LOS ANGELES — A tasty appetizer before Sunday's USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix is in store Saturday night at USC's Allyson Felix Track at Loker Stadium with some of the nation's top endurance athletes taking to the oval for the USATF Distance Classic. Olympians and World Championships medalists will face off at distances ranging from 800 meters to 5000 meters in this World Athletics Continental Tour Gold event that is part of the 2026 USATF Tour.
The women's 800 features St. Vincent's Shafiqua Maloney, fourth at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and the winner of last week's Lone Star Grand Prix. Maloney clocked a season best of 1:57.34 to win that race and will be strongly challenged by 2021 Olympic bronze medalist Raevyn Rogers, who set her season best of 1:57.94 at the Stockholm Diamond League meet last weekend. Halimah Nakaayi of Uganda won the 2019 world title and at age 31 is a veteran competitor who is still able to run in the 1:57s. The third fastest American ever, Sage Hurta-Klecker, has a PB of 1:55.89 and was fifth at the World Championships in Tokyo last year. Best known as a 1500 ace, Nikki Hiltz drops down in distance here to the two-lapper and is coming off a third-place finish in the 1500 at the Rome DL meet. Hiltz, who owns a 1:58.23 800 PB, was the World Indoor bronze medalist in the 1500 earlier this year.
World Indoor semifinalist and USATF Indoor Championships silver medalist Sean Dolan was third in the men's 800 at the Lone Star GP and takes on Shane Cohen, the 2024 NCAA champion who has a PB of 1:44.65. Ghana's Alex Amankwah has run at three World Championships and has a lifetime best of 1:44.71, with 2025 NCAA champ Sam Whitmarsh also in the sub-1:45 club at 1:44.46. Yusuf Bizimana won the 2023 NCAA indoor crown, and the Briton clocked 1:44.89 for second at the LA Track Festival in May.
Olli Hoare of Australia was the 2018 NCAA champion in the men's 1500 and has progressed to be one of the top international threats with a PB of 3:29.41. Hoare helped his country to mixed relay gold at the World Cross Country Championships in January and was an Olympic 1500 finalist at Tokyo in 2021. Another former NCAA champion, Mario Garcia of Spain, took the collegiate indoor mile title in 2022 and has a PB of 3:29.18. He was an Olympian for Spain at Paris and was twice a top-six finisher at the World Championships.
Last year's USATF runner-up Ethan Strand set his PB of 3:30.25 in that race and went on to make the semifinals at Tokyo. He also captured the NCAA indoor 3000 gold in 2025. One of his former collegiate rivals, Luke Houser, earned bronze at the World Indoors in 2025 and was twice the NCAA indoor mile champ for Washington.
The women's metric mile includes Rachel MacArthur and Taryn Parks, who both finished in the top eight at the USATF Outdoor Championships last summer, and Whittni Morgan, who was fourth in the 3000 at last year's World Indoors.
A small but talented field in the men's 3000 steeplechase has Paris silver medalist Kenneth Rooks, the second fastest American ever with a PB of 8:06.41, and Parker Stokes, winner of the LA Track Festival and an 8:18.88 performer. Stokes took the NCAA title in 2024. Daniel Michalski ran a spirited race to earn NACAC gold last summer in the Bahamas, beating the heat for an 8:14.07 PB. He was a finalist at the World Championships and grabbed silver at the 2023 Pan American Games. Other contenders include Duncan Hamilton, sixth at the 2024 Olympic Trials, and Canada's Jean-Simon Desgagnés, who was the 2023 Pan American Games gold medalist and finished eighth at the 2023 World Championships. Desgagnés has already run 8:14.85 this year and has a PB of 8:13.11. Yasin Sado was the runner-up at the LA Track Festival and has a best of 8:15.91.
American record holder Alicia Monson is slated to open her 2026 season in the women's 5000 and is on the comeback trail from injury that affected her in mid-2024 and forced her to miss the Olympic Trials. She set the AR of 14:19.45 at London in 2023 and ran 15:01.63 in one of her two outings last year. A finalist at the last two Olympics and also an Olympian in the 10,000, Karissa Schweizer is the fourth fastest American ever with a PB of 14:26.34. Schweizer won NCAA titles for Missouri in 2017-18 and took the USATF 5K crown last month in Indianapolis.
A six-time NCAA champion across an array of distances and an Olympian in the 10,000 in 2024, Parker Valby made a triumphant return from injury at the LA Track Festival to win in 14:49.41. Running her first 5K of the year, World Indoor Championships 3000 silver medalist Emily Mackay brings great speed with a 1:57.87 800 PB and a best of 3:55.90 in the 1500 that ranks her third on the all-time U.S. performer list.
Woody Kincaid and Cooper Teare, two sub-13:00 men in the 5000, are ranked fifth and seventh on the all-time U.S. performer list and will need to be in top form to win against a very stern field. Kincaid has a PB of 12:51.61 that good for an American indoor record in 2023, while Teare has clocked 12:54.72 and won the 2021 NCAA gold for Oregon. An Olympian at Paris and twice a World Championships finalist, Abdihamid Nur will be in contention if the pace is not sub-13:00.
Canada's Moh Ahmed earned silver at the Tokyo Olympics and was the World Championships bronze medalist in 2019. He has competed at three Olympics and five World Championships in this event and has the fastest PB in the field at 12:47.20 from 2020. Fresh off a USATF 4 Mile title last week, Ahmed Muhumed is in top form and has the ability to contend for the win.