Can Simpson beat the US 1500m record in Eugene? – IAAF Diamond League

Traditionally, American 1500m women have had trouble making it to the top of the podium at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Eugene, well-known as the Prefontaine Classic, but this year a strong US group aims to make a statement at the front of the pack in Hayward Field on 30 May.    

Jenny Simpson won the Diamond Race last year and won the 2011 IAAF World Championships gold medal.  She ran a lifetime best of 3:57.22 last year, just 0.10 off Mary Slaney’s 31-year-old US record. 

The 28-year-old University of Colorado alumni has done big things at Pre before, in 2009 she become the only US college runner to break 4:00 in the 1500m, when finishing second.

Shannon Rowbury was the best American in the last two Olympics, including sixth place at the London 2012 Olympic Games, and earned a bronze medal at the 2009 IAAF World Championships. 

She is coming off her best indoor season, scoring a victorious mile and two mile double at the US championships and winning the Millrose Games mile at 4:24.32.

Treniere Moser is a four-time US champion who is still running at her best in her 30s. 

Now 33, she has recorded personal bests at every distance from 800m upwards in the last two years, including a mile best of 4:27.49 this year. 

Along with Rowbury, Moser was on the USA’s world record-breaking distance medley relay team at the IAAF World Relays in The Bahamas earlier this month.

Emma Coburn is the USA’s fastest ever 3000m steeplechaser, running 9:11.42 at the IAAF Diamond League in Glasgow last year. Coburn also won over the barriers at last year’s IAAF Continental Cup.

Newcomer Alexa Efraimson, who at 18 has two years remaining in the junior ranks, lowered her 800m best by over two seconds to 2:01.13 last weekend, making her the fastest junior in the world so far this year. She won the US junior 1500m title last year.

Dutch danger to US supremacy

The international stars who will challenge these five Americans include Sifan Hassan, of the Netherlands.

Despite being dramatically beaten by Simpson in Zurich, and so losing out on the Diamond Race, Hassan won the European 1500m title last year as a 21-year-old, triumphed at the IAAF Continental Cup and also won the 2015 European Indoor Championships 1500m gold medal in March.

Hassan was fifth in last year’s fantastic Pre Classic, when five women ran under four minutes, the only race ever on American soil with more than two under this mark.

Bahrain’s Maryam Yusuf Jamal is a two-time IAAF World Championships 1500m gold medallist in 2007 and 2009, who also earned the 2012 Olympic Games bronze medal. 

Fastest in the field with a lifetime best of 3:56.18, Jamal also has the fastest 800m personal best at 1:57.80.

Ethiopia’s Axumawit Embaye is still only 19 but got the silver medal in last year’s IAAF World Indoor Championships.  The Pre Classic will be her first race on US soil.

Great Britain’s Laura Weightman and Hannah England are also in the field along with five-time Polish champion Renata Pils.

Completing the field, Australia’s Zoe Buckman called Eugene home for four years while running for the University of Oregon.  In last year’s Pre Classic, she set her 1500m best of 4:04.09 and was a finalist at the 2013 IAAF World Championships.

Organisers

2015 IAAF Diamond League calendar

Doha, QAT – 15 May
Shanghai, CHN – 17 May
Eugene, USA – 30 May
Rome, ITA – 4 June
Birmingham, GBR – 7 June
Oslo, NOR – 11 June
New York, USA – 13 June
Paris, FRA – 4 July
Lausanne, SUI – 9 July
Monaco, MON – 17 July
London, GBR – 24-25 July
Stockholm, SWE – 30 July
Zurich, SUI – 3 September
Brussels, BEL – 11 September