INDIANAPOLIS — More than 20 athletes who toed the line at last summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo will take to the track Thursday evening at Hilmer Lodge Stadium on the campus of Mt. San Antonio College for the USATF Distance Classic. This year’s meet is part of the World Athletics Continental Tour - Silver circuit. This will be the 12th edition of the elite meet, which was incorporated into the USATF Golden Games last May after being canceled in 2020 due to Covid-19. Four meet records were set in 2021, and this year’s meet promises to produce stellar performances as athletes compete not only for prize money, but also for valuable World Athletics Rankings points. The men’s 1,500m will be a fascinating tussle between top U.S. stars and a sprinkling of international high achievers. Cole Hocker (Indianapolis, Indiana/USATF Indiana) won the Olympic Trials and then finished sixth at Tokyo as a 20-year-old, running a lifetime best 3:31.40 to move to No. 8 on the all-time U.S. performer list. His challengers include the fifth- through 10th-place finishers from the Trials, along with Olympic 5,000m silver medalist Moh Ahmed of Canada and the man who finished 12th in that race, Luis Grijalva of Guatemala. Colby Alexander (Eugene, Oregon/USATF Oregon) is the fastest of the entrants who also placed behind Hocker at the USATF Indoor Championships in Spokane, boasting a lifetime best of 3:33.65. Henry Wynne (Seattle, Washington/USATF Pacific Northwest) (3:34.08), Vincent Ciattei (Eugene, Oregon/USATF Oregon) (3:34.57), Johnny Gregorek (Seekonk, Massachusetts/USATF New England) (3:34.49) and Josh Thompson (Hillsboro, Oregon/USATF Oregon) (3:34.77i) come with sub-3:35 credentials, as does Hobbs Kessler, (Ann Arbor, Michigan/USATF Michigan) who shattered the American U20 record last year with a 3:34.36 in May at Portland. Sam Tanner of New Zealand has an indoor 3:34.72 to his credit from 2021. Five 2020 Olympians from a variety of events will contest the women’s 1,500m, led by Japan’s Nozomi Tanaka, the eighth-place finisher at the Games who has a lifetime best of 3:59.19 that was set in the semifinal at Tokyo. Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen, a 3:58.92 performer who was eighth in the 10,000m at Tokyo, has the fastest personal best in the metric mile, while former 3,000m steeplechase American record holder Emma Coburn (Boulder, Colorado/USATF Colorado) and Jamaica’s Aisha Praught-Leer have both run better than 4:05 in their careers, as has Portugal’s Marta Pen Freitas, the 2016 NCAA champion for Mississippi State. Fifth-placer from the Trials, Helen Schlachtenhaufen (Cambridge, Massachusetts/USATF New England), has a PR of 4:01.09. 2019 Pan American Games bronze medalist Alexa Efraimson (Camas, Washington/USATF Oregon) clocks in with a best of 4:03.39, and Dani Aragon (Billings, Montana/USATF New York) and Dani Jones (Boulder, Colorado/USATF Colorado) were eighth and ninth, respectively, at the Trials in 2021. Michaela Meyer (Southbury, Connecticut/USATF Connecticut) went 1:58.55 to place fourth in the 800m at the Trials. An Olympian and the NCAA champion at 800m for USC last year, Isaiah Jewett (Inglewood, California/USATF Southern California) brings a 1:43.85 lifetime best from his runner-up finish at the U.S. Olympic Trials last summer. He faces Australia’s Charlie Hunter, a 1:44.35 man who was the NCAA bronze medalist for Oregon behind Jewett, and Canada’s Brandon McBride. McBride has a 1:43.51 PR and was the NCAA indoor and outdoor champion for Mississippi State in 2014 before taking eighth at the 2017 World Championships. Opening his outdoor campaign after a seventh-place effort at the World Indoor Championships, Trials fourth-placer Isaiah Harris (Lewiston, Maine/USATF Pacific Northwest) brings a 1:44.42 lifetime best. Michael Saruni of Kenya, the 2018 NCAA indoor champion for UTEP, set the collegiate record of 1:43.25 that year and was a Tokyo semifinalist. Dropping down a distance will be Craig Engels (Beaverton, Oregon/USATF Oregon), the fourth-place finisher in the 1,500m at the Trials who has clocked 1:44.68. Rio 2016 men’s 3,000m steeplechase silver medalist and American record holder Evan Jager (Portland, Oregon/USATF Oregon) faces Canada’s Matt Hughes, who was fifth at the Tokyo Games, in the 14th career head-to-head matchup between the two. Jager has a 12-1 edge in that series but has only finished one steeple since 2018. Benard Keter (Colorado Springs, Colorado/USATF Colorado) was 11th at last year’s Olympics for Team USATF, while India’s national record holder, Avinash Sable, has run 8:16.21 this year. Mason Ferlic (Ann Arbor, Michigan/USATF Michigan) was third at the Trials last summer and has a best of 8:18.49, and Canada’s John Gay took 15th in the Tokyo final. Trials fourth-place finisher Dan Michalski (Longview, Texas/USATF Southwestern) just missed a Tokyo berth and won the Drake Relays title two weeks ago. Four women in the 800m field have broken the 2:00 barrier in their careers, led by 2019 World Championships team member Hanna Green (Greensburg, Pennsylvania/USATF Oregon), who took eighth at the Trials and has a best of 1:58.19. Sinclaire Johnson (Portland, Oregon/USATF Florida) was 12th in the 1,500m at the Trials and has a two-lap best of 1:59.91. Canadian Olympian Madeleine Kelly notched her lifetime best of 1:59.83 at the Sound Running Track Meet on May 6. Katie Rainsberger (Colorado Springs, Colorado/USATF Colorado) placed 10th in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase at the Trials after earning bronze for Washington at the NCAA Championships. She has a best of 9:30.18, and will be pushed by former West Virginia star Amy Cashin, an Australian Olympian who has run 9:28.60. Her fellow Aussie, Brielle Erbacher, ran 9:32.96 at Stanford in April, and Japanese Olympian Yuno Yamanaka comes in with a best of 9:41.84. Gabrielle Jennings (Greenville, South Carolina/USATF South Carolina) was seventh for Furman at last year’s NCAA meet. Willy Fink (Gaithersburg, Maryland/USATF Potomac Valley) is at the top of the men’s 5,000m field with a 13:16.97 indoor PR, and Biya Simbassa (Flagstaff, Arizona/USATF Arizona) has also cracked 13:20 with a 13:19.12 last year in addition to some solid road race performances on the USATF Running Circuit. Canada’s Ben Flanagan was the 2018 NCAA 10,000m champ for Michigan and has run 13:20.67. In the women’s 5,000m, Katie Izzo (Huntington Beach, California/USATF Southern California) has the fastest entry time at 15:16.44 and was fourth for Arkansas in the 2021 NCAA 10,000m. Britain’s Jenny Nesbitt is her toughest competition with a best of 15:17.39 two weeks ago. Join the conversation with USATF on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook using the hashtag #USATF.
Meet records are underlined.