Week in Review: Assefa wins big in London
After two close losses last year, Ethiopian sets women's-only world record in marathon
After finishing second in a pair of high-profile marathons by a combined 10 seconds last year, Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia won the London Marathon by nearly three minutes on Sunday when she posted the fastest time ever run in a women’s-only race with a clocking of 2 hours 15 minutes 50 seconds.
That time bettered the previous women’s-only world record of 2:16:16 that had been set by Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya in last year’s London Marathon and it also left the 28-year-old Assefa more than half a mile ahead of Joyciline Jepkosgei of Kenya, who placed second in 2:18:44.
Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands, who had outkicked Assefa for the gold medal in last year’s Olympic Games in Paris, finished third in 2:19:00, followed by Haven Hailu Desse of Ethiopia in 2:19:17.
Assefa’s time was the 10th fastest in history and the third fastest of her career, but the nine performances ahead of her winning clocking all came in marathons in which the women’s race was run in conjunction with the men’s contest.
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The elite women’s race started 30 minutes ahead of the elite men’s contest on Sunday, so Assefa never ran with any men.
“When I crossed the line I just felt extreme happiness – I was very, very happy to win the race here,” Assefa said through an interpreter in in a post-race interview on flotrack.org.
Assefa, a member of Ethiopia’s 2016 Olympic team in the 800 meters when she was 19, had slashed her personal best in the marathon by a stunning 18-plus minutes when she ran 2:15:37 to win the Berlin Marathon in 2022. And she had then lowered the world record to 2:11:53 in Berlin in 2023 while crushing the previous global best of 2:14:04 set by Kenyan Brigid Kosgei in Chicago in 2019.
She finished seven seconds behind Jepchirchir in the London Marathon last year and a scant three ticks back of Hassan in the Olympics before her world record fell by the wayside in October when Kenyan Ruth Chepngetich ran a scintillating 2:09:56 in the Chicago Marathon.
Jepchirchir and Chepngetich had been scheduled to run in London, but each of them pulled out of the race with health issues in the week or two before it.
With the two of them sidelined, Hassan and Assefa were the two clear-cut co-favorites.
That dynamic duo, along with Megertu Alemu of Ethiopia and 2021 London champion Jepkosgei comprised a four-runner lead pack that followed a pair of pacesetters through five kilometers in 15:34 and 10 kilometers in 31:16.
They were nearly two and a half minutes in front of a three-runner chase group when Jepkosgei led them through 15 kilometers in 47:11. But Assefa and Jepkosgei were five seconds ahead of Hassan when they went through 20 kilometers in 1:13:12, and fourth-place Alemu was nearly two minutes behind them and she would eventually drop out.
The following links will take you to detailed reports about the women’s and men’s races of the Boston Marathon, as well as the women’s and men’s races of the London Marathon.
Assefa and Jepkosgei were 10 seconds ahead of 2023 London champion Hassan when they passed the halfway mark in 1:06:40 and that gap had grown to 26 seconds when they came through 25 kilometers 1:19:14. It had then increased to a minute and 10 seconds when they passed 30 kilometers in 1:35:33.
Although the projected finish time was 2:14:23 at that point, the pace was slowing some and Assefa and Jepkosgei came through 35 kilometers in 1:52:12 after running the previous five kilometers in 16:39, the slowest 5,000-meter segment of the race.
They continued to run together for the next nine minutes or so. But Assefa took a lead of approximately 10 seconds over Jepkosgei during the ensuing two-minute stretch and she was up by a whopping 56 seconds when she passed the 40-kilometer mark in 2:08:47 after having run the previous five kilometers in 16:35.
While Assefa would cover the final 2.2 kilometers of the race in 7:03, a pace that would translate to 16:01 for 5,000 meters, that same stretch took Jepkosgei an agonizing 9:01.
Assefa smiled broadly after crossing the finish line before she slowed to a stop, dropped to her knees and raised her arms wide in celebration before clapping her hands together.
She had appeared to be frustrated after Hassan pulled away from her during the final 30 seconds of the marathon in Paris, but she had the luxury of finishing way ahead of second-place Jepkosgei on Sunday.
“I was really training for all outcomes,” Assefa said. “I felt I could win with a sprint. I could also win with a long run for home.”
A devastating 5k keys victory: While Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia won the women’s race of the London Marathon after breaking the race open with about four kilometers to go, Sabastian Sawe of Kenya won the men’s title after making a bold move with roughly 12 kilometers remaining.
The 30-year-old Sawe had been at the front of a nine-runner lead pack when he came through 30 kilometers. But he made a break at an aid station shortly after that while on his way to a winning time of 2:02:27, the second-fastest ever run in London.
Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda, who had lowered the world record in the half marathon by a stunning 48 seconds in February, set a national record of 2:03:37 while finishing second in his highly-anticipated marathon debut.
Defending champion Alexander Mutiso of Kenya finished third in 2:04:20 after he and fourth-place Abdi Nageeye of the Netherlands were credited with the same time. They were followed by 2024 Olympic champion Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia, who placed fifth in 2:04:42, and by 40-year-old Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, the 2016 and ‘21 Olympic gold medalist who finished sixth in 2:05:25 after he had dropped out of the Olympic marathon in Paris.
“I was very confident because I came in well prepared,” Sawe said in a World Athletics post. “That got me through today.”
Sawe had won seven of nine races in the half marathon from 2022-24, with his biggest victory coming in the World Athletics Road Running Championships in Riga, Latvia, in 2023. He then made a smashing marathon debut in Valencia, Spain, in December when he ran 2:02:05 over that city’s hyper-fast course.
Although that time was the eighth fastest in history and moved Sawe to fifth on the all-time performer list, two-time World cross country champion Kiplimo seemed to have received more pre-race attention in London due to his scintillating 56:42 clocking in the half marathon in Barcelona on Feb. 16.
That performance had been so stunning that there was a lot of pre-race chatter about the possibility of Kiplimo not only breaking the world record of 2:00:35 set by the late Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya in Chicago in 2023, but of him becoming the first man to run under two hours in the event.
However, the early pace on Sunday was never fast enough for that to happen as a trio of rabbits came through the opening 10 kilometers in 28:57 and the lead group came through the halfway point in 1:01:30.
The front pack was down to nine runners when Sawe, Hillary Kipkoech of Kenya and Tola led it through the 30-kilometer mark in 1:27:47. But the smooth-striding Sawe chose not to take any liquids at the subsequent aid station and he had spurted to a lead of about 10 seconds at the 1:31:00 mark and he was 22 seconds ahead of second-place Kiplimo when he passed 35 kilometers in 1:41.43.
Sawe appeared to be feeling the effects of his surge after having run the previous five kilometers in a superb 13:56. But he looked significantly better 10 minutes later and his lead over Kiplimo was 46 seconds when he passed 40 kilometers in 1:56:03.
Although Sawe slowed some during the final 2.2 kilometers of the race, his 6:24 split during that stretch added another 21 seconds to his margin of victory.
”I saw that as my opportunity to push. And I ran well,” Sawe about his surge at the aid station.
He then added that his performance gave him hope “that in the future, the marathon will be so important to me, and be so easy.”
Veterans prevail: Kenyan Amos Kipruto and Ethiopian Workenesh Edesa won the men’s and women’s races, respectively, in the Hamburg Marathon in Germany on Sunday.
The 32-year-old Kipruto ran 2:03:46 to lead a 1-2-3 Kenyan sweep as Philemon Kiplimo and Erick Sang finished second and third, respectively, in personal bests of 2:04:01 and 2:04:30.
Edesa, who is also 32, won the women’s race in a personal best of 2:17:55 while finishing 31 seconds ahead of runner-up Brigid Kosgei of Kenya, who ran 2:18:26. She was followed by Ethiopian Sichala Kumeshi, who finished third in a career best of 12:19:53.
Kipruto, the bronze medalist in the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, was part of a large lead pack that went through 10 kilometers in 29:20, 20 kilometers in 58:36, and 30 kilometers in 1:28:09.
The lead group was down to him, Kiplimo, and Sang when they came through 35 kilometers in 1:42:30, but Kipruto was 12 seconds ahead of Kiplimo and 29 up on Sang when he passed 40 kilometers in 1:57:09 after running the previous 10,000 meters in 29:00, the fastest 10k segment of the race.
The win was the fourth of Kipruto’s career and his first since his victory in London in 2022.
Edesa was part of a five-woman lead pack that went through 10 kilometers in 32:36, but the lead group was down to three when Kosgei led Kumeshi and Edesa through 20 kilometers in 1:05:02, and the three of them passed the halfway mark in 1:08:39.
Kumeshi had fallen six seconds behind Kosgei and Edesa at 25 kilometers and she was eight seconds back when Kosgei came through 30 kilometers in 1:37:39.
However, Edesa took charge of the race during the next five kilometers as she had a nine-second lead on Kosgei and a 30-second advantage over Kumeshi when she came through 35 kilometers in 1:33:55. And she was 22 seconds up on former world record-holder Kosgei when she passed 40 kilometers in 2:10:38.
Edesa’s victory was the eighth of her career and the second of the year as she had won her second consecutive title in the Osaka Women’s Marathon in Japan in January.
Prior to that, she placed first in the Sydney Marathon last September after finishing seventh in the Boston Marathon in April.
Fast time on a tough course: Sharon Lokedi of Kenya has yet to race on a flat and fast course during the six marathons she has run during her career. Yet the 31-year-old Kenyan slayed the 2 hour and 20 minute barrier in the Boston Marathon on April 21 when she won the women’s title in a course record of 2:17:22.
That time crushed the course best of 2:19:59 set by Buzunesh Deba of Ethiopia in 2014 and it came about after she broke away from compatriot and two-time defending champion Hellen Obiri with less than a mile left in the race.
Obiri finished second in 2:17:41, followed by Yalemzerf Yehualaw of Ethiopia in 2:18:06.
“I feel great. I’m so excited and yay!,” Lokedi said in a interview on the Flotrack livestream.
She added that “It was a tough one out there. I’m just so glad that we had each other to fight all the way through... It was very good being with them and competing and fighting together... Towards the end. I was like, ‘just keep fighting. Just keep pushing.’ ”
After winning her marathon debut in New York City in 2022, Lokedi had finished third behind Obiri and Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia in the following year’s race before placing second to Obiri in the Boston Marathon last year.
She had then finished fourth in the Olympic Games in Paris before placing ninth in the New York City Marathon in November.
In a tune-up for Boston, she had run 1:07:04 in winning the New York City Half Marathon on March 16.
Although the early pace in Sunday’s race was nothing extraordinary, a large lead pack came through 10 kilometers in 32:51 before passing 15 kilometers in 49:10. However, the front group was down to five when Yehualaw led Obiri, Lokedi, Ethiopian Amane Beriso and Kenyan Irine Cheptai through 20 kilometers in 1:05:04.
Lokedi was credited with being in the lead when that quintet passed the halfway point in 1:08:46 and they were still bunched together when 2023 World champion Beriso led them through 25 kilometers in 1:21:22. But Cheptai had fallen 12 seconds behind when the other four raced past the 30-kilometer mark in 1:37:40.
It was a three-woman battle for first place at 35 kilometers when Lokedi, Yehualaw, and Obiri came through that mark in 1:54:41, five seconds ahead of Beriso.
That trio ran together for the next nine minutes, but Yehualaw took a look behind her at that point in the race and she dropped back of Lokedi and Obiri three minutes later.
Obiri was content to run a stride behind Lokedi until a mile to go, but Lokedi covered her attempted break at that point in the contest before opening up a small lead over Obiri a little more than a minute later. Her advantage was five seconds as she ascended an uphill grade a minute after that and it grew all the way to the finish line as she ran her final mile in a superb 5:04.
She pumped both of her fists skyward as she neared the finish line and then shed tears of joy after she realized how fast she had run.
“I’m always, like, second to her,” Lokedi said of Obiri, “She’s like, a really good competitor and I love competing with her. And, you know, I’m just grateful that she got to push me all the way through.”
Historic victory: When Kenyan John Korir overcame a fall during the first minute of the Boston Marathon to win the men’s title in 2:04:55, he and his older brother Wesley became the first siblings to have won the race in its 129-year history.
“I’m feeling good,” Korir said in an interview on the Flotrack livestream after his win had come 13 years after Wesley’s victory in 2012. “As I told you in the press conference on Friday, that I’m ready for Boston.”
Korir finished 19 seconds ahead of second-place Alphonce Felix of Tanzania and third-place Cybrian Kotut of Kenya, who were each credited with times of 2:05:04, and he was 23 seconds ahead of fourth-place Connor Mantz of the U.S., who ran 2:05:08.
Korir started the race as the eighth-fastest marathon runner in history after winning the Chicago Marathon in 2:02:44 last October. But he fell to the pavement before the race was a minute old after he was inadvertently clipped from behind. His bib came off during the mishap and he ran most of the race with it folded in his shorts before he took it out as he approached the finish line unchallenged.
Mantz led a large lead pack through five kilometers in 14:20 before defending champion Sisay Lemma was in front when he came past 10 kilometers in 28:52 and 15 kilometers in 43:28.
Patrick Tiernan of Australia was in the lead when he passed 20 kilometers in 58:35 before Rory Linkletter of Canada had the lead at the halfway mark in 1:01:52.
Mantz and Tiernan were then running at the front of a large lead group as they went through 25 kilometers in 1:13:37 and 30 kilometers in 1:28:39, respectively. But just as he had done in Chicago, Korir took charge of the race during the seventh five-kilometer segment of the race.
He had a three-second lead an hour and 35 minutes into the race and he had extended his advantage to 19 seconds over Muktar Edris of Ethiopia, Kotut, Mantz, and Felix when he went through 35 kilometers in 1:43:05.
His lead had grown to 59 seconds over Felix, Kotut, and Mantz when he passed 40 kilometers in 1:57:24. And though he gave up much of that advantage during the final 2.2 kilometers of the race, some of that was probably due to the fact that he had stepped off the accelerator while savoring his impending victory as Felix, Kotut, and Mantz were pushing hard to see which one of them was going to finish in second place.
Felix and Kotut broke away from Mantz with perhaps 300 meters left in the race before Felix opened up a small lead over Kotut that he managed to maintain through the finish line.
The win was the fourth in 12 career marathons for Korir, who won consecutive Los Angeles Marathon titles in 2021 and ’22.
He finished ninth in 2:10:04 in his first Boston Marathon in 2023 and he was fourth in last year’s race in 2:07:40.
His time was the second-fastest winning mark in the history of the race, trailing only the course record of 2:03:02 set by Kenyan Geoffrey Mutai in 2011.
“You believe in yourself and you can make it,” John Korir said when he was asked about the advice his brother had given him before the race. “So today, I make it and we are happy… for the Korir family and to be two brothers here in Boston.”
Another first: Agnes Ngetich of Kenya became the first woman ever to run under 30 minutes in a women’s-only 10-kilometer road race when she clocked 29:27 in the Adizero Road to Records event in Herzogenaurach, Germany, last Saturday.
Ngetich’s time bettered the previous record of 30:01 set by the late Agnes Tirop of Kenya in 2021.
The 24-year-old Ngetich’s performance came about 15 months after she had set a women’s world record of 28:46 in a race in Valencia, Spain, that included both men and women.
She essentially ran by herself for most of the race on Saturday as she had broken clear of her closest pursuers during the first five minutes of the contest in which she clocked 14:37 for the first 5,0000 meters of the race and 14:40 for the second half.
Ethiopians Fentaye Belayneh and Senayet Getachew placed second and third, respectively, with times of 30:30 and 30:31.
“I’m so excited, I didn’t expect this,” Ngetich said in a World Athletics post. “Last year I missed it by two seconds, so I wanted to come here today and try for it again. I’m so proud of myself. After missing out on the Olympics last year, I want to make up for it this year at the World Championships.”
Nelly Chepchirchir of Kenya won the mile and Medina Eisa of Ethiopia placed first in the 5k in the two other women’s races.
Chepchirchir clocked a personal best of 4:23.98 in winning her second consecutive title and Eisa timed 14:48 to win her third 5k title in a row.
The men’s winners were Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya in the mile, Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia in the 5k and Birhanu Balew of Bahrain in the 10k.
Olympic 800 champion Wanyonyi ran a personal best of 3:52.45 to win his second consecutive title while turning back the U.S. duo of Hobbs Kessler and Nico Young, who also set career bests with times of 3:54.34 and 3:54.50, respectively.
Kejelcha ran 12:54 in the 5k to win his second consecutive title and his third in four years. His time was third-fastest of his career and the No. 6 performance in history.
Balew won an incredibly tight 10k as he, second-place Gemechu Dida of Ethiopia, and third-place Rodrigue Kwizera of Burundi were each credited with personal bests of 26:54.
In addition, Nicholas Kipkorir of Kenya finished fourth in a career best of 26:56.
Great start: The distance was 300 meters instead of 400 and the number of hurdles was seven rather than 10, but Karsten Warholm of Norway ran a very smooth race in winning the men’s 300-meter intermediate hurdles in the first Diamond League meet of the season in Xiamen, China, last Saturday.
His winning time of 33.05 seconds bettered the previous world best of 33.26 that he had run in 2021 and it could become an official world record at a later date as World Athletics announced last month that the 300 intermediate hurdles for men and the 300 hurdles for women will be recognized as an official, rather than an exhibition, event at some point in the future.
Matheus Lima of Brazil placed second in 33.98 and Ken Toyoda of Japan finished third in 34.22, but no one in the race ever seriously challenged the 29-year-old Warholm, who set the world record of 45.94 in the 400 intermediates when he won the Olympic title in Tokyo in 2021.
Running in lane seven in Egret Stadium, Warholm got off to one of his typically good starts and he never chopped his stride while clearing all seven barriers while leading with his left leg. He had made up the stagger on American CJ Allen, who was running in lane eight, between the second and third set of barriers and he held a commanding lead over second-place Lima as he entered the home straightaway.
“I was a little bit surprised by how easy my legs were feeling off the last bend,” Warholm said in a World Athletics post. “Of course you feel it a little bit in the end, but I managed to really push in the last 45 metres. This shows that the speed is there and the speed over the hurdles is there.”
Another near miss: Faith Kipyegon of Kenya ran under 2:30 in the 1,000-meter run for an unprecedented third time in her career in Xiamen, but she once again fell short of the world record set by Russia’s Svetlana Masterkova in 1996.
Kipyegon clocked 2:29.21 over the infrequently-run distance, but that left her a scant .23 seconds off the world record of 2:28.98 that Masterkova had run in August of 1996 after she had won gold medals in the 800 and 1,500 in the Olympic Games in Atlanta.
The 31-year-old Kipyegon had previously posted times of 2:29.15 and 2:29.92 in the 1,000 during the 2020 season that had been interrupted due to the safety measures put in place to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
Kipyegon, the only person to win three consecutive Olympic titles in the 1,500, was in third place when pacesetter Erin Wallace of Great Britain went through 400 meters in 59.38 seconds and she was in second when No. 2 pacesetter — and 2019 World 800 champion — Halimah Nakaayi of Uganda led her through 600 meters and right up to the 700-meter mark.
Kipyegon was on her own after that and she clocked 1:59.69 at 800 meters before finishing well in front of Australian Abbey Caldwell, who placed second in an Oceania record of 2:32.94. Compatriot Sarah Billings finished third in a personal best of 2:33.45.
“It was a very good start to my season,” Kipyegon said in a World Athletics post. “I’m happy to start my season, and I hope to stay healthy this way and for the next races.”
That could explain some things: It’s possible that a knee injury might have contributed to Olympic champion Grant Holloway’s dismal 10-place finish in the men’s 110-meter high hurdles in Xiamen, as he has withdrawn from tomorrow’s Diamond League meet in Shanghai.
Holloway’s 13.72 clocking last Saturday left him way behind compatriot Cordell Tinch, who won the race in a yearly world-leading time of 13.06. It also followed a runner-up finish a week earlier when he ran 13.18 in the Tom Jones Memorial Invitational in Gainesville, Florida.
Although the 27-year-old Holloway had capped an unbeaten undercover season by winning his third consecutive title in the 60-meter high hurdles in the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China, in March, he had not looked as sharp as he did last year when he won his first Olympic title in the 110 high hurdles and ran under 13 seconds a career-high six times.
Holloway got off to sluggish start by his standards in Xiamen, but he still had a clear lead midway through the race. However, Tinch began to close in on him over the sixth and seventh hurdles and he moved ahead of him after the eighth barrier when Holloway appeared to come down awkwardly after clearing that hurdle and he was unable to regain his momentum.
Given his consistency during the previous four outdoor seasons, when he won 29 of 38 finals, I wondered if something might be ailing Holloway. And it turns out that he recently revealed in a Beyond the Records podcast that he had sustained a knee injury while performing a squat exercise prior to the start of the indoor season.
Knocking off a giant: Samuel Firewu of Ethiopia got a huge win in his first track race of the season when he won the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase in Xiamen.
The runner who will turn 21 tomorrow ran close behind two-time defending Olympic and World champion Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco for most of the race before overtaking him while clearing the last barrier near the end of the final backstretch and then holding him off down the home straightaway.
Firewu’s time of 8:05.61 was a meet record, the fastest in the world this year, and the second fastest of his career.
El Bakkali finished second in 8:06.66 and Simon Koech of Kenya placed third in a race in which eight men bettered 8:11 and 12 ran 8:12.05 or faster.
It was the second consecutive defeat for El Bakkali after he had won 14 steeplechase races in a row since late in the 2021 season.
Dominant victory: Her time was more than 21 seconds off her personal best, but double Olympic champion Beatrice Chebet of Kenya sped away from world record-holder Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia in winning the women’s 5,000 meters in 14:27.12 in Xiamen.
Tsegay was coming off an indoor season in which she had run 3:53.92 in the 1,500 and romped to victory in that event in the World Athletics Indoor Championships in March. But she was no match for Chebet over the final 200 meters of the contest last Saturday as the 25-year-old Kenyan clocked 26.6 over that stretch and 59.4 for the final 400 in her first race of the year.
What was most impressive about her finish was the fact that she ran 13.1 for the 100-meter segment around the final curve.
Tsegay, who lowered the world record in the 5,000 to 14:00.21 in the Prefontaine Classic in 2023, finished second in 14:28.18 on Saturday.
She was followed by compatriots Birke Haylom, who finished third in 14:28.80, and Hirut Meshesha, who placed fourth in 14:29.29.
Six for six: Bayapo Ndori of Botswana won his sixth 400-meter race of the season without a loss when he ran a season best of 44.25 seconds in Xiamen while holding off Christopher Bailey of the U.S. in the homestretch.
The 25-year-old Ndori, who was a member of Botswana’s silver-medal winning 4 x 400 relay team in the Olympic Games, was amongst the leaders during the first half of the race and he was clearly in front of compatriot Collen Kebinatshipi and third-place Bailey when he entered the home straightaway.
World indoor champion Bailey soon moved into second place and he gained ground on Ndori in the final 40 meters of the race, but he was unable to catch him.
Nonetheless, his time of 44.27 bettered his personal best of 44.32 from last year and left him well clear of Kebinatshipi, who placed third in 44.53. Kirani James of Grenada, a three-time medalist in the 400 in both the Olympic Games and World championships, finished fourth in 44.89 in his season opener.
Runaway win: Akani Simbine of South Africa scored a decisive victory in the men’s 100 meters when he ran 9.99 seconds in Xiamen.
The 31-year-old Simbine, the yearly world leader at 9.90, finished well ahead of second-place Ferdinand Omanyala of Kenya, who ran 10.13, third-place Jeremiah Azu of Great Britain, who timed 10.17, and fourth-place Christian Coleman of the U.S., who clocked 10.18.
Lachlan Kennedy of Australia, who finished second to Azu in the 60-meter dash in the World indoor championships, placed fifth in 10.19 and he was followed by Emmanuel Eseme of Cameroon in 10.19, and Olympic 200 champion Letsile Tebogo of Botswana in 10.20.
Coleman led the race out of the blocks, but Simbine was in second place after 30 meters and he had taken the lead at the 50-meter mark. He then ran the second half of the race nearly a tenth of a second faster than anyone else in the field.
Turnabout is fair play: Olympic champion and world record-holder Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine won the women’s high jump in Xiamen after having finished third behind the Australian duo of Nicola Olyslagers and Eleanor Patterson in the World Athletics Indoor Championships.
The 23-year-old Mahuchikh cleared 1.97 meters (6 feet 5½ inches) on Saturday while finishing ahead of Patterson and Olyslagers, who placed second and third, respectively, after they each made 1.94 (6-4¼). Patterson finished ahead of two-time World indoor champion Olyslagers because she cleared 1.94 (6-5½) on her first attempt and her compatriot needed two tries.
Mahuckikh made 1.91 (6-3¼), 1.94 (6-4¼), and 1.97 (6-5½) on her first attempts before she missed three times at 2.03 (6-8). She had broken a 37-year-old world record in July of last year when she cleared 2.10 (6-10¾) in the Meeting de Paris Diamond League meet.
Big opener good enough for win: Chase Jackson of the U.S. had one of the best series of her career in the women’s shot put in Xiamen, but Jessica Schilder of the Netherlands won the competition with a top mark of 20.47 (67-2).
The 26-year-old Schilder produced her winning put in the first round while turning back second-place Jackson at 20.31 (66-7¾) and third-place Lijiao Gong of China at 19.62 (64-4½). Sarah Mitton of Canada finished fifth at 19.23 (63-1¼) after winning her second consecutive World indoor title in March.
While Schilder’s second-best put of 20.07 (65-10¼) came on her second attempt, Jackson recorded her top put in the second round and also had efforts of 20.25 (66-5¼) in the third round and 20.04 (65-9) in the first.
She also had a put of 19.98 (65-6¾) in the sixth round and a 19.90 (65-3½) effort in the fourth before fouling on her fifth attempt.
Continental title: Martha Araujo of Colombia posted a yearly world-leading score of 6,396 points in the heptathlon when she won the combined event endeavor in the South American Athletics Championships in Mar del Plata, Argentina, last weekend.
The 28-year-old Araujo began the competition by running a wind-aided time of 13.13 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles last Saturday. She then cleared 1.73 (5-8) in the high jump, put the shot 13.55 (44-5½), and timed a wind-aided 24.43 in the 200.
She started the second day on Sunday with a best of 6.55 (21-6) in the long jump before she threw the javelin 47.62 (156-3) and clocked 2:17.28 in the 800.
Her final score was the second best of her career, behind the 6,429 points she totaled while placing seventh in the Olympic Games last summer.
On the board: Olympic champion Tara Davis-Woodhall of the U.S. posted her 10th consecutive victory in the women’s long jump when she leapt 6.75 (22-1¾) in the Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa, last Saturday.
The 25-year-old Davis-Woodhall had the five top marks in her first competition of the year as she also leaped 6.67 (21-10¾) in round five, 6.63 (21-9) in rounds four and six, and 6.58 (21-7¼) in round three.
Sydney Willits of the U.S. finished second at 6.54 (21-5½) and she was followed by Esa Brume of Nigeria, who leaped a wind-aided 6.36 (20-10½) to place third.
Change in focus?: Is Mikiah Brisco of the U.S., the silver medalist in the women’s 60-meter dash in the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Championships, looking to make the 100 hurdles her prime event moving forward?
I wondered about that after seeing that she had run 12.98 seconds in winning section one of that event in the LSU Alumni Gold meet in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, last Saturday.
In addition to the 100 hurdles, Brisco also ran a leg on a team that won the 4 x 100 relay in 42.22 and placed second in the second section of the 100 in 11.45 while running into a breeze of 1.7 meters per second. But she had not contested a race in the 100 hurdles since she placed third in the Southeastern Conference championships in 2017, the same year she had lowered her personal best to 12.85.
While Brisco won the 2017 NCAA title in the 100 for LSU and ran a personal best of 6.96 to place second to Mujinga Kambundji of Switzerland in the 60 in the World indoor championships in Belgrade, Serbia, in 2022, her personal bests of 10.96 in the 100 and 22.59 in the 200 are from the 2017 and ’18 seasons, respectively.
Breaking 9:20: Senior Lexy Halladay-Lowry of BYU, with some pacing help from former BYU standout Courtney Wayment, moved to fifth on the all-time collegiate performer list in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase when she ran 9:18.05 to win the event in the Payton Jordan Invitational at Stanford University last Friday.
Halladay-Lowry’s time bettered her previous best of 9:22.77 that she had run in finishing ninth in last year’s U.S. Olympic Team Trials. It also left her nearly a minute in front of freshman teammate Nelah Roberts, who finished second in 10:16.39.
Wayment, the runner-up in the last year’s Olympic Trials and the 2022 NCAA champion, ran splits of 74.66, 74.86, and 74.99 seconds for the first three full laps of the race before dropping out. Halladay-Lowry then clocked 72.85, 74.09, 74.02, and 72.65 for her last four circuits of the track.
Notable time for the Friars: Providence College moved to third on the all-time collegiate list in the women’s 4 x 1,500-meter relay when it ran 16:59.65 to win the event in the Penn Relays in Philadelphia last Saturday.
The Friars were in third place behind Penn State and Washington after junior Cara Laverty ran 4:18.6 on the first leg. But grad student Shannon Flockhart had given them a 20-meter lead after the first lap of her second leg and they eventually won the race by more than 11 seconds as Washington finished second in 17:10.88 and Georgetown placed third in 17:12.99.
Flockhart was credited with a split of 4:13.8 on her leg and senior Kimberley May and grad student Alex Millard followed with carries of 4:12.4 and 4:14.9, respectively, for Providence.
Washington, which ran the eighth-fastest time in collegiate history, received a 4:12.3 anchor leg from junior Chloe Foerster.
Impressive run: After a four-decade run at the top, Hawthorne (CA) High School’s national prep record of 3:07.40 in the boys’ 4 x 400-meter relay was broken in the Penn Relays last Friday when a quartet from Bullis School in Potomoc, Maryland, ran 3:06.31 while finishing second in the Championship of America final in the meet at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.
Kingston College, a secondary school in Jamaica, won the race in a meet-record time of 3:05.93 while winning the program’s fourth consecutive title. Jamaican teams also placed third, fourth, and fifth, respectively, as Calabar, Excelsior, and Jamaica College clocked 3:06.52, 3:07.98, and 3:08.06.
Bullis moved from fifth place to second on the final leg as world U18 record-holder Quincy Wilson was credited with a scintillating anchor carry of 43.99 seconds.
Wilson, a junior, had finished sixth in the 400 in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials last year before lowering his world U18 and national high school record to 44.20 in a meet in July.
Bullis was in fourth place after senior Mickey Green and sophomore Cam Homer had combined for a time of 1:34.95 after the first 800 meters of the race. But the team had fallen back a spot after senior Colin Abrams’ 47.37 split on the third leg.
However, Wilson eventually moved into third place midway through the second turn and he had pulled even with Calabar as he entered the home straightaway.
An all-senior Hawthorne squad of Michael Marsh, Michael Graham, Sean Kelly, and Henry Thomas had produced their 3:07.40 effort in the 1985 Texas Relays.
Marsh, who would later win the men’s 200 in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, was credited with a split of 47.9 seconds on the first leg, followed by Graham at 47.8, Kelly at 47.2, and Thomas with a scintillating 44.5.
That Cougar team was loaded with talent as Marsh ran 20.82 in the 200 that year, Graham clocked 36.56 in the 300 intermediate hurdles, Kelly timed 1:50.94 in the 800, and Thomas had bests of 10.25 in the 100, 20.69 in the 100, and 45.09 in the 400.
Marsh had said in a dailybreeze.com post in 2010 that “we didn’t appreciate how great a program we had until we’re 25 years hence and the record is still standing. It gives you a new appreciation for what we were doing at Hawthorne High.
“I’m constructing this new view of what we were actually engaged in back then and how special it was.”
Two liners: Mondo Duplantis of Sweden posted his 25th consecutive victory when the two-time Olympic champion cleared a winning height of 5.92 meters (19 feet 5 inches) in the men’s pole vault in the Diamond League opener in Xiamen, China, last Saturday. Duplantis, who had won his third consecutive title in the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China, in March, cleared 5.62 (18-5¼), 5.82 (19-1), and 5.92 (19-5) on his first attempts before missing three times at 6.01 (19-8½). . . . . . . Valarie Allman of the U.S. won the women’s discus with a throw of 68.95 (226-2) in the Diamond League opener. The victory was the 19th in a row for the two-time Olympic champion, who also had an effort of 66.42 (217-11) that would have been good enough to win the competition in which Yaime Perez of Cuba finished second at 66.26 (217-5). . . . . . . Anavia Battle of the U.S. finished well ahead of two-time World champion Shericka Jackson of Jamaica in the women’s 200 meters in the Diamond League opener. Battle turned a small lead coming off the turn into a large margin of victory at the finish line as she ran 22.41 seconds to the 22.79 clocking of second-place Jackson and the 22.97 time of third-place Jenna Prandini of the U.S. . . . . . . . . Zakithi Nene produced the best mark in last week’s South African Championships in Potchefstroom when he won the men’s 400 in a personal best of 44.22 last Saturday. Nene’s time, which was no doubt aided by Potchefstroom’s elevation of 1,435 meters (4,708 feet), is the second fastest in the world this year. . . . . . . Steven Gardiner of the Bahamas, the 2019 World and 2021 Olympic champion in the men’s 400, won that event in 45.18 in the LSU Alumni Gold meet in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, last Saturday. Gardiner’s last 400 before that race had come had come in July of last year when he ran 44.50 in winning the Gyulai Istvan Memorial in Szekesfehrvar, Hungary, before he withdrew from the Olympic Games in Paris due to an injury. . . . . . . Brandon Hicklin of the U.S. lowered his personal best in the 100 to 9.93 when he won that event in the Pure Spring Invitational in Clermont, Florida, last Saturday. Hicklin’s time bettered his previous best of 9.94 from last year and moved him to second on the yearly world performer list.
Looking ahead: The second of four Grand Slam Track meets to be held this season will begin at 5:42 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, today when the women’s 100-meter hurdles kick off the proceedings in the three-day meet in Miramar, Florida.
Eight races will be contested each day, with overall titles in six men’s and six women’s event categories being worth $100,000 in prize money.
Competitors in the short sprints categories will compete in the 100 and 200 meters, with their long sprint brethren running in the 200 and 400.
The short distance divisions will be comprised of the 800 and 1,500, with the long distance categories consisting of the 3,000 and 5,000.
The short hurdles categories will be made up of the straightaway hurdles and the 100, with the long hurdles being comprised of the one-lap hurdles and the 400.
Isabella Whittaker, who ran 49.24 seconds in winning the women’s 400 meters for the University of Arkansas in the NCAA indoor championships on March 15, is scheduled to make her professional debut when she competes in the women’s long sprints category.
Whittaker had finished sixth in the 400 in last year’s U.S. Olympic Team Trials, but the older sister of Stanford University standout Juliette Whittaker had a breakthrough indoor season that she capped with her 49.24 clocking that was only seven hundredths of a second shy of the world record of 49.17 set by Femke Bol of the Netherlands last year.
In addition to this weekend’s competition, the final two Grand Slam Track meets, or slams as they are being called, are scheduled to be held at Franklin Field in Philadelphia from May 30-June 1, and at Drake Stadium at UCLA from June 27-29.
Peacock’s coverage of this weekend’s meet will start at 5 p.m., EDT, today and Saturday, and at 3 p.m. on Sunday.
Looking farther ahead: Nike announced last week that Faith Kipyegon of Kenya will attempt to break four minutes in the mile when she runs in what the company is calling a Breaking4 event at the Stade de Charlety in Paris on June 26.
The event will be separate from the Meeting de Paris Diamond League meet at the same facility on June 20.
Although the announcement gave few details about Kipyegon’s attempt to run at least 7.65 seconds faster than the world record of 4:07.64 that she set in 2023, it did state that Nike is “obsessing every detail, spanning footwear, apparel, aerodynamics, physiology and mind science” to optimize the performance of the three-time Olympic champion in the 1,500 meters.
The event sounds somewhat similar to the Ineos 1:59 Challenge in Vienna in 2019 when Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge ran 1:59:40.2 for the marathon distance while being paced by various groups of seven runners who ran in formations designed to minimize the amount of wind that Kipchoge encountered.
While Kipchoge’s time was nearly two minutes faster than the world record of 2:01:39 that he had set in the Berlin Marathon in 2018, it was not eligible to be ratified for a world record for a variety of reasons.
One of the biggest reasons was that different groups of pacesetters were allowed to enter the race at various points on the course.
Pacesetters, which often number two or three, are common in many of the top marathons in the world. But they are required to start the race and they are not allowed to run in such a way that they deliberately block the wind for any one individual runner.
For her part, the 31-year-old Kipyegon said in the announcement that the Breaking4 event is her way of thinking outside the box.
“I want this attempt to say to women, ‘You can dream and make your dreams valid,’ ” she said. “This is the way to go as women, to push boundaries and dream big.”