5 Thoughts on 2025 Rome DL: Beatrice Chebet Scares 5,000 WR, Trayvon Bromell is BACK, Insanely Deep Men’s 1500

The 2025 Diamond League tour stopped in Rome on Friday, where the highlight was the women’s 5,000 meters as Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet won it in 14:03.69, the second-fastest time in history. A little farther back, Josette Andrews ran 14:25.37 for 6th to move to #3 on the all-time US list. Two-time American Olympian Trayvon Bromell also impressed, running a world-leading 9.84 in the 100 meters, his fastest time in almost three years, to win in a blowout.

Both 1500s featured wild finishes. In the men’s event, France’s Azeddine Habz (3:29.72) edged Kenya’s Timothy Cheruiyot (3:29.75) in a race where all 16 finishers broke 3:33. Ireland’s Sarah Healy (3:59.17) earned her first DL win in the women’s race, outkicking Australians Sarah Billings (3:59.17) and Abbey Caldwell (3:59.24). And in the 400, Olympic champion Quincy Hall showed he is back in form, outleaning world leader Zakithi Nene of South Africa in a back-and-forth home-straight battle to win by .01 in 44.22.

Below, five thoughts on the evening’s action in Rome.

*Full results

Beatrice Chebet moves to #2 on the all-time 5,000m list, and sub-14:00 is coming soon

Two weeks ago in Rabat, Chebet ran the second-fastest 3,000 ever (8:11.56) and tonight she added the second-fastest 5,000, running 14:03.69 after pulling away from the field in the final two kilometers. Only Gudaf Tsegay (14:00.21), who was in this race but faded badly to 5th in 14:24.86, has run faster, and it seems only a matter of time before Chebet claims the world record and breaks the 14:00 barrier on the track (she has already done it on the roads).

She probably could have done it tonight with more aggressive pacing. The Wavelight was set to 14:12 pace and Chebet came through 3k in 8:32.2 (14:13 pace) before dropping the hammer and going 2:47.8-2:44.7 for her final two kilometers, closing in 61.89 for her last lap.

“I was planning to run 14:15, but I felt like my body was moving and I decided to go,” Chebet told meet organizers. “So I see that my body is in a good shape and I am capable of the world record. So now I am going home and will prepare for it. Everything is possible. If I get someone who will push me up to 3000, it is possible…Soon, I am going for the time under 14.”

It looks like everything is set for Chebet to break 14:00 at the Pre Classic on July 5, which is doubling as the Kenyan World Championship trials in the 5,000. The track has Wavelight, and Nike will be able to bring in some good pacers. And Chebet has already broken a major barrier at Hayward Field as she was the first woman ever under 29:00 on the track for 10,000 at last year’s Pre Classic.

The only question mark is the weather. The TV window for Pre is 1-3 p.m. PT, and it could get very hot in the middle of the day in early July. Last year, the 10,000 was held in the morning at Pre before the DL broadcast window (and the meet was in May), but Pre may have trouble doing that as the 5,000 is a Diamond League discipline at Pre and the DL likes to have the DL events within the broadcast window. *5000m race video here

Josette Andrews runs 14:25.37 to move to #3 on all-time US list

A number of women tried to hang with Chebet in the early stages of the 5,000 in Rome, but Andrews was not one of them, wisely staying patient and running with the second pack. She moved up gradually throughout the race and finished 6th in 14:25.37 – just two seconds behind Olympic 10,000 silver medalist Nadia Battocletti (who set an Italian record of 14:23.15 in 3rd) and less than a second behind WR holder Gudaf Tsegay (who went out too aggressively and paid for it).

Andrews now sits third on the all-time US list, behind only her On Athletics Club teammate Alicia Monson and Shelby Houlihan.

Top 5 American women in the 5,000 meters all-time

Andrews started last year strong but could only manage 11th at the Olympic Trials, and this sort of improvement did not appear likely at the start of 2025, when her pb was 14:43.36. But Andrews has been running well this spring, clocking 4:01 for 1500 on April 26 at the Penn Relays, winning the US 5k road title on May 3, and running competitively at Grand Slam Track last weekend, where she was 3rd in the 3,000.

Today, Andrews destroyed fellow Americans Shelby Houlihan (10th in 14:45.29) and Karissa Schweizer (16th in 14:56.38) and looks to be in great position to make her first US outdoor team at USAs two months from now.

MB Josette Andrews 14:25, #3 U.S. all-time

Trayvon Bromell runs world-leading 9.84 to win his first Diamond League since 2022

Few athletes have had to overcome more injury adversity than Trayvon Bromell. Back in 2015, Bromell earned his first medal by taking bronze at the World Championships in Beijing – so long ago that the gold and silver medalists in that race were Usain Bolt and Justin Gatlin. He made the Olympic team in 2016 but barely raced at all over the next three years after undergoing two Achilles surgeries.

Bromell came back in 2021 and won the US Olympic Trials, then won another World Championship medal in 2022. But he failed to break 10 seconds in 2023 and missed last year’s Olympic Trials due to an adductor injury. The end of Trayvon Bromell?

Hardly. Bromell is still only 29 years old (seems hard to believe), and he showed on Friday that he remains one of the very best in the world when he is on his game, bursting out of the blocks and streaking away to a world-leading 9.84 (+1.1) – his fastest time since running 9.81 at the semis at USAs in 2022. He defeated a field that included American rival Fred Kerley by a healthy margin, as Cameroon’s Emmanuel Eseme (9.99) was the only other man under 10.00.

Bromell showed a hint of potential two weeks ago by running 9.91 in Clermont, but that was without any pressure on a track that has been known to deliver fast times. For him to run significantly faster at a big international meet shows that this version of Bromell — let’s call it Bromell 3.0 — could be a major player in the 100 in 2025.

(International viewers click here to watch or click here to get the VPN we think every track fan should have).

Azeddine Habz wins an insanely deep 1500

Two weeks ago in Rabat, France’s Azeddine Habz led much of the 1500 and wound up getting run down late. He was determined to let someone else lead in Rome and this time his strategy played out perfectly as he stalked Timothy Cheruiyot throughout the final lap before edging him at the line, 3:29.72 to 3:29.75. It was Habz’s second Diamond League win, following his victory in Marrakech last year.

(International viewers click here to watch or click here to get the VPN we think every track fan should have).

Every person in this picture broke 3:33

2022 world U20 champ Reynold Cheruiyot, who closed hard for 2nd in Rabat, once again failed to assert himself early in the race and left himself with too much work to do on the last lap as he was only 10th with 200 to go. He moved up to 6th at the finish, but was never in contention for the win and had to run so wide in the home straight he almost finished in lane 5. That said, Cheruiyot’s time of 3:30.94 wasn’t far from his 3:30.30 pb. And at just 20 years old, he still has time to improve tactically.

What really stood out in Rome was the depth. All 16 men ran 3:32.55 or faster, with 10 running personal bests and two running national records (3:30.80 for Germany’s Robert Farken, 3:30.87 for Sweden’s Samuel Pihlstrom). The top 12 all ran 3:31.

The crazy thing is that this race was missing many of the world’s best 1500 men: it featured precisely zero of the top 10 from last year’s Olympic final in Paris. And yet the event is so deep right now that American Vincent Ciattei ran a personal best of 3:31.69 and could still only finish 12th. A bumper crop of talent coupled with massive advances in shoe/spike technology has created depth that would have seemed incomprehensible a decade ago; as recently as 2016, only two men broke 3:31 in the 1500 all year.

A few other facts about Friday’s race:

• This was the first time in nearly seven years that someone broke 3:30 without Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the race. The last sub-3:30 in which Ingebrigtsen was not involved came when Timothy Cheruiyot ran 3:29.71 in Paris on June 30, 2018. Since then, there had been 21 races in which someone broke 3:30 and Ingebrigtsen was in every single one of them (there were a total of 58 sub-3:30s in that span). From 2018-21, Cheruiyot was largely responsible for those times as he would run from the front with Ingebrigtsen attempting to hang on; that flipped after Ingebrigtsen won the Olympics in August 2021, with Ingebrigtsen pushing the pace on the circuit since then.
• The race tied the record for the most sub-3:32s in a race (12), set at the 2023 London Diamond League
• The race broke the record for the most sub-3:33s in a race (16). The previous record was 14, also set at the 2023 London DL.
• The race produced best-ever marks for 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th place.

Men’s 1500 Results

Sarah Healy kicks to big win in women’s 1500

Like the men’s 1500, the women’s 1500 in Rome was missing some of the event’s biggest names but still produced a thrilling finish. In this case, European indoor champion Sarah Healy of Ireland prevailed in a three-way kick over Aussies Sarah Billings and Abbey Caldwell to earn her first Diamond League victory in 3:59.17. Healy, who trains under coach Trevor Painter alongside Olympic medalists Keely Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter Bell, is only the third Irish athlete to win a Diamond League after Ciara Mageean (1500) and Rhasidat Adeleke (400).

Just behind, American Heather MacLean ran 3:59.71 for 4th in her first race since leaving New Balance Boston.

With a 3:54 pb, Ethiopian Hirut Meshesha was the favorite on paper, but she followed the overly aggressive rabbit and went out way too fast (60.9 through 400, 2:07.4 at 800). Meshesha wound up paying for it dearly, fading to 13th in 4:03.60.

Quincy Hall remains insanely entertaining

Olympic champion Quincy Hall’s 2025 season did not begin auspiciously as he ran 45.99 to finish dead last in the Keqiao Diamond League in his season opener on May 3. But Hall started 2024 slowly as well, running 45.98 in his opener only to improve with every meet, culminating with a 43.40 to win gold in the Olympic final.

So far this year, Hall is replicating his 2024 campaign. He improved to 44.90 in Rabat on May 25 and on Friday ran 44.22 to defeat world leader Zakithi Nene in a thriller where Hall led off the final turn, was passed by Nene in the straight, but Hall refused to give up and outleaned Nene (44.23) at the line.

“By the end of the year, you are going to see something,” Hall told meet organizers. “I want to be the best. It is coming down. You do not know about the time, but it is coming down this year.”

Photo finish drama 📸

Watch 🇺🇸’s @QuincyHall400 and 🇿🇦’s Zakithi Nene go toe to toe in a thrilling 400m race, finishing just one hundredth of a second apart 🥵

⏰ 44.22 to 44.23#DiamondLeague pic.twitter.com/IcZFcBxCub

— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) June 6, 2025

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MB Rome Diamond League Live Thread
MB Josette Andrews 14:25, #3 U.S. all-time
MB Is Habz a dark horse medal contender
MB FARKEN 3:30:80 NATIONAL RECORD