Australian runner Jess Hull has stormed to an Oceania record in the 1,500 metres at the prestigious Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.
The 27-year-old Australian matched up against a stacked field in the Diamond League event, besting Britain’s Olympic silver medallist Laura Muir and America’s 3,000m indoor world champion, Elle St Pierre into silver.
Hull smashed her personal best by 1.32 seconds, running 3:55.97 to finish second to Ethiopia’s World Championship silver medallist Diribe Welteji.
Welteji ran a personal best to claim victory in the event, storming home in 3:53.75.
Hull’s Australian teammate Linden Hall ran 4:01.97 to finish 12th.
In a similarly stacked women’s 800m final, Britain’s Keeley Hodgkinson ran 1:55.78, the fastest time in the world this year, to beat Kenyan world champion Mary Moora into second.
Australia’s Catriona Bisset finished in sixth with a season’s best time of 1:58.44.
“That [800m] final in Paris is going to be insane,” Hodgkinson, a two-time World Championship silver medallist and runner up at the last Olympic Games, said.
“I just hope to be part of it and really challenge for the top place.”
In the 5,000m, Lauren Ryan finished 15th in 15:03.63 as Ethiopian runners swept the top six places, with Tsigie Gebreselama running a new world-leading time of 14:18.76.
Earlier, Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet set a world record in the 10,000m, running a stunning 28 minutes, 54.14 seconds to beat the previous record of 29.01.03 set by Ethiopia’s Letesenbet Gidey in 2021.
Men’s mile takes centre stage
Gone are the days of the 100 metres taking centre stage as the final event on the program — in 2024, middle distance is king.
The finale of the Eugene event was the men’s mile, arguably the deepest field ever assembled for the non-Olympic distance and a precursor to what is expected to be the most anticipated race on the purple track of the Stade de France in August at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
In one of the deepest fields of all time, outspoken Olympic 1,500m champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen lined up against bitter rivals Josh Kerr and Jake Wightman, as well as Commonwealth Games champ Ollie Hoare of Australia.
Kerr and Wightman are the Scots who stunningly beat the Norwegian to the last two world championship titles, which led to a stunning war of words — mainly coming from Ingebrigtsen.
The brash 23-year-old claimed he was sick at the 2023 world titles in Budapest and could have beaten “just the next guy” Kerr “blindfolded” on a normal day.
Kerr, meanwhile, said Ingebrigtsen had “flaws on the track and in the manners realm” and he seemingly exposed them once again, beating his bitter rival in their first meeting since the 2023 World Championships and laying down a huge marker ahead of the Olympics.
The Scotsman ran from the front in the final lap to post a new British record time of 3:45.34, edging Ingebrigtsen into second, just 0.26 seconds behind.
“With 600 [metres] to go, I thought, you know what, why not, why not take it on and press and scare myself a little bit?” Kerr said after the race.
The depth of the field was illustrated by Hoare’s 3:49.11 only being good enough for ninth place, with Cameron Myers’ personal best time of 3:50.15 placing him 11th.
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