The Bowerman Mile has been bumped: 2025 Pre Classic will now finish with the women's 1500 -- WR incoming for Faith Kipyegon?

they've invested a lot in Faith over the past couple months, so I guess she's been anointed the female Kipchoge. Hope it works out well, and is not just Nike trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

Track fans may love drama and suspense, but The general public loves a reliable and dominant champion. Hopefully Nike is not arriving too late on the scene, and Faith has a couple years left as that person.

Should have stuck to tradition.

The unfortunate implication of this is not that we are now going to end the meet with a potentially amazing women's 1500 but that the meet organizers don't believe there is the potential for a men's mile WR shot.

Didn't she say in a post-Breaking4 clip that she wants to go for her 1500 WR at Pre? Don't have time to dig up the clip now

I think it’s fine there dear Jon, are you looking too much into it??

Mens mile is without my beloved beloved Josh Kerr and Jakob and the questionable Olympic champion Shocker might not have enough pull factor to upstage another questionable Faith Kipyegon. Seems like organisers are picking the lesser of 2 evils to end the meet? That’s one way of looking at it if perfect righteousness doesn’t exist!!

Are they going to randomly take half a second off her time again?

Cooper should run next to her and carry on shouting.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Stop hyping mid

Yeah even though the events in the TV window are somewhat evenly split (6 womens events: 100,400,800,1500,5000,3SC vs 5 mens events: 100, 200, 400, 400h, mile) this is obviously a more womens event oriented lineup.

To have only 1 mens MD event vs 4 womens MD events is quite significant. The US is arguably the strongest mens 800m nation on the planet now - seems odd there isn't at least a mens 2 lap event.

And yes, I think it's absolutely a statement that they are finishing with the womens 1500 and not the mens mile - and it definitely ties into the breaking 4 and their reset on a corporate level. I said it the other day after that event - running and specifically women in running is internally the number focus at that brand now. When you look at the program and more importantly what the presentation will be in terms of what's televised, this is very evident.

Probably not. If she could barely run the WR with male pacers and cheater timing, I don't believe she will do so without.

Oregon's ridiculous obsession with miles will never end. Did it ever even have a great miler?

It's not some big tradition either. The Prefontaine Classic was a modest national-level invitational for years before Nike decided to hype it up to world elites. Hundreds of fans attended, many of whom have since passed away. This history has been revised into legend by corporate branding

Good point. I can't even think of two recent Olympic 1500 champs from Oregon. No good milers at all!

Why is it unfortunate what the meet organizers believe about the chances for a men’s mile record? If they were all delusional and believed like poster Peaches and Cream that a mile record was a real possibility, would that be fortunate?

Why are there basically no Americans in both the men’s and women’s distance events?

I said great miler, not good miler.

And before them there was nobody. This meet has plugged this mile mania forever, it can't be justified retroactively.

100% sure you're 80+ years old, that's who the whole thing is for.

Because those races are the Olympic Trials for Kenya and Ethiopia. Nike gets to have some great races without paying the stars (probably although I'm sure they did give something).

As for the complaint about missing events, the Diamond League rotates the events across DLs across years. Maybe KetsRun posters should learn more about the sport.

I must be 80+ years old because I cannot follow your point for the life of me.

If Centro and Hocker aren't great milers, than almost nobody is according to your criteria.

As far as the tradition of the mile at the event, Bill Bowerman (co-creator of Nike) was a renowned coach of American collegiate milers. In his day, Americans didn't generally run metric distances like the 1500, instead running the mile. The mile is run now as a holdover of the era when American track was based on the British system. Not that crazy. I don't get what kind of history you require for a track meet to have signature event