Fast Women: A look at the top contenders heading into USAs
This week’s USATF Outdoor Championships will select the U.S. team for September’s World Athletics Championships.
Issue 361, sponsored by Omius
Note: USATF adjusted the Thursday and Friday schedule for the USATF Outdoor Championships this week, so most of the start times that I sent out by email are now inaccurate. I’ve corrected them here, and any further updates will be listed in the results.
The biggest U.S. meet of the year takes place this week in Eugene
The USATF Outdoor Championships kick off on Thursday in Eugene, Oregon. Unlike last year’s Olympic Trials, which were spread out over 10 days, this year’s meet is only four days long, which means we’ll see more action right away.
For the first time ever, the USATF Outdoor Championships and the Para National Championships will be held simultaneously, after USATF took over the Paralympic track and field program in January. In the past, the Para championship has been a much lower profile event, so it will be good to see it get more attention. It’s also going to make for some long days at Hayward Field, with up to 11 hours of competition taking place each day.
The meet will serve as the selection event for the World Athletics Championships, which is scheduled to take place September 13-21 in Tokyo. But it’s also the selection event for the NACAC Area Championships (selection criteria), which will take place August 15-17 in The Bahamas and the World Para Athletics Championships set for September 27-October 5 in New Delhi, India (selection criteria).
Generally speaking, the top three in each event make the world championships team, but there are exceptions. You can view the complete selection criteria here. The Road to Tokyo website is a useful tool if you want to know who has met the world championships standards and who is currently within the world rankings quota. Athletes will be able to chase standards and improve their world rankings after USAs, so it’s possible that in certain events, we won’t know for sure who is on the team right away.
How to follow: NBC and Peacock will air the last two days of competition on Saturday and Sunday, from 4:00–6:00 p.m. ET. (Peacock and USATF have different information about the length of Saturday’s broadcast, but it looks like Peacock will stream past 6:00, probably so they can show both steeplechases.) Thursday and Friday’s events, as well as those outside the TV window on Saturday and Sunday, will only be on USATF.tv ($12.99/month for those who aren’t USATF members, $9.99 for those who are).
The results site isn’t live yet as I type this, but this is the timing company, and my guess is that the URL will be something like results.usatf.org or https://results.usatf.org/2025outdoors. The full schedule, including Para events, is here and the version without them is here.
10,000m: Who can challenge the top three seeds?
Final only, 9:54 p.m. ET on Thursday
21 athletes accepted, last mark in: 33:09.76
World championships standard: 30:20.00
Elise Cranny (30:36.56) and Weini Kelati (30:38.60) have the top two seed times going into the 10,000m, but they ran them four months ago. Cranny hasn’t raced quite as well since then, but she is a veteran championship competitor, so I fully expect to see her in the mix. And even if she wasn't quite at her best, I could still see her making this team. Kelati has continued to produce consistently strong results this season, so I consider her to be the favorite going into this race.
This is a bit of a rough year for this event. Only three U.S. women—Kelati, Karissa Schweizer, and Parker Valby—are currently in the world rankings quota, which means if they finished in the top three, they’d be on their way to worlds. Valby confirmed in her Instagram stories last week that though she is now back to running, her foot hasn’t completely healed yet, so she will be missing USAs. That leaves only two athletes, but more could get there with a strong race in Eugene.
Thus far this year, Schweizer hasn’t quite looked like herself, but I would never count her out. She has made every major U.S. outdoor team since 2019, with the exception of 2023, when she was coming off of an injury.
The most obvious team here, looking at the past, is Kelati, Cranny, and Schweizer. The question is whether anyone new will be able to break into that group. Taylor Roe, the first-year pro, is the fourth seed, and she continues to get better with each race. Last month, she finished just nine seconds behind Kelati at the New York Mini 10K, and she has momentum on her side. If she has a relative weakness thus far, it’s her kick, but it appears she’s been working on it, and she has the engine to put enough distance on the field that she might not need to be the fastest finisher.
I would also not be surprised to see Jess McClain, Amanda Vestri, or Emily Infeld do something big here. It’s fun to see Keira D’Amato among the entrants. She hasn’t raced on the track this year, so it will be interesting to see where her fitness is.
PR-wise, there’s a gap back to everyone else, with the exception of Elly Henes, who is just beginning her season after dealing with a collapsed lung twice in less than two years. She recently ran 15:39 for 5,000m and wrote in an Instagram story last week, “I am truly just happy to be here. These past two years have felt like a constant grind as well as a constant reminder of my resilience. USAs up next, excited to keep building fitness and having fun with it.”
For those not in the world rankings quota, the way to make this team, IMO, is to focus on racing well and worry about world rankings later. Chris Chavez put together a helpful article outlining what some of the contenders will need to do to make it into the world rankings quota. But for most of them, there’s a good chance that what it takes to make it into the top three will be enough.
The maximum field size for this event is 24, so this race won’t even have a full field. I think that’s partially because the world championship standard (30:20.00) is so tough, and partially because it comes first in the schedule, so fewer people are trying the 5,000m/10,000m double this year.
1500m: Nikki Hiltz goes for the three-peat
First round 9:32 p.m. ET on Thursday, final 5:03 p.m. on Saturday
34 athletes accepted, last mark in: 4:11.37
World championships standard: 4:01.50 (or 4:19.90 mile)
Based on both PR and this year’s performance list, there are three favorites in this event: Nikki Hiltz, Sinclaire Johnson, and Emily Mackay. But with Elle St. Pierre out of the meet after having her second child less than three months before USAs, it’s not clear who might do the pace pushing this year. That creates more of an opening for someone else to sneak on the team.
Heather MacLean is the next top contender in this race, and it would not be a surprise to see her earn a spot on the team. But anyone else in the field making the team would be at least a minor upset. Helen Schlachtenhaufen, who has been training with Hiltz and MacLean, and Dani Jones have the next two fastest PRs in the field, at 3:59.61 and 4:00.64, respectively.
Riley Chamberlain, Laurie Barton, and Gracie Morris all have really nice momentum going into this meet. Chamberlain has taken 6.75 seconds off of her PR this year, running 4:02.03, Barton has run 4:03.46, a 4.22-second jump, and Morris has run 4:04.05, a 4.89-second improvement. And it will be fun to have recent high school graduate Sadie Engelhardt, who is headed to NC State in the fall, in the field.
Hiltz won their first USATF indoor 1500m title in 2023, and between indoors and outdoors, they’ve now won five-straight USATF 1500m titles. The streak is going to have to end at some point, but they’ll go into this one as the favorite.
In every distance event other than the 10,000m, I think everyone capable of finishing in the top three is going to be capable of hitting the world championships standard, even if they don’t do so at USAs. So we’re not going to need to do much thinking about what the standards are, outside of the 10,000m and possibly the 5,000m. In non Olympic Trials years, the 1500m has only two rounds, which means the first round will be tough, as all but 12 athletes will be eliminated.
Steeplechase: This could be the tightest battle this event has ever seen at USAs
First round 8:07 p.m. ET on Thursday, final 6:04 p.m. on Saturday
23 athletes accepted, last mark in: 9:58.84
World championships standard: 9:18.00
The steeplechase has never been deeper in the U.S. than it is right now. Over the past 13 months, the U.S. all-time list has been rewritten, and six of the athletes in the top 10—Val Constien, Courtney Wayment, Gabbi Jennings, Kaylee Mitchell, Lexy Halladay Lowry, and Angelina Napoleon—will face off later this week. All of them have run between 9:03 and 9:10, so I have no idea who will make this team.
And I would never count out Krissy Gear, the 2023 U.S. champion in this event. She has run only one steeplechase this year, a 9:24.36, but her PR is 9:12.81, and at her best, she is very dangerous. Olivia Markezich, who ran 9:14.87 at last year’s Olympic Trials despite falling in the homestretch, also has the tools to be competitive in a race like this one.
Anyone else who is going to challenge for a spot on this team is going to make a pretty big jump in performance, but we’ve seen that frequently in this event. Jennings is the current U.S. leader with her 9:06.61 from the Prefontaine Classic. Constien is the top seed, with her 9:03.22 from last year’s Olympic Trials. She’ll need to run faster than her season’s best of 9:16.57 to be competitive here, but I have no reason to think she can’t.
The target field size for this event was 30, so it’s too bad they had only 23 entrants. But it’s a high-quality field.
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800m: An event with many contenders
First round 6:37 p.m. ET on Thursday, semifinals 7:01 p.m. on Friday, final 4:18 p.m. on Sunday
32 athletes accepted, last mark in: 2:01.61
World championships standard: 1:59.00
I have no idea who is going to make the U.S. team in this event, and even if nothing dramatic happens and everyone stays on their feet, more than 10 different athletes have a very solid shot.
Based on this season’s results alone, Addy Wiley is the favorite. She’s on a roll, and she’s the only athlete in the field to run 1:57—which she has done twice—this year. The challenge is that she has run her best times in Diamond League races, where she has faster people to chase. She has historically had less success in championship races, without rabbits. So it will be interesting to see if she can have a breakthrough here.
Behind Wiley, Michaela Rose, Roisin Willis, Meghan Hunter, Raevyn Rogers, and Maggi Congdon have all run between 1:58.12 and 1:58.55 this season.
All of them except Rogers are coming off the collegiate season, as is 1:58.97 runner Makayla Paige. And there’s a much bigger gap between NCAAs and USAs, this year, so it will be interesting to see who has been able to keep their momentum going. The top two NCAA finishers, Willis and Paige, have not raced since the NCAA final six weeks ago. Hunter, third at NCAAs, looked great in winning the Sunset Tour 800m in a PR of 1:58.21. Rose’s one race since NCAAs, a 2:00.94 at the Ed Murphey Classic, was a tough one.
And Congdon is interesting, because after mainly focusing on the 1500m during the collegiate season, she PRed by 1.72 seconds in the 800m at the Sunset Tour meet two weeks ago, and suddenly she’s a contender in this event. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her do something big, but she has broken 2:00 only once in her life, so she’s very new to this level of success in this event.
Rogers and Ajee’ Wilson are the experienced veterans in the field, and after both having rough years last year, they’ve both recently broken back into the 1:58s, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see either one pull something out here.
Sage Hurta-Klecker goes into this race as the fourth seed, though she has only the eighth-fastest time in the field this year. If she can show the kind of form that led her to run 1:57.53 last year, she could absolutely contend for a spot on the team.
The three members of the 2024 Olympic squad have all struggled in the past year. Trials champion Nia Akins has been dealing with panic attacks, Allie Wilson is working her way back from injury, and Juliette Whittaker skipped the majority of the NCAA season to focus on her mental health. If Akins has a good meet, she could absolutely make this team. Wilson has worked her time down to 2:01.24 this season and things are heading in the right direction, but my guess is that it’s a little too soon for her to be back in contention. Whittaker is an incredible talent; she ran 1:57.76 last summer. And I have no idea what to expect from her here, because she hasn’t raced since early May. I’m just glad she’s feeling good enough to line up.
American record holder Athing Mu-Nikolayev goes into this race as the 23rd seed, having run 2:00.42 a couple weeks ago. Making the world team would require a significant improvement, but if anyone is capable of doing that, it’s her. She fell at the Trials last year, and I hope this year’s championship is a more positive experience.
Valery Tobias had a great indoor season, so it will be interesting to see if she can carry some of that momentum outdoors. And it will be fun to see what New Jersey high school standout Natalie Dumas, 16, who won the 400m, 400m hurdles, and 800m at New Balance Nationals, can do in this event. This is the only event she’s running at USAs.
5,000m: Josette Andrews leads the way
Final only, 5:31 p.m. ET Sunday
24 athletes accepted, last mark in: 15:10.71
World championship standard: 14:50.00
Most championships end with sprint races, but the 5,000m will be the last women’s race of this year’s meet. And partially because the race is a straight final, it was the toughest distance event to get into at this year’s meet.
Josette Andrews leads the field with the 14:25.37 she ran at the Rome Diamond League meet in June. She recently ran 4:00.10 for 1500m as well, demonstrating that her closing speed is likely to be in a good spot. Andrews has never made a major U.S. team outdoors, so while I think she has a good shot at winning this race, even a top three finish would be a big step for her.
Because it’s the last event of the meet, what happens in the 5,000m will depend somewhat on what already happened in the 10,000m and 1500m. Weini Kelati, Elise Cranny, and Karissa Schweizer are all signed up to double back from the 10,000m. Kelati has the second-fastest U.S. time of the year with a 14:38.15, and I expect her to be in the mix here.
Cranny and Schweizer would both need to run better than they have this season to be competitive but they have both proven their ability to produce big races when it counts.
Shelby Houlihan is the third-fastest American in this event so far this year, having run 14:45.29. Her outdoor results thus far haven’t been as strong as her indoor results, but if she has managed to work herself back to anything approximating her indoor form, I would expect her to contend for the win.
Emily Mackay goes into this race as the sixth seed after running 14:45.81 indoors, and she has the fourth-fastest time this year. I’ll be curious to see if she lines up for this race, or if it’s just a backup plan, in case something goes wrong in the 1500m.
Bailey Hertenstein (14:48.91) and Taylor Roe (14:49.91) are the other two runners in this race who already have the world championship standard. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Roe near the front of this race, the question would be whether she has a strong enough kick to hang at the end. And having recently beaten Roe, Hertenstein needs to be considered a contender as well.
Behind them, there’s a long list of athletes who could be a factor, but it would require making a jump from what they’ve done so far this season. Alicia Monson obviously has the talent to make U.S. teams, but this will be only her second race back after major surgery, and I think that would be a really big ask at this point. It will be nice to see her on the starting line, and anything she can accomplish here is a bonus.
Other News
Five former University of Wisconsin runners are speaking out about their negative experiences with former cross country and track & field coach Mackenzie Wartenberger, who left the school and the profession at the beginning of 2022. They say fear kept them from speaking up sooner. This article includes additional details, and the school is now under fire for letting two coaches resign on their own terms despite the allegations against them.
Last week, Grand Slam Track founder Michael Johnson admitted to Front Office Sports that the league experienced a major cash flow issue after a key sponsor pulled out. He declined to name the sponsor, but an unidentified source told FOS that they reneged on their eight-figure term sheet after attending the Slam in Kingston, Jamaica (which was poorly attended). In addition to some recent layoffs, GST has cut the pay of its remaining employees by 15 percent. All of Johnson’s recent comments suggest that he’s planning for GST to return in 2026, but all of this is a major blow to the league’s reputation. There’s a video version of the interview FOS did with Johnson here.
I think calling Great Britain’s Innes FitzGerald the Greta Thunberg of sport goes too far, but it’s nice to see an athlete use her platform to speak out about the climate crisis. (The Athletic) If you run into a paywall, the BBC also covered some of her story last week.
Aliphine Tuliamuk posted what I thought was an interesting comment about doping in Kenya in an Instagram story last week: “I believe that doping, especially in my country of birth, Kenya, is not ending anytime soon. Winning one world major marathon, for example, is life changing for many, and from what I hear, being part of big managements like Rosa and [Gianni Demadonna], which then offers base pay and bonuses (sometimes just training facilities only) requires very fast times, these alone encourages doping. Add in the level of corruption in the country (an athlete has to pay off many stakeholders once they win a big race) the resulting take home pay by the end (is) nothing.”
NC State’s Grace Hartman will miss USAs due to a plantar fascia injury.
In a YouTube video, Peru’s Mica Rivera Wood shared that she has joined Ed Eyestone’s Provo-based pro training group. Rivera Wood is one of the athletes doing a good job of using YouTube and social media to raise her profile in the sport.
Cory McGee announced last week that she’s expecting her first child soon. And I meant to mention last week that Whittni Orton Morgan is also expecting her first child, who is due in December.
Last week, the USOPC barred trans women from participating in women’s sports, to comply with the U.S. president’s executive order. In the past, these decisions were handled by each sport’s national governing body. At the elite level in track & field and road racing, this makes no significant difference, because World Athletics has already excluded trans women from participating in the women’s category. What’s not clear to me yet is whether this will affect everything under USATF’s umbrella, and if so, what enforcement would look like. USATF oversees everything from youth to masters level competition, and they are also responsible for certifying road races.
Results Highlights
After Kenya’s World Championships Trials took place on Tuesday (meet recap | results | event replay), Athletics Kenya announced the teams they will send to September’s world championships. Faith Kipyegon, who didn’t compete at the Trials but was there to watch, will race the 1500m and 5,000m. Beatrice Chebet and Agnes Ngetich will race the 5,000m and 10,000m. Chebet finished only third in the 10,000m, but she wasn’t trying to win. It’s nice to see NCAA athletes Doris Lemngole and Pamela Kosgei make the steeplechase squad, though worlds is likely to interfere a bit with their cross country seasons. And U.S.-based athletes Susan Ejore and Dorcus Ewoi made the 1500m team.
Great Britain’s Clare Elms took a whopping six seconds off of her 60–64 age-group world record in the mile, running 5:18.97. And at the same event, Anna Garnier, also of Great Britain, broke the 70–74 record, running 6:33.46. (More details from Athletics Weekly)
Austria’s Caroline Bredlinger won the 800m at the ISTAF Berlin meet, running 1:58.99. And Germany’s Lea Meyer won the 2,000m steeplechase in 5:57.76. (Results)
Slovenia’s Klara Lukan won the 10,000m at the World University Games in 31:25.84. Italy’s Eloisa Coiro (800m, 1:59.84), Finland’s Ilona Mononen (steeplechase, 9:31.86), France’s Julia David-Smith (5,000m, 15:34.57), and Switzerland’s Joceline Wind (1500m, 4:19.96) also won their events. (Results)
Sweden’s Vera Sjöberg, who ran for BU and is now headed to UNC, won the 1500m at the Folksam Grand Prix Göteborg in 4:07.09. Sweden’s Wilma Nielsen, this year’s NCAA indoor mile champion for Oregon, took second in 4:07.98. (Results)
Four days earlier, Sjöberg also won the 1500m at the Folksam Grand Prix Varberg, in 4:07.37. Djibouti’s Samiyah Hassan Nour dominated the 5,000m, winning in a national record of 14:45.93. (Results)
Belgium’s Chloé Herbiet won the Adidas Runners City Night 10K in Berlin, running a national record of 31:12. Great Britain’s Eilish McColgan took second in 31:31. (Results)
Kenya’s Vibian Chepkirui won the Bix 7 seven-mile race in Davenport, Iowa, running 36:40. Kenya’s Cynthia Limo ( 36:44) and Uruguay’s Julia Paternain (36:53) rounded out the top three. Puma Elite’s Molly Born was the top American, finishing sixth in 37:19. (Results)
Elizabeth Chikotas won the Deseret News Half Marathon, a downhill race, in 1:10:25 and Makenna Myler took second, 12 seconds back. Savannah Berry won the (also downhill) 10K in 31:52. (Results)
Mikayla Schneider edged out Erin McDonald to win the Ryan Shay Mile, 4:31.2 to 4:31.8. (Results)
Podcast Highlights
I appreciated hearing Emily Sisson elaborate on her thoughts on doping in the sport on Unexpected Curves, and host Marielle Hall had some good insights as well.
It was good to get a Susanna Sullivan update on NYRR’s Set the Pace podcast. She said that after she races the marathon at the world championships in September, she’ll get to spend a couple days exploring Tokyo with Brooks’ other marathoners, but she has to be back to her teaching job the following Thursday, for back to school night. Sullivan comes on around the 16:50 mark.
I enjoyed hearing from sports dietitian and pro runner Kassidy Johnson on The Lane 9 Podcast, because I’ve been enjoying her TikTok content (some of which she has also posted on Instagram). And because of it, I’ve been invested in whether or not she made the 800m cutoff for USAs. It turns out she did.
Deena Kastor shared some really touching memories of her former coach, Joe Vigil, on LetsRun’s Track Talk podcast. Her stories make it easy to see how he had such a positive effect on so many people.
Allie Ostrander was on I’ll Have Another, and it was amusing to learn that she didn’t realize she already had a steeple qualifier for USAs until partway through this season. (The qualifying window opened last summer.)
Additional Episodes: Former Notre Dame runner Alexa Aragon (sister of Christina and Dani Aragon) talked about her budding trail running career on The Steep Stuff Podcast | I enjoyed hearing Rose Davies discuss setting the Australian 5,000m record on For the Kudos (Spiked Up, episode 55) | 2:43 marathoner Kelsi Chappell on RunChats with @RonRunsNYC
Thanks again to Omius for supporting Fast Women this week, and thank you, also, to everyone who helps keep this newsletter going with your support via Venmo and Patreon. You might be hearing from me again before Monday. It’s likely that I’ll send out an extra newsletter this week, so that I’m not trying to cover USAs in a single newsletter.
I hope you all have the best week possible.
Alison