Change Is In The Air ⏱️

Sponsored by Beekeeper Coffee

Fuel your miles with BeeKeeper Coffee. For runners on-the-go, each sleek can blends smooth cold brew with just a touch of organic Oregon honey (sourced in TrackTown USA - Eugene!), giving you clean, sustained energy without the crash. From Vanilla, Mocha, Caramel, and Black to the new Horchata Latte—cinnamon and vanilla kissed with honey—BeeKeeper is the perfect pre-run boost or post-run reward. Sweet enough to savor, strong enough to power every stride.

Get 25% off your orders at https://beekeepercoffee.com/ using code CITIUS25 at checkout.

Compiled by David Melly and Paul Snyder

A New World Order 👀

There’s a whole bunch of new sheriffs in town.

Over the last nine months, we’ve talked a lot in this newsletter about 2025 being a time of change. But until recently, that change has felt tenuous, hypothetical, or temporary. Because track and field is a sport where the biggest stars can skip out on most of the regular season with no consequences, the Olympic champions can still feel like the presumptive favorites for global gold even as they take breaks, battle injuries, or witness the rise of new stars.

On paper, Ryan Crouser and Yulimar Rojas have their work cut out for them. Neither the world record holder in the men’s shot put nor the women’s triple jump have competed at all this year, and in Rojas’s case her absence from the sport extends back to 2023. How do you call an athlete who has publicly and unambiguously said “I’m hurt, and that’s why you haven’t seen me” a favorite for gold? And yet at the same time, it wouldn’t be surprising to Crouser and Rojas, who each have five global titles, pull a Keely Hodgkinson and return to competition in exactly the same dominant form that they left.

But it’s September now, and for anyone less than a world record holder, it’s hard to extend the benefit of the doubt. In many cases, that’s not solely because a reigning champ has fallen off their throne—it’s because someone else entirely has stepped up and cemented their place as the name to beat.

Last week’s Diamond League final in Zurich, Switzerland, played two important roles in this season’s track and field narrative. The first was giving some athletes—namely Vernon Norwood in the 400m and Brittany Brown in the 200m—a lifeline as they picked up wild-card berths to Tokyo. Even though a similar destiny was not meant to be for others, it was nevertheless very exciting to root for folks like Josh Hoey, Yared Nuguse, Tia Clayton, and Keni Harrison as they took their mulligan and came up short.

The second part of Zurich’s storytelling came from a crop of athletes who emerged from the DL final looking more lethal than ever before. This crew had long ago locked up their entry to Tokyo, and hardcore fans all year have been making the case that they should win gold. Instead, their wins in Zurich made a clear statement with Worlds just around the corner: if you want to win gold, you’ve got to go through me.

Jacory Patterson had never made an U.S. team before 2024, and his indoor campaign ended with a World bronze in the 400m behind his compatriot Chris Bailey. Famously, Patterson started the year pulling double-duty with track workouts and box-stacking at UPS, hardly the resume of a global medal threat (even in our cash-strapped sport). But since the outdoor season began, he’s been on an absolute tear, winning seven of eight total 400ms and clocking two sub-44s, most recently a commanding 43.85 to win in Zurich and officially add Norwood to the 400m roster.

With Olympic champ Quincy Hall out of the picture, Patterson’s biggest competition will likely come from Bailey, the World Indoor champ, and Olympic silver medalist Matthew Hudson-Smith, the only two men to beat Patterson head-to-head this year. But Patterson has won his last three straight duels against Bailey, including at the U.S. Championships and DL final, and thrice gone faster than Hudson-Smith’s 44.10 season’s best, which the Brit ran to beat the Americans at the Pre Classic. Patterson is by no means untouchable, but it’s safe to say that at his first World Championship appearance he’s the betting favorite.

Similarly, U.S. hurdler Cordell Tinch benefits both from his own ascendence and a less-than-ideal season from his primary rivals. Reigning World/Olympic champ Grant Holloway has had a decidedly un-Holloway-like season, and in their last head-to-head meeting in Silesia Tinch beat him 13.03 to 13.10. Tinch then followed up that victory with two consecutive sub-13s, including a 12.92 victory in Zurich, bringing his season total up to three. No one else has more than one, and Holloway’s SB is 13.11.

Tinch is now decidedly in the driver’s seat as he rides a four-race post-USAs win streak into Tokyo, and it also helps that the rest of the field looks as shaky as Holloway. The other two medalists from Paris, American Daniel Roberts and Jamaican Rasheed Broadbell, won’t even be at Worlds, nor will the next most consistent hurdler, Trey Cunningham, who picked a bad day to have a bad day at USAs. The other two sub-13 guys this year are no lock for the podium either. Frenchman Just Kwaou-Mathey has never made a global final before, and while Japan’s Rachid Muratake finished fifth in Paris, he had a disastrous run in Zurich, finishing dead last after clattering multiple hurdles.

We’ve already given Niels Laros a decent bit of shine in this newsletter, and if you’re not already Laros-pilled enough, maybe this week’s CITIUS MAG podcast will help. The main thing that changed from last week is that the Dutchman’s win streak extends by one thanks to a 3:29.20 victory in Zurich. He also reclaimed the national record in the 1500m from his countryman Stefan Nillessen, and Laros has got one less contender to beat since Nuguse won’t be making the trip. Sure, Jakob Ingebrigtsen fans were buoyed this week by the news that he’s entering both the 1500m and 5000m in Tokyo after all, but with the way Laros is racing, even a fully-healthy Ingebrigtsen will have his hands full, should he find the youngster on his shoulder in a déjà vu-inducing position with 150 meters to go.

Not every race resulted in a decisive shift in the new World(s) order, but a few up-and-coming names certainly solidified their case for medal contention, if not a win. Before this year, the names Audrey Werro and Frederik Ruppert would not have rung many bells outside their respective home countries of Switzerland and Germany, but now Werro heads into the 800m rounds with a 1:55.91 PB, a big win over Georgia Hunter Bell, and only one woman decisively ahead of her: Olympic champ Keely Hodgkinson. Similarly, Ruppert has now proven via his second win on the circuit (officially only his first DL victory, as Oslo was a bonus event) that the only guy truly in another class is Olympic champ Soufiane El Bakkali. Let’s not forget, though, that the last time they matched up, Ruppert gave El Bakkali a real run for his money on his home turf in Rabat…

Perhaps most intriguing of all were some events where things seem less certain than ever before. Chase Jackson’s highest heights (farthest fars?) in the shot put have been untouchable this year, but that doesn’t mean that someone like Zurich winner Jessica Schilder or World Indoor champ Sarah Mitton can’t beat her under the right circumstances… Circumstances like what happened in Zurich for Schilder, who took the win in 20.26m to Jackson’s 20.08m, and also nearly happened for Mitton, too, had her 20.67m throw not been later ruled a foul. After recording an undefeated season in 2024, Yaroslava Mahuchikh has now fallen to Aussie Nicola Olyslagers multiple times this year, and it’s tempting to give Olyslagers, who leapt 2.04m in Zurich, the edge for Worlds.

While it isn’t a huge surprise to see Brittany Brown secure her spot in Tokyo by defending her Diamond League crown in the 200m, the event looks murkier than ever before following yesterday’s announcement that Olympic champ Gabby Thomas is out with an Achilles injury. Brown has now beaten two of her three Team USA teammates, Anavia Battle and McKenzie Long, head-to-head, and with question marks still hovering over World champ Shericka Jackson, the battle for gold appears to be between Julien Alfred and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden. After missing the U.S. team by one spot, Brown, who began her season late after undergoing surgical treatment for endometriosis symptoms, looks as good a bet as any for that third podium spot.

Old hats will look at the Zurich results, shake their heads, and sagely proclaim that the more things change; the more they stay the same. And it’s true that it wouldn’t be crazy at all to see the likes of Holloway, Ingebrigtsen, or Mahuchikh board their planes home from Tokyo with another gold in hand, satisfied with a season that didn’t always go well but did end well. The vibes coming out of Zurich are pointing in a decidedly different direction at the moment, however, and it’s now late enough in the season to take these “newcomers” seriously. 

How To UTMB-ify World XC 🏔️

It may come as a surprise to our more track-oriented readers, but Zurich’s Weltklasse wasn’t the most popular running event in the world last week. And no, we’re not talking about the highlight reels of 44.38 400m man Micahi Danzy or high school sprint star Nyck Harbor on the football field.

Instead, all eyes (at least 1.3 million of them, based on the livestream stats) were on Chamonix, France, for the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc World Series, the Super Bowl-meets-Coachella of long distance trail running. And if you think that sounds boring as hell… well, maybe don’t start by rewatching a full 11-hour stream, but the 15-minute highlight clip of the marquee race is pretty entertaining. Even if trail racing is not your cup of tea, one thing you’ll notice is that the narrow streets and mountain trails of Chamonix are absolutely packed with fans.

UTMB as a business entity is not without controversy, but it’s inarguably a popular and attractive event to both fans and sponsors alike, if the number of pop-ups and shoe-company reps flocking annually to the Alps are any indication. Unfortunately, we don’t have an American equivalent to UTMB, really—our closest analogue, the Western States 100, is a high-caliber elite event but not the same kind of crowd-drawing sporting spectacle. But we do have an off-track, off-road event on the horizon that we’re sure hoping will attract fans: the 2026 World Cross-Country Championship.

Sure, Tallahassee, Florida, may not be quite as idyllic a destination as the French mountainside, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons to be learned from the grand mack-daddy of bringing fans together with dirt trails. We’re not suggesting that World XC can transform overnight into a multi-day bacchanalia, but nevertheless, there’s some low-hanging fruit to be plucked.

Make viewing from home easy: UTMB and its sponsors deliver a gold-standard ultra broadcast, with multiple camera locations and free live streams in six different languages. Surely, the simplest way to bring in eyeballs would be to stick World XC on YouTube for all to see. But if the financial reality of a free stream isn’t feasible, the next best thing would be to deliver World XC on an established streamer, like Peacock, or even a straightforward and affordable pay-per-view. For the love of all that is holy, just don’t make us download some new app or sign up for a quickly-cancelled month of Joymo, or Freevee, or Piplup, or whatever is next.

Make race day a party: What do UTMB and the Tour de France and College Gameday all have in common—aside from being staples of Lap Count editors’ chaotic media diets? The fans showing up for the sporting event are having a damn good time, and their good times, frankly, are only tangentially related to the athletics they’re there to see. There’s plenty of room in Apalachee Regional Park for tailgates both official and unofficial. The contained, looped nature of the course makes it tantalizingly easy to offer concessions mere feet away from the racers (snacks, but mainly coffee and beer). Spectating cross country doesn’t have to feel like hard work begrudgingly undertaken by parents, teammates, and coaches. Bring along a six-pack, an enormous cardboard cutout of your favorite athlete’s head, and some buddies, and it can be fun!

Incorporate multiple races: Since 2023, UTMB has officially been branded as the UTMB “World Series” as it incorporates multi-distance championships ranging from 15k to 300k. There’s a team race and a youth race, and often rising stars on the trail scene take on the 101km “CCC” race as a springboard to a future appearance on UTMB’s main stage.

Here, USATF gets some rare but well-deserved kudos. It was a smart move to co-schedule the 20256 Club XC Championships with World XC, building up a small, five-race program into a full weekend and enticing the average-Joe runners to book a flight to Florida as both a racer and a spectator. But why stop at an open 10K and a few master’s races? Let’s get a one-mile XC race going with some decent prize money to entice some off-season middle-distance runners to participate, or an all-comers youth one-lapper for the master runners’ kids. The more races the merrier, and the more torn-up the course is by the time the pros set foot on it, the more exciting and unpredictable the race could be.

Make sure the biggest American stars show up: This one isn’t just on USATF, Florida State, or any individual athlete; it’ll be a bit of a team effort. For trail-curious fans, the nearly-annual presence of the sport’s big U.S. names—Jim Walmsley and Courtney Dauwalter—is a huge draw, and internationally, UTMB is seen as a can’t-miss opportunity for anyone who’s serious about their pro trail-running career. This year, Walmsley won the “short” OCC race (61km) by 20 seconds in a five-hour race, essentially a kicker’s battle by ultra standards. Dauwalter, a three-time UTMB champ, had a rough go this time, cratering hard over the latter miles but still finishing 10th, a harsh reminder of how tough the course is.

Now that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing Americans contending for Diamond League wins and Olympic medals, there’s no reason we can’t be aiming for victory on the home course if the talent shows up. A Grant Fisher/Nico Young/Graham Blanks/Conner Mantz team has credentials that can only be bettered by Kenyan and Ethiopian A-teams. And while in the past Team USA has aimed for, at best, a distant third or fourth, bringing our biggest guns wouldn’t put gold completely out of reach. The jump up to 10km is a bit tougher for the women’s ranks, but a Weini Kelati/Elise Cranny/Alicia Monson/Emily Infield quartet could make some waves as well. The challenge is actually talking/incenting them all into doing it.

UTMB is a proven model; World XC (the U.S. version) is a font of potential. The success of many of these elements will depend on funding, institutional support, and planning time, but “it can’t be done” or “we couldn’t think of any new ideas” is no longer an excuse for why the best cross country meet on American soil in recent memory can’t be a smashing success.

On Becoming The Ultimate Running Weekend Warrior ⚔️

We’ve written tens thousands of words about the state of the sport so far in 2025, and we’ll write tens of thousands more after the upcoming World Champs. But every once in a while we need to write a navel-gazey, first-person essay—or at least I, Paul, do…So here’s an ode to being a big-time loser whose primary competitive outlet is “winning” an uncontested “battle” against Rory Linkletter that he had no idea was happening.

It wasn’t that long ago that a guy like me—a 30-something dad with two bum Achilles, well aware that his days of running PBs are in the past—would have scratched that waning competitive itch by taking local 5ks way too seriously. I’d have gotten slower and balder each year, with interesting new braces and exorbitantly priced shoes taking on more and more of the structural load. 

Today, however, there is an alternative. Depending on your outlook, it’s either far more or far less dignified: being an unapologetic dork who attacks Strava segment leaderboards.

On this virtual battlefield, the modern weekend warrior can briefly half-step their local front-of-the-packer without the humiliation of DNFing before the mile mark while wheezing loudly and hacking up phlegm in a neighbor’s yard. As you dive into an all-out effort to snag a crown from a person who probably earned it by accident, you are technically alone. But in an exciting-slash-unnerving Metaverse, Tron-world way, you’re racing the digital avatar of every person who has ever trotted along a given route. And when you’re entering oxygen debt, your brain can no longer distinguish between kicking for the win at your state championship and beating out the ghost of 2:15 marathoners past on a randomly selected half-mile portion of the Prospect Park road loop. No matter how you recapture that feeling, it hurts to hurt, and it hurts so good.

When pursuing Strava segments becomes a primary motivator for your running, concepts like “warming up” and “cooling down” go out the window. I no longer need to concern myself with pedestrian metrics like “mileage” or “workout splits.” I’ve fully relinquished my athletic existence to an app, and in the process have untethered myself from the rigamarole that is structured training. On the days that I am not pushing my daughter in our jogging stroller, I often locate an attainable segment and aerobically self-flagellate for a few minutes. 

This becomes particularly enjoyable on family vacations… specifically, when on family vacation in the Mecca of American distance running, Flagstaff, Arizona.

A few years back, after flying into Phoenix and driving up the mountain, I identified a gently downhill ¾ mile segment near where my wife and I used to live that Rory Linkletter had assumed ownership of that very morning. I was in the market to kick my own ass for a few minutes and figured it would be funny if one of the best Canadian distance runners of all time could only hold onto “Down to Thorpe" on Strava for six hours, so I went for it.

After just under four minutes of race-effort output, I split my watch and appreciated the metallic taste registering on my tongue. Still gasping for breath, I shuffled back to the car, where I uploaded my run and learned I’d dethroned Linkletter. Did it matter that Strava’s leaderboard showed his heart rate for the segment had been in the 120s, while mine was approaching 180? Who are you, my cardiologist?

Only after becoming the undisputed King of “Down to Thorpe”—a title that affords its holder very little in the way of respect, sadly—did I think of something. Back home in Brooklyn, if you snag a Strava crown, more often than not, its previous owner will simply take it back because they are much better at running than you and juuuust petty enough to care. But an athlete like Rory Linkletter has bigger fish to fry. His athletic successes are measured by top-10 finishes at World Marathon Majors, not by how many Strava crowns he possesses on a residential bike path. Surely a Paris Olympian isn’t going to adjust his training to reclaim an entirely meaningless title!

After our week in Flagstaff concluded, Linkletter hadn’t rebutted—on purpose or by mistake. And so two years later, back in town on a family trip a few weeks back, while my wife was relaxing and our daughter was napping, I Gollum-ly hunched over my laptop and muttered “my precious” as I scoured Flagstaff’s heatmap for segments topped by professional athletes that appeared to have been earned mid-recovery run. A few productive days later, we packed our bags and I left town with two more segment crowns up my sleeve, both of them dispossessed from professional runners who almost certainly won’t notice. Did it make me a better husband or father? No. Did it make me a better athlete? Also no. But it also didn’t make me worse, unless you fairly view this whole enterprise as petulant and self-serving.

It’s easy to look at the all-time results of a Strava segment and think they don’t tell the whole story. But when you see a civilian jabroni ahead of world class athletes, the story is a short one: “that jackass jogged for five minutes, sprinted for three, then walked back with a side stitch, inhaling deeply the brief stench of shamefully won glory.” It’s not glamorous, but it sure isn’t punching down.

So go forth and give yourself a shot at basking in that distinctive musk. Life affords you so few opportunities to come by an Uncle Rico moment honestly. And who knows? Perhaps the next enormous loser passing through town on the hunt for segment-based glory will pause briefly upon seeing your name ahead of Drew Bosley’s, smile to themselves in recognizing a Fellow Traveler, then take it from you. 

More News From The Track And Field World 📰

– The Sydney Marathon’s inaugural running as a World Marathon Major went off without a hitch, aside from its truly unusual course map, and Sifan Hassan (2:18:22) and Hailemaryam Kiros (2:06:06) were your winners. Although he’ll always be the GOAT of the event, the latter part of Eliud Kipchoge’s storied career continues to come with struggles, as he finished ninth in 2:08:31.

– New Haven is known for a few things: cracker-thin pizza, birch beer, and being one of the only places on earth where you can establish an honest-to-goodness 20km PB. This past weekend at the 20k U.S. Championships Conner Mantz lowered his own American record for the distance, going 56:16 to win by 16 seconds. Aubrey Frentheway took the women’s title in 1:05:42.

– Through the power of friendship 🙂—and with an assist from an unfortunate metatarsal injury 🙁—Isaac Updike has been named to the American World Track and Field Championship team in the steeple.

– After years of disrespect from her national federation, Favour Ofili has begun the process of switching national allegiances from Nigeria to Turkey. She will be eligible to compete for Turkey in 2027.

– American marathoner Shadrack Biwott has been issued a four year ban by USADA after the former Oregon standout tested positive for EPO (whoa—a throwback PED!) in January of 2024.

– The USTFCCCA preseason coaches’ polls have been released, and BYU enters the 2025 campaign ranked #1 for the women, with Iowa State being voted the most likely men’s team to take home the title come November.

Interested in reaching 20,000+ dedicated runners and track and field fans? Advertise with us here.