Latest / The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show / 2026 USATF OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS PREVIEW

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2026 USATF OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS PREVIEW · The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show

• 0:01
  This episode of the City of Smack podcast is.
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  That's Vellas footwear.com code Sidious Mag 20.
• 1:58
  It is. July 21st and we are just a
• 2:01
  couple days away from the start of the 2026 USATF Outdoor Track
• 2:07
  and Field Championships. Khrushchev is joined by Kyle
• 2:10
  Merber, and we're going to take you through some.
• 2:14
  Of the big events to watch this weekend.
• 2:17
  And in addition to that, just, you know what we're going to be
• 2:21
  looking out for. Kind of like it's like first
• 2:24
  thing is it's in New York, which is it's.
• 2:26
  In New York. Neither you nor I needs to get
• 2:30
  on a plane and travel 6 hours to Seattle and connect to a small
• 2:37
  flight that will take us to Eugene.
• 2:40
  So we're saving quite a bit on on airfare this year, but we
• 2:46
  talked a little bit about this back when they first announced
• 2:49
  the fact that US as was going to be in New York.
• 2:53
  I think the announcement came out in like February.
• 2:56
  It's just that this is essentially a try out for new.
• 3:00
  York in hopefully proving that there's an appetite for the
• 3:05
  championships to come back in a year where the stakes are a
• 3:08
  little bit bigger with, you know, I guess 2027 USAS hasn't
• 3:13
  been announced yet. Neither have the Olympic Trials
• 3:17
  in 2028. With the trials, we've been in
• 3:21
  this sort of trap of, you know, kind of being in Eugene each
• 3:25
  time out, which like, for all intents and purposes, like,
• 3:28
  that's maybe one of the best places to put a $250 million
• 3:32
  stadium to use. Although some people are going
• 3:35
  to want a dress rehearsal inside the Coliseum.
• 3:38
  But that remains up in the air as to whether or not it's going
• 3:41
  to happen. But.
• 3:42
  The the key thing. Here is that New York gets a
• 3:45
  shot at proving that, hey, there are track fans here on the East
• 3:48
  Coast. Yeah, if you live within a
• 3:52
  couple hours of Icon Stadium, you got to come out and
• 3:57
  ultimately show that we are worth having more US
• 4:01
  championships. Because if we can put some asses
• 4:05
  in seats for a meet that has nothing on the line, then I
• 4:10
  think that would really demonstrate that if there were
• 4:13
  something big on the line that the city would show up.
• 4:17
  So no excuses. Track fans unite.
• 4:21
  We got to come out. Otherwise we're going to be
• 4:22
  spending a lot of money going to Eugene the next many decades of
• 4:27
  our lives. So let's let's show up and take
• 4:31
  advantage of this opportunity. I guess like we've done our
• 4:36
  part, we will have Assidious Mag, New Balance Cheer Zone, you
• 4:41
  can look out for us. I believe our shirts are going
• 4:43
  to be purple to match the New Balance kits that the pro
• 4:47
  athletes are are wearing. So we're partnering with New
• 4:49
  Balance around this. And so they got a big ticket
• 4:51
  block and we've distributed those tickets to friends,
• 4:55
  family, and then in addition to that, some of the local New York
• 4:59
  City running crews. And so hopefully maybe we pop a
• 5:03
  little bit on the main broadcast.
• 5:05
  But in addition to that, I also just saw an announcement that
• 5:09
  Mayor Zoran Mamdani is giving away 500 free tickets.
• 5:14
  And so I think that's for Thursday and Friday, which.
• 5:16
  Definitely are probably the tougher days to try and fill the
• 5:20
  stadium. But we're putting this episode
• 5:23
  out on Wednesday, and I think people have until either tonight
• 5:27
  or Thursday night to fill out some form and then you get free
• 5:30
  tickets. And then from there, you know,
• 5:31
  there's also tons of discount codes that I've seen online at
• 5:34
  this point for people to get. A chance into the stadium.
• 5:38
  And so yeah, there's there really is no excuse.
• 5:41
  And I think this is a city where every single day there's a run
• 5:45
  club meeting somewhere. So I'm hoping that maybe we're
• 5:50
  able to tap a little bit into that side of the run culture as
• 5:54
  well. You said there's nothing at
• 5:56
  stake. I mean, in a way there this is a
• 5:59
  good opportunity for some athletes to one claim a national
• 6:02
  title. For athletes with some good
• 6:05
  contracts, they kick in a national title bonus.
• 6:09
  I'm sure you can get your ranking.
• 6:12
  Up if you are one of those athletes with hopes of competing
• 6:15
  at the World Ultimate Championships later this year in
• 6:19
  September. And then at the same time, like,
• 6:22
  yeah, I mean, like, it's a chance to get your name out
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  there a bit more. There is, you know, some prize
• 6:28
  money on the line as well. So there.
• 6:31
  Are some stakes, It's definitely not, you know, the highest of
• 6:34
  stakes where it's top three and you go to a global championship.
• 6:37
  But there are some athletes who are still turning out and that's
• 6:41
  that's a good thing. Many are passing because they
• 6:43
  already have their by to the World Ultimate Championships or
• 6:48
  they put in a big effort at a meet before this.
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  And so, yeah, this one's a little bit different of AUS
• 6:55
  championships for sure. Yeah.
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  I. Know it's the sort of thing, I
• 6:58
  don't hold it against athletes. I try not to hold it against
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  athletes who aren't showing up, but I have special appreciation
• 7:05
  for those athletes that are. And so we do have some really
• 7:10
  good races on tap. And my favorite thing about US
• 7:14
  championship in an off year is that it's four days.
• 7:17
  You don't have to. We'll have to do it for a week
• 7:19
  and 1/2. So it should be some good events
• 7:23
  and some good races on tap. Weather looks great.
• 7:26
  Got a nice storm right now going outside clearing the air and
• 7:30
  then last weekend. Last week would have been tough
• 7:33
  because we had a lot of smoke from the Canadian wildfires and
• 7:38
  then quite a bit of rain as well, but now I think things are
• 7:43
  looking up for this. Upcoming weekend and if you're
• 7:46
  not in the tri-state area. You will be able to watch this
• 7:50
  meet on some combination of usatf.tv, Peacock, and then
• 7:55
  there are two TV windows on NBC both on Saturday and Sunday.
• 8:00
  So we have our schedule post pinned to our Instagram page.
• 8:05
  That makes it easy for people to follow along on what, when and
• 8:09
  where the events are taking place and how to watch them
• 8:11
  live. So let's start with, you know,
• 8:13
  the we're, we're going to focus on all of the track finals.
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  So Thursday the 1st 2 are the 10 KS.
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  And this is a year where the 10K doesn't really matter all that
• 8:25
  much. We're not going to see a crazy
• 8:28
  fast time this weekend. The qualifying window for the
• 8:33
  2027 World Championships, I believe.
• 8:35
  Is already open for the 10K, but it's it's evident because the
• 8:42
  fields are very. Thin in, in both of these
• 8:44
  events. So starting with the women's
• 8:48
  10K, this one at first there was Krisha Schweitzer was entered.
• 8:53
  She has scratched. And so I there's a big lack of
• 8:58
  depth in this one. I think the top 8 finishers from
• 9:02
  last year's USA's are not contesting it at this meet.
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  And so right now, the top seed is Ally Bukowski, who we've seen
• 9:09
  the Brooks beast be on a tear lately.
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  And so you could presume that she could be a favorite.
• 9:15
  Vanessa Frazier, also someone who has had historically fast
• 9:20
  times and could try and capture a national title in this one.
• 9:25
  But I think the one the the name who I would peg as the favorite
• 9:29
  who is buried a little bit further down on this list, Katie
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  Izzo. She's she's someone who we've of
• 9:36
  course given her tons of praise over her cross country chops,
• 9:40
  but I definitely think that she has every right to think that
• 9:44
  she could win this one. And it's I, I.
• 9:47
  Figure it's going to be a slow race, right?
• 9:50
  It's. Icon Summer, New York City.
• 9:54
  Yeah. What do you think?
• 9:55
  Yeah, I mean, it's a small field.
• 9:57
  The weather obviously not a deal for 10.
• 9:59
  Ki don't mind that much that Carissa dropped out because I
• 10:05
  think now we have a better race on our hands.
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  I think like it's a little bit more wide open and you know,
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  like it's an opportunity for someone to to prove themselves
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  here. Like we're going to call a spade
• 10:20
  a spade. Like the favourites are not
• 10:22
  necessarily the favourites who would make a team in a regular
• 10:26
  year. But I, I do think that it's an
• 10:29
  opportunity specifically for Ali Bukowski to come out.
• 10:32
  You know, she's, she's kind of been on that cusp so many times
• 10:36
  before. And I think that what we could
• 10:40
  see narrative wise is this is the the piece of the puzzle that
• 10:47
  just gets her over the edge, gives her that confidence
• 10:50
  heading into the next couple of years that, you know, you can
• 10:53
  make a 10K team. So yeah, look, it's going to be
• 10:57
  a thin field. We're not.
• 11:00
  Call spade a spade. Similarly, on the men's side, 15
• 11:04
  men entered. I think the two have already
• 11:06
  scratched, so we're down to to 13, but we will have a little
• 11:10
  bit of a showdown between former training partners Woody Kincaid
• 11:13
  and Grant Fisher. Kudos to Grant for signing for
• 11:17
  both the 10K and the 5K here. However, his contract,
• 11:22
  structured around national championships, must be good.
• 11:26
  But yeah, I mean, he's riding the momentum coming off of his
• 11:30
  first Diamond League victory. For someone like Woody,
• 11:33
  definitely if this, if it's slow and you leave it to, I mean, I
• 11:39
  don't know, the Grant is probably won't be the one to
• 11:42
  dictate the pace and try and make this thing fast.
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  We've seen how he's run some championship style races in the
• 11:48
  past. So yeah, I think like I'm
• 11:53
  looking at Grant. Woody and even Drew Bosley
• 11:56
  probably has the the big three in this one and then from there
• 11:59
  there is a bit of a of a drop off when it comes to the talent.
• 12:03
  I think that this is one that we're gonna see.
• 12:06
  The guys just not let it go too slow, I think.
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  I think that these guys are friends.
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  They know each other. They spend a lot of time.
• 12:19
  A lot of these guys spend a lot of time in Flagstaff.
• 12:22
  And I think they can all agree, like, let's just go run 70s for
• 12:25
  a while and see what happens. But look, there's a chance we
• 12:29
  see something crazy. We might see an 80, we might see
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  an 85. We'll see.
• 12:36
  Yeah, what's your overhead on slowest lap in this one?
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  There's a chance that it wouldn't be the first lap,
• 12:43
  there's a chance that second lap is like 77.
• 12:48
  All right, we're going to set the line at 77.
• 12:50
  And a half, yeah. And then at some point someone
• 12:53
  will be like, all right, but you know what, there's so few guys
• 12:57
  in this race and a lot of these guys are just happy, I think,
• 13:01
  for the opportunity to come in, make a a championship that look
• 13:08
  like you're not if you're 28 something guy.
• 13:12
  How many track 10K opportunities do you have?
• 13:15
  They're going to. They're not going to let it go
• 13:17
  embarrassingly slow, although there might be some points in
• 13:21
  which people are trying to figure out who's going to be the
• 13:22
  one to take it. In the lead up to these
• 13:25
  championships, we also partnered with Bandit around the
• 13:28
  unsponsored project. And so like one of the cool
• 13:30
  names, Paul Hoff Mahoney did an interview with is it?
• 13:34
  I think it's Evan Bishop who competed at Oregon but kind of
• 13:39
  had a little bit of a disrupted end to his NCAA career with some
• 13:44
  injuries. And so he's one of those guys.
• 13:47
  He's run 2757 looked to him as someone who is trying to get,
• 13:51
  you know, a pretty good, good effort in here.
• 13:54
  But also, you know, for some of these people, it's like, all
• 13:57
  right, I'm going to compete in the 10K at AUS As for once.
• 14:00
  And then with the likes of what we've seen so far from Charles
• 14:05
  Hicks, it could be the last time because everyone's moving to the
• 14:08
  marathon younger too. So yeah, look out for Evan
• 14:13
  Bishop. He could be a little bit of a
• 14:14
  dark horse to work his way up towards the front of the field.
• 14:19
  All right, so now that those are the track finals on Thursday,
• 14:23
  when we go to Friday, it gets fast because we've got the both
• 14:27
  100m finals taking place and the thing to watch in these is that
• 14:34
  in the women's 100. It looked like for a bit that we
• 14:37
  were going to get a rematch from the Prefontaine Classic, where
• 14:40
  it was Melissa Jefferson Wooden versus Shakari Richardson, and
• 14:45
  everyone's been trying to read between the lines.
• 14:48
  If there's any sort of bad blood between the two of them, it's
• 14:52
  definitely intensified, I would say, but they won't be going
• 14:57
  head to head. That's the unfortunate part
• 14:59
  because Shakari has opted to just run the 100 and Melissa
• 15:04
  Jefferson wouldn't has opted to just run the 200.
• 15:08
  Definitely done on purpose, right Kyle?
• 15:10
  I mean, there's no way Coach wants those two to go head to
• 15:15
  head. I'm sure that there was a
• 15:16
  conversation. I would have to imagine after
• 15:21
  what happened at Prefontaine that coach sat everyone down and
• 15:24
  was like, we need to be able to work together and there's no way
• 15:28
  you want to stir the pot anymore for that.
• 15:30
  But then also more importantly, from an agent's perspective, you
• 15:33
  don't want to give that showdown for free.
• 15:36
  So yeah, look, I am excited to see what Shikari can do here.
• 15:41
  She is definitely the heavy favorite in the field, but you
• 15:47
  know what, she runs really well when she's a heavy favorite
• 15:49
  sometimes. Like just no pressure out of the
• 15:51
  blocks. This track is fast.
• 15:53
  We've seen a Bolt world record on this track and so yeah, it
• 15:58
  could be a really good one. I'm excited to see what Jennifer
• 16:01
  Andini does. Brittany Brown, you know, 2 vets
• 16:05
  of the game to come in and show up in the big moment.
• 16:08
  So you also have a Navy battle in there.
• 16:12
  So there are there are strong names.
• 16:15
  Kayla White coming off of a sub 22 second 200.
• 16:19
  So it's it's not going to be a walk in the park.
• 16:22
  But you know, she carry is obviously circled as the
• 16:26
  favorite here, but she puts asses in seats and let's see
• 16:30
  what she can do if she go on 1077 at nothing track in Florida
• 16:36
  when no one's there. We'll see what she can do under
• 16:39
  the bright lights in New York City.
• 16:41
  This episode of the City of Smack podcast is supported by
• 16:43
  Bandit. There are athletes competing at
• 16:46
  the championship level who make exactly $0.00 from the brands
• 16:49
  whose logos they wear on the start line.
• 16:51
  Bandits unsponsored project flips that.
• 16:53
  Let's learn more. All right, we are here with Tim
• 16:56
  Rossi, the head of Experiences at Bandit, because Bandit is
• 17:00
  coming back with the unsponsored project for Year 4.
• 17:05
  Tim, Why does Bandit continue to show up for unsponsored athletes
• 17:10
  in track and field? Yeah, Chris, stoked to be here
• 17:12
  talking about unsponsored project Year 4.
• 17:14
  It's crazy that this initiative we started in 2023 is on Year 4
• 17:18
  now. I think the main reason that
• 17:21
  we're burning this back and and continue to invest is it
• 17:25
  continues to serve a need within the sport.
• 17:27
  The the top, top of the athletes and the sport of track and field
• 17:31
  are getting taken care of and making a great amount of money,
• 17:33
  which is absolutely awesome. We love to see that.
• 17:36
  But there does still continue to be this need of raising the
• 17:39
  floor for those athletes that are pursuing the sport at the
• 17:41
  highest level. But maybe you haven't had that
• 17:44
  breakthrough. Maybe I've went through a rough
• 17:45
  patch in terms of injury or performance for a year of two
• 17:49
  and are just falling through the cracks of the sponsorship model
• 17:51
  that we have right now. So the unsponsored projects
• 17:54
  coming back supporting some of those individuals competing at
• 17:57
  US outdoors that don't have a brand support in them right now.
• 18:00
  So what is an athlete get when they join in Bandits unsponsored
• 18:04
  project? Yeah, so it's grown every single
• 18:07
  year, which is really cool. But we talk about the key
• 18:09
  pillars. Cash is the least sexy thing to
• 18:12
  talk about, but also the most important for athletes.
• 18:14
  A lot of the time we just have cash as part of every single one
• 18:18
  of these agreements. The athletes can use that on
• 18:20
  whatever they want as part of this agreement.
• 18:22
  Generally speaking, we try and have that cover, ideally travel
• 18:26
  costs, housing, potentially some additional cash into people's
• 18:30
  pockets depending on what hotel they're staying in or something
• 18:32
  like that. But travel for this meet is
• 18:35
  super, super important to cover. Then the unbranded gear has
• 18:37
  become a huge part of this as well, so that the athletes can
• 18:40
  demonstrate that they're unsponsored when competing on
• 18:43
  the track. The release clause is an
• 18:45
  extraordinarily important part of these agreements where
• 18:48
  athletes are free to be released from our agreement should
• 18:51
  another brand come with a traditional sponsorship model at
• 18:54
  any point during these agreements.
• 18:56
  And then a platform is the last thing we really want to promote
• 18:59
  and talk about these athletes and their amazing stories and
• 19:02
  really prop them up within the sport for the amazing
• 19:06
  performances that they are putting together and and how
• 19:09
  high of a level they are competing at.
• 19:11
  So those are the four key things that we talk about within these
• 19:15
  agreements. How can they find it?
• 19:16
  Yeah, that's a great question. You set it right there.
• 19:19
  This program and this support is targeted right for individual is
• 19:24
  planning to compete the US Outdoor Track and field
• 19:26
  championships stoke that it's in New York this year.
• 19:29
  Right now. The best way to get in touch
• 19:31
  with us would be to reach out to the bandit support e-mail and
• 19:33
  those individuals will connect you with me.
• 19:36
  That's support@banditrunning.com.
• 19:39
  So if you're planning to compete at US Outdoors, I'd reach out
• 19:42
  there. I'll be proactively reaching out
• 19:45
  to people. It's not, again, the fanciest
• 19:46
  thing in the world. Maybe check your DMS if you're
• 19:48
  an athlete that's looking at US outdoors.
• 19:50
  But yeah, reaching out to support@banditrunning.com is the
• 19:54
  best way to get in touch right now.
• 19:56
  For more on Bandits and Sponsored Project, stick around
• 19:59
  at the end of this episode. Over on the men's side, we do
• 20:04
  have a really good showdown, Noel Lyles versus Kenny Bonark.
• 20:09
  We don't get the rematch over 200 meters cause Kenny has made
• 20:12
  it clear that he's only going to be running the 100 at this meet.
• 20:16
  Christian Coleman, similarly, he's not just, he's not doing
• 20:19
  the 100 and 200, only the 100. Noel Isles doing both the 100
• 20:23
  and the 200. I mean, kudos to to him.
• 20:27
  Noah. I, I feel like he's been in New
• 20:29
  York the past like week and a half because we've seen him all
• 20:33
  over the FIFA World Cup at Fanatics Fest.
• 20:37
  I, I haven't had a run in with him at the Mccarran Park track
• 20:41
  yet. Maybe he's been opting to go,
• 20:44
  you know, out to Astoria. But yeah, that, that's sort of
• 20:49
  the one part that I'm thinking could make it interesting is how
• 20:51
  have the public events of the last week and a half taken a
• 20:55
  toll on Noel Lyles training when he's set to face off against the
• 21:00
  likes of Kenny Bernard and Christian Coleman.
• 21:02
  Max Thomas, I'm hoping we get to see something closer to what he
• 21:06
  put together at the beginning of the season.
• 21:08
  He did have a little bit of that.
• 21:10
  Was it in LA after one of the mates he crossed the finish line
• 21:13
  and it looked like he almost like busted his whole his whole
• 21:15
  ankle and he's run 990 so far this season, but just looking to
• 21:21
  regain that form would be a good sign for him.
• 21:24
  Jordan Anthony scratched from this one earlier today.
• 21:29
  I think I saw I saw the update. And so no Usas at all for him.
• 21:34
  So no 100, no 200. He's I think just got to get
• 21:38
  back to training and and work on that final 40 meters.
• 21:43
  But yeah, in this one, I mean, are we thinking Noah doesn't win
• 21:49
  this? I he's he's again like the clear
• 21:52
  favorite and he it's very similarly to Shakari, puts asses
• 21:56
  in seats. Yeah, I also another appearance
• 21:59
  I saw today, Noah and Melissa were on the Today show.
• 22:03
  Yeah, yeah. To promote the Ultimate
• 22:05
  Championships. Both the World Ultimate
• 22:07
  Championships and obviously this week got a shout out as well.
• 22:10
  So great to see him in it. I think, you know, we used to
• 22:15
  have the New York City Grand Prix and he always showed up
• 22:19
  there and looked like it's not going to be an easy 1.
• 22:25
  Kenny now has a good number of races under his belt.
• 22:28
  Christian Coleman is starting to figure things out.
• 22:33
  I think we've seen glimpses. I mean, he ran that 984 in LA,
• 22:38
  granted a little bit of a legal win, but it's indicative.
• 22:43
  And then he had a a good third place showing at Prefontaine.
• 22:46
  So he's coming around and now as he spent a little bit more time
• 22:50
  in this training group, we're putting things together.
• 22:56
  Look like you're just always going to make Noah the favorite
• 22:58
  until shown otherwise. And there is no reason why we
• 23:02
  would say anyone else should be the favorite.
• 23:07
  Except this just does feel like the sort of situation where
• 23:12
  Kenny must. He knows that this is a great
• 23:15
  opportunity to get one up on him.
• 23:18
  And so if I'm Kenny, I'm backing off a little bit, get my legs
• 23:21
  under me and really trying to attack this.
• 23:23
  And then I guess the last shout out is for Courtney Lindsay, who
• 23:28
  just doesn't seem like he's fully figured out the 200 yet
• 23:33
  this season. Hoping that means that maybe his
• 23:36
  hundred is in a good place, but it's there.
• 23:40
  We know it's there when he's at his best, which you know, we've
• 23:44
  seen the last few years. Him start season's really hot
• 23:48
  and this year seems like maybe a little bit slower of a start to
• 23:53
  the season as he's getting into things, probably like an
• 23:56
  intentional pushback of the entire schedule in the season.
• 23:59
  Start things a month or two later and yeah, we can see
• 24:04
  something. He's he's shocked people before.
• 24:06
  Whenever you start sleeping on Courtney Lindsay, that's when he
• 24:08
  shows up. Yeah, no Slam Blaskowski in this
• 24:12
  one. So two of the top three fastest
• 24:15
  Americans on the air are here with Noah and Courtney Lindsay
• 24:20
  moving over now to Friday or no to to Saturday.
• 24:26
  First track final that day will be the women's 400, which again,
• 24:34
  it's sort of like an event that there's just been so much
• 24:36
  turnover in the people who make up the US national team at World
• 24:42
  Championships and Olympics over the last couple years.
• 24:45
  And I think this, the way this one's shaking out, it looks like
• 24:48
  it's a mix of both old guard and new guard.
• 24:53
  When you do look at Aliyah Butler and scenario Butler up at
• 24:57
  the top 2 seeds as the two athletes who have gone under 50
• 25:01
  seconds so far. Then you got Alexis Holmes,
• 25:03
  Britton Wilson, who I think honestly great to see Britton
• 25:09
  Wilson back at this level. And this is, I think, like a
• 25:12
  good chance for her to get back on the podium at AUS
• 25:15
  championships 'cause it, it has been a tough, it was a tough
• 25:19
  string of what, 23 and 24 for her.
• 25:23
  And now, you know, she's knocking on the door of picking
• 25:26
  up right back where she left off.
• 25:28
  But of course, yeah, the world champion, Sidney McLaughlin,
• 25:31
  Laveroni out because she just gave birth to her baby girl.
• 25:38
  And so, yeah, I mean, like this is another sort of solid
• 25:42
  opportunity for someone to emerge as a as a national
• 25:44
  champion. You got to imagine that Alia
• 25:47
  Butler is happy My Lady Paulino's finally not in this
• 25:50
  400. She's run great, I mean, in
• 25:54
  Monaco and Prefontaine finishing second in both of those.
• 25:58
  But this is just an opportunity for her to come out, get a
• 26:03
  national title and run her own race strategy.
• 26:08
  Maybe something to try a little bit differently.
• 26:11
  We've seen her go out pretty quick on a couple occasions,
• 26:15
  which versus Paulino, you know, she makes everyone look like
• 26:18
  they're going out quick. Recently the way she's been
• 26:21
  closing, so really excited to see how she can do Alexis
• 26:25
  Holmes, I feel like just hasn't found her footing yet this
• 26:28
  season, but she's been healthy and we know what she is capable
• 26:32
  of, so you know, she's rounding into form.
• 26:36
  She had a good run at Prefontaine, but it's still just
• 26:40
  trying to get back under 50 seconds and what a great
• 26:44
  opportunity to to come out and do it.
• 26:46
  And then Britton Wilson, we've both been Britton Wilson fans
• 26:50
  for years. And look, I, I love for her to
• 26:54
  do more 400 hurdles again, just because I feel like that event
• 26:59
  is open an opportunity for her. But it's easier to stay healthy
• 27:03
  when you're not jumping over 10 hurdles every lap.
• 27:06
  And so again, and for her, it's just a matter of having that
• 27:10
  health. We saw her run so well indoors.
• 27:13
  I mean, she ran 50 point in February and just hasn't gotten
• 27:19
  back to that level outdoors. But it's in there, it's in
• 27:22
  there, it's coming. So rooting for her.
• 27:26
  I think again, like the narratives of like what
• 27:30
  storylines we're interested in, I think that this could be the
• 27:33
  boost of confidence that Britain needs to really prove to herself
• 27:36
  that she is back and belongs at the top level of the sport.
• 27:40
  She's also someone who'd like it's clear, gets better with
• 27:42
  more races as the season progresses.
• 27:45
  And so even in indoors, like she opened up 5146 and then go went
• 27:48
  5066 and so far this outdoor season, you know, she had a
• 27:52
  rough one out in College Station where she ran 5284, but then,
• 27:57
  you know, put together that 5186 in Memphis.
• 28:01
  And so, yeah, I think any just sort of progress will be a good
• 28:05
  sign. And so I guess we forget the
• 28:07
  fact that, like, she was coming on towards the end of last year
• 28:11
  and she finished 2025 with the season's best of 5025 S Yeah.
• 28:17
  I mean, any sort of return to that form will be good.
• 28:20
  But it is hard to ignore that Aaliyah Butler is a second
• 28:24
  faster than the next best seed in this one and would be great
• 28:29
  also for her to capture her first national title.
• 28:32
  All right, over to the men's 400.
• 28:37
  Man, this one had so much potential to be one of the
• 28:41
  deepest events at these championships.
• 28:45
  But there have been a couple scratches over the last couple
• 28:49
  weeks where we won't get Jacory Patterson, we won't get Rye
• 28:54
  Benjamin. So the top seed in this one
• 28:58
  right now is Chris Bailey, who has run 44 O 6.
• 29:02
  But then you have Caleb McRae, Justin Robinson, Demaria Smith,
• 29:06
  Vernon Norwood, Bryce Deadman, Quincy Hall, the reigning
• 29:12
  Olympic champion, is a little bit further down on the list, on
• 29:17
  the entry list. That's because, like, some of
• 29:19
  these early races for him haven't gone all that great.
• 29:23
  But you kind of have to hand it to him like he's, I guess,
• 29:27
  posted on his Instagram stories after pulling out of these
• 29:29
  races. He's like, I know I'm terrible
• 29:32
  right now. I just need to get back to
• 29:33
  training and you'll see me when I'm ready.
• 29:36
  And so that's forced him to, you know, withdraw from several of
• 29:39
  these European stops. And then in addition to that, I
• 29:41
  think he was also previously announced for the Pre Classic
• 29:45
  and withdrew from that. So if he does show up then that
• 29:51
  could be a good sign. I know who the New Balance
• 29:54
  section is going to be going strong for and it's Vernon
• 29:56
  Norwood cause UNK is there and what an opportunity for him.
• 30:02
  Even still, considering the scratches, this is one of the
• 30:05
  best races of the weekend like, and that's a testament to just
• 30:09
  the overall depth in the 400 in the US right now.
• 30:13
  I mean, overall across, like we've had 23 guys break 45
• 30:18
  seconds already this season, so there's a lot of depth here.
• 30:24
  I'm excited to see Chris Bailey versus Caleb McRae.
• 30:27
  I feel like those two just are two guys that always like to
• 30:31
  race and so they're building quite a little head to head
• 30:34
  against one another. It's, I just looked it up, it
• 30:38
  does. It is pretty lopsided right now.
• 30:40
  It's 8 to 1, Chris Bailey over Caleb McRae.
• 30:44
  Is that including indoors? I think so, yeah.
• 30:47
  It's everything over 400 meters. Yeah, so this is, hey, Caleb's
• 30:51
  about to get #2 maybe on the board.
• 30:53
  It's a chance. But yeah, I, I think these two
• 30:58
  guys, we've seen them pop off on occasion.
• 31:04
  And just rounding out that consistency and being able to do
• 31:09
  it week in, week out in all blocks of your training, all
• 31:12
  different parts of the season, That's the that's the difference
• 31:17
  maker for them. And they're both maturing and
• 31:20
  where they're at in their careers.
• 31:21
  That that's something that we're starting to see.
• 31:24
  But look like they're not at their best yet.
• 31:29
  Like we've seen Chris Bailey look better.
• 31:31
  We've seen Caleb McCray look better.
• 31:32
  But it's now July. We've got two months left or
• 31:36
  less than two months left in the season.
• 31:38
  And rather than just getting lucky and when you're hitting
• 31:45
  your fitness, it's all about being able to time it for them.
• 31:48
  And if there's one thing that you can pull out of having an
• 31:52
  off year and still running the US Championships and still
• 31:55
  building a season around as if it was a normal year, it's
• 32:00
  constructing and periodizing training to make sure you're at
• 32:03
  your best when you're supposed to be at your best.
• 32:06
  And that's, that's what I'll be looking for is I want to see
• 32:10
  them be at their absolute best, the most important part of the
• 32:13
  season, which starts now. We haven't even discussed, I
• 32:16
  guess, like what our plan is for the Sidious New Balance Cheer
• 32:20
  zone. Like you.
• 32:21
  You and I are both die hard Yankee fans.
• 32:24
  And the beautiful thing about attending a Yankee game and
• 32:27
  sitting in the bleachers in the bleachers is that they do the
• 32:32
  roll call where the, you know, at the beginning of the game
• 32:36
  there's someone really loud. And then the whole section
• 32:38
  starts cheering that athlete's name until they get
• 32:40
  acknowledged. You have to give us like a
• 32:42
  little bit of a wave or any sort of acknowledgement.
• 32:45
  And then they finally stop and move on to the next athlete.
• 32:48
  I want to do that for the New Balance athletes, but we need to
• 32:53
  make sure that they're they're aware of just how this all
• 32:56
  works. Or else like we could go an
• 32:59
  entire 5K yelling Parker Valby's name without any sort of
• 33:04
  acknowledgement. Or we need to find a way to get
• 33:07
  the messaging out. Yeah, I, I love the idea.
• 33:10
  I think you got to get it off before the race starts.
• 33:14
  Yeah, Everyone goes deaf once the gun goes off.
• 33:16
  They're not going to hear anything.
• 33:17
  So. So Parker, Parker, and just
• 33:22
  getting that little acknowledgement, that could be a
• 33:24
  fun thing for us. Vernon Norwood, Yeah, exactly.
• 33:27
  We're just going to bring baseball chance to the US
• 33:30
  Championships. Yeah, So we will be extra loud
• 33:34
  for team New Balance. All right, moving on to the
• 33:40
  women's 3000 meter steeplechase. Speaking of, we will have a
• 33:46
  rooting interest in this one with the return of Emma Coburn
• 33:50
  to the US Championship stage. So Emma's run, I believe what,
• 33:55
  915 so far this season? And this honestly, I think ends
• 34:02
  up being one of the races where actually the top Americans are
• 34:06
  showing up because what the steeplechase is not at the World
• 34:11
  Ultimate Championships, is it? I don't think so.
• 34:14
  No, there's just not a lot of opportunities to run sepal
• 34:16
  chases ever. So when you have an opportunity,
• 34:19
  you got to take advantage of it. But yeah, to your point, it is
• 34:22
  this is a good field. We've got a lot of, I mean, what
• 34:26
  do we have 1234567 athletes at 9:20 or faster?
• 34:31
  That's a great race. I mean, why?
• 34:33
  Why would you pass up that opportunity?
• 34:35
  And to your point, Emma is 915 coming out at Prefontaine.
• 34:42
  That was the best that she's looked and the best that she's
• 34:44
  run in a bit. And, you know, I, I feel like
• 34:48
  there's a lot of new names and people trying to, you know,
• 34:54
  breakthrough a lot of names that probably once really looked up
• 34:58
  to Emma as like the hero and their inspiration for getting
• 35:01
  into the steeplechase. Including her training partner
• 35:06
  and teammate Gabby Jennings, who wasn't a bit of a hot streak, I
• 35:11
  think to start off the season with, you know, having finishing
• 35:15
  second but top American at the LA track Fest, finishing third,
• 35:22
  but top American at the Stockholm Diamond League,
• 35:26
  winning the LA Grand Prix. And then the only blemish has
• 35:32
  been just sort of finishing third among the Americans at the
• 35:35
  pre Classic. But that honestly, like makes
• 35:38
  the match up here a bit more interesting where maybe we could
• 35:42
  have gone in thinking, oh, Gabby Jennings is the clear head and
• 35:45
  shoulders favorite, but Lexi Halladay, Lowry did just beat
• 35:49
  both Emma and Gabby at pre Classic.
• 35:52
  And so it's setting up very nicely for some combination of
• 35:57
  Gabby Jennings, Lexi Halladay, Emma Coburn and Kaylee Mitchell,
• 36:01
  who made the world championship team last year, all kind of
• 36:05
  going head to head in in the final, you know, lap and a half
• 36:09
  there. And I mean, of course, can't
• 36:11
  overlook Courtney Weymouth, who has consistently made US teams
• 36:16
  in the past. And so she might just be looking
• 36:19
  to, you know, kind of reclaim a bit of, you know, some good
• 36:23
  racing after maybe not the best start to the season.
• 36:27
  I think her season's best right now is is 920.
• 36:30
  So yeah, where the pre classic women's steeple always seems to
• 36:35
  be a little preview of USA, but it doesn't necessarily guarantee
• 36:38
  that that's how things will be shaking out.
• 36:41
  There's always drama in the women's steeplechase at a
• 36:44
  national championship. The thing I like about this
• 36:47
  opportunity is not having to deal with the likes of Winfred
• 36:51
  Yavi, who like when people are trying to run 850 upfront and
• 36:57
  the American women are closer to that 9:05 to 910 range, it just
• 37:03
  throws off your game. Like you're not even in a race,
• 37:05
  you're in a race for 7th. Like it's a totally different
• 37:09
  thing. And so having something on the
• 37:11
  line here, I can say I, I would say confidently that we're going
• 37:15
  to see the fastest time by an American this year come out of
• 37:19
  this race because someone is going to be running to win and
• 37:23
  they'll be able to execute their race plan without getting pulled
• 37:25
  into a world record attempt. Who was that meet that you
• 37:30
  pulled up the start list the other day and it was like
• 37:32
  ridiculous where it was? Was it Winfred Yabi?
• 37:34
  I think like a whole like minute faster than the next person.
• 37:39
  Yeah, I mean, there's so many random meats going on in Europe
• 37:42
  right now. It's very easy.
• 37:44
  Like it's like a Wednesday afternoon and all of a sudden,
• 37:46
  like, you know, Olympic champions are running and no one
• 37:49
  would remotely know. But yeah, the other day in
• 37:52
  Belgium, there in Houston, I think she won by like 30
• 37:56
  seconds. It's just like, why?
• 37:58
  What are we getting out of this? This is the Houston meat or just
• 38:02
  an A different one in Houston? This was the one in Houston.
• 38:06
  KBC knocked, I mean. I don't know if it was KBC
• 38:10
  knocked but it was in Houston and it's the middle of July so
• 38:15
  without looking it up unless they have many.
• 38:18
  Yep it was KBC knocked. Wow, that means.
• 38:21
  So much more yeah, me used to get so much more attention.
• 38:25
  I guess like the Americans are staying home with this proximity
• 38:30
  to to USA is usually it's after the fact, but yeah, all right.
• 38:35
  Men's steeplechase Matt Wilkinson is currently the ninth
• 38:43
  fastest man in the world in his steeplechase, having run 809.
• 38:48
  First off, I'm kind of blown away at the fact that he's got
• 38:52
  like a working ankle because like wasn't it, it was crazy
• 38:56
  just sort of the recovery that he put in after last year's USA.
• 39:02
  He got injured at US as last year, right?
• 39:05
  Like if I'm I'm remembering that correctly, he finished fourth at
• 39:09
  US as and I think had a spot because of the standard and and
• 39:15
  ranking and all that kind of stuff.
• 39:18
  And so then Isaac, who Updike, who was fifth, ended up taking
• 39:21
  his spot for the World Championships and for this
• 39:24
  weekend, Isaac has scratched from the meat.
• 39:28
  But I'm very much impressed by, you know, a year ago Matt
• 39:32
  Wilkinson was like on crutches and really working crazy hard to
• 39:36
  try and get back. And he's come back, you know,
• 39:40
  great at this point where that eight O 9 is just a straight up
• 39:45
  PR for him, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, he's been consistent and
• 39:48
  looking great. I mean, he's he's not yet
• 39:52
  threatening to win diamond leagues, but he he takes the
• 39:55
  pace at times and he has no problem pushing or sitting
• 40:00
  comfortably in the lead pack. And yeah, he looks great, but
• 40:04
  also there's a ton of depth here.
• 40:07
  Just a a load of guys in those eighteens range so won't be
• 40:12
  easy. Someone that I've thought is
• 40:15
  like this is maybe I think last year, even leading into USAS
• 40:20
  could breakthrough as like another name that makes US teams
• 40:25
  potentially is this Yasin Sato. Like he's I think he trains out
• 40:30
  in bolder, but he's one of those guys where it's like all right
• 40:35
  on the cusp of of of potentially breaking through and making
• 40:38
  these teams. So look for him.
• 40:41
  Corrigan's looking better than he did last year.
• 40:43
  Tan Mikhalski made the world championship team last year,
• 40:47
  Nathan Mountain. So those are your your top
• 40:52
  seeds. Even Duncan Hamilton, Bernard
• 40:54
  Keeter, Not too many people are skipping out on this one.
• 40:57
  I guess one thing to watch will be has Kenneth Rooks found, you
• 41:04
  know, corrected whatever's been up over the last year or so to
• 41:09
  look just even a little bit better at these US
• 41:12
  championships, Although he just became a dad.
• 41:14
  So I wonder how much sleep he's getting these last couple days.
• 41:19
  And then also if if he even makes the trip.
• 41:25
  Yeah. Yeah, I also want to just throw
• 41:29
  the name Nathan Mountain out there.
• 41:31
  Sato's teammate over at Virginia ran 811 just randomly earlier in
• 41:35
  the season at like their home meet.
• 41:38
  And then another. Really interesting name to watch
• 41:43
  is Cooper Cothra from Under Armour Baltimore.
• 41:49
  Kind of forgot that he just started steeplechasing.
• 41:53
  I mean he had a breakout little indoor season.
• 41:56
  He ran 333 and 353 and then tested it out and he ran 823 in
• 42:02
  his first race at the LA Grand Prix.
• 42:04
  And then he doubled back, came back at the Sunset Tour and ran
• 42:07
  823 again. So you know, a guy who probably
• 42:13
  saw how fast it takes to make AUS 1500 meter team right now
• 42:18
  and thought I'd do the steeple chase.
• 42:21
  And so we'll see if he continues to progress off it, but he's got
• 42:26
  he's got wheels. We're always begging for those
• 42:29
  types of athletes, the ones who are just like all right, like
• 42:32
  take note of the fact that the 1500 is looking a little bit
• 42:36
  blocked off right now and maybe you should try your luck at the
• 42:39
  at the steeple chase. And so cool, cool to see someone
• 42:43
  you know is is embarking upon that experiment.
• 42:47
  All right, next event, the men's 1500, your favorite event and
• 42:54
  one that let's see the top five guys from last year.
• 43:00
  Not here. Jonah Kovic Mia.
• 43:04
  There was that Let's Run article that said that like no one's
• 43:07
  been able to get in touch with this guy.
• 43:11
  So we have no idea where Djonekovic is right now.
• 43:15
  Then second at USA was Ethan Strand, who is scratched from
• 43:20
  this one did put together, you know, 2 good mile performances
• 43:24
  at pre Classic and then he gave it a go just now in London,
• 43:29
  right? And he ran 349 I think it was.
• 43:34
  So no Ethan Strand, no Cole Hawker because he already has
• 43:39
  his spot for World Ultimate Championships, no Yard, no Goose
• 43:44
  'cause he might be a little bit tired after pre Classic and
• 43:48
  after the world record attempt in London.
• 43:52
  So the next top seed in this one, I believe returning from
• 43:57
  last year is Gary Martin. I think he was the next person
• 44:01
  up, but he will be joined by Vinciotti, who he's been having
• 44:09
  a great season so far at the AT, not just the Diamond League.
• 44:13
  He's been travelling all over the place and same thing with
• 44:16
  Sam Prekel, who has run 332 and rattled off some victories out
• 44:22
  in Europe. Simeon Birnbaum, the NCAA
• 44:25
  champion, is in this one. So although we are missing the
• 44:29
  top five names from last year, this is setting up to be a very
• 44:34
  entertaining race as well. Yeah, I.
• 44:37
  I actually love this race and against total no no, like this
• 44:42
  specific one and again, total spin zone here.
• 44:44
  But like, I'm glad Yard and Goose and Cole Hacker aren't in
• 44:48
  this because now we've got a really interesting race here and
• 44:53
  look like Vinciotti gets into the biggest races and he runs so
• 44:59
  well, but he's always finishing like 4th.
• 45:04
  He doesn't win a lot of races because he's just in the best
• 45:06
  races. And this is such a good
• 45:08
  opportunity for him to just actually get in the habit of
• 45:11
  winning. And so really excited to see how
• 45:13
  he does here. Simeon Birnbaum Wild Diamond
• 45:18
  League debut just said. Yeah, OK, So what?
• 45:21
  What? How far do you meet Josh?
• 45:23
  Kerr. Not that far.
• 45:28
  So I, I think Simeon, I've said earlier in the season that if
• 45:33
  this was a championship year in which like people are
• 45:38
  qualifying, I thought that he would be a top three guy who
• 45:40
  qualifies. Obviously London gives me like a
• 45:43
  little reservations on saying that or repeating that.
• 45:46
  But I still believe in the talent and think that was a
• 45:50
  weird race to try to execute in. And obviously he didn't have the
• 45:56
  best plan. So I think a great opportunity
• 45:59
  for him to come back and and prove himself.
• 46:03
  It's look, you go down the line and there's just legitimately
• 46:06
  6-7 guys who really have a good shot here and think that they
• 46:10
  should be the one to do it. I mean, Preckel just won Morton.
• 46:14
  He ran a PB. Yeah, I'm like thinking that
• 46:18
  this could this final could end up being like a Nathan Green
• 46:21
  esque victory. If I had to put money on it, I
• 46:25
  bet someone associated with the the University of Washington
• 46:28
  here because Nathan Green, you have Luke Hauser in there and
• 46:33
  then you got Joe Waskom, who suddenly looks like him, him
• 46:39
  old, his old self. I mean he waskom quietly ran APB
• 46:42
  right 334. He ran 332.
• 46:45
  Oh yeah. 2IN in Hungary ahead of Marco and so look, Joe Wascom
• 46:53
  has proven that he's a top three guy in the US and now he's
• 46:56
  getting into form. So a lot of just like really
• 46:59
  intriguing matchups here and then go further down the list.
• 47:05
  You know, I don't know if you realize it because he's listed
• 47:08
  as a 350 guy here, but Liam Murphy's in the field and so one
• 47:13
  of the stronger 1500 guys to to be in it almost race like it's
• 47:20
  gonna be super interesting. Like they're making the final
• 47:24
  here is not going to be a shoo in for anyone.
• 47:26
  But yeah, Liam, his 350 mile, not 1500 is would put him
• 47:34
  towards the top of that list of why why he would have a shot.
• 47:37
  He won the the B mile at the Pre.
• 47:40
  Class, that was his 350 yeah, exactly.
• 47:42
  So we got a lot of guys who've won races recently as well, so
• 47:47
  you know, there'll be a lot of ego on the line.
• 47:51
  Can I float a dark horse? Do it?
• 47:54
  Abel Tephra. He's been training, I think,
• 47:57
  with Hobbes, Kessler on Flagstaff.
• 48:00
  Yeah, I mean, Abel obviously like an absolute stud in the
• 48:06
  NCAA and now an opportunity to come out and prove it.
• 48:10
  He was just behind Liam Murphy at that Prefontain race, so he's
• 48:16
  definitely fit. So it's not that dark of a
• 48:19
  horse, the 351 one guy, but yeah.
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  Don't overcook it. Women's 1500 in this one another
• 50:37
  like contrary to the the men's side, this one's got some good
• 50:44
  depth to it. You have Nikki Hilts fresh off
• 50:48
  of the Prefontaine Classic mile victory and also the reigning US
• 50:53
  champ, Heather McClain, Emily Mackay, Gracie Morris, Those are
• 51:00
  definitely the those top 4 have made AUS team in the last couple
• 51:06
  of years so most people would look to them as the favourites
• 51:12
  in this one. Very excited to see what Clare
• 51:15
  Stagall can do against the pros because she looked fantastic at
• 51:21
  the U20 national championships and ran four O 4 there to to
• 51:27
  win. Didn't have the best Usas, but I
• 51:31
  think could be a rising talent for the United States.
• 51:35
  So watch for her. Lindsay Butler was the one who
• 51:40
  really made that US indoor race. She's one of the bandit
• 51:44
  unsponsored athletes. We've got an interview up with
• 51:47
  her on our website as well. Yeah, this one could be.
• 51:52
  I mean, OK, the question here, right, Like is around Nikki,
• 51:58
  where Nicky's been able to win this race if it's fast two years
• 52:02
  ago, if it was slow like last year.
• 52:05
  So what do you think it is that the rest of the field looks to
• 52:10
  do to try and find a way to beat Nicky?
• 52:15
  Yeah, I mean a tall task. I do think similar to the way
• 52:19
  that everyone just deferred to Faith, I mean anytime she race,
• 52:24
  but specifically at Prefontaine is something similar we're going
• 52:27
  to see here and a lot of people just staring seeing what is
• 52:31
  Nikki doing and King off them. So I don't think Nikki wanted to
• 52:36
  go too slow. I think they'll probably go out
• 52:40
  and just run 60. 8. And just let people stumble over
• 52:47
  themselves behind them and then wind it up.
• 52:51
  Great opportunity to try something differently.
• 52:53
  With that said, I think Emily Mackay is probably the biggest
• 52:57
  threat here just based off how well she's run at points this
• 53:00
  season. I think Emily Mackay is going to
• 53:02
  be very hard to try and shake off.
• 53:05
  And in the past we've seen Emily be the one to make the big move
• 53:09
  with 400 meters to go. And I think what happened at the
• 53:13
  pre classic was someone like Emily was ready to contend in a
• 53:18
  race like that, but because of no like Faith not going with the
• 53:23
  pacer and landed up in the front and really trying.
• 53:27
  I guess like at that point it's sort of like the race plan goes
• 53:29
  out the window and now you got to think on your toes.
• 53:32
  This is going to be an interesting one where it's sort
• 53:35
  of like how it you don't have to worry about the likes of Faith.
• 53:40
  You just got to worry about one person, and that's Nikki.
• 53:43
  Yeah, I think that like having Emily in this race will prevent
• 53:47
  Nikki from trying anything too wild.
• 53:50
  Definitely. We'll we'll we'll keep it
• 53:53
  honest. And I don't see Emily ever
• 53:56
  letting races go that slow either.
• 54:00
  I think. Interesting to see how Heather
• 54:02
  does, you know, now training with Nikki and just hasn't
• 54:09
  really found her footing yet this year has seemingly been
• 54:14
  healthy, has put up some solid races, but just not herself at
• 54:19
  her very best. But we also have seen Heather
• 54:23
  step up in championships so many times and I'm just waiting for
• 54:28
  that back straight away because I know Heather's going to move
• 54:30
  hard and and make a big challenge and push for their
• 54:33
  lead. Tracy Morris I think looking to
• 54:35
  rebound after not that great of a debut for Swoosh TC at the Pre
• 54:40
  Classic. But hey, you know, everyone goes
• 54:43
  through their own sort of little bit of an adjustment period.
• 54:46
  So I think the street continues. I'm leaning Nikki Hills for the
• 54:51
  win in this. One, it's not really that hot of
• 54:54
  a take, but I do I you mentioned her earlier.
• 54:58
  I think this is one that Lindsay Butler is going to continue to
• 55:04
  make a name for herself just back in New York for AUS
• 55:08
  Championship, and it went well last time.
• 55:10
  So yeah, we'll be rooting for her.
• 55:14
  Then we've got the women's 100 meter hurdles to close out day
• 55:19
  three. I'm guessing when they made that
• 55:22
  schedule, they were hoping that it could be Messiah Russell
• 55:26
  closing it out with a chance at breaking the world record.
• 55:30
  Not as many entries in this one. I think that there's 20 people
• 55:35
  entered. Top seeds right now are Tania
• 55:38
  Marshall, Kenny Harrison, Gray Stark, Alicia Johnson.
• 55:42
  The intriguing 1. The most intriguing 1 is going
• 55:44
  to be Tara Davis Woodall, who's also entered in this, pulling
• 55:49
  double duty with the long jump and the 100 hurdles.
• 55:52
  And hey, we saw her finish second at the LA Grand Prix.
• 55:58
  Granted, I think that this point, people are deeper into
• 56:01
  their season and so maybe in better form.
• 56:05
  So I'm looking potentially at, you know, a Grey Stark or a
• 56:09
  Kenny Harrison to win this one. Yeah, and you know, Alicia
• 56:13
  Johnson has also just looked really strong throughout the
• 56:15
  season. Not having Messiah in really
• 56:19
  does open it up. And I mean, anytime you have
• 56:24
  this caliber of women in 100 meter hurdles, it is just a
• 56:27
  crapshoot. Taro being in it does just make
• 56:32
  this so interesting. I mean, as like an entire event,
• 56:37
  you have to be like, we gotta defend like someone who focuses
• 56:44
  on the 100 meter hurdles has to win this.
• 56:47
  But it won't be easy. And also, I mean, look, if
• 56:50
  you've run 12 four, you've run 12 four.
• 56:53
  There's only so much you can do to defend at a certain point.
• 56:56
  But yeah, it's, it's the depth in the US is unreal.
• 57:02
  And this is one that I, I am, I would have to go and dive a
• 57:06
  little bit deeper right now into the road to Budapest.
• 57:10
  But this is a really good opportunity to get some points,
• 57:16
  get some rankings, get a, get a nice little boost because I
• 57:22
  mean, the women's 100 meter hurdles is just that type of
• 57:26
  event where not having a limitation of three in the
• 57:34
  championship like the US could be.
• 57:37
  We have 8 women in it. I mean, what are we in the quota
• 57:40
  right now? Chris, I'm sure you've already
• 57:42
  pulled it up. Yeah, I'm pulling it up.
• 57:44
  So as of right now in the quota, Messiah's got her by as a
• 57:48
  reigning Olympic champion. Then we've got Grace Stark,
• 57:52
  Alicia Johnson, Rainia Jones, Aaliyah Armstrong, Kenny
• 57:58
  Harrison. So that's five of the 16 so far.
• 58:03
  I mean, this is this is again, why we why the Ultimate
• 58:07
  Championships are exciting is because there is no cap on just
• 58:10
  sort of top, just only three. And we've talked about it many
• 58:14
  years. Like if this was 2016 or 2021,
• 58:20
  we could be looking at 8-9 American women competing at
• 58:26
  something if the Ultimate Championships would have existed
• 58:28
  at the time. So yeah, I mean, this is there's
• 58:33
  a couple people I think who were just outside like an Amber
• 58:36
  Hughes and Liam McCormick and Tinea Marshall.
• 58:40
  So although, yeah, Tinea Marshall is seated at 12/24, she
• 58:44
  does need to have, you know, a pretty good showing here at USA
• 58:48
  is to really move up in the world rankings to try and get
• 58:53
  her spots. So yeah, there's only 18 spots
• 58:56
  for ultimate champs. So I think I'm leaning Grey
• 59:01
  Stark for the win in this one, just given the fact that, you
• 59:05
  know, I think what she's second at the Paris Diamond League.
• 59:08
  She's had quietly like a pretty good season without, like,
• 59:11
  having, you know, the big exclamation point victory on her
• 59:13
  resume. All right, so that was all of
• 59:18
  Saturday's events. Now let's go over to Sunday, the
• 59:25
  final day. My wife is singing the national
• 59:28
  anthem on Sunday with her women's a cappella group.
• 59:32
  And that's going to be awesome. I'm bringing my family on Sunday
• 59:35
  and I actually didn't even tell Patricia that that's happening.
• 59:40
  Oh yeah, maybe you didn't tell her as a surprise yeah, don't
• 59:43
  tell her unless she listens to this, which I don't know if she
• 59:47
  does, but would be would be a nice fun surprise yes it's it's
• 59:53
  Family Day at the track on on Sunday.
• 59:57
  All right, so first vinyl on the track will be the women's. 800
• 1:00:02
  meters. Let me pull up the entries for
• 1:00:06
  that one. In this one, we do have Rocheen
• 1:00:09
  Willis entered as the top seed, the US indoor record holder who
• 1:00:16
  has put together a strong outdoor season in her first year
• 1:00:20
  as a pro. Addie Wiley has a Diamond League
• 1:00:23
  victory on her resume. So those are maybe like the top
• 1:00:28
  two people would peg as like the head to head showdown there.
• 1:00:33
  But then you do have some other strong entries like an AJ
• 1:00:37
  Wilson, NIA Aikens, Michaela Page, Megan Hunter.
• 1:00:40
  So and then Nikki is still entered and declared in the 800
• 1:00:48
  as well. So could be pulling double duty.
• 1:00:51
  There's still enough time for this to change.
• 1:00:54
  Valerie Tobias, another athlete who you could see if, if we're
• 1:00:58
  seeing like the Brooks beast have like all of this momentum.
• 1:01:00
  The fun part I think I texted this in our group chat from the
• 1:01:04
  Josh 1200 meter workout video is that you could see Valerie
• 1:01:09
  Tobias hanging on for the 1st 600.
• 1:01:11
  I think she clocked in at like 124 or something like that at
• 1:01:15
  altitude, so don't know exactly what that's worth, but it could
• 1:01:19
  be a good sign of things. US depth in the 800 is always
• 1:01:26
  great and so we got a slew of sub twos in this one.
• 1:01:31
  What are you looking for in this one, Kyle?
• 1:01:32
  Yeah, I mean, it is a great field.
• 1:01:35
  I think, as always, it's like who can really put an
• 1:01:39
  exclamation point on their season?
• 1:01:41
  So you know, AJ, obviously if she comes out and runs a big one
• 1:01:47
  here, NIA Akins we haven't seen a lot of recently and she's
• 1:01:51
  currently declared and entered. So that's an exciting 1.
• 1:01:54
  Going further down the list. You know, Juliet Whitaker's,
• 1:01:58
  we've seen her pull it off before, so we could see the
• 1:02:03
  Stanford roommates battling it out.
• 1:02:05
  Once again, the 800 to go from this many women into a final,
• 1:02:13
  you cannot sit around. We're going to have a crazy set
• 1:02:18
  of prelims. When you have this many sub two
• 1:02:21
  athletes and you know, 8 finalists.
• 1:02:24
  It's just the field narrows so quickly.
• 1:02:26
  And so seeing them in rounds, I just think we're going to see
• 1:02:32
  some really good races. And look, I want to see Michaela
• 1:02:37
  Rose take things out in that final and and make them hurt.
• 1:02:40
  Oh, you know, she the the she will so for the people
• 1:02:44
  wondering, the first round of the 800 will be Friday evening.
• 1:02:48
  Men go at seven O 2 and then the women go at 723.
• 1:02:53
  When we're thinking like World Ultimate Championships
• 1:02:57
  implications, potentially this one, again, there's still a lot
• 1:03:00
  of time for these rankings to change with the upcoming diamond
• 1:03:03
  links. But currently the Americans in
• 1:03:06
  the quota are Sage her De Clecker, who's not racing this
• 1:03:10
  weekend but was fifth at the World Championships last year.
• 1:03:14
  You got Addie Wiley, Rochine Willis, and that's it.
• 1:03:18
  So we've got 3 American women in the quota right now.
• 1:03:21
  Just outside of that is Megan Hunter.
• 1:03:25
  She's currently 19th in the world rankings and they take the
• 1:03:29
  top 16. So she's hoping for a good
• 1:03:33
  performance. AUS title with a, you know, say
• 1:03:37
  one 57158 will help boost that for sure.
• 1:03:41
  And so, you know, look, look out for her.
• 1:03:44
  I think Michaela Page still racing.
• 1:03:46
  I think in AUNC singlet she might still have some
• 1:03:50
  eligibility, but I've always been one who thought I guess
• 1:03:55
  what she was the indoor champion two years ago.
• 1:03:59
  I think her pro prospects are pretty good and so seeing her
• 1:04:04
  'cause I don't even remember if she contended at USAS last year,
• 1:04:09
  so going to be curious to see how she fares there.
• 1:04:13
  She didn't compete at USAS last year, did she?
• 1:04:16
  No, she didn't, but she finished second in outdoor NCAA's last
• 1:04:21
  year and then outdoors this year was fourth.
• 1:04:23
  But she's coming off a nice win at the Sunset Tour most
• 1:04:26
  recently, you know, 10 days ago or Strand 158 one.
• 1:04:30
  So yeah, I mean, look, this is a when we're we're ranking which
• 1:04:38
  events have strong fields versus like some of the weaker this is
• 1:04:41
  this is definitely one of the better races.
• 1:04:44
  Put it up there with that men's 400 as just having some some
• 1:04:48
  real intrigue and some talent out there.
• 1:04:51
  Wish Anna Hall was in this one. That would have been, yeah,
• 1:04:54
  opportunity or I would have loved to see like some wild
• 1:04:57
  cards throw Tara in this one would.
• 1:04:59
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  comment section. Happy running.
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  All right, then after this, we've got the men's 800 meters
• 1:06:41
  where Cooper Luckenhouse will be looking to win his first US
• 1:06:46
  title. A little bit of the spice got
• 1:06:48
  taken out of this one with Brandon Miller withdrawing
• 1:06:52
  earlier today. I think his coach Danny Mackie
• 1:06:54
  told Let's Run that he had an ankle injury that popped up
• 1:06:58
  right after the London Diamond League race.
• 1:07:00
  And so they were hoping that he'd be, it's nothing severe and
• 1:07:05
  that Brandon could still look at potentially challenging the
• 1:07:09
  American record later this summer.
• 1:07:12
  Listen, after seeing 342, I'll believe anything that that camp
• 1:07:18
  tells, tells us. So instead, we do have Cooper
• 1:07:22
  versus Donovan Brazier, 2 of the three members of last year's
• 1:07:26
  world championship team, Bryce Hoppel, not competing this
• 1:07:30
  weekend, but one of the guys who could make this one interesting.
• 1:07:33
  And I'm curious on your thoughts.
• 1:07:35
  Hobbes, Kessler. Yeah, great to see him in an
• 1:07:37
  800. It definitely does make it
• 1:07:41
  interesting. It's a good field.
• 1:07:44
  It's not a great field, but anytime Cooper Luckenhouse and
• 1:07:49
  Donovan Brazier are in a race, I'm going to watch.
• 1:07:52
  It's almost like 2 of the like most beautiful strides right now
• 1:07:56
  that are just like majestic to watch.
• 1:08:00
  And also Cooper's first outdoor title, correct?
• 1:08:04
  Because of course he has AUS indoor title from this year.
• 1:08:09
  So yeah, excited to see how he bounces back off of Prefontaine.
• 1:08:17
  I remember in our preview show of Prefontaine, I was kind of
• 1:08:20
  highlighting like, all right, this is kind of the first time
• 1:08:22
  that the expectation is he has to win.
• 1:08:25
  Like, he is the favorite and, you know, obviously in that
• 1:08:28
  situation, he didn't win. I think now looking back with a
• 1:08:32
  little bit more context of the sort of fitness Brandon Miller
• 1:08:35
  is in, you know, it's understandable.
• 1:08:37
  But this is another one where it's like, yeah, the expectation
• 1:08:40
  is fully that he is going to win this, but I don't think you can
• 1:08:46
  sleep on Brazier at any second. He can turn it on.
• 1:08:49
  And then just going down the list, Isaiah Jewett, I want to
• 1:08:55
  see Isaiah like really contend and put himself in this again.
• 1:08:58
  I, I, I know it's in there. He's been training with Marco a
• 1:09:02
  rope getting used to a new system.
• 1:09:05
  Marco definitely approaches things as more of a 1500 runner.
• 1:09:09
  Isaiah historically coming at it a little bit more of a four 8
• 1:09:12
  runner. Want to see it click, definitely
• 1:09:16
  reduce that. And then it's just like for a
• 1:09:20
  lot of these guys, there's so many 145 guys that just getting
• 1:09:24
  into a final would be such an exciting win for them on the
• 1:09:28
  weekend. And it's going to be a dogfight
• 1:09:31
  because I mean, we have so many 145 guys.
• 1:09:35
  Tonota Matsata is has not been able to figure it out at the NCA
• 1:09:41
  Championship stage. But then what he'll do is he'll
• 1:09:44
  go to AUS championship and then make it through the rounds and
• 1:09:48
  into the semi final, sometimes the final.
• 1:09:51
  And then I think like most recently just clocked the PB of
• 1:09:56
  14427 at the sunset toward me that maybe not as many people
• 1:10:02
  probably paid attention to. And so I'll have some eyes on
• 1:10:07
  him. But of course, like the battle
• 1:10:08
  up front between Cooper and Donovan should be super
• 1:10:11
  entertaining. Don't let it go slow.
• 1:10:13
  You never know if Shane Cohen still has that kick in him that
• 1:10:17
  could upset everyone. Would love to see just sort of
• 1:10:20
  like what the odds are. But yeah, someone like Cooper, I
• 1:10:24
  don't think will make that kind of mistake.
• 1:10:26
  So that is the men's 800. Next up we have the women's 5K,
• 1:10:37
  which let's see how many entries are in this one.
• 1:10:43
  There's 18 entries and two of scratch, so we're down to 16
• 1:10:49
  competitors in this one. The headliner is Parker Valby,
• 1:10:53
  the six time NCAA champion and US Olympian looking to capture
• 1:10:59
  her first US title. I would say because she doesn't
• 1:11:03
  have any indoors and then last year missed the outdoor
• 1:11:09
  championships because of injury. But so far she's looked crazy
• 1:11:15
  dominant and fit when she's in her two goes at the 5K so she's
• 1:11:22
  run 1439 this season. The next fastest is Shelby
• 1:11:25
  Houlihan, who was fourth at the World Championships in her first
• 1:11:29
  season following the for your suspension.
• 1:11:33
  And so now this is setting up for Parker versus Shelby, which
• 1:11:38
  I don't think those two have ever gone head to head and
• 1:11:41
  raced. Can Parker win this just
• 1:11:44
  rattling off 70s again? Like, is that the the plan?
• 1:11:48
  Like you don't leave it to a kick because Shelby's an 815
• 1:11:53
  person still. So you got to kind of just make
• 1:11:58
  it a battle of attrition again if you're Parker.
• 1:12:00
  And that's how she's won both of her races so far.
• 1:12:03
  This is this is definitely the best head to The thing that we
• 1:12:11
  have said about Parker is that she is a metronome and she can
• 1:12:16
  just find a rhythm and just settle into it.
• 1:12:23
  And so to add to the field, someone with the ultimate big
• 1:12:27
  kick who we know is of course very strong and it's going to be
• 1:12:31
  difficult to drop. It's going to force Parker to
• 1:12:34
  not run 70s because it's not going to get the job done.
• 1:12:37
  We know that a 70 is is not going to break Shelby.
• 1:12:42
  So the way that she can kind of turn the screws and, you know,
• 1:12:46
  see some 6960 eights and see if she can run away because look,
• 1:12:52
  if Shelby's there with 200 meters to go, I think we know
• 1:12:54
  exactly what's going to happen. Unless Parker stuns us and has a
• 1:12:59
  kick that we've never seen. Because I think the, the all
• 1:13:02
  these years, like the last three years, we've never seen Parker
• 1:13:04
  dip down to 1500, which is something I think we still kind
• 1:13:08
  of would love to to see at some point to see what her raw speed
• 1:13:12
  is. But at the LA Grand Prix, I'm
• 1:13:14
  looking at the results now when she ran 1439 and those pace
• 1:13:18
  lights were set for I think it was 1440.
• 1:13:22
  Yeah. American record holder Alicia
• 1:13:24
  Monson couldn't hang. Of course, Schweitzer couldn't
• 1:13:27
  hang. And so the only person I think,
• 1:13:32
  right now in this field that could try and give it a go would
• 1:13:35
  be Shelby. And Shelby did run, what, that
• 1:13:39
  10K earlier this year, right? Like I'm trying to pull it up
• 1:13:43
  right now. Yeah, I mean, Shelby, she's been
• 1:13:46
  all over the place. She's run 8 hundreds, she's run
• 1:13:49
  15 hundreds, she's run 2 miles, she's run 5 KS, she's run 10 KS.
• 1:13:53
  And yeah, I mean, we, we saw a 3050 earlier this season.
• 1:13:57
  She's strong. It's it's you can't easily run
• 1:14:01
  away from her for that reason. Like if I was a betting man, I I
• 1:14:07
  think Shelby's going to win unless Parker's got a something
• 1:14:12
  in her that we just haven't seen yet.
• 1:14:14
  And I, I, I don't doubt that it's she's on a great trajectory
• 1:14:19
  right now, but a 1439 even split is not going to be enough.
• 1:14:24
  We'll also like, I don't think AUS Championship will go 1439
• 1:14:29
  with that because there's no pacemaker, so someone's got to
• 1:14:31
  go to the front to try and make that fast.
• 1:14:33
  There is a pacemaker. It's Parker Valley.
• 1:14:36
  Well, Parker had Nikki at least like in in LA, I think we were
• 1:14:40
  still, we are underselling the value of the Sidious Mag, New
• 1:14:46
  Balance Cheer Zone and what that could do for Parker on the
• 1:14:52
  track. So we got not.
• 1:14:53
  Enough people are talking about that, yeah.
• 1:14:55
  Not that you're. Right.
• 1:14:56
  Chris, we we could very directly influence this race.
• 1:15:00
  It's a lot of pressure on us. Other just, you know, Emily
• 1:15:06
  Mckay's doubling back. As of right now, she's.
• 1:15:09
  Interesting. The 5K, so another reason not to
• 1:15:13
  let it go slow and Margo Appleton as well, you know,
• 1:15:17
  she's got some 1500 chops, so there I unless it's like really
• 1:15:23
  uncomfortably hot, I do think that it'll be a pretty honest
• 1:15:27
  one. All right, now we go over to the
• 1:15:32
  men's 5K and in this one there is a little bit more variety
• 1:15:35
  than just Grant Fisher and Woody Kincaid 'cause you can toss in
• 1:15:40
  13 O five guy Gary Martin. Kasich Knavelbard is run
• 1:15:44
  thirteen O 4. He's in it.
• 1:15:46
  Dylan Jacobs. I think he might be the only
• 1:15:48
  member of OAC making the trip out to New York this weekend.
• 1:15:53
  So you got a a bunch of guys who've been who are doubling in
• 1:15:56
  the 15 and also moving up to the 5K.
• 1:16:01
  But it's just a matter of like, I mean, last year, just seeing
• 1:16:05
  how Grant can toy with a field in the in unpaced races.
• 1:16:11
  Like I he's he's the head on favorite.
• 1:16:15
  And I'm kind of bummed that there is no Nico.
• 1:16:17
  Young Nico must be dealing with an injury because he was
• 1:16:20
  supposed to run Peachtree and then didn't.
• 1:16:24
  And then Grand Blanks has been mostly racing out in Europe and
• 1:16:28
  I think is in a good spot right now for the World Ultimate
• 1:16:32
  Championships quota. But Grant's a heavy favorite in
• 1:16:36
  this one. Yeah, I mean, he's earned that
• 1:16:40
  title. That doesn't mean that it's not
• 1:16:45
  going to be interesting because you do still have guys who've
• 1:16:49
  done it before. You have the Cooper tier, you
• 1:16:52
  have the Sean Mcgourty, you've got Dylan Jacobs.
• 1:16:57
  Like you have guys who we know are capable of being in that
• 1:17:04
  conversation, like Woody, like Liam Murphy, but then you got
• 1:17:09
  guys like Vince Ciotti, like what a wild card to have in it.
• 1:17:13
  And so I, I do think from Grant, this is an opportunity to try to
• 1:17:18
  control a race and really wind it up.
• 1:17:20
  I think you know 2K out he if he's not at the front of the
• 1:17:25
  race then that's a mistake because I don't know you got Sam
• 1:17:29
  Preiko in there. Like the list of 1500 guys who
• 1:17:33
  are in this thinking maybe I can get that year.
• 1:17:35
  I think it was what year was it? When it was in off year there
• 1:17:40
  was like 4 guys in the 5K in Des Moines, IA. 2013 and it was man,
• 1:17:47
  that was the one where the likes of like Joe Stillen was like
• 1:17:52
  standing outside the stadium like he was like, I'm ready to
• 1:17:54
  run, like I've met the like he was just outside.
• 1:17:57
  Whatever the quota was, was that is that that that was the Ryan
• 1:18:03
  Hill year. I'm pretty sure I'm pulling it
• 1:18:06
  up right now. I mean they ran.
• 1:18:08
  So slow. 2013 US championships as well in Des Moines.
• 1:18:17
  I'm looking at it now. They ran 1455 was third place
• 1:18:25
  for Ryan Hill to make the team. It was Bernard Lagat just out
• 1:18:29
  kicked Galen Rupp. 1454 was the winning time.
• 1:18:32
  There were eight guys in the race.
• 1:18:34
  Chris Alinsky finished last in 15 O 9 I.
• 1:18:37
  I think we saw an 80 in that. They were, yeah, maybe.
• 1:18:42
  What an incredible race that I'm sure the powers that be want to
• 1:18:46
  make sure never find its way to YouTube because that was a weird
• 1:18:52
  1. I don't think that's what we're
• 1:18:53
  going to. Get rewatched that one because I
• 1:18:55
  think it's on it's on runner space and that was my first ever
• 1:19:01
  USA that I attended. I just remember just the chaos
• 1:19:04
  of people trying to get into that race like they they like
• 1:19:07
  people were in Des Moines ready in warm up gear and they said no
• 1:19:15
  because there were so many scratches from the 1500.
• 1:19:17
  Yeah, what a great poll. Honestly like this is again why
• 1:19:21
  my nerd brain is wired so weirdly.
• 1:19:23
  You said slow off year 5K and I immediately just went USA is
• 1:19:29
  2013. Your brain went and found the
• 1:19:33
  last GBT. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:19:38
  So I it is funny because as we're going through the previews
• 1:19:41
  of the five KS, it's like, yeah, some of these 1500 guys are not
• 1:19:45
  going to be a miss. They're going to be some
• 1:19:47
  scratches. All right, so we're all picking
• 1:19:50
  Grant on this one. And then that brings us to the
• 1:19:54
  men's 200 meters. We kind of touched on it before.
• 1:19:58
  It's the No Lyell show at this point.
• 1:20:02
  Who's his biggest competitor in this one?
• 1:20:04
  Let's see, Brandon Hickling is the next fastest.
• 1:20:08
  It's so funny to see. Noah Lyles entered with a 1951
• 1:20:14
  and then the next best is Brandon Hicklin entered with a
• 1:20:17
  1992. Is Garrett callen healthy?
• 1:20:21
  It's been a very long time since we've seen him and.
• 1:20:25
  Since indoor season, I. Would we like him?
• 1:20:27
  He's a fascinating athlete to watch.
• 1:20:30
  I remember Anderson having conversation with him and just
• 1:20:33
  the way his mind works and breaks down.
• 1:20:35
  He's such a student of the sport, so.
• 1:20:39
  Yeah, he's also a track GPT kind of guy where I think Anderson
• 1:20:44
  asked him some sort of question like, what are your favorite,
• 1:20:47
  like races to watch? And he like rattled off like,
• 1:20:49
  oh, let's off a Powell this race and like.
• 1:20:51
  He's like the 2013 US 65K. Yeah, that was the the last.
• 1:20:57
  One that he mentioned. Yeah, he's like, that's my
• 1:20:59
  favorite. Yeah, the powers that be don't
• 1:21:03
  want that one on YouTube. They don't want they don't want
• 1:21:06
  me to watch it, but I'm fine. In a way, I would say that there
• 1:21:10
  is a chance here, given that Noah Lyles is potentially going
• 1:21:15
  to win this by a half second, that we're going to see some of
• 1:21:20
  the craziest Noah Lyell theatrics we've ever seen in the
• 1:21:23
  Priya, like in the the lead up to this gun going off because he
• 1:21:28
  knows he can win this with his eyes closed.
• 1:21:31
  So I just think that we might see something absolutely insane.
• 1:21:36
  It might be it this this might be the the moment of the meet.
• 1:21:41
  Something Noah's going to do on the front end or the back end of
• 1:21:43
  this 200 will be viral Instagram real type clip, Something that
• 1:21:51
  the powers would be may not want people to see.
• 1:21:55
  No, but it's the type of clip that like the mainstream sports
• 1:21:58
  media will eat up. And I'm trying to think like
• 1:22:02
  what it could be. Who did he?
• 1:22:06
  Meet at Fanatics Fest or whatever that he has convinced
• 1:22:11
  to take part in this weekend. Like I saw him with Wemby.
• 1:22:19
  Is like Wemby gonna walk him out?
• 1:22:21
  Is he like running into Wemby's arms?
• 1:22:23
  There's he he was definitely conspiring something.
• 1:22:27
  The trouble is, it's like some of these celebs were in town for
• 1:22:31
  the World Cup as well. Fanatics Fest plus the World Cup
• 1:22:34
  was just a great combination. They're leaving.
• 1:22:39
  I think they're like, we've been in New York for way too long.
• 1:22:41
  So let's see. He had the photo with Wemby,
• 1:22:44
  then he raced. Novak Djokovic beat him.
• 1:22:50
  John Cena was there. I figured he's probably got no
• 1:22:54
  he. I think he didn't.
• 1:22:55
  He retire from the WWE. Then he's got a photo with
• 1:23:00
  Michael Rubin and Livi Dunn. The Yankees are playing the
• 1:23:03
  Pirates, but they're leaving out of town, so no Livi Dunn.
• 1:23:07
  Paul schemes here. This would have been a great,
• 1:23:11
  great opportunity to let ishow speed in.
• 1:23:15
  Just like throw him in the 200. Make it interesting.
• 1:23:18
  There's no World Championships on the line.
• 1:23:22
  We need a. Fanatics best He talked about
• 1:23:24
  the fact that he's serious about competing at the LA Olympics.
• 1:23:28
  And yeah, me too. I'm very serious about it.
• 1:23:34
  I did see some sort of video with ishow speed, like training
• 1:23:38
  or at least doing a practice session with Otto Bolden.
• 1:23:41
  And so if Otto's coaching speed, they should have got like speed
• 1:23:48
  should have just competed at the Miramar Invitational, got in a
• 1:23:52
  markdown and then raced here this weekend.
• 1:23:56
  But it's a little bit too little too late to try and have all
• 1:24:00
  those things aligned. But I see no one.
• 1:24:04
  Spike Lee. And then who's the last photo
• 1:24:07
  here? Noah and Fred Taylor.
• 1:24:11
  I hope he did his. I hope Noah was out there.
• 1:24:13
  Kind of like letting people know.
• 1:24:15
  It's like, Oh yeah, next week's the US Championships, you should
• 1:24:17
  stick around and come, come watch me race.
• 1:24:19
  So hopefully there's something. Do you think any of the Knicks
• 1:24:22
  attend this weekend? I don't think so.
• 1:24:25
  Do we have any track connections with anyone that I don't know?
• 1:24:31
  Can we get Jose Alvarado out there?
• 1:24:35
  Throw him in. I mean, yeah, there should have
• 1:24:37
  been this again, like there should be a celebrity mile or
• 1:24:41
  something that just kind of we throw into the middle of the
• 1:24:43
  program here for for folks. No, I think Josh Hart is
• 1:24:47
  probably like one of the fastest NBA players.
• 1:24:49
  And so I would have loved to have seen what he could do in a
• 1:24:53
  mile. But no, yeah, I don't think any
• 1:24:56
  of the Knicks are attending. They've they probably have
• 1:24:59
  appearance fees now for sure. All right.
• 1:25:04
  And I think the next event is the women's 200.
• 1:25:08
  No Gabby, no Shakari. Melissa Jefferson versus
• 1:25:12
  Brittany Brown I think ends up being the the match up here.
• 1:25:17
  Brittany Brown's got a good string of good luck on this
• 1:25:20
  track having won all the money at Athos the last like 2 years.
• 1:25:24
  And then but MJW is just sort of the reigning world champion and
• 1:25:31
  heavy favorite right now. So what do you think?
• 1:25:35
  Melissa needs to kind of dial in here in the 200 because she's
• 1:25:38
  obviously seen what Julian can run, what Gabby can run.
• 1:25:42
  What do you think she's trying to work on here in this race?
• 1:25:45
  Because she'll be out in front pretty early.
• 1:25:48
  Yeah, I think it's all about closing.
• 1:25:50
  I mean, we saw most recently that, you know, Julian's closing
• 1:25:57
  like a train, like she absolutely has another gear the
• 1:26:02
  last 50 meters. And so when you're thinking
• 1:26:05
  about the next time you are racing Julian, you know, you got
• 1:26:08
  to be ready that last 50. So I think that's what we're
• 1:26:10
  going to see. Also, just like from the the US
• 1:26:14
  perspective is like Gabby historically has a great close,
• 1:26:19
  Brittany Brown historically has a great close.
• 1:26:21
  So Melissa, especially coming from the 100, I think you're
• 1:26:25
  just always trying to work on that aspect of your game.
• 1:26:30
  All right, So quick check in as well on just the, the road to
• 1:26:33
  Budapest, cause the 200 is just an event in which we could
• 1:26:39
  potentially have quite a number of athletes qualify.
• 1:26:45
  So I see Cameron Dickinson, Jenna Prandini, Mackenzie Long,
• 1:26:48
  Cambria Sturgis, Kayla White, and a Navia battle right now are
• 1:26:53
  all. Demelis, Jefferson Wooden and
• 1:26:55
  Gabby Thomas. Are automatic correct?
• 1:26:59
  So that's. 123456788 of 16 half the field.
• 1:27:09
  Yeah, so hell yeah. USAUSA, yeah.
• 1:27:17
  So again, like this is Melissa's race to lose, but that I mean
• 1:27:25
  you just at their best, Brittany Brown, Cambria, Kayla McKenzie,
• 1:27:29
  like they they will be there for a good part of the race.
• 1:27:35
  And if I'm Alyssa, I'm running that first 150 a little bit
• 1:27:39
  conservative and then just closing it down and taking it.
• 1:27:41
  And then the final event on the schedule taking place on the
• 1:27:46
  track is the 110 hurdles, which will feature Jamal Britt, who's
• 1:27:55
  been on fire this season. You could call him the breakout
• 1:27:58
  star of the sprints this year, I would say.
• 1:28:03
  Yeah, I mean, he had some great races last year, like we saw
• 1:28:06
  glimpses of this. The real thing that I want to do
• 1:28:10
  is I want to map how many miles this dude has travelled.
• 1:28:16
  Yeah. Don't give it away.
• 1:28:17
  I think hopefully we find him this weekend and I want to have,
• 1:28:22
  I want to be with him when he downloads what's that app called
• 1:28:24
  Flightly or whatever it is Flight Flighty.
• 1:28:28
  And I want to be able to see just sort of like what how many
• 1:28:31
  flights he's been on since the beginning of 2026 'cause he's
• 1:28:35
  raced all over the world. I was just, I just did AII made
• 1:28:40
  an appearance on like the Drake Relays podcast.
• 1:28:42
  And so they obviously they love Jamal.
• 1:28:45
  He's an Iowa guy and they the host Mark Freund, who I went to
• 1:28:50
  college with, he pulled out the stat that Jamaal Britt 6 and O
• 1:28:54
  in his last six races on US soil.
• 1:28:58
  So watch, watch for that. Cordell Tinch, the reigning
• 1:29:04
  world champion is in this one as well.
• 1:29:06
  But yeah, I mean, it's those two are the the, the, the
• 1:29:12
  favourites. But again, this is a race where
• 1:29:16
  there's 10 hurdles in the way and anything can happen.
• 1:29:18
  No Jacoby Tharp. And then also we've we've got
• 1:29:23
  the the Freddie Crittenden swan song.
• 1:29:25
  I was going to say, yeah, our dear friend Freddie going out
• 1:29:30
  the last one, let's make it a great one.
• 1:29:33
  So yeah, it's, I mean, similar to the women's, even without a
• 1:29:38
  couple names in the race, there's so much depth that it's
• 1:29:43
  going to be a good one. I'm excited for this.
• 1:29:47
  All right. Well, that does it for our
• 1:29:49
  preview of the track events at the USATF Outdoor Championships
• 1:29:54
  taking place this Thursday through Sunday at Icon Stadium.
• 1:29:59
  Again, if you want to watch all of it, it's takes some
• 1:30:02
  combination of usatf.tv Peacock. There'll be two TV windows on
• 1:30:08
  NBC on Saturday and Sunday. Follow along on all of Sidious
• 1:30:12
  Mags social channels for updates and results.
• 1:30:17
  We'll have a bunch of interviews on the Sidious Mag YouTube
• 1:30:19
  channel, and then we will be doing daily podcasts at the
• 1:30:23
  conclusion of each day that that you guys will be able to listen
• 1:30:26
  to before the next day's action, where we react and analyze all
• 1:30:30
  the top performances from each of the days.
• 1:30:33
  And then the Cities Mag newsletter is also going daily
• 1:30:36
  over the next couple days. So stay tuned for that.
• 1:30:39
  Lots of good stuff. We're yeah, we're going to make
• 1:30:43
  the most of it, trying to make New York City a future
• 1:30:47
  destination for more national championships.
• 1:30:49
  So we're going to bring the hype.
• 1:30:51
  So excited to be in the New Balance.
• 1:30:54
  Sidious Mag cheers on this weekend.
• 1:30:56
  So if you see us, say hey. And yeah, stoked should be a
• 1:31:01
  good one. All right, that does it.
• 1:31:03
  We will see you guys next time. Alright, that's a wrap on
• 1:31:08
  today's episode. Thanks for listening, for the
• 1:31:10
  time, the curiosity, and for making this show part of your
• 1:31:13
  routine or your run. A big thanks to our producer
• 1:31:17
  Jasmine Fair and to everyone behind the scenes who helps make
• 1:31:19
  the Sidious Mag Podcast happen. If you enjoyed today's episode,
• 1:31:23
  a quick five star review on Apple Podcast or Spotify helps
• 1:31:25
  people find this show and we read every single one.
• 1:31:29
  You can find muchmoretrackandfieldcoverage@cydusmag.com
• 1:31:32
  and you can follow along across all of Cydus Mag social
• 1:31:34
  channels. We'll see you next time.
• 1:31:36
  Thanks again for listening. Thanks for sticking around.
• 1:31:41
  Here's a little bit more from Bandit Director of Experiences
• 1:31:44
  Tim Rossi on the Unsponsored project, which you'll see on
• 1:31:47
  display at the US Championships. What do you think?
• 1:31:51
  Is currently broken in the track and field contract model that
• 1:31:55
  Bandit is trying to, in a way, come in as not the full fix, but
• 1:32:01
  a temporary fix to, you know, hopefully improving things.
• 1:32:04
  Yeah, I think the top end of the sport is always the side of the
• 1:32:07
  sport that gets taken care of, which is really, really cool and
• 1:32:10
  it makes sense for what it's worth as well.
• 1:32:12
  Brands are looking for value out of athletes and that means
• 1:32:16
  something different to every single brand, but often times it
• 1:32:18
  means competing from metal, always making teams, running
• 1:32:22
  world records, whatever it might look like, and those athletes
• 1:32:25
  get taken care of really, really well.
• 1:32:28
  And then in the US as well, we have the NCAA system.
• 1:32:31
  There's obviously a lot of conversation around that and NIL
• 1:32:34
  and that entire system right now, but it is an amazing
• 1:32:38
  development pipeline. Running is a tough sport though.
• 1:32:41
  You get injured, you end up in the injury cycle for 12 months,
• 1:32:45
  18 months, and then all of a sudden you're not performing at
• 1:32:47
  the highest level. And there's so many people who
• 1:32:50
  leave that development system not having fulfilled their full
• 1:32:54
  potential and fall through the cracks.
• 1:32:55
  The same way that there are athletes that get that first
• 1:32:58
  professional contract and maybe go through a similar issue.
• 1:33:02
  Maybe a coaching fit or a system fit doesn't work for them and
• 1:33:06
  they just go through a rough patch of performance and then
• 1:33:09
  all of a sudden they get released from that contract and
• 1:33:11
  it is tough for these athletes. You're going out of your own
• 1:33:14
  pocket, out of your own savings to compete.
• 1:33:16
  It's not the cheapest sport being able to fly around the
• 1:33:19
  world trying to find track meets and trying to run your best.
• 1:33:22
  And it really is like a performance inhibitor as well if
• 1:33:27
  you're out there trying to make a living off of it.
• 1:33:29
  It applies a lot of pressure that maybe some of the athletes
• 1:33:32
  at the top end. There's a ton of pressure no
• 1:33:33
  matter who you are in the sport, but if you've got the financial
• 1:33:37
  system in place where you're not risking your livelihood every
• 1:33:40
  time you step on the track, I believe that that unlocks
• 1:33:43
  performance. So us being able to support a
• 1:33:46
  lot of those individuals that would historically fall through
• 1:33:48
  the system and fall through the cracks and really keep them in
• 1:33:51
  the sport and give them a chance to bet on themselves and and
• 1:33:54
  pursue track at the highest level it it's exactly what we
• 1:33:58
  want to do. And trying to focus on those up
• 1:34:00
  and comers or or underdog stories if you will, is
• 1:34:03
  important for Bandit because we think if we raise the floor
• 1:34:06
  within the sport, every level of it will benefit from that.
• 1:34:10
  As part of our. Partnership with Bandit, we will
• 1:34:12
  be highlighting some of the athletes partaking in the
• 1:34:15
  Unsponsored project with some features on cydusmag.com.
• 1:34:19
  You can also read some of them in the Lab Count newsletter.
• 1:34:23
  Watch out for those black hits in New York City in just a
• 1:34:25
  couple weeks.