Azeddine Habz & Phanuel Koech (Who?) Run 3:27: Paris Diamond League Thoughts

There were some wild races at Friday’s Meeting de Paris in Stade Charléty, the eighth meet of the 2025 Diamond League season, but none wilder than the men’s 1500 meters. Before Friday, only nine men in history had broken 3:28 for 1500m. Five of them were Olympic champions, two more were world champions, and the last two own a World Championship or Olympic medal. Now, after a truly insane race in Paris, the sub-3:28 club has two more members; one has improved almost two seconds this year at the age of 31, while the other is someone someone 95% of track fans had never heard of until today.

• Azeddine Habz, 31 years old, France (1st in Paris, 3:27.49): Habz has made one global 1500 final in his life, finishing 11th at the 2023 Worlds in Budapest. He was 12th in his semifinal at the 2024 Olympics. His previous personal best was 3:29.26, which he ran in Oslo last year.
• Phanuel Kipkosgei Koech, 18 years old, Kenya (2nd in Paris, 3:27.72): 5th in the 800 at last year’s World U20 championships (he has a 1:46.93 pb). The World Athletics’ database shows that this was just the second 1500m race Koech had ever run; his first was a low-key race in Lucca, Italy, on June 8, which he won in 3:32.26.

What the hell just happened?

Four thoughts on the 2025 Meeting de Paris, starting with that remarkable men’s 1500.

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1) Azeddine Habz and Phanuel Koech are 3:27 guys now. What?

Habz entered the meet in great form, having run 3:29.72 to win the Rome Diamond League on June 6. Though the 1500 in Paris was not an official Diamond League points race, he had the aim of running fast as the Wavelight system was set to 3:28.98 — Mehdi Baala‘s French record set way back in 2003. The pacing was perfect as Habz hit 400 in 55.6 and 800 in 1:51.4 before the pacer Zan Rudolf stepped off at 1000 (2:19.5).

It was then up to Habz to keep pushing. A month earlier in Rabat, Habz had found himself in a similar position but was run down in the home straight, hitting the bell in 2:36.3 and closing in 56.0. On Friday, Habz had way more in the tank (it helped that the rabbit had not gapped the field early as in Rabat), hitting the bell in 2:33.6 ahead of the Wavelight and closing in 53.9 (26.4 final 200) to run 3:27.49.

Behind him, Habz dragged the rest of the field to a slew of fast times, just as Jakob Ingebrigtsen has done on the circuit in recent years. Koech was the fastest of them, moving up from fourth to second on the back straight, but while he got to Habz’s shoulder, he could go no further, having to settle for 2nd in 3:27.72 thanks to a ridiculous 39.8 final 300.

In all, 13 of the 14 finishers set personal bests, including national records for France (Habz, 3:27.49), the Netherlands (Stefan Nillessen, 3:29.23), Belgium (Ruben Verheyden, 3:30.99), and South Africa (Tshepo Tshite, 3:31.35). In addition, Koech’s time of 3:27.72 took more than a second off Ronald Kwemoi‘s world U20 record of 3:28.81 from 2014, while George Mills (3:28.36), PR’d by 2.59 seconds and is now faster than every Brit not named Josh Kerr.

Habz and Koech are the standout times, and it is worth putting them into context. Times have been getting faster across the board in distance events over the last few years, but sub-3:28 still puts them in extremely rare company.

The sub-3:28 club

Habz and Koech are massive outliers in two ways. First, they are clearly the least credentialed of the group, and it’s not even close. Most of the guys in the table above are legends of the sport or, at the very least, global medalists. Habz has never sniffed a global medal in his career while Koech is so new to the sport that his World Athletics profile does not list any results prior to 2023 — he has never even competed at a senior global championship.

Their ages also make them massive outliers. Habz is 31 (turns 32 next month), which makes him the oldest guy on the list by five years. And Koech is only 18, which makes him the youngest guy on the list by five years. Other than Habz, Mo Farah (3:28.81 at age 30, 3:28.93 at age 32) is the only other person to break 3:29 after turning 30. Koech is more than a second faster than the #2 U20 performance ever (Kwemoi’s 3:28.81).

What is Going On?

The Diamond League men’s 1500 has already seen some unlikely stories this year, but no one could have predicted these times before the race. So what is going on?

There are a couple of ways of looking at it. The optimist would point out that of the 11 guys in the sub-3:28 club, six have done it within the last 12 months. We know that supershoes and superspikes have helped lower times in the 1500, and it’s possible we are still underrating their impact. And it is worth noting that Hocker, Kerr, Nuguse, and Ingebrigtsen — the top four from last year’s Olympics — were not in Friday’s race in Paris. If Habz and Koech could run 3:27 with a perfect setup on Friday, maybe Hocker/Kerr/Nuguse/Ingebrigtsen could have run 3:26 or faster and suddenly 3:27 doesn’t seem as crazy.

The skeptic might point out that Habz, whose personal best before this year was 3:29.26, has improved by nearly two seconds at age 31, while Koech has gone from off the radar to one of the fastest men in history. Neither athlete has faced any doping allegations, but in a sport with a complicated past, performances of this magnitude are often met with both excitement and caution.

For the record, Habz, who changed allegiance from Morocco to France in 2019, is based in Paris, where he trains under coaches Philippe Dupont (his main coach) and Serge Olivares. Dupont previously coached Olympic champion Taoufik Makhloufi starting in 2015 after he parted ways with Jama Aden.

Habz’s agent, Davor Savija, told LetsRun that there have been no changes to Habz’s training setup in 2025. When asked what might explain Habz’s improvement, Savija pointed to a broader trend.

“Times are exploding overall,” Savija wrote via text. “People are working on training, nutrition, and learning to use technology footwear provides — [in] training and racing.”

Koech, meanwhile, is coached by Claudio Berardelli, who also works with Olympic 800m champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi and London Marathon winner Sabastian Sawe. Berardelli was previously the coach of Rita Jeptoo when she tested positive for EPO in 2014, though he denied any involvement and was cleared by a Kenyan court in 2017 of charges of administering EPO to Jeptoo.

2) Americans Josh Hoey & Bryce Hoppel finish 2-3 in 800…but Hoey must learn not to leave the rail open

Both Hoey and Hoppel, the last two World Indoor champions, were chasing their first career Diamond League victory in Paris, and both men put themselves in it early, getting out aggressively in a 13-man field (including one rabbit). Hoey (23.5 at 200, 49.3 at 400) and Hoppel (23.5 at 200, 49.6 at 400) were 1st and 3rd at the bell, and Hoey almost held on for the win but wound up leaving the rail coming off the final turn. That created a gap for Spain’s Mohamed Attaoui, who went from 10th at the bell (and 6th with 150 to go) to 1st by the finish thanks to riding the rail over the final 150 and finishing with a terrific 12.7 final 100.

Attaoui, who was 2nd behind Olympic champ Wanyonyi in Oslo last week in 1:42.90, improved to a season’s best of 1:42.73 for the win with Hoey 2nd in 1:43.00 and Hoppel 3rd in 1:43.11.

Overall, this was a strong outing for the Americans in a field that resembled what they might face in a World Championship semi in Tokyo. Hoey came away from his first two DLs with finishes of 3rd (Stockholm) and 2nd, while Hoppel bounced back nicely from illness in Stockholm, where he was only 9th in 1:47.59.

Hoey went out more aggressively than he had planned (his coach Justin Rinaldi told LetsRun during our live recap show they were targeting 49.7 at the bell), though that can perhaps be excused given how crowded the field was. The bigger mistake was leaving the inside of lane 1 coming off the final turn. Hoey is not the first runner to make such a mistake — it can be hard to maintain focus on positioning when you’re in an all-out sprint and hurting badly — but one of the tenets of middle-distance running is not to get passed on the inside. Hoey worked hard to earn his position at the front but gave it up for free to Attaoui in the home straight. Perhaps Attaoui would have passed him anyway, but by protecting the rail, Hoey would at least have forced him to work a bit harder to do it.

3) Americans Nico Young and Graham Blanks weren’t afraid to go with the world record attempt in the 5,000

Having each secured a massive personal best at last week’s Oslo Diamond League, Nico Young and Graham Blanks had something of a free hit in today’s 5,000 in Paris. Just as in Oslo, the Wavelight was set to 12:35.36 world record pace. In both cases, the aim was to go out slower than world record pace before picking it up over the last 2k, but the early pace was more aggressive in Paris (7:38 target split) than Oslo (7:42 target split).

Neither Young nor Blanks was afraid to go with the pace, and they hit 3k in 7:37.5 (12:42 pace), running 2nd and 3rd behind Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha. Kejelcha plowed ahead, going 60.3-59.4 from 3200 to 4000 to drop the Americans (and everyone else) and hit 4k in 10:07.1 (12:38 pace). But the pace proved too much for Kejelcha on a warm night (77 degrees Fahrenheit), and he almost blew an enormous lead as he was 7.8 seconds ahead of Birhanu Balew at the bell but closed in 65.5 to run 12:47.84, just .83 ahead of Balew.

Young also slowed mightily, fading to 7th in 12:55.71, but Blanks battled bravely and hung on to finish 3rd in 12:49.51 — a four-place improvement from Oslo and his second sub-12:50 in the last nine days.

The fact that Kejelcha was chasing a world record and neither American was afraid to go with him was more proof of the progress American distance running has made in recent years. And even though the red-hot Young wound up fading, the whole point of racing is to test your limits. Young found his limit — he can’t run sub-12:40 right now, especially on a warm night — but that doesn’t mean tonight’s race was a failure.

4) Faith Cherotich prevailed in another dramatic steeple as the Americans all ran fast

After outkicking 2024 Olympic champion Winfred Yavi in the first two Diamond League steeples of 2025, Faith Cherotich decided to change things up in Paris and outkick 2021 Olympic champion Peruth Chemutai in Paris. Cherotich fell behind entering the final water jump but battled back in the home straight and held on to win in 8:53.37, a two-second pb that pushes her to #6 on the all-time list. The Ugandan Chemutai was 2nd in 8:54.41 as both women surpassed the world leader of 8:58.15 set by Doris Lemngole at NCAAs last week.

A little farther back, the three Americans in this race all ran well. Gabbi Jennings clocked 9:08.05, just .35 off her pb, to finish 4th and move to US #1 on the year. Courtney Wayment was just behind in 5th (9:08.88) and is now US #3, with Lexy Halladay-Lowry‘s 9:08.68 from NCAAs splitting the two on the 2025 US list.

But the most impressive American performance came from Angelina Napoleon, who has broken out in a massive way this spring. The 20-year-old Napoleon, who just finished her sophomore year at North Carolina State, entered the year with a 9:54 steeple pb. She improved to 9:34 in her season opener at the Raleigh Relays on March 29 and has PR’d four more times, including a 9:16 for 3rd at NCAAs and now a 9:10.72 for 7th in her Diamond League debut in Paris (perhaps appropriate, given her last name). That time would have stood as the collegiate record as recently as April.

The good news for Napoleon is she still has two years left at NC State. The bad news is that Lemngole also has two years left at Alabama — should she choose to use them.

In other steeple news, world record holder Lamecha Girma returned to action in Paris, comfortably winning the non-DL steeple in 8:07.01 in his first race since his catastrophic Olympic fall. Meanwhile Girma’s rival Soufiane El Bakkali ran a pb of 12:55.49 in the 5,000.

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