Week in Review: Versatility could be greatest asset
World best in 500 meters makes me wonder if 800 is in Bol's future
Just a few months removed from establishing herself as a triple threat in the women’s 400 meters, 400 hurdles, and 1,600 relay, I could see Femke Bol of the Netherlands one day becoming one of the top 800 runners in the world.
That was the feeling I had at the conclusion of NBC Sports’ two-hour televised broadcast of the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix meet at the TRACK at New Balance in Brighton, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
I had been wooed by Bol when she set a world best of 1 minute 5.63 seconds to win the women’s 500 meters in the first televised event of the meet. But as the competition proceeded with a slew of top-flight performances, including Noah Lyles’ come-from-behind victory over fellow American Trayvon Bromell in the men’s 60, my thoughts kept coming back to the combination of speed and endurance — two vital assets for an elite 800 competitor — that Bol displayed in her runaway victory in the two-and-a-half lap event.
Wearing a bright orange kit, the 22-year-old Dutchwoman got off to a good start in lane six and was running about even with Jamaican 400 hurdler Janieve Russell in lane four for the first 100 meters of the race. But she was slightly ahead of Russell when Russell came through 200 meters in 25.02 and her advantage was approximately 10 meters over Russell when the latter passed 300 meters in 38.42. Unfortunately, Bol’s 100-meter splits were not available on the meet website.
Bol continued to expand her lead during the final 200 meters of the race as Russell, who came though the 400-meter mark in 52.89, began to fade and eventually finished third in 1:09.18 behind the Jamaican record of 1:08.34 set by runner-up Leah Anderson.
The winning time, which came in Bol’s first-ever race at the infrequently-run 500-meter distance, lowered the previous world best of 1:06.31 set by Olesya Krasnomovets-Forsheva of Russia in 2006.
It also came a week after Keely Hodgkinson of Great Britain had lowered another longstanding world best — in the women’s 600 meters — in a meet in Manchester, England.
“The goal was to break 1:06 and set a world record, but I thought I was behind the pace of [the world record] throughout the race,” Bol said in a story on the AROGED site. “I didn’t know I was going for a record until I saw the clock at the finish line.”
In a story on athletics.co.ke, she said she “wanted to go out fast and keep on going.”
She added, “It was amazing. I could hear the crowd in the last 100 meters, which helped me so much. It was fun to do 500 meters to start the season.”
The 6-foot (1.83 meters) tall Bol has come a long way in the past two and a half years. She had a best of 54.33 in the 400 at the end of 2018. But she began to run the 400 hurdles in 2019 and clocked a then-career best of 55.32 in the event when she finished fifth in a first-round heat of the World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar.
Although she was eliminated in the semifinals of that meet — in which Dalilah Muhammad set a then-world record of 52.16 to edge fellow American Sydney McLaughlin (52.23) in the final — Bol lowered the Netherlands record to 53.79 in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic led to a short and condensed season.
Then came 2021 when she set four more national records, capped by a 52.03 bronze-medal effort in the Olympic Games in Tokyo that made her the third-fastest performer in history behind McLaughlin and Muhammad.
A conservative approach might have led her to focus her attention strictly on the 400 hurdles last year in an effort to close the gap with McLaughlin, who lowered the world-record two more times after marrying Andre Levrone Jr. in May. But Bol chose to add the 400 to her racing repertoire.
She won the silver medal in the event in the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia in March and pulled off an unprecedented golden triple in the European Championships outdoor meet in Munich in August when she won the 400 in a national record of 49.44, the 400 hurdles in a meet-record 52.67, and ran a dazzling 48.52 anchor leg on a 1,600 relay team that came from behind to win the race in a national record of 3:20.87.
“I am so proud to achieve the double,” Bol told World Athletics after winning the 400 hurdles and prior to running in the 1,600 relay. “I will never do the double again. Well, maybe. Never say never. I knew that if nothing strange happens, I would get this medal. . . This race was pretty hard. It was not easier than the 400 meters flat. I have been training hard for this. I would like to thank the crowd for their support, for helping me.”
Bol’s three gold-medal performance in the German capital came a month after she had finished a distant second to McLaughlin-Levrone’s stunning 50.68 world record in the 400 hurdles in the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
Though some might contend that her decision to branch out and spread her competitive wings contributed to the widening gap between her and McLaughlin-Levrone last year, it was hard for me to fault her actions as she became the first woman since Ionela Tirlea of Romania in 2004 to rank among the top 10 performers in the world in both the 400 and 400 hurdles in the same year by Track & Field News.
That accomplishment by Bol, who was ranked second in the 400 hurdles and fourth in the 400, might not be so unique at the end of this year as McLaughlin-Levrone has indicated she will run in some open 400s during the outdoor season. But Bol twice has done something in the last two years that none of the elite U.S. 400 sprinters or hurdlers — men or women — have. She has run a leg on her country’s mixed-sex 1,600 relay team in the Olympic Games in Tokyo and in the World Championships in Eugene prior to participating in her primary individual event, the 400 hurdles, in those global championships.
I know one can argue that the mixed 4x4 is a relatively new event — it was first contested at a global championship level in 2019 — and lacks the tradition and importance of the men’s and women’s races. And that U.S. standouts such as quarter-miler Michael Norman and intermediate hurdler Rai Benjamin, as well as McLaughlin-Levrone and Muhammad, cannot be expected to run a leg in the mixed relay, contest three rounds of their individual specialty and then come back to run in the men’s or women’s 4x4.
Yet Bol did that in both the Olympics and the World Championships. In addition, she would have run in both rounds of the women’s 1,600 relay in Eugene had the Netherlands team not been disqualified in its first-round heat for improperly advancing the baton after dropping it.
It seems obvious to me that Bol loves to be challenged and relishes racing. And she has proven herself to have the required fitness to race often and perform well.
I would not be surprised to see her add the 800 meters to her racing itinerary in the future.
Can you imagine her squaring off with American Athing Mu, Hodgkinson, and Kenyan Mary Moraa in a mid-summer race on the European circuit?
I can. And I’ll bet that race would bring in some impressive ratings for whatever broadcast company televised it.
Nice rebound: After starting his indoor season with a so-so effort two weeks earlier, two-time defending World 200 champion Noah Lyles came from behind to win the men’s 60-meter dash in the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix.
The 25-year-old Lyles edged runner-up Trayvon Bromell by two-thousandths of a second as the two Americans were each credited with times of 6.51 seconds. Benjamin Azamati of Ghana finished third in 6.62.
Lyles had come within a hundredth of a second of his personal best when he ran 6.56 in his qualifying heat about an hour and a half before the final, in which he used his superior top-speed to edge past Bromell in the final five meters of the race.
“I’ve been waiting on this for a long time man,” he said to NBC’s Lewis Johnson in a post-race interview. “To see me get so much closer to six-four. Every time I watch Christian [Coleman] and Trayvon runs those 60s, and I’m in there and I feel like I’m always watching behind them. Like, no, I gotta be in it. This is my grade for the 100. I gotta be in it.”
Lyles, who broke Michael Johnson’s 26-year-old U.S. record in the 200 when he ran 19.31 in the World Championships last year, has made it clear that he wants to run both the 100 and 200 when this year’s global title meet is held in Budapest, Hungary, in August.
He got off to a good start, by his standards, on Saturday, but still trailed the typically fast-starting Bromell by nine-hundredths of a second after the first 10 meters of the race and by six-hundredths when he came through 30 meters in 3.93. But he had reduced his deficit to two hundredths at the 50-meter mark before squeaking past Bromell at the line.
His time was a full tenth of a second faster than what he ran on January 22 when he finished third — behind Kendal Williams and his younger brother Josephus Lyles — in the RADD Collegiate Invitational in Gainesville, Florida.
Dominant victory: Unlike the men’s 60, there was no question about who won the women’s race in the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix as Aleia Hobbs ran 7.02 seconds to finish well ahead of second-place Mikiah Brisco, who clocked 7.10.
Although her time fell short of the 6.98 yearly world-leading time she ran in the Razorback Invitational a week earlier, Hobbs took the lead after the first few steps of the race and you never got the feeling anyone was going to catch her.
Fellow American Kayla White was within three-hundredths of a second after the first 10 meters of the race, but Hobbs had an advantage of four hundredths over World Indoor Championship silver-medalist Brisco at the midway point and she doubled that margin by the finish.
Dominant victory II: No track and field athlete is unbeatable, but it has been a long time since Grant Holloway of the U.S. has been beaten in the 60-meter high hurdles indoors.
According to NBC Sports, the 25-year-old Holloway entered the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix with a 56-race winning streak, with his last loss coming during the 2014-15 indoor season when he was a junior at Grassfield High School in Chesapeake, Virginia. He left it with 58 consecutive victories after he won the final in a yearly world-leading time of 7.38 seconds. That followed a then world-leading 7.39 in his qualifying heat earlier in the meet.
The defending indoor world champion did not get off to a great start by his lofty standards, but he was still four-hundredths of a second ahead of his closest competitor after the first hurdle of the five-hurdle event. His advantage was a tenth of a second over second-place Daniel Roberts by the third hurdle and he maintained most of that to the finish line as Roberts placed second in 7.46, followed by fellow American Freddie Crittenden in 7.55.
Trey Cunningham, the silver-medalist behind teammate Holloway in the 110-meter high hurdles in the World outdoor meet last July, finished fifth in 7.67.
Holloway told Lewis Johnson of NBC Sports that his start was “not the best I’ve ever had. But… three weeks into our season… that’s a great start and just stay consistent in that seven-three range is real good. So… we’ll re-evaluate and have some more fun.”
The showman delivers: Mondo Duplantis of Sweden got his 2023 season off to a great start last Thursday when he cleared a yearly world-leading height of 6.10 meters (20 feet ¼ inch) to win the pole vault in the 2nd Mondo Classic at IFU Arena in Uppsala, Sweden.
The defending Olympic and indoor and outdoor World champion cleared 5.67 (18-7¼), 5.82 (19-1¼), and 5.91 (19-4¾) on his first attempts in the meet that he created.
His second-try clearance at 6.00 (19-8¼) made him the only competitor to negotiate that height. He then cleared 6.10 on his third attempt before missing three times at 6.22 (20-4¾), a height that would have topped the 6.21 (20-4½) world record he set in the World Championships last July.
KC Lightfoot of the U.S. and Ernest John Obiena of the Philippines each cleared 5.91, with Lightfoot finishing second because he negotiated the height on his second attempt and Obiena did it on his third try.
The 23-year-old Duplantis has now cleared 6.10 meters or higher in a record 12 meets during his career. His latest performance broke a tie he shared with all-time great Sergey Bubka of Ukraine, who was the top-ranked pole vaulter in the world an unprecedented 13 times after bursting onto the world scene in 1983 to win the gold medal in the inaugural World Championships in Helsinki at the age of 19 while competing for the Soviet Union.
Another world leader: Tina Sutej of Slovenia won her third meet of the indoor season without a loss when she cleared a national record of 4.82 (15-9¾) in the women’s pole vault in the Czech Indoor Gala in Ostrava last Thursday.
It was the highest vault in the world this year, topping her previous best of 4.76 (15-7¼) set in a meet in Belgrade, Serbia on Jan. 25. It also raised the previous national record of 4.80 (15-9) that she set last year.
The 34-year-old Sutej cleared 4.42 (14-6), 4.52 (14-10), 4.62 (51-1¾), and 4.72 (15-5¾) on her first attempts before needing three tries to clear 4.82, a mark that moved her into a tie for 12th on the all-time performer list. She then missed three times at 4.86 (15-11¼).
Amalie Svabikova of the Czech Republic finished second at 4.57 (15-0).
Another meet, another world leader: Hugues Fabrice Zango of Burkina Faso bounded a yearly world-leading distance of 17.48 (57-4¼) to win the men’s triple jump in the Meeting de l’Eure in Val-de-Reuil, France on Saturday.
The World Championship silver medalist and world indoor record-holder defeated a high-caliber field that included Cubans Lazaro Martinez, who finished second at 17.16 (56-3¾), and Andy Diaz, third at 17.09 (56-1).
Diaz, the No. 1-ranked performer in the world by Track & Field News for the 2022 season, spent last year jumping for an Italian Club and could be competing for Italy at some point in the future.
What might have been: Diribe Welteji of Ethiopia ran a yearly world-leading time of 8:33.44 in winning the women’s 3,000 meters in the Meeting de l’Eure, despite the fact that she stopped running for an estimated eight to 10 seconds after mistakenly thinking she had finished the race when she still had a lap remaining on the 200-meter track.
She was actually sitting on the ground in the first turn when a runner who had acted as a pacesetter earlier in the race saw that she had stopped a lap early and helped her get up and continue on the final lap before second-place Sembo Almayew of Ethiopia and third-place Hanna Klein of Germany they could run past her.
Rules prohibit runners from getting any kind of physical assistance during the course of a race, but my guess is meet officials chose not to enforce them due to the fact that the 20-year-old Wejteji had a large lead when she stopped running. In addition, she extended her advantage over Almayew (8:35.04) and Klein (8:36.42) after she started running again.
Welteji had a breakout season last year when she placed fourth in the 800 in the World Championships and was ranked sixth in the world in that event and in the 1,500 by Track & Field News.
You can’t know for sure how fast she would have run the final lap had she not stopped, but if you were to subtract 8 seconds from her final time on Saturday, she would have moved to 10th on the all-time world performer list.
Another collegiate record in women’s 60: Julien Alfred of the University of Texas and St. Lucia set her second collegiate and national record of the season in the women’s 60-meter dash on Saturday when she clocked 7.00 seconds while posting a runaway victory in New Mexico Collegiate Classic at the Albuquerque Convention Center.
Taking advantage of Albuquerque’s elevation of 4,900 feet (1,500 meters), the Longhorn senior ran the second-fastest time in the world this year when she bested the previous collegiate record of 7.02 that she ran at the same facility two weeks earlier while winning the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegiate Invitational.
The defending NCAA champion in the 100 had preceded her collegiate record in the 60 by finishing second overall in the 200 on Friday. She was a runaway winner in the second of 10 heats of the women’s 200, but her time of 22.56 left her a hundredth of a second behind the 22.55 clocking that Favour Ofili of LSU ran in the first section.
Another Irish record: You can bet Rhasidat Adeleke is another University of Texas sprinter who loves racing in the sprint-friendly confines of the Albuquerque Convention Center.
That was readily apparent on Saturday when the Longhorn sophomore won the women’s 400 in yearly world-leading time of 50.45 seconds in the New Mexico Collegiate Classic.
Her time was the fastest in the world this year, crushed the previous Irish record of 51.58 set by Karen Shinkins in 2002, and moved her to third on the all-time collegiate performer list.
It also gave her a solid margin of victory over senior teammate Kennedy Simon (51.11) and occurred two weeks after she had run a yearly world-leading and Irish record of 22.52 in the 200 in the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegiate Invitational at the same facility.
It will be interesting to see if Adeleke competes in the 200 or the 400 when the NCAA Indoor Championships are held in Albuquerque on March 10-11. The two-day meet is so compacted that a 200-400 double is not possible.
Hot streak continues: Christopher Bailey of the University of Arkansas continued his superb senior season in the New Mexico Collegiate Classic when he ran a 44.32-second anchor leg on a Razorback foursome that won the men’s 1,600 relay in 3:01.09 to move to second on the all-time collegiate list.
Bailey had a small lead on Texas A&M’s Ashton Schwartzman when he began his anchor leg, but he extended his advantage to nearly two seconds by the finish as the Aggies placed second in 3:02.98.
Sophomore Connor Washington got Arkansas off to a solid start with a 46.61 carry on the first leg. Senior teammates James Benson II and Ayden Owens-Delerme — the defending NCAA champion in the heptathlon indoors and the decathlon outdoors — followed with splits of 44.82 and 45.34, respectively, before Bailey received the baton for his anchor leg.
The Razorbacks’ time was .32 seconds shy of the world and collegiate record of 3:00.77 that USC ran in the 2018 NCAA Indoor Championships. That Trojan squad included Rai Benjamin, who won the silver medal in the 400 intermediate hurdles in the Olympic Games in 2021, and Michael Norman, gold medalist in the 400 in the World Championships last year.
Bailey, a transfer from Tennessee, currently has the fastest times in the world this year in both the 400 at 45.09 and in the infrequently-run 600 at 1:15.18.
Raising the bar: Sondre Guttormsen of Princeton set another Norwegian record in the pole vault in the New Mexico Collegiate Classic when he cleared 5.90 (19-4¼) to win the event.
The defending NCAA indoor and outdoor champion needed two tries to clear his opening height of 5.63 (18-5¾) before missing his first attempt at 5.78 (18-11¾).
That miss, coupled with a first-attempt clearance by Texas Tech senior Zach Bradford, left him in second place so he passed his two remaining attempts to the next height of 5.83 (19-1½). He missed his first attempt at that height but cleared it on his second — and final — try.
He then passed the next height of 5.88 (19-3½), at which Bradford missed all three of his attempts.
The bar was then raised to 5.90 (19-4¼), which Guttormsen cleared on his first attempt.
Although he missed all three of his attempts at the collegiate-record height of 6.00 (19-8¼) set by KC Lightfoot of Baylor in 2021, Guttormsen’s 5.90 clearance moved him to fifth on the all-time collegiate list and topped the previous national record of 5.84 which he set in the Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet the previous Saturday.
Huskies on a roll: The University of Washington’s middle-distance program turned in another superb performance last Friday when the Huskies set a collegiate record of 10:46.62 in winning the women’s distance medley relay in the Bruce Lehane Scarlet and White Invitational at the Boston University Track & Tennis Center.
The time broke the previous collegiate best of 10:48.77 set by Oregon in 2017.
Sophie O’Sullivan got Washington off to strong start when she ran her 1,200-meter leg in 3:16.24. She was followed by fellow juniors Marlena Preigh, who ran 54.21 on her 400-meter leg, and Carley Thomas, who clocked 2:01.93 on her 800-meter leg. Senior Anna Gibson then closed out the record by running the final 1,600 meters of the race in 4:34.26.
The Huskies’ performance was doubly impressive because they were not pushed for the most part as West Virginia finished second in 10:59.09 and Villanova placed third in 11:01.21.
The collegiate record came a week after eight members of Washington’s men’s team broke four minutes in the mile in the same race, with the top five running under 3:54.
Two liners: Karsten Warholm of Norway, the defending Olympic champion in the men’s 400-meter intermediate hurdles, opened his season by winning the 400 in 45.31 seconds in an indoor meet named after himself in Ulsteinvik, Norway on Friday. Warholm set the world record of 45.94 in the intermediate hurdles in the Olympic Games in Tokyo. . . . . Marcell Jacobs of Italy ran 6.57 to win the men’s 60 in the Orlen Cup in Lodz, Poland on Saturday. The defending Olympic champion in the 100 and defending World indoor champion in the 60 ran 6.57 to turn back second-place Dominic Kopec of Poland (6.60). . . . . Defending Olympic and World outdoor champion Katie Moon (nee Nageotte) opened her season with a fourth-place finish in the women’s pole vault in the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Brighton, Massachusetts on Saturday. She cleared 4.45 (14-7¼) in the competition won by fellow American Bridget Williams with a personal best of 4.77 (15-7¾). . . . . Woody Kincaid won the men’s 3,000 meters in a personal best of 7:40.71 in the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix eight days after setting a U.S. record of 12:51.61 in the 5,000 in the Boston University John Thomas Terrier Classic. The top eight finishers in the New Balance race ran career bests. . . . . Noelie Yarigo of Benin became the first woman in the world to break two minutes in the 800 this year when she ran a national record of 1:59.29 in the Meeting de l’Eure in Val-de-Reuil, France on Saturday. The time lowered her previous national record of 2:01.01 set in 2021. . . . . Michael Cherry of the U.S. ran 32.66 to win the men’s 300 meters in the South Carolina Invitational last Friday. The fourth-place finisher in the 400 in the Olympic Games finished ahead of World Championship bronze medalist Matthew Hudson-Smith of Great Britain and Olympic champion Steven Gardiner of the Bahamas, who posted times of 32.72 and 33.03 while running in different heats.
No indoor season for Wightman: World men’s 1,500-meter champion Jake Wightman is expected to miss all of the indoor season after injuring his right foot while doing plyometrics at a training camp in South Africa.
The 28-year-old Brit was scheduled to open the season in the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix last Saturday, but he announced on Instagram on Jan. 30 that would no longer be the case due to his injury.
His post included the humor for which Wightman is known: “After a decent few weeks training in SA I frustratingly had an accident in the gym whilst doing plyos. The result of this being a sprained mid foot and a new accessory to travel home with.
I was looking forward to an indoor season starting with @nbindoorgp this weekend, however now the focus is on getting back to running as quickly and safely as possible.
These things happen and it’s important to remember the bigger picture.
(Will be milking my situation for the foreseeable future starting with luxury shuttle service at Heathrow 😂)”
Congratulations are in order: Bahamian quarter-miler Shaunae Miller-Uibo announced on Instagram over the weekend that she and husband, Estonian decathlete Maicel Uibo, are expecting their first child later this year.
The two-time defending Olympic champion in the women’s 400 meters, Miller-Uibo won her first World indoor and outdoor titles last year. She previously spoke of focusing on the 200 during the 2023 outdoor season, but I would expect her pregnancy to postpone any racing until next year.
The track and field portion of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris is scheduled to be held from August 1-11. If Miller-Uibo were to win the women’s 400 in those Games, she would become the first athlete in Olympic history, man or woman, to have won three consecutive titles in the one-lap event.
Her post read: “New Year, New Blessing. We can’t wait to meet our little bundle of joy ☺️❤️
Happy 6th Anniversary 🥰”
Runaway victory: Two-time Olympic and World champion Faith Kipyegon of Kenya is regarded by many as the greatest women’s 1,500-meter runner in history, but she looked very comfortable at the 10,000-meter distance in winning the Sirikwa Cross Country Classic at the Lobo village in Eldoret, Kenya on Saturday.
Running under hot, breezy conditions at an elevation of nearly 6,900 feet (2,100 meters), the 28-year-old Kipyegon was content to run behind the 19-year-old Jackline Chepkoech for the first part of the race. But she had a lead of about 400 meters over the Commonwealth Games steeplechase champion when she started the final two-kilometer loop on the course.
Her winning time of 33:50 left her well ahead of second-place Chepkoech (34:52) and third-place Zenah Jemutai Yego (35:08).
The men’s race was won by 22-year-old Charles Lokir. The winner of the Kenyan championships last month broke away from the lead group ascending the final hill on the course and crossed the finish line with a time of 30:14.
Josephat Kiprotich placed second in 30:19 and Dennis Kipngetich was third in 30:21.
Incredible depth: The organizers of this year’s London Marathon have put together a superb field for the men’s race. But the women’s field is absolutely phenomenal.
That was my reaction after reading the list of entries released last week.
The women’s field includes five runners who have broken 2 hours and 18 minutes, with another five having personal bests under 2:19. The field is so strong that former U.S record-holder Keira D’Amato is the No. 11 entrant with a best of 2:19:12.
As if that wasn’t enough, Olympic 5,000 and 10,000 champion Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands and Commonwealth Games 10,000 champion Eilish McColgan of Great Britain are scheduled to make their marathon debuts in the race on April 23.
Hassan wrote in an Instagram post that she was excited to test herself over the marathon distance, but concluded that post by writing the following: “We'll see if I will finish the distance or if the distance will finish me. 😉”
Yalemzerf Yehualaw of Ethiopia and Kenyans Brigid Kosgei and Peres Jepchirchir are the top three headliners in a field rich with talent.
Yehualaw ran 2:17:26 to win the London Marathon last October — when it was held in the fall due to safety measures taken in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic — after she had run 2:17:23 to win her debut marathon in Hamburg, Germany in April. She also holds the women’s world record of 29:14 for 10,000 meters on the road.
Kosgei won the London Marathon in 2019 and 2020, and set the world record of 2:14:04 in Chicago in 2019 in between those London victories.
Jepchirchir appears to be fully recovered from a hip injury that has prevented her from running any marathons after winning the Olympic title in 2021, the New York City Marathon in November of that year, and the Boston Marathon in April of last year.
Tigist Assefa and Almaz Ayana are two more Ethiopians who have impressive resumes.
Assefa cut more than 18 minutes off her previous best when she ran 2:15:37 to win the Berlin Marathon last September.
Ayana won her debut marathon in Amsterdam in October with a time of 2:17:20. The 2016 Olympic and 2017 World champion in the women’s 10,000 accomplished that after missing the 2018-21 seasons with injuries. She also became a mom during that period.
Although the men’s field cannot rival the depth of the women’s, it includes four of the five fastest runners in history and 10 entrants who have run under 2:05.
Three of those five fastest runners are Ethiopians — Kenenisa Bekele (2:01:41), Birhanu Legese (2:02:48), and Mosinet Geremew (2:02:55) — who set their personal bests in 2019.
The fourth is Kelvin Kiptum, a 23-year-old Kenyan who ran a stunning 2:01:53 in his marathon debut in Valencia, Spain on Dec. 4.
Not to be overlooked are defending champion Amos Kipruto, who ran his personal best of 2:03:13 in finishing second to fellow Kenyan and world-record-holder Eliud Kipchoge in Tokyo last year, and World champion Tamirit Tola of Ethiopia, who won the 2021 Amsterdam Marathon in a career best of 2:03:39.
Mo Farah of Great Britain is also in the field. The winner of 10 gold medals in the 5,0000 or 10,000 meters in the Olympic Games or World Championships will be 40 when he toes the line for what could be the final marathon of his career.
Farah ran a personal best of 2:05:11 to win the Chicago Marathon in 2018, but withdrew from the London Marathon last year due to an injury.