The Change Of Seasons ⏱️

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What In The Worlds? 🌎

Well, the indoor season is officially over. And it went out with a bang of sorts, as the World Indoor Championships took place last weekend in Nanjing, China.

As is so often the case with track and field, the event was met with mixed reviews. Fans were glad for the opportunity to send the best runners from national and regional championships into head-to-head races, and disappointed that so many of them skipped the meet entirely. 

Ultimately, the criticism hanging over the whole event is that World Indoors isn’t a “real” global championships. While we don’t know the exact details of individual athletes’ contracts, it’s safe to say it isn’t compensated on the same level as an outdoor global championship in terms of prize money and bonuses, and when you throw in close proximity to the start of the more lucrative Grand Slam Track, plus a host location that offers a significant challenge for American, European, African, and Caribbean athletes alike, it was understandably tough to rustle up the same level of competition we saw in Paris last summer.

But let’s not dwell on the glass-half-empty view. A championship isn’t defined by the number of records that fall or the names on the marquee; the same number of gold medals get handed out either way. Much like Tinkerbell, World Indoors is as real as you believe it to be—the “you” in question being both the athletes and the fans.

It sure felt like a “real” Worlds for Kiwi Tomas Walsh, who landed on an incredible sixth straight World Indoor podium with his first gold since 2018, and found redemption for an uncharacteristically poor Olympics, where he got injured and failed to record a mark in the final. And in the most heartbreaking sense, it felt all too real for American Ronnie Baker, who at 31 years old has found himself back atop the U.S. 60-meter ranks only to pull a hamstring with mere steps remaining in the World final and end up outside the medals.

A gold medal served as a strong exclamation point on a career-defining season for Josh Hoey, who capped his undefeated winter and two American records with an 800m gold in 1:44.77. And for Ethiopian Gudaf Tsegay, winning her fourth global gold with a blistering, never-in-doubt display of front running in the 1500m final sent a clear message that, despite going home from a rough Paris Olympics empty-handed, she’s still a force to be reckoned with.

For the heavy favorites, the meet went according to form—mostly. Jakob Ingebrigtsen picked up his first and second World Indoor titles in the 3000m and 1500m, predictable given he’s the reigning Olympic 5000m champ and the top 1500m runner to make the trip. But he had to work a little harder than perhaps he may have expected to bring home his golds. In the 3000m final, Olympic 10,000m silver medalist and 7:21.28 3000m runner Berihu Aregawi nearly pulled off a sneak-attack early kick, and Ingebrigtsen had to hustle hard to get around the Ethiopian on the final turn. The 1500m victory came a little easier, but still there was a split-second moment where it seemed like “World Champion Luke Houser” was a legitimate possibility.

The 1500m served as a reminder that Jakob’s well-worn 1500m strategy of squeezing from the front is often a winning one indoors—it was clear that neither Houser nor silver medalist Neil Gourley was running much slower than Ingebrigtsen on the final lap but didn’t have the extra juice to get around both the Norwegian and eventual fourth placer Isaac Nader of Portugal. Given his preferred tactics, it’s a surprise that it took until 2025 for Ingebrigtsen to win a World Indoor gold… until you look at recent history and realize that Ingebrigtsen was injured in 2024, it took a world-record-shape Samuel Tefera to beat him in 2022, and the last indoor championship before that took place in 2018, when Ingebrigtsen was 17 years old.

There were plenty of other results where the end outcome didn’t quite capture the drama. If you read the deadline “World record holder Devynne Charlton defends her World Indoor title in the 60 meter hurdles,” you’d probably assume a Grant-Holloway-like dominance extended to the women’s event. And you’d have missed the best race of the entire weekend in the process. The women’s 60mH final was decided by the thinnest of margins from top to bottom: four one-hundredths of a second separated first and sixth place, and five one-thousandths of a second decided third, fourth, and fifth, as Ackera Nugent, Pia Skrzysowska, and Grace Stark were all credited with 7.74. And while Charlton won her second gold and third straight medal in a season’s best 7.72, her victory was arguably a surprise, as it was the first time all year she’d actually won a race of any kind. Talk about a perfect peak!

A Mondo Duplantis pole vault win was never really in doubt… except when it was. European champ and Olympic bronze medalist Emmanouil Karalis cleared a lifetime best 6.05 meters on the first attempt, and for the first time in recent memory, two athletes were headed up to 6.10 meters with a clean card. And then Mondo missed his first attempt! But alas, a few short minutes later all was back to normal as the legend-in-the-making soared over 6.10m, then 6.15m on his first attempt, and Karalis ultimately exhausted his upward ascent. But even mentally confronting the possibility that Duplantis might lose contesting a bar that high is unprecedented.

And not every favorite emerged unscathed. For the second World Indoor championship in a row, Olympic high jump champ Yaroslava Mahuchikh was beaten by an Australia rival—this time, by two, actually—as Nicola Olyslagers defended her title and was joined on the podium by teammate Eleanor Patterson. Mahuchikh, who shares a birthday with Jakob Ingebrigtsen but is one year younger, is getting better and better at 23 years old, but she’s not yet unbeatable. There might be something about World Indoors specifically that gets in her head, as last weekend’s loss was her first indoors or out since Glasgow.

Team USA had some impressive medal performances, including a sweep of the men’s 400m top-three, but perhaps the most interesting results came just off the podium. American fourth-placers included Whittni Morgan and Sam Gilman in the 3000m against decently strong international fields, suggesting that their ability to insert their names into the conversation domestically also means they’re knocking on the door of even bigger and better performances. And in the high jump, Eli Kosiba, fresh off a D2 NCAA title with Grand Valley State, nearly equalled his PB and only missed a medal on misses with his second-attempt 2.28m clearance. Kosiba elevated his game in a big way this indoor season, starting with a 5-centimeter PB of 2.30m in December and continuing through a runner-up finish at USAs and first national title, so keep an eye on the 22-year-old as he moves to the next phase of his jumping career.

Ultimately, World Indoors was a success when you grade it on the proper curve. The meet delivered a winning combination of satisfaction, surprises, and tension in a tight, carefully managed three-day window. When you account for its rescheduled date, the lingering post-Olympics hangover, and the large paychecks hovering on the horizon, World Athletics and its wards did a pretty darn good job. 

Maybe, just maybe, when Torun ‘26 rolls around, a few more big stars will look at this weekend’s results and want in on a piece of the action.

Hot Takes And Bold Predictions For The 2025 Outdoor Season ☀️

Is that a daffodil poking its head out of the ground? Have the first spores of pollen entered your nostrils? Is there daylight on your evening shakeout run? That’s right. Spring is in the air. And with it comes the first whisperings of the outdoor season, with tracksters of all levels opening up their seasons at a low-key local meet that’s probably a bit too cold and windy for anyone’s comfort.

With the arrival of spring track comes a resurgent interest in the upcoming pro circuit and championship season—and now we have three more months of data to shape our expectations and whet our appetites. So we asked the full CITIUS MAG team to hit the group chat with their hottest takes for what we might be surprised by and riled up about when racing really gets underway.

Love ‘em, hate ‘em, don’t believe ‘em: here’s the team’s boldest predictions for the 2025 outdoor season:

Noah Lyles will run the 400m at 2025 USA Championships. Anderson Emerole

Noah Lyles has been toying with the idea of running either an open 400m or the 4x400m for a few years now, but 2025 is the perfect chance for him to dip his toes into the event and run the 400m at USAs later this summer, which I think he’ll finally take the opportunity to do.

By way of being the defending champion in both the 100m and 200m, Lyles already has the wild card to the 2025 World Championships so he does not need to contest either event at USAs. He simply needs to compete in any event, even if it's just one round. Early in 2024, he began teasing the idea of winning four gold medals at the Paris Olympics in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m, and 4x400m. Though he only came away with two medals (100m gold and 200m bronze), during the indoor season he did run third leg of the American silver-medal-winning 4x400m at the 2024 World Indoor Championships.

On a recent episode of the Beyond the Records podcast, Vernon Norwood and Rai Benjamin further floated the idea of running the 400m at USAs to Noah. Though Lyles has yet to commit, if he still dreams of one day actually winning another World or Olympic medal in the 4x400m, he’ll have to drastically improve his current 400m PB of 47.04, set back in 2016, and prove he is truly capable of competing with some of the best 400m sprinters in the country. And even if it means just running one round, the best path may be the 400m at USA Championships this year.

Jakob Ingebrigsten will finally get his World 1500m outdoor title. Paul Snyder

It probably shouldn’t qualify as a bold prediction to suggest that—by almost any metric—the best 1500m runner in the world will win the 1500m in Tokyo. But given Jakob Ingebrigtsten’s record in Eugene, Budapest, and Paris, we’d say it’s far from a safe claim.

There’s (probably) a famous Norse adage: “outkick me once, shame on you… outkick me several more times in nearly the exact same fashion, shame on me.” 

The cadre of past and prospective Ingebrigsten-slayers will have a tough path to the starting line in Tokyo. After a long season, and with the current Olympic podium running Grand Slam Track, just making the team for the U.S., the U.K., Ethiopia, or Kenya will be a bloodbath. And there are simply so many medal threats now that unlike in the past, podium aspirants can’t simply key off of Ingebrigtsen—they have maybe six or seven athletes whose every move needs to be monitored and respected.

If Ingebrigtsen plays his cards right, he’ll benefit from his rivals racing the kicks out of one another and pick up the pieces. And given how dominant Ingebrigtsen has been over the past half-decade in every race context except global, outdoor 1500m championship races, he’s overdue for a good one.

The men’s 1500m at Worlds will be won by a first-time global champion. David Melly

You have to go all the way back a decade, to 2015, to find the last time the men’s 1500m was won by a former World/Olympic champion—and who knows what that guy was doing to win. The 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 global 1500m champions are seven different athletes. So the logical conclusion is that the 2025 World champion will be someone who’s never claimed the mantle before. Could that be Yared Nuguse? Hobbs Kessler? Certainly possible. If Ingebrigtsen’s own trajectory is any indication, the best bet might be Dutchman Niels Laros, who finished sixth in the final in Paris at age 19.

Four of those seven champions had previously stood on the 1500m podium, which would suggest that the most likely 2025 gold medal candidates are Nuguse or Narve Nordås, the 2023 bronze medalist. Nuguse is coming off the best indoor campaign of his life, but Nordås has had more of a mixed start to the year, with a few longer-distance races under his belt but no signature performances (yet).

Of course, the other possibility is that someone lower in the ranks will arrive on the scene in the next few months capable of beating Josh Kerr, Cole Hocker, and Jakob Ingebrigtsen all in one race. That sounds crazy – although it’s exactly what Hocker did in Paris, and perhaps even more tellingly, it’s what Jake Wightman did in 2022. In three prior championship appearances, Wightman finished tenth in 2021, fifth in 2019, and didn’t make the final in 2017, so who’s to say that the next World champion has to be someone with a medal on his shelf already? If history is any indication, the only constant is unpredictability.

The women’s marathon world record will fall again. Jasmine Fehr

Ruth Chepngetich’s 2:09:56 at the Chicago Marathon last fall—the first sub-2:10 by a woman—was pretty mind-blowing. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Chepngetich averaged 4:57 per mile for an entire marathon! 

But the reality of the sport is we’re only scratching the surface of what’s possible. As technology continues to evolve, records will keep tumbling. Chepngetich shattered a barrier, and history tells us that once one person breaks through, others will soon follow. Just as Roger Bannister’s sub-4:00 mile opened the floodgates, Chepngetich’s performance could inspire a new wave of women to believe that sub-2:10 is possible for them too. 

So here’s my prediction: The record will be broken again this year by Chepngetich—or another distance star—in Valencia, Berlin, or Chicago. 

Faith Kipyegon will not win the 1500m gold medal in Tokyo. Preet Majithia

With her undisputed dominance at global outdoor championships in recent years and her continued breaking of her own world record, this seems like a tough one to justify. However, I do think that finally the rest of the world is getting a little closer.

With the huge steps taken by the likes of Jess Hull running 3:50 last year and Georgia Bell running 3:52, Gudaf Tsegay returning to her usual self in Nanjing, and the rise of the likes of Diribe Welteji, there are several people in the mix. And in the right race, Nikki Hiltz and the Americans could also be in striking distance of gold. But the biggest threat (if she is allowed to run the race given the vagaries of the Ethiopian selection process) is likely Ethiopia’s Freweyni Hailu, who has that rare combination of being able to run super fast times but also have a good tactical racing brain, as she has aptly demonstrated with her World Indoor titles over 1500m in 2024 and 3000m in 2025. And Hailu (along with Welteji) did beat Kipyegon head-to-head once, albeit in a road mile at the 2023 championships in Riga.

This is not to write off Faith Kipyegon, who will remain the GOAT of the 1500m with her three Olympic golds and three World titles as well as multiple world records, but given she hasn’t faced a huge amount of competition in recent years, she could be vulnerable when actually challenged at the 1500m distance.

Ryan Crouser and Ethan Katzberg will be the only 2024 throwing champions to repeat in Tokyo. Paul Hof-Mahoney

Men’s discus and women’s shot put are the most obvious candidates for gold-medal turnover. Rojé Stona and Yemi Ogunleye deserve full credit for their wins in August, but Stona benefitted from having the best day of his life at just the right time while Ogunleye capitalized on bad conditions and underperforming favorites. Heading into 2025, the fields in their events just feel too stacked to say either one is leading the pack.

On the men’s and women’s side, javelin is in an interesting spot. Arshad Nadeem dominated in Paris in Olympic-record fashion, but his track record shows he’ll probably only compete once or twice before Tokyo and enter as a complete wild card. On the other hand, Haruka Kitaguchi competes a ton, has been the best thrower in the world the last two years, and will be aiming for a World title on home soil. That being said, I am so high on Adriana Vilagoš. The 21-year-old Serb opened up last week at 66.88m, better than anyone threw all of last year. She’s yet to make a global final at the senior level, but I have no doubt that will change in September.

Now for the two hardest sells: Camryn Rogers in the hammer and Valarie Allman in the discus. For as great as Rogers has been this decade, 2024 was somewhat of a down year for the women’s hammer, as American stalwarts Brooke Andersen, Janee’ Kassanavoid, and DeAnna Price were non-factors in Paris. This is less of a knock on Rogers and more so optimism towards her competitors returning to form. I have a similar feeling towards Allman’s chances. I have full faith in her to perform up to her usual 68m+ standards in Tokyo, but it’s hard to count out someone having the best day of their lives and sniping her like we saw in Eugene and Budapest.

The influx of trackfluencers picks up pace. Audrey Allen

For my outdoor season prediction, I thought I’d go for something that didn't have to do with a particular athlete or event but more of a culture shift. Maybe this take needs a little more time to marinate than the end of September—but I think the intersection of content creation and running, jumping, or throwing is going to become the norm, not just the afterthought of “oh, they do that too.” 

In other words, the voices of our sport are no longer just coming from the journalists in the mixed zone, the conversations during the broadcast, or even the fingers typing up a newsletter you’ll read over morning coffee. Instagram will likely remain the biggest touchpoint between the elites and their fanbases, but our favorite Twitter pages, YouTube channels, and TikTok profiles will keep growing and be joined by familiar (and new) faces. And it won’t just be full of Gen-Z neologisms but relatable storytelling and candid documentation that adds to the entertainment factor of our sport while highlighting an athlete’s professional skill set beyond their physical gifts. 

I think there’s going to be a trend toward authenticity and creativity on the digital side of track and field, backed by the fact that we’re already starting to see more contracts hinting at this—like brands signing athletes beyond just performance metrics and making teams. Maybe instead of just hiring an agent, athletes will look for content staff as well.

With this move towards greater social media participation, even casual fans are going to start recognizing more names before their big breaks. You’re going to know the next Matthew Richtman before he becomes Matthew Richtman.

A Fresh Start For Courtney Frerichs 👋 

The couple of years have been momentous ones for American distance running, with multiple global medals becoming something of a given at any championship. But conspicuously absent from the podium—and Team USA’s roster—since last year, was Courtney Frerichs, the American record holder in the steeplechase, and a World and Olympic silver medalist. 

The longtime Bowerman athlete suffered a season-ending knee injury last spring, required reconstructive surgery, and has been hard at work rehabbing and getting competition-ready ever since. Frerichs chatted with CITIUS MAG’s Chris Chavez recently to share some exciting updates from her road to recovery. In some ways, the Frerichs fans will soon see on the starting line is an entirely new athlete from the one they’ve grown accustomed to seeing near the lead of steeplechase races for the past almost decade. But that doesn’t mean she’s slowing down, or lowering her expectations or goals.

Building back up was far from easy

“It was so mindblowing how back to the basics I had to go,” Frerichs says. “I still remember on my first day of physical therapy, I was sitting on the table, and my physical therapist said. ‘Let’s try and do a straight leg lift. Try and raise your leg off the table.’ And I couldn’t do it. It was crazy. I always remember that moment when workouts aren’t going how I want to.”

For six weeks, Frerichs was on crutches, watching her once-powerful quad atrophy before her eyes. She couldn’t even start cross-training until week five [post-operation]. Simple tasks became victories: learning to fire the quad again, bending the knee without fear, walking unassisted. It would be 15 weeks before she could run—and even then, it was five minutes at 50% body weight on the Alter-G treadmill.

“It was definitely the most amount of time I’ve had to take off ever and it’s certainly given me a whole new appreciation for being able to run.”

A change in scenery, and coaching, and approach

There was no pressure to rush back. After years spent bouncing between Portland and high-altitude camps, Frerichs craved some stability. She moved to Utah and took her time. Early rehab was guided by physical therapists, not coaches. For months, the question of who she would train with next remained open.

By October, she was visiting Chicago during marathon weekend, speaking with her agent Tom Ratcliffe about the future. Soon after, she connected with Ed Eyestone — BYU head coach and the architect behind the Olympic breakthroughs of Conner Mantz, Clayton Young, and Olympic silver medalist steeplechaser Kenneth Rooks. The more they spoke, the more a plan began to form.

“I decided to go down the path of building a relationship with someone who didn’t know me as a person or an athlete before this injury and I feel very confident that was a really good move because there’s so much less room for comparison,” Frerichs says.

She’s not done with the steeple, but has her eyes on what’s next, too

“My dream when I first started running pro was the idea of trying to run the marathon in 2028 because I thought it would be iconic to run the marathon in LA with the history there,” Frerichs says. “Women’s marathoning is so unbelievably strong, so that would be quite the feat to take on but there is a lot of curiosity that lies in what I could do in some of the longer distances. I feel excited about putting myself in a place where there could be the option to explore that.”

Read the full story here, and keep your eyes peeled for Frerichs’s first couple of races back, starting in April.

More News From The Track And Field World 📰

– In “not exactly outdoor’s opening weekend but there are already some outdoor meets percolating up on the calendar” news, at Jamaica’s Velocity Fest: Tobi Amusan won a hurdle-less 100m in 11.28; Sada Williams out-leaned Tia Clayton over 200m (23.10 to 23.11); Ackeem Blake’s 10.14 clocking put some distance ahead of second placer Zharnell Hughes in the 100m; and Oblique Seville comfortably claimed 200m victory in 20.53. 

– 15-year-old Kiwi Sam Ruthe became the youngest person to ever run a mile in under four minutes, running 3:58.35 a month shy of his 16th birthday. As much as we loathe to wade into sub-four discussions, we feel compelled to include this one—it’s a run that’s broken through to the non-running media ecosystem (plus the clock including a punctuation-less “WELL DONE” on it is extremely funny).

– A non-Valencia Spanish city has emerged as another venue to rip a speedy half. At the Málaga Half Marathon, Kenyans Gilbert Kipkosgei Kiprotich and Loice Chemnung broke the tape in 58:27 and 1:05:46, respectively.

– Ryan Crouser’s World Shot Put Series will debut at this year’s Drake Relays on April 23rd. The WSPS will feature a new twist on the event—athletes need to hit progressively farther marks to advance in the competition.

– Molly Seidel confirmed to Sarah Lorge Butler on the Fast People podcast that she’s no longer sponsored by Puma.

– Sam Parsons and Steph Bruce have confirmed that they are now sponsored by Tracksmith. Like Nick Willis and Mary Cain before them, the partnerships will extend beyond athletic performance as Parsons was announced as a “professional athlete and creative partner” and Bruce as a “professional athlete and sports marketing consultant.”

– The Chianti Ultra Trail 120k was one of the more hyped-up ultra races in recent memory, owing largely to a men’s field that included Kilian Jornet, Jim Walmsley, and Vincent Bouillard. Walmsley ultimately prevailed by nearly half an hour. Fiona Pascall of the UK claimed top honors in the women’s race, only to be made to cross the finish line again, as the tape wasn’t ready for her.

– TWO ultrarunning updates? Say it ain’t so! After five runners finished last year’s Barkley Marathons, which organizer Lazarus Lake considered a failure on his part to make the course tough enough, no one made it through more than three of five loops at the world’s most idiosyncratic racing event this time.

– The International Olympic Committee has a new president: Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe. She’s a two-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer, and the first female and African president of the IOC.

– Professional runner turned professional chatterbox: 2016 Olympic gold medalist Matthew Centrowitz will be part of the broadcast team for this year’s Diamond League circuit.

– A few bits of happy off-the-track life news: three-time U.S. champ and 2:20 marathoner Jordan Hasay is having a baby, pro-running-slash-YouTuber couple Allie Ostrander and Spencer Brown are engaged, and the father of this newsletter, Kyle Merber, is now a father of two. Congrats to all!

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