Welcome to the 2024 LetsRun.com Awards

2024 – like all Olympc years – was a year to remember for running fans. We were treated to an incredible World Indoors in Glasgow followed by an even better Olympics in Paris. World records in distance events continued to tumble (though the men’s 1500m record celebrated its 25th birthday in July), a generation of dominant American sprint stars — Noah Lyles, Grant Holloway, Rai Benjamin — finally got their Olympic golds, and the Jakob Ingebrigtsen-Josh Kerr rivalry culminated with Cole Hocker stealing the show and running one of the greatest 1500-meter races in American — nay, world history to win gold in Paris.

Not every story was positive. Injuries meant that American Olympic medalists like Matthew Centrowitz, Emma Coburn, Courtney Frerichs, and Molly Seidel did not even get the chance to try out for the team in 2024. America’s lone reigning Olympic champion in a middle-distance event, Athing Mu, saw her dreams of a repeat evaporate with a fall 200 meters into the Olympic Trials final in June, although it’s not clear she would have made it even if she hadn’t fallen. The greatest loss of all came in February, when transcendent marathon world record holder Kelvin Kiptum — LetsRun’s 2023 Athlete of the Year — lost his life in a car crash alongside his coach Gervais Hakizimana.

2025 promises plenty of excitement, with World Indoors in Nanjing, the World Championships in Tokyo, the World Road Running Championships in San Diego, and the debut of Grand Slam Track. Plus there will be a World XC Champs on American soil for the first tie in 30+ years just 10 days into 2026. But before we look ahead, let’s take one last look back at 2024 and hand out some LetsRun.com awards. We’ll follow up later this week by awarding LRC’s Athlete of the Year and LRC’s Race of the Year in separate articles, followed by our annual world rankings later in January.

Previous LRC Awards: *2023 *2022 *2021 *2020 *2010s decade awards *2018 *2017

WTF Performance of the Year – Ruth Chepngetich’s 2:09:56 marathon world record

Kevin Morris photo

Some context: in 2023, we gave out this same award to Tigst Assefa’s 2:11:53 world record at the Berlin Marathon. So when the self-coached Ruth Chepngetich showed up a year later in Chicago and ran 2:09:56, she did not just take almost two minutes off the world record. She took almost two minutes off a world record that running fans were already struggling to comprehend. It would be like Jakob Ingebrigtsen, after running 7:17 for 3000m this year, going out and running 7:10 in 2025.

Was it doping? Was it the shoes? Was she really just that good? We still don’t have a definitive answer, but the record was one of the most shocking in running history and the discourse around the record afterward was wild as well (more on that in point #2).

• • LRC Ruth Chepgnetich (2:09:56) Smashes Marathon World Record, Breaks 2:10 Barrier at 2024 Chicago Marathon

Most Surreal Moment of the Year – LetsRun.com’s Robert Johnson is chewed out on the floor of Kenyan parliament

Deputy speaker Gladys Boss was one of 13 Kenyan MPs to criticize LRC for asking Chepngetich a question about doping

Ruth Chepngetich’s 2:09:56 was so fast that most of the running world was not sure how to react. 160 Boston Marathon winner Amby Burfoot, one of the sport’s most authoritative voices, essentially said: this is too good to be true, she must be doping. Athletics Kenya, meanwhile, issued a 400-word press release saying it was “preposterous to cast aspersions” on Chepngetich after Chicago.

The chaos peaked on October 16, three days after the race, when a dozen members of parliament lined up on the floor of the Kenyan National Assembly to defend Chepngetich and castigate LetsRun.com’s own Robert Johnson for asking Chepngetich what she would say to someone who might question her record in the wake of an avalanche of recent Kenyan doping busts.

MP Kibiwott Julius Melly demanded not just that Rojo issue an apology, but that it should be posted in every major newspaper across the world. Another MP said the Kenyan government should take legal action against Rojo. Few days in the 25-year history of LetsRun.com have been stranger.

• LRC Ruth Chepngetich’s 2:09 Marathon World Record Has Broken Our Brains
• MB: Kenyan parliament is currently discussing Rojo’s questions of Ruth Chepngetich & are demanding that I apologize

Coach of the Year – Ed Eyestone

After he watched his athletes Conner Mantz and Clayton Young finish 1-2 at the US Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando, coach Ed Eyestone told LetsRun.com that February 3, 2024, would go down as an “all-time great day” in his life.

“The day I got married, the day my six daughters each were born, and days when you get guys on the Olympic team – two of them, and they go 1-2 with a lot of pressure,” Eyestone said. “That’s a good day.”

Eyestone had a lot of good days in 2024, including another one in June where he put two men on the Olympic team. Here are a few of them:

• Mantz and Young finish 1-2 at the US Olympic Marathon Trials
• Mantz and Young finish 8-9 at the Olympic marathon
• Mantz and Young finish as the top two Americans (6th and 7th) at the NYC Marathon; Mantz sets an American course record of 2:09:00
• Kenneth Rooks and James Corrigan finish 1-3 in the US Olympic Trials steeplechase
• Rooks earns Olympic silver in the steeplechase

All of that meant that Eyestone was already a shoo-in for LRC coach of the year by the time of the NCAA cross country championships in November, but Eyestone was not done just yet.

It is hard for a distance coach to impact the outcome of a race once the gun has fired. There are no timeouts in running, after all. Don’t tell that to Eyestone.

After slathering his BYU runners in olive oil at the start line in Madison to offer an extra layer of insulation from the cold, Eyestone ran around the course with a wristband listing “power statements” for him to yell at each of the seven runners in his lineup. An assistant accompanied him, updating a whiteboard to show the BYU runners how many points ahead or behind the field they were at any given moment.

How much of a difference did any of this make? There’s no way to know for sure. But Eyestone’s runners loved it. And BYU won the race, securing its second national title in six years and capping one of the best years an American distance coach has ever had.

The “Holy Crap, Is This Actually Happening?” Award – Kenneth Rooks Takes the Lead in the Olympic Steeple Final

Kenneth Rooks entered the 2024 Olympics as the #18 seed in the men’s steeplechase with a season’s best of 8:15. This esteemed publication gave him a 1% or less chance to medal (which, as some of our readers pointed out at the time, was probably a little low). However you want to slice it, he was not a popular pick for a medal.

Then, after Rooks finished second in his semifinal in Paris, he said he planned on “going for gold” in the final. Cute soundbite. But maybe the dude needed a reality check?

Turns out, we were the ones who needed a reality check.

Kevin Morris photo

In a tight race, a dozen men hit the bell in the lead pack and, lo and behold, it was the 24-year-old Rooks who went to the front coming off the barrier on the first turn. The move was so unexpected that the man he passed, Samuel Firewu, had to do a double-take.

Who is this guy? 

And Rooks did not stop at taking the lead. Down the back straight, he began to separate from the field. The gap grew so big that his top rivals had to begin sprinting to close him down – one of the reasons why an out-of-control Lamecha Girma, the world record holder, suffered such a vicious fall with 200 meters to go. Suddenly, Rooks was over the water jump and still, no one had passed him. A wild thought began to enter the minds of distance fans across America:

Is KENNETH FREAKING ROOKS about to be the Olympic champion?

Not quite – Soufiane El Bakkali passed him in the home straight for a second-straight Olympic gold. But that doesn’t change the fact that this was one of the most unlikely US Olympic medals ever, and one of the gutsiest moves ever by an American on the sport’s greatest stage, right up there with Steve Prefontaine in Munich and Courtney Frerichs in Tokyo.

LRC Gutsy Kenneth Rooks Goes for Gold, Wins Silver in Olympic Steeplechase Final

The “Let’s Appreciate What We’re Witnessing Award” – Faith Kipyegon

Faith Kipyegon was already the GOAT female miler when she won her second Olympic title in Tokyo back in 2021. Since then, she has gotten better. When Kipyegon won in Tokyo, her 1500 pb was 3:51.07. Now it is 3:49.04. She has won three more global titles. You could split Kipyegon’s career in two and make the case that the two greatest female milers in history are Kipyegon from 2011-2021 and Kipyegon from 2022-24.

Faith Kipyegon celebrating Olympic gold #3 (Kevin Morris photo)

Kipyegon won her third straight Olympic title in the 1500 meters this year in Paris. Below is the complete the list of athletes to win three straight Olympic golds in a running event:

Usain Bolt, 100m
Usain Bolt, 200m
Faith Kipyegon, 1500m

That’s the entire list.

In addition, Kipyegon has not lost a 1500m race in more than three years, winning 20 straight dating back to June 2021. In fact, since July 2017, Kipyegon has lost just two 1500s, total. One was at the 2019 Worlds, one year after Kipyegon gave birth, and it required a championship record of 3:51.95 from Sifan Hassan. The other was at the 2021 Florence Diamond League, and again she finished 2nd to Hassan. So to beat Kipyegon, you basically have to be arguably the best female distance runner ever, in peak fitness. Good luck with that.

Kipyegon is the queen of 1500, and as the celebrations following her world records have shown, she is beloved by her subjects. But even though Kipyegon is showing no signs of slowing down – she set her most recent world record just five months ago – her reign will eventually end. Either she will be beaten, or she will abdicate the throne (she eventually wants to move to the marathon). So let’s appreciate her greatness while she is still here.

Are you enjoying this article? Then check out our year-in-review podcast: LRC What a Crazy Year of Track and Field: Highlights, Lowlights, Trivia

Olympics MVP – Sifan Hassan

The Olympics does not hand out an MVP award, so four years ago, we took it upon ourselves to retroactively hand out MVPs for every past Olympics. Now it’s time to crown an MVP for Paris 2024.

There are a few deserving candidates. Both Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Rai Benjamin won individual gold in the 400 hurdles (SML setting a world record in the process) and ran super fast splits to lead Team USA to victory in the 4×400. Mondo Duplantis set yet another world record to win pole vault gold. And Beatrice Chebet won both the 5,000 and 10,000 meters – the only athlete to claim two individual golds in Paris.

But we’re going with Sifan Hassan. We can already hear the complaints now: How can you pick her over Chebet, who beat her twice in Paris?

Well it’s pretty simple. Beatrice Chebet did not medal twice on the track and then win a hilly as hell Olympic marathon.

Chebet’s double gold was impressive, no doubt. But since the Olympics scrapped the 10k prelims in 2004 (yes, that used to be a thing), the 5k/10k double has become relatively common. Across the last five Olympics, someone has swept the two events on six occasions: Tirunesh Dibaba and Kenenisa Bekele in 2008, Mo Farah in 2012 and 2016, Hassan in 2021, and Chebet in 2024.

Hassan, meanwhile, earned 5k bronze, 10k bronze, and marathon gold – just the second time since Emil Zatopek’s legendary 5/10k/marathon triple at Helsinki 1952 that an athlete had earned three individual medals in running events at the same Olympics. The other? Sifan Hassan in 2021.

Had Hassan merely medalled in the marathon, we’d have given this award to Chebet. But the fact that Hassan won gold – despite it being her fourth race in 10 days, despite having raced the 10k just 35 hours earlier, despite facing rested superstars Tigst Assefa, Peres Jepchirchir, and Hellen Obiri on the hardest course in Olympic history – put her over the top. We’d never before seen a woman do what Hassan did in Paris, and we may never see it again. She’s our Olympic MVP.

Thank You For Showing Up Award – The stars at World Indoors

The next time a coach or athlete trots out the excuse that they are skipping World Indoors to “focus on outdoors,” they may want to review the results of the 2024 World Indoors in Glasgow. In March, Cole Hocker, Yared Nuguse, and Hobbs Kessler combined for two silvers and a bronze at World Indoors. All three made the US Olympic team three months later (Kessler in two events) and seemed to run quite well at the Olympics, as we recall.

The US women’s Olympic 1500 squad of Nikki Hiltz, Emily Mackay, and Elle St. Pierre all medalled at World Indoors as well, and though none stood on the Olympic podium, they managed the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th-fastest times ever by American women at the Olympic Trials.

It extends to other events and countries, too. Josh Kerr won World Indoors, then ran the fastest 1500 of his life at the Olympics. So too for Bryce Hoppel in the 800. Both Olympic 100-meter champions, Noah Lyles and Julien Alfred, kicked off their years at World Indoors (Lyles won 60m silver, Alfred won 60m gold).

Plus the meet delivered some of the most exciting racing of the year, from Kerr’s incredible last lap in the 3000 to St. Pierre’s massive upset of Gudaf Tsegay to Geordie Beamish winning the 1500 with one of the wildest kicks you’ll ever see.

We know it’s a crazy thought, but maybe getting into great shape in the winter and getting experience in championship races actually makes you a better athlete?

LRC All 2024 World Indoor coverage

Worst Spectator Experience – World XC in Serbia

Watching a cross country race in person can be a frustrating experience. The amount of action you get to see live with your own eyes is quite small — not even close to half the race, even if you pick all the best spots to watch from. It can be hard to spot your favorite runners in a big pack. Tracking team scoring used to be nearly impossible — and still is if you can’t get a decent cell signal.

The lonely finishing straight at World XC in Belgrade

But at a good cross country meet, that frustration is overwhelmed by the positives of watching the sport live: cheering on athletes from just a few feet away; the opportunity to watch the same race from different vantage points; the adrenaline spike that comes from dashing around the course to get there before the runners arrive. A great cross country crowd functions like one big organism, an amoeba of fans spreading their energy across the entire course. The NCAA XC champs always feel this way.

The 2024 World Cross Country Championships in Serbia were decidedly different. Part of that is because it’s harder to get around the course at World XC than NCAAs, but that didn’t stop the fans in Uganda, Denmark, or Australia from putting on a show in recent years. The bigger issue is that the 2024 meet was not designed with fans in mind. No public bathrooms, no concession stands, no video board for spectators, no access to the finish line. Belgrade deserves credit for stepping up and hosting the meet on short notice — the local organizing committee only had six months to plan the event — but the fans (and athletes) deserved better.

LRC story from Serbia: How To Make World XC Matter

Pop Anthem of the Year – “Ingen gjør det bedre,” The IngebritZ

We don’t know what was more unlikely: that Jakob Ingebrigtsen, weeks before the 2024 Olympics, teamed up with his brothers to record a pop song while at altitude camp in the Swiss Alps. Or that the song itself…actually kind of rocked?

Ingebrigtsen may not have earned the 1500m gold medal he was hoping for (hell he didn’t medal at all), but he still got to enjoy one of the biggest flexes in Olympic history: winning the 5,000 meters, then taking a victory lap around the Stade de France as his own song played over the loudspeakers.

Collegiate Runner of the Year – Parker Valby

No collegiate woman has ever had a season like Florida’s Parker Valby did in 2023-24, when she became the first woman to win five NCAA titles in one academic year – cross country, the 3k and 5k indoors, and the 5k and 10k outdoors. And it was not just what Valby won, but how she won. Every race was a blowout. Entering the Olympic Trials, no one knew how strong Valby’s kick was because she never had to use it – across her five NCAA wins, her narrowest margin of victory was 5.20 seconds.

Valby also ran fast – very fast. She became the first collegiate woman under 15:00 and 31:00, breaking the NCAA record in the 5,000m three times and slashing 27 seconds off the NCAA 10,000m record with her 30:50.43 at the Bryan Clay Invitational. Incredibly, two of those records came without pacers or professional competition in the NCAA indoor (14:52.79) and NCAA outdoor (14:52.18) finals.

Through it all, Valby maintained a breezy goofiness that made her feats look far easier than they actually were. During her 5k victory indoors, she flashed a double thumbs-up to her Florida teammate Claire Bryant, who was competing in the long jump final. Valby smiled and laughed her way to the 10k title outdoors, even waving to herself midrace when she saw her face on the video board. No collegian has ever had as much fun while dominating.

LRC Parker Valby Wins 2024 NCAA 5,000m Title to Complete Unprecedented Distance Sweep

Breakthrough Performer of the Year – Georgia Bell

When 2024 began, Georgia Bell was 30 years old, working a full-time job in cybersecurity, and owned personal bests of 2:03 for 800m and 4:06 for 1500m. To that point, her most notable athletic success had come in the duathlon (running and cycling), where she placed first in the 30-34 age group at the 2023 World Championships.

A youth phenom who spent four years away from the sport after flaming out at the University of California, Bell first started turning heads during the indoor season, where she ran 4:03, won the British title and placed 4th at World Indoors in the 1500. Had her 2024 season ended there, it would have gone down as a tremendous success.

Instead, Bell just kept getting better and better. Outdoors, she ran 4:00, then 3:56, and, finally, 3:52 in the Olympic final to earn the bronze medal and break Laura Muir’s British record. She also ran 1:56 for 800, good for #4 on the all-time British list. Now a pro with Nike, Bell quit her day job in September to go all-in on running.

Bell began the year as a total unknown and ended it as one of the fastest runners in the world. You won’t see many bigger breakthroughs than that.

Are you a Georgia Bell fan? Check out the LRC Track Talk podcast as she’s going to be our guest on our first podcast of 2025.

Match Race of the Year – Mondo Duplantis beats Karsten Warholm in the 100m

It began as a hypothetical question: who would win a 100m between the world’s best pole vaulter and the world’s best 400m hurdler? LetsRun.com was in the room when Mondo Duplantis and Karsten Warholm discussed the idea in Zurich back in 2023, and it quickly became clear that, unlike most hypothetical showdowns in the track world, this one might actually get an answer. All the elements were there: two competitive-as-hell megastars; a genuinely great hypothetical (a marquee distance in which there was no obvious favorite); and, most importantly, a willingness from both parties to make it happen. All it needed was a host, and when Weltklasse and Red Bull teamed up to stage it in Zurich, it was on.

The organizers ensured there was plenty of hype — Mondo or Karsten was the big question in the meet hotel that day — and the pre-race introductions felt like a really fun prizefight. The whole thing was pure entertainment.

Moving forward, we need one of these hypothetical showdowns per year. Cole Hocker versus Fred Kerley in a 600m needs to happen in 2025. Who will step up and make it happen?

PB of the Year – Marisa Howard at the Olympic Trials

The women’s steeplechase at the Olympic Trials took a major hit when both Emma Coburn and Courtney Frerichs withdrew from the meet due to injury. But their absence created the opportunity for lesser-known athletes to step up, and no one stepped up more than Marisa Howard. The unsponsored Howard entered the Trials with a 9:22 personal best and had not broken 9:30 in either of her steeples in 2024. But in the Trials final, she ran a 15-second pb of 9:07 to make her first Olympic team at the age of 31. It does not get much more clutch than that.

LRC OT Women’s Steeple: Val Constien Wins Instant Classic as Marisa Howard Stunningly Makes the Team  

Heartbreak of the Year – Athing Mu at the Olympic Trials

The women’s 800-meter final at the US Olympic Trials is officially cursed. In 2016, defending Alysia Montaño saw her Olympic dreams crumble after falling on the final turn. In 2021, the race was barely 20 seconds old when Nia Akins fell, forcing her to wait another three years for her shot at the Olympics. 

This year, unfortunately, it was Athing Mu’s turn. Fall in the steeple and you might still have a shot at victory. A fall early in a championship 10,000 meters? Barely a problem. But fall in a world-class 800 meters, and it is game over. Particularly when you have not raced all year due to a hamstring tear that was far worse than anyone was led to believe.

Few experiences in sports hurt more than finishing fourth at the US Olympic Trials. Falling at the Trials – and never knowing what might have been – is one of them.

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• And the 2024 LetsRun.com Awards Go To….
• Happy New Year! Resolutions & what do you want to see in LetsRun in 2025

Did you enjoy this article? Then check out our year-in-review podcast: LRC What a Crazy Year of Track and Field: Highlights, Lowlights, Trivia