Thoughts heading into the most talent-packed Diamond League meet ever
Throw a dart blindfolded at the 2021 Pre Classic schedule, and there's a good chance it'll hit an event in which a world record is broken or seriously threatened
The Prefontaine Classic, last held in 2019 on Memorial Day Weekend in Eugene, Oregon, returns to Hayward Field in the aftermath of a flagrantly over-rewarding Olympic Games. Entry lists are here, which is also where the results will appear.
The meet is split, as usual, into a shorter Friday evening program and a feature Saturday afternoon slate of events. Jonathan Gault’s Letsrun.com preview is probably sparkling, as usual, but I haven’t read it because that way I can convince myself that sharting out my own prognostications isn’t a waste of time, as if I have more compelling Friday night plans anyway. (I attended this meet in 2016, when a men’s 10,000 meters was held. As much as Mo Farah is not my or many people’s favorite runner, watching the man run 63- to 64-second laps like he was floating along on a soundless gale was truly something else.)
The number of world records that may topple this weekend is debatable, but I’m thinking that three seems about right. The women’s 2-mile, 5,000 meters and, yes, 100-meter dash records are in real jeopardy, with others possibly on the chopping block. The first two of these events are on Friday night, and to watch those live, you need a RunnerSpace.com PLUS subscription. I would provide the link if I didn’t know that every single reader of this blog is going to either wait for the Saturday YouTube uploads of the races or hope some beaming 14-year-old in Taiwan periscopes the livestream as it, well, streams live.
Most of the Saturday races are on NBC, although the first half-hour of the main program is only on Peacock, whatever that is. (This would be a great chance to again interject something about track being a joke of a sport in the U.S. if coverage of a single track meet of this magnitude is distributed across three providers, but I don’t want to ruffle anyone’s cornflakes today.)
The times below are correct only for readers in my time zone, U.S. Mountain DST. If you replace an “r” sound with “ah” in most instances of spoken language, add two hours; if your region sends wildfire smoke and kids who got rejected from U.C.-Berkeley to Boulder, Colorado, subtract one hour. If I didn’t do this, I would lose track of when races are starting, possibly even between consecutive events. At least it happened that way during the Olympics, and although I might have an easier time with a one-hour difference, I am taking no chances.
I’ve generated mini-previews for the events I myself happen to care the most about. By the time most of you read them, the entire 2021 Prefontaine Classic will be over.
FRIDAY NIGHT
Women’s 2-mile (10:22 p.m.): Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia, who holds the WRs in both the 5,000m and the 10,000m and is expected to soon be named one of People Magazine’s 100 sexiest women alive, will presumably take aim at the 14-year-old world 2-mile best (World Athletics doesn’t recognize a world record in this event) held by countrywoman Meseret Defar—8:58.58. Hellen Obiri of Kenya may have just as good a shot.
For reference, 8:58 for two miles is about 8:18 for 3,000 meters, which in turn demands no worse than 14:25 5,000-meter fitness—maybe a little faster for true distance runners like Gidey and Obiri. Gidey has run 14:06.62, so. Yeah. This one could see the second and third sub-9:00 two-mile runs ever by women, plus maybe a bonus booty or two.
Women’s 5,000 (11:00 p.m.): Sifan Hassan always manages to strike me as a dickhead no matter what choice of events she makes, how she executes her races, or whether she succeeds. In this case, after beating Gidey over 10,000 meters for the gold medal in Tokyo, Hassan is going after Gidey’s 14:06.62 WR in Eugene about twenty-nine minutes after Gidey should finish the two-mile.
Hassan’s coach, who I assume lies about practically everything, says Hassan committed to Pre before deciding to go for the 1,500-5,000-10,000 triple at the Olympics, so even though she’s tired, she’s committed to giving it the old college try at Hayward. I reckon that between the more forgiving track racing shoes available to distance runners and whatever illegal substances are rocketing around in Hassan’s drug-stream (which may test positive for blood if she’s not careful), she’ll feel more than good enough to break the record.
I’ve no clue about her specific plans, but I would guess her camp will settle on pegging the pacing lights 68-second laps, or 14:10 pace. I fully expect Hassan to have enough left for a 2:40 kilometer—think 66, 64, 30—and an excellent bid for a sub-14:00 in addition to the world record. Hassan is that good. She’ll probably break the WR if she manages to fall to the track fewer than four times.
SATURDAY
Men’s 800 meters (2:03 p.m.): Predicting an 800 never works out well for anyone. I think this one will be disappointingly slow compared to the events preceding and following, with a winning time of 1:44-high and the rest of the field within a couple of seconds.
Mostly, I think this general group of runners has had enough this year of tumbling to the track at 17 miles an hour, only to have to race again the next day when the inevitable appeal based on interference is successful. So, they may be looking to stay out of trouble more than anything else. I’m likely to be galactically wrong about every word of this.
Women’s 100-meter dash (2:42 p.m.): Florence Griffith-Joyner’s revered-and-scorned 33-year-old 10.49 WR may be in trouble. The top two in the event at the Olympics, both Jamaicans, are entered; Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah ran 10.61 into a wind of 0.6 m/s in Tokyo, and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce recorded a 10.63 in June, making the pair #2 and #3 all-time.
On its face, a 10.61 into a slight headwind makes a 10.48 feasible, especially with a legal following wind (you can tell I majored in physics). But Hayward Field's track, despite costing an estimated $4.7 trillion, is surely not as fast as Tokyo's is (was? Is it still there?) reported to be.
I’d like to see Flo-Jo’s record fall for two reasons. One, there was no wind gauge; why the mark was even ratified is a mystery. And two, this might stop people from arguing about whether she died as a result of steroid use. No one around at the time doubt that Flo-Jo was juiced, but whether this contributed to her death is uncertain, and it just gets depressing seeing Wokesters who weren’t even born in 1988 seize on ginned-up stupidities about Flo-Jo’s reputation as a PED beneficiary being the result of racism and resentment. It’s past time to WR pass the torch to a new generation of doped-up sprinters.
Women’s 800 meters (2:48 p.m.): The women’s world record is probably safe until either the tide turns in favor of intersex athletes again or the powers that be decide that Jarmila Kratochvílová’s 1:53.28 from the Iron Curtain days is sporting just a little too much clitoris.
Nevertheless. Athing Mu is as fun to watch as Farah (actually, I wouldn’t know because I’ve only seen one up close) and could easily run 1:54.78 at Pre. I believe, however, that she will finally show some of the strain of a long 2021 season and “struggle” to a win in 1:56.5 or so.
Men’s 2-mile (2:56 p.m.): This could be a Selemon Barega versus Joshua Cheptegei punching match, but I don’t think the winning time will approach 7:58.61 (Daniel Komen’s absurd WR) or even get all that close to eight flat.
I’ll take Barega in 8:03-low with one of his distinctively flashy bursts of Miruts Yifter-like acceleration in the last 150 meters.
Women’s 1500 meters (3:12 p.m.): Faith Kipyegon may not be unbeatable in this event, but she’s as dominant as anyone has been in the women’s metric mile since Genzebe Dibaba, who along with her sister Tirunesh should be featured in the same issue of People.
Kipyegon’s 3:51.07 PB from Monaco last month puts her exactly a second outside Dibaba’s WR. I really want to say she’ll slam her way under 3:50, and I would love to see a women’s 1,500-meter time starting with “3:4”, But that is a fat second in that pace range, and I don’t see Kipyegon running that fast unless she absolutely needs to. Obviously, she won’t.
Men’s Bowerman Mile (3:52 p.m.): Oh boy.
Timothy Cheruiyot will be up the asses of the pacesetters in an effort to gain revenge for his Olympics 1,500-meter loss to Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the youngest in his family to benefit from whatever magic the Norwegians have been concocting in endurance sports (Norway put three in the top 11 in the men’s triathlon).
TC and Ingebrigtsen will run the third- and fifth-fastest miles in history tomorrow, with the Kenyan slipping in just under Noureddine Morceli’s #3 all-time 3:44.39 and Ingebrigtsen just cracking 3:45.00. One other man will run in the 3:45s. Matt Centrowitz will break 3:50.00 for a second time, but wind up back in seventh or eighth.