– Wightman missed the entire 2023 outdoor season due to a foot injury. He has mostly stayed out of the banter between Ingebrigtsen and Wightman but told Australia’s Wide World of Sports, “It probably means that we're doing something right if someone feels the need to say that about us. Josh is more likely to bite back, whereas I'd rather just let my running do the talking.”

– Wightman has shown good form this year with a pair of 3:34s from his winter season in Australia and most recently ran 1:44.10 to finish third at the Los Angeles Grand Prix. That is the second-fastest 800m time of his career.

Yared Nuguse’s Revenge

– Nuguse finished second in last year’s race in an American record of 3:43.97. He has not added anything to the verbal barbs between his rivals to date, but he’s continued to progress in performance. Nuguse spent his indoor season working on his strength and was rewarded with a 13:02.09 5000m PB, and in Ingebrigtsen’s absence, he collected his first global championship medal with a silver in the 3000m behind Kerr at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow.

– Nuguse has an 0–4 record against Ingebrigtsen head-to-head and last year’s Bowerman Mile was the closest that he’s come to beating him.

Hobbs Kessler Tests Himself Against The Best

– Kessler is looking to erase some bad memories at Hayward Field. The promising 21-year-old turned professional straight out of high school in 2021 just in time for the U.S. Olympic Trials, held in Eugene, but he got knocked out in the semifinals of the 1500m. In 2022, he failed to advance out of the heats at USAs, and in 2023 he made the final but only finished 5th. Kessler competed at the Pre Classic in 2022 in the international 1500m, but this will be his Bowerman Mile debut.

– Kessler has spent much of the last year proving that he can race well in any kind of setting, winning the inaugural Road Mile World Championship last fall and clocking big mile and 1500m personal bests of 3:48.66 and 3:33.66 indoors this past spring. He also made his first U.S. team and picked up a World Indoor bronze in Glasgow, proving that he’s adding new tools to his belt every day.

Is Cole Hocker’s new strength the secret sauce?

– Cole Hocker returns to his former home track and enters with a shiny new 5000m personal best of 12:58.82 from Los Angeles. Hocker, who initially made waves on the professional scene with the blistering finishing speed that landed him on the U.S. Olympic Team in 2021, is clearly building up his aerobic engine as well.

– Each time out against Ingebrigtsen, Hocker’s closing the gap. Most recently, he was seventh at last year’s World Championships in 3:30.70 – just 1.02 seconds shy of a medal and 1.05 seconds back of Ingebrigtsen’s silver. For Hocker, this weekend’s race could be a chance to make a statement and re-establish himself as the U.S. Olympic Trials favorite if he’s able to beat Nuguse and Kessler.

Lamecha Girma Continues To Work On His Speed

– Steeplechase world record holder Lamecha Girma has spent some time in the 1500m and 5000m for the early parts of this season. And you can understand why: with five global silver medals (1 Olympic, 3 World outdoors, 1 World indoors), the Ethiopian is likely tired of getting outkicked when it counts and wants every possible tool in his toolbox for his inevitable rematch with Olympic champ Soufiane El Bakkali.

– Girma has raced four times in 2024 and won three of them, including a 12:58.96 5000m win at the Xiamen Diamond League. He also has a 3:29.51 1500m PB from Paris last summer, where he lost to Ingebrigtsen but beat Kerr, so if he’s in similar shape he should be in the mix.

Cooper Teare’s Late Add Spices It Up

– With the announcement Thursday that 2016 Olympic champ Matthew Centrowitz was out of the Bowerman Mile and 2022 U.S. champ Cooper Teare would take his place, fans of the younger generation got one of their most promising guys in the mix. Teare is coming off a big 5000m PB at the LA Grand Prix, where he ran 12:54.72 for 9th place and landed himself #4 on the U.S. all-time list.

– Like his training partner Hocker, Teare has also been working on his strength, with a few pacing jobs on his card this spring alongside wins at the BAA 5k and U.S. XC championships. But he also found time to improve his 1500m PB to 3:32.16 in a time trial-style race in Virginia in April, and currently he, Hocker, Kessler and Nuguse are the only Americans with the Olympic standard. How he fares against this field may inform which event(s) represent his best path toward his first Olympic berth later this summer.

Don’t Forget The World Indoor 1500m Champion

– New Zealand’s George Beamish kicked his way to gold at the World Indoor Championships by utilizing his signature “Textbook George” surge at the end of the race. He did the same thing to win the Prefontaine Classic’s “B” mile in 2021 to catch Craig Engels, who was celebrating early. At last year’s edition of Pre, he finished 3rd in the Diamond League steeplechase final in 8:14.01.

– If the pace is blistering hot, it seems like a tall order to employ the same tactics as Glasgow to come away with a win here, but holding on and finishing as high as possible should get him a new personal best to possibly join the sub-3:50 club.

Aussies Cam Myers and Olli Hoare Add To Their Olympic Case

– 17-year-old Australian sensation Cameron Meyer’s Olympic hopes to run the 1500m in Paris may have taken a slight hit last weekend in Los Angeles when he ran 3:35.59 for 6th place (behind two of his countrymen) despite making a bold move to the front in the final lap. Meyer only finished 5th at the Australian national championships, but he’s one of only three Aussies with the standard and could make a case for himself to be selected by Athletics Australia for Paris if he runs fast and beats some big stars. Last week, he was beaten by Jessie Hunt, who was the third place finisher at Australian nationals and maybe tightened up a bit of his own case for the selectors.

– Olli Hoare, the Australian record holder and Olympic finalist, is still in need of the Olympic standard. Hitting a sub-3:50.40 would check the box for him to likely be selected for the Games. His 2023 outdoor season was cut short due to a sports hernia but he’s looked strong with a runner-up finish at the Australian nationals, a 3:51.28mile at the Penn Relays and a 3:34.73 victory at the LA Grand Prix. Hoare is racing himself back into shape and looking for some of the form that made him a regular contender on the Diamond League circuit before the injury.

Neil Gourley Thrown Right Back Into The Fire

– Gourley will be opening his 2024 outdoor season with the fastest mile field of the season. He missed the indoor season due to an injury that prevented him from running in front of a home crowd in Glasgow.

– In a way, it could be a good marker for where Gourley stands among the British 1500m with the national championships looming. We presume Josh Kerr will be automatically selected for the 1500m squad as the reigning World champion. That leaves two spots up for grabs at the British championships with really tough competitors like Wightman, George Mills, Adam Fogg and Elliott Giles all having run under 3:35 this year. Someone very good will be watching the Paris Olympics from home.