World Indoor Champion Josh Hoey has parted ways with coach Justin Rinaldi after a breakout 2025 season. The news was first reported by LetsRun.com

In 2025, Hoey broke the American record in the 1000m indoors (2:14.48) and 800m indoors (1:43.24). He went on to win the World Indoor 800m title in Nanjing, China. During the outdoor season, he ran personal bests of 1:42.01 for 800m (No. 2 U.S. all-time) and 3:29.75 for 1500m (No. 5 U.S. all-time). He finished the 2025 outdoor season as the fastest American in the 800m and 1500m. He is the fourth-fastest 800m runner of 2025.

Hoey finished 4th at the U.S. Outdoor Track and Field Championships and failed to qualify for the World Championships in Tokyo.

Hoey and Rinaldi had been working together since Fall 2023. At the start of the 2024 season, Hoey had a personal best of 1:47.36 and had previously never managed to make it through the first round of a U.S. Championship.

LetsRun reports it was a mutual decision after disagreements with their respective approaches to the 2026 season.

“There’s no bad blood or animosity,” Rinaldi told LetsRun.com. “It was literally Josh wasn’t happy with his season, had some ideas on how he could improve for next year. I disagreed with those ideas. I thought it was a litte bit too intense. I tried to pull Josh back, and I thought that was my main role, holding Josh back. I tried to buy into the new ideas, but I said look, if the coach – or me – doesn’t 100% believe in what you’re doing, I don’t want to be the negative person. And I don’t want to be the one to be seen holding you back, so I said it’s best for me not to be involved moving forward. Josh was very intense, he training he wants to do is very intense. And I like to take a long-term approach and make sure we see out the season and think about 2028, because at the end of the day, that’s the main goal, the Olympics. Especially because they’re in America. And I wanted a three-year progression and Josh wanted a six-month progression.”

In a podcast appearance with CITIUS MAG back in February, Hoey recounted how he had taken one day off while driving home to Flagstaff following the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials before continuing a training cycle that would carry into the 2025 indoor season.

Since turning professional in Aug. 2018, Hoey has been coached by Terrence Mahon (2018 to 2019), Lee Labadie (2019 to 2020), Matthew Centrowitz Sr. (2020 to 2022), Tommy Nohilly and John Trautmann (2022 to 2023) and Rana Reider (2023) before he started working with Rinaldi.

Hoey has yet to announce a new coach.

He is slated to race the Kalakaua Merrie Mile on Dec. 13th, 2025, against 1500m Olympic bronze medalist and U.S. mile record holder Yared Nuguse, 2025 steeplechase World champion George Beamish and 2019 800m World champion Donavan Brazier. The Merrie Mile will be streaming LIVE and for FREE on the CITIUS MAG YouTube channel.