Fast Women: Nikki Hiltz kicks to big win
Krissy Gear pulls off an upset in the steeplechase at the USATF Outdoor Championships.
Issue 245, sponsored by New Balance
Because last night’s events at the USATF Outdoor Championships took place so late on the East Coast, where I live, I am not including them in this newsletter. I’ll send out an extra newsletter within the next day that covers the remaining events, and then I’ll return to the normal Monday-only schedule.
Nikki Hiltz wins epic 1500m clash
After the 1500m prelims at the USATF Outdoor Championships, held in Eugene, Oregon, Athing Mu was noncommittal about running the final. She said she would see how she felt the following day. With or without her, the final was going to be fantastic. But when she showed up on the starting line, it was clear the race was going to be something special.
Laurie Barton tried to set a quick pace, hitting 400m in 63.79, but no one went with her. And the pace slowed in the middle of the race, which meant there was a lot of jockeying for position. “I don’t think a single person didn’t get spiked,” Nikki Hiltz told reporters after the race.
With 500m to go, all 11 runners in the field were still in it. The pace picked up around that point, but with one lap to go, there were still seven runners in a tight pack. And with 100m to go, there were five runners—Mu, Cory McGee, Hiltz, Sinclaire Johnson, and Addy Wiley—fighting for three spots on the U.S. team. If you haven’t seen the race, you can watch the full replay here.
At the top of the final straightaway, Hiltz was running in third, but with less than 50m to go, they caught Mu and McGee and flew to the win in 4:03.10. Mu held off McGee, 4:03.44 to 4:03.48, and Johnson dove across the line in 4:03.49, missing guaranteeing her spot on the team by 0.01 seconds.
“I love the 1500 because of the strategy, and that was a race based on who could figure it out,” Hiltz told a crowd of reporters after the race. This was their first outdoor national title, to go with the 1500m title they won indoors earlier this year.
Hiltz, who is trans nonbinary, said they were spurred on by seeing a trans flag in the stands in advance of the race. On their victory lap, they found the person holding the flag and Hiltz gave them their bib. “There’s so much hate right now, specifically bills being passed [that hurt] trans youth,” Hiltz said. “I feel like the LGBTQ community needed a win…that was kind of in the back of my mind.”
Though she didn’t cross the line first, the race was also a huge win for Athing Mu, who came into the meet with a 1500m PR of 4:16.06, and lowered it by 12.62 seconds. As reigning world champion, Mu has an automatic entry into the 800m at worlds, so she was able to run the 1500m at USAs with the pressure off. Mu has never run the event seriously before, and she still didn’t put a lot of emphasis on it in her training leading up. She told reporters that once she does, “Something really great could happen.”
It was fun to see her relaxed and enjoying herself. Mu has had so much success in recent years, that every time she steps on the track, the expectations are sky high. In the 1500m, anything faster than 4:16 would have been an improvement, but she far surpassed that and showed that she has another event she can contend in, if she chooses to run it. In her TV interview immediately post-race, Mu made it sound unlikely she would run the 1500m at worlds. But a little while later, when talking to the media, she left the door open a crack. She said she would definitely do the 800m at worlds, though.
Since making the Olympic team in 2021, McGee has consistently shown up at USAs ready to go. She made her third straight outdoor team, and she’s hoping to improve on last year’s 10th place showing at worlds.
Johnson, last year’s champion in this event, was frustrated with her race and hard on herself afterward. But I was impressed with how she ran considering what she’s dealt with so far this year. She told reporters after the prelims that she was diagnosed with a grade four stress reaction in her tibia at the beginning of May. She spent a lot of time pool running and got back to running on land in early June, about five weeks before USAs. She still has a good shot at making the U.S. team, if Mu opts not to run the 1500m.
Wiley, 19, who just finished her first year at Huntington University, an NAIA school, was clearly disappointed not to make the team, but she had an incredible run to take fifth in 4:04.25. She said that she maxed out at 12 miles per week during cross country season her senior year of high school, because she was still playing soccer, so getting a proper base phase for the first time last fall is serving her well now.
The HU program that she’s a part of is highly controversial. The school fired coaches Nick and Lauren Johnson, and Wiley said she is currently being coached by HU coaches Austin Roark and Josh Neideck. But after the 1500m final, she told Jonathan Gault that her family still has a great relationship with Lauren Johnson, who was sitting with her mother in the stands. “We know Lauren personally, not just the story about her that’s online,” Wiley said.
She indicated that she has no plans to leave HU, and I’m wondering if Wiley might be one of the next college athletes to announce a big NIL deal, assuming the HU controversy doesn’t interfere with that. (Steve Magness tweeted more about the HU case on Sunday, including a link to this police report.)
Behind Wiley, a trio of runners who have run 4:01 or faster—Helen Schlachtenhaufen, Heather MacLean, and Emily Mackay—missed out on the world championships team, but hopefully they’ll have some other big racing opportunities this summer. (All USATF Outdoor Championships results)
Note: In all of my reporting on USAs, I’m including information I learned watching post-race interviews on LetsRun, Citius Mag, and FloTrack’s YouTube pages. Many of them overlap, and I’m not linking to each individual interview, because these emails don’t always deliver smoothly when I include a lot of YouTube links. You can always watch replays of many of the races on NBC Sports’ YouTube page.
Thanks to New Balance for supporting Fast Women this month
I’m so appreciative of the support from New Balance that helps keep this newsletter going, and it’s almost time for us to give away another pair of shoes on Instagram. Check our account later this week if you’d like to win a pair of New Balance shoes of your choosing.
My go-to shoe is still the tried and true Fresh Foam X 880v13. And believe me, I know that fit and function need to come first with running shoes, but I also love that they come in so many different colors. You can check them out, as well as many other New Balance shoes, at your local run specialty store, or order online at NewBalance.com.
Underdog Krissy Gear kicks to steeple win in her first year as a pro
There was a solid chance heading into the steeplechase at USAs that this year’s world championships team would be comprised of the same three athletes as last year—Emma Coburn, Courtney Wayment, and Courtney Frerichs—but this was a compelling race, because the challengers were also looking quite good.
Frerichs was a big question mark heading in, because she hadn’t raced a steeple all year, and she was coming back from having ankle surgery in December. Her prelim didn’t give a clear picture of her fitness, either, because she caught her foot on a barrier and took a hard fall just over two minutes into the race. She spent the rest of the race working her way back into a qualifying position.
After the race, Frerichs did a frank interview about some of the struggles she has faced since the beginning of 2022 and said that she didn’t get back to training every day until mid March. Frerichs had every intention of running the final, but as she later said in an Instagram post, shortly after cooling down from the race, she began having pain in the ankle she had surgery on, which led to her withdrawing.
Early in the race, Wayment did the pacesetting, and with Coburn and Marisa Howard in tow, they opened a gap on the rest of the field. Coburn was gunning for an 11th national title in this event and took the lead on the penultimate lap. With 300m to go, Coburn started to pull away from Wayment, but first-year pro Krissy Gear, who had shown her ability to kick in her season opener, was moving up in third. On the final barrier of the race, Gear drew even with Coburn, and then powered away from her to pull off the upset, 9:12.81 to 9:13.60. Gear took more than 10 seconds off her PR, and she’s improved by more than 25 seconds in this event this year.
“I definitely had a hiccup or a moment where I kind of like, felt really bad and didn’t want to do it,” Gear said about passing Coburn. “It’s Emma fucking Coburn. I’m like, I want to see Emma win, as a fangirl, but I also want to win.” For much more on Gear, including some of the struggles she has overcome to get here, this is an excellent piece from Sarah Lorge Butler (Runner’s World).
Coburn expressed regret that she didn’t push harder with about 800 meters to go, because she knew Gear had a fantastic kick. Her plan was to try to take the sting out of it, but “I didn’t execute that as well as I should have,” she said. Coburn tearfully talked about wanting to win this title for her mother, who died of colon cancer at the beginning of the year. She also said that Gear’s kick is going to “serve her well in her career” and she thinks the U.S. women can be competitive at Worlds this year, because no one’s running out-of-reach times internationally at the moment.
Wayment finished close behind in third (9:14.63) and made her second consecutive world team. And Notre Dame’s Olivia Markezich, the NCAA champion, had a strong run to take fourth in 9:17.93. She has taken 17 seconds off her steeplechase time this season and could be another future star of this event.
Howard hung on to take fifth in 9:22.73, just 0.04 seconds off her PR. It was a particularly impressive run given that she had her first child only 13 months ago, and apparently injured her foot during the prelims.
The next four athletes all ran PRs: Kaylee Mitchell was sixth in 9:24.01, Logan Jolly was seventh in 9:26.97, Lexy Halladay was eighth in 9:31.39, and Carmen Graves was ninth in 9:32.58.
After a tough year, Elise Cranny pulls out a win
There were a lot of questions heading into the 10,000m at USAs. There were only three women who had met the world championships standard by running 30:40 or faster: Alicia Monson, Elise Cranny, and Karissa Schweizer. Schweizer got injured at last year’s world championships and hadn’t raced since. Cranny had raced, but her last outing, on May 26, was a rough one. Running the 5,000m at the USATF Distance Classic, she opened up a lead and then faded to fourth. Monson seemed like the only lock to finish in the top three.
The race was held on a warm evening, and it went out slowly. Around 7K in, the pace picked up, and with a mile to go, there were six runners still in contention: Monson, Cranny, Schweizer, Natosha Rogers, Ednah Kurgat, and Weini Kelati. Monson took the lead and dropped a 69-second 400m. She immediately broke up the field, with only Rogers and Cranny going with her. Monson continued to click off 69-second laps, and with 650m to go, Rogers couldn’t hang on any longer, and it was down to two.
With 250m to go, Cranny erased any lingering questions about her fitness. She made a decisive move, quickly opened a large gap, and won the race in 32:13.30. Monson finished five seconds back, in 32:17.51. Rogers held on to take third in 32:22.77. Kelati passed Schweizer and took fourth (32:30.40), and Schweizer finished fifth (32:32.10). Cranny ran her last lap in 62.16 seconds and the final 1600m in 4:30.20.
Cranny missed last year’s U.S. 10,000m championships, held in May, because she was struggling with RED-S (Runner’s World). So earning the win this year, after a challenging season, had to feel good. Cranny said after the race that she overtrained this past winter and had to dig herself out of a hole for the second year in a row. But this year, she bounced back in time to take the title.
Monson has shown incredible consistency, making every major U.S. team on the track since she turned pro in 2020. But she admitted to some frustration that she has yet to win a U.S. title on the track.
Rogers had to take April off from running after developing sciatica down her left side, but she bounced back well to, in theory, make her second straight world championships team. Rogers doesn’t have the world standard, but she could still make the team by virtue of her world ranking. She has until the end of the month to chase the standard, but it sounds like she’s unlikely to do so. (The standard is tough, good 10,000m races are hard to find, and racing this event repeatedly can be exhausting.) Instead, she will hope that enough of the people ahead of her opt out. If not, Schweizer will be named to the team, because she has the standard.
Additional Winners
Two years ago, Sha’Carri Richardson won the 100m at USAs but was stripped of her title, which included missing the Olympic Games, after testing positive for marijuana and serving a one-month suspension. Last year was a tough year for Richardson and she didn’t advance out of the prelims. But this year, she’s running better than ever. She won the 100m final in 10.82 seconds, and ran a PR of 10.71 in the prelims. You can watch the race, and her epic intro, here.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone was incredible in the 400m, running 48.74 seconds, just 0.04 seconds off of Sanya Richards-Ross’ American record. And then she juggled in one of her post-race interviews.
Nia Ali, mother of three, pulled off one of the more impressive wins of the meet, taking the 100m hurdles in 12.37 seconds. Though she’s a world champion in this event, Ali had never won the U.S. title before. “My son just said to me the other day, ‘Mommy, it’s been a long time since you won something big,’” she told reporters after the race. “I was like, ‘You kept it real and I’m gonna have to deliver.’”
Maria Michta-Coffey won the 20K racewalk in 1:38:37. It was her 21st national title!
Tori Franklin won her first national title in the triple jump, edging out longtime champion Keturah Orji, 14.44m to 14.43m
Anna Hall won the heptathlon for the second year in a row, scoring 6677 points. With her sights set on the world championships, Hall took this competition a little easier than she normally does.
Vashti Cunningham, 25, won her 13th U.S. high jump title, clearing 1.91m. Cunningham has won the last six U.S. outdoor titles and the last seven titles indoors.
Maddie Harris of the University of Nebraska won the javelin, throwing 60.73m, a PR.
Maggie Ewen won the shot put with a mark of 19.92m on her last throw.
Other Notes from USAs
Roisin Willis, 18, announced last week that she had signed an NIL deal with New Balance, which was notable because her school, Stanford, is sponsored by Nike. Mary Albl got some more details about the arrangement. Willis ran well in the opening round of the 800m, comfortably advancing to the semifinal. But she opted not to run Friday night’s semi. In recent interviews she has been frank about her struggle with insomnia and poor mental health. Willis has said in interviews that she was running USAs because she knew she was fit, but she would back out if it got to be too much.
Willis’ Stanford teammate Juliette Whittaker, 19, made it to the 800m semifinals, and in the homestretch of her semi, she was in position to advance when her legs gave out. She fell to the track in the final strides, and her finish time, 2:11.09 (after a 2:00.74 in the prelims) doesn’t tell the whole story. The day after her race, Whittaker announced that she has signed an NIL deal with On. (Which puts her in a similar boat as Willis, both being at a Nike school.) And NIL deals are clearly becoming a bigger factor in collegiate track and field. And maybe high school, too…
Oregon’s Mia Brahe-Pedersen, 17, became the first U.S. high school track & field athlete to sign an NIL deal with Nike last week. And then she advanced all the way to the finals of the 100m, where she finished seventh. I am all for young athletes cashing in on their athletic ability, I just hope it doesn’t add to the pressure any of them feel.
Katie Rainsberger had a tough outing at USAs and didn’t make it out of the steeplechase prelims. All of the athletes put so much into performing their best, and sometimes that backfires. In the mixed zone, she did an open and honest interview with Sarah Lorge Butler, discussing her struggles with overtraining and RED-S.
Colleen Quigley, who got injured in the steeplechase at USAs last year, was a last minute no-show this year due to injury. She had been dealing with some hip issues in the weeks leading up, and after her warmup, she made the tough call to play it safe.
Dani Jones made it to the final in the 1500m, but in the jockeying for position early on, someone stepped on her shoe, and it eventually came off. She did not finish the race.
Other News and Links
The On Athletics Club announced that they’ve hired former collegiate and club coach Kelsey Quinn as their new assistant coach. I wrote more about her here. There’s still a lot of work to do, but there’s been a significant increase in the number of women who coach pro teams in the U.S. over the past few years.
In the sprints, women are even more underrepresented. According to this article from last week about the Tonja Buford-Bailey Track Club, Buford-Bailey is the only woman in the country “devoted to pro sprinters.”
Fiona O’Keeffe announced in advance of USAs that she wouldn’t be competing because about a month ago, she developed a staph infection on her ankle that ended up requiring surgery.
I appreciated Ciara Mageean’s advice to young and struggling runners in this piece for Spikes.
Colleen Quigley, Nikki Hiltz, Emma Gee, and Katie Camarena announced the launch of The Track Collective, which will provide support to up-and-comping professional track & field athletes. They’ve added more information to their website.
Additional Results
Mary Moraa won the 400m at the Kenyan Trials, running a national record of 50.39 seconds. Faith Kipyegon won the 5,000m in 14:53.90. As reigning world champion in the 1500m, she has an auto entry for the event. Beatrice Chepkoech won the steeplechase in 9:09.43, and Irine Kimais won the 10,000m in 31:52.20. (Event recap)
The Peachtree Road Race had a very unfortunate ending. It looked like Ethiopia’s Senbere Teferi was going to kick to a win when, with about 22 seconds left in the race, she followed a lead motorcycle as it turned off the course. You can watch how it played out here. Teferi had just started to pull away from Fotyen Tesfay of Ethiopia and Jesca Chelangat of Kenya, who passed her and went 1–2 in 30:44 and 30:46, respectively. Teferi got back on course quickly, but it was too late to make up much ground. She finished third in 30:47, in hot and humid conditions. The wrong turn cost her $7,000, and then her mistake went viral. I wish something didn’t have to go wrong for running to get that kind of attention, and it’s always unfortunate when a race gets decided that way. Susannah Scaroni won the wheelchair race in 22:11. (Results)
The same Jesca Chelangat won the Boilermaker 15K in 47:33. Alphine Tuliamuk was the top U.S. finisher, in fifth, running 49:18. “I got my butt handed to me,” Tuliamuk wrote on Twitter, “But really happy with how I fought.” Jenna Fesemyer won the wheelchair race. (Results)
Just over two weeks after she ran a PR of 2:29:25 at Grandma’s Marathon and qualified for the Olympic Trials, Jess McClain won the Crown City Classic 12K outright in 41:30, which is 5:34 per mile. (Results)
Angelina Napoleon won the 3,000m steeplechase at the USATF U20 Championships in 10:15.09. She’s headed to NC State in the fall. Harvard-bound Sophia Gorriaran edged out Ali Ince in the 800m, 2:04.33 to 2:05.22. And Ellie Shea, who is still in high school, held off Gorriaran (4:21.10) and Napoleon (4:22.62) to win the 1500m in 4:19.58. Not long after, Shea also won the 3,000m in 9:46.56. Shea also ran the prelims of the senior 1500m earlier in the meet, in 4:20.11. (Results)
Regular readers might notice the lack of a podcast section here. I’m going to include it in the newsletter I send out in the next day or so, in the interest of space.
Thanks again to New Balance for sponsoring Fast Women and thanks to all of you who make this newsletter possible with your support on Patreon and Venmo. Happy Monday!
Alison