Let’s go back, let’s go way, way, way back to the days before rock ‘n’ roll.
No, sorry, that was a few weeks ago when your columnist referenced Van Morrison and his song/poem On Hyndford St on another matter. Let’s stick to the recent past this time. Just last year at the Paris Olympic Games.
Remember how the USA men dominated the 1500 metres. Jakob Ingebrigtsen was there; so, too, Josh Kerr, the man who upset the favoured Norwegian at the world championships in Budapest a year earlier.
Neither won. Instead, US champion Cole Hocker kept his cool before producing a red-hot sprint along the inside up the final straight to snatch the gold medal. Kerr was second, to be fair, but Yared Nuguse made it two medals for the USA by also getting past Ingebrigtsen in the final metres. The third American in the final, Hobbs Kessler, was next.
One, three and five for the US. What a day for the stars and stripes. You’d fancy these three would dominate the American scene for a few years to come. Not so much, as it turns out; not even through the next major event on the US calendar, the national championships contested last weekend at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.
There was carnage in the men’s middle distances. Far from dominate, the old order found itself fighting for its life. Hocker, Nuguse and Kessler all ran in the 1500 metres. At this stage only Olympic champion Hocker is in the team and that by the skin of his teeth. Paris teammates Kessler and Nuguse finished fourth and fifth in the championship race, however, missing automatic selection for Tokyo.
Presuming Hocker takes his place in the 1500 (shades of Jakob, he also won the 5000 at the championships to give himself options), the only path for one of Kessler or Nuguse to make it to Tokyo is via the wild card on offer to winners of the Diamond League final in Zurich at the end of this month.
Jonah Koech, Kenyan-born but already a US world championships representative in the 800 in 2022, ran a personal best 3:30.17 to win the 1500 in Eugene from Ethan Strand and Hocker, Koech broke through at 1500 with a win at the Rabat Diamond League meeting in May but had not raced since due to hamstring soreness (a 25.68 final 200 suggested he was no longer even aware of his hamstring!).
Nuguse led the final, no surprise to anyone there. “You know the favorite’s going to go up to the front and press,” said runner-up Strand after the race. “So, I had to plan for one scenario. I think that makes it a little easier.” The surprise, indeed, would have been if Nuguse had not led.
The men’s 800 was not quite as dramatic, though it did produce the bigger bombshell with 16-year-old Texas high schooler Cooper Lutkenhaus flying home to take second place in an astonishing 1:42.27. It took something special to upstage the winner – 2019 world champion Donavan Brazier, returning to racing in June this year after three years’ battling recurring injury problems, was a step ahead of the teen in 1:42.16 – but Lutkenhaus produced something very special indeed.
Again, the presence of a predictable favourite in Josh Hoey simplified every other finalist’s race plan. Hoey would lead, and it would be fast. “I knew Josh would take it out hard. I knew I just had to put myself in a good position and hang on,” Brazier said.
Which was the obvious response adopted by everyone else. Except Lutkenhaus, that is. For the entire 800 metres it seemed he was in a race of his own. He ran slow when his rivals ran fast; he ran fast when they ran slow.
Hoey led at the bell in 49.29, other highly fancied contenders Brandon Miller, Bryce Hoppel and Brazier all close behind. Lutkenhaus was trailed off in 51.61 but poised to unleash a second lap as out of sync as the first had been. His second 400 took just 50.66, against Brazier (52.54), Hoppel (52.96), Hoey (53.77) and Miller (53.80).
Hoppel, fourth in last year’s Olympic final, will at least get the chance to run in Tokyo after taking third place in 1:42.49, some metres clear of Hoey and Miller. Hoey, too, may yet qualify via a Diamond League winner’s wild card – though beating Emmanuel Wanyonyi will be a formidable task for anyone.
Again, of the three Americans who competed at the Olympics, Hoppel is the only one in the team for Tokyo. He finished fourth in the Paris final, Miller and Kessler were semi-finalists.
The change theme, while not as marked as with the men, continued in the women’s 800 and 1500. None of Roisin Willis, Maggi Congdon and Sage Hurta-Klecker – one, two and three in the 800 – competed at the Olympics as Paris reps Nia Akins, Allie Wilson and Juliette Whittaker joined other regular members of Team USA Raevyn Rogers, Ajee Wilson and Athing Mu in failing to make the final this time.
The women’s 1500 was won by Paris seventh place Nikki Hiltz with Emily Mackay, an Olynmpic semi-finalist, also making the three for Tokyo. Joining them on the team will be Sinclaire Johnson who finished second.
Hiltz said that it had been a predictable race. “I knew it was going to be tactical. No one in that field likes to lead. I know my competitors, I know what everyone likes to do.
“It kind of played out exactly how I thought it would, honestly,” she said.
It was about the only race that did.
