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In Racing, Does Form Follow Function? ⏱️
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Lap 203: Sponsored by PUMA
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Compiled by David Melly, Paul Snyder, and Paul Hof-Mahoney
How The Structure Of The Sport Shapes Its Rivalries 🔧

Photos by Kevin Morris / @kevmofoto
The more things change; the more they stay the same.
For the first time in 2025 and possibly the forty-fifth time in the last few years, reigning World 1500m champion Josh Kerr and reigning Olympic 5000m champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen are chirping at each other in the media. This round of trash-talking was started by Kerr—one of the biggest names signed to the Grand Slam Track league—when on the CITIUS MAG podcast he mused about Ingebrigtsen and the GST format:
“I think it’s smart that he didn’t sign up, to be honest… in any non-paced race in the last few years, he hasn’t won. And so if you’re gonna throw him in a lot of non-paced races, it’ll seem silly and it’s going to expose most of his tactical stuff. If he was in the 800/1500 group, watching him run the 800 would be like a deer on ice.”

Ingebrigtsen had a terse, but telling, response locked and loaded when asked by a Norwegian publication about Kerr’s comments:
“The day he contributes to world record racing, I'll take him seriously. But only then.”
Two of the most decorated middle distance runners of the decade reigniting their rivalry in the media is nothing new. These two clearly haven’t made “burying the hatchet” a New Year’s resolution, and Kerr persevering in two of their three matchups in 2024 has only deepened their on-track animosity (Ingebrigtsen maintains the lifetime edge at 9-3 over the mile and 1500m distances). But embedded in their chippy back-and-forth is a critical truth about track and field: legacy and rivalry both are dramatically shaped by the competition format.
With this latest round of barbs, Kerr and Ingebrigtsen aren’t in conversation with one another, literally or metaphorically. They’re really talking about the nature of racing itself. Kerr’s argument is that Jakob needs to hide behind the comfort of Diamond League pacing to win, and so the championship-style racing of GST would not play to his strengths. Jakob is arguing that being the best means running the fastest: full stop. And with three world records (at 2000m, 3000m, and 2 miles) under his belt, he’s already put his legs to work in making his case as the best middle-distance runner in the world.
Anyone who follows the sport more than one weekend a year knows that “who is the best miler in the world?” doesn’t have an obvious answer. An Olympic-centric winner-takes-all perspective would suggest that Cole Hocker was the best 1500m runner in the world in 2024. But Hocker raced four DL races last year and didn’t win a single one, including two head-to-head losses to Ingebrigtsen. Jakob was the fastest 1500m runner in the world in 2024, but finished fourth in Paris. And Kerr picked up a silver medal and a few big wins but didn’t have a signature performance.
Michael Johnson and GST are betting that they have a new way of answering the “who’s the best” question: take out the Diamond League pacers, put a lot of money on the line, and make everyone race a lot across multiple distances. Should this new league become the premier format for elite track and field, a runner like Jakob may not seem quite as “great” as he does on the Diamond League circuit. That’s the sort of reputational shift that can happen when the criteria for success faces an overhaul, even if the major players and the tools at their disposal remain unchanged.
In a hypothetical world where GST features a 1500m/5000m event group, the 3:26 guy who’s won the last three global titles over 5000m is probably going to thrive, pacers or no. But Jakob’s riding a string of global championship 1500m disappointment, hasn’t raced an 800m in over two years, and only boasts a 1:46.44 PB from back in 2020. That PB is certainly ripe for the rewriting, but Ingebrigtsen hasn’t exactly become known for venturing outside his comfort zone.
And so, we’re talking just a little bit less about what it might take for Ingebrigtsen to take down the likes of Hocker, Kerr, and Yared Nuguse, and instead are being treated to our first round of contentious “Marco Arop versus Nuguse” discourse. That certainly wasn’t exactly a talking point on anyone’s radar until a few months ago. And 800m runners aren’t a monolith unto themselves – a guy like Arop who’s comfortable running a strong 1000m is a much better fit for GST than a 400m/800m specialist who can barely hang on to the final steps of his second lap.
Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen are both pulling at threads from different directions that, if extended further, could unravel the fabric of how greatness is defined in the sport. One of the highest bars that GST is attempting to clear is fundamentally changing the way we think about success, and clearly Kerr is all-in on the notion that GST’s new perspective will beef up his legacy.
It’s safe to say that, regardless of how and where either man toes the starting line, their love-hate relationship (or maybe just “hate-hate” relationship) will still be front and center in their comments and coverage. But who comes out on top in this feud will depend not just on performance but circumstance, public perception, and the evolving culture of track and field itself.
Mykolas Alekna May Become The Best Collegiate Athlete To Not Win The Bowerman 🏆

Photo by Kevin Morris / @kevmofoto
When the men’s preseason watchlist for The Bowerman was released last Thursday, one thing stood out immediately: there were three throwers on the list. That’s major for an event group that has never won the highest honor in collegiate track and field (despite his throwing prowess, Leo Neugebauer doesn’t really count). If there’s a year that all changes though, it might just be in 2025, because the NCAA hasn’t seen a thrower quite like Mykolas Alekna since The Bowerman was first awarded in 2009.
Alekna’s freshman and sophomore years at Cal were legendary—he recorded 12 of the 15 best throws in collegiate history—but somewhat incomplete. He finished second and third at NCAAs in 2022 and 2023, respectively. He opted to redshirt last year, and he made the most of it. His worst performance of the year still produced a mark that only two other collegians have ever managed to better, and he also broke the 37-year-old world record by nearly a full foot.
It’s one of this sport’s most insane stats that Alekna has picked up the WR alongside three global and two European medals before winning his first NCAA title. But the odds suggest he’s more than likely to finally add one to his mantle now that he’s proven his worst day can still be better than basically anyone else in college history. And if he can take home that title—or even reset his own world record—it will be fascinating to see how The Bowerman voters handle his case.
Of the 30 winners in the history of The Bowerman, Sha’Carri Richardson in 2019 is the only athlete to take home the award having won only one national title, but she also had the benefit of runner-up finishes in the 200m and 4x100m, and toppled a 30-year-old collegiate record in the sport’s premier event. More than anything, Bowerman voters seem to prioritize racking up big points at national championships, and therefore makes it absurdly difficult for single-event superstars like Alekna to get the recognition they deserve. Now imagine you’re in an event without an indoor equivalent such as discus or javelin!
So this begs the question: what would Alekna need to do to become the first thrower and the first single-event specialist to win The Bowerman? Winning the NCAA title is an obvious one to knock off the list, but even if he does, his big weakness might be his prior greatness. If he hadn’t already shattered the collegiate record several times over and scattered his name across the all-time lists, he’d be seen as barrier-breaking—not just Mykolas being Mykolas. Instead, he’ll probably put together the greatest discus season in NCAA history and it’ll be received as old news… because a world record holder is supposed to be that much better than everyone else.
There are parallels between the “Mykolas Alekna for The Bowerman” conversation and other big awards on the pro level. Alekna is basically the NCAA version of 2024 Mondo Duplantis, who won everything there was to win and broke his own world record three times. Duplantis was as dominant as an athlete could possibly be, yet lost Athlete of the Year to Letsile Tebogo, who had a more diverse portfolio of achievements that included Olympic 200m gold, 4x400m silver, and a world best in the 300m.
How are we supposed to compare a sprinter that could race in five or more NCAA finals or a distance runner with three championships to contest to a thrower who only competes in one? How do you weigh total bodies of work when there’s so much variance from event group to event group? World Athletics’s solution is to hand out a bunch of secondary awards alongside Athlete of the Year, but that’s still only partially solving the problem.
Awarding a Bowerman for track and a Bowerman for field is an option, but it’ll only reinforce the idea that there’s the “real Bowerman” and the “field Bowerman.” Instead, the USTFCCCA should keep The Bowerman available to all events, and introduce two new awards: one recognizing the team MVP—the athlete who accrues the most points at national championships throughout the year—and one honoring the single greatest performance.
The championship award (call it The Cheserek or The Holloway?) could still include some subjectivity, giving different weight for individual versus relay points or truly audacious event schedules. The performance award (The Ross? The Mu?) would allow for single-event specialists to have their moment.
And ultimately, having more wealth to spread could help selectors look beyond sheer number of collegiate titles or All-American appearances from being a determining factor in The Bowerman. It wouldn’t lead to a redefining of greatness overnight, but it would help honor a wider range of excellence. And in those unique years where we have an athlete that has a season Mykolas Alekna to have in 2025, they’re not almost immediately ruled out of true contention by nature of the event they compete in.
Six Questions Raised By The Announcement Of The 2025 Boston Field 🌷

Photo by Kevin Morris / @kevmofoto
psst Wake up, babe! The 2025 Boston Marathon field just dropped.
On first glance, this year’s race cooks up the usual recipe of returning champions, big international names, and American fan favorites that thousands of fans lining the course from Hopkinton to Back Bay will loudly cheer on this coming April. The elite field features defending champions Hellen Obiri and Sisay Lemma alongside four other former champions, with five entrants who’ve run under 2:04 on the men’s side and seven who’ve run under 2:20 on the women’s.
But beyond the starry headlines, last week’s announcement raises a lot of questions about the state of the marathon in 2025 as a new Olympic cycle gets underway. Rising stars no longer get to coast by on a signature performance; they have to cement their legacies with consistency. Longtime veterans have to decide (or let Father Time decide for them) whether continuing to compete will be a glorified victory lap or a serious endeavor. And young talents moving up in distance have to prove they belong.
There will be much more to say about this race and the other spring World Marathon Majors over the next few months, but here’s a few gut-reaction thoughts on the field as it was rolled out:
Can Hellen Obiri hang on for three in a row?
Over the last two years, Hellen Obiri has successfully transitioned from being one of the best distance runners in the world on the track, to one of the best distance runners in the world on the roads. And she’s done it faster and more smoothly than almost anyone in history. That might seem like a no-brainer of a career progression, but when you look at the mixed results that some of her contemporaries like Genzebe Dibaba or Almaz Ayana have put together in the same time period, it’s far from a given. For runners like Obiri, at a certain point, your biggest challenge isn’t the competition; it’s meeting the astronomically high standards you’ve set for yourself. As Obiri attempts to become the fifth woman ever (and first in 25 years) to win three straight Boston titles, she can really only perform as expected or underachieve. A strong field of competitors, including the last two runners-up in Amane Beriso and Sharon Lokedi, will give her a good challenge, but at this point in her career, “Hellen being Hellen” will likely end in victory.
Will Evans Chebet return to his 2022 peak?
After an injury during the fall 2023 racing season knocked Evans Chebet out of contention for the Kenyan Olympic team, he spent much of last year trying to prove that rumors of his demise were greatly exaggerated. With two podium finishes in both Boston and New York, it’s clear that Chebet can still hang with the best of ‘em, but he’s not quite the unbeatable marathoning monster he was in 2022. Chebet is trending the right direction—third in Boston, second in NYC, leaving only one more place to upgrade—but he’ll need to stay healthy and keep rebuilding to get back on top.

Photo by Kevin Morris / @kevmofoto
What does 2025 hold for Emma Bates?
2024 was something of a year to forget for Emma Bates. First, the Colorado-based marathoner missed the Olympic Trials after tearing her plantar fascia the year prior, then a pair of World Marathon Major appearances led to only so-so results (at least by Bates’s high standards of frequent top-10 finishes), with a 12th place run in Boston last spring and 11th place in Chicago in the fall. But Bates’s 2:22:10 PB from Boston ‘23 still feels soft when considering her strong competitive resume, and at 32 years old, it’s very possible that her best years of marathoning are still ahead.
Will Clayton Young turn the tables on Conner Mantz?
Clayton Young and Conner Mantz are fellow U.S. Olympians, training partners, and friends—but they’re also competitors and rivals. And surely Young, ironically the elder Utahn, wants his moment in the spotlight. In five head-to-head matchups over 26.2 miles, Mantz is 5-0, but they’ve been separated by only one place each of the last four times out, with an average gap of 14 seconds between them. Does Mantz have Young’s number from now until the end of time, or will Young’s Boston debut also be his long-awaited moment of glory as top American in the field?
Is Jackie Gaughan or Jess McClain the next big thing?
Somewhere along the way in 2024, you probably learned (or re-learned) the name Jess McClain. The Brooks athlete notched two fourth-place Olympic Trials finishes a few months apart in the marathon and 10,000m, then returned to the roads in the fall to finish eighth in New York. In just two years of marathoning, the 32-year-old has progressed from 2:33 to 2:25, and it feels like this is just the beginning of an all-time great second act for the former Stanford All-American. And after CIM a few weeks ago, you likely became acquainted with the name Jackie Gaughan, the 25-year-old who popped off with a big 1:14-1:10 negative split to finish second in 2:24:40 in her third marathon of the year (fourth overall). These two may be relative newbies on the WMM scene, but they could make a big splash heading into the next Olympic cycle with a personal best and/or top American finish in Boston.
How does the “Battle of the Masters” shake out?
The women’s field in Boston contains a lot of familiar names… in part because no one seems to retire in their 30s anymore! The battle for top master’s finisher includes Sara Hall (41), Keira D’Amato (40), Steph Bruce (40), Des Linden (41), and the grande dame of them all, last year’s third-placer Edna Kiplagat (45). It’s hard to bet against Kiplagat on this course, as she’s finished in the top four overall in five of the last seven editions of the race. But if altitude and Ed Eyestone’s coaching starts to click for D’Amato, she could mix it up far closer to the front than most Americans in recent years.
Houston, We Have Liftoff (Scheduled For Sunday) 🚀
Before we get to Boston, the elite American [half-]marathoning circuit kicks off this Sunday in Houston, Texas, where fast times historically abound thanks to pancake flat topography, mild Texas “winters,” and top tier talent converging from all across the country and world. And while the rest of us were deep in winter hibernation, plenty of the sport’s best and brightest spent their holiday season with one weekend in January circled on the calendar.
CITIUS MAG’s been cooking up an exciting behind-the-scenes docuseries following Conner Mantz, Clayton Young, and Joe Klecker as they prepare for the Houston Half. [Check out the trailer here, and stay tuned for the first episode, which premieres later today… like, subscribe, etcetera!] Klecker has already gone on record stating that the American record—59:43, set by Ryan Hall back at this same race in 2007—is something he’s been training toward in his debut at the distance.
But perhaps the most likely American record performance may come from the very athlete who already holds the women’s mark: Weini Kelati. At Houston last year—are you sensing a trend here?—Kelati ran 1:06:25 in her debut at the distance, kicking off a banner year highlighted by an eighth-place finish in the Olympic 10,000m. With her confidence buoyed and another full year of training under her belt, Kelati seems poised for a big day.
Chris Chavez chatted with Kelati’s coach, Stephen Haas, to check in on what fans might expect come Sunday, and learn a bit more about Kelati’s preparation with her Under Armour Mission Run Dark Sky Distance teammates in Flagstaff, Arizona. (Read the full interview here.)

Photo by Kevin Morris / @kevmofoto
CITIUS MAG: How has training gone for Weini in this buildup?
STEPHEN HAAS: It’s been very good. She’s had a really good buildup that is similar to last year. We don’t do the exact same thing but we have similar patterns of workouts and added a little bit more volume here and there to some things. I think she’s pretty well prepared to go in there and try to break 66 minutes.
Last year, she was running about 70 miles per week over six days, was that kept about the same?
Yeah. It’s just been a bit more consistent in the mileage through the fall and through the winter. Last year, there were some ups and downs with the mileage and trying to get some more consistency built up. This year, it’s been more consistent with longer long runs and the workout volume has been at a higher level, between eight to 10 miles. There were very few times last year when we had sessions close to 10 miles. 18 miles was still her longest run. We’ve done a couple of those in the build-up.
What are the targeted splits this time around?
Honestly, we haven’t discussed that yet. Last year, we waited until the race to talk about it and go through how we wanted it to play out. It’s a little different of a race in Houston, with the male pacers, which can make it a lot easier for the ladies. With how the workouts have gone, we’ll be trying to run 5:00/mile pace pretty much. We might start off a little bit more conservative just like we did last year. It worked well. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t follow the same game plan and look to close hard. It also depends on what the wind is doing and what the weather is. The closer it gets to the race, we’ll make those decisions.
Seems like all the 10,000m specialists right now are planning for Houston Half, the 2025 USATF Half Marathon Championships in Atlanta, and then The Ten. Is that also Weini’s plan?
That’s the plan. We did a similar plan last year with Houston and The Ten. This year, we’re adding in the U.S. Half Marathon Championships, which is a much different race than what Houston is going to be. It’s going to be more of a race. We’ll prepare a little bit differently for that in the coming month. At the same time, all of this just helps set us up for running The Ten. Hopefully, we can establish a really good race there like it was last year and some women can get the 30:20 standard knocked out. From there, our plan is for her to defend her title in the 10,000m and make the World team. Then, we’ll go to the World Road Running Championships after. This might be our last track season.
I will not make that decision. That will be her decision. We’ve had a lot of conversations about when the right time is for her to move to the marathon and make a big push for that event. I think it’s coming sooner rather than later. I know she has the ability to get better at the half and still work in the 10,000m for the World team right now. For us, when we go to the marathon, the biggest thing is making sure she’s prepared to be at a very high level.
It was the same with Sharon [Lokedi]. When she joined the team, we told her she would be a very good marathoner and that it would take us a few years. It did, but when she made the transition, she was very prepared. Obviously, it went really well. We want that same type of setup for Weini when she makes the transition.
When you see Weini running and training, what are the signs that could make her a good marathoner?
She’s very light on her feet. She’s very good on the roads. We caught onto that very early on. I do think the super shoes help her a lot. She does get a bigger benefit from the road shoe, more so than what we’ve seen on the track. The way she handles the long runs, her biggest strength is being able to grind. That’s been pretty apparent when we can go out and debut almost 20 seconds faster than the [half marathon] American record. That shows that she can sit at a high pace and just grind. That’s one of the biggest attributes of a really good marathoner that you can have. Everything from a training standpoint points toward the ability to extend this out over time and distance.
More News From The Track And Field World 📰

Photo by Kevin Morris / @kevmofoto
– London calling! Ruth Chepngetich will be returning to the streets along the Thames in her first marathon since setting the world record in Chicago last fall. Chepngetich will have her work cut out for her as Olympic champ Sifan Hassan and reigning London champ Peres Jepchirchir are also both confirmed, and Chepngetich only finished ninth at this race last year.
– The 2025 U.S. Cross Country Championships were held this past weekend in windswept Lubbock, Texas, and Carrie Ellwood (née Verdon) and Bernard Keter took home the open titles. We’re feeling vindicated in our call to consolidate USA XC with Club Cross—the men’s open race had 27 finishers, and the women’s had 12. (Results, weirdly labeled as “2024-2025”, here)
– In significantly-better-attended 10K action, the 10K Valencia Ibercaja was an absolute barnburner up front. The men’s race was won by Sweden’s Andreas Almgren in European record time (26:53), and the women’s race went to Kenya’s Hellen Ekalale Lobun in a scalding time of 29:30.
– This one’s for the nerds. World Athletics has updated its notorious scoring tables. Tinker with your algorithms and spreadsheets accordingly.
– And speaking of men’s “short distance” Grand Slam Track signees racing each other, Paris Olympic silver medalist Josh Kerr and bronze medalist Yared Nuguse will face off in the Wanamaker Mile, along with names like: Hobbs Kessler, Neil Gourley, and Azeddine Habz.
– 2020 Olympic Trials Marathon champ Aliphine Tuliamuk is recovering from hamstring surgery after less aggressive treatment options failed to mend the string of injuries that has kept her from racing and training at 100% for over a year.
– In comments-sections-running-wild news, Shelby Houlihan’s four-year ban officially ended on Monday. She posted about it on her Instagram and it’s certain to become a focus of U.S. track coverage in the months to come.
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