want to take this one from the front in the same way that Jakob Ingebritsen did three years ago when he ran the fastest mile of the 21st century. Nuguse clung to Ingebritsen for all four laps and change of that one, and there’s little reason to believe he’d be unable to do the same on this occasion. The four fastest miles ever have come from two races, with El Guerrouj fending off Noah Ngeny in the world record race. Fast miles require an elite level competitor to push you, and Nuguse and Kerr should find that in each other on Saturday.

Behind Kerr, there’s a gap of 11 spots on the all-time list and 1.63 seconds to the next fastest man on the start list, Ethan Strand. For what it’s worth, Strand is coming off his best race of the season, finishing third at Pre in a PB of 3:46.97. While times on paper would say we’re careening towards Kerr and Nuguse being locked in a race of their own at the front, Strand has every reason to believe he can be the best of the rest in the chase pack. That’s a group that will feature some of Strand’s former collegiate rivals in Nathan Green (fresh off solid circuit wins in Ostrava and Zagreb) and NCAA champion Simeon Birnbaum. The Oregon stud was set to race on his home track two weeks ago at Pre, but illness forced a late scratch. Arlo Ludewick, last month’s British champ, is also worth a mention in this section, having just shaved a whopping 4.5 seconds off his 1500m PB on Saturday with a 3:33.07 win in Belgium.

Women’s 800m: Keely vs. Femke at last!

The women’s 800m at this meet was originally perhaps the most anticipated race of 2026. On paper, it was intended to be Keely Hodgkinson’s assault on the 800m world record of 1:53.28 in front of 60,000 home fans. Recent events have perhaps dampened expectations, with both the emergence of Audrey Werro as potentially an even greater threat to that record, and a few hiccups in Hodgkinson’s build up to this race. Although she ran a personal best of 1:54.33 in her outdoor 800m season opener in Stockholm, the loss to Werro came as a surprise. Subsequently, a late scratch from the final of the UK Athletics Championships and a fall in the buildup to the Pre Classic may have contributed to Hodgkinson losing to Tokyo World Champion Lilian Odira. Although Werro is not in this race, she casts a long shadow. All that said, Hodgkinson is clearly in the best shape of her life, and if she has recovered from the travails of the past few weeks, she still goes into this race as the favorite, and likely to run a very quick time. The world record may no longer be on the cards, but a new British record and perhaps a time under 1:54 is the likely target.

Georgia Hunter Bell was billed to be her main competition but has now scratched due to illness. This leaves Hodgkinson’s main competition as Femke Broeders-Bol and Tsige Duguma. Duguma has a PB of 1:56.64, and for someone so accomplished (a World Indoor champion and Olympic silver medalist), she hasn’t actually run that fast yet in the grand scheme of things. She’s worked on her strength this season, running a 3:55.71 1500m. Her last outing in Budapest on Tuesday this week in the buildup to this race was not quite as impressive, however, as she ran 4:03.52 for 5^th place.

Broeders-Bol, however, has been improving with every race. From the half-joking attempts to set up a match up with Hodgkinson over 600m in 2025, we have mind-bogglingly quickly reached a point where Broeders-Bol could challenge Hodgkinson for the win over 800m. Just four races into her 800m career she has become the 17^th fastest woman in history with a PB of 1:55.60. She stayed with Audrey Werro for over 700m of the race in Paris and the improvement trajectory suggests she could even be there challenging Hodgkinson for the win if Hodgkinson is even slightly off her game.

Men’s 800m: Will Wanyonyi maintain world-record form?

Of the two 800m races at this meet, it now appears that the men’s 800m is the one where we are more likely to see a world record with Emmanuel Wanyonyi coming off the back of the breaking Ngeny’s 1999 1000m world record in Monaco only a week ago. It would be a documentary filmmaker’s dream to see Wanyonyi set the record in the same stadium where David Rudisha set the current mark of 1:40.91 14 years ago. There was a brief period when it looked even more likely, as Marco Arop also made a short-lived appearance on the start list after running the world lead of 1:41.86 in Paris and a solo 1:42.13 in Canada, but he has now scratched. Jake Wightman was another late scratch while needing more time to recover from pushing Wanyonyi in Monaco

Wanyonyi’s main competition is Brit Max Burgin, who beat Wanyonyi in Rabat earlier in the season, but has scratched from both British Champs and the Pre Classic in recent weeks so there are question marks over his fitness. Burgin does have a reputation for returning from injury and delivering excellent performances, and with his front-running reputation, he could help push Wanyonyi. The third fastest man in the field is Norway’s Tobias Grønstad who has levelled up in 2026, running 1:43.61 in Oslo and 1:43.63 in Paris over the last few weeks. 2023 World bronze medalist Ben Pattison is also getting back to his best while USA’s Brandon Miller looks to build on his impressive season to date. Bryce Hoppel looks to kick start what has to date been an underwhelming season. Last year’s Tokyo fourth placer, Irishman Cian McPhillips, is building back from injury so don’t expect too much from him just yet, while compatriot Mark English has been having another great season and will be looking to surprise with his impressive close.

Women’s 200m: Alfred and Thomas reunite after wins in Budapest

Julien Alfred and Gabby Thomas face off once again after Alfred’s incredible third all-time 21.51 performance in Monaco last week. Thomas is showing incredible consistency running 21.83 in Budapest on Tuesday after the 21.84 for third in Monaco but will be looking to up her game to challenge Alfred. Her win in London in 2024 in the run up to the Olympics was hugely memorable as she ran down Dina Asher-Smith who had a lightning start but it looks like it will take an all time performance to challenge Alfred. World silver medalist Amy Hunt will be looking to significantly improve her 22.48 season’s best after niggles prevented her from doing 200m training earlier in the year. Her countrywoman Dina Asher-Smith continues to hunt for form. Also watch out for rising star Success Eduan, who beat Hunt over 200m at the UK Championships and famously ran down Shericka Jackson at World Relays in 2025.

Men’s 110mH and 100m: NCAA champs Tharp and Ajayi look for another huge win

Situated in back-to-back time slots in Saturday’s schedule, these races will feature collegiate superstars and former Auburn teammates Ja’Kobe Tharp and Kanyinsola Ajayi hunting for another pair of significant victories. London will be the third race of Tharp’s pro career, with his first two coming in a 12.91 runner-up finish—just 0.01 seconds off the fastest losing time ever—at the Pre Classic, and then a 12.85 in Budapest on Tuesday despite celebrating early. If the world record holder wants to earn his first win on the Diamond League circuit, he’ll need to once again beat five of the same men he handled in Budapest, including world traveler Jamal Britt and World champion Cordell Tinch.

Ajayi has yet to turn pro, running under his Adidas NIL deal while maintaining collegiate eligibility, but that didn’t stop him from equalling the Nigerian record with a 9.84 win at Pre. World champion Oblique Seville will get another shot at his younger rival in London, with a solid 9.88 win over the weekend in Monaco now on his resume to build some confidence into this rematch. Ajayi will also do battle with the NCAA 100m champion who preceded him, racing Jordan Anthony for the first time since the national final last June where Anthony won and Ajayi placed fourth. Much has changed for both men since they last met, and Anthony’s runner-up finish to Seville in Monaco was a much needed data point after finishing fourth, fifth, and fifth in his previous three races on the circuit. The home crowd will also be keeping an eye on Romell Glave, who ran a PB of 9.98 to win the British title last month and has run 9.90 or faster in windy conditions four times in the last two months.

Women’s 400m: Paulino poised to deliver another thrashing

Marileidy Paulino has looked like a woman on a mission in each of her recent appearances, breaking the 49-second barrier in her last three outings. Although she is unlikely to be challenged for the win, the race for second is intriguing, with an in-form Henriete Jæger making a return to the circuit after her win in Oslo in early June. Natalia Bukowiecka will be looking to see how she stacks up against Jæger as she gets ready to defend her European title in a few weeks, and Nickisha Pryce returns to the venue where she set her national record of 48.57 in 2024.

Men’s 400m: Another Benjamin v. Patterson duel for too American honors

Jacory Patterson goes in as favorite over 400m as the only runner in the field to have broken 44 this season. Meanwhile Rai Benjamin will be looking to break the same barrier and challenge Patterson as he comes in with a season’s best of 44.11. Benjamin has been consistent in the 44.1-44.3 range and is clearly hungry to level up over the flat 400m. Matt Hudson-Smith will be looking to rediscover his 2024 form, which made him the sixth fastest man in history, ahead of the European Championships in his home town of Birmingham. Against regional competitions, he holds the European lead in 2026 by a significant margin.

Women’s 3000m: Top Brits and Australians battle for pre-Comm Games bragging rights

Jess Hull headlines this field after her impressive pacing efforts in Monaco, and will be looking to get a win on the board, having only won three races of thirteen on the track so far in 2026 (with two of those wins coming at the Australian championships, if you include a 1500m heat win). Fellow Aussies Rose Davies, Georgia Griffith, Lauren Ryan, and Linden Hall will be looking to battle Hull for top Australian honors. We didn't get to see Megan Keith and Laura Muir face off against the other Brits over 5000m at UK champs including teen phenom Innes Fitzgerald, Tokyo 5000m eighth placer Hannah Nuttall and up-and-comer Eloise Walker so they clash with each other and the Aussie contenders in a preview of the Commonwealth Games 5000m. European Indoor 3000m champion Sarah Healy and the ever-present Nozomi Tanaka are also in the field, as well as five Ethiopians headlined by Medina Eisa and Hirut Meshesha. Eisa will likely be the biggest threat to Hull for the win as she’s run 14:22 over 5000m this season.

Men’s 400H: Will Warholm take advantage of a dos Santos-less field?

Last year’s Diamond League champion is winless through his first three races on the circuit in 2026, but all three of Karsten Warholm’s runner-up finishes have come at the hands of Alison dos Santos. With dos Santos opting not to make the trip to London, the door is wide open for the world record holder to get back on track. Warholm has the fastest SB in the field by over half a second, making him a heavy favorite to pick up the 25th DL victory of his career.

Nine men have broken 48 seconds this year, and seven of them will be rocking up to the blocks on Saturday. Ezekiel Nathaniel, Trevor Bassitt, and Matheus Lima are in a three-way tie for the third-fastest man in the world this year with SBs of 47.37. The race in Texas where Nathaniel outleaned Bassitt in each of their best times of the season is also Ezekiel’s only time over the hurdles this year, so the Nigerian record holder could very well have something special up his sleeve. Keep an eye on Emil Agyekum, who also outleaned Bassitt earlier this week in Budapest when he ran 47.58, coming just a tenth shy of Harald Schmid’s 43-year-old German record.

Field event highlights:

London this year is a little light on the field front with only four field events.

Mondo Duplantis will be looking to return to his best form following his wedding and a few performances relatively below par, but only by his own extremely high standards. Mondo is the king of the big stage, though, and 60,000 fans in London may just give him the boost he needs to return to his highest heights. Emmanouil Karalis will look to assert himself as the world’s second best pole vaulter, fighting off a resurgent Kurtis Marschall currently looking to usurp him in that role.

In the women’s high jump, 2022 World champion Eleanor Patterson has finally returned to the 2-meter club in recent weeks for the first time since her victory in Eugene four years ago, and so will be looking to challenge reigning World champion Nicola Olyslagers and Olympic champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh.

Valarie Sion will look to continue her domination of the women’s discus, but as always, all her main rivals line up against her. Larissa Iapichino will be looking to build consistency in the long jump after her 7.12m personal best at the Pre Classic as she faces off against her main rivals for the European title in World Indoor Champion Agate De Sousa and Germany’s Malaika Mihambo.

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By David Melly

What better way to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U-S-of-A than with the best American track has to offer? That’s right, this weekend’s Prefontaine Classic, also known as the Eugene Diamond League meet, will coincide with the nation’s Fourth of July celebrations and offer an inter-World-Cup-rounds opportunity to cheer on your favorite U.S. stars as they take on the world’s top athletes.

Each year, the Pre Classic assembles some of the deepest and strongest fields in the world—with a decidedly American bent—and this edition is no different. Races like the women’s 100m or the men’s 110m hurdles could be more competitive than a global championship final, and we’re on world record watch in multiple events. Then, of course, all the action wraps up with the historic Bowerman Mile, where the crème de la crème of global middle distance studs come together to compete for one of the most prestigious regular-season accolades the sport has to offer.

You can find a full schedule of events and entry lists here (American fans, make sure you’re accounting for Pacific start times versus other time zones). Fans looking to watch every minute of the action will have to toggle between a few different networks, but the easiest and most consistent way to watch is on Peacock (subscription required), which will stream the final hour of Friday, July 3, from 11:30pm-12:30am EDT and the hot window Saturday, July 4, from 4:00pm-6:00pm EDT.

CITIUS MAG is partnering with TrackTown USA to put on live shows before both days of the meet! The shows will be Friday, July 3rd at 7:00 PM and Saturday, July 4th at 11:00 AM, both on the VIP Village and Fan Festival stage. The shows will feature previews of the meet as well as exclusive interviews with special guests and athletes. The shows will be streamed on the CITIUS MAG YouTube channel and available on our podcast feeds afterwards.

Here are twelve key events to watch at the 2026 Pre Classic:

(All times EDT)

Men’s 800m (12:07am)

Even though the men’s 800m is technically not part of the official Diamond League program, the Friday night (or very early Saturday morning, if you’re on the East Coast) event is still going to be a barn-burner. Three of the four fastest Americans in history unite for the first time this season, as American record holder Bryce Hoppel, reigning U.S. champ Donavan Brazier, and 17-year-old Cooper Lutkenhaus will hold a little reunion of last year’s USA final on the same track where they took the top three spots. Incredibly, it’s the high schooler who’s the outright favorite. Lutkenhaus hasn’t lost an 800m all season, including at the World Indoor Championships and two Scandinavian Diamond Leagues. The Americans will face a good fight from Belgium’s Eliott Crestan and Botswana’s Tshepiso Masalela, the other two 1:42 men in the field, but neither has shown that kind of form so far this season, or enough to likely make Lutkenhaus sweat.

Men’s 2 Mile (12:16am)

Also in the waning hours of Friday/the wee hours of Saturday morning is a strong men’s two mile field, which caps off the first day of festivities. Here, the headliner is American record holder Grant Fisher, fresh off his first career Diamond League victory in Paris. Fisher’s indoor 8:03.62 is faster than the outdoor record—held by Matt Tegenkamp at 8:07.07—and heck, if he’s in shape to get under his old best, why not take a crack at being just the third man in history under eight minutes? To do that, he’ll likely need a strong challenge in the latter half of the race from someone like Andreas Almgren, the European record holder over 5000m, who took third behind Fisher in Paris. Like Fisher, Almgren isn’t afraid to do his own work, so if those two get rolling, a fast time could be on. Spoilers could come in the form of Mohamed Abdilaahi, who beat Almgren over 3000m to win the Shanghai DL, or Mezgebu Sime, the now-20-year-old Ethiopian who ran 12:49.80 as a teenager last year.

Women’s Shot Put (12:30pm)

The best throwers in the world never seem to duck one another in competition, and this year’s Pre Classic ought to be yet another excellent showcase of that penchant for mixing it up. ALL NINE of the top-ranked shot putters are on the entry list, led by two red-hot stars who’ve battled back and forth all year, Jessica Schilder and Chase Jackson. Jackson, the World Indoor champ, has only lost twice outdoors this year and both times it took an absolutely monstrous effort from Schilder to beat her. Of course, Schilder only finished third behind two-time World Indoor champ Sarah Mitton and Olympic champ Yemisi Mabry in Paris last weekend, but almost certainly one of those four will be victorious. Schilder has already put one out over the fabled 21 meter line this season, and maybe the ever-increasing competition will finally push Jackson over the same mark she’s approached over and over again.

Men’s 400m (4:04pm)

Unlike many of the events on tap for Saturday’s program, the winner of the men’s 400m is probably a foregone conclusion. Collen Busang Kebinatshipi has been on an absolute tear this season, most recently setting a Diamond League record of 43.54 last week in Paris. That doesn’t set us up for a boring race by any means, however, as Kebinatshipi will surely have seen Samuel Ogazi’s 43.38 on this track last month and will set out to beat that mark. Ogazi isn’t in the race, unfortunately, but the secondary plotline revolves around hurdler Rai Benjamin taking on all the best flat 400m runners America has to offer, including Chris Bailey, Khaleb McRae, Michael Norman, and Jacory Patterson. The whole race is something of a flat-versus-hurdles throwdown, as Nathaniel Ezekiel and Chris Robinson will also skip the barriers this time. Benjamin’s PB is currently 44.21, and given how competitive he is and how strong the field around him looks, that thing is not surviving the weekend.

Men’s 110m Hurdles (4:12pm)

The reigning World champ and the new world record holder meet head to head… and it’s entirely possible neither of them win. Cordell Tinch, the 2025 gold medalist, has only won two of his six races this season and only has a SB of 13.10. Newly-turned-pro Ja’Kobe Tharp ran rampant through the collegiate ranks en route to his eye-popping 12.75 run (yup, also on this track) last month, but Jamal Britt has won three of the five Diamond League races this season and his most recent was his best yet, a 12.89 romp through Paris. He could be considered the favorite if you tilt toward pro experience, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Tharp, the reigning U.S. champ, pick up where he left off as he clearly loves Hayward Field.

Men’s 100m (4:37pm)

Much like the NCAA vs. pro matchup in the hurdles, the flat 100m features NCAA champ Kanyinsola Ajayi—Tharp’s Auburn former teammate—taking on a red-hot Kenny Bednarek, not to mention reigning World champ Oblique Seville, who’s rounding into form nicely after winning the Jamaican championships in 9.82. Most intriguingly, Ajayi and Bednarek both recently ran in the low 9.7s with the help of an illegal wind, and if Hayward’s fast track and favorable conditions align, it could take an all-time top-ten performance just to secure the victory.

Women’s Steeplechase (4:45pm)

For the first time since the Chinese Diamond Leagues, the three best steeplechasers in the world reunite as Peruth Chemutai, Winfred Yavi, and World champ Faith Cherotich toe the line. It’s easy to assume Cherotich would pick up where she left off in 2025, but Chemutai is the one who’s undefeated on the season and beat both women in Xiamen. At this race last year, Yavi came out on top and gave the 8:44.32 world record a scare, running 8:45.25. Yavi is the only athlete who’s been within a second of Beatrice Chepkoech’s mark from 2018 since it was set, and she’s now done it twice. With the three best active steeplers going head-to-head, it’s entirely possible Saturday is the day it finally falls—and it’s also entirely possible that Yavi isn’t even the one to do it.

Behind them, we’ll get another matchup of many of the best American steeplechasers, with Gabbi Jennings in the driver’s seat after beating a similar field at the LA Grand Prix. She’ll face good domestic competition from the likes of Lexy Halladay-Lowry, Angelina Napoleon, Emma Coburn, and Courtney Wayment. The true wild card is NCAA record holder Doris Lemngole, who may be on the war path after opting to focus on just the 5000m at NCAAs and then getting DQed. She finished fifth at Worlds in Tokyo but it wouldn’t be surprising to see her sneaking even closer to the Big Three here.

Women’s 100m Hurdles (5:04pm)

Speaking of world record watch… that’s where we’re living these days whenever Masai Russell gets in the blocks. After Russell ran 12.14 in Xiamen to break her own American record and give Tobi Amusan’s 12.12 world record a scare, the sky is the limit, and on Hayward Field’s historically hurdler-friendly track, it feels downright likely. Amusan, a fast closer, is also in the field to defend her mark and her honor, and hopefully both women will get pushed out the blocks early by World Indoor champ Devynne Charlton, a lethal starter. Russell is the favorite but this also has to be one of the strongest fields ever assembled, as six of the nine entrants have PBs under 12.30 and Charlton, the world indoor record holder over 60m hurdles, has the slowest lifetime best at 12.37.

Women’s 800m (5:11pm)

How will Keely Hodgkinson respond to the sudden rise of Audrey Werro to the top of the pack in the women’s 800m? That’s the question on everyone’s minds, even with Werro on the other side of the world and not entered in this race. The other question, of course, hovering over Hodgkinson is her health, after the Olympic champion withdrew from the final of the 400m of the British champs. Her camp insists it was just a precaution and she’s still in fine form, but only the race itself will prove for certain. As far as competition goes, the biggest threats should come from of World champ Lilian Odira (who’s a bit of a mystery as she’s only raced outside Kenya once so far this season), Anais Bourgoin (coming off a big PB and French record in Paris), and freshly-minted NCAA champ and record-holder Sanu Jallow, who could knock even more time off her new 1:56.85 PB with the help of professional competition.

Women’s 100m (5:29pm)

Assuming everyone makes it through the heats and into the final, this should be the sprint event of the weekend. World champ Melissa Jefferson-Wooden takes on NCAA record holder Adaejah Hodge, and they’re not even the only 10.6 women in the race as Shericka Jackson and Sha’Carri Richardson are also entered. And if that wasn’t enough, throw in Tia and Tina Clayton, Dina Asher-Smith, Amy Hunt, and a handful of others in the 10.8 range. Just making the final may be harder than most global championships. And it’s not entirely crazy to suggest that someone could run under 10.80 and finish as far back as fifth. Jefferson-Wooden has been so good in situations like these that it’s hard to bet against her, but it’ll be a great barometer of the resurgences of both Jackson and Richardson as well as a sense of where Hodge stacks up on the senior international level.

Women’s Mile (5:37pm)

Last year at ATHLOS, Faith Kipyegon ran the fastest outdoor mile on U.S. soil (several others have run faster indoors) with a 4:17.78. Given that Kipyegon headlines the field at Pre and her personal best is over ten seconds faster, that particular stat will get totally rewritten over the course of four laps as Kipyegon will chase the only competition that really pushes her these days—the ghosts of her former performances. Another world record would be a tall order for the lightly-raced Kenyan, who’s only got one 5000m back in May on her track resume so far in 2026, but she’s the heavy, heavy favorite and will likely drag others behind her to fast times.

Nikki Hiltz could reclaim their American record from Sinclaire Johnson and potentially even crack the all-time top-ten with a run of 4:15.61 or better, and Georgia Hunter Bell’s comical 4:33.66 PB is toast given that her 1500m best converts to nearly 20 seconds faster. The Ethiopian subplot will revolve around whether Birke Haylom, a three-time DL winner already this season, can stay remotely close to Kipyegon, and whether Tsige Duguma’s flirtation with the longer middle distances continues to pay dividends as the 800m specialist moves up.

Men’s Mile (5:50pm)

The meet ends, as it almost always does, with the historic Bowerman Mile. Two of the men fans would most want to see on the start list—Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen—are both skipping out on Eugene, but that doesn’t mean the field assembled isn’t chock-full of talent and intrigue. We’ll get a rematch between last year’s surprise winner, Niels Laros, and American record holder Yared Nuguse, with a beefed-up version of their clash from 2025. Laros, who surprised Nuguse with an out-of-nowhere (at the time) finishing kick, has been working on his speed, improving his 800m PB to 1:43.60. His closing ability won’t catch anyone unawares anymore. Nuguse, for his part, has shown an uncanny ability to win so far this season, expanding his resume as the most-decorated American distance runner on the Diamond League circuit with two 1500m wins and a runner-up finish in the Oslo Dream Mile. The Dream Mile champ, Timothy Cheruiyot, is also making the trip to Pre, and you can never count him out in a fast race.

Amazingly, we got this far in the preview before mentioning Olympic 1500m champ Cole Hocker, who could very well beat every guy mentioned above on any day of the week, and world leader Cam Myers, fresh off a huge 3:28.00 in Paris. They’re both serious threats to win this stacked, but somewhat evenly matched, field, and if the pace ticks a second or two slower, you shouldn’t discount the lethal finishing speed of Ethan Strand. Who takes this one is anybody’s guess, and a virtual guarantee that this year’s Pre Classic will finish on a high note.

For even more, listen to our event-by-event preview on the CITIUS MAG Podcast. You can find the episode on Apple Podcasts here and on Spotify here.

Get ready for an amazing meet by making sure you’re following us on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky as well as subscribing to our YouTube to make sure you don’t miss any athlete interviews or race analysis. Thanks for reading!

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By Preet Majithia

The women’s 800m has firmly established itself as THE event to watch in 2026.

It all started out with Keely Hodgkinson emerging with intent after a healthy winter of training. She first targeted and then broke the indoor 800m world record, then came into the outdoor season touting a racing plan that would build to crescendo with an attempt at the World Record in front of a packed 60,000 home crowd at the London Diamond League on July 18th.

That all changed when, in Keely’s first outdoor 800m of the year in Stockholm on June 7th, she ran a personal best of 1:54.33, only to be beaten by Switzerland’s Audrey Werro in a scarcely-believable time of 1:53.98. With that performance, Werro became the first woman to break the 1:54 barrier since the world record of 1:53.28 was set in July of 1983, nearly 43 years earlier. Whereas the gap of 1.33 seconds to the world record felt a long way from Keely Hodgkinson’s personal best of 1:54.61, that Stockholm race made Jarmila Kratochvílová’s world record falling seem much more realistic.

In 2024, after three years in the doldrums, the men’s 800m suddenly came to life. We saw a succession of incredible performances and a rewrite of the all-time list, which gave rise to a realistic threat to David Rudisha’s incredible world record.

The women’s 800m has certainly been intriguing over the last few seasons, with Keely Hodgkinson being the only constant, but facing different challengers at every turn. Now, in 2026, things have moved to a different level, and it feels like we are seeing a spate of performances that could finally put the oldest remaining track world record under significant threat.

Over the past ten years, no more than three women have gone sub-1:56 in any year, until the 2025 World Championship final changed the picture for 2025. In 2026, we already have five athletes under 1:56 – and it is only the end of June, with plenty more Diamond Leagues to come as well as Commonwealth Games, European Championships, and World Ultimate Championships.

Looking at the top 800m athletes of the 2020s so far again outlines how unusual and difficult to achieve those super-fast performances are. World champion Mary Moraa and Olympic silver medalist Tsige Duguma have never broken 1:56. Moraa has three outdoor global 800m medals to her name but has achieved those without needing to run a 1:55. Athing Mu-Nikolayev, the only two-time global gold medalist of recent years, has only broken 1:56 three times.

What remains to be seen is whether there is a genuine transformation of the times being run at a global level, or whether this is restricted to races where athletes the caliber of Hodgkinson and Werro push the pace, and others are towed to fast times behind them. As we saw in the men’s 800m, only five men had broken 1:42 prior to 2024. By the end of 2024 an additional five had entered that elite tier, and there were eight new entries into the top-20 all-time. Prior to the 2025 Worlds final, only nine women had run sub-1:55. Since then, there have already been three more added to that list and it very much looks like we may have more to come this season.

The added intrigue of the 2026 season comes from a number of storylines, most notably:

Audrey Werro

Audrey Werro now holds the third, fourth, and ninth fastest times in history, all run within a three week period between June 7th and June 28th:

• June 7th - Stockholm - 1:53.98

• June 16th - Ostrava - 1:54.45

• June 28th - Paris - 1:53.80

It is the greatest stretch of women’s 800m racing the world has ever seen. Only three women have ever run sub 1:54, and the other two—Jarmila Kratochvílová (Czechoslovakia) and Nadezhda Olizarenko (Soviet Union)—have done so only once, and each have only broken 1:55 on one other occasion. To have broken 1:55 three times, and 1:54 twice, arguably puts her as one of the all-time greats of the event at only 22 years old.

However in our sport, global medals are regarded as the true indicator of greatness, and Audrey Werro has only a World Indoor silver medal to her name at senior level. Werro was sixth in the final in Tokyo. As an indicator of how difficult it is to be consistent in global championships in the 800m, of those in the all-time top-10, only Caster Semenya (5) and Ana Fidelia Quiot (2) have won more than one outdoor global 800m title.

A little background—Audrey Werro has been coached by her current coach, Christine Berset Nuoffer, in her home town of Fribourg, Switzerland, since the age of nine. She was always a talent coming up through the ranks, winning multiple European age group gold medals and the World U20 silver behind the U.S.’s Roisin Willis in 2022. On the senior stage, she finished fourth at World Indoors in 2025 and fifth at Europeans indoors the same season (after falling and getting back up).

Her real emergence on the outdoor stage came in August of 2025 when she lowered her personal best by nearly a second in an eye-catching 1:56.29 solo frontrunning performance at the Swiss Championships. I spoke to her a few days later, prior to the Diamond League Final in Zurich where she seemed surprised that media from outside Switzerland were interested in speaking to her.

She went on to back up that performance with a 1:55.91 run to win the Diamond League final and then was sixth in the World Championship final, only fading in the closing stages from third to sixth.

Some impressive performances indoors in 2026—including World Indoor silver—laid the platform for the incredible start to her outdoor season. In her first outdoor race, she won the Rabat Diamond League in 1:56.64. What is most notable about that performance, however, was not so much the time, but the fact that she easily put away a field that included Odira and Duguma.

Werro plans to go back into training before re-emerging for the European Championships, which are quickly followed by two home Diamond Leagues in Lausanne and Zurich, which may be the stage where she takes another crack at the world record if it hasn’t fallen by then.

Keely Hodgkinson

Keely Hodgkinson, still only 24 years old, has already won five global outdoor medals in five years across World Championships and Olympics. The only athlete in history with more global medals is the great Maria Mutola—Hodgkinson is tied with Caster Semenya and Ana Fidelia Quirot. The level of consistency in finishing position is astonishing, and is backed up by her level of consistency in times, having run sub 1:57 17 times, which has been bettered only by Semenya and Mutola.

She has only one global title, but it is the one that matters most: the 2024 Olympic gold. The question was, what is next, and she and her team have been very open that this is a pursuit of the world record of 1:53.28.

The best laid plans often go awry, and with the emergence of Audrey Werro, there has been a question of who would get there first. Werro’s attempt in Paris was a good one, but now the focus switches to Hodgkinson, who is scheduled to line up against Odira at the Pre Classic on July 4th, and then against training partner Georgia Hunter Bell, in London on July 19th for what is intended to be the real tilt at the world record.

Keely’s outdoor opener in Stockholm of 1:54.33 was a personal best, British record, and currently stands as the seventh fastest time ever run. It was the perfect start to the world record pursuit in all ways except one: she lost the race to the brilliance of Werro.

There is some doubt about Keely’s health status after she left the track, clearly upset, unable to line up in the 400m final at the UK Athletics Championships on June 21st. Her team has indicated that this was a precautionary withdrawal, so hopefully the rest of her racing season continues uninterrupted.

She has also stated her intention to compete at the European Championships, where she will face off against Werro and then to continue on to the World Ultimate Championships in Budapest.

Femke Broeders-Bol

Four races into what initially seemed like a curious experiment — dropping guaranteed global medals in the 400m hurdles and step up into a stacked 800m field — and that experiment appears to be an unmitigated success so far.

Running 1:55.60 in Paris puts her third on the world lists so far for 2026, behind only the all-time performances from Werro and Hodgkinson. Broders-Bol is already the 24th fastest athlete of all time, and has the sixth fastest personal best of currently active athletes.

At the start of the year, we predicted that getting to 1:55 in her first year was perhaps the top end of the possible outcomes.

Four races in, she’s already there. It will be fascinating to see if this is where she plateaus, or whether there is more to come. What is most promising is that she has finished no worse than second place in any of the four races she has run so far, and most promisingly, when she was passed towards the end of the Paris race, she managed to summon something extra and dip across the line to reclaim second.

As Broeders-Bol is still learning the event and the best way for her to run it, this level of performance suggests there is likely to be more to come.

What is clear is that Broeders-Bol will be in the mix for the medals at the European Championships and there, wild as it may seem, it doesn’t look unfathomable that she might spring an upset on Hodgkinson and/or Werro.

Even though Broeders-Bol does not yet put herself in the mix for the attack on the world record, there seems to be a very real possibility that she could reach that level. Not that long ago, that felt like an absurd overreaction. Now, it feels almost likely.

Lilian Odira

Lilian Odira was a surprise winner in Tokyo, but winning in a championship record of 1:54.62 was an incredible performance, and not a fluke win in the lottery of a tactical race. She had a breakout performance running 1:56.52 behind Keely Hodkinson at the Silesia Diamond League in August of 2025, but only hindsight suggests that such an incredible gold medal performance would follow.

In 2026, Odira has raced twice on an international stage: once at the Kip Keino Classic in April where she came second to Nigist Getachew in 1:59.15, and once in the Rabat Diamond League, where she came third to Werro and Duguma in 1:57.27. Odira will be keen to reaffirm her position on top of the world, and look to rediscover the form that made her the eighth fastest woman in history. Her next opportunity is the face-off against Hodgkinson at the Prefontaine Classic.

Georgia Hunter Bell

Georgia Hunter Bell has emerged as a double threat, out-leaning Hodgkinson to World silver in 2025 after her Olympic bronze over 1500m in 2024. So far this season, the World Indoor champion over 1500m has remained firmly on the fence about which event to focus on outdoors, but she has been announced for the 800m at the Commonwealth Games, where she will face off against Odira.

Over 800m she ran an impressive 1:55.93 solo from the front at the UK Athletics Championships, on a track not known for fast times. After being reluctant to put herself in contention as a potential world record breaker earlier on in the year, this performance gave her confidence that it was distinctly possible, and she shared her thoughts on the best way for the record to be taken down after picking up an impressive 1500m win in Paris.

In London, the Keely Hodgkinson coronation may not come so easy after all, as Hunter Bell will be on the line less than a year removed from having out-dipped her training partner on the line in Tokyo for the silver medal in 2025.

Tsige Duguma

The 2024 World Indoor champion and Olympic silver medalist is unusual in that her personal best is only 1:56.64 and she has only breached the 1:57 barrier that once. In 2026 it appears she has been working on her strength, and demonstrated this with a hugely impressive 3:55.71 at the Keqiao Diamond League in China. She has proven her credentials as a consummate racer, and will be looking to see if this new approach enables her to be more competitive in faster races.

Mary Moraa

Mary Moraa has three global medals to her name, including the 2023 World gold medal in Budapest. Over the course of 2025 and 2026 so far it has been a battle to maintain her best form on a consistent basis. She may also be currently struggling with injury, having DNF’d at the Kenyan Trials for the Commonwealth Games over 400m.

Moraa’s personal best of 1:56.03 maybe does not do justice to her talent—her best races have come when disrupting the opposition with erratic tactics, so the likes of Werro and Hodgkinson may be somewhat grateful for her current absence from the 800m racing circuit.

Athing Mu-Nikolayev

In 2021 and 2022 it seemed like the rivalry between Athing Mu-Nikolayev and Keely Hodgkinson could have dominated the next decade as the two teen phenoms stamped their authority on the 800m with successive 1-2 finishes at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and 2022 Eugene World Championships.

Following a heartbreaking and injury-stricken 2024, Mu-Nikolayev failed to make the final at the U.S. Championships in 2025, and has not raced since. She has subsequently moved to Dallas, and it has been confirmed that she has left her coach Bobby Kersee, but it remains a mystery as to whether she is still training and if we will see USA’s greatest 800m runner return to the track any time soon.

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By Chris Chavez

USA Track & Field and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee have selected St. Louis, Missouri, to host the 2028 U.S. Olympic Team Marathon Trials. The races will be held on March 25th, 2028, and will be USATF’s first Olympic Team selection event for the 2028 Summer Games.

Here’s what you need to know:

Another Chapter of Olympic Lore

The 2028 Olympic Trials will come 124 years after the city hosted the first Olympic marathon ever contested on U.S. soil at the 1904 Games. St. Louis hosted the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials for the women’s marathon, where Colleen De Rueck won in 2:28:25—just 10 days shy of her 40th birthday—to qualify for her third Olympic team and first as an American. She was joined on the team by Deena Kastor, who would go on to earn a bronze medal at the Summer Games in Athens, and Jen Rhines.

Stakes and Expectations are High

The top three men’s and women’s finishers across the finish line will earn spots on Team USA for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games… as long as they have secured the Olympic qualifying standard or are sitting inside the World Athletics rankings quota within the qualifying window. The Olympic standard has yet to be announced by World Athletics. For context, the qualifying standards for the 2027 World Championships have been set at 2:06:00 for men and 2:23:20 for women—2 minutes and 10 seconds faster than the 2024 Olympic men’s standard and 3 minutes and 30 seconds faster than the 2024 women’s standard.

A Historic Course

The proposed route passes by iconic St. Louis landmarks, including Washington University (home of the 1904 Olympic stadium), Forest Park, the Gateway Arch, Busch Stadium, and finishes inside Energizer Park, home of MLS club St. Louis CITY SC. The final course layout will be confirmed in the coming months.

Central Time Zone Defenders Rejoice

NBC will broadcast the race live starting at 11 a.m. CDT.

Potential for Ideal Conditions

A look at recent March 25th weather patterns in St. Louis suggests runners can expect cool-to-mild conditions be by late morning. Historically, temperatures in downtown St. Louis around 11 a.m. on March 25th most often fall between 48°F and 62°F. Cooler years can see readings in the low 40s, while warmer years occasionally push into the upper 60s.

Meet the Team Behind the Marathon

The St. Louis Sports Commission will serve as the local organizing committee with support from Go! St. Louis as key partners in staging the event. We spoke with St. Louis Sports Commission President Marc Schreiber, Organizing Committee Co-Chair Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and USATF CEO Max Siegel about why the bid won. The following interview has been edited lightly for clarity.

CITIUS MAG: It was down to St. Louis and Phoenix, and St. Louis gets it. What do you think ultimately tipped it in your favor, and at the same time, what are you most excited about?

Marc Schreiber: We’re ecstatic. It’s such a wonderful thing for St. Louis to have the marathon trials coming. It’s such a great fit.

We were very proud of the bid we submitted. What I’d like to think rises to the top is the story and the vision we had for the event. That’s everything from our Olympic legacy, which is very meaningful to our community as America’s first Olympic city. It’s something we don’t take for granted, and we emphasize all the time to our region how important that is. When you can make that connection and say this is a community that cares about its place in the Olympic movement, and we want to celebrate that by hosting major Olympic events like the Olympic Trials, I think that resonates.

And then there’s the vision for the event itself: the idea of starting at Washington University, the site of the 1904 Games and our oldest, most venerable sports venue, and then finishing at Energizer Park, our newest jewel. We hope that came across as something special to USA Track & Field. So you have the spirit, the collaboration locally with GO! St. Louis and our marathon, and the partners involved. You throw that all together with a community that really cares and was excited and passionate, and I think all of that hopefully rises to the top and is evident to our colleagues at USATF.

CITIUS MAG: Jackie, you’re one of the greatest athletes this country has ever produced. What does it mean to you personally to have an Olympic Team Trials come home to this region?

Jackie Joyner-Kersee: I think it’s really a compliment to the local organizing committee, first to put the athletes first. When you look at the competitors, the Midwest is a good location and easy to get to. And then there are the conditions. I’m just adding to some of the things Marc was saying about what could have taken us over the edge, because I think both candidates were great. But for me, as an athlete competing this time of year—and we can’t control what Mother Nature is going to do—to have once been an athlete and to be from the area, it’s just a moment of celebration to experience something you’d never forget.

For it to be in my backyard, where I grew up, and to play a small part of that, I’m very honored. But it’s really something special for the athletes who are going to be trying to become Olympians, those who are already Olympians, and also a generation of young people, to be able to host something right here in the St. Louis area. And it makes the connection to the history of what St. Louis has always offered to the sport of athletics. More importantly, I hope these athletes will be overwhelmed—but not to the point that they don’t do what they’re supposed to do in making that Olympic team at these Olympic Trials.

CITIUS MAG: Jackie, you know better than anybody on this call just how brutal the Trials can be. What do you want the runners who are showing up in St. Louis to know about the community that’s going to support them on that day?

Jackie Joyner-Kersee: It’s my hope that they would feel the warmth of the region, and know that everyone here is pulling for them, because we realize and understand how important this day is. Again, you only have one shot at it. People from all walks of life will come from all over to support that one individual. The Midwest is always warm, but we also want them to explore and experience the city: the culture, the food, the entertainment. The entertainment comes after they make the team, but before that, it’s just going to be exciting.

It’s not just for those of us who aren’t competing. More importantly, it’s really about celebrating all these athletes who are going to come from all over trying to make an Olympic team. That’s what this is really about. All the other things are great, but more importantly, you want to be able to say ‘I had the best experience competing in St. Louis in 2028 and made my Olympic team.’ I can always remember all my Olympic Trials. I’ll never forget New Orleans—it was 100 degrees and we started the heptathlon at 12 o’clock—but you remember all those things, and that other people were there pulling for you.

CITIUS MAG: Max, how did we get to this decision?

Max Siegel: First, I want to say that it’s a privilege for USA Track & Field to have communities across the country interested in our properties. That makes the decision and the process difficult. We have a great team that evaluates every one of the bids and the sites to make sure they meet the technical specifications. Once you do that filter and you have your finalists, it’s about whether the teams are coordinated, whether you feel you have a good partner to collaborate with, and whether there’s passion there. What are the things that are going to make the athlete experience the most memorable?

We had the privilege of working with organizations across the country. When you see the coordination, and you see a partner that wants to collaborate and understands everything from rolling up your sleeves to what happens behind the scenes with community engagement, that’s something you think about. Marc and Jackie could be anywhere in the country, and they choose to be in St. Louis. They’re ingrained in the community, and I think our team was so excited about the energy with everyone we met.

I’m looking forward to it. I’ve had the privilege of being in Indianapolis a lot—from the Olympic Trials back in the day to the Final Four to the Super Bowl—and you just know it, you feel it, when you have partners who are both emotionally and financially invested and have a passion for it. So we couldn’t be more excited to partner with them. And on top of all the historic stories, this is just wonderful.

CITIUS MAG: Marc, the Marathon Trials have been a costly undertaking for some of the cities over the last couple of years. What are you doing differently this time around, or building with the local organizing community, to have the funding to really pull this off?

Marc Schreiber: That’s a great question, Chris, and something we had to put good thought into early on, to make sure a bid was viable. Fortunately, we’ve gotten a great boost from several local partners. I think that’s going to be a common theme you’ll find in St. Louis—the passion and enthusiasm for this, not just from a fan standpoint, but from our business community and our political community as well. We have to go through a great effort to make sure we’ve got the resources in place to do a heck of a job producing the event, but we’re off to a great start.

We’re lucky to have somebody like Lal Karsanbhai. He’s the CEO of Emerson Electric. Emerson has stepped forward already with a significant contribution to the effort and several other entities have done the same. That was while we were preparing the bid, and it gave us the faith that we could go forward and feel good from a fundraising standpoint that we could get to a point where we’ll execute the event at a high level.

It’s also gratifying to see the interest from Energizer Park and the soccer team, St. Louis CITY SC. They’re not just doing this to stage the end of the trials. They built that magnificent facility to leverage soccer as a way to present and promote St. Louis to the country and the world, and they see hosting the trials there the same way. So you start looking across the board and you have many supportive partners who are going to help us from a financial standpoint. It’s not just the artistic part—it’s the financial part we feel positive about. It’s not easy, but we feel good about where we are right now.

CITIUS MAG: In the bidding process request for proposals document, USATF projected $13.5 million in economic impact for the local organizing committee. And from what I read, you saw about $20 million from figure skating not that long ago. What are some of the learnings you’ve had from hosting events in hockey, gymnastics, and figure skating? And when was the turning point where St. Louis turned the corner into a major sporting-event city?

Marc Schreiber: I’d like to say it was a long time ago. That’s due to many people who came before me. Jackie can attest to this. But I feel like we’ve been reinvigorated.

St. Louis is a place where, in the ‘90s, we hosted the Big 12 football championship, the U.S. Olympic Festival, Jackie’s farewell track meet in ‘98, and the Final Four in 2005. So St. Louis has long been a great sports-event destination. The challenge for us is that our industry has become so competitive.

When I talk about being reinvigorated, it comes from the great momentum of late: we hosted the NCAA Frozen Four last spring, the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January, and the men’s basketball first and second rounds in March. And now, this fabulous announcement. We learn from every one of those events, and it gives us really good practice. I think that delivers a message to USATF: going through the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, assembling our local organizing committee, and all that goes into that conditions us really well. We can take the great takeaways and lessons from that and apply them in the planning process for 2028.

CITIUS MAG: I know the final course is going to be released much later on, but how did you design a route that’s fast and fair while also showcasing the city’s Olympic history?

Marc Schreiber: We had to take a lot into consideration there, because we knew how important it was for qualification to have a fast course. That was on our minds all the time. In terms of course elevation, St. Louis is close to the perfect scenario—there are some hills in there, so that’s what we have to deal with—but it was very much driven by wanting a fast course.

At the same time, it was about addressing that vision of connecting to our Olympic legacy, doing something innovative, and actually finishing in a 20,000-seat stadium to create something completely new for the trials—a spectacular moment. So we had to balance all that out. I think you’ll see that a lot of the start, especially from Wash U to downtown, is kind of just downhill, which is very advantageous. And then you showcase the best of the community: you get to run by the Arch, you get to run by Busch Stadium. So on this one, I’d like to think we’re able to have our cake and eat it too, addressing the needs of all the constituencies here.

CITIUS MAG: The LOC is going to set the men’s and women’s “A” standards. As of right now, we’re seeing everyone in the world get faster. The standard for the 2027 World Championships for the men is 2:06 and 2:23:20 for the women. And in 2024, we had that confusion about whether we were going to send a full team, because of the push for world rankings and the Olympic standards. How are you engaging those conversations with World Athletics so that, from a product standpoint on the day, the hope is it’s clear-cut: three men and three women get to go to the Olympic Games from the race people are watching?

Max Siegel: Yeah, those conversations are ongoing, and I can tell you we have a lot of advocates who do a couple of things. First of all, you never want to impact the athletic integrity of the event. We start from that point of view. Then we’re in this ecosystem with 214 countries around the world, so you’re trying to balance global fairness and those kinds of things. But at the end of the day, I think everyone is focused on engaging fans, getting more people to pay attention, and elevating our sport.

So we have conversations about the product we put on for our fans and how we select our teams. Our team is the hardest team in the world to make, because you’ve got to be the best at that particular point in time. But the advocacy is 365 days a year. We have wonderful people who represent us, like the David Katz’s of the world. Renee Washington and I get involved. We have the athlete voice. Jay Holder can speak to some of the things we do to ensure that, number one, we have the best team on the field of play during the Olympic Games, but also to advocate for having our selection process reflect the first three across the line.

Jay Holder: I think this is the third Marathon Trials in a row where, at this point, there’s an element of mystery about the top three and how that will work with the World Athletics system. As Max says, we have a really strong and fair voice in the World Athletics conversation. You saw the outcome of the World Road Running Championships conversations we had — that was a special exception, but it was made in the interest of the best thing for the sport. So that’s sort of where these conversations are going as well.

But one point I’ll make is that the standards keep getting faster, and Americans keep getting faster with them. We were concerned in 2024, and in 2020, that the times were going to be too fast and we’d be in that situation you talked about. But in 2020, despite the hills and the wind, everybody ran the standard and we didn’t have to worry about it. And in 2024, we saw some fast times as well. Since then, we’ve seen Americans get so much faster on both the men’s and women’s side. So yes, we’re going to continue to have these conversations about how to ensure the product, the excitement, and that first-three-across-the-line, easy story to tell. And at the same time, the athletes’ performances are going to keep rising to the standards that World Athletics sets.

CITIUS MAG: It’s still really early, but when you picture that lasting image people are going to take from the 2028 Trials, what is it?

Marc Schreiber: There are many answers I could give, but the thing that comes to mind for me—because I think it was a unique element of our bid and what we’re proposing—is having a packed, 20,000-seat Energizer Park at the finish, doing something that hasn’t been done for the trials before. You imagine that scene as the runners come in through the funnel and enter the facility: the atmosphere, the environment. I think that’s going to be one of those all-time coolest moments you’ve been a part of.

As I think about our planning, there are many things we have to cover and do really well, and that’s one of those pieces I hope can come together and be that lasting legacy from the event — something not just memorable for St. Louis and the fans who are there, but for the athletes as well, so they get to experience something that elevates the event and elevates the sport.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee: As I’m sitting here, I was getting goosebumps, because I think it’s so important that the athletes feel and know that they were thought of first, regardless of all the other things we have to do. To know that, coming through that last part, they’ll have 20,000 fans there for them—that’s something you’d remember. And to know that this happened right here in St. Louis. Always, always, the athletes are first, because without athletes, there wouldn’t be any trials. So here’s a moment they can remember, that happened right in St. Louis.

Max Siegel: I have to agree with both of them about the athletes coming first. But the most memorable thing to me, as a consumer and a fan, is how the community made me feel. I can look at different events and say, “ Wow, that was really special—I got to experience one of the most inspiring athletic performances with my family. From the time I got out of the parking lot into the stadium, and watching the course along the way, the people of the community made me feel special and embraced.”

What really has me excited about St. Louis is having leaders like Marc and Jackie and the whole community excited about hosting our athletes. I think it will enhance the athlete experience, because the community is so excited about the event. But for me, it’s that moment where it all comes together: the athletes feel special, you get to witness this moment in time that will last forever, and then you walk away feeling like you got to experience something unique and different—and that you felt special yourself.

Listen to the full episode on the CITIUS MAG Podcast here.

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By Chris Chavez

This morning at the 2026 TCS London Marathon, Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe did what no human being had done in an official race: he ran a marathon in under two hours, crossing the finish line in 1:59:30 to shatter the world record by over a minute. It was arguably the most astonishing performance in the history of the sport.

For decades, the two hours has been to the marathon what four minutes was for the mile. That was until Eliud Kipchoge famously shattered it in 2019. But that was in a staged exhibition in Vienna that didn’t count as an official world record due to a rotating cast of pacemakers.

What happened today in London counts. No need to put an asterisk around it. There’s no lingering confusion over whether it was the “fastest ever” or the world record, with an asterisk (like we have with the men’s American marathon record right now). All it took was Sawe, Yomif Kejelcha, and Jacob Kiplimo duking it out over 26.2 miles. That barrier is gone and the marathon as we know it may never be the same again.

We recorded an emergency podcast from the London Marathon media tent with our man on the ground, Preet Majithia, immediately after the race. Below is our attempt to make sense of what we all just witnessed.

How It All Went Down

The plan going in was conservative by the standards of what unfolded. Over the past few days, Sawe and his coach Claudio Berardelli were vocal about publicly targeting Kiptum’s 2:01:25 London course record. Any world record talk was downplayed. Sub-two wasn’t really in anyone’s forethought. At the pre-race press conference, we learned that Sawe had dealt with a stress fracture in his foot and a back injury, which disrupted his training through December and January. His camp didn’t even know if he’d make the start line for London, but he returned to full training in February and peaked at 150 miles in a single week.

Organizers, fans and pundits like us were expecting the women’s-only world record, which did end up happening. Tigst Assefa ran 2:15:41 to beat her own record by about 10 seconds. That wasn’t a wild surprise, and we could see it coming from the jump.

But even from inside the media tent, the realization of what was happening on the men’s side came slowly.

The lead group of six—Sawe, Kejelcha, Kiplimo, Amos Kipruto, Tamirat Tola, and Deresa Geleta–were the only athletes bold enough to attempt the 60:30 first half target. Their halfway split of 60:29 was remarkable on its own. But the real racing started just after 25K when the final pacer stepped off, and Sawe immediately went.

By mile 17, he and Kejelcha had separated from everyone else. By mile 19, Kiplimo was alone in third, two seconds back. Sawe ran his second half in 59:01 for the fastest second half in marathon history. That’s faster than Conner Mantz’s 59:17 U.S. record in the half marathon, and it obliterated Kelvin Kiptum’s 59:45 from his second half at the 2023 Chicago Marathon by 44 seconds.

Sawe’s 5K splits from 30K onward tell the story: 30–35K: 13:54 (1:57:18 marathon pace); 35–40K: 13:42 (1:55:40 marathon pace); and his final 2.2K was in 5:51 (roughly 1:52 marathon pace). His 24th mile—4:12—was the fastest single mile ever run in a marathon. As the finish drew near, Sawe was still accelerating.

Finishing in second, Kejelcha deserves a lot of credit, too. The Ethiopian track star, making his marathon debut, ran 1:59:41, which was also good enough to break the previous world record by nearly a minute. Kejelcha hung with Sawe through 39K. He never led, but he never flinched, either. His presence was very much what made the record possible—Sawe was unable to let up. Kejelcha later told us that he hit the wall at 41K so that 11-second deficit only happened in the final kilometer.

Kejelcha’s range is one of the greatest in history. He previously held the indoor mile world record in 3:47 and now has broken two hours in the marathon. Across his track career, he collected three silver medals at the outdoor World Championships but never gold. Now, he gets the distinction of running sub-two and finishing second.

Jacob Kiplimo, the three-time World Cross Country champion and Chicago Marathon champion, rounded out an unprecedented podium with a 2:00:28.

The Factors To Consider

The Shoes – Adidas had a great day! Four of the top five men’s finishers were wearing the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3. It weighs in at 97 grams for a men’s size 9, roughly 30% lighter than its predecessor, with a 39mm stack height. The World Athletics rules call for a 40mm stack height limit. It’s tough without any actual lab data to quantify how much better the shoe benefited Sawe vs. his run in the Pro Evo 2 at last fall’s Berlin Marathon. A press release from the brand that went out moments after the race just noted that the Lightstrike Pro foam used in this shoe is 50% lighter than the previous version. The foam innovation and the weight reduction the next frontier in the super shoe arms race.

The Course – Historically, London isn’t as fast as Berlin. That certainly wasn’t the case today. The London course has more turns and has always historically run about 90 seconds slower on the front end of the men’s race. At the start, it was around 50 degrees Farenheit, only reaching 60–65 by the end. The preceding days had been really warm, so even modest shade felt significantly cooler. There was cloud cover and a tailwind that typically works against runners finishing west of the start line, which was present today and that mattered enormously over the final 10K along the Thames. Just one week after Boston, the wind played a factor in aiding the runners, here too.

The Fueling – Sawe is a Maurten athlete. The Maurten research team was embedded with Sawe’s team in Kenya for 32 days across six trips between last and this April. They were training his gut to absorb that load by mimicking race-day protocol in training and the hydrogel technology they have developed over the past 10 years now allows athletes to absorb 90–120 grams of carbs per hour without GI distress. In addition to that, sodium bicarbonate is also used, essentially a blood buffer since it neutralizes the lactic acid buildup that causes the burning sensation in muscles during high-intensity effort. Sawe used both of Maurten’s products for it on race day. (Taking the bicarb early is deliberate since it peaks in the bloodstream roughly 60–90 minutes after ingestion, so the timing of 2+ hours before the race would put peak buffering capacity right at the start.) Sawe carb-loaded with Maurten’s Drink Mix 320 for two days pre-race.

Sawe told the media in the press conference that he had two pieces of bread and tea with honey as his breakfast before the race.

Per Maurten’s Nutritional Scientist Joshua Rowe: “He sipped Drink Mix 320 on the bus to the start line, then a Gel 100 five minutes before the gun. During the race, he drank 160 milliliters of Drink Mix 320 at 5 km, 10 km, and 15 km. At 20 km, he had one Gel 100 Caf 100 and 130 ml of Drink Mix 160. Then at 25 km, 30 km, 35 km, and 40 km, he drank 130 ml of Drink Mix 320. From start to finish line, he averaged 115 grams of carbs per hour.”

If you thought this was the perfect run, it possibly wasn’t. Sawe may have missed a bottle along the course, per the Maurten team (but they were looking to confirm which), which only has us thinking about what a cleaner, perfectly fueled effort might look like next time out.

Kejelcha was the only man in the top five who was not fueling with Maurten during the race.

The Doping Question – For those wondering if we can trust this new 1:59:30 marathon world record by Sawe since there have been so many Kenyan runners caught doping and using performance-enhancing drugs in recent years… it’s always hard to have 100% certainty, but credit to Sawe, his agency and adidas for doing their best to be transparent.

Adidas included a budget in Sawe’s contract to provide funds to the sport’s anti-doping organization (the Athletics Integrity Unit) of about $50,000 for additional testing. Basically, they wanted to prove he was clean, as there was growing confidence that he would break the marathon world record. They also wanted to avoid the doubt of Ruth Chepngetich breaking the women’s marathon world record in 2:09:56… and then having that skepticism validated when she tested positive for a banned substance.

Sawe was reportedly drug-tested 25 times (this included blood and urine) in the space of two months in the lead-up to last fall’s Berlin Marathon and that’s a pretty high number. He was not tested as frequently before this race, but his coach, Claudio Berardelli, confirmed that the Athletics Integrity Unit sets the testing regimen and that he is on a higher frequency of testing than other athletes in 2026 because of the additional funding being provided.

You can never say with absolute certainty that any athlete is 100% clean, because you just never know. The best we can do is take in as much information as possible and allow athletes to demonstrate transparency. And that is what Sawe’s team has done.

What Comes Next

The question isn’t whether we’ll see another sub-two. It’s how soon, and how much faster will it be next time? It feels like a Roger Bannister effect could be upon us. Kipchoge’s 1:59:40 in Monza and Kiptum’s 2:00:35 demolished the psychological ceiling for certain athletes and they get the benefit of that being part of their legacy (after being bumped to No. 5 and No. 4 on the all-time list, respectively). Sawe watched those performances. Everyone did. When you see that a thing is possible, it reframes everything.

Sabastian Sawe is just 30 years old. He has run four marathons and won them all. He has now run faster than any human being in history while participating in the most tested campaign the marathon has ever seen. He also did not opt for a solo time trial. It came in a race, against the best competition the sport has ever assembled. And the result was nothing short of spectacular.

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.

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By Chris Chavez & Preet Majithia

The 2026 London Marathon might just feature the greatest field ever assembled… that is, until next year. The race’s organizers outdoing themselves with increasingly star-studded entry lists is something of an annual tradition. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, because what’s on deck for this weekend is going to be truly special. The race takes over the streets of the British capital on Sunday, April 26th, with what may be the deepest pro races in the race’s 45-year history.

We jumped on the mics on Wednesday afternoon to discuss both races at length. You can listen to the full preview on The CITIUS MAG Podcast. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows. We’ll also have it up on YouTube later today.

You’ll be able to watch the race with a Flotrack subscription ($29.99 per month for a month or $149.99 per year). Preet Majithia will be on-site for the CITIUS MAG team providing live updates from the media tent on the CITIUS MAG Twitter page and interviews with the athletes afterward on the CITIUS MAG YouTube channel.

Start times:

• Elite women: 9:05 a.m. (BST) → 4:05 a.m. (EDT)

• Elite men + first mass wave: 9:35 a.m. (BST) → 4:35 a.m. (EDT)

Women’s Race

The Favorites: Tigst Assefa (2:11:53 PB from Berlin 2023) | Joyciline Jepkosgei (2:14:00 PB from Valencia 2025) | Hellen Obiri (2:17:41 PB from Boston 2025)

When the fields were first announced, it was originally billed as the first marathon in history to feature four women with sub-2:15 personal bests. That storyline is out the window after withdrawals by Olympic champion Sifan Hassan and World champion Peres Jepchirchir due to injury. But it also means the race may be more tactically open between the top three women who remain.

Assefa enters as the defending champion and a former outright world record holder, coming off a strong 2025 that included the women’s-only marathon world record (2:15:50) in London and a silver medal at the World Championships. In each of her last six marathons, she has finished in the top two and the only two women to beat her in the last four years are now both out of the race.

Jepkosgei was the runner-up here last year and then went to Valencia in December to win in a world-leading 2:14:00, beating Jepchirchir in the process. She’s also a past champion here having won in 2021 and finishing on the podium three times after that.

And Obiri is… well… Obiri. Her last two races were both in New York City, last November’s marathon, and last month’s half—she won them both in course record fashion. Obiri’s marathon PB looks paltry compared to Assefa’s or Jepkosgei’s, but there’s no denying her ability to grind it out over the hills of New York City, Boston, or at the Paris Olympics. This will be her first World Major outside of the U.S., and first attempt at the distance on a traditionally fast course.

Preet Majithia: “Last year the race went out in 1:06:40 for the first half and came back in around 1:09, so it was a positive split. London is slightly faster in the first half; it’s slightly downhill, which is why you often expect a slightly positive split. What was interesting was that Tigst Assefa said she is in better shape than she was last year. When I asked specifically whether she thought she could run better by going out a little slower, she said, actually, no—she thinks she’s fitter than she was last year and can handle the pace. She said that when the pacemakers drop out around halfway, she thinks she’s fit enough to carry that 1:06:40 tempo on her own. She sounds like she’s definitely gunning for it. And it was very clear that both she and Joyciline Jepkosgei have sub-2:15 as the goal.”

Obiri is the most fascinating athlete in the race. She has never run a marathon with pacers, never run a flat course, and her PB was set over Boston’s point-to-point, hilly layout. Her two New York wins tell you she’s a ferocious competitor, but they tell you almost nothing about her ceiling on a course like this. Coach Dathan Ritzenhein said she was capable of running 2:11 as early as two years ago. Even 2:14 or 2:15 this weekend would be a massive performance and put her squarely in the conversation of being the world’s best marathoner.

Preet Majithia: “Hellen said very clearly: ‘I’ve never run a race like this before — not with pacemakers, not on a flat course. I’m going to sit in behind the leaders and wait to see how I’m feeling around the 30 or 35K mark.’ It sounds like everyone is expecting those three to be in the same pace group.”

Head-to-head, Assefa is 2-0 against Jepkosgei (at the last two Londons) and 1-0 against Obiri (at the 2024 Olympics). Obiri is 1-0 against Jepkosgei in Boston 2023, but given their relative lack of direct matchups, it’ll be fascinating to see how the three key off of each other in the same race.

Compared to other World Marathon Majors, the prize money in London is not terribly high—first place wins $55,000. Time bonuses are where the real money is earned in London. In the pre-race press conference, organizers have stated that the lead pack will be after the women’s-only marathon world record. If someone runs under 2:15, the athlete gets $150,000. Sub-2:15:30 nets $100,000. Sub-2:16 receives $75,000.

Paula Radcliffe’s course record is 2:15:25, which has stood since 2003. (That’s not the women’s-only world record because, at the time, it wasn’t run as a women’s-only race.) If you win and break the women’s course record, you get an additional $25,000.

Chris Chavez: “The big three are just such heavy favorites that the podium is [likely] some combination of Assefa, Jepkosgei, and Obiri. Even if one of them falters, like, if you’re Hellen Obiri with a 2:17 PB going out at 2:15 pace, you could have a Sifan Hassan moment by taking a little walk break — and still probably finish third, because I don’t see anyone else going with that pace.”

Beyond the Big Three, the most interesting race-within-a-race may be between three talented Brits looking to improve their spots on the U.K. all-time list. Rose Harvey, Eilish McColgan, and Jess Warner-Judd are sixth, ninth, and tenth, respectively, on said list, but particularly because the latter two spend more time on the roads than the track, it feels inevitable they’ll improve on their 2:24 PBs. Harvey, on the other hand, benefits from experience, having finished top-15 in this race in three of the last five years.

The other intriguing name on the start list is reigning World bronze medalist Julia Paternain, who represents Uruguay internationally but lived in the U.K. as a child and currently trains in the U.S. Given that her 2:27:09 PB comes from the hot championship setting of Tokyo last fall, she’s likely looking to significantly upgrade that PB to better reflect her stature as a global medalist.

Men’s Race

The favorites: Sabastian Sawe (2:02:05 PB from Berlin 2025); Jacob Kiplimo (2:02:23 PB from Chicago 2025)

The men’s race could be a thriller, because you’ve got so many talented guys—five sub-2:04 athletes, eight sub-2:05, plus the intriguing debut of Yomif Kejelcha.

That said, if you were designing a boxing-style poster for London ‘26, you’re giving Sebastian Sawe vs. Jacob Kiplimo top billing—a true title fight. Last year’s race wasn’t too much of a contest after Sawe dropped a 4:16 at mile 20 and ended up winning by over a minute. But the key thing to remember is that it was Kiplimo’s marathon debut. Since then, both have leveled up considerably.

Last fall, Sawe won Berlin in 2:02:16 on a really hot day. The buzz leading up to the race was that he was getting drug tested 25 times in the lead-up because he genuinely believed he could break Kelvin Kiptum’s world record of 2:00:35 and wanted to leave little doubt around the legitimacy of his performance. There is specific funding allocated in Sawe’s contract towards the Athletics Integrity Unit, with the anti-doping authority determining how best to use it. The AIU apparently determined the concentrated testing in the run-up to Berlin was worthwhile, but was very expensive, so it has not been repeated in the run-up to London. The understanding is that he is still being tested more than other athletes due to the funding being provided.

However, Sawe suffered a stress fracture after Berlin, and then had a back issue in January. These have both cleared up and his coach Claudio Berardelli said that they have not significantly hindered his preparation. In three career marathons, Sawe has never lost and never run slower than 2:03:00—that’s a pretty tough resume to beat.

Then there’s Kiplimo, who finished second in London and then won Chicago in 2:02:23, covering the final 5K in what looked like a jog. After that, he won his third straight World Cross Country title, then broke the half marathon world record, running 57:20 in Lisbon (his PB of 56:42 is still faster, but that time was not ratified as an official WR).

Kiplimo indicated he has upped his mileage for this build and is now running 200km-230km (~120-145 miles) a week, which is significantly more than last year. The gap between Sawe and Kiplimo is probably much closer than last year’s results would indicate.

Preet Majithia: “With Kiplimo, I think we’re still finding his ceiling. He’s relatively new to this. In London last year, whether it was a tactical error or just a lack of confidence to go with the move, he let it slip. But his performance in Chicago was really impressive. Sawe, on the other hand, has just hit it out of the park every time he’s run a marathon, starting with Valencia in 2:02:05 at the end of 2024, then London and Berlin last year. It’s going to be an intriguing battle, and I genuinely can’t pick one.”

Chris Chavez: “With Kiplimo in Chicago and Sawe in Berlin, both managed to get to 30K at world record pace. What happens after that point is where the race is truly going to be made.”

The Other Contenders

The other runners likely to go with Sawe and Kiplimo include Amos Kipruto (2:03:13 PB), Olympic champion Tamirat Tola (2:03:39 PB), and 10,000m World Championship silver medalist Yomif Kejelcha. Tola just won the Doha Marathon earlier this year in 2:05:40 in hot conditions, so if he’s maintained or improved on that kind of fitness, he’s a threat.

The debutant Kejelcha is more of a wild card. The stats around him are impressive: 3:47 in the mile, three-time Valencia Half Marathon champion, and former half marathon world record holder at 57:30. But all that speed skews to shorter events. Even with a very fast 5K or 10K background, the marathon is a different beast, as we saw with Joshua Cheptegei’s foray into the event, and there’s sometimes a learning curve. Some people, like Sifan Hassan, defy that and win their debut despite coming straight from the track. Kejelcha certainly has the talent to open up in 2:03. And if he’s still in contention through 35K, his closing speed could be a real factor.

Preet Majithia: “Don’t forget…Tola and Kejelcha train together as part of the same group that is coached by Gemedo Dedefo, who also coaches Tigst Assefa. One of the British athletes, Mahamed Mahamed (2:07:05 PB), has been out in Ethiopia training with Kejelcha and Tola. And from what we’ve heard, the training out there is absolutely insane. I know that’s what you always hear from people who go to Ethiopian or Kenyan training camps, but it does seem pretty intense.”

Mahamed came very close to a podium finish in 2024, finishing fourth in 2:07:05, and with no Emile Cairess in the race (2024’s third-placer), he and Phil Sesemann could leapfrog Cairess on the British all-time list with a pair of PBs. Currently, the list behind Mo Farah goes triathlete Alex Yee at #2 in 2:06:38, Cairess #3 at 2:06:45, Mahamed #4 at 2:07:05, and Sesemann #5 at 2:07:11. Surely both men—plus Patrick Dever, who ran 2:08:58 for his debut in NYC last fall—would love to knock the triathlete back a spot or two and win one for the pure road runners.

Amanal Petros had a career year in 2025, with a silver medal at the World Championships in a sprint finish, and a PB and German record of 2:04:03 for second place in Valencia behind John Korir. Coached by the Italian Renato Canova, Petros has started 2026 in a similar fashion, breaking the German record in the half marathon (59:22 in Berlin), and will likely be targeting Bashir Abdi’s European record of 2:03:36.

Joshua Cheptegei, the two-time Olympic gold medalist, has a 2:04:52 best at the moment, and maybe London, his fourth career marathon, is where it all comes together. Not everyone gets it right the first time. Sometimes it takes two or three races. It’s clear Cheptegei is fully committed to the marathon now since he skipped the World Championships last year. With more time fully dedicated to the event, perhaps we see a bit more progress from the current 5000m and 10,000m world record holder.

For more on the 2026 London Marathon, you can listen to the full episode of The CITIUS MAG Podcast or watch it on The CITIUS MAG YouTube channel.

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By Chris Chavez

The conditions aligned and the athletes committed, which gave us one of the most thrilling and historic days in Boston Marathon history.

What makes Boston different from every other marathon is that those who follow it closely can paint a picture of a race just by hearing the year. You say 2012 and everyone remembers the heat. You say 2018 and they feel the maelstrom. For 15 years, 2011 has been the windy one and the race people would daydream about in their training logs: “If I had that tailwind, I could have run…”

Monday was that kind of day. And then some. Here are some parting thoughts from Boston:

John Korir Broke The Boston Marathon

There have been many times in the 130-year history of the Boston Marathon where you see someone go out crazy hard, then fade, but still hold on for victory. What you almost never see is what John Korir was able to pull off on Monday. The 29-year-old went 2:01:52, thanks to a second half split of 60:02 (which includes some of the hardest parts of the race, including the famous Newton Hills), to shatter Geoffrey Mutai’s 2:03:02 course record from 2011.

Korir not only took advantage of the conditions but also made multiple brilliant tactical moves to defend his title. Among the leaders, he went through the halfway point in 61:50, eight seconds up on Mutai’s pace, and perfectly covered a quick breakaway move by Ethiopia’s Milkesa Mengesha (who eventually faded to tenth place in 2:05:35) before taking command of the race. He ran 28:10 from 30K to 40K, accelerated once he crested Heartbreak Hill, and was well clear of two of the world’s best marathoners—2025 New York City Marathon champion Benson Kipruto and 2025 World champion Alphonce Felix Simbu, who would also both get under the previous course record. Korir did a bit of a throat slash celebration and then stuck his tongue out before opening his arms wide and becoming just the second man to successfully defend his Boston title since 2000.

One of the most fun moments from the finish line came when Korir learned he had broken the course record from Boston Athletic Association CEO Jack Fleming. Instead of offering a meek fist pump or exhausted clap, his legs somehow still had the energy to jump for joy.

Korir now faces a tough decision around his fall racing schedule. He has strengthened his case for holding the title of the best marathoner in the world, but that thesis will be challenged when Sabastian Sawe (3-for-3 in his marathons and an impressive 2:02 win in a hot Berlin race last year) and Jacob Kiplimo (beat Korir and ran 2:02:23 in Chicago last year) race in London next weekend. Many times, athletes can get locked into Major races once they win them because the appearance fee for a defending champion is too good to pass up. Korir did not finish last year’s Chicago Marathon but rebounded with a 2:02 victory at the Valencia Marathon. Berlin, Chicago and Valencia could be good options to explore a potential attack on the world record, despite him telling reporters in the post-race press conference on Monday that Kelvin Kiptum’s 2:00:35 is not quite on his mind just yet.

We Now Have A Good Problem Explaining American Marathoning Times

We’ll try to make this as clear as possible. Last October, Conner Mantz set the American record with his 2:04:43 for fourth place at the Chicago Marathon. Yesterday had no bearing on Mantz’s record-holding status because Boston’s point-to-point course is not record-eligible.

Still, Zouhair Talbi and Charles Hicks have re-complicated things, since they just ran the two fastest marathons ever by Americans. Before Mantz’s record, we had a similar split with Ryan Hall’s 2:04:58 from 2011 standing atop the all-conditions U.S. list, but in 2025 Mantz unified “fastest ever” and “American record” under one mark.

Let’s start with Zouhair Talbi, who was born in and represented Morocco at the Paris Olympics. He was an NAIA standout at Oklahoma City University and found success in the longer distances like 10,000m and eventually the marathon starting in 2024. He enlisted in the U.S. Army and became an American citizen in 2025, which makes him eligible to compete in USA Track and Field’s championship races, but he’s unable to represent America in international competition until August 2027. For more on his story and why he’s excited to represent the United States, we had a fantastic podcast with him in January after he ran 2:05:45 to win the Houston Marathon. His 2:03:45, fifth place showing in Boston is the fastest performance by an American man and took more than a minute off Ryan Hall’s 2:04:58 run for fourth place in 2011.

Hicks, who was born in England to American parents in 2001, briefly represented Great Britain in international competition but decided to switch to the United States. He will have his transfer of allegiance behind him by July 2026. At 24 years old, the 2022 NCAA XC champion for Stanford is one of the brightest prospects in the marathon for the decade(s) to come after running 2:09:59 for his debut in NYC last fall. He also got under Hall’s previous mark with a seventh-place finish in 2:04:35.

It wasn’t just those two who had incredible days. There were five Americans under 2:06: Clayton Young (11th, 2:05:41), Ryan Ford (12th, 2:05:46), and Joe Klecker (13th, 2:05:56).

Here’s a look at the top Americans in the field and how they ran compared to their personal best heading into the race:

• 5th place overall (1st American) – Zouhair Talbi, 2:03:45 (-2:00 PB)

• 7th place overall (2nd American) – Charles Hicks, 2:04:35 (-5:24 PB)

• 11th place overall (3rd American) – Clayton Young, 2:05:41 (-1:23 PB)

• 12th place overall (4th American) – Ryan Ford, 2:05:46 (-2:14 PB)

• 13th place overall (5th American) – Joe Klecker, 2:05:56 (-4:41 PB)

• 19th place overall (6th American) – Haftu Knight, 2:07:38 (-2:00 PB)

• 20th place overall (7th American) – Wesley Kiptoo, 2:07:55 (-0:59 PB)

• 22nd place overall (8th American) – Galen Rupp, 2:08:15 (+2:08)

• 23rd place overall (9th American) – Murphy Smith, 2:08:58 (-3:01 PB)

• 24th place overall (10th American) – Robert Miranda, 2:09:40 (-2:27 PB)

• 26th place overall (11th American) – Jacob Thomson, 2:09:51 (-1:05 PB)

• 27th place overall (12th American) – CJ Albertson, 2:09:59 (+1:42)

• 29th place overall (13th American) – Turner Wiley, 2:10:16 (+0:49)

• 30th place overall (14th American) – Ryan Johnson, 2:10:20 (-2:38 PB)

American marathoning depth felt like it was slowly developing throughout the early 2020s. Now it feels like it’s all arrived at once. Like we’ve said multiple times on our podcast or in our live shows, it’s not too early to get excited for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. Stay tuned for an early Power Ranking of the top contenders in Wednesday’s edition of The Lap Count newsletter.

Sharon Lokedi Forgot Her Watch

On the bus to the start, Sharon Lokedi realized that she had forgotten her watch. Her agent and coach, Stephen Haas, looked around to try and find a replacement. He had an Apple Watch and that wouldn’t work for Lokedi since she’s a Garmin-sponsored pro. Another coach had a competitor brand. Luckily, Stephen Pifer—the former University of Colorado runner and then pro, but now working at Skechers—had one that he could lend to the reigning champion. Lokedi got even luckier; it was a make and model that she had previously trained with, so she quickly made the setting adjustments that she was most comfortable with. Crisis averted.

Pifer’s watch would register some of the most impressive splits in Boston Marathon history. From 35K and 40K, Lokedi dropped a 14:48 (miles 22, 23, and 24: 4:41, 4:48, 4:35) for that 5K stretch, which is 25 seconds faster than her 15:13.04 PB on the track and two seconds faster than the outdoor 5000m NCAA record that was broken on Friday night by Jane Hedengren.

Kenya’s Irine Cheptai and Loice Chemnung attempted to cover the move but ended up burned. Lokedi won in 2:18:51, 44 seconds before Chemnung crossed the line. With her victory, Lokedi became just the seventh woman to win back-to-back Boston Marathon titles since the official era of women’s racing at the Boston Marathon began in 1972.

Elite company for Lokedi of back-to-back Boston champions:

• Rosa Mota (1987–1988)

• Olga Markova (1992–1993)

• Uta Pippig (1994–1996 — 3 straight)

• Fatuma Roba (1997–1999 — 3 straight)

• Catherine Ndereba (2000–2001 and 2004–2005)

• Hellen Obiri (2023–2024)

With her friendly rival Hellen Obiri contesting London next weekend, Lokedi was the well-deserved star of the show and hopefully more and more fans will realize just how good she is. In three and a half years of marathoning, she’s now won three World majors, finished on the podium six total times, and taken fourth at the Olympics. In eight career marathons, she’s never finished outside the top ten and only once – New York 2024 – finished lower than fourth.

Lokedi returned the watch after the race and got a picture with Pifer.

Jess McClain’s Full Send Lands Her Atop The Americans

Jess McClain absorbed all the talk around the likelihood of a tailwind favoring the runners and decided to “full send” the race by doing her best to hang with the leaders. She stayed with Lokedi and the East African contingent through about 20 miles and then managed to work her way through the carnage, picking off a few who faded from Lokedi’s surges. She ran a negative split of 71:02/69:47, secured 5th place in the closing meters of the race, and her 2:20:49 time is a big personal best and the fastest time by an American woman in Boston Marathon history. (The previous course record belonged to Shalane Flanagan’s 2:22:02 from the 2014 Boston Marathon.)

In the post-race press conference, McClain was also quick to acknowledge that she benefitted from being pushed by her fellow Americans in this race. In the lead-up, she touted it as a mini U.S. Championship wrapped into a World Marathon Major. Her Brooks teammate Susanna Sullivan led the field through 5K and 10K. U.S. Olympian Dakotah Popehn took her turn at the front and hyped up the crowd while passing through Wellesley. Kodi Kleven (a 2:29 marathoner based out of Utah with some ultra/trail races on her resume) announced herself to the scene by hanging with the leaders. McClain and Annie Frisbie, who were the top two American women last year, covered all the moves.

Here’s a look at the Americans in the pro field and how they ran compared to their personal best heading into the race:

• 5th place overall (1st American) – Jess McClain, 2:20:49 (-1:54 PB)

• 8th place overall (2nd American) – Annie Frisbie, 2:22:00 (-1:21 PB)

• 9th place overall (3rd American) – Emily Sisson, 2:22:39 (+4:10)

• 10th place overall (4th American) – Carrie Ellwood, 2:22:53 (-8:58 PB)

• 12th place overall (5th American) – Dakotah Popehn, 2:24:04 (-0:16 PB)

• 13th place overall (6th American) – Elena Hayday, 2:24:45 (-6:06 PB)

• 14th place overall (7th American) – Kodi Kleven, 2:24:48 (-4:30 PB)

• 15th place overall (8th American) – Amanda Vestri, 2:24:49 (-0:51 PB)

• 17th place overall (9th American) – Paige Wood, 2:26:34 (+0:32)

• 18th place overall (10th American) – Madeline Dickson, 2:28:12 (-0:45 PB)

• 19th place overall (11th American) – Susanna Sullivan, 2:28:35 (+6:39)

• 20th place overall (12th American) – Megan O’Neil, 2:31:31 (-3:24 PB)

• 21st place overall (13th American) – Sara Hall, 2:31:55 (+11:23)

• 24th place overall (14th American) – Erin Del Giudice, 2:33:54 (-3:42 PB)

• 25th place overall (15th American) – Elizabeth Chikotas, 2:34:29 (-0:32 PB)

• 28th place overall (16th American) – Alana Levy, 2:34:50 (-2:03 PB)

• 29th place overall (17th American) – Monica Hebner, 2:35:11 (+2:31)

McClain is one of America’s easiest marathoners to root for: 34 years old, day job, up before dawn to beat the Arizona heat. She famously finished fourth at both the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials and the Olympic Trials 10,000m final (the sport’s cruelest placement, twice in one year) and responded by becoming one of the most consistent championship performers in the country. Sure, the wind helped on Monday but you can’t blow a 2:20:49 across the finish line. This is just the level American women’s marathoning is at right now.

More Quick Thoughts On The 2026 Boston Marathon Pro Races:

– With the winner decided, Simbu employed his classic sit-and-kick move on Kipruto for the runner-up spot and a $35,000 difference between second and third place ($75,000 to $40,000). That finish had to have stung Kipruto’s wallet a bit. He can take solace in the fact that his resume as one of the best among marathoners of the 2020s, and he remains strong—this is his fourth podium finish in Boston in five appearances at the race.

– Loice Chemnung is probably not a name most fans know well, but the 29-year-old Kenyan runner-up could be changing that soon. The former track specialist with PBs of 14:43.65/30:44.86 seems to have only prioritized the roads beginning in 2024, and since last fall she’s finished fourth in Chicago in her debut, run 64:01 for the half in Barcelona (#6 all-time), and now taken second in Boston. In a decade of track racing, she only represented Kenya at a global championship once – as a 17 year old at World Juniors in 2014. Safe to say she’s finally found her best event.

– Kudos to Mary Ngugi-Cooper on her third podium finish at the Boston Marathon at 37 years old. In the post-race press conference, she openly admitted that she thought her career may be nearing its end after taking 11th in last year’s race. Running 2:20 in Chicago last fall delayed those thoughts and Monday’s run will too.

– As noted by many folks in our comments section on Instagram, Talbi’s 2:03 appears to be the fastest bespectacled marathon in history.

– Thanks to his dual citizenship, Hicks also now gets the unofficial honor of being the fastest British marathoner since his 2:04:35 would also be faster than Mo Farah’s British record of 2:05:11 from the 2018 Chicago Marathon.

– Annie Frisbie also got under Flanagan’s old record and is now second on the all-time American performance list at this race. She managed to match her 2025 Boston place but ran more than a minute faster.

– Emily Sisson, the U.S. record holder, did not have the perfect build-up to Boston but still put together a solid 2:22:39 for ninth place. As Kyle Merber noted on our watch party, this one was more for putting a good one on the board after struggling at the Olympic Games and not having her best day at the New York City Marathon.

– After injuries hindered the start of his marathon training block, Clayton Young probably feels good about his 2:05:41 personal best and turning the tables on his former BYU teammate Rory Linkletter (who finished 14th in 2:06:04).

– Ryan Ford, who should be taken a bit more seriously as a contender for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials picture, gave a cool nod of respect to Young on Instagram by writing, “Pacing Clayton in 2023 was one of the main inspos for me moving to road racing. Real full circle moment battling with him yesterday.” He finished just five seconds behind him in 2:05:46.

– It was a good step forward for Joe Klecker’s development as a marathoner as he finished 13th in 2:05:56. His Strava post explained a lot. He cramped at mile 9 after taking his bottle and had to jog for about 400 meters. He only saw his half split and 25-mile split, thought the clocks were broken when sub-2:06 appeared possible, then surged to run his final mile around 4:39.

– Carrie Ellwood should earn more attention after taking NINE minutes off her personal best and running 2:22:53 for 10th place.

– In her second marathon, Amanda Vestri took 51 seconds off her personal best to run 2:24:49 for 15th place. On Instagram, she wrote: “Marathons are so difficult and it’s hard not to play the comparison game when everyone is running so well. In my head I know it’s a PR therefore I should be happy, but I just want to skip all the steps and be at that next level already which is a really terrible way of judging my own success. Safe to say I need to work more on focusing on my own progress rather than comparing myself to people who have a lot more experience than me at this distance.”

– Galen Rupp is committed to continuing his marathoning career through 2028 and finished in 22nd place in 2:08:15, two weeks before turning 40 years old. Although Meb Keflezighi and Abdi Abdirahman managed to make Olympic teams in their 40s, the depth of American marathoning complicates his chances of making another Olympic team.

– One year after finishing sixth at Boston in 2:22:38, British marathoner Calli Hauger-Thackery crossed the same finish line in 2:43:58 while five months pregnant. She won the Honolulu Marathon in December before she knew she was pregnant and then won Houston in January in 2:24:17 while in her first trimester.

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.

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It must be April, because spring is in the air, flowers are blooming, birds are chirping, and World Marathon Major season is about to get very, very busy. Tokyo may already be in the books, but the double whammy of the Boston and London Marathons in the next two weeks are poised to really set the road running circuit on fire.

The 130th Boston Marathon goes down this upcoming Monday, and it’s staring sky-high expectations in the face. Last year saw Sharon Lokedi and Hellen Obiri battle their way to a course-record run, with Lokedi persevering in 2:17:22. On the men’s side, Americans had a breakout day as Conner Mantz, Clayton Young, and Ryan Ford all finished in the top ten in 2:08:00 or faster. So it’s safe to say the runners toeing the starting line in Hopkinton this year have some extra-large supershoes to fill.

Both defending champs are back, but this year’s race will be defined, at least in part, by the absence of two big names who competed in 2025. Obiri, the two-time Boston champ in 2023 and 2024, is taking on the field in London this year. Mantz faced injury woes in training during this buildup and had to withdraw. But you’ll barely miss them on race day, because the fields are stacked as ever, with seven sub-2:20 women and ten sub-2:05 men entered.

The other returning main character at Boston shows up a little different every year: the weather. This year it’s looking… decidedly iffy, with a small but nonzero chance of showers in the forecast and wind forecasts still changing hourly. Temperature-wise, race day should float in the high-40º to low-50ºF range most of the morning. So if you’re hoping to watch fast times (or are yourself running and looking to set a new PB), it’ll all come down to whether the wind and precipitation break favorably, which right now looks like a coin toss.

If you’re in the Boston area for the weekend and would like to come out to our group run in partnership with Brooks, we’ll be running three easy miles out of the Hyperion House at 400 Newbury Street. We’ll have pros like Clayton Young, CJ Albertson, Amanda Vestri, Turner Wiley and more in attendance. Stick around after the miles for a live chat with Jess McClain. More details and RSVP here.

On Monday, tune into the CITIUS MAG Watchalong on YouTube (slated to start at 9 a.m. ET) as Chris Chavez, Kyle Merber, Eric Jenkins and Aisha Praught-Leer provide our live analysis, commentary and reactions to the races unfolding. Set your reminder and bookmark this link!

Lokedi Returns To Defend The Title As The Clear Favorite

The marathoning resume Sharon Lokedi has put together at 32 years old is one of the best in the world—it just gets overshadowed, occasionally, by her friendly rival Hellen Obiri. There will be no overshadowing on Marathon Monday, however, as Lokedi enters with the fastest PB, the mantle of defending champ, and a giant target on her back.

Across seven career marathons, Lokedi has really never laid an egg. Her lowest career finish was a ninth-place run at the 2024 NYC Marathon, but that was just three months after the Paris Olympics, and when you knock out those two races she’s finished on the podium of every other marathon she’s started. She has two WMM titles, but she’s also finished second or third behind Obiri in three other races. If you take New York in 2024 out of the equation, here’s the list of women who have beaten Lokedi head-to-head: Hellen Obiri, Sifan Hassan, Letesenbet Gidey, Tigst Assefa. End of list. Basically, if Lokedi is on the starting line with a full, healthy block of training in her legs, you’ve gotta be an all-time great to even stand a chance.

Preet Majithia: “Sharon has to go in as the heavy favorite — there’s no doubt about that. She’s always in the top two at these majors. That is her spot, and she’s very good at locking that down. She’s good at these tactical, slower races and knows when to make her moves on this course. She’s proven it time and time again. There are a whole load of women in that 2:17–2:18 range on paper, but I don’t necessarily think that makes them competitive with her at Boston.”

All indications suggest that that’s what we’ll see once again, as Lokedi ran 67:10 for second behind Obiri at the NYC Half in her only tune-up race of the spring.

Contenders

Irene Cheptai is the next returner from last year, where she finished fourth, and has the second-best PB. Ethiopian Workenesh Edesa is the rare entrant on her second marathon of 2026 already, as she finished third at the Osaka Women’s Marathon in January—but last year she came back from the same race to win the Hamburg Marathon in around the same timeframe, so she’s shown she can turn it around just fine. And the other most intriguing international name is Mary Ngugi-Cooper, who’s twice finished on the Boston podium and is coming off a fifth-place finish in Chicago last fall.

The Fight For Top American

As far as Americans go, it’s honestly easier to list who’s not competing as the full roster of 2024 Olympians and 2025 World team members are all on the start list. That’s Fiona O’Keeffe, Emily Sisson, Dakotah Popehn, Susannah Sullivan, Jess McClain, and Erika Kemp. Throw in Annie Frisbie, the second American in both Boston and New York last year, and Amanda Vestri, who finished one spot behind Sisson in New York as well, and it’s starting to look more like a U.S. cross country meet than an international marathon.

Plus, Sara Hall will battle it out with Aussie Lisa Weightman for top masters honors.

Chris Chavez: “O’Keeffe was the only American woman who went with the leaders at the New York City Marathon and it was an impressive 2:22:49 for fourth place. Most recently, she finished second at the Gate River Run, which was encouraging. I’m looking for something big out of her, given how she handled the New York course.

I’m also looking at Jess McClain since her PB of 2:22 came from Boston last year. Her fitness seems to be in a good spot – as evidenced by the near-U.S. title in Atlanta. I’d love to see a battle between O’Keefe and McClain for top American – throw Sisson in there as well. Although Sisson is the American record holder, she’s always viewed as more of a rhythm runner who thrives on flat courses. She didn’t quite have her best day at New York – 8th in 2:25:05 (third American). However, on the Ali on The Run Show, she mentioned a minor ankle issue that popped up. A top-five finish for any American in a field like this would be a very good day.”

It’s tempting to frame the race as: Sisson takes on the new guard. But let’s not forget that Sisson is still only 34 years old and theoretically entering her prime marathoning years. The better frame may be “who’s the best American marathoner in 2026,” because every potential contender to that title is heading to the same race, at the same time, to kick off spring marathon season.

A Duel Of Champions: John Korir Vs. Benson Kipruto

If either John Korir or Benson Kipruto breaks the tape on Monday, a third name will immediately spring to mind: Evans Chebet. From 2022 to 2023, Chebet was on one helluva hot streak, winning Boston, New York, then Boston again before injuries slowed his roll for the next few seasons. Neither Korir nor Kipruto can make it three straight majors with a win, but Korir could defend his Boston title and Kipruto, the 2025 NYC marathon champ, could make it two in a row.

On paper, Kipruto has the benefit of both recency and longevity, as he’s won a WMM in four of the last five years, including Boston in 2021. Korir has the slight blemish of a DNF in Chicago last year on his card, but he bounced back two months later to win Valencia in a new PB of 2:02:24. Chicago aside, Korir has won every race that he’s started going back to 2024, where he finished fourth in Boston, and he beat a strong domestic field in his tune-up, a 10km XC race in Kenya.

Preet Majithia: “If John Korir gets his tactics right – and he really got them wrong at Chicago, which is why he blew up — then he is the man. But Benson Kipruto is a wily competitor. It will probably come down to those two, though this is the kind of race where if they don’t make their moves at the right moment, someone else could nip in for a surprise win.”

Chris Chavez: “The men’s side seems more top-heavy than the women’s. I can still peg Korir as the favorite, but I could see a situation where Kipruto or someone like Alex Massai (3rd place at the Chicago Marathon) wins.”

Those two are the headliners, but that’s not to say that another strong contender couldn’t take them both down. The second- and third-placers from last year, Tanzanian Alphonce Simbu and Kenyan Cybrian Kotut, are both back looking for revenge, alongside 2024 NYC champ Abdi Nageeye and 2024 Berlin champ Milkesa Mengesha. Two intriguing dark horses are 2016 Boston champ Lemi Berhanu, who hasn’t run a WMM race in four years but has a handful of recent wins at sub-major races like Paris and Prague, and Sydney Marathon champ Hailemaryam Kiros, who doesn’t race often but took second at the Xiamen Marathon in China in January.

Preet Majithia: “I also want to bring your attention to Nicholas Kimeli, who is making his marathon debut. He was fourth in the 5,000 meters at the Tokyo Olympics. More recently, he was second to Jacob Kiplimo at Lisbon, where Kiplimo set the half marathon world record. Kimeli ran 58:08 — no joke. He ran another sub-59-minute half a few weeks earlier. That’s a lot of track pedigree for a debut.”

No Mantz, No Problem: A Wide Open Top American Men’s Race

With Mantz out, it’s tempting to favor Clayton Young as the top American in the mix, but he’s the third-fastest entrant by PB (and second fastest BYU alum behind Canadian Rory Linkletter). Young does has a decent shot at a top-five finish and top domestic honors, but he’ll have to take down two of the four fastest Americans in history: Zouhair Talbi, who ran 2:05:45 to win Houston in January, and Galen Rupp, who turns 40 in three weeks but still has a lifetime best of 2:06:07 next to his name. Rupp has run well in Boston before, finishing second in 2017, but it would undoubtedly be a surprise to see him get back to that level on Monday.

Rupp’s fellow old-timer Sam Chelanga is also on the start list, competing for top masters honor at 41 years young. Of the other contenders for top American, three guys who finished in the top 15 last year are all back: Ryan Ford, Wesley Kiptoo, and CJ Albertson. But perhaps the biggest threat among the 2:08 crowd comes in the form of 26-year-old Alex Maier, who ran 2:08:33 to win the Dusseldorf Marathon last fall in his second attempt at the distance. Like his Puma teammate Fiona O’Keeffe, Maier’s talent could very well outweigh his relative inexperience.

Chris Chavez: “My top American pick is Charles Hicks. His marathon debut was 2:09:59. His workouts have looked crazy impressive on Strava. He’s 24 years old and throwing himself headfirst into the marathon. It’s exciting. There’s probably more money in being a solid 2:10 marathoner than being a 10,000m specialist finishing sixth or seventh at US Track Championships, which is why the move makes sense.”

Preet Majithia: “Alex Maier is my pick for top American. He ran 2:11 at Chicago and then 2:08:33 in Dusseldorf, winning the race. The whole PUMA Elite group is just incredibly consistent right now — Amy and Allistair Cragg seem to be getting it right every single time with their athletes. Wesley Kiptoo is also someone who will pop a big one eventually. His tactics can be a little suspect at times, but he’s training with Massai. If those two are training step for step, it’s in there.”

What Will We Be Talking About Next Week?

Marathon predictions are a thankless task, as you inevitably end up getting graded along the binary of did you pick the winner, or not. So let’s think about this in a bigger-picture sense: what should we be watching for in Boston, and what will it mean for the sport writ large?

If Lokedi or Korir repeats, the answer is simple: They’ve both been central in conversations around who the world’s best current marathoner is, but another signature win firmly cements them in the category of greatest road runners of their generation. If someone else wins, the more important consideration is how. It’s less indicative of a change in the overall pecking order if someone is able to steal a win with a well-timed sprint in a slow race than if they tear the field apart. Evans Chebet’s first Boston win was a harbinger of things to come, mostly because of the absolutely lethal move he made in the final five miles, splitting 13:55 from 35k to 40k. If we see something similar from a relative unknown, that could be an indicator that they’re about to become a lot less unknown over the next few seasons.

As far as the American race-within-the-race goes, the women’s side is essentially a de facto national championship. A signature performance here from O’Keeffe, Sisson, or anyone else would pretty much solidify their spot atop the ranks of U.S. marathoners for the time being, and the burden would be on their challengers to prove otherwise in the fall. The men’s race, with the absence of the American record holder, won’t be quite as conclusive, but if Talbi can bounce back from Houston with another 2:05 or Young can contend for the podium, surely Mantz’s seat on the throne will start feeling a little warm.

(Next week on The CITIUS MAG Podcast, we’ll likely be discussing our way too early 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials power rankings since Boston will give us a clear picture of where people are at with less than two years until race day in Phoenix or St. Louis)

More than anything else, next Monday signifies once and for all that spring racing season is fully underway, and if you’re starting to find yourself bored of watching endless laps around the oval, things are finally getting interesting.

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.

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By Paul Hof-Mahoney

The second of this year’s five World Championship events is on deck this weekend, as the indoor season (definitely not the “short track season”) comes to a close at the World Indoor Championships in Toruń, Poland.

This season has already brought us world records, rule changes, drama on and off the track, and so much more, so who knows what could be in store when we finally see the world’s best step to the startline, take to the runway, and enter the circle.

The meet will take place from Friday, March 20th to Sunday, March 22nd. For U.S. audiences, you’ll be able to stream all sessions on Peacock and also catch the evening/afternoon sessions on NBCSN.

CITIUS MAG will have boots on the ground in Poland, so stay tuned to all of our social channels for live updates and our YouTube channel for interviews with the meet’s biggest stars.

Here are the Top 10 events you need to keep an eye on this weekend:

Men’s 60 Meters

The shortest event of the weekend is definitely set to be one of the most thrilling. Jeremiah Azu of Great Britain will look to defend his title from a year ago in Nanjing, but the field of contenders looking to dethrone him is as strong as ever.

On the American side, Jordan Anthony and Trayvon Bromell bring contrasting levels of experience, but both guys have put together stellar campaigns thus far. Anthony, the reigning winner of the Bowerman for his accolades as a junior at Arkansas, hasn’t lost a step in the transition to his professional career. He posted a world-leading 6.43 to win the Tyson Invitational last month before following that up with the second-fastest time in the world at 6.45 to win the U.S. title three weeks ago. Bromell finished fourth in that race in Fayetteville, but managed to find solid form with a pair of sub-6.50s at USAs to finally earn a chance to back up his 2016 World Indoor title.

Jamaica is sending an impressive trio of Kishane Thompson, Bryan Levell, and Ackeem Blake to Poland. While he’s the least acclaimed outdoor sprinter of the three, Blake is the only one to have run at World Indoors before, winning bronze in 2024. The interesting thing about Jamaican sprinters during the indoor season is that they run a lot of the 60s outdoors, so it’s difficult to gauge exactly how that will translate indoors. Yes, Thompson and Levell ran 6.46 and 6.47 in Kingston last month, but their only indoor races of the season were 6.56 for third in Stockholm by Thomspon and 6.66 for fifth at Millrose by Levell. Blake, on the other hand, has married together a wind-legal 6.48, a windy 6.46, and big indoor wins in Boston and New York to perhaps create better odds at success in Poland than either of his compatriots.

Puerto Rico’s Eloy Benitez and Brazil’s Erik Cardoso are the only other men to run in the 6.4X range this season, with Cardoso having run 6.49 twice into a headwind in São Paolo last month.

Men’s 400 Meters

The two-lapper will pit the unofficial world record holder, Canada’s Christopher Morales-Williams, against the official world record holder (pending usual ratification procedures), American Khaleb McRae. If there were a few more current SEC guys joining these former Southeastern stalwarts on the track in Poland it may make for a more interesting race, but we should still be looking for these two to absolutely throw down.

Morales-Williams hasn’t raced in over a month at this point, but he’s lowered his season’s best in each of his three 400m races this indoor season, with a current best time of 44.80. Whether or not he can dip all the way down to his 2024 shape will remain to be seen as he gets in the blocks Friday morning, it’s certainly encouraging to see him already clear of his best time last season, indoors or out.

McRae has put up a clean sheet across three finals this winter, with the highlight coming at the aforementioned Tyson Invitational, where he hit the finish line in 44.52. He followed that up with a 45.01 to take home his first U.S. title, looking comfortable while doing so. With these two men both on the startlist and proving to have been in good shape this year, the only thing we can hope for is that World Athletics adopting the two-heat final rule doesn’t rob us of an all-time matchup for gold.

Other major players in this one look to be Atilla Molnár, the Hungarian star who finished just off the podium in Glasgow and Nanjing, Chris Robinson, McRae’s collegiate teammate and the U.S. runner-up, and Jereem Richards, the 2022 World Indoor champion for Trinidad and Tobago.

Women’s 800 Meters

The long-awaited World Indoors debut of Keely Hodgkinson is nearly upon us, so three cheers for that. The Olympic champion has been nothing short of dominant during her brief indoor season, soloing a 1:56.33 in the heats at British champs before shattering the decades-old world record in 1:54.87. While the world record gets most of the acclaim—and rightfully so—it may be her opener in Birmingham that is the best marker in terms of her odds this weekend. In a non-paced race, she can still go to the front of the pack and blast a race that only one other woman in the world has come within a second of this year. In the case the final does come down to a kick, however, Hodgkinson’s got that covered too after an absolute 400m PB of 51.49 earlier this month.

Presumably clinging onto whatever pace Hodgkinson will take this one out at will be Switzerland’s Audrey Werro and fellow Brit Issy Boffey, the only other women in the field to have gone sub-1:58 this season. Werro put three 1:57s on the board across February and March, with a 1:58.38 in the world record race included in that span. Boffey had a breakthrough 1:57.43 performance at BU in late January, but that time is nearly two seconds faster than any other race of her career. There’s no better place than the global stage to prove your PB wasn’t just a flash in the pan.

There’s plenty of collegiate interest — NCAA indoor champ Gladys Chepngetich of Kenya and Clemson, Aussie Penn State standout Hayley Kitching, and mile runner-up Rosemary Longisa of Kenya and Washington State — along with Ethiopian 2025 World Indoor silver medalist Nigist Getachew in this one.

The U.S. contingent consists of Valery Tobias and Addy Wiley, who both bring in prior experience at this meet despite ranking as only the fourth- and fifth-fastest Americans this year.

Men’s 800 Meters

With world record holder Josh Hoey out of the picture, this race will see the top six seeds coming in separated by less than half a second based on season’s bests. While the biggest headlines will understandably be circulating around American teenager Cooper Lutkenhaus, it’s actually Belgium’s Eliott Crestan that enters as the fastest man in the field. Crestan is the only man this year to run multiple 1:43s, with his best mark of 1:43.83 coming in his opener in Ostrava. The 27-year-old has competed at each of the last three World Indoors, and he’s improved his finish in each one: sixth in Belgrade, third in Glasgow, second in Nanjing. This weekend is as good a time as any to claim Belgium’s first-ever global title over 800m.

All that being said, Lutkenhaus has looked flawless during his first professional season. The 17-year-old from Texas is four-for-four in 800m races with a killer 600m win in 1:14.15 to boot. He proved at U.S. Indoors that he’s capable of winning not just a paced race like his 1:44.03 at the Sound Invite, but also one that’s slower through the first half that allows him to control from the front over the final 400m. The field in Poland will be a bit tougher than a somewhat watered down American field, but he’s still showing some tactical acumen that may have been missing when he went out in the heats last fall in Tokyo.

The Aussie duo of Peter Bol and Bob Abdelrahim have run 1:43.89 and 1:44.27, respectively, Down Under, but neither have ventured indoors to a banked track this season. In fact, according to their World Athletics pages, Bol hasn’t raced indoors since 2019 and the 20-year-old Abdelrahim has never raced outside of Australia. The training partners under coach Justin Rinaldi will be given a crash course in the physical nature of indoor racing in crowded prelims, but it’s safe to assume given Rinaldi’s work with Hoey last season that they’ll be coached up well enough to handle the new environment.

Maciej Wyderka represents a strong chance for a home medal, having run 1:44.07 in February and 1:44.76 on the same track as Worlds to win the Polish Indoor title three weeks ago. Ireland’s Mark English is another product of Rinaldi’s Fast 8 Track Club, and, despite not racing since Feb. 3, the last time we saw him he was running 1:44.23, granted that was only good for third in Ostrava behind Crestan and Wyderka.

Women’s 1500 Meters

The hunt for the year’s first indoor sub-four (not run in a mile) will reach its crescendo in Toruń. Great Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell, Ethiopia’s Birke Haylom, and France’s Agathe Guillemot make up the four-flat gang this year with season’s bests of 4:00.04, 4:00.62 and 4:00.64.

Hunter Bell has only raced three times this season, but each one has been a banger: 4:00.04 in Karlsruhe, 4:00.21 in Liévin, 1:57.80 for 800m in Glasgow. She’s the top returner from Nanjing, having recently been upgraded to silver after Diribe Welteji’s suspension, and has proven she possesses the strength to make it hard and the speed to win in a kick. Haylom and Guillemot are no slouches either, with the former going 4:00 three times this indoor season and the latter dropping a 5:55 2K leg to bring France to relay silver at World XC.

Further down the top list for this year, you come to two more medal favorites who haven’t exactly been in time trial 1500m/mile races this year: American Nikki Hiltz and Australia’s Jess Hull. Hiltz is undefeated as they look to return to the World Indoor podium, having cleaned up at Millrose, Sound, and USAs across three different distances. They’ve long made a living off of tactical savviness and finishing speed, and this championship setting could provide an opportunity for Hiltz to climb to the top step of that podium. Hiltz got the better of Hull at Millrose, but the accomplished Aussie bounced back with the second-fastest indoor 2000m ever in Liévin.

Other notable entrants to keep an eye on include Gracie Morris in her Team USA track debut, two-time NCAA champ Wilma Nielsen of Oregon and Sweden, and Polish record holder Klaudia Kazimierska.

Men’s 3000 Meters

On paper, this event hasn’t been the flashiest this season. There’s only one guy on the startlists that dipped under 7:30 this year. But that’s why paper is stupid. Because this field absolutely rocks.

Josh Kerr of Great Britain and Team USA’s Yared Nuguse are back for a rerun of their epic 1-2 finish from Glasgow two Marches ago, and they’ll be joined by the gold and silver medalists from that year’s epic 1500m final in hard-closing Kiwi George Beamish and America’s most formidable middle distance star, Cole Hocker. All four men have added hardware to their trophy cases since those championships and all four come in with varying levels of success this indoor season.

Hocker beat Kerr and Beamish over two miles at Millrose, and after the second-fastest indoor mile ever at the Sound Invite and a thrilling 3000m victory at U.S. Indoors, he seemed to be unstoppable. A tactically weird 1500m U.S. final where he finished fifth put a bit of a damper on that air of invincibility, but that just ensures that the defending World 5000m champ will be fresh when he steps to the line.

Millrose has been the only race on Kerr’s calendar so far this year, which was also the case prior to World Indoors in 2024. He looked strong in his first race since pulling up with a calf injury in the 1500m final in Tokyo, but didn’t have the juice to hang with Hocker over the final 150m. With another six weeks of training under his belt, however, we could be looking at a different story.

Beamish has had to deal with a bout of mid-season illness, but regardless of that, his results haven’t exactly been in line with the other heavy hitters in the field. He took a solid fifth in the vaunted Millrose field, but fell to seventh at Sound against a less impressive lineup. Having snuck into this meet with the last available slot, it’s entirely possible that the reigning steeplechase World champ has put together a good enough month of training for his typical finish to be readily available when it matters most. This race has been won solidly in the 7:40s each of the last three years. While that’s not necessarily a jogfest on par with the Tokyo steeple final, it could be slow enough for the Kiwi’s kick to be a factor.

Nuguse, the sole member of this quartet to have raced the Wanamaker Mile at Millrose, has yet to win a race this indoor season, but that’s not necessarily cause for alarm. He was a well-beaten second in New York to Cam Myers (who is unfortunately absent from this meet) before finishing a closer runner-up to Nico Young over 3000m at Sound and an even closer runner-up to Hocker at USAs. Nuguse had a similar snafu as Hocker in the 1500m at U.S. Indoors, but we’ll repeat that the most important outcome of that is that he’ll be fresh for this race in Poland.

Outside of those four, deserving shoutouts have to be given to countrymen Yann Schrub and Azeddine Habz of France and Andrew Coscoran and Nick Griggs of Ireland. Schrub is the fastest man in the field this year at 7:29.38 in his only track race of the season. His impressive 2026 resume also features an 11th-place finish at World XC, where he was the top non-African, and a 26:43 road 10K, where he finished two seconds ahead of Andreas Almgren. Safe to say the 29-year-old (who turns 30 on Friday) is a big-time threat for his first global medal.

Women’s 60 Meter Hurdles

The top four entrants in this one are separated by just 0.01 seconds over the course of the season so far. Given that it’s the women’s hurdles, that is a fact that surprises absolutely nobody.

The world leader by the slimmest of margins is unsurprisingly the world record holder and defending two-time World Indoor champ, Devynne Charlton. The 30-year-old Bahamian is not quite in as good a spot as she was headed into Glasgow, a season that had already seen her break the world record and win eight of nine hurdles races, but she’s ahead of where she was headed to Nanjing. Her proven pedigree on this stage gives her the edge in her hunt to become the first to win three consecutive golds in the 60mH or 100mH, but the margins are so razor thin this season.

Switzerland’s Ditaji Kambundji, Dutchwoman Nadine Visser and Poland’s own Pia Skrzyszowska have all run 7.78 this year, but the hometown favorite Skrzyszowska is moving backwards recently. Her season’s best came in her opener, but she hasn’t dipped under 7.8 since then and false started in her most recent race. Kambundji, the World champion over 100mH in September, has gone 7.78, 7.80, and 7.82 in her last three finals, putting herself in good position to retain or improve upon her silver from this meet a year ago. In seven global hurdle finals, Visser’s only medal is a bronze from the 2018 edition of these championships. She took a win in the last “big” race before Worlds, running 7.81 to beat out Kambundji in Berlin two weeks ago and has got to be feeling good to get back on a podium after eight years.

Alia Armstrong heads to Toruń as the U.S. champ, having run 7.82 in Staten Island last month. Her whirlwind few weeks since securing her spot to Poland included almost losing said spot after testing positive for spironolactone, a banned substance that was in her hormonal acne medication for which she did not have a therapeutic use exemption. She seems to have been able to sort everything out, however, as she’s on the startlist for her second global championship and will be angling to improve upon her fourth-place finish from Worlds in 2022.

Men’s Pole Vault

It’s March, and there are already six men over six meters this season, and all five non-Belarusians over that barrier will share the runway in Poland. Soaring Swede Mondo Duplantis is still the king, clearing world record No. 15 at 6.31m at his eponymous meet in Uppsala over the weekend, but for the first time in a long time… he has a legitimate challenger. Greece’s Manolo Karalis has been nipping at his good friend’s heels for a few years, but it still would’ve taken a disaster day out of the eight-time global champion for anyone to unseat him. After Karalis cleared 6.17m at the Greek Championships, however, it opened the door to a place where all it would take is a not great day for him to have a puncher’s chance at taking Duplantis’s crown.

Norway’s Sondre Guttormsen got over the six-meter barrier for the first time in three years earlier this month with a 6.06m vault, putting him in a three-way tie for sixth in world history, and then followed that up with a 6.00m clearance at the Mondo Classic. The only men he’s lost to since January are the two best in the history of the discipline, so he’s got as good a chance as any to add his first global medal to a trophy case that boasts three NCAA titles.

U.S. champ Zach Bradford and Australia’s Kurtis Marschall have both entered the six-meter club this season. Bradford’s 6.01m clearance to win the U.S. title marked a 10cm PB, while Marschall’s 6.00m vault wiped off the books a three-year-old PB that he had matched twice since July 2023. Bradford has far less international experience than Marschall—a two-time World bronze medalist outdoors—but the 2018 World Junior silver medalist is carrying great momentum into his chase for his first senior medal.

Women’s Triple Jump

There was some strange anomaly the last two years where four consecutive global triple jump titles were handed out to women not named “Yulimar Rojas.” Well, the natural order of the universe looks to be righting itself this weekend, because the greatest triple jumper to ever live seems fully recovered from her torn Achilles in early 2024 and owns the world lead by 20cm with just one competition on the board this season. We can smell global title No. 9 on deck for the Venezuelan superstar.

Reigning World champ Leyanis Pérez Hernández of Cuba is the only other woman within sniffing distance of Rojas, with her season’s best of 14.75m coming from a competition in Moscow last month. Last year’s World Championships is the only meet where Pérez Hernández has beaten Rojas, and the circumstances required for that were Rojas’s first competition in two years after what could have been a career-altering injury. Thankfully, it wasn’t, and that means that despite the best efforts of the Cuban 24-year-old, this weekend is likely to be a re-coronation.

Dominica’s only ever Olympic champion Thea LaFond had a strong showing in her only comp of the indoor season, jumping 14.62m at Clemson, and rising Senegalese star Sally Sarr was second to Pérez Hernández in Moscow in an PB-equalling 14.55m. Three-time global long jump champion Ivana Španović of Serbia is on the startlist for her second championship meet since making the switch to triple jump, and she’ll be looking to do a little better than missing the finals like she did in Tokyo. The U.S.’s Olympic bronze medalist Jasmine Moore is also in the mix with her eyes on the third major medal of her career.

Women’s Shot Put

It might not be hyperbole to say we’ve saved the best for last, as every level of women’s shot put has been on fire this year.

Reigning World Outdoor champ Jessica Schilder is leading the way with her 20.69m bomb in Germany two weeks ago. The Dutchwoman is undefeated in 2026 and has already landed three of the five best marks of her career. She already has a World Indoor silver to her name from last March and bronze from 2022, and Schilder has thrown down the hammer this year to statistically make her the favorite to complete the set.

Chase Jackson of the U.S., Germany’s Yemi Ogunleye, and Canadian Sarah Mitton are separated by just 17cm in the thrower’s version of a chase pack. Both Jackson’s and Ogunleye’s season’s bests of 20.44m and 20.37m, respectively, came at their national championship meets. Mitton has been knocking on the door of getting back over 20m at each of her last three meets, but the defending two-time winner of this title’s best of 20.27m came back on Feb. 8. Each of these three women know what it’s like to win a global title, and you can guarantee that none of them will roll over and let Schilder walk out with gold easily.

NCAA champion and indoor record holder Axelina Johansson will be one of the strongest collegiate competitors in the entire meet. She opened her season back in December with a record-breaking heave of 19.72m and has backed that up with efforts of 19.47m and 19.55m to win the Big Ten and NCAA Indoor titles while representing Nebraska. She’s no stranger to the Swedish kit, making two global finals outdoors and finishing eighth at the 2024 World Indoor Championships. Her Swedish teammate Fanny Roos sits just behind her on the top list season with a best mark of 19.45m. The 31-year-old is returning to the meet that helped jumpstart the best season of her career last year with a fourth-place finish.

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.

By David Melly & Paul Hof-Mahoney

Buckle up: the most electrifying two-day meet in the world is coming up this weekend! After a few years on the East Coast, the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships return to Fayetteville, Arkansas, (and the Central time zone) for the 2026 edition. The best collegiate runners, jumpers, and throwers from around the country will bask in the benevolence of Big Chicken money as they flock to the Randal Tyson Track Center to fight for both team points and individual glory.

On the men’s side, it looks like the team battle is wide open. Defending champs USC has only four entrants, so they’re unlikely to pull it off again. Instead we’re likely to see a battle between a distance-heavy Oregon squad and a sprint-tilted Arkansas one. But neither team is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest, and a few surprises in the prelims could lead to Texas Tech or one of the SEC teams securing an upset. On the women’s side, the battle will be less “distance vs. sprints” and more “track vs. field,” as the Georgia Bulldogs look to dethrone #1 ranked Illinois, which has a whopping 14 qualifiers across the field events but zero on the track. Arkansas is probably the most balanced team on the women’s side, but if the BYU crew absolutely pops off, the Cougars could be a factor on distance scoring alone.

While the field events and multis kick off a bit earlier in the afternoon, the track action begins at 5pm Central Daylight Time on Friday, March 13th. On Saturday, the track finals kick off at 4pm CDT, and both days are available on ESPN+ (subscription required). You can find a full schedule, live results, and list of entries here.

Indoor NCAAs is full of ambitious doubles, tight turnarounds, and hefty team score swings within event groups. We’re breaking down all the action and key races to watch be event group below:

Women’s Sprints

After years of dominating on the high school and junior levels, Georgia freshman Adaejah Hodge finally takes center stage at the NCAA level. Hodge is the fourth fastest seed in the 60m, where she finished fourth at SECs, but she’s probably the favorite in the 200m, where she’s the fastest entrant and SEC champ. Her 22.32 season’s best is over 2/10ths of a second ahead of former champs Indya Mayberry of TCU and South Carolina’s JaMeesia Ford, the other two major contenders in the single-lapper.

Dajaz Defrand, the defending 60m champ for USC, unfortunately false started at Big Tens last weekend, so we won’t know for sure where she stacks up against SEC champ Alicia Burnett of Ole Miss or Tarleton State’s Victoria Cameron, the two fastest seeds, both at 7.08. Defrand’s Trojan teammate Madison Whyte has been a force in the 200m in past years, but this time around she’s opting to run only the 400m, where she’s the top seed and Big Ten champ. After years of dominance, Arkansas isn’t looking likely to run the table in the 400m for once, as LSU’s Ella Onojuvwevwo is the only entrant besides Whyte under 51 seconds. Look out for potential team title implications here for Georgia, with two entrants in the top five seeds.

In the 60m hurdles, Kentucky’s Emmi Scales hasn’t lost to another collegian all season, and leads all entrants at 7.83. Right behind her though, defending champ Jaiya Covington of Texas A&M and last year’s runner-up Aaliyah McCormick could easily challenge for the win as well.

Men’s Sprints

The men’s 60m dash should be a barn-burner and one of the best events of the whole weekend, with the top four entrants having run under 6.50 this season and only 0.04 seconds separating them. At SECs, Auburn’s Kanyinsola Ajayi equalled the NCAA record of 6.45, but on the same weekend at the other end of Texas, Malachi Snow of Texas Tech won Big 12s in 6.46. Snow is also one of the top contenders in the 60m hurdles, and should he pull off the double, that could really swing the team race for Texas Tech.

The high hurdles are also shaping up to be memorable, with Snow facing down Bradley Franklin, the NCAA leader for Samford at 7.41, and U.S. 110m hurdles champ Ja’Kobe Tharp, Ajayi’s Auburn teammate. Tharp is also the defending NCAA and SEC champ, so he’s probably the betting favorite.

There’s less 60m-200m overlap on the men’s side, where USC’s Garrett Kaalund gave the NCAA record a scare earlier this season with a 20.06 stunner at Big Tens. That was the fastest collegiate time in seven years, and he’s the fastest returner from both indoors and outdoors last year, so consider him your favorite. With Texas A&M’s Auhmad Robinson prioritizing just the 200m, the 400m is wide open. Georgia freshman Jonathan Simms leads all qualifiers at 44.62, but he ran that time way back in January and hasn’t won a race since, finishing third at SECs behind Alabama’s Samuel Ogazi and Arkansas’s Jordan Pierre. Ogazi is the defending outdoor champ, so he’s maybe a slight favorite there.

Women’s Distance

In the women’s distance events, all eyes are going to be on top dogs Jane Hedengren and Doris Lemngole as the BYU freshman and Alabama junior match back up for the first time since the Millrose Games. The NCAA XC 1-2 are both double entered in the 3000m and 5000m, and in both events, it would be a huge shock to see anyone else in the mix late. Lemngole took a surprise loss to West Virginia’s Ceili McCabe at last year’s 3000m, though, so anything can happen. And after a solo 15:02.52 victory at SECs, Arkansas’s Sydney Vaught follow-up performance in the 5000m will be hotly anticipated.

With the exception of a third-place run in the mile earlier this season, which isn’t exactly her wheelhouse, Lemngole hasn’t lost a distance race to NCAA competition since that 3000m last year. Make no mistake: as much as Hedengren is a generational talent, Lemngole remains the woman to beat until proven otherwise.

The mile will be a fascinating race, as five of the six fastest collegiate performers of all time are entered (and the sixth is Jane Hedengren). BYU’s Riley Chamberlain has shown tremendous championship chops in the past, most notably anchoring the Cougars to two NCAA titles in the DMR. Could this be her time to shine as an individual? She’ll have her work cut out for her in the form of a formidable Oregon duo, Silan Ayyildiz and Wilma Nielsen, as well as Oklahoma State’s Billah Jepkirui and NC State freshman Sadie Engelhardt.

2024 Olympian Juliette Whittaker will look for redemption after missing the 800m final entirely at last year’s indoor NCAAs, but with four other women entered with sub-two SBs, plus NCAA 1000m record holder Sophia Gorriaran of Harvard, it’ll be a tough fight. Earlier this season, Clemson’s Gladys Chepngetich became the first NCAA runner not named Athing Mu to break 1:59 indoors, but Whittaker took down Chepngetich at ACCs by a handy margin in a tactical race. Defending champ Makayla Paige of UNC only finished third in that race, but who knows what she has in store for Fayetteville.

Men’s Distance

One of the biggest surprises from last week’s entry list drop was somebody who wasn’t racing the 800m, NCAA record holder Colin Sahlman, who is sticking to the 3000m-DMR double for NAU. That’s great news for Penn State’s Handal Roban, the second-fastest collegian in history indoors, who enters as the only sub-1:45 seed ahead of Georgetown’s Tinoda Matsatsa (#2 at 1:45.12). Defending champ Matthew Erickson is back for the Oregon Ducks and will certainly be a threat in a tactical race, but the guy you shouldn’t sleep on is Texas A&M freshman Peter Narumbe, who’s only the tenth seed by time but hasn’t lost an 800m all season.

Another guy who’s opting to focus on one open event is Gary Martin. The Virginia senior is back to defend his team’s title in the DMR, but he’s opting to run the mile instead of the 3000m, where he finished second last year behind Ethan Strand. The mile is relatively open this year, so this could be his chance to finally pick up an individual title after years of All-American finishes.

Notable doublers include Virginia Tech’s George Couttie, entered in both the mile and 3000m, and two-time NCAA champ for New Mexico Habtom Samuel, who’s using his half marathon strength to take on the 3000m and 5000m. Villanova’s Marco Langon will have two different opportunities to dive at the line, as he’s also running both distance races. Talented BYU freshman Tayvon Kitchen is doubling 3000m/5000m just like his fellow Cougar freshman Jane Hedengren, although a pair of scoring finishes would probably be a more realistic goal for him.

Women’s Jumps

This event group will prove highly critical in Illinois’ team title ambitions, as they have eight jumpers entered, covering every event. Rose Yeboah and Sophia Beckmon claimed Big Ten titles in the high and long jumps two weeks ago, and a similar placement this weekend would go a long way for the Illini. Yeboah will duel Texas Tech’s Temitope Adeshina, the national leader in the high jump, while Beckmon holds a 16cm advantage over the field in the long jump.

Washington’s Hana Moll will be flying solo in Arkansas, as her sister and defending national indoor champ Amanda failed to qualify for Nationals in her only competition of the season. Moll’s 4.88-meter clearance from the UW Invite in late January paces the NCAA by 15cm, but the South Dakota duo of Marleen Mülla and Anna Willis will be ready to pounce should she falter.

Clemson’s Shantae Foreman is the only woman over 14m this season in the triple jump thanks to her 14.17-meter effort in January. She has looked slightly more human across her last two competitions, however, leaving the door open for somebody like Rūta Lasmane of Texas Tech or Nebraska’s Rhianna Phipps.

Men’s Jumps

While the most eye-catching aspect of this slate of events may be that Tennessee qualified five men in the pole vault, the most exciting competition is sure to be the long jump. Four men—Oklahoma’s Kennedy Stringfellow, Princeton’s Greg Foster, Ohio State’s DJ Fillmore, and Kelsey Daniel of Texas—have jumped 8.20m or better this year, shaping up for an epic clash if the quartet is in its best form.

Georgia’s Kimani Jack made an emphatic statement with his SEC title win in 2.28m, snatching the national lead two weeks before the season’s final meet. Two pairs of teammates sit just behind him at 2.25m: Kansas State’s Alan Hanna and Devin Loudermilk and Oklahoma’s Kyren Washington and Tyson Ritz. Despite sitting on the outside of the upper echelon of competitors, don’t overlook Arvesta Troupe, the reigning NCAA Outdoor champ for Ole Miss.

Women’s Throws

There is a breakaway quintet in the women’s weight throw this season. Minnesota’s Anthonett Nabwe, Texas’s Giavonna Meeks, Illinois’s Phethisang Makhethe and Jordan Koskondy, and Ole Miss’s Akoama Odeluge have combined for the 22 best marks in the NCAA this season. All five women met at the Tyson Invitational last month, with Nabwe coming out on top in the national-leading mark of 24.67m. However, Nabwe was runner-up at Big Tens to Makhethe and came up nearly a meter-and-a-half short of Meeks’s 24.44-meter toss to win the SEC title. If the Golden Gopher can exorcise her NCAA Indoor demons (11th while being seeded first in 2025, 16th as the fourth seed in 2024), she should hold the advantage in this one. It’s also worth noting that the defending champion, Wisconsin’s Taylor Kesner, is in the field once again after landing a PB by well over a meter to win last year.

The only thing in the way of a second-straight NCAA Indoor shot title for Nebraska’s Axelina Johansson is… essentially nothing. The Swede set the indoor collegiate record in December with a mammoth effort of 19.72m, which she backed up with a Big Ten title win at 19.47m, the fourth-best performance in collegiate history. Auburn’s Megan Hague has been making a strong run to give Johansson some competition though, bringing her PB from 17.72m to 18.89m in the span of a month. Also keep an eye out for Penn freshman Jessica Oji and Johansson’s teammate Miné de Klerk, the two best throwers in African history after going 18.50m and 18.48m, respectively, over conference weekend.

Men’s Throws

The title races in the men’s throwing events probably won’t be the most exciting storylines of the meet, but the battles behind the two favorites should provide some fireworks. Iowa’s Ryan Johnson and Ole Miss’s Tarik Robinson-O’Hagan each hold their respective national leads by over a meter, with Johnson breaking the 11-year-old collegiate record in the weight with a 25.66-meter heave at Big Tens.

The Hawkeye owns the 13 best throws in the nation this season, while Robinson-O’Hagan—the two-time defending indoor national champion in the shot put—has produced the 17 best throws in the country, highlighted by his PB of 21.18m from January.

Air Force’s Texas Tanner is the only other man over 24 meters in the weight this season, but he threw his 24.18-meter PB back in December. Since then, his best mark is a still-imposing-but-slightly-less-impressive 23.37m. There’s a bit of a logjam behind Tanner on the toplists, as Virginia’s Jeremiah Nubbe, Robinson-O’Hagan, and Kansas State’s Gary Moore are separated by just 26cm. Nubbe will be joined in Fayetteville by teammates Nikolaos Polychroniou and Keyandre Davis, both of whom have also cracked 23m this winter.

Five other men have joined Robinson-O’Hagan over the 20-meter line this season, with Florida’s Jarno van Daalen and Mississippi State’s Roury McCloyen breaking that barrier for the first time at SECs. Keep an eye on Quentin Peterson out of Gardner-Webb after the senior went 20.10m to win the Big South title, tacking well over a meter onto his PB with just one throw.

Women’s Relays

There’s a strong possibility that both 2025 champs double back in the relays, as Arkansas enters with the top time in the 4x400m and BYU tops all entrants in the DMR. With newly-minted NCAA record holder Riley Chamberlain on anchor, the Cougars likely expect to be in the driver’s seat once again, but Oregon’s 1-2 punch of Wilma Nielsen and Silan Ayyildiz could make a big difference if the pace is honest from the gun.

Arkansas is in a great spot to win its fourth 4x400m title in five years (which would be five had the Razorbacks not been DQed in 2024), but this may be their toughest challenge in recent memory as both South Carolina and Georgia field strong teams. Arkansas defended its home turf at SECs, but just 0.07 seconds separated the three teams in the end, so it wasn’t exactly a cakewalk. The Razorbacks may be slightly fresher than their rivals, but sometimes getting in a rhythm at NCAAs can be more beneficial than taking extra rest.

Men’s Relays

Unlike the women, a double-repeat is looking highly unlikely in the relays. 2025 4x400m champs Georgia are only the eighth seed and got beaten fairly decisively by Arkansas at SECs. South Carolina is the top entrant, but only finished fifth at SECs. If you’re tired of Southeastern sprint dominance, here’s some bad news: eight of the twelve entrants, and all five of the top seeds, come from the same conference.

The Hoos of Virginia have a better chance to defend in the DMR, thanks to the return of Gary Martin, but they’ll have an uphill battle as a number of teams have run out of their minds already this season. If Oregon can stay out of their own way, they could take the win with any combination of Elliott Cook, Simeon Birnbaum, Thomas Palfrey, and Matthew Erickson. If you’re inclined to bet on fresh legs, however, #1 seed Michigan may be your horse as they only have one entrant in an open event, Trent McFarland, although he’ll likely be running the anchor a few hours after the mile prelim.

Thanks to the Ducks and the Hogs, among others, the relays could have big team-title implications. As it so often does with NCAAs, the winner could be decided on the final leg of the final event of the final day—what’s better than that?

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the show! You can follow along with all the action across the CITIUS MAG social channels by following us on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, and YouTube.

The USATF Indoor Championships head to Ocean Breeze on Staten Island this weekend.

The top two finishers in each event who meet the qualifying criteria—either through their world rankings or by hitting the standard—earn their tickets to Toruń, Poland, where the World Indoor Championships will take place March 20–22.

When: Saturday, February 28 – Sunday, March 1

Where: Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex, Staten Island, N.Y.

How to watch: Saturday’s events will all be streamed on USATF.TV—you’ll need a $12.99/month subscription. Sunday’s marquee events will air live on NBC & Peacock (1–3 p.m. ET). Anything before the TV window will be on USATF.TV.

Live results: You’ll be able to find entries, a schedule and live results here.

Tickets: If you’re in the NYC area and are planning to buy tickets, go to USATF.org/tickets and use promo code CITIUS10 to save.

On the latest episode of the CITIUS MAG Podcast, we discussed all of the events taking place this weekend. You can listen to our full preview, which is available to stream, download and listen to on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows.

Below are some of the events that we are most excited for:

Women’s 3,000 Meters — Saturday, 1:44 p.m. ET

Elle St. Pierre is the clear, unanimous favorite here. The 2024 world champion is back on the track less than a year after giving birth to her second child, and she has looked every bit like the athlete who won gold in Nanjing. She’s already two-for-two in her two races: the 3000m at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in 8:26.54 and the mile at BU Valentine in 4:17.83. Elise Cranny—who will be racing in the U.S. for the first time since relocating to Manchester, England, to train with the M11 Track Club under coaches Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows—is the next-fastest runner with an 8:37.06 season’s best from the Karlsruhe meet in Germany earlier this month.

Emily Mackay, St. Pierre’s former training partner and a semifinalist in the 1500m at last year’s World Championships in Tokyo, should also be also in the mix after winning the mile at the ASICS Sound Invite in a personal best of 4:22.43.

Mac Fleet: “Elle is kind of on a tear. When she won her gold medal indoors, she was just 11 months after giving birth to her son. We’re on that same timeline. I think it’s going to be a slow wind-up, and that benefits both MacKay and Cranny. They may not have the same strength as Elle but the closing speed is there.”

Kyle Merber: “Having Elise in this race keeps it honest because she’s got great speed.”

A dark horse contender could be Lexi Halladay-Lowry, who, if you strip away the NCAA athletes and international stars at the Millrose Games 3000m, was the top American professional in 8:38.78.

St. Pierre, Cranny and Mackay are all also entered in the 1500m.

Men’s 3,000 Meters — Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET

No matter how this one plays out, at least one legitimate global medal contender will be left at home. Only two of the following stars will get to represent the United States in Poland: Cole Hocker, Yared Nuguse, Nico Young, Ethan Strand, and Cooper Teare.

Hocker is the best distance runner in the world right now, as showcased by his recent 3:45.94 mile American record and a 2-mile win over a stacked field at the Millrose Games. The real battle ought to be for that second spot. Young appears to have the slightest of edges, having beaten Nuguse over this distance at the Sound Invite, 7:33.32 to 7:33.78.

Mac Fleet: “It’s not necessarily Nico vs. Cole so much as it’s Nico trying to race Yared for that second spot. Because trying to beat Cole could actually leave Nico off the team entirely. Do you risk going for the win and missing it?”

Kyle Merber: “You can’t let Cole control it. We’ve seen how he wins championships. He runs at exactly his pace and everyone lets him. If I’m Nico, I’m going to try to wind up from further out, be difficult to pass and use those turns. If you’re Nico, you want a lot of bodies there.”

Strand boldly tried to hang with Hocker and Josh Kerr at the Millrose Games and faded badly to 11th place in 8:15.93 over two miles. Fe followed that up with a more Strand-like performance, a third place finish in 7:35.29 at the Sound Invite behind Young and Nuguse.

The men’s 3000m/2-Mile at the U.S. Indoor Championships has been entertaining in the past when team tactics get involved. In 2014, a physical men’s 3000m between the Bowerman Track Club and Galen Rupp led to controversial DQs and tempers flaring between coaches. In 2019, Drew Hunter claimed the national title out of the “slow” heat after the top section ran six seconds slower than the time his Tinman Elite teammates paced him to earlier in the day.

Preet Majithia: “I do wonder whether someone like Drew Bosley might be given some sort of task of taking the race out the way Nico and Ethan want it.”

Kyle Merber: “This is Swoosh TC’s opportunity to start branding themselves as the most creative, reckless team on the market. I want to see a real team.”

One other name to keep an eye on: Matt Wilkinson. Kyle proposed a live over/under of 4.5 laps led by Wilkinson. Make of that what you will.

Women’s 800 Meters — Sunday (Heats Saturday, Final Sunday)

The women’s 800 is stacked, and might just wind up the most chaotic event of the weekend. Four heats precede the final, and the path to Sunday matters as much as what happens in the race itself. Only the winner of each heat is guaranteed through, which means sub-2:00 performances may not be enough.

Sage Hurta-Klecker is the favorite coming out of the Sound Invite, where she looked sharp and won in 1:58.78. She had a fantastic outdoor season that was highlighted by her fifth-place finish at the World Championships, and is a proven indoor racer.

But Meghan Hunter has also been impressive. She ran a controlled 1:59.74 at BU Valentine and won at the Dr. Sander meet at the Armory in a personal best of 1:59.70.

Kyle Merber: “I think Hunter has just sent it in races and done really well. She’s tough to get around when she can control it from the front. I think it’s her time to really get introduced to the international stage.”

Don’t forget about Heather MacLean—who is also entered in the 1500m and is coming off a 1:59.59 personal best in Boston last weekend—or Valery Tobias, who finished second at the U.S. Championships last year to make her first team, and could be a sneaky wild card pick again. Tobias quietly ran a 1:24.71 600m personal best in Albuquerque on the same weekend as the Millrose Games, and was third at the Sound Invite in a personal best of 1:59.30.

Mac Fleet: “Maybe I was just swayed by the last piece of content I consumed, but it was Tobias sprinting in one of her workouts. The Brooks team doesn’t race that often, but generally when they race, they’re fit.”

Men’s 800 Meters — Sunday, 1:49 p.m. ET

Americans have won the last two World Indoor titles at 800 meters with Bryce Hoppel claiming gold in 2024 and then Josh Hoey’s tear in 2025. Neither is competing this weekend. Neither is reigning U.S. outdoor champion Donovan Brazier.

This title is ripe for the taking by 17-year-old Cooper Lutkenhaus, who has been one of the brightest stars of the entire indoor season. He’s three-for-three to start his pro career and set world U20 records in both the 600 (1:14.15) and 800 (1:44.03). His season’s best is 1.59 seconds faster than anyone else in the field. He’s a heavy, heavy favorite.

The question isn’t really whether Cooper wins. It’s what happens behind him.

Kyle Merber: “Cooper’s going to go out in 50-point, run 1:42, and then everyone else is going to have a tactical race and maybe some dude you’ve never heard of from a track club in New Jersey is going to make this team.”

Mac Fleet: “He’s just fitter than everyone else in the U.S. right now. He’ll go out, do his thing, and not think about anything going on behind him.”

Only Lutkenhaus and Isaiah Harris of the Brooks Beasts are currently qualified for the World Indoor Championships. The rest of the field would have to run sub-1:45.9 and finish in the top two to make the team.

Harris has qualified for World Indoor teams before and brings more experience to the starting line than anyone else. Isaiah Jewett could also be in the mix. But as Kyle said, that the second spot could just as likely go to someone unexpected like former NCAA champion Shane Cohen.

Women’s 1,500 Meters — Sunday, 2:23 p.m. ET

Take the top end of the 3000m field, add the reigning U.S. champion, and you get the most loaded women’s race of the weekend. Nikki Hiltz could be tabbed as the favorite since they are undefeated in 2026, winning the Wanamaker Mile and the Sound Invite 3000m decisively. You’d have to go back to summer 2022 for someone other than Hiltz to have won a U.S. 1500m title.

But now, factor in the return of St. Pierre.

Kyle Merber: “I would say nine people coming into this race think they can make this team… This is the race most likely to have an extremely salty post-race interview.”

Mac Fleet: “I think if Elle makes the 3000m team, she sends this race and makes it really, really hard early on. Nikki’s going to sit and Nikki’s shown this year that they can pull from further out.”

Sinclaire Johnson cannot be ignored. The outdoor mile American record holder made this team last year and ran an indoor 1500m personal best of 4:01.30 when she battled World Championship silver medalist Dorcus Ewoi to the finish at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix last month.

Gracie Morris, who claimed the U.S. 2K cross country title in December, has also been on an upswing, having run 4:02.12 1500m and 2:00.92 800m personal bests this indoor season.

Men’s 1,500 Meters — Sunday, 2:32 p.m. ET

Hocker will return for his second event of the weekend and is looking to replicate his golden double from the 2022 U.S. Indoor Championships in Spokane, Washington.

Kyle Merber: “I don’t think anyone in the world can beat Cole Hocker at anything right now.”

The field is deep, though. Nuguse is also entered, making this a potential rematch of their 3000m battle the day before. Wes Porter, Gary Martin’s teammate at Virginia, is a sleeper pick, along with 2x 1500m NCAA champion Nathan Green, who ran 3:50.31 at the Dempsey earlier this month.

A total of eight men in this race are already eligible to compete at World Indoors.

Preet Majithia: “There’s no incentive for anyone to make this race quick. And if they don’t make it quick, the guys who still need to qualify, like Nathan Green or Luke Houser, may not get the time they need.”

The meet record is 3:37.51, set by Hocker in 2024. The World Indoor standard is 3:36.00

Mac Fleet: “That is wildly shocking. That has to be the worst meet record.”

Kyle Merber: “That’s atrocious—and that’s coming from a Mac Fleet, a 3:38 guy.”

Men’s 60 Meters — Sunday, 2:52 p.m. ET

The meet closes with Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles taking on NCAA 100m champion and training partner Jordan Anthony. Lyles has been leaning into the WWE theatrics this indoor season and trying to make a Pure Athletics belt a thing. He hoisted it after his 200m victory at the Tyson Invitational in Arkansas and has attempted to make wrestling-style promos ahead of USAs.

Mac Fleet: “I appreciate what he’s trying to do—genuinely, because I wish more athletes were doing more public bits like this. But it takes a village for everyone to be in on it. When the rest of the sport isn’t in on the bit, it doesn’t work.”

Kyle Merber: “In theory, people hating it is good for engagement. It’s almost like if it was good, it wouldn’t garner as much interest.”

As for the actual race, that should be good. Anthony ran 6.43 in Arkansas to tie Lyles’ personal best. The difference is that Anthony ran his at sea level, whereas Lyles ran his in Albuquerque at altitude, where sprinters actually tend to run faster. As we noted in our podcast following the 6.43, don’t be surprised when Anthony pops off as one of America’s best in the 100m come this outdoor season.

Lyles has yet to run a 60m this season. But he has posted season’s bests of 20.56 for 200m and 32.15 for 300m to demonstrate current sharpness, and ran 6.52 last year. Lyles previously said that he has no plans of competing at World Indoors, since he is getting married in April.

We’re not quite sure how the belt trading works if Trayvon Bromell steals the show and takes the win. Bromell is looking to return to the World Indoor Championships for the first time since his gold medal in 2016.

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.

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By Preet Majithia

World Athletics has amended the world rankings system, going into effect January 1st, 2026. This is important stuff for athletes, coaches, agents, and particularly nerdy fans to understand. However, to understand the changes, you need to understand how world rankings work.

Why should we care about world rankings?

You may be asking why you should even care about the world rankings. If you were to look at the top-ranked athletes in some events, they would not always be the person who won the last global championship, or who had the fastest, furthest, or highest performance in their event in the last year.

Although not perfect, world rankings are intended to be a representation of athlete consistency, placing particular emphasis on performance at big meets for their event.

However, there are a few key areas where the world rankings are important:

1. They are often taken into consideration in whether athletes get invited to meets on the circuit. For those on the bubble, world ranking can determine whether they get into Diamond League races, and whether they may get an appearance fee or get travel and accommodation paid for.

2. For qualification to World Championships and Olympics, World Athletics has stated that they would like to see only 50% of the athletes qualify by entry standard and 50% by world ranking. This is less relevant for 2026 with no full-scale global championship on the calendar

3. They may factor into qualification for continental and other championships such as the European Championships and Commonwealth Games.

4. Rankings will factor into fields for the World Ultimate Championships in September 2026.

5. As a general metric for an athlete’s value relative to the rest of the market, brands may consider it when trying to decide whether to sponsor athletes.

For World Indoors, the rankings are less relevant in most events, given the abbreviated indoor season. World Athletics has adopted a slightly different qualifying system for World Indoors.

How do world rankings work?

To obtain a world ranking, an athlete has to compete in a certain number of competitions (for most events that’s five; it’s three for the 5000m and two for the 10,000m, marathon and multi-events).

For each competition, the time or mark is converted using the scoring tables. This provides a results score, which is intended to reflect the quality of the performance. The faster the time or the better the mark, the better the results score. In certain events (100m, 200m, 100mH, 110mH long jump and triple jump) there can also be a wind adjustment.

In addition, the athlete can be given a placing score for the position they achieve in the competition. A higher weighting is given to performances based on the significance of the competition. The most significant competitions are World Championships and Olympic Games, while the most important regular season meets are on the Diamond League circuit. The most significant marathons are the World Marathon Majors.

The performance score is the number that is then included in an athlete’s world ranking calculation.

Performance Score = Result Score + Placing Score

This means that, for example, a slower time to win a Diamond League meeting will give more points than a faster time run at a low-key meet. It is intended to reflect the (generally) higher quality of the competition that an athlete beats, and also to somewhat account for the conditions on a given day at any higher category meets.

Each athlete is then given a Ranking Score which is calculated as the average of the five, three, or two performance scores, depending on the event.

Performances from ‘similar events’ can be included, but at least three of the five performances (or two out of three in the 5000m) need to be from the athlete’s main event. For example, an athlete’s 100m ranking needs to have at least three 100m performances, but then can also include two 60m performances.

The ranking period for the world rankings found here on the World Athletics website is the last twelve months. However, the world rankings that are relevant for a different competition may be over a different period. For example, for the European Championships, the ranking period is from July 27th, 2026, to July 26th, 2027, and you would need to access the relevant ‘Road To’ online tool to see the correct world ranking information.

Placing scores and the 2026 changes

The key change to the ranking system for 2026 is that World Athletics has implemented a reduction in the placing scores for each category of event.

As an example: The new placing points tables reduce a win at a meet like the Diamond League (GW category) from 200 placing points to 140 placing points.

Another change is that placing points go deeper in racers for the higher category meets, so coming in 10th place in a Diamond League 1500 gives you the same points as winning a 1500m at a Category C meet (such as a Continental Tour Bronze meet).

An example of the impact of these changes is that at the end of 2025, the No. 1-ranked 1500m runner in the world was Nelly Chepchirchir, who had three Diamond League wins, including the Diamond League Final. No. 2 was Jess Hull, who had on average run faster times.

Nelly’s average result score was 1,229.6, which equates to a 1500m time of 3:57ish on the scoring tables. Under the old scoring system, she had 1,060 placing points and a combined average performance score of 1,431 points. Under the new scoring system, she had 710 placing points, and her blended performance score is therefore 1,372 points.

Jess’s average results score was 1,239.8, which equates to a 1500m time of 3:55.9ish on the scoring tables. She had a total of 950 placing points across her five performances, resulting in a combined average performance score of 1,429, just below Nelly’s score of 1,431. Under the new system, she gets 674 placing points, so her average performance score increases to 1,374 points overall and she overtakes Nelly. It is also worth noting that she did not win any of the five races from which these performances were taken to give her the world ranking. However, she becomes the No. 1-ranked 1500m runner by virtue of running fast at big meets and coming second or third each time.

Winners and Losers

Although it remains to be seen what the exact impact of these changes will be, it’s likely to incentivize athletes to focus on posting fast times or stronger marks in conducive conditions, rather than focusing on the biggest meets with tougher competition.

Big Winners:

• The Boston University indoor track, as well as “Throw Town,” a.k.a. Ramona, Oklahoma will likely be more popular than ever!

• Americans—The U.S. has only one Diamond League and only a couple of gold-level (Category A) meets, which means many U.S.-based athletes typically head to Europe in the summer for higher-ranking meets. So this could reduce the incentive for Americans to go race their best competition on the European circuit.

• Pace lights—these guys are here to stay!

Big Losers:

• Head-to-head competition—there’s less incentive for top athletes to make the trek to the Diamond League and race their biggest competition. The circuit may see a reduction in depth if the travel isn’t worth it for everyone.

• The early season Diamond Leagues—historically, there were many athletes who would travel out to China, Doha, and Rabat to participate in these early season Diamond Leagues where weaker fields meant more points were up for grabs. Could these changes reduce the incentives for both European and U.S. athletes to deal with the long travel to compete at these meets?

Let’s wait and see what these changes bring to the big European meets. Will fewer U.S. and international athletes choose to hit the European circuit? The likelihood is it will still be the place to chase fast times in the Summer. In sprints, the fastest times tend to come with better competition. In the distance races, they need to be well set up with good pacing and a strong enough field to hang with the pace once the rabbits drop out. Not to mention that in the summer, conditions become mighty unfavorable for fast distance running across the majority of the U.S.

Quick Takes On The Changes

You can listen to our full discussion on these changes toward the end of our This Week In Track and Field podcast episode. (Discussion starts at the 1:07:23 mark)

Kyle Merber: To sparknotes the change: World Athletics has decided that how fast you run should be weighted more heavily than how competitive the field you beat was—compared to how it used to be. In my opinion, that’s the opposite of what we should be trying to do. Now it’s basically saying, “Why would you even bother going to a Diamond League and racing the best athletes in the world, when you could just run as fast as possible in a time trial at BU?”

Historically, rankings rewarded athletes for going to the biggest meets with the toughest competition to earn that place score. Now that factor isn’t valued as much. We’re essentially saying, “Just go run fast. It doesn’t matter where.” And I don’t love that.

Even though this helps Team USA, I don’t love the system. Just because we’re from America doesn’t mean we don’t want to see American athletes go overseas and compete against the best. I’d actually argue the opposite. As noted in the USATF article, like, 80% of U.S. athletes saw their rankings improve because of this change. But what we really want is to force U.S. athletes to go wherever the best competition is and race them. Now it’s flipped.

There’s no perfect way to do it, but ideally, you’d factor in the rankings of everyone an athlete beats and let that influence the place score. So even if it’s at BU, if you beat ten guys who are ranked in the top 20, that should matter in how much you’re rewarded. But there’s no clean way to do that. So instead, it becomes, “Which meets offer the biggest prize money?” and we just assume those are the most competitive.

Preet Majithia: I think the reason World Athletics made this change is that the old system was skewing the results too much. You ended up with some slightly strange outcomes in the rankings. For example, last year Melissa Jefferson-Wooden was not ranked as the world’s top 200-meter runner… Brittany Brown was, largely because she had won a few Diamond League races.

That illustrates the core issue. Ultimately, when you look at the top of the rankings, you expect the athletes who have run the fastest times to be the best athletes. Most of the time, that’s true. There are exceptions (last year with Azeddine Habz, for instance) but in the vast majority of events, the athletes who run the quickest, throw the farthest, or jump the highest are generally the ones who should be ranked highest.

If an athlete has done that consistently across five meets, that’s arguably more representative than someone who cleans up ranking points at a handful of Diamond League meets, particularly when those meets are in regions where many of the top athletes in that event haven’t shown up. At that point, it becomes a bit of “playing the game,” and I think this change is an attempt to reduce that.

I can understand the rationale, and in some ways it does make sense. For example, if you’re a local athlete who gets a host-nation entry into a Diamond League, you can pick up significant ranking points simply by being there. That can boost your chances of qualifying for major championships over another athlete who may be equally (or even more) talented, but hasn’t had access to those same high-level meets.

So there is logic behind the adjustment. The weighting may simply have been too skewed before. That said, it’s hard to know whether the recalibration has landed in the right place, because there’s still a real risk that fast times get incentivized too heavily. BU being the obvious example.

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