The Post-Fontaine Pre-Cap ⏱️

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Compiled by David Melly, Paul Snyder, and Paul Hof-Mahoney

The Best The Sport Has To Offer 🏆

Was the 50th Prefontaine Classic the best track and field meet ever held?

Statistically, the answer is yes. Vibes-wise… it’s certainly up there. Of course, the biggest headlines coming out of the weekend will be a pair of world records falling in the women’s 1500m and 5000m—rightfully so, as Faith Kipyegon and Beatrice Chebet are generational athletes at the top of their game giving the people exactly what they want.

But we also saw epic performances solidifying Kishane Thompson and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden’s favorite statuses in the men’s and women’s 100m, a shocking come-from-behind win by Niels Laros in the Bowerman Mile, returns to form for Olympic champions Letsile Tebogo and Winfred Yavi, and incredible head-to-head battles in the women’s long jump and men’s 400m hurdles.

Heck, the pre-TV-window events alone could make for an entire weekend’s worth of headlines, with 18-year-old Biniam Mehary outkicking two Ethiopian countrymen for a world-leading 26:43.82 10,000m, Jacious Sears showing she probably belonged in the “A” heat with a 10.85 100m victory, Rudy Winkler dethroning Olympic champ Ethan Katzberg with an American record performance in the hammer throw, and Ethan Strand looking every inch a top-tier international contender with a 3:48.86 mile win in his professional debut.

PRE50 was truly an embarrassment of riches, but that’s what you get when the biggest shoe company in the world bankrolls the best track meet in the United States. 17 Olympic champions from Paris toed the line in Eugene, and although the Diamond League determines a set number of “official” disciplines at each of its events, Pre organizers added another nine professional-caliber events on top of everything else.

Let’s start at the end. When meet organizers announced two days before the event that the program had been shuffled to put Faith Kipyegon and the women’s 1500m last, it was clear what the assignment was for the woman who is already the world record holder twice over in her specialty event. It would be totally understandable for Kipyegon to be a little physically and emotionally drained after her grand Breaking4 endeavor the week prior, but if she was feeling heavy legs or the burden of great expectations, she didn’t show it. Not only did she easily run away from Jessica Hull and Diribe Welteji to claim an incredible eighth Pre Classic victory, she bettered her old world record of 3:49.04 by another half-second, running 3:48.68 with a final 200m split of 28.8 seconds.

Kipyegon may not have broken four minutes, but she’s the only woman in history to run under 3:50—and now under 3:49. Before Kipyegon, the 1500m world record had been held by athletes credibly saddled with doping allegations going back to at least 1976, and Kipyegon has never been associated with any baggage or asterisks. And while the four-minute barrier may be just a dream for women athletes for years to come, Kipyegon’s performance at Pre represents everything Breaking4 wanted to espouse: making history, embodying excellence, and celebrating the best of women’s athletics.

Kipyegon had some inspiration of her own to follow in Eugene, as she took to the track about an hour after her compatriot and friend Beatrice Chebet made history of her own. After Chebet ran 14:03.69 in Rome, making the first three kilometers look like a tempo run, real ones knew that Chebet breaking the 5000m record and the 14-minute barrier was a matter of when and where, not “if.” The when and where wound up being this past Saturday in Eugene, as Chebet led Gudaf Tsegay and Agnes Ngetich for 3000m at 14:00 pace before falling off just a bit during the fourth kilometer… then absolutely blitzing a see-it-to-believe-it final 200m to cross the line in 13:58.06.

That finish clip is worth a view or ten, even if you watched it live. Chebet is truly on another level right now, and the visual comparison is stark: she makes Tsegay, the previous world record holder and a four-time World champion, look like she’s walking. To be fair, Tsegay was clearly gassed and ended up third in 14:04.41 behind Ngetich’s 14:01.29. But for context: that mark would’ve been a WR itself less than two years ago, and until this decade no woman in history had broken 14:10.

Kipyegon and Chebet together bookended things with a pair of tremendous, history-making performances, but this meet was no time trial showcase. Rai Benjamin and Alison dos Santos set the tone the second the TV cameras came on with another round of their years-long prize fight in the 400m hurdles. We may have become a bit desensitized to sub-47 second performances thanks to Benjamin, dos Santos, and Karsten Warholm, but the drama that comes with subtle changes in pace and energy over the eighth, ninth, and tenth hurdles in the race never gets old. Neither does the thrill of a close finish, with Benjamin, the Olympic champion, getting pipped at the line by dos Santos 46.65 to 46.71. That’s only dos Santos’s third win against Benjamin in twelve matchups over 400H, but dos Santos must really love Hayward Field as two of those three came in Eugene.

The Bowerman Mile was as stacked as ever this year, and the absences of Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr seemed to pave the way for Yared Nuguse to finally get a win after finishing second in 2023 and third in 2024. For about 1590 meters of the 1609 meter race, it looked like we wouldn’t get a close finish in this one, as Nuguse spent much of the final lap pulling away from Frenchman Azeddine Habz and the rest of the field. But no one told Niels Laros that he was supposed to let the Goose fly away.

The 20-year-old Dutchman was in 12th place with 500 meters remaining before pouring it on at the bell, splitting 53.4 for his final full 400m and 25.9 for his last 200m to reel in first Habz, then Nuguse in the final steps, depriving American fans of the first domestic win in the Bowerman Mile in nearly 20 years by 0.01 seconds. Laros is not a complete unknown by any means, finishing sixth at the Olympics last year as a teenager. But before Saturday he was 0-9 against Nuguse and had never won a Diamond League race. Now, he leaves Eugene not just a national record holder with a 3:45.94 PB, but a true contender in 1500m races at the senior level.

The mile was decided by a smaller margin than either 100m final, but that’s not because the short sprinters didn’t bring their own theatrics. The men’s race was billed as another great U.S. vs. Jamaica showdown featuring Kishane Thompson and Ackeem Blake taking on Trayvon Bromell, Christian Coleman, and Brandon Hicklin, but ultimately it turned into a showcase of Thompson’s razor-sharp fitness right now. He crossed the line in 9.85 and never faced a real challenge, even with strong starters like Coleman and Bromell in the mix. Zharnel Hughes, the 2023 bronze medalist over 100m, ended up the best of the rest in 9.91 just ahead of Bromell’s 9.94, a good step forward for the Brit after a quiet 2024, but the real takeaway was that Thompson, in a Lyles-less sprint scene at the moment, is unquestionably the top dog until proven otherwise.

The women’s 100m would’ve probably ended up the lead headline in a world recordless Prefontaine. Julien Alfred and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, the Olympic champ and the world leader, both entered the meet undefeated in the 100m this year. Throw in reigning World champ Sha’Carri Richardson and newly-crowned Jamaican national champ Tina Clayton, and this was a championship-caliber field. Literally. The race featured the entire Paris podium plus two other finalists in Marie-Josee Ta Lou-Smith and Tee Tee Terry. But based on recent form, the women to watch were side by side in the middle lanes: Alfred and MJW.

Side-by-side they remained for the entire race, with Jefferson-Wooden putting a step on Alfred early that she never relinquished. Jefferson-Wooden carried that slight lead all the way to taking the win, 10.75 to 10.77. Now, Hayward Field is generally considered a fast track for sprints, but many have pointed out that the times were run into a 1.5 m/s headwind, which converts, in theory, to a 10.65 or 10.66 in still conditions. Those kinds of conversions are always a bit hard to truly trust, but the takeaway is clear regardless: these two are in top form, and in large part because Jefferson-Wooden has leveled up since 2024, both are capable of winning gold in Tokyo.

Behind them was a mixed bag. Richardson, who will line up in Tokyo regardless as the reigning World champ, was last in 11.19 in only her second race of the season, and Clayton could only manage a well-beaten fourth, running 11.02 a week after her big win in Kingston. The weekend was more positive for Ta Lou-Smith, who at 37 years old continues to perform with impressive high-level consistency. After a quiet start to the season, she looked good running a season’s-best 10.90 for third.

There was plenty more track action to report. Olympic champ Winfred Yavi gave the steeplechase world record a scare for the second time in ten months, running 8:45.25 to take down Faith Cherotich after losing to her young rival twice earlier in the season. Gabbi Jennings (9:06.61, U.S. #5 all time) and Kaylee Mitchell (9:08.66, U.S. #7 all-time) moved up the ranks, but much like Nikki Hiltz (3:55.96) and Sinclaire Johnson (3:56.93) in the 1500m, their strong performances were subsumed entirely by the sheer epic scale of the entire meet. Mondo Duplantis and Valarie Allman kept their multi-year win streaks alive in the pole vault and discus, respectively, and Tara Davis-Woodhall beat Malaika Mihambo in a replay of their 1-2 finish in Paris with an epic 7.07m leap in the final round.

If there was a criticism to levy against the 50th Pre Classic, it was just that: there was too much amazing track and field crammed into a short period to give historically great showings the time and attention they deserve. What a problem to have! Compared to the drip-drip of early season performances in a random local meet vacuum or the ten-day slog of a global championship, Pre was almost overwhelming in its presentation. 

Thank goodness we don’t have a meet of this scale every weekend—it would turn into the inevitable Christmas-every-day conundrum where the shine starts to wear off. But once a year is a delightful treat, and whether you go off the crunched numbers or simply via the roar of a packed stadium, Prefontaine’s golden birthday was a celebration worthy of its 50-year history.

How Do You Turn A Season Around? 🔄

While the Pre Classic served as a midseason momentum springboard for plenty of the brightest stars in the sport, for a handful of others, it was a weekend trip to Eugene they’re likely actively trying to forget. World and Olympic champions Christian Coleman (10.06 for 7th in the 100m), Athing Mu-Nikolayev (2:03.44 for last in the 800m), Sha’Carri Richardson (11.19 for last in the 100m), and—to a far lesser extent—Cole Hocker (3:47.43 for 4th in the mile) all posted performances below what they’re capable of at their peaks.

There are still about three weeks until the USATF Outdoor Championships. That’s not a ton of time to correct course, but it doesn’t take much to turn things around in this sport—dialing back on training load, clocking one confidence-building result, or repeating your favorite truism (“talent doesn’t go away,” “just gotta see one go in,” etc.) in the mirror until something clicks mentally.

One mantra of choice always seems to crop up around this time—“it’s all part of the plan.” Sub-par results are, for some, simply the cost of doing business. Richardson’s slow start to the season is concerning, but it’s entirely possible she’s purposefully on a more gradual buildup than her peers, given to the fact that she’s already secured her spot on the starting line in Tokyo thanks to her status as defending World champion. Similarly, Noah Lyles’s absence from the outdoor circuit to date may be interpreted at the moment as a red flag about his health or fitness—but if he shows up to Monaco and absolutely dusts the competition, it’ll seem more like a calculated scheduling decision.

Ultimately, we only know as much as athletes are willing to tell us. Mu-Nikolayev deserves kudos for delivering an honest post-race assessment of her spot in the season; she didn’t offer excuses or try to reframe her performance as better than it was. It’s clear that racing an international-caliber field is still a tall order for her; whether that’s due to fitness, comfort, tactics, or all three is less clear. She’s probably run out the clock on getting to 100% before USAs, so the question now is whether Mu-Nikolayev’s generational talent can carry her through to a top-three finish and extend her season to Tokyo, where she does still have time to show up capable of racing for gold.

In track and field the reality is you have to be at or near your peak, both mentally and physically, to land atop a global podium. You aren’t going to Michael Jordan “Flu Game” your way to a gold medal off of sheer grit and determination. If the fitness isn’t there, or you’re nursing even a mild case of the yips, you simply won’t be in the conversation. Even the most preternaturally gifted track athlete in the world isn’t so far ahead of their global peers at a baseline to pull that off.

The exception, of course, to that rule (as with so many others) is Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who handily dispatched a strong field in the 400m at Pre but was unsatisfied nevertheless with her 49.43 result. McLaughlin-Levrone has never in her life needed to “turn around” a season, but she does have tough decisions to make about which 400m—flat or hurdles—to contest at USAs, Worlds, or both, and a middling result likely didn’t make that choice any easier.

But before we write up a bunch of eulogies for 2025 track seasons that are still far from complete, there’s time for a tweak. Track and field is full of examples of stunning mid-season reversals, where an athlete miraculously (from the outside perspective at least) puts the pieces together at just the right time after a string of frustrating outcomes. With precious little time before the next work trip to Eugene, the question on everyone’s mind is what will do the trick for you?

Race more: It seems this is the course of action Camp Kersee is taking, with both McLaughlin-Levrone and Mu-Nikolayev running it back at the Ed Murphey Classic this weekend. SML has been forthcoming in the past about the challenges of measuring effort when switching from the 400m hurdles to the flat 400m, and her 2023 season was a perfect example: she went out WAY too hard and got beat in Paris, but learned a valuable lesson and came back with the first open sub-49 of her career at USAs. For Mu-Nikolayev, it’s all about getting reacquainted with running sub-60 second quarters in a pack and changing gears when the time comes. Practice makes perfect, and sometimes the best way to practice racing is to, well… race!

Race less: Especially for distance runners, the constant grind of chasing paychecks and PBs can take its toll. Whether it’s an acute injury or simply the cumulative mental and physical burnout of crisscrossing Europe and/or the continental United States every weekend, a grueling race schedule isn’t always the best way to create positive momentum. This year, Grant Holloway is the poster boy for taking a strategic step back: normally a weekly regular on the DL circuit, Holloway took nearly two months off after a last-place finish in Xiamen in April to address a nagging injury issue and is in the process of working his way back, with wins still to come but his three best times in his most recent three races.

Make a change: This is perhaps the most high-risk, high-reward strategy. Changing sponsors, coaches, or training setups mid-season when things are going poorly can be a necessary reset, but any sort of new circumstances usually require an adjustment period that could take years. When it works, it works, with the most dramatic recent example being Fred Kerley’s early season sponsor switch, going from a season best of 10.03 to his second Olympic medal in the space of about four months. The jury’s still out on Emily MacKay’s big move—she’s now under the tutelage of Pete Julian after two-ish seasons as a pro in Boston, but early results look promising. After a set of middling Grand Slam results in May, she popped off a 3:57.91 at Pre, the second fastest time of her career.

Stay the course: Cole Hocker may be the best middle-distance runner in the world at peaking for championships. In 2023, Hocker had a slow start to the season after an injury-shortened 2022 campaign, racing only twice before USAs (both in Oregon) and ending up seventh in the final in Budapest. Last year, his race efforts up to this point in the season were four pace jobs, an 11th-place finish in the 5000m in LA, and a seventh-place finish at the Bowerman Mile. And we all know how that turned out. Planning a track season contains inherent tradeoffs, and one of the toughest unseen parts of being a pro runner is weighing your financial incentives, personal strengths, and risk tolerance, while mapping out a training and racing plan that balances all three.

Like almost anything in track and field, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. But we’re now at the point of the season where anyone who’s not currently happy with where they’re at needs to make a potentially-tough decision about how to proceed, and more importantly, trust that the path they do take will lead to the end justifying the means.

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The Historically-Great Throws At Pre Deserved More Airtime ☄️

You may have missed it entirely on TV, but the 50th Prefontaine Classic wasn’t just a great track meet. It was a historically great FIELD meet as well. Six simple numbers do a great job of capturing what made Pre50 probably the best single day in the history of throwing heavy things far: 83.16m, 78.88m, 70.97m, 70.68m, 22.48m, 20.94m. Those were the winning marks, in order, for men’s and women’s hammer, discus and shot put in Eugene. 

For all you distance runners feeling your eyes glazing over and your scrolling finger getting itchy, let’s break ‘em down:

83.16m, Rudy Winkler: Winkler enjoyed an incredible 2021 season coming out of the pandemic, posting three marks over 81.44m, including the American record of 82.71m. He hadn’t matched that form in the years since, but he’s been on a roll in 2025 and a 45cm PB is the perfect example of that. He downed Olympic and World champ Ethan Katzberg (81.73m), who was nigh untouchable in 2024, and claimed the world lead and the 18th spot on the world all-time list.

78.88m, Camryn Rogers: Any time a World/Olympic champion sets a PB, that’s a pretty good day! It had been over two years since Rogers last set her best mark, but she smashed through that barrier in the fourth round after three good-but-not-groundbreaking throws to open. Since 2023, women’s hammer has seen tons of volatility at the biggest stages, but Rogers has been steady. She brings it when the moment requires it. She jumped from sixth to fifth on the all-time list. Brooke Andersen put up a great fight, tossing three bombs over 76m and five over 75.30m, and seven-time global champ Anita Włodarczyk continued her road back to true contention with a SB of 74.70m.

70.97m, Mykolas Alekna: On paper, Alekna’s mark isn’t quite as gaudy as the two we’ve hit on already. It’s only the sixth-best mark of his career, but it means more under the surface. Throwing in a stadium versus a field can be a big difference maker in discus, and this is the best Alekna has ever thrown in a stadium three weeks after, for all intents and purposes, choking at NCAAs. Collegiate champ Ralford Mullings had another good day in Hayward, going 68.98m, but the world record holder and newly-quacking Oregon Duck was on another level. Two throws over 70m, five over 69.50m is one of the very best in-stadium series in world history. THAT’S how you bounce back.

70.68m, Valarie Allman: What more is there to really say at this point? This was simply “Val being Val.” 26 wins in a row against the best in the world, a nearly three-meter win (which is honestly a little closer than these things sometimes are), three throws at 69.48m or better. Nobody can beat Allman, only the dark magic that has afflicted her the last two editions of Worlds. And with every passing meet, the streak gets more improbably impressive.

22.48m, Joe Kovacs: Kovacs most certainly deserves his flowers for winning, claiming the world lead, and tacking nearly a meter onto his season’s best, but the true story of this comp was spread throughout the field. After years of Crouser and Kovacs and co. making 22m the new 21m, 2025 has been starkly different for global shot putting. No man had thrown 22m until Leo Fabbri did so on June 8th, and only Payton Otterdahl had joined him heading into last weekend. The dam broke open in the hallowed Hayward ring, though, as five men threw over 22m in the same competition for the first time ever.

20.94m, Chase Jackson: The first 21-meter throw by a woman in checks calendar 4,740 days is getting closer. After throwing 20.95m a week earlier at the Iron Wood Classic in Idaho, Jackson came a whisker away from cracking that barrier in the same ring she threw 20.76m back in 2023. Her series was better this time around, the alarmingly big practice throws are still there, and for the first time in a long time 21m feels like a matter of when, not if. Just like the men’s competition, the story extended beyond the winner, as five women broke 20m for the first time since the 1988 Olympic final (which may or may not have had a bit of dubious assistance). 

But how much of that would you all know if you only watched the broadcast? 

Nobody involved in track and field broadcasting has quite cracked the code for showcasing the throws as they unfold. For existing hardcore fans, dedicated streams like the ones at global and U.S. championships are a godsend, but that doesn’t do much for growing a broader appreciation for the throws. A sprints fan isn’t likely to flip on a javelin stream given the option, even if they have the ability to watch two streams at once. Obviously it’d be unrealistic to argue for every throw to be shown, but there’s opportunities for growth in coverage to not make the throws feel like filler or an afterthought.

A typical Diamond League broadcast might show us about four throws per competition: the leader’s best throughout the first five rounds, and then the final throw for each of the top three in the DL’s controversial new format. Often, most if not all those attempts aren’t really shown live-live. A good start to this would be more regular check-ins with the throws throughout the competition, so viewers have a better understanding of the flow of the competition and storylines that are building throughout. 

The rivalries that so often build suspense and catch eyes in the track events exist inside the oval as well! There’s a lot of cameras at a meet—throw one of them on Ethan Katzberg as he watches Rudy Winkler snatch the win and world lead from his neighbor to the north. Imagine the tension of following Allman around as she heads into her fifth or sixth attempt sitting in second place with her streak on the line. “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” is something you can show in this way to produce immediate stakes and intrigue. People love joy and people love misery. People need to see a winner and a loser, and their raw reactions to those results shaking out.

Broadcasters also make a huge difference. Throwing is a niche, and highly technical, but perhaps counterintuitively, the best way to convey everything that makes throwing special to the everyday fan is to lean into the technicality in presentation. Have someone who actually knows what they’re talking about in the booth, like Olympic shot put veteran Darrell Hill. He’s been a breath of fresh air on recent Peacock broadcasts, bringing insights on technique between throws and offering context on athletes’ stories. And it’s not like throw series are wildly time-consuming – there’s about a minute gap between each throw, which a good commentator can easily fill with technical insight or stakes-setting.

It’s not easy to carve out time in a jam-packed broadcast like Pre, but other meets—even other Diamond Leagues—have much more dead air. So why not fill it with the greatness already at your fingertips? Practically every event is in the midst of the best era its ever seen, and throwers can be some of the most endearing and entertaining personalities in the sport. There are ways to grow, and that can start as we come off the heels of the best day in throwing history.

More News From The Track And Field World 📰

– Noah Lyles will make his return to racing at this weekend’s Diamond League meet in Monaco. Lyles last competed in April, when he ran the 4x100m and 400m at the Tom Jones Memorial in Florida. You can find the full CITIUS preview of the Monaco meet here.

– Nike signed a pair of NCAA middle distance stars: Oregon’s Klaudia Kazimierska and North Carolina’s Ethan Strand. Both will be joining Swoosh TC, with Kazimierska remaining in Eugene under the tutelage of Shalane Flanagan and Jerry Schumacher, and Strand heading to Flagstaff to train with Mike Smith.

– Nike also added NCAA 10,000m record holder and 2025 champ Ishmael Kipkurui, formerly of New Mexico, to its roster of athletes, and was immediately rewarded when Kipkuri qualified for the Kenyan World Championship team on the strength of his fifth-place showing at Pre.

– Hellen Obiri (31:29) and Patrick Kiprop (27:35) won the Fourth of July Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta. 

– India is reportedly bidding to host the World Championships in both 2029 and 2031. The world’s most populous country has never hosted a global track championship before.

– At Queensland’s Gold Coast Marathon Yuki Takei led a Japanese sweep of the podium for the men, breaking the tape in a new course record of 2:07:33. Tegest Ymer of Ethiopia claimed top honors in the women’s race, crossing the line in 2:29:27—not bad for her marathon debut.

– USATF is suing Mike Conley, its former board chair, for breach of his fiduciary duty. 

– Scott Ruskan, a rescue swimmer for the Coast Guard and former Rider University steeplechaser, saved the lives of 165 people during the devastating and lethal flash floods in the Texas Hill Country over the weekend. (The Central Texas Food Bank is accepting donations to help those impacted by the flooding.)

– Congratulations to Sanya Richards-Ross, who gave birth to her third child, Air Zion Ross. Now that’s a name for a future gold medalist!

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