2022 Pre Classic Hit With Withdrawals: Olympic Champs Athing Mu, Marcell Jacobs and Matthew Centrowitz All Withdraw From Meet

By LetsRun.com
May 24, 2022

Every year the Prefontaine Classic is an incredible meet. Not only is it the lone Wanda Diamond League meeting in the US, but Nike pretty much mandates that its top athletes compete unless injured.

This year’s meet was shaping up to be totally spectacular as it comes less than two months before Worlds are held on the very same track. However, while the meet is going to be amazing, it’s going to be less than amazing than it was looking like a few days ago as a bunch of big-name stars have been taken off the start lists in recent days.

Reigning Olympic 800 champ Athing Mu is no longer listed in the women’s 800. The same is true for Marcell Jacobs in the men’s 100, which this year is supplanting the Bowerman Mile as the last event on the schedule. However, he has been replaced by Trayvon Bromell –the fastest man in the world in 2021. 2016 Olympic 1500 champ Matthew Centrowitz also is off the start lists, meaning he still hasn’t raced at all in 2022.

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“Matthew has a knee injury and is unable to race this weekend. Hopefully, he will be back in action soon,” texted Ricky Simms, the agent for Centrowitz, when asked for comment by LetsRun.com.

The Italian federation said that Jacobs picked up a muscle injury during his race in Savona last week and has been told to take 10 days off. No reasons have been given for Mu’s withdrawal and Wes Felix, her agent, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Come back later for full meet previews plus exclusive coverage from Eugene. The meet is so good this year that there are two pre-meet press conferences, one on Thursday and one on Friday. We will be doing a live video show from Eugene after the Thursday press event (time TBD — probably around 4 or 5 p.m. ET).

On Friday night, the US 10,000 meter champs will be held plus there will be world record attempts in the women’s 2 mile with Francine Niyonsaba and Sifan Hassan as well as 5000s with Letesenbet Gidey and Joshua Cheptegei. Then on Saturday, the normal meet will be held.

Talk about the meet on our messageboard.

MB: Centro, McSweyn, Tefera OUT of Bowerman Mile, Athing Mu out of 800 at Pre!!!
MB: REPORT: Marcell Jacobs OUT of Pre Classic 100m
MB: Jakob and I have been rivals for years” – Cooper Teare

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