The fiftieth version of the Prefontaine Traditional was billed as probably the most stacked single-day observe and subject meets ever assembled, and regardless of some high-profile late withdrawals from Olympic champions Kenny Bednarek and Quincy Corridor, it lived as much as the hype.
With ideally suited climate situations and a sellout crowd on the College of Oregon campus in Eugene, Hayward Area was handled to a Summer season Olympics value of elite competitors crammed right into a five-hour window.
Religion Kipyegon lowers the 1500-meter world document once more
That’s the way you shut the present.
There wasn’t a sub-4-minute mile run by Religion Kipyegon in Paris, however followers didn’t have to attend lengthy to see her do one thing historic once more.
The Kenyan celebrity, proprietor of six mixed golds within the Olympics and World Championships, lowered her personal 1500-meter world document from 3:49.04 to three:48.68 to wrap up the occasion. The pacemaking was focused for world document tempo and Kipyegon stored up with it after which some, storming down the house straight and detaching from Ethiopia’s Diribe Welteji and Australia’s Jess Hull, sending the 12,606 followers into euphoria. Wetelji was second in 3:51.44 and Hull was third in 3:52.67, with USA’s Nikki Hiltz fifth in 3:55.96.
There isn’t any equal for Kipyegon. She’s the best girls’s middle-distance runner we’ve ever seen and she or he confirmed why once more on Saturday. Kipyegon took the world document from Genzebe Dibaba in 2023 by turning into the primary girl to run underneath 3:50. Now she’s the primary to run underneath 3:49.
Beatrice Chebet units her personal world document within the 5000 meters
It was an amazing day for Kenyan girls on the observe. Double Olympic champion Beatrice Chebet, who broke the 10k world document in Eugene final yr, grew to become the primary girl in historical past to go underneath the 14-minute mark within the 5k. A 61-second final lap pulled her away from countrywoman Agnes Jebet Ngetich and unseated WR holder Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia.
Chebet crossed the road in a brand new document time of 13:58.06, surpassing Tsegay’s mark by over two seconds.
Melissa Jefferson-Wood beats Julien Alfred within the girls’s 100 meters
The lady to beat in 2025 seems to be Coastal Carolina’s Melissa Jefferson-Wood. Her large showings in Grand Slam Observe have carried over into the Diamond League, as she held off Olympic champion Julien Alfred to win in 10.75 seconds, two hundredths sooner than the Saint Lucian and right into a headwind. Ivory Coast’s Marie Josee Ta Lou-Smith took third spot.
Sha’Carri Richardson, who revealed at Friday’s press convention she had an harm setback in February, didn’t begin effectively and completed final in simply her second race of the yr. Fortunately for Sha’Carri, she has a bye into September’s World Championships as reigning champ again in 2023.
Kishane Thompson dominates within the males’s 100
Jamaican sprinting star Kishane Thompson constructed an early lead on the remainder of the sector and by no means regarded again. Contemporary off working 9.75 seconds at Jamaican trials final week, the Olympic silver medalist ran 9.85 seconds for his first Prefontaine Traditional and Diamond League win. Britain’s Zharnel Hughes and America’s Trayvon Bromell had been second and third, respectively, whereas former world champion Christian Coleman’s season-long struggles proceed with a seventh-place exhibiting at 10.06 seconds.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone wins 400m, however American document survives
With a private better of 48.74 seconds within the open 400 meters, two-time Olympic 400m hurdles champion and world document holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone didn’t must decrease her time a complete lot to take the 19-year-old American document away from the nice Sanya Richards-Ross.
McLaughlin-Levrone mentioned it was “not my finest race” however she was in a position to get the win over NCAA champion Aaliyah Butler of Georgia and Penn graduate Isabella Whitaker. Nonetheless, the profitable time of 49.43 seconds means Sanya’s document lives on for now.
Athing Mu-Nikolayev struggles in her return to the 800 meters
The primary 800-meter race of 2025 for Tokyo Olympic champion Athing Mu-Nikolayev didn’t go as deliberate. She completed final place at simply 2:03.44. Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma held off a late-charging Prudence Sekgodiso of South Africa to win in 1:57.10. It was Athing’s first main 800m run since her fall in Olympic trials final yr.
Mu-Nikolayev admitted it wasn’t ideally suited to run the 800 this late into the season however had two deliberate races nixed as a consequence of occasion cancellation. She advised SB Nation after the race, “I positively respect the followers nonetheless supporting me by means of all of the highs and lows that include being a professional athlete. They’re form of those that decide you again up. It reminds you once more of why you’re doing it, it’s not only for myself and getting data and profitable golds, however inspiring the younger youngsters which are wanting as much as me and simply the individuals who love observe who get to see quick races and good runs.”
With US trials across the nook, Mu might want to stand up to hurry quick to make a aggressive US 800m staff for the World Championships.
An epic Bowerman Mile with a shocking ending
Center-distance working is as unpredictable because it will get in observe and subject, and the Bowerman Mile had an ending nobody noticed coming.
Because the “Goose!” yells emanated from the followers, it regarded for all of the world that Olympic bronze medalist Yared Nuguse would finish the 19-year American drought on this race. With lower than 100 meters to go he was effectively in entrance of France’s Azeddine Habz, however 20-year-old rising Dutch expertise Niels Laros made a ridiculous comeback. Manner again in eleventh place (!) with simply over a lap to go, Laros stormed his method into third, and as Nuguse was gritting his enamel and struggling, Laros took the within rail and he out-dipped Nuguse on the line. Habbz drifted again to 3rd place however nonetheless picked up a nationwide document.
With a time of three:45.94, Laros ran a Dutch document and gave followers the perfect end and finest face of the day. That’s as epic as comeback as you’ll see in a race of this caliber.
Different high moments
- Brazil’s Alison Dos Santos pulled off an exciting win over Olympic champion Rai Benjamin within the males’s 400m hurdles, working a season’s finest 46.65 seconds to Benjamin’s 46.71. This was the identical venue Dos Santos received his 2022 world title over Benjamin, so historical past repeats itself on this event.
- Letsile Tebogo didn’t have Kenny Bednarek to run towards within the males’s 200 meters as hoped, however the reigning Olympic champ from Botswana nonetheless gave the followers a present with a clocking of 19.76 seconds, the quickest time of 2025. American Cortney Lindsey and Dominican Republic’s Alexander Ogando rounded out the highest three.
- Mya Lesnar’s Diamond League debut was transient. The NCAA girls’s shot put champion and daughter of former WWE and UFC champion Brock Lesnar entered elite competitors and completed in final, getting two no-marks and throwing 18.23m in her third and remaining try over six rounds. American document holder Chase Jackson received in 20.94m over a subject full of embellished shot put champions and contenders.
- As common, Mondo Duplantis received the boys’s pole vault. Six meters was all he wanted to win over his good buddy and 2019 world champion Sam Kendricks, however three makes an attempt on the world document of 6.29m all ended within the pole getting knocked off. See? The Swede is human, in any case.
When is the subsequent main observe and subject occasion?
The Prefontaine Traditional is a part of the Diamond League out of doors circuit and runs throughout September. Up subsequent is Monaco on July 16, streamed on FloTrack.
In the meantime, the US Nationwide Championships (which double as World Championship qualifiers) will happen in Eugene from July 31-Aug. 3, with NBC broadcasting the final two days of competitors.
The entire Prefontaine Traditional outcomes, together with full subject outcomes, the youth meets, and para-athlete races, will be discovered right here.