by Larry Eder
HISTORIC MEN’S 5000M ON TAP AT USATF CHAMPIONSHIPS
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved, used with permission.
EUGENE (30-Jul) — While American middle distance running has garnered a lot of attention over the last two seasons punctuated by a gold medal and Olympic record for Cole Hocker at the 2024 Paris Olympics in the 1500m, athletes in the 5000m have this season brought the longer event to a new zenith. So far this year five American men –Grant Fisher, Nico Young, Graham Blanks, Cooper Teare, and Cole Hocker– have broken 13 minutes. Five of the six-fastest USA marks in history have been set this year, and Fisher (12:44.09) and Young (12:45.27) have run national records indoors and outdoors, respectively (Fisher has the absolute record).
“The sport, especially in the U.S., has grown leaps and bounds in the last decade or so,” Fisher told reporters here at a press conference in advance of the four-day Toyota USATF Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon. “You look at the all-time marks now. We’ve had three guys break 12:50 in one year, whereas in the past you might have one guy that would break 13:00 every other year. The depth is increasing a ton.”
That depth will be on full display on Sunday afternoon when approximately 25 men will line up for a straight final in which the top three will provisionally qualify for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September. At last year’s Olympic Trials, also held here in Eugene, a field of 30 athletes was first narrowed down to 16 through two preliminary heats. This year’s race will more closely resemble a mass-start road race rather than a small, super-elite final.
“It gets harder and harder every year,” continued Fisher, who won the national 5000m title in both 2024 and 2022 and finished second in 2021. “There’s really stiff competition. Guys that are younger and younger are training harder and harder, and that is producing way more depth at younger ages. We have a really competitive 5-K team.”
Fisher, 28, who won bronze medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics in both the 5000m and 10,000m, is the oldest among the top contenders by at least three years. Blanks and Young are both 23, Hocker is 24, and Teare is 25. Fisher is also the only man among the top entrants who will also contest the 10,000m on Thursday (where he is also the defending champion) before running the 5000m on Sunday.
“My focus right now is the 10-K; that’s tomorrow,” Fisher told reporters. “The 10-K’s first. Again, very stiff competition. It doesn’t have quite the same depth at the 5-K, but still a very, very competitive field, several sub-27:00 guys. You look back to ten years ago you’ve got one guy, maybe, that breaks 27 minutes.”
While there is no way to predict how Sunday’s race will go, it’s likely to be tactical. According to World Athletics, only Fisher, Young, Blanks, Teare and Hocker have achieved the 13:01.00 entry standard for the World Championships. None of those men will want to push the pace and can focus exclusively on their finish place (the championships record is 13:08.85 by Fisher from 2024). All of them are strong kickers, especially Hocker, who ran his final 300 meters in the Paris 1500m Olympic final in a sizzling 39.6 seconds. LetsRun.com’s Jonathan Gault described that performance as “one of the greatest closes the sport has ever seen.”
Fisher also has wheels, and recently ran a lifetime best of 3:48.29 for the mile at the Prefontaine Classic here in Eugene on July 5th. If anyone beats him on Sunday, that will be an upset, although he acknowledged that both Blanks and Young are formidable competitors at just 23 years-old.
“When you look at what Nico and Graham did in college, now that they have made it in the pro ranks you look back like, oh that makes sense,” said Fisher, when asked to assess the development of his younger rivals. “Sometimes there are people who do really well at certain stages, but it doesn’t always translate (later). Those guys are mega-talented, the times and performances they were able to do in college (were amazing). When I was in college nobody was doing anything remotely close to that.”
Kingston, Jamaica
April 6, 2025, photo by Kevin Morris
Fisher said that he was in good shape and had tapered for these championships under coach Mike Scannell.
“I’ve been really intentional about when I’m pushing and when I’m not pushing in training,” said Fisher, who said that he has to save energy and fitness for the World Championships. “Little bit of a taper going into this week which feels good because I’ve been training hard the past month. So, the early part of my season was defined by indoors, then after that I was locked-in to Grand Slam. Took a little bit of downtime. Now it’s been a really, really solid build-up to now.”
Fisher was also asked whether he had been paid the $200,000 in prize money he is owed by Grand Slam Track for winning the long distance group titles in both the Kingston, Jamaica, and Miami meets. Meeting organizers said that they planned to pay the Kingston prize money by July 31. Fisher said he hasn’t seen that money yet.
“Tomorrow is the last day of July, so they do have a day,” Fisher said. “The last update I heard was that by the end of July they wanted Kingston prize money out. It has not hit my bank account, or any else’s that I know. So, fingers crossed, but tomorrow would be the last day or, I think, people will be pretty upset.”
