Kerr vs. Ingebrigtsen Highlights Historically Deep Field

There’s a reason the meet organizers saved the Bowerman Mile for last this year. We’ve already given some stats on how deep this race will be, like how the average PB of the field is 3:48.57 and the race will feature five global 1500m champions. However, everyone who has paid a sliver of attention to global distance running over the last year knows that all eyes in this race will be on just two men: Jakob Ingebrigtsen, winner of the last three Bowerman Mile titles, and Josh Kerr, last year's 1500m World champion over Ingebrigtsen.

Ingebrigtsen has always been incredibly outspoken in the media (and 98 times out of 100 he’s backed it up), but since Kerr defeated him in the 1500m final in Budapest both men have taken the media jabs to another level. When you have two of the most talented runners in history with very little hesitancy to speak their mind on each other, it fosters an incredibly intriguing beef that’s brought middle-distance running more attention than it’s had in a long time..

Saturday’s race will be the first matchup between these two since the final in Budapest. In the nine months since that race, Ingebrigtsen has set the world record in the 2000m and ran the third-fastest times ever in both the mile and the 3000m at last year’s Prefontaine Classic. Kerr, meanwhile, tore up the track this indoor season, obliterating the world best in the indoor two mile and becoming World Indoor champion over 3000m.

Ingebrigtsen has yet to race in 2024 after dealing with an Achilles injury throughout the indoor season – good thing he chose such a nice, quaint, low-stakes race for his opener!

As for the other 13 men in this race, most of them could very well have just as strong of a claim to the win as Ingebrigtsen and Kerr. American record holder Yared Nuguse finished less than a quarter-second behind Ingebrigtsen at this race last year, making him the fourth-fastest miler ever, and crossed the line about a half-second behind Kerr for silver at World Indoors in March. This is a situation where Nuguse has unfortunately become somewhat overlooked by the rest of the track and field world in this race because he isn’t as brash as his two main competitors, but I can guarantee you they aren’t overlooking him.

The next fastest PB in the field belongs to Ollie Hoare, who’ll be looking to dip under 3:50.40 to secure the Olympic standard equivalent for the 1500m. Then we can’t forget the other global champions in the field are 2022 World champ Jake Wightman (whose title performance over Ingebrigtsen might as well have served as the blueprint for Kerr’s the following year), 2016 Olympic champ Matthew Centrowitz, and 2024 World Indoor champ Geordie Beamish.

Tsegay’s World Record Attempt In Midst Of Kenyan 10,000m Trials

Last week, we were expecting the most exciting thing about the 10,000m races in Eugene to be World champion Gudaf Tsegay going after the world record of 29:01.03, held by her countrywoman Letesenbet Gidey. Tsegay shattered the 5000m world record at Pre last September and her PB of 29:29.73 ranks fourth on the all-time 10,000m list, so we knew that was well within her wheelhouse.

Then on Sunday afternoon, it was announced that these races, both men’s and women’s, would serve as the 10,000m team trials for Athletics Kenya. As detailed in the Lap Count earlier this week, AK did the same thing in 2012. The main reason for holding the Kenyan Trials 9,000 miles away is to avoid the elevation in Kenya that can pose challenges for even the best athletes to hit the Olympic standard. The selection process for Team Kenya will take the top two finishers on Saturday and then award the third spot via a discretionary pick.

On the men’s side, it originally looked like we might’ve been barrelling towards a disaster as up until Wednesday afternoon, world #1 and reigning World Championship silver medallist Daniel Ebenyo was unable to get a visa to compete this weekend (reminiscent of Ferdinand Omanyala’s visa struggles at the 2022 World Championships, also in Eugene). Thankfully those issues all got sorted out and Ebenyo will run Saturday, most likely as the sizable favorite.

Nicholas Kipkorir, eighth in Budapest last summer, has the second-fastest PB in the field and should have a strong shot at finishing inside the top two. World Cross Country bronze medallist Benson Kiplangat finished fifth at the team trials last July, but the fitness he showed during the cross country season and a third place finish in the Shanghai Diamond League 5000m means he should be a contender this weekend.

In the women’s race, Beatrice Chebet’s first 10,000m race in over four years will be an incredibly enticing one to watch. In those four years, Chebet has picked up a pair of World Championship medals in the 5000m and broken the world record for the 5K on the roads. She should be the heavy favorite among the Kenyan women, but it will be interesting to see how she responds to Tsegay’s world record chase. As our own Owen Corbett pointed out yesterday, Chebet definitely has the talent to go with Tsegay on that hot of a pace. Heck, she did it last year in Tsegay’s 5000m world record race, finishing 2nd with the third-fastest time in history. But with the significance of making an Olympic team on the line, will Chebet risk hanging onto Tsegay early on and potentially fading, or will she run a safer, more tactical race against her fellow Kenyans to ensure her place in Paris? We’ll find out Saturday.

Her primary competition in terms of the Trials looks to be Grace Nawowuna, who finished ninth in Budapest last year and ran 29:47.92 in June, bronze medallist from Eugene Margaret Chelimo Kipkemboi, and Faith Chepkoech. Chepkoech has never run a 10,000m on the track before, but she clocked 29:50 on the roads of Castellón in late February.

Moon’s Outdoor Opener Headlines Great Field Competitions

Katie Moon is one of only five athletes in the world that has won gold at each of Tokyo, Eugene and Budapest. At long last, she is finally getting her Olympic title defense campaign underway.

For Moon, it’s not necessarily the same eye-popping dominance we see from Mondo Duplantis in the men’s pole vault (another member of that illustrious group of five), but it’s just ridiculous consistency and an uncanny ability to elevate her performance to the highest level whenever it’s necessary. Her indoor season was slightly hampered by an achilles injury, but she still managed to win U.S. indoors, clearing 4.80m in the process, and then took home a bronze medal from World Indoors.

Moon underwent PRP treatment after the indoor season concluded which forced her to pull out of the Doha Diamond League earlier this month, but she’s said that training has been going well in the interim. It’ll only be a field of five at Pre, but it includes three women who cleared at least 4.82m indoors: two-time World Indoor champion Sandi Morris, Canadian record holder Alysha Newman, and 2023 World finalist Bridget Williams.

The women’s discus competition Saturday will feature the fourth head-to-head-to-head of the season between Olympic champ Valarie Allman, World champ Lagi Tausaga-Collins, and world leader Yaime Perez. Allman has won each of the three previous clashes this season and will be returning to a circle at Hayward Field that she has owned in the last three years, winning five of her last six competitions there.

World record holder Ryan Crouser was initially entered in the men’s shot put competition for the weekend, but he unfortunately pulled out Thursday night. The crazy thing though is that even without the greatest shot putter to ever live, this field is still ridiculous! Joe Kovacs is the headliner, fresh off the third-best mark of his career last week in L.A. at 22.93m (which somehow is not the world lead, shoutout Leonardo Fabbri). The two-time World champ will be joined by long-time rival Tom Walsh, as well as U.S. teammates Payton Otterdahl and Josh Awotunde. Walsh’s experience in L.A. was a bit different than Kovacs’s: his mark of 21.02 placed 7th, his worst finish in a competition since 2013. Needless to say I feel his fortunes will flip this weekend. Otterdahl’s 2024 has been off to a flying start, setting a new PB of 22.41m earlier this month. He also threw 22.59m at the Drake Relays in April, but that mark was not ratified by World Athletics.

Finally, the women’s hammer and triple jump competitions boast tons of firepower, with four of the top five athletes in the world this year competing in each event.

Head-To-Head Matchups Standout Among Great Fields

Like I said, there is not a lackluster event on the schedule. For the sake of (relative!) brevity, these last few races will be looked at mainly through a two-athlete lens, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the field isn’t incredibly talented:

- Elaine Thompson-Herah’s pursuit of the Olympic triple-double will finally get underway this weekend as she returns to a track where she has been so consistently excellent over the last three years. In her last four non-qualifying 100m races at Hayward Field, she’s run 10.79, 10.79, 10.81, and her legendary 10.54. Her most recent race was at last year’s Prefontaine Classic, where her 10.79 clocking capped off a late season push after struggling with injuries earlier on. In this race, she’ll have to contend with the 100m season opener of World champion Sha’Carri Richardson. Richardson competed in both April Diamond League meets in China, running 22.99 and 23.11 for the 200m. Those times could be somewhat explained away by early season fitness and sluggishness that can come with travel, but it could start to really raise some eyebrows if Richarson doesn’t come out firing this weekend.

- Late withdrawals from Erriyon Knighton and Letsile Tebogo do put a bit of a damper on this event, but the battle between world leader Kenny Bednarek and the joint-second fastest man in the world Courtney Lindsey should still provide some fireworks. They met two weeks ago in Doha, with Bednarek taking the win by a big margin in 19.67. However, that was far from Lindsey at his best, as the former Red Raider has already run 19.88 and 19.71 in his first season as a professional. These two will most likely be linked together for most of the year as they battle for the presumptive third spot on Team U.S.A. (that is, if Knighton can get his season underway and run the way we know he can).

- This year’s World Indoor 60m champion Christian Coleman will be running in his third 100m race of the season at Pre. He opened his season at the Xiamen and Shanghai Diamond Leagues with a win in 10.13 and a second-place finish in 10.04. The finishing placements weren’t bad, but the times were slower than expected and stirred up lots of conversation. What better way for Coleman to really get his season going then, and dispel any doubts than by returning to the meet where he closed out his 2023 season by equalling the world lead at 9.83? Coleman will be running against, among others, Jamaica’s Ackeem Blake. It took Blake a little bit to get going outdoors after a bronze medal finish behind Coleman and Noah Lyles in Glasgow, but his season’s best from two weeks ago of 10.02 shows he is rounding into form as we move towards the summer and should provide stiff competition to Coleman if he once again can’t find his A-game.

- Sprint hurdlers simply don’t dodge each other, so it’s impossible to pick just two athletes from an Olympic finals-esque women’s field. On the men’s side, it’s appointment viewing whenever three-time World champion Grant Holloway and Tokyo Olympic champ Hansle Parchment line up against each other. Holloway had won seven in a row against the Jamaican since that final in Tokyo, but Parchment took both post-World Championships Diamond League matchups, including setting a PB in a win at last year’s Pre Classic. Parchment has gotten off to a slower start in 2024, finishing sixth and third at the Diamond League meets in China, while Holloway ran 13.07 into a headwind in Atlanta last weekend for a “world lead” (the Adidas Atlanta City Games weren’t on the World Athletics calendar, so none of the results are officially recognized).

- Ejgayehu Taye and Sifan Hassan will be battling it out over 5000m on Saturday, an event where they are the eighth- and ninth-fastest women of all-time, respectively. Taye kicked her season off in Doha two weeks ago, finishing runner up to Beatrice Chebet in 14:29.26, but that’s still the second-fastest time in the world this year as Chebet set the world lead in that race. Hassan’s track season got underway that same weekend at the Sound Running TrackFest, where she ran 14:58.83 for 5000m largely alone. It should be a safe bet that Hassan and Taye will push each other to go much quicker than their current season’s bests.