
This Week In Track & Field: Jakob Ingebrigtsen Calls The Field Cowards & Starts Beef With Cole Hocker; Cam Myers & Klaudia Kazimierska Claim 1500m Titles; Audrey Werro Stays Unbeaten + More
About this episode
Chris Chavez and Preet Majithia are back to break down all the highlights from the Diamond League final in Brussels last weekend.
Discussed in this episode:
– Men’s 1500m: Cam Myers wins in 3:30 as the first Australian to win a Diamond League distance title. The race has been somewhat overshadowed by everything that followed it. Myers was boxed in behind Jakob and Phanuel Koech with 100 meters to go, found a gap when Koech drifted to lane two, and had the fastest final 100 of the field (12.8).
– The controversy: In the mixed zone, Jakob Ingebrigtsen called the field — including himself — losers. He was specifically critical of Cole for bringing in a faster pacer (Christian Jackson) with a promise of 3:27 pace, and then nobody getting on it.
– What happened next: Jakob later posted a partial apology and called his field of cowards comment wrong, but stood by his criticism of Cole and his team. This entire controversy is exactly why there should be no pacemakers at the Diamond League final.
– Josh Kerr’s response: He waited a day, then posted himself running a 48.41 400m on Instagram with no context. His 3:42 world record and 1:44 800m shape from earlier this year makes him the clear favorite in Budapest.
– Collen Kebinatshipi: Ran 43.40 to win the men’s 400m for his third Diamond League record of the season. Six Diamond Leagues, six wins, and five sub-44s for the most ever in a single season.
– Emmanuel Wanyonyi won the men’s 800m for his fourth consecutive Diamond League title and ninth career sub-1:42.
– Women’s steeple: Faith Cherotich ran 8:51 for her third Diamond League title. Doris Lemngole ran 8:52 for her third PB in four races and no. 6 all-time, beating Peruth Chemutai and Winfred Yavi.
– 110m hurdles: Ja'Kobe Tharp won in 13.03. Cordell Tinch went down hard after clipping a hurdle. He posted afterward confirming no injury and cleared for Budapest.
– Men’s 100m: Oblique Seville won in 9.90. He’s the World Ultimates favorite now that Noah Lyles has ended his season due to his injury from USAs.
– Women’s 800m: Audrey Werro wins in 1:54.75, Femke Bol second in 1:54.81. Werro's undefeated season survives by six hundredths. Werro went out in 25.9, slightly paid for it in the close (29.8), but still held off Femke’s improving kick.
– Women’s 1500m: Klaudia Kazmierska ran 3:54.05 for the world lead and her first Diamond League title. She took the lead at 200 to go and closed in 29.5. A year ago her PB was 3:59.
– Men’s 5K: Berhanu Balew wins in 12:45 for a two second personal best. Graham Blanks placed fifth in a PB of 12:47. Nico Young took sixth in a season’s best 12:48.
+ More results from Brussels.
____________
SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS
OLIPOP: OLIPOP's Citrus Rush packs apple, lemon, lime, and orange juices with 60mg of green tea caffeine for a bold, refreshing blast of flavor ready to fuel your next adventure. If you haven't had tried Olipop yet, grab a can and see what the hype is all about! Head to DrinkOlipop.com and use code CITIUS25 at checkout to get 25% off your orders.
ALTRA: The new Vanish Carbon 3 was built for race day. A patent-pending split-toe carbon plate delivers the rigidity you need for speed while letting the big toe engage in a more powerful way. Underneath it, a supercritical two-piece full PEBA foam — Altra’s lightest and most responsive ever. And Altra’s Racing FootShape leaves room for your toes to splay and generate power. Don’t just run. Vanish. Head to AltraRunning.com and use code CITIUS10 for 10% off your first purchase.
SUUNTO: The Suunto Run 2 is their new flagship watch built specifically for road running and the marathon. You get around 10 days of battery with daily use and 24 hours in performance mode with dual frequency GPS. The watch also tracks your sleep, HRV, and training balance, so you know when to push and when to back off in your workouts. If you're in the market for a new watch, check out the Suunto Run 2.
Get every episode summarized
Each time The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
Hosts & guests
Transcript ready
1,030 searchable segments. Every word is indexed and playable.
Full transcript
The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show — This Week In Track & Field: Jakob Ingebrigtsen Calls The Field Cowards & Starts Beef With Cole Hocker; Cam Myers & Klaudia Kazimierska Claim 1500m Titles; Audrey Werro Stays Unbeaten + More. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
This episode of The City of Smack Podcast is brought to you by Altra and the new Vanish Carbon 3. And we've got the official spokesman of the shoe here, 209 Marathoner, Frank Lara. I haven't had the experience of the first time you'd like try on a super shoe, like in your life is like, wow, this is like a game changer. Like you don't like relive that and then like put the shoe on and I was like, oh, okay, this is, this is what's possible. I was really excited about it. Here's a little more what the shoe features. A patent pending split toe carbon plate, a super critical two piece full peba midsole, the lightest most responsive foam Altra's ever made, and Altra's racing foot shape so your toes can still display and actually generate power. If you look at the shoe, I think a lot of people will think, oh, that's going to be like restricting, but like it feels really natural in a way that I like I wasn't expecting. I feel like it's not like I'm like trapped into this like specific shape, like with the like flexibility of having the like split toe, I still feel like every step I can like
really like grip the ground and push off. Independently tested at a 2.6% running economy improvement over the vanish carbon two. It's right there with the best super shoes on the market. Normally when you like test something out, you know, you don't like go all in from the beginning, but I like put it on. I was like, I'm never wearing any other shoe again. Not for training up, I mean, not for like any of my workouts, I want to wear this, I want to wear this shoe. So it was pretty immediate for me that I was like, okay, this is different. I'm really excited about this. Head to Altra running dot com slash Sidious. That's ultra a L T R A running dot com slash Sidious C I T I U S and use code Sidious 10 for 10% off your first purchase that C I T U S for 10% off your first purchase. Race day is coming. Don't just run vanish thanks to ultra for supporting the show. All right, it is September 8th.
I'm Chris Chavez. I'm pretty much. And this week in track and field, we are recapping the diamond league final that took place and had quite a bit of entertainment on the track and then also off the track. Preat was in the mix zone, capturing so much of it and adding, I think, some of the fuel to the fire that we will see in action this weekend at the world ultimate championship. We're actually recording this early morning on Tuesday morning, got back from a nice weekend away from New York City, celebrating my anniversary and then so couldn't record on Monday and I've got a fly out to Budapest tonight. So pre-t's work and right now and we had a limited window to be able to record this. So I've got my morning coffee with me and ready to talk about this Brussels diamond
league that took place. We will save a full preview of the world ultimate championships for later this week. Mack and I should be getting into Budapest on Wednesday. So I think we'll probably turn something around really quick. And then from there, we're partnering with USATF to try and gather a bunch of off track interviews with folks in a similar fashion to how we've done a world championship coverage in the past where after an athlete finishes competing and in some cases, maybe before they compete, we get them for a little bit of an extended chat on their season, the ultimate championships. So we'll be doing some of that in collaboration with USATF and then we will be going live on our YouTube channel, I'm pretty sure at the conclusion of every day of the ultimate championships. So it's Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Kyle and myself giving you our analysis of everything
that took place at the track. So smaller crew than usual for these championships, but this is the first year of the world ultimate championships. And I think a lot of people are no wait and see sort of pattern. I'm going to have to like, how this event shakes out. And so yeah, but it should be good. I guess you were just at the Diamond League final. Do you get the sense that some of the athletes are in a way like, we've talked in the past about like the title pyramid and what matters more to some athletes more than others. But like this proximity between the ultimate championships and the Diamond League final has kind of muddied a bit of what it means to be the Diamond League champion. Yeah, exactly. And you're right. There's, I think it was different for different athletes, to be honest. Some obviously there's a few events that aren't going to be at well ultimate. So for them, this is it. And then there were some others where, yeah, obviously like we are going to see largely
a rerun, maybe with a couple of different names. In Budapest, there's obviously a bunch of people that chose to skip out of Brussels. Notably, let's Jeff some wooden was actually there in Brussels. She said this a few times. She was going to be there in Brussels. She wasn't going to compete. She was just going to prepare for the double at Budapest. And then, you know, there's a bunch of other athletes that kind of made similar choices around prioritising Budapest over Brussels. So I don't think there were really many athletes that have prioritised Brussels over Budapest. Maybe Julie and Aphrodite in the 200, right? Yeah, so she's chosen to do 200 here and then the 100 in Budapest. But I think there was Anna Cockrell, for example, who was very excited to win her first Diamond League trophy, right? So I think for some athletes, it means a lot. And actually some of the events had the enhanced prize money whilst others didn't. So there was a little bit of, I think some of them had the $30,000 and some of them had the $60,000 prize money. So there wasn't advertised or publicised which ones were which anywhere, as far as I could see.
That's one thing. When you made such a big deal about this in the off season, there's nothing visually on the broadcast that tells people, hey, this is an event with higher prize money. And it's not even discussed much on the broadcast at all. I tune in and I watch the international feed off of VPN. And it never really comes up when it's Tim or Hannah England or Steve Kram. Maybe at the very top of the show, they talk about just the overall prize money on the line, if that. But for the most part, when they propped up this whole thing about athletes getting paid more, there's nothing on the broadcast that visually would communicate. That to people who tune in and miss maybe the first one minutes of the broadcast. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, we know that Budapest, there is a lot of prize money on the line, which I think is a good thing.
I don't think anyone disagrees that that's a good thing for those athletes that are able to get there. And yeah, we'll see how that kind of changes the dynamics a little bit because I think there's prize money all the way down to 16th place in Budapest. And we published a very good media roundtable that World Athletics President, Seb Co. did last week. You were in attendance and then you handed that off to our team and we put it up on our website. And so, in it, he tries to maybe distinguish the difference between the two, but you can tell that even he's struggling a bit as to just sort of like communicating to folks like, this is why this matters and this is why this matters. And I think in the bigger picture sense, we're still trying to figure it out. I think there's going to be a lot of learnings from this first ultimate championships as to what sticks, what people like, what the fans are receptive to, what the athletes are receptive to, what they'll keep. And then, you know, when this thing comes back in 2028, which he confirmed, there will be once again, in 2028, a little bit, that one, again, title pyramid wise.
In 2028, it's very clear what's going to matter to the top athletes. I don't, it'll be hard for people to go all in and have this peak at the Olympic Games, which the Olympic sets its own schedule, the IOC does. So World Athletics is not in control of that where over the last couple of years, Seb Co. has wanted the season to end in September with the World Championships and that you can't move the dates of the Olympics. So when the Olympics take place in July, that means we're going to come back from the Olympics, have some diamond league meets, have a diamond league final, then have a world ultimate championship where that is a long time for athletes to kind of sustain that high. I wouldn't be shocked if we have some athletes who don't go all the way, like for this thing to be built as the best of the best, I think in 2028, it's going to be harder to get that compared to even this year where you've looked at, you put up that tweet two weeks ago about like the people who are not competing at ultimate champs and the list has only
gone longer. No allials ended his season due to that injury that happened at the US Championships, which maybe he was a cramp at the time and wasn't super severe but did sort of create a setback in training. So him and Coach Lance Brahman have decided to end the season, then you have Tara Davis Woodall gets into a car accident, suffers a severe concussion, tries her best to make a comeback. Now she's out for the ultimate championships. So that's the challenge with any track meet is getting, you know, building these high profile matchups and then the stars lining up for the stars to show up come race days. So I guess we'll see how this first one shakes out and how the athletes carry themselves afterwards is, there's going to be someone walking around who's a world champion, someone
else could be the Olympic champion and another person could be the ultimate champion. Think about that in the men's 200 for example, right? You got no allials, reigning world champion, let's see let's go the reigning Olympic champion. I'm going to bet money that it's like Kenny Bagnaric is the heavy favorite this year in the ultimate championships. That means going into 27, we've got these three different guys with some sort of championship title to their name. So some people are already complaining that that's a lot and on top of that, you have a diamond league champion as well within that. So yeah, but I'm excited because you know, this event this weekend is billed as a best of the best for made for TV and I'm sure it's going to look a little different. The photographers have a dress code. Did you see this? Yeah, I mean, wild black. Yes. Yeah. But yeah, all right, so vibes at a wall for one thing.
I need to faux pas massive faux pas on my part last week. I was sent a press release about an exhibition which said from Evo to Mondo, which was supposed to be an exhibition about Eva random. I naturally, but somewhat foolishly assumed the two were related and which is why I assumed that Eva random was was a polevolta, which is why I incorrectly mentioned that on the podcast last week. Eva random is a middle distance runner. He famously won the silver. He's Belgian middle distance runner, whom the Brussels diamond league isn't named after, the memorial, and then over the last 50 years because he got the silver medal at the 1976 Olympics in both the 800 and the 1500 meters. And then he very sadly a few months later passed away in a car accident in a story. So eerily similar to steep refontaine, who obviously only passed away in a car accident just one year earlier than that.
And they might have been then competing at the same Olympics, like had the faiths kind of a light. But yeah, so he is Belgium's, I guess, steep refontaine if you want to kind of have a short kind of context on him. But yes, the meeting is named after him and my apologies for that massive very pile last week. Yeah, we caught some flag for it. And even myself, I was kicking myself because I was like, wait, how did I just go about writing, you know, the marathon book. And I dove so deep into history, especially like 72, 76 Olympics, 84. And I never came, like I didn't come across his name. And the problem is it's like, no, he never touched the marathon. He was always on the middle, disinsighted things. And so I wanted to over-correct as a result of maybe some of the flag we caught from that miss last week. And so I went online and I was like, all right, you know what, before the next pod, maybe
I'll read a whole book on Eva Van Dam and like now we'll come into it knowing everything. And turns out there's no book on him. Or there's one, you can't find it anywhere. And it's like this one book that came out. So it can't really find it anywhere. And then I was like, oh, maybe I'll watch a documentary or movie. The thing about steep pre-fontein, there's two movies. There's without limits, there's pre and there's multiple books written about them. I think it's time someone needs to do right by Eva Van Dam and either create a movie, documentary or a book that is out there for folks. Because yeah, I wanted to learn more. And I couldn't find too much else out there. Yeah, but I mean, I have a faith. I wanted to go to the exhibition to learn more, but my plans on that front also got a little scuffered with my own personal little mishap coming out of the mix zone on the Friday
after the first night of the meet. And I fell flat on my face. I still got a very banged up knee from it, but I also completely destroyed my phone. So I had to spend the whole of Saturday trying to get my phone fixed so that I could then bring you some interviews on Saturday evening. But there was a little bit of drama on my end. Belgium, sorry, Brussels had gone all out for this meet because it was the 50th anniversary. Obviously in 1977 was the first edition and they sort of had some spectacular shows before and after the meet. And so they made this big, which obviously again, me gives the sort of ultimate championships a bit more to live up to as well. And obviously they will have a much bigger budget and they are doing a lot more, but still this was quite fun. This is quite impressive. They they inducted the likes of Carl Lewis and Mike, Mike Boy into the Hall of Fame. Mike Boy famously came, got the bronze medal behind Dave Wattel in the 90s to Olympics
at 800 meters. So yeah, there was, they did quite quite an effort to kind of do some kind of special moments there in, in Brussels. Alright, so we have two days of action to unpack. So let's get into it. Day one, one of the highlights was the men's 1500 and it kind of does seep into day two a little bit. But let's actually talk about the race because it I think it's kind of gotten forgotten a little bit based off of the aftermath involving Jacobean Britson, Cole Hocker, who for sure were probably viewed as favorites going into this one, but actually it ends up being 20 year old Cam Myers winning in 330 over Vanwell, Coach, Cam Myers with a 12.8 last 100 meters. He was boxed in behind Jacob and Coach with about 100 meters to go, but managed to find
a little bit of an opening and drifted when Coach drifted into lane two and it was Cam Myers who took it and became the first Australian to ever win a Diamond League distance title. Really good showing for him against a very, very strong field. And I think the thing that stands out is that he won this thing on a kick, right? And like when we think back to just sort of mean the dude's been racing since January, and many of those races, he's just kind of locked in behind the pacer and then really been the strongest of the field. And this time around, he kind of had to wait, wait, wait, and then go in the final hundred. So that's, it's a little bit different from some of the wins that we've seen. And now, you know, you do because of everything that happens afterwards in the mix on all that kind of stuff. He does go into the ultimate championships a little bit kind of overshadowed.
There's going to be the attention on the obvious Olympic medalist Josh Kerr entering back into the picture. We'll touch on him in just a second, but you got to, I think at the end of the day, remember that Cam's someone who's run 144, 328 and picked up three Diamond League victories this season. So he'll certainly be someone to watch in Budapest. Yeah, I mean, Cam was brilliant. And I think, yeah, it is easy to forget. This was a phenomenal race. Like, I think this was, you know, I went back and watched it and then I was like, oh my god, that was amazing. And I watched it again and other two or three times because it was just, it was so, I think it was kind of the race we've been waiting for. And we've had some decent races on the circuit this year, but obviously it hasn't had kind of a really good concentration of everyone there. Before we had Josh Kerr's Myall World Record attempt, which was, you know, successful World Record attempt, that was very amazing, but it wasn't really a race. It was just a time trial and Josh got it done.
Whilst this was an amazing race in so many ways, like, you know, the first 100, they go off the line. No one's willing to sit behind the pace. Eventually, Inge Britson goes, goes in and sits in behind the paces. And the paces start slowing down and it's all becomes a bit of a mess and then Coech comes up and then, you know, and you get to that last 2, 300 everyone's still there. And it's, you know, and it's 330 pace. It was meant to be 327 pace, which I discovered afterwards even the pace I didn't know that it was 327 pace. He was just running his splits and he didn't even realize it was 327 pace, which is really interesting, like, dynamics of how the kind of the pacing assignments kind of get worked out because obviously that comes into some of the controversy that that followed. But real quick on the pace job, the one who did a good job was Christian Jackson who trains with Cole Hawker out in Blacksburg, Virginia. The one who struggled was the Kenyan dude who was second, right?
What's his name? Bowe as Kippurugat. Yeah. Bowe as Kippurugat. And dude, I mean, was struggling to even make it 800 meters or so. Like he was getting into Yaka Bingham Britsons way. So Kudos to Christian Jackson for being the one to be on it. Other dude really faltered. I did see Henry Bingham Britson posting on his Instagram story, like when you lie on your resume and it's just the moment of, you know, a kind of a screen grab of the moment of the race where you can see the strain on Kippurugat's face. And yeah, I mean, like he, I mean, even getting off the track was a little bit of a mess. But that Christian Jackson good job. Now the thing was no one initially went with it to just really quickly before we get into just all of the controversy as we kind of do go through the results. So Ken Myers gets the victory. We've given him his flowers. Samuel Couch secures his spot for the world ultimate championships by finishing second.
I mean, we went into just sort of that meat thinking he's of the three guys who had a chance at the ultimate championships. Him, Vinciati, JK word, Fennel Couch was a bit of the favorite given his, you know, last couple diamond league showings and the fact that he's a 327 guy. So Couch, I think it is now, I think maybe this, some people learned this last year, but he's definitely getting the reputation of being a super physical racer. Cole Hawker noted it in his YouTube video coming off of the Zurich diamond league. I think if you go back and watch that, like there's a clip where he's telling, you know, Ray Flynn, his agent and his management team, like, yeah, I mean, like Couch is just all over the place. And Yarrid in Zurich was the one who kind of got the brunt of that. And then once again, in Brussels, Yarrid gets, you know, basically gets shoved by Couch,
but not in the way that like I think Warren did a DQ. It just sort of definitely looked like, you know, he was protecting his belt belt. And it's racing. Yeah. I think Courage has kind of quite big arms when he's moving and when the goose tried to go past him, like, yeah, I think it was just a little bit of, yeah, the elbow came back and hit Yarrid. And that was kind of it for Yarrid. He got knocked back a few paces. And I think that was, but I think that all kind of formed part of that in that last 2, 300 of this race. There was so much going on. So the fan you went up on on Jacob shoulder, then the goose made his move and he got shoved back and then, and then Cole start to make his move. And then Ethan Strand followed Cole Hocker and it was all of them just coming and then Camaya sneaks through on the inside and takes the win. And then Jacob dives over the line and I thought he'd been tripped. Yeah.
I thought he'd been tripped. So it's even more entertaining when he came to the mix, so and I was like, are you all right? You know, I just want to make sure you're all right. You have that pool at the end that he was like, oh, no, no, no, it was an amazing dive. I'm very proud of it. And so that was quite fun. And yeah, it was, yeah, it was a brilliant race all around just because everything you could kind of want to happen happened. All the top guys were in the mix at one point or another. And yeah, it was, it was just a fabulous race and it was a 330 race. So it was, it was pretty quick as well. So I think, yeah, all around just incredible race. Strand finishing third, 330.5 had the fastest close of anyone. Obviously, you know, when you take into account, just how conservative the first half of the race was, but impressive against the field that he was against fastest final 800, fast final four 25, eight for the final 200.
He was in 11th place with 200 meters to go. And like you said, he followed Cole. The difference there was that strand had that final gear in the final 100 meters. Cole did not. I think Cole had the seventh fastest final 100 of the field. So he didn't have that signature sort of like last bit of pop. But for the, you know, for Ethan Strand, the biggest thing is is that he loves to preserve his energy, you know, at the, in the front half of the race. And sometimes that leaves him a little bit too far back and with too much work to do. And so I think what he told you in the mix zone has been just sort of that what he needs to kind of really get down is just being aggressive early. And what we, it's so different when you watch him in all of these diamondly graces in Zurich when he's 14th at the bell, he finishes in like 10th place when he's in in in Celestia when he's third at the bell, he ends up winning the whole thing. So if Strand is a bit closer with a lap to go, there's certainly, you know, the chance
that he could, you know, be someone to stun the field. And so on this day, it definitely was Cam Myers who got, who ended up being in the best position. And so with Strand, that's something to watch. It's just sort of like how far back is he with 400 meters to go? And so look out because like, I mean, he's learned this enough time throughout the season. And he's, you know, entered at the ultimate championship for, yeah, go ahead. Well, I think the one thing that I take away from this race though is if Josh Carr is anywhere close to the shape he was in a month ago, I don't think he's got anything to worry about. I mean, I don't want to go as crazy as to say he could win by 100 meters. No, he's not going to win by that much, but I think the point is that we've seen like these diamond leagues, like we've seen repeatedly, these guys are running 331, 332, 330, and they're all battling it out, right? And we haven't seen anyone who is a level above who can be on a level with Carr, right?
I just like, I might as maybe, maybe, but I think we've seen, we've seen them battle each other at Commonwealth Games and it wasn't really a contest. And maybe Cam's been working on that in the last few weeks, but I just don't see anyone who's been on a level. We've seen Cole won a race and then he lost a race and then, you know, Ingebritzen's kind of second third fourth fifth in these races. And it goose is again second third fourth fifth in these races. Stranders 1, 1 and an up 10th in 1 and an up third in 1. Like, you know, they're all over the place. There's no one who's kind of got that dominance, which makes me feel like, okay, this guy is going to be Josh Carr. And I think that's where I think it, you know, obviously we're not doing a full ultimate preview now, but given I probably won't be there for that, that's my kind of two cents on, I'm not sure that Josh Carr's got much worry about. I mean, yeah, and then Josh kind of, I think, gives the Diamond League folks a day or two to have their moment.
And then he does go on Instagram, he posts himself running a 400. And what was it, 48 41 is what he ran? Yeah, he looked at you running 48 point. Yeah. I guess there's not what I love about Josh poses. Some of that is there isn't the context around it where we don't know exactly whether was that to close a session or like a standalone effort. And so regardless, it's still 48 second, 400 meter speed. You combine that with the fitness that he had previously that produced a 342 mile. And back a couple months back, ran 144 earlier this year. There isn't necessarily like, especially when we saw the two different types of races, London fitness test, right? Kitt Kuddy pass, just sort of the World Record benchmark. And then, Calm Games was the more tactical affair. And they couldn't, they couldn't get the kick out of him.
And so that was a sit and kick race. And he's just got the best fitness in the field by a margin. And if it hasn't dropped off, and I think that's what this real was supposed to do is like kind of to subdue any of the questions as to whether or not he still has it. But yeah, I mean, there just isn't a clear cut way of how to beat Josh Kerr right now. And then you factor in, I mean, we're really getting, I think, a little bit more preview like the fact that Cole and Yaka are going to have a 5K on their legs. By the time that they face Josh. So that, you know, maybe hinders them a little bit. Although we are seeing reports out of Norway that, or a couple days ago, that Yaka Bingo Britson is considering not running the 1500. And instead would just go on the 5K.
But then when the entries did just come out less than 24 hours ago, he's entered in both. So I guess we'll have to wait and see if he scratches from one. But anyway, it's, yeah, I think going into it and seeing what we've seen now, I think Josh is certainly still the favorite. We were thinking the finishes would converge at the right time. And I would still put him, I think, a tad over the likes of Cole Hawker, I mean, Ken Myers he beat Handley in Glasgow. So yeah, I mean, it'll be entertaining nonetheless. Well, well, well, about time for a refreshing twist. The City's Mag Podcast is brought to you by Oli Pop. And for your entertainment, I'll be doing some Oli Pop ASMR. Hello again, it's me, Gabby Henteman.
Back to remind you how mouthwatering a crisp, cool, gut-friendly soda sounds right about now. Now that you're several miles into your run, praying for shade and keeping your eyes peeled for an unguarded sprinkler, let me take you along for a tantalizing ad read. Fiber is hard to get these days. With the great outbreak of cyclospora, greens are absolutely not an option. But without salad, how on earth are you supposed to get enough fiber? Well, I know something that is delicious, full of prebiotics and fiber, and just so happens to be green. Wow, here that. That's the sound of a perfectly chilled can of citrus rush, being cracked open. This rush, previously known as Ridge Rush, is a caffeinated prebiotic soda featuring an exhilarating fusion of apple, lemon, lime, and orange juices.
It's the same flavor you love with a brand new name. And no cyclospora. Phew, the last thing us runners need are more bathroom scares. For 25% off your next order, use City's 25 at checkout. Get the fiber, avoid the fear. Happy running. Alright, let's get into the controversy that followed this one. So, Yahka finishes fourth in 3.5. And then, he's going through and doing interviews. He reaches you in the mix zone and will include the interview in the audio version of this podcast so that you have the full context. It's not that long. Yeah, there is more context because before this interview even started, right, I was the last one that he didn't interview with. And it was his wife, Elizabeth, and his brother, Philip, and Yahka having a heated conversation in Norwegian. So, I have no idea what they said.
But I think they were trying to get him out of the mix zone. And I don't know whether that was because they'd heard the kind of things he was saying, and they were kind of maybe saying maybe it's a good idea he doesn't do any more interviews, or whether it was you need to go and call down and whatever rest up ahead of being a pest. But either way, they were trying to get him out of the mix zone. He kind of, because I'm interviewing a few times of the last couple of weeks, he kind of, I guess, knows who I am now and really wanted to stop for me. So, he very kindly did stop for me for that interview, which you'll now hear. Alright, Yahka, first of all, obviously a slight fall over the finish line. No, no, no, thanks from that. Well, Philip, we said, we said, we said, we said, we said, we said, we said, we said, we said, we said, we said, we said, we said we said, we said seven times. So, you said one more time, we said, we didn't know. Yes mate, weeks and months and months. Yes, right. extreme disappointed. But time wise it's a season's best. It's feeling also a
little bit smarter, a little bit more responsive than I felt in in the surreque. So definitely improving a little bit. Very disappointed with the race and the result. Racing against a bunch of cowards. But that is what it is. But of course everyone is racing to win. However there's a little bit of honor in terms of how we win. So it's only a camera that's a good race. Everyone else looks like losers. Me included. Well, obviously you went to the front which is kind of a little bit different. You did it in your first race out but then you didn't do it last time. So this one, obviously you took the pace a little bit earlier behind the pacemaker. And so how was that kind of... If you were usual tact it though I used to seeing in years gone by. So that must have been felt like a comfortable place to be. Comfortable and comfortable. It's trying to run fast and we're trying to win. But cold he got the pacemaker swapped out for his own teammate. So from now on he's in no
position to make any changes or decisions in a fifth-not-a-meter. Because he fooled us in terms of following the pace. So maybe he was sick or injured or didn't have a good day at all. But I didn't believe I was going to be in that position from the gun. However everyone was very hesitant and maybe they were trying to do something very cool. But yeah. All right. I really have to go. All right, well, well, thank you guys. Thanks a lot. Thank you. But to be honest, if you watch his Norwegian interviews, they were even more fiery than what we call him in English. So I think he's calmed down a tiny bit by the time he got to me. But I think... And then obviously it was actually hilarious because then Elizabeth came and dragged him away after about two minutes. And then he gave me a thumbs up. Because he was walking away and being dragged away the bull guy halfway through a sentence.
But so what he said is across several interviews, including yours, he called the field aside from Cam losers, including himself. He was very critical of Cole Hocker and his management team. And the specific thing that he's charged up against is the fact that he claims that Cole Hocker's team told the other athletes and the organizers that they were targeting a very specific pace, which from the pacing assignments was 327. And that they were bringing their own pace maker to set it, aka Christian Jackson. And then something totally different unfolds in the race where no one goes with the pace. And so then Jakob takes it upon himself to keep the race honest and latch on. And the thing is, is that you got to get into just sort of what Jakob's beliefs are,
I would say, is that he is firmly one of these people that if you promise the crowd a fast race, you have a responsibility to follow through with it. And he was less charged up about losing and more about just sort of like that. You didn't honor these commitments to the organizers, the crowd, your fellow competitors. And so I don't know, like I watched the race back. If like Cole just didn't get off the line at like that hard, if you maybe would have, you maybe would have waited a second or two before Jakob takes it upon himself to follow the pace. There's a chance Cole ends up making a move to get back up there. And then at the same time, like go back and watch Zurich and go watch Celessia. And look and see who's the person
directly behind the pace. So I can see the frustration here. We don't know necessarily what happens during a warm-up, right? Like you feel a twinge. You don't get as much of a warm-up as you want. So you fully scale back on your plans to run as aggressively as planned. So things can change. But I guess Jakob just felt that like if you're doing all these extra things, you should take it upon yourself. And I don't know, that's always been Jakob's thinking of like the honorable way to run the race is to run it from the front. And there's other, I think that there's just other ways of, I mean, we've gotten to this point of the season where it's not necessarily about just running the fast times. Like this is the diamond league final. It's about winning. Cole, I mean obviously a bit of a messy race again at the end there. So how was it for you? Obviously you were in the park. Jakob kind of went in behind the pace there, but how did it go for you? Oh, it was a bad race. Overall, tactically. Yeah, I'm better than that, but it was quite physical, but
it's kind of a championship race, even though there's a pace. So you got to expect it. And then just, I don't know, I think I've protected my position well, but yeah, the finish just came up. I knew the finish was coming up, but just been a time at the best. And wasted a little bit of too much energy just fighting people. Yeah, and it is tricky. Like all these diamond league races, they haven't been what we kind of used to have maybe last year, before where obviously you're going after a 328 or 327 pace, and therefore it kind of strings out. And like all of these, you know, when they're going out at 3331 pace, it's not everyone's with it. And obviously that is a championship race. It's something you are really good at, but it's tricky because it doesn't work every time. How do you kind of approach that and think about that? Because obviously, I know a lot of people have different thoughts on your tactics and stuff, but what are your thoughts on how you approach that best for yourself? Yeah, like I said, I think I just wasted one too many moves. Kind of defensively,
I should have maybe been on the offense a little bit more, but kind of right when I started to make a move every time it seemed like someone had the same idea. So again, I mean, fully, fully on me despite it being physical, but yeah, kind of a bummer to come off of Zerak. Here I know I could have won, but that's kind of the nature of it right now. You see it right now in the 1500. It's super hard to get a major win. Like I've got one of these races, but the Hard Record is doing it again and backing it up and it seems like every week there's a different person winning. So yeah, obviously I wanted to do it again, but yeah, just, it's tough. Well, it's fun for the rest of us and we look forward to seeing what happens next week. I mean, obviously it's a double for you next week. So obviously you haven't run many 5Ks recently. So how do you sort of prep for that given obviously you're running a bunch of 15s just now? Yeah, no, the fit, the fitness is there. The 15s are way more fun for me. So I would have probably done some more
5Ks leading up, but I didn't have a little injury early on in the year, but regardless, strong together, three really solid races got a diamond nickname win. And then, yeah, not again, not not what I wanted today, but I'm excited for boot of pass and I think I'm in a great spot. That's kind of that is the championship for this year. So I'm ready to go. All right, well, we look forward to seeing it. All right. See you next week there. Yeah, and it is interesting, right? Because Cole actually, when we spoke to him earlier in the year, he was like, I want to come on the diamond league. I want to, this is the year where I could go for some fast times. And obviously, as things are panned out, I guess, with that little kind of interruption in whenever it was May, June time, he's kind of dialed that back a little bit. But that was his plan originally to kind of try it. Because obviously, he's historically, he's never won a diamond league. And historically, he's never, he's never performed that well at a lot of diamond leagues. And then he's come and perform well at championships. And that we know
is his superpower. But it was interesting to kind of see that, you know, even now, you know, a week before Budapest, that last 100 was, you know, he went, you know, to 150, 200 to go. And the last 100 kind of, the last 50 wasn't there on this day, right? And obviously it was there a few days ago in, in Zurich. So, you know, that, that is kind of, who knows, right? Like, we don't, we don't know what we're going to get. Especially with a 5K in his legs. But, yeah, the controversy was, was fascinating. Because as I say, I spoke to Christian Jackson, who was the PASER, he said, he went 152 pace. That's what he'd been told. He didn't even realize this was 327 pace. Like, so maybe it was the agreed pace was whatever it was, 152 through 800, which is what Christian Jackson was wanting to do. What the lights were set at? Who knows whose decision that was?
So, and that's maybe a separate question, because that was kind of Josh Kerr's world lead from his split time and his moral race. That's what they said it to. Yeah, plus also like, I don't know, you got to take into account just sort of, I haven't looked at Christian Jackson's World Athletics page yet. But I do remember seeing him in videos working out with Cole Hawker. Dude, it's been in Europe for a little bit. And I'm sure when the Olympic champion presents to meet organizers, like, hey, we have this PASER who's available and he's super close to them. I'm sure that they're intrigued by the idea of having him involved in the race somehow. Like, especially when you're bringing, when you're the Olympic champion, I think that that is where your word gets a little bit of value. And so I don't necessarily believe that any of this was like this premeditated, malicious attempt by Cole Hawker to fool the whole field and try and make this thing into a super slow race. Now, things did escalate and then diffuse for a bit and then escalated again. So
a day later, Jakob comes out with an Instagram post where he does apologize for calling the field a bunch of cowards. And he, it was a partial apology because then he still stands by his criticism of Cole Hawker and his team. And he does note that him and Cole talked it out after the race and he considered it settled. And this is now starting to seep into the Norwegian media. Dagbladit is the outlet that's been kind of all on top of this. And according to their report, Cole's agent issued a statement because I'm sure they were asking around like, what did you think of like all of this? And you know, the agent didn't hold back and he did say, you know, that Jakob was a whiny runner who blames others and it's embarrassing to see a great champion
complain as much as he does when he doesn't win. And it's disrespectful to competitors who now are regularly beating him at 1500. And Jakob didn't love that because he now, he, he thinks like, well, I thought we just settled this whole thing. Now there's an agent involved escalating this whole thing. And I think what Jakob said in his counter statement was that if you're not allowed to show passion after a race, you should find a sport that doesn't want an audience. So I listen, I don't think that this was Jakob furious. I think he was definitely just peved and annoyed because I think that that there's so much context like people consume the clips at times, but we posted like the full two minute video of what we got in the mix out. And in it, you can see that he does call his own run terrible and extremely disappointing. So he did lump himself among the
losers. And I think sometimes the online outrage can be just built upon some of the loose quotes that are stripped of some of the context. And he does have that Scandinavian directness, which you know, maybe maybe we're not that used to. And so people react to that and take it a bit more seriously than than perhaps is meant. But he's also someone who does like to stare the part a little bit. And that's part of why people love him and hate him. But I think that it's good for the sport in that there is some personality, there is some energy there and there is some passion there that's coming out that he loves the sport so much. He wants to race. He's racing everything. He's come out from injury. He has erased everything he could possibly race. And he's going to go to be the pest. He's supposed to be doubling. I think he will double. I don't think, especially given the comments that he himself made unless he gets injured running that 5K. He's kind of sad if
I'm going to race everywhere. And if he then doesn't race the race against Josh Kerr, which he's specifically called out Josh Kerr about not running Europeans, then I think he's, I don't think he's, he would say himself up for that. For the criticism we get for that. I think he will run it unless he gets injured running that 5K or something. You know, the funniest thing is the person sitting back watching all this controversy with a very funny perspective is probably Mac Fleet who's like sinned back thinking is like, well, so I mean, easy solve for all this. It would have been no pacemakers in the Diamond League final. In which to, you know, the old heads, it's still kind of little mind boggling. So if we make it through this whole entire season with, you know, fast setup races and then you get to this and it's still sort of the same setup. Ultimate championships at the moment, no, no way, no wayblight, no pacemakers as far as we know, it would be really silly
for that to be spurred upon folks like on site. But to my knowledge, that's not the thing, it's championship style racing. We will get a stupid graphic going if we end up seeing wave lights on the track. But yeah, this is far from over. Now here, here's something I wanted to kind of bring up and pre maybe this is for the next time you talk to Yaka. Why does he only apply this logic to the 1500 right because like I need to ask him this question that yeah, because it the way he runs the 5k is not necessary is more weight and and he's not. Well, here's the problem. Yaka doesn't run paste 5k's in the last couple of years. He's only shown up at championships. The last time he raced the fast paste 5k was when like Oslo a couple of
years ago. No, it was like 40 years ago something. Yeah, so that's his that's his copy. And as the fact is like, well, no, I don't I don't run those races. But I yeah, when why does his criticism of the way call runs this only apply to the 1500 because he's a sit and kick guy in the in the 5k. Yeah, and maybe he will say like in the in the 15 like he also like at European level, he sits kicks right he doesn't take the front and in the 15 at the European world championships. But he obviously he does in at at worlds, but we have done the world world championship level, but another big level, but he hasn't done it in. Yeah, his counter is going to be he's not the person who's asked about the pace in the 5k. Well, he's thinking about it like in those races that he's run, like what it was like Yomif Kajalcha, Hey, go Skaber wet, like those are the guys going after
the, you know, Joshua Chepda guy. I mean, it's been that long. Those guys were still on the track when the last time Yaka brand of fast 5k that in those races, he's probably not the guy dictating the pace at the front of the race. So it's very it's different, but you got to zoom out and realize, you know, no, wait, Yaka is a sit and kick guy in the 5k. So so he's not running in the honorable way that he that he claims. Yeah, he ran the last pace. What I assume was a pace 5k that I can see on his resume is in 2022 at a meet, cunningly entitled track meet at the San Juan Capastrano high school in May of 2013. That was 13 it was around 1302 there. But to get the Olympic standard. Ernie, the World Championship standard. That's something like that. Yeah. And then,
otherwise, you think you have to go back to 2021 where he then, yeah, he then he then ran his personal best in where was it in Rome at the Rome Donnel League in June, 2021. Run 1248. Listen, we, I mean, we've spent, you know, almost 30 minutes on just the men's 1500. It is like, you know, we'll get to the women's 800 and a bit, but like these are the marquee, you know, middle distance events of the year. So I'm sure we'll talk more and more about him, you know, all throughout the rest of this week. All right, touching on some more performances, especially from day one, and then we'll go into day two. Concap and a Chippy 4340, Diamond League record, third time that he's broken the Diamond League record in the 400 this year, six Diamond League, six victories, five sub 44s. That's the most ever in a single season. So, you know, you ran 43,
five nine, Celesia 43, five four Paris 43, 44 Monaco 43, 40 and Brussels. And now he's tied for number five all time with Quincy Hall. It's kind of funny because I went on with the databases to look at just sort of, and it just so weird that he's not the world leader because same in Lagazee went 43 38 at the NCAA championships. And there's we're not going to get Kevin and Shippy versus O'Gazzy as much as we wanted. And because O'Gazzy's skipping the world ultimate championships, Kevin and Shippy, compete at Commonwealth Games. So yeah, but I mean, if the dude goes at just a tad fast, I mean, the world record is potentially, you know, in danger in Budapest. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't actually, I don't, I had been saying that the world record was potentially in danger. I'm not sure because he's sat at this 4340 level consistently. Like,
he's been doing that consistently. And maybe that means there's a big drop if he really goes for it and Budapest, or maybe that that's all he's got. I don't know. This is the thing is, he's, he's doing sitting kick in the in the four. So it feels like there's more there if he or maybe you should try a slightly different race model. And maybe that gives him the extra four tenths of a second you need. So the problem is there's $150,000 on the line. You don't want to try something in a backfires. And then it works to my favor because I picked right Benjamin to win this race. But I think, you know, this was this was great again from Kabil and Shippy again, sort of slightly lowering his his personal sort of this time his timely record. And I think this was also an amazing race around Dream Richards, Jocorri Paterson, Chris Bailey. I think it's the first time we've had four guys sub 44 in a race. Second time, Paris Olympic final. Yeah, I can't find that on the list. Who came fourth in Paris?
Doesn't it? Was it really games? Yeah, Karani James. Yeah, for some bizarre reason, he is not on the old time list, which is very unhelpful from while I think because the first person I can see with the fourth place finish next to the name is Chris Bailey. But yes, yeah, I thought it was the second time, but then yeah, here we are. But yeah, still, 43 97 for fourth, just an incredible all time race all round. And Dream Richards, the way he ran that race was incredible. And I think he's the one I really want to give a shout. So he's 32. Yeah, and he keeps on delivering. And he seems to, you know, he's also someone who I think, you know, indoors as well. He was like, oh, I'm not sure whether I should be here. And, you know, he was kind of a little bit uncertain about coming to world indoors and he delivered a medal there. And yeah, he's just been consistent and really good these last couple of years. And yeah, really want to give him,
give him his flowers as well for running 43 68, which is, which is a really good time. And you're going to pass it and also improves his personal best slightly. So that's really good to see a couple of Americans kind of coming, coming through on that front. Right, everyone's peaking or getting ready to really peak at the ultimate championships. So men's 400 should be one of the most watch ones. Well, you know, release our full schedule, how to watch all that kind of stuff. Probably later today. I've got time on the airplane. So make that graphic. All right, next up, Emmanuel and Yoni, 141 80, Fort Street, dimely title, ninth career, sub 142. I mean, he's turned it around at the right time. And now he's the favorite come these ultimate championships. I still wish Cooper didn't cut his season short because I'd love to see where he'd be in relation to when Yoni at this point because
when Yoni was over three in his first three diamond leagues. And then, I guess you can put the line of demarcation is him becoming a dad because then after that, what he also he lost to Cooper right after becoming a dad. Yeah. And then, but then from there did turn things around. That was the wake up call he needed losing to a teenager. He goes off when breaks the 1k world record and then has been just untouchable since. This event, maybe at the beginning of the season, we thought, oh, okay, like it's a little bit tighter with him, Marco and Cooper. I think when Yoni is taken a step forward compared to the rest of the field going into Budapest. Yeah, it does feel like that. I mean, I think the question might be, you know, Sir Jati is rapidly getting closer and his kick is still there. So he is still a danger, I think.
And Marco, I don't know because he kind of keeps saying he is in really, really good shape. But I think we've seen this in the past with Marco where I think last season he didn't look that great going into worlds and then he delivered at worlds. So I'm not going to write him off Budapest as well. He won his world title. So it holds some good memories for him as well. So yeah, I think it's going to be a really good match up between those three really. Janis Mesia and obviously very impressive in this one with a 142.87 PB coming three for third ahead of a rope. And yeah, I think in Budapest we get to see, I mean, the only other person that we will get to see is Max Berg in the obviously beat one year on the early season. So hopefully he is back in shape after a couple of interruptions to his season to make that one more interesting. Want to cruise through some of these before we get into day two women's steeple Fitzgerald H851 for a third consecutive
Diamond League title. She got the lead over the final water jump and then separated herself. Five women broke nine minutes. Now the the one to watch really in this, which of course like now that was it. There's no steeple chase at the ultimate championships is going into 2027 pay a little bit more attention to Doris Lemongull in the steeple on the global stage because you know, she just ran a 52. That's her third PB in four races. She's moved to number six on the all-time list. And yeah, I mean, I think she's getting better and she's now inserting herself ahead of where, you know, she's there's faith, her outage and now Doris Lemongull is beating the likes of Peroth Chamoo Thai and Winford Yabi that going into 2027, he got to be like, oh, all right, now is
this suddenly a party of four instead of just the big three that we've been accustomed to. Yeah, absolutely. And again, Marla Pizioni with another sub nine, I think is also impressive how consistency's been credible. And Lexi, how long are you? I'm like, yeah, 905 moves up to number four on the US all-time list, getting closer and closer to you know, that nine minute barrier. And I believe we'll probably see that come 2027. What it's going to take to make the US team next year, I mean, the 24 trials were, yeah, the 24 trials were one of the all-time best races in the women's steeple. And I hope that we get closer to something like that in 2027. So that's the women's steeple end of the year for that event. 110 hurdles to Kobe Tharp, 1303, US123 with Jamal Bridge,
he's cutting him, Gordel Tinch, he did hit one of the hurdles, went down hard. What did you, I mean, you saw him limping off the track. Was he all right afterwards? Yeah, well, I think he's posted on his Instagram afterwards saying no injury, he's fine. And so he's good for the depast. But he hasn't quite hit the heights this year that he was at last year in general. But I think, you know, Kobe Tharp, he keeps on putting down, and 1303, like Grant Holloway used to win Diamond Leagues regularly in 1303. But this, because we've been a bit spoiled a season with Jamal Bridge and Jacobi Tharp just running 12, 9, 12, 8 for fun, that we, you know, 30, you know, three were like, oh, whatever, we don't care anymore. So I think, you know, that just, you know, it's just worth mentioning what a high standard these guys have sat this year. And so yeah, good to see one last face off. Well, last minutes. Obliques Avile took them hands, 190.
I was so looking forward to Obliques Avile versus No Allials. And now we're not going to get that. So I think Obliques goes into Ultimates as the favorite. He's had some good showdowns with Kinsle Ajayi, but I mean, Seville finds a way to win each time around. Now just like winning in 990 is like not as sexy as like the 979 that we saw from No Allials earlier in the season. I honestly think that like, Noah could have been on track to run 975 in Budapest had, he not had an interrupted, you know, build up. He was looking really, really good. It's just sort of the schedule over the course of what is it through two days of USA's, three days of USA's of him competing and ended up being a little bit too much. So takes the spice out of the 100 in at the Ultimates. Women's 200, Julian Alfred, 2179 that's was expected. Sets up now. She's diverting all of her
attention to the 100 against Melissa Jefferson Wooden, women's 400 hurdles and a cockrole. You mentioned before, 5301, first time in league title. She was super pumped about that. She holds off Emma's epitome Lovah and we go to the 5K now for any Highloo 1435 for the win 5960 on the final lap. I would think right. She'd be the favorite going into well, we'll have the WCA who is also running really well this season. So she's and she wasn't in the dining, she chose to skip this. So it'll be interesting to see if she comes back and she could be like a big threat here. But yeah, it's the WCA Amabor Highloo, I think other three big names. I think Ray's Davies and the right race she's shown that she can and I think the world odds must will not be as quick as it was here which I think then gives her, unless the Ethiopian has really gone for it, I think that puts her in
with with a shout of actually doing something. Well yeah, I know if you're the Ethiopians you want to make this a 1420 something race. And Highloo definitely won't. And I think the thing is Amabor Burekai Highloo, they're all kickers, they're all good kickers and they've shown that over the course this time in the league season and they haven't necessarily gone out and tried to run 1410, 1405. They've been running 1420 to 1435 and winning these races and you know that that's a very different proposition than in terms of what they might do in championship races while I think. Well good luck to them because this might be the biggest pate that they ever race for with the biggest odds of winning. Even if they move up to the marathon someday like this is probably for so many like you're you have to take advantage of the fact that Facebook being on is injured, Beatrice Chibbat is coming off of maternity leave, not about a cluddy is choosing to race at home in Italy. So if you're for any Highloo like this is your best chance at ever winning this much money
in one race. So good luck. And in the field events you had Chase Jackson throw 2114, time in the record American record improving upon the 2102 that she set you know the previous week in Berlin, Mondo Duplantis scratched from the pole vault after feeling tightness in his warm-up. So Emanuel Kralis won in 6.1-1-2. Now they got us kind of thinking is there the world ultimate curse because if you think about everyone involved in some part of the entertainment side of ultimate championship. So you got Mondo hobbling into ultimates who made the song. Noah is still going to Budapest to throw the after party. Tara Davis Woodhall was I think what in charge of like content creators or something like that. And now she you know has called it a season from competing. I presume she'll still be in Budapest to fulfill her other duties. But yeah we'll see
what shape Mondo is in because he clarified in the mix into this has been a lingering injury since London right. Yeah because obviously yeah he's obviously had a couple of meets where he hasn't you know performed as well and he's had to pull out as well. So I think yeah this feels like a lingering injury. You know and we haven't seen the best of Mondo this year right we know how good Mondo is right and obviously Kralis has been improving but I don't think it's the pressure from Kralis that's resulting in Mondo not being necessarily able to jump as high. He's he's he's clearly not. Yeah he's clearly a little bit struggling with something and and maybe that kind of came to head there in Brussels and he wasn't going to take any risks. I mean obviously he will undoubtedly be in Budapest whether he'll compete or not but I think like Noah Liles I'm sure he's a big part of the production there so I'm sure he'll be there. The episode of the City of Smack Podcast is sponsored by Suntow and I'm very excited to welcome them on as a podcast partner. Let's
talk about the Suntow run two. This is Suntow's new flagship built specifically for road running and the marathon. Last week in Brooklyn we hosted a dozen US Olympic marathon trials qualifiers and hopefuls for their first hands-on look at it and then they took it for a run along the Brooklyn waterfront. A few days before that I watched Emma Grace Hurley crush a workout with it in Indiana as she gets ready for the Chicago marathon. Clayton Young is the face of this new campaign so they're supporting American distance running and they're looking to make more waves in the US market. Here's what stood out to me I've been wearing it for about two weeks now. The new display is three times brighter than the original version of the run so you can actually read your splits in the beating sun without having to shade your hand or move it too close to your face. You don't lose your form. The body of the watch weighs 35 grams with a stainless steel bezel so basically feels like it's not on your wrist. You get around 10 days of battery and daily use and 24 hours in
performance mode with dual frequency GPS which means clean, accurate tracking underneath trees beneath overpasses between tall buildings. If you're someone who's had your watch lose GPS in Manhattan or Chicago you know that this really matters. A new feature is energy sense. It's a single screen that calculates the pace that you can sustain. How much endurance you have left and how far you can still go at your current effort. I've been playing around with that a little bit. You adjust before you blow up not after. The watch also tracks your sleep, HRV training balance so you know when to push and when to back off in your workouts. So if you're in the market looking for a new watch recommend checking out the Suntor Run 2. It's got offline maps and music on the 64 gig model so you don't need your phone when you're running. It comes in a variety of different colors. They've got all green, all black, feather gold. The fun part about Suntor is that you can also swap out the watch bands and they've got a bunch of others on their shop so it doesn't matter the maker model,
the watch bands. If you want a white one, a black one, a red one, green one, it works across their different array of watches. So I've worn the Race 2, the Vertical 2 and now I've been running in the Run 2. So it starts at $349. You can check it all out at us.suntor.com. If you smash the link in the show notes, Sidious Mag gets a little bit of a kickback from every purchase. So give the Suntor Run 2 a try with you every mile adventure starts here. All right day two we add Audrey Barras perfect season survives by 600 of a second. She wins in 154.75 to Femke Broder's Bulls 154.81. So still undefeated. Audrey went out in 259 for the first 200. She was tying up in that final stretch.
Only ran 298 which is, you know, yeah slower than we've seen her close out these races and so but at the same time it did also take its toll on Femke. But this is now back to back weeks of them running Sub 155 and for Femke of course like a lot of people are getting on board with the Femke LA 2028 train because now she's run two Sub 155s after like again like this season has just been incredible to for a first go around at the event. So now we're getting Audrey Guero Femke Bull which we've seen time time out delivers each time and arrested Kiley Hodgkinson is entering the picture. I think there was a little bit of concern that like because Kiley didn't contest Budap
Brussels that she wouldn't be in Budapest but I think it's very clear she's posting Tick Tox and Instagram stories that she's there so we presume barring no last minute scratch that she will be competing but I will say I guess like if there's a chance that you know Audrey Guero is too aggressive and times it wrong maybe makes a little bit more of a mistake than she did in Brussels and if Kiley isn't at 100% there is a chance Femke could win the ultimate championships. There's a chance it's not maybe super high but I think that there is a chance. Yeah you're yes there is a chance. I still also do think that Audrey keeps finding a way to win which I think is insanely impressive like she's run and she ran 154.75 in this race right just thinking about how fast that is. Kiley
Hodgkinson in all her years of being at the top has only run quicker than that twice right in her entire career and here's Audrey Guero she's running that tired at the end of a sequence of races where she's run quicker than that six times seven times I don't know I've lost count now but it's just incredible like how consistent she has been in terms of how quick she has run in all of these races this season and she keeps finding a way to win even when Kiley or Femke or someone is challenging her and yeah I still I'm not betting against her this season yes you might be starting to get tired but I think she will still find a way to win. So now if we look at the context of the season Audrey Guero's had it's one of the best 800 meters seasons of all time right like Pamela Jolimo before
this I think had the record for most sub one fifty fives in a single season and now where O has blown past that three times she's got Audrey Guero has four of the top ten times in history and that's just from this single season so we'll get to just sort of I mean I guess to bring it up very quickly on the in the hurdles you had dos Santos stay perfect wins forty six seven in the men's four hundred hurdles Messiah Russell also twelve ten but the you know now we're going back to world athletics having only one athlete of the year it's going to be a pretty tough call between on the women's side at least between the likes of Audrey Guero Messiah Russell let's throw in who else would be out there I mean Yonzi Ye the javelin thrower as well I mean if we're only
going with one all these people have had incredible all time seasons and so um Kevin chipy gets get on the men's side yeah if right as in beat him in Budapest in the four hundred I think like at this point like you got to go through the year and state perfect that might be the knock on like Melissa Jefferson wooden she's having a fantastic year and could come away from Budapest with titles in the one and the two but look at what Messiah's done we're going to do the city's mag power rankings once again after the ultimate championship still kind of put a bow in the season and let let us be clear Messiah is going to be much higher this time around question for you do you think that the ultimate schedule favors any of these big three wearer rotors bowl or Hodgkin's in because it kind of looks a little similar to what they went through well Europeans was was three days right it was yeah they had they had um
he's done they had a day rest right yeah day yeah he's day rest semi them final uh on consecutive so the semifinal and the final were back to back days yeah and at ultimate championships it's semifinal on day one and a final on day two keely's handled that well in the past I yeah I I mean order already did it at Europeans and she's she's she's fine I mean I think I think again it's I don't think it factors into it I think they're all so fit that the heats adjust to work out for them like they were all in that kind of shape that the heat doesn't really take anything out of them or the semi final yeah if you think about it at Europeans Femke PR in the final yeah and and and and let's be honest like that you know that those heats like they were all going out controlling their heat Femke obviously managed to keep her record of not running slower than two minutes in the heat even though she had no pressure she was just controlling the race
from the front and she's still kind of easy one two minutes uh 159 point whatever nine or whatever it was so yeah I I don't see the schedule making any difference to be honest I think it's going to be those three um and it's a shame obviously we don't have Lilian Adira who has announced that she's anidr season after dealing with some illness and obviously Georgia Hunter Bell will be in the the 1500s so um we don't get the matchup with all five of them on the line which kind of then maybe made the metal podium more interesting I suppose um but yeah um we still get that battle between those three which which is going to be box office I want to see Roshin Willis' best race of the year come out right here in Budapest and like breaks through breaks through the big three uh that'd be amazing um all right 1500 this is Claudia Kazmirskis I think like shining moment of her career so far 354 oh five world lead diamond league title I mean first diamond league victory ever she took the lead
with 200 meters to go we've seen her in the past make these kinds of moves love the guts that she runs with and so this time around closes it out with 29.5 and you know gets the win over the likes of Dorke C. Boyd Jess Hall just hall who had like one of the better races of of her season she's definitely you know inch and closer and closer to her championship form that we've come accustomed to um but I mean this has been a fantastic year for Kazmirskis who a year ago if you look at like if you really want to paint this is like a crazy progression or a crazy stunning performance this is an athlete who never was in all-american in cross country her best finish I think was a hundredth at NC at NC across um at the NC level never finished higher than third in the 1500 many times you know uh you know on the podium with my Ramsden who was really really good
uh her best uh in performance in an NC a final was 408 I think it was in the NC a indoor mile she was six and now she's a 354 diamond league champion Polish national record holder it's a little misleading I think her NC double A record because obviously then I think she was obviously she was injured a fair bit last year and I think in 2024 I think she was focused on the Olympics well I'm not saying it's it's I'm not trying to miss me I'm just saying it's like you can make it sound crazier than it is uh because like if you think if you really do look at just sort of how she would over the last two three years count 2024 because of the parasol Olympics it means she made the final you can make the final round for twice yeah you can kind of tell that she would find the her best after the NCA season uh so that's maybe just sort of like okay like she was good at the NCA championships but really she was peaking for uh when she was
rocking the Polish national team kid and yeah so now she's yeah this a year ago her PB was 359 now she's 354 yeah I mean she she she PB with 357 in the final in Tokyo last year as well at the end there so she she seems to bring her best to the the final like she she made the Olympic final she made the world finals she came seventh last year in the world final and maybe she's gone a little under the radar because we haven't really been talking about it but actually she's right there and and she obviously has been running really well um kudos to the organ staff who seem to be okay with the way they're like all right like you'll be good at the NCA stage but well you'll you'll do your best you know in the true professional postseason uh because now we've seen that parasocho and here at the Diamond League final and I would presume like now she's made the jump to be in the conversation for uh Buddha Pest as well yeah absolutely I mean like I think if
you look at the field now for being a pest obviously Georgia Hunter Bell looked a little tired in that race just there say G'da Gooma oh my gosh unfortunately and and sadly I mean obviously she only had to finish to make the the world ultimate sadly I think it was genuinely an injury because I saw her afterwards and she was bubbling around and she has also not shown up on the start list for the 800 which I think she was otherwise qualified for as well so credit she yeah I did see her on crutches after afterwards so um I mean obviously I don't know like obviously that could be just kind of whatever you know muscle pain that she's dealing with immediately after me but she was on crutches when I did when I saw her afterwards um big blow to yeah my hopes of her being this force that faith kept being on comes back to um because I mean previous before this race she was the world leader after Celessia and she you know racked up victory isn't Shanghai Stockholm Doha oh man oh no no
that's Berca Highland Highlands the one who's won in Shanghai Stockholm and Doha but she had a bad race in this one so I love yeah I think she's always struggling tactical races but then here like she seems to have lost some some level of fitness or shape or whatever it is because she went for it with the Pacer and then just just faded um in the middle of the race and then just just fell off the back um so I don't really know what's going on with her she is notoriously unpredictable um yeah but Dorka Siwoi backing up again and try to run the PB in this race as well so she's someone who can be counted as very much in the mix she's a well-tuned medalist she just run a PB you know um and she outdiped Jesshole there at the end for the second second place so yeah I think it's I think it becomes an interesting race obviously Nikki Hiltz they were pleased with the seasons best 356 87 I would have liked to have seen them feature a bit more in this race but you know they they're pretty good I think it's coming around like yeah we I mean we know from the past
Nikki does a great job of you know timing their their peak um and this probably will be it I think uh so yeah uh yeah ultimately it's probably be slower right I think I think that's the point ultimately it's probably not going to be this quick in which then I think leaves the door open to any of any of these people um to uh to to to be in competition with the win if if ultimate is a 402 race even a 4 flat race like it just I mean puts anyone into contention frankly we've seen Abby Coldwell win races how many McCoy is kind of placed really well and and shown chance really good shape the season as well so yeah um let's see oh I know it's they're all messed up now in front of me um how did this happen let's move on over to the men's 5k and then we'll cruise through you know the rest of the
performance is this one's interesting because you know Berhane Bailu has made a name for himself for the last couple diamond leagues and what a crazy final lap in this one he wins in 1245 clocks a 53-4 final 400 he that's a two second personal best for him all things considered um I think I saw the stat floating around I mean maybe Jonathan Galt uh who shared that the 100 meter splits were 13-2 12-8 13-2 14-2 so he was 39-2 for the first 300 of the last lap and then 12-8 on the back stretch which is the equivalent of what like Cam Myers ran in the final 100 so uh crazy speed there on display and now the thing is it's like we're not going to see any more of him against the best 5k runners in the world because that's it no there's no ultimate championships for Bailu
he's instead going to go and compete at the Asian Games which are set to be in Nagoya Japan later this month um it's not even like overlapping on the same weekend but I guess when you run for Berhane I'm sure there's a lot of money that's moving around and he's probably incentivized to win a gold medal here and so uh that's they opens a door I guess for some of the Americans uh who we've seen fair really well in the 5k throughout the season and this one Grand Blanks was fifth in a personal best of 1247 he closed in 55 um Nico Young was sixth seasons best 12-48 and he's coming off of his injury Parker Wolf sat this one out I mean not a great showing again by Grant Fisher he was 9th 1259 um so that food injury that I think spurred up
at after U after USA is is really um not necessarily taking its toll on him he's still clocking a sub 13 but it's just sort of like you gotta be at your absolute best when you're going up against fields like this um so yeah I mean the 5k when you add in Cole Hawker Yaka Bingo Brits in In Budapest is going to be really really interesting because I don't know if you're if you're Grand Blanks if you want to leave this be uh 13-10 race when you've just shown all throughout the season that you're uh you can you can click off these sub uh sub 13s but I don't know who is going to be incentivized to take it from the front and do the work and well I think great like talking to Graham though he's actually his better race in better positioning so have come in slightly slower races like you know a 1258 race 1259 race and that's where he's come second
look at so I don't think he wants it this quick I think you know something a little bit quicker but not not you know something a bit like the wild final last year I think could could well play into his hands and he he has kind of set like he you know watch my interview with him but um you know I think he he does feel like his his kick has come on a lot and I I'd agree with that you know just from watching him it's you know he is able to kind of compete in these different types of races and perform well uh much more so than perhaps he was doing in previous years well Graham yeah I mean I wasn't sure he was going to show up in Budapest after the interview I had with him afterwards he was kind of very 50 50 on that but he is on the side in the entries yes he's on the entries so is there like a reserve like a on call weightless like I do not know they haven't said anything and normally and so in preview in other championships you get the lists the start lists including reserves uh but but we haven't had anything like that um well that's
I guess the thing is it's sort of like a reserve can be from a different country and like who may not even have anyone else present there um so it's a little bit different from a global championship where you replace from that same national team but I'm just thinking it's like if Jakob scratches oh well I guess he had the subco super invite for the 1500 but if he chose to scratch the 1500 does anyone take that spot um like if you're Vinciotti do you still go to Budapest with like you're with a race kit and I feel very sorry for Vinciotti like he's just been screwed A by this whole thing but yeah hold it in there hold it in the story yeah um but yeah so I mean well obviously spend more time on the preview because I think I got a text from Kyle the other day saying that um it's it's not getting enough the five game Budapest is not getting enough attention for how good Jakob versus Cole might be in that one versus like of course like the 15 is like
the sexy one but the Jakob versus Parko Wolf versus yeah yeah all these guys are gonna be really good I think we're really good um yeah um all right final things to just cruise through steeple elbacali lost again to Gometri Goudana yeah wonder whether it's changing the god but but we'll have to wait and see till next season now I guess because that is the end of the steeple season for those guys women's 100 Tina Clayton took it over 1093 remember last week on the part I was like oh how's Tina Clayton ranked higher than Shakira Richardson boom this is why Shakira ends up in third place in 1107 Amy Hunt was second um yeah so I want to say something obviously Tina Clayton very impressive her start was electric and she she got out and and that was the race was over Amy Hunt always over performs her seeding like if she was she was seeded last in Zurich and 100 she came like fifth like in terms of times for the season like here she was like fifth
she came second um you know and then I think in the 200 as well same same sort of thing like she was seeded fifth to sixth in terms of times coming in on seasons best and she comes in she takes third like Amy Hunt I know people kind of say oh she hasn't run the super fast times but what she always does is if other people do not perform she's always the one cleaning up and that's how she won a world medal last year and you know she's so consistent and I think you know even though she races so much she seems like she was the only one doubling back and she came second in this 100 like all these other women were only running one race this weekend and like she beat all of the mother and teen created um so I think you know Amy Hunt you're high pre- well especially I'm the 200 I think obviously with no Julian in there and like well there's Melissa but there's a lot of other people are scratched from that 200 so there's that 200 is kind of pretty wide open now yeah but here's the thing it's like it seems like ultimate is just about the
winner like there's no consolation yeah indeed but all I'm saying is look you know I think Amy Hunt's been given a lot of heat for various things and I think like she always comes up performs and so you have to give a credit for for doing what she does and placing where she does in races yeah she's really good at you know fairing well against the people who do show up against her and so I mean she'll have her hands full in Budapest but uh we'll see I mean it'll be Budapest at least we get the return of several people who we haven't seen compete in a while Gabby Thomas back in action she's actually racing in Italy today like a small me as a little tune up so we'll see that who else has been kind of out and then we'll see again well I was thinking Noah but then that's not the case um there'll be a couple other people who've been sitting out and saving themselves for ultimate championships but yeah no that's um that's
the dimelink final we will both be in Budapest excited to have all that action go down this is the first meet you and I will be at together since Tokyo yes probably sorry we were obviously at mill rise and um oh that's right yeah yeah uh in in in spring but yes should be good yeah sure be good all right well for folks stay tuned to our preview episode which should come out I think Wednesday we'll be recording in Budapest and then lots more coming on the pod feed throughout the next couple days and on our social channels we'll have you know Johnny Zangs coming out to photograph the meet so we will bring you all the best coverage from Budapest so stay following along daily newsletter pretty sure uh David Mellie will be writing that so subscribe when you go to citysmag.com's website if our newsletter tab or it's in the show notes um
but yeah we'll catch you guys uh in just a couple days all right that's a wrap on today's episode thanks for listening for the time the curiosity and for making this show part of your routine or your run of big thanks to our producer Jasmine Fair and to everyone behind the scenes who helps make the citysmag podcast happen if you enjoyed today's episode a quick five star review on Apple podcasts or Spotify helps people find this show and we read every single one you can find much more track and field coverage at citysmag.com and you can fall along across all of citysmag social channels we'll see you next time thanks again for listening
More episodes
More from The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show

WORLD ULTIMATE CHAMPIONSHIPS DAY 2 | Melissa Jefferson-Wooden & Kenny Bednarek W...
The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show

Parker Wolfe After Finishing Third In The World Ultimate Championships 5000m + R...
The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show

WORLD ULTIMATE CHAMPIONSHIPS DAY 1 | Jakob Ingebrigtsen Beats Cole Hocker, US Sw...
The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show

Wallace Spearmon On America’s Current Track Stars, The Lead Up To LA 2028 And Wo...
The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show