800s and Steeplechase Highlight NYC Qualifier

The half-milers ruled the night. Tonatiu Lopez won the men’s 800 again. Sifan Hassan showed her range and won the women’s 800. Three high school girls balled out in the B heat of 800, all of them at 2:02 or faster. Eight athletes qualified to the U.S. Olympic Trials out of New York City. 

Friday night’s meet at Icahn Stadium in New York City only held distance events. All of the Olympic Trials qualifiers came from the 800-meters and the 3,000-meter steeplechase races. 

Hassan won the 800 in 2:01.54. She was in last place at the bell and passed the other eight women over the next lap. Over the past few years, Hassan has mostly run longer events: 5,000 up to the half-marathon. She’s the European record holder in the half-marathon. But her range is incredible. She ran 1:56 in the 800 in Monaco in 2017, and she’s also the only athlete to ever win the 1,500 meters and the 10,000 meters in the same world championships, which she did in Doha in 2019. 

Although Hassan ran roughly five seconds slower than her PR in New York, she showed that she still has range and that she’s never out of touch with her speed. Her aerobic strength allowed her to close hard to secure the win over the American middle distance standout Nikki Hiltz, who placed second in 2:01.82, which is a Trials qualifier in their 800 debut of the season. 

The strong performances didn’t stop in the seeded heat. The high schooler, Roisin Willis, won the B heat of the women’s 800 in a three-second personal best time of 2:00.78, which secured her spot at the trials. Willis’s stellar performance overshadowed impressive 2:02s from two other high schoolers in the same heat: Juliette Whittaker — who opened the race in an ambitious 58 seconds — and Sophia Gorriaran. Both of these girls had already run the Trials qualifier of 2:02.50. 

All three girls ran faster than what’s usually required to win a high school national championship. They’re also very familiar with each other: In January, the three of them teamed up with Bailey Goggans to form an all-star 4×800 relay team to represent the U.S. They set the U20 world record in the event in 8:37.20. 

On the men’s side, Lopez stormed past Olympian Clayton Murphy in the final 100 meters to win the 800 in 1:45.24. This is Lopez’s second consecutive Trials of Miles meet victory and second consecutive 1:45-low. He’s the fastest Mexican ever and has already achieved the Olympic A standard. 

Murphy faded to seventh place on the final straight, and the men of District Track Club collectively surged forward to finish the race strong. The DTC men finished second through fifth behind Lopez, with all four men within seven-tenths of a second of each other, 1:46.31 at the fastest. This was a clear demonstration of their club’s depth and a test of their aerobic strength: They held back in the first 400 more than they usually would and instead aimed for a hard finish. 

Despite not making the fast heat, Abraham Alvarado won the B heat in 1:46.15 to qualify for the Trials. The Atlanta Track Club athlete ran almost perfectly even splits, showcasing his aerobic strength to run the second lap two seconds faster than anybody else in his heat. 

The meet wasn’t exclusively about securing Olympic trials qualifiers though. The 800s had four heats each, which means there were athletes from a range of ability levels.  

After recently winning the fight with the Clemson administration to reinstate the men’s track program, Russell Dinkins also won the D heat of the men’s 800 in 1:51.89, which matches his high school PR. At age 32, he ran the same time that he did when he was 18. 

Esther Seeland of Messiah College won the C heat of the women’s 800 to improve her own Division-III leading time. Her 2:02.75 makes her the second fastest woman in DIII history. And she spends half of her time training for soccer. Seeland is already a national champion in the 800, but her soccer team is also the reigning DIII national champions. 

Other highlights

• Alexina Wilson won the women’s steeplechase in 9:32.69 in her first attempt of the event in over two years. Katy Kunc was second in 3:39.53, and Kayley DeLay came third in a massive personal best time of 9:40.81 to qualify for the Trials. 
• French New Balance athlete Jean-Simon Desgagnes won a contested men’s steeplechase in 8:29.41 matches his personal best set at the Payton Jordan Invitational in 2019. Desagagnes secured victory by only a slim margin: The next three athletes all finished within a second of him. Mike Leet ran 8:29.68 for second. Brandon Doughty ran 8:29.98 for third. And Travis Mahoney ran 8:30.12 for fourth. All three men qualified for the Trials in New York. Doughty, the Under Armour athlete for Dark Sky Track Club, hadn’t raced in a thousand days but still secured a lifetime best. 
• The men’s 1,500 was crowded in the final 100 meters. After momentarily losing the lead position which he controlled for most of the race, Eric Holt took back the lead in the final few seconds to continue his streak of 1,500 wins at Trials of Miles meets. He ran 3:39.85 for his third consecutive victory. The next ten runners finished within 2 seconds of each other. 
• Dani Aragon won the women’s 1,500 in 4:07.66. She ran a 62-second last lap to gap the rest of the field. Aragon’s final lap was five seconds faster than the next fastest closer in the field. 
• The men’s and women’s 5,000s had ambitious pacers and strung out quickly. Although both races got out quickly, the paces slowed in the second half, and the winners on both sides ran the final mile alone. Veronica Eder won the women’s race in 16:03.40, which is a personal best. Carlos Diaz, a Chilean athlete, won the men’s race in 13:36.91, also a personal best. 

The Chris Chavez and Friends Influencer Mile 

There was also a mixed gender exhibition mile, which was advertised by Citius Mag as “the main event” of the night. It featured a head-to-head matchup between journalists Malcolm Gladwell and Chris Chavez. Gladwell is 57 years old. Chavez is 27. Gladwell ran 3:55 for 1,500 in college, and Chavez’s lifetime PR is at least a minute slower than that. Kyle Merber famously said, “The only way Chris Chavez can break five minutes in the mile is if he has six minutes to do it.” 

Chavez got out strong and was ahead of Gladwell until the bell. But with 200 to go, Chavez faded dramatically, and Gladwell powered forward. Gladwell finished in 5:15 to Chavez’s 5:23. There were other people in the race, too. Isabel Seidel won in 4:54. 

The exhibition mile represents something broader that the Trials of Miles meets have achieved: a lightheartedness and celebration of the fun in the sport. The races were serious, and many athletes achieved incredible things, but the New York City Qualifier certainly was not strictly business. 

In the post-race interviews, Ali Feller asked athletes what they’d eat for dinner later that night. The race commentary was funny and playful and strayed from the convention of simply dispensing race updates and results. The broadcast was free on YouTube, and a bunch of people all over the country spent their Friday night at home on the couch watching track.