Week in Review: High jumper on the rise
Glenn ties collegiate record in NCAA Indoor Champs after missing 2023 due to injury
Could the U.S. have another elite competitor in the women’s high jump?
I have pondered that question more than once since last Saturday when Rachel Glenn of the University of Arkansas tied the collegiate record of 2.00 meters (6 feet 6¾ inches) in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships in Brighton, Massachusetts.
Glenn, who had transferred from South Carolina to Arkansas last year after missing the 2023 indoor and outdoor seasons due to a knee injury, entered Saturday’s meet at the TRACK at New Balance with a personal best of 1.94 (6-4¼).
She had cleared that height while finishing second in the SEC championships two weeks earlier when Lamara Distin of Texas A&M had raised the collegiate and Jamaican indoor records to 2.00.
However, Glenn equaled her best when she cleared 1.94 on his first attempt at the height in the NCAA meet. Prior to that she made 1.75 (5-8¾), 1.80 (5-10¼), 1.85 (6-0¾), 1.88 (6-2), and 1.91 (6-3¼) on her initial tries as well.
She was in first place after making 1.94, but she dropped to second at the next height when she needed two attempts to clear a personal best of 1.97 (6-5½) and Distin needed only one.
Glenn then applied the pressure on Distin by making 2.00 on her first attempt.
There was a lot to report on from last week. Therefore, this column is on the long side. If this email appears clipped or truncated in your inbox, you should be able to click on “View entire message” to read it in its entirety.
Distin, who was jumping after Glenn at each height, could have moved into a tie for first place by also clearing 2.00 on her initial try, but she fell into second when she missed that height on her first jump.
Many high jumpers would have passed their final two attempts to the next height because they would still have been in second place even if they had cleared 2.00 on their second or third try. However, Distin continued jumping and when she missed her final two attempts at that height, Glenn had an NCAA indoor title to go with her outdoor championship from 2021 when she had finished a place ahead of Distin as a freshman at South Carolina.
“It’s really cool,” Glenn said about her victory in an interview on FloTrack. “Last year I was injured so I took the whole year off. I didn’t know how this year was going to go.”
When asked what she was thinking during the course of the competition, she said “It was really just make it to the next bar… Each bar was just executing technique because that’s what I really need to work on. I think I have the speed.”
The speed that Glenn spoke about is evident in her athletic background.
As a prep athlete at Long Beach Wilson High School in California, she won the high jump in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Championships as a sophomore in 2018 before finishing second in the high jump and first in the 300-meter low hurdles as a junior in 2019.
She did not have a senior high school season in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But in addition to her high jumping in college, she ran a personal best of 56.43 seconds in the 400 hurdles for South Carolina in 2022 and clocked 23.03 in the 200 for Arkansas in a heat of the SEC meet last month.
Check out my detailed reports about the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships from last weekend: Day Two, Day Three Men, Day Three Women.
Glenn’s winning height on Saturday made her the 10th American woman to have cleared 2.00 or higher — indoors or outdoors — in the high jump. In addition, she is the first American other than Vashti Cunningham to have cleared 2.00 or higher since 2016, when Chaunte Lowe had a season best of 2.01 (6-7).
Cunningham, the daughter of former NFL quarterback Randall Cunningham, set U.S. prep records of 6-6¼ (1.99) indoors and 6-5 (1.96) outdoors while competing for Bishop Gorman High in Las Vegas. She has dominated the high jumping landscape in the U.S. since 2017, winning seven consecutive national indoor titles and six in a row outdoors.
The national championships were not contested during the 2020 outdoor season and the 2021 indoor season due to the pandemic.
While Cunningham’s personal best of 2.02 (6-7½) makes her the fourth-highest American high jumper in history indoors or outdoors, she hasn’t had that big breakthrough following her stellar prep career. And after winning a silver medal in the World Athletics Indoor Championships in 2018 and a bronze medal in the World outdoor meet in 2019, she has finished no better than sixth in a global title meet since then.
If Glenn can follow up her indoor season with an outdoor campaign in which she improves her personal best, or consistently jumps 1.97 or 2.00, she could give the 26-year-old Cunningham the impetus to improve by providing her with the consistent challenge she has not received from an American since 2016.
The NIL factor: I am not privy to all the reasons why Glenn transferred from South Carolina to Arkansas, but wanting to have a greater presence in the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) landscape appears to have played a sizeable part in her decision.
For she was quoted as saying in a July 11, 2023 post on on3.com that she was dissatisfied with her situation at South Carolina because the school’s athletics program “literally spent all their attention on basketball and football” when it came to putting its athletes in position to sign NIL deals.
She then added that when she was deciding about which school to transfer to, she noticed that athletic programs at institutions such as Arkansas, Florida, LSU, and Oregon had NIL collectives that focused on athletes in all sports, not just football and basketball.
After the NCAA prohibited collegiate athletes from being financially compensated for the use of their name, image, and likeness for decades, a law went into effect on July 1, 2021, that has allowed them to earn money in a variety of ways — often through social media — while promoting a wide range of products and businesses.
Long sprinters key victory: I have to admit that I questioned the coaching tactics of Arkansas women’s coach Chris Johnson after watching the Razorbacks’ Rosey Effiong, Nichisha Pryce, and Amber Anning finish sixth, seventh, and eighth, respectively, in the women’s 200 meters in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships last Saturday.
Anning, Pryce, and Effiong has amassed 24 points for Arkansas when they finished 1-2-3 in the 400 roughly 25-30 minutes before the start of the two-section final in the 200. And when the weary-legged trio posted times in the 200 that were way off their bests in the event, I wondered if it made sense to have had them double back from the 400 in such a short period of time. But the cumulative six points that Effiong, Pryce, and Anning earned for their 6-7-8 finish turned out to be critical in Arkansas winning its second consecutive team title and the fourth in the last five meets.
The Razorbacks appeared to have won the championship with a 65-50 victory over second-place Florida after they won the 1,600 relay, the final event of the women’s meet. But their margin of victory ended up being five points after the 4 x 4 team’s win — and the 10 points that went with it — was nullified because Kaylynn Brown was ruled to have taken two or more steps on a lane line or outside of the team’s assigned lane during her opening leg.
Dandy double: Parker Valby of Florida was one of three athletes who won two individual titles in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships last weekend, but no one turned in a better double than her, statistically speaking.
Valby, a junior who won the women’s title in the NCAA Cross Country Championships in November, began the indoor meet with a collegiate-record time of 14:52.79 in the 5,000 meters on Friday and capped it with a 8:41.50 effort in the 3,000 on Saturday that was the third-fastest time in collegiate history.
Those performances were even more impressive when one considers that Valby picked up the pace considerably during the second half of both races.
In the 5,000, she came through the first three kilometers in 2:59.81, 6:02.25 (3:02.44), and 9:03.88 (3:01.53), respectively, before clocking 12:00.86 at 4,000 meters (2:56.98) and 14:52.79 (2:51.93) at the finish.
In the 3,000, she passed the first kilometer in 2:55.68 and the second kilo in 5:53.46 (2:57.78) before finishing in 8:41.50 (2:48.04).
Taylor Roe of Oklahoma State was tucked in behind Valby for the first 3,800 meters of the 5,000 before finishing second in 15:15.01.
Olivia Markezich of Notre Dame ran just ahead of Valby during the first two kilometers of the 3,000 and was only two tenths of a second behind her with 800 meters left in the race. However, she finished more than five seconds in back of her at 8:46.71.
Strong rebound: After concluding her freshman collegiate outdoor season with a sub-par effort last year, Juliette Whittaker of Stanford capped her short track season with a come-from-behind victory over favored Michaela Rose of LSU in the women’s 800 meters in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships last Saturday.
Whittaker and her freshman teammate Roisin Willis had finished second and first, respectively, in last year’s indoor championships, but Whittaker had been eliminated in a quarterfinal of the 1,500 in the NCAA Outdoor West meet last May after winning both the 800 and 1,500 in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut, California, in mid-April.
Rose, who won the 800 in last year’s NCAA outdoor championships, had had a superb indoor season in which the Tiger junior had run the second- and third-fastest indoor times in collegiate history in the 800 with clockings of 1:59.25 and 1:59.49, respectively.
Her 1:59.25 effort had come in winning the SEC title on Feb. 24 and she began the final on Saturday as if she were intent on bettering that mark as she brought the field through 200 meters in 27.91 seconds, 400 in 58.33, and 600 in 1:28.67.
Whittaker ran closely behind Rose at the end of the first three laps, but she drew even closer around the final turn and then went past Rose midway down the home straightaway to record a 1:59.53 to 1:59.81 victory.
Her time was a personal best, the fourth-fastest in collegiate history, and moved her to fourth on the all-time collegiate performer list. Rose’s time was the fifth-fastest in collegiate history.
“I really wanted to try and stay on her as long as I could,” Whittaker said to John Anderson of ESPN. “And then just coming off that last corner… I was really trying to focus on my form and getting my knees up and just sprinting as hard as I could.”
A second national collegiate title: Maia Ramsden of Harvard won the women’s mile in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships last Saturday after having taken the 1,500 meters in the outdoor championships last year.
Her performance also came six days after she had finished 10th in the 1,500 in the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, while representing her native New Zealand.
Fellow junior Kimberly May of Providence led the field through the 409-meter mark in 67.61, the 809-meter mark in 2:16.01, and the 1,009-meter mark in 2:49.52. But Ramsden took the lead after that and kept pulling away from her competitors for the remainder of the race. Her time of 4:25.13 was the third-fastest in collegiate history.
Sophomore Billah Jepkirui of Oklahoma State finished second in 4:27.14 and May placed third in 4:27.36 as the two of them moved to sixth and ninth, respectively, on the all-time collegiate performer list.
Ramsden ran her final 600 meters in 1:35.30, her last 400 in 62.05, and her final 200 in 30.39.
Looking forward: It’s going to be interesting to see what Brianna Lyston of LSU does in the 100 and 200 meters during the outdoor season after watching her cap her short track season with a winning time of 7.03 seconds in the women’s 60-meter dash in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships last Saturday,
Lyston, a sophomore from Jamaica, lowered her personal best by four hundredths of a second when she won the NCAA title ahead of a field that included second-place Kalia Jackson of Georgia at 7.08 and third-place Jadyn Mays of Oregon at 7.12.
Her time moved her to second on the all-time collegiate performer list behind Julien Alfred of Texas who lowered the college best to 6.94 last year during an indoor season in which she ran 7.05 or faster nine times. It also moved Lyston into fifth on the all-time Jamaican indoor performer list.
“It means a lot to me, especially because my mom’s here,” Lyston said when John Anderson of ESPN asked her about her victory. “This is the first meet she has been to since I’ve been at LSU.”
Lyston’s personal bests of 11.14 in the 100 and 22.53 in the 200 were set during the 2022 season before she turned 18. She had very limited experience in the 60 prior to this season, but it is still worth noting that she began the year with a personal best of 7.29.
Upset special: When it came to the category of most surprising winner in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships last week, no athlete could top the performance of Sydney Willits of Iowa State in the women’s long jump.
The Cyclone junior entered last Friday’s competition as the No. 12-seeded entry in the 16-jumper field and had finished fifth in the Big 12 Conference championships. But she set three personal bests during the event and her 6.74 (22-1½) effort as the last jumper in the sixth round gave her a come-from-behind victory.
Willits had a personal best of 6.44 (21-1½) as she started down the runway for her first jump, but she had raised it to 6.55 (21-6) when she completed her initial effort.
That jump led the competition until the fourth round when Stanford sophomore Alyssa Jones leaped 6.66 (21-10¼). Undeterred, Willits regained the lead with a fifth-round jump of 6.68 (21-11), only to have Florida senior Claire Bryant move from fourth place to first when she leaped 6.71 (22-0¼) on her sixth — and final — attempt.
Willits countered with her 6.74 effort that gave her the victory, as well as her third personal best of the competition.
‘I just told myself to respond,” Willits said when John Anderson of ESPN asked her about her reaction to Bryant’s jump. “I’ve never done this before. I was out there [at the NCAA outdoor championships] last year and things didn’t go the way I wanted. And then I was here and I set it on the first one… And then I took it here and I just kept improving and once I saw the lead was taken from me, I just said, respond. Let’s do this. You know what to do.”
International flavor: When it came to the diversity of its competitors, no field in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships could match that of the women’s triple, where the 15 competitors who took part in the event hailed from — in alphabetical order — Canada, France, Great Britain, Jamaica, Kenya, Latvia, Malta, Russia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sweden, and the United States.
Senior Ruta Lasmane of Texas Tech and Latvia won the event with a leap of 14.47 (47-5¾) that moved her to fourth on the all-time indoor collegiate performer list and was a Latvian indoor record.
Speed powers men’s champions: Texas Tech used a tried-and-true formula in winning the men’s team title in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships last weekend.
The Red Raiders, who had won the outdoor title in 2019, scored 47 of its winning 50½ points in the five men’s speed events comprised of the 60 meters, 200, 400, 60 high hurdles, and 1,600 relay.
Texas Tech registered its biggest point hauls in the 60 — in which Terrence Jones, Don’dre Swint, and Caleb Dean accounted for 19 points with their 1-3-6 finish — and in the 200 and 60 high hurdles — in which victories by Jones in the former and Dean in the latter each accounted for 10 points.
Jones’ winning times of 6.54 seconds in the 60 and 20.23 in the 200 and Dean’s first-place mark of 7.56 in the 60 high hurdles were all shy of their personal bests, but those victories accounted for 30 big points in the meet in which the top eight finishers in each event scored points on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.
Defending champion Arkansas finished second with 41 points, followed by Florida with 39.
“What a day,” Texas Tech coach Wes Kittley said to ESPN’s John Anderson after being presented with the team championship trophy. “We came roaring today and that trophy means everything to Lubbock and Red Raider nation. I can tell you… We’ve had this goal all year long. This group is a veteran group and, you know, they know how to win and we’re so thankful. We wanted to get that 50 points and we got it.”
Winning with authority: Nico Young of Northern Arizona won his first two national titles in emphatic fashion in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships last weekend.
The Lumberjack junior, who has been a member of three NCAA title teams in cross country, used a big kick to overwhelm his opposition in the 5,000 meters on Friday and in the 3,000 on Saturday.
Young ran well off the pace for the first half of the 5,000 before moving into fourth place at the 4,000-meter mark. He moved up to third place behind Parker Wolfe of North Carolina and Peter Maru of Alabama with two laps left in the race before moving ahead of Maru early in the second-to-last lap and then surging past Wolfe midway down the home straightaway.
The move was quick and decisive and the race for first place was essentially over by the time Young sped down the backstretch for the final time as he ran his final lap of the 200-meter track in 27.29 seconds, his last 400 in 54.39, and his final 600 in 1:22.85 as on his way to a time of 13:25.29.
He struck earlier in the 3,000 than in the 5,000, as he surged into the lead just before three laps to go and ran his final 400 meters in 55.76 seconds and his last 600 in 1:24.11 while setting a meet record of 7:41.01.
Junior Parker Wolfe of North Carolina finished second in both races with times of 13:27.37 in the 5,000 and 7:42.38 in the 3,000.
Young’s victorious performances in this year’s meet were quite a contrast to his sophomore year when he placed fourth in the 5,000 in the indoor championships and eighth in the 5,000 outdoors.
“I’m just at a point where, like I said in December, my fitness is lining up well with my ability to access it mechanically, as well as the training I’ve been doing,” he said to John Anderson of ESPN after his victory in the 3,000. “So it’s just another progression along the way, especially [after] having a rough year last year.”
Winning with authority II: Wayne Pinnock of Arkansas, who led Jamaica to a 2-3-4 finish in the men’s long jump in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, last August, won his third collegiate title in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships last Friday.
The Razorback junior, who won NCAA indoor and outdoor titles as a Tennessee freshman in 2022, had the four longest jumps in the competition at the TRACK at New Balance, topped by a best of 8.40 (27-6¾) that was the longest mark in the world this year, tied the Jamaican indoor record first set by James Beckford in 1996, and moved him into a tie for fifth on the all-time collegiate performer list.
Pinnock took the lead with his first-round jump of 8.23 (27-0) and he followed that with efforts of 8.36 (27-5¼) in the second round, 8.29 (27-2½) in the third, and 8.40 in the fourth before fouling on his fifth and sixth attempts.
Jeremiah Davis of Florida State finished second with a best of 8.20 (26-11).
Impressive encore: Christopher Morales Williams of Georgia capped a breakout short track season in the men’s 400 meters in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships last Saturday when he won the event in 44.67 seconds.
The time was the fifth-fastest in collegiate history and seventh-fastest on the all-time world performance list.
Morales Williams, a sophomore from Canada, appeared to have set a world indoor record of 44.49 in the SEC championships on Feb. 24, but it was not long before World Athletics determined that the starting blocks in use at the meet were not the type that were required for record purposes. Therefore, his mark could not be considered for world record ratification.
Nonetheless, the time is still considered to be the fastest ever run indoors, as well as the collegiate record.
Morales Williams, who had lowered his personal best to 45.48 in winning the Canadian outdoor title last July, ran 45.39 indoors in the Clemson Tiger Paw Invitational in early February before slashing nine tenths of a second off that mark in the SEC meet.
Running on a track on Saturday that was not considered to be as fast as the one on which he set his collegiate record, Morales Williams posted the fastest time in the two-section final after coming through the first 200 meters in 21.00 seconds. He was challenged by Auhmad Robinson of Texas A&M during the second lap, but finished more than two tenths of a second in front of the Aggie junior, who set a personal best of 44.91.
“I just thought coming out and winning the 200, just like at the SECs,” he said when John Anderson of ESPN asked him about his strategy. “I was just trying to do the same thing and I didn’t want to change anything. Just run the same way. So I kind of won the break and then from there I knew I had to finish strong. And then I just held it all the way to the end.”
Four and counting: When Luke Houser of Washington won the men’s mile in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships last Saturday, it marked the fourth time in a row that a runner from the University of Washington had won a national collegiate title race in the mile or 1,500 meters.
The streak started in the 2022 NCAA outdoor meet when the Huskies’ Joe Waskom won the 1,500 in 3:45.58 and it continued last year when Waskom placed first in the mile in 4:02.68 in the indoor meet and teammate Nathan Green ran 3:42.78 to edge Waskom for the 1,500 title in the outdoor championships.
Waskom finished a well-beaten eighth in Saturday’s final at the TRACK at New Balance, but Houser extended the Washington title streak to four when he won the mile in 4:01.72.
The pace was very slow early as Adam Spencer of Wisconsin led the field through the first 409 meters in 63.08 and past 609 meters in 1:36.34. However, Houser was in the lead when he came through 809 meters in 2:08.30 and he never trailed again as he did a masterful job of repelling the charge of any runner who tried to moved past him for the remainder of the race.
He ran his last 200 meters in 26.82 seconds, his final 400 in 54.27, and the last 600 in 1:23.23. Spencer finished second in 4:01.92, followed by Lucas Bons of BYU in 4:02.12.
Long time coming: Irina Rodrigues of Portugal turned in the best performance of last weekend’s European Throwing Cup in Leiria, Portugal, when she won the women’s discus with a national record of 66.60 (218-6) on Sunday.
It was the longest throw in the world this year, topped the previous Portuguese record of 66.40 (217-10) set by Liliana Ca in 2021, added more than two and a half meters to Rodrigues’ previous best of 63.96 (209-10) set in 2016, and exceeded the Olympic Games qualifying standard of 64.50 (211-7).
The 33-year-old Rodrigues, who is a practicing doctor, started the competition with a foul in the first round before throwing 61.54 (201-11) in the second, followed by another foul on her third attempt.
She was in fourth place after the first three rounds of the competition, but she zoomed into first with her 66.40 throw in the fourth round. She then had efforts of 63.13 (207-1) and 63.93 (209-9) in the last two rounds.
Her final throw would also have been good enough to win the event as Shanice Craft of Germany placed second at 63.70 (209-0).
“The best decision I made in my career was to move to the Azores, to Terceira, to be able to work and train with my coach, Júlio Cirino da Rocha, in person,” Rodrigues was quoted as saying in a European Athletics post. “I hadn’t broken the national record in eight years and I didn’t even dream about it anymore.
“It was the best fruit I could have harvested. I managed to work as a doctor, qualify for the Olympic Games and break the national record. This is a result of a lot of commitment and daily discipline.”
While Rodrigues set a national record in the women’s discus on Sunday, Katrine Koch Jacobsen of Denmark became the first Dane to win a European Throwing Cup title when she placed first in the women’s hammer throw with a season best of 71.95 (236-4).
Jacobsen, 24, fouled on three of her six attempts, but her 71.95 effort in the third round was good enough to defeat the 71.66 (235-1) best of second-place Bianca Florentina Ghelber of Romania, who finished seventh in the World Athletics Championships last year.
Ukraine produced a pair of gold medalists in the senior men’s events during the two-day meet.
Mykhaylo Kokhan won the men’s hammer throw with a best of 78.13 (246-4) on Saturday and Artur Felfner took the men’s javelin with a throw of 81.89 (268-8) on Sunday.
The 23-year-old Kokhan, who placed fifth in the World Championships last year, produced his best throw in the sixth round. But his fourth-round effort of 76.72 (251-8) and his second-round mark of 76.46 (250-10) would also have been good enough to win the competition.
Bence Halasz of Hungary, the bronze medalist in the World Championships, finished second at 76.22 (250-1).
The 20-year-old Felfer’s 81.89 best in the javelin left him a little more than a meter ahead of second-place Alexandru Mihaita Novac of Romania, who had a best of 80.73 (264-10).
Max Dehning of Germany, a 19-year-old who had added more than 11 meters to his previous best when he threw a world-leading 90.20 (295-11) on Feb. 25, finished fourth at 80.30 (263-1).
Taking it to the streets: Tadesse Abraham of Switzerland lowered his national record and Degitu Azimeraw of Ethiopia ran under 2 hours 20 minutes for the fourth time in her career in winning the men’s and women’s divisions, respectively, in the Barcelona Marathon on Sunday.
The 41-year-old Abraham’s 2:05:01 clocking trimmed nine seconds off the national record of 2:05:10 that he had set while finishing 11th in the Berlin Marathon last September. It also bettered the course record of 2:05:06 that Marius Kimutai of Bahrain had set last year.
According to a post on the Barcelona Marathon site, Abraham and Kenyans Collins Kipkirui Kipkorir and Edmond Kipngetich ran together through the 35-kilometer mark before Abraham broke away for the victory.
Kipkorir finished second in 2:06:44 and Kipngetich placed third in 2:07:21.
“I wanted to win Barcelona again and I have achieved it,” Abraham was quoted as saying on the marathon site. “I won the half-marathon of this city in 2015 and today, nine years later and almost 42 years old, I can assure that nothing is impossible, age is just a number. I was able to set the course record and I would like to come back to this race to try to finish in 2 hours and 4 minutes.”
The 25-year-old Azimeraw paced a 1-2-3 Ethiopian sweep as compatriots Shuko Genemo Wote finished second in 2:21:35, followed by Meseret Dinke Meleka at 2:22:58.
That trio ran together until shortly before 30 kilometers, when Azimeraw broke away from Wote and Meleka.
Azimeraw, who ran her personal best of 2:17:58 when she placed second in the London Marathon in 2021, was pleased with her victory and said she would like to return next year so she could hopefully break the women’s course record of 2:19:44 that was set last year by Ethiopian Zeineba Yimer Worku.
“I am very happy to have won in Barcelona,” she said. “I really liked the course. I will try to repeat next year, because it is a course that I think can be run even faster and I would like to beat the course record next time.”
Tough field gets stronger: World Athletics announced last week that Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands has entered the women’s race of the World Cross Country Championships that will be held in Belgrade, Serbia, on March 30.
The 31-year-old Hassan was the No. 1-ranked women’s marathon runner in the world by Track & Field News for 2023 and she turned in an unprecedented triple in the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo when she won the 5,000 and 10,000 meters and placed third in the 1,500. However, the meet in Belgrade will mark the first time she has competed at the senior level in the World Cross Country Championships. The race is also expected to be her first competition since she finished a disappointing fourth in 2:18:05 in the Tokyo Marathon on March 3.
Hassan had entered that race as the second-fastest women’s marathon runner in history after running 2:13:44 in Chicago last October, but she lost valuable time at the 25-kilometer aid station in Tokyo when she missed picking up her bottle the first time she ran past the tables and had to go back to get it.
Kenyans have won the last eight individual women’s titles in the World Cross Country Championships and this year’s team is expected to include defending champion Beatrice Chebet, as well as Agnes Chebet Ngetich and Emmaculate Ayango Achol, who ran the two fastest women’s times in history for 10,000 meters on the road when they clocked 28:46 and 28:57, respectively, in Barcelona in January.
London Marathon calling: Ethiopian Tigst Assefa and Kenyans Brigid Kosgei, Ruth Chepngetich, and Peres Jepchirchir top the list of entrants for the women’s race of the London Marathon on April 21.
It will be Assefa’s first marathon since she ran 2:11:53 in the Berlin Marathon last September to crush the previous world record of 2:14:04 that Kosgei had set in Chicago in 2019.
Assefa had run 2:15:37 in winning the Berlin Marathon in 2022, but she sent shock waves through the marathoning world last year when she bettered that mark by more than three and a half minutes.
Kosgei, the Olympic silver medalist, ran 2:16:02 in winning the Tokyo Marathon in 2022. But she dropped out of last year’s London Marathon after starting the race with a hamstring injury she had sustained in training. She then finished fourth in a very tactical New York City Marathon in November before running 2:19:05 to win the Abu Dhabi Marathon in the United Arab Emirates six weeks later.
Chepngetich ran her personal best of 2:14:18 in winning the Chicago Marathon in 2022. She then clocked 2:18:08 in winning the Nagoya Marathon in Japan in March of last year and 2:15:37 to place second in the Chicago Marathon last October.
Jepchirchir, who has run 2:17:16 in the marathon, does not have a personal best to rival those of Assefa, Kosgei, and Chepngetich. But she is the defending Olympic champion who followed that victory with wins in the 2021 New York City Marathon and the 2022 Boston Marathon.
She has battled some injuries since then, but she ran 2:18:38 to place third in a tight finish in last year’s London Marathon and won her third consecutive World title in the half marathon in October.
Ethiopians Almaz Ayana and Yalemzerf Yehualaw head up the remainder of the women’s elite field that includes 10 entrants who have run under 2:17:30.
Ayana, the former world record-holder in the 10,000 meters, placed seventh in last year’s London Marathon, but lowered her personal best to 2:16:22 in finishing second in the Valencia Marathon in Spain in December.
Yehualaw won the 2022 London Marathon in 2:17:26 before finishing fifth in last year’s race and fifth in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, where the heat and humidity took a big toll on her.
London Marathon calling II: Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia heads the list of elite entrants in the men’s race of the London Marathon on April 21.
The 32-year-old Tola had an up-and-down year in 2023 as he finished third in London last April, dropped out of the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, in August, and then lowered the course record to 2:04:58 in the New York City Marathon in November.
His most recent marathon victories prior to New York City had come in the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, and in Amsterdam in 2021.
Kenyans Alexander Mutiso and Geoffrey Kamworor, and Ethiopians Kenenisa Bekele and Mosinet Geremew head of the list of other top runners in the elite field.
Mutiso had lowered his personal best to 2:03:11 in finishing second in the Valencia Marathon in Spain in December after he ran 2:05:09 to win the Prague Marathon in May.
Kamworor ran a personal best of 2:04:23 to finish second to the late Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya in last year’s London Marathon. The veteran distance runner has placed first, first, third, and fourth in the past four World Cross Country Championships and he also won the New York City Marathon in 2017 and ’19.
When it comes to personal bests, Bekele and Geremew are the two fastest runners in the field. However, it has been four and a half years since Bekele ran 2:01:41 in winning the 2019 Berlin Marathon and nearly five years since Geremew ran 2:02:55 to place second in the 2019 London Marathon.
Bekele’s best time since 2019 is the 2:04:19 he ran in finishing fourth in the Valencia Marathon in Spain in December and Geremew’s fastest is a 2:04:41 clocking when he placed third in the 2021 London Marathon.