by Larry Eder
The Portland Track Festival is on June 8 and 9. This iconic event has a truly distinct following of elite athletes and long-time and new fans and is managed by the Portland Track Club! This meet delivers year after year! In 2021, I was fortunate enough to visit the meeting and was so happy to see our sport surviving and thriving in the pandemic environment.
In 2021, Josh Kerr broke the North American all-comers record at 1,500m of one Seb Coe (1984 Olympics). What will happen this year?
Josh Kerr and Sifan Hassan Aim To Make Statements at the 16th Annual Portland Track Festival.
The 2024 Portland Track Festival will take place on Saturday, June 8th, and Sunday, 9th, with the most talented fields ever assembled. A record number of 1,067 athletes will line up in Portland, Oregon.
Saturday
Events will take place at Mt Hood Community College (3601-3667 NE 17th St, Gresham, OR 97030) beginning at 5:30pm PDT.
5:30PM: HS & Masters 2000m Steeplechase Open Heats of 800m and 5000m
8:00PM: High Performance heats of 300m steeplechase and 10000m. The top sections are WA Bronze Level.
Entry into the Saturday night sections is free to the public.
The Women’s Steeplechase will feature Indian national record holder Parul Chaudhary, 2026 Olympian Colleen Quigley, and USA World Championship competitor Allie Ostrander. Brooks Beast, Kayley Delay, and a Pan American Games Silver medalist will also compete.
In the men’s steeplechase, defending US Champion Kenneth Rooks will face defending Portland Track Festival Steeplechase winner Benard Keter. Indian national record holder Avinash Sable, Canadian Olympian John Gay, and American record holder and Olympic Silver medalist Evan Jager will also compete.
Danielle Polerecky, McKenna Myler, and Katie Izzo will compete for the title in the IncubatorU Women’s 10000m race.
The Maurten Men’s 10000m race will feature 2021 champion and Japanese marathon great Suguru Osaka, Japanese 10000m ace Yuto Imae, 27:08 man Sam Chelanga, and World Cross Country Team USA runner Andrew Colley.
Sunday
On Sunday, events will take place at Lincoln High School in downtown Portland (1750 SW Salmon St, Portland, OR 97205).
The Portland Track Festival is known for its rich history of competitive racing, celebrating hard-fought victories and incredibly deep fields.
The Sunday program of the Portland Track Festival is based on sections that progressively get faster throughout the day, from the Open Heats to the High-performance Sections to the Hot Window, offering fans the opportunity to attend the portions of the meet they would like to watch.
2:00PM: Open Heats
3:50PM: High-Performance Heats
6:00PM: Opening Ceremonies, PDX vs SEA 3000m, Wildwood Running & Stumptown Running High School 1500m Top Sections, and 2nd Fastest Heats of HP 800m, 1500m and 5000m
8:00PM: The Hot Window. Top Sections of the 800m, 5000m and 1500m races. WA Bronze Level competition.
‘The Hot Window’
Beginning at 8:00PM on Sunday evening, audiences will be treated to the most competitive middle-distance racing to take place in Portland since the 2016 Indoor World Championships.
In the Dah Sheng Women’s 800m, Brooks Beast and 2023 World Championships finalist Nia Akins will aim at her personal best against a talented field that includes reigning 5000m and 10000m Olympic gold medalist Sifan Hassan, US 1500m champion Sinclaire Johnson, and a resurgent Kate Grace.
In the Dah Sheng Men’s 800m, World Indoor 1500m silver medalist and Olympic finalist Cole Hocker will compete against US 1500m champion Craig Engels and Sam Prakel.
The Maurten Women’s 5000m is a who’s who of American distance running, with US champion Elise Cranny, US Champion Karissa Schweizer, 10000m bronze medalist Emily Infeld, and World Championships competitor Rachel Smith. Australian Lauren Ryan continues her storybook season in Portland, and Texas high schooler Elizabeth Leachman looks to better her 5000m high school national record of 15:25.27.
In the Paul Banta Memorial, Men’s 5000m Olympic bronze medalists Paul Chelimo and Drew Hunter aim at the Olympic 5000m standard with New Zealander Theo Quax and Hoka NAZ athlete Wesley Kiptoo. Utah high schooler Daniel Simmons will aim at Lex Young’s high school national record of 13:34.96.
The marquee events of the Portland Track Festival are always the 1500m races, which will cap off the night.
In the Running Warehouse Women’s 1500m, Sifan Hassan will double back to take on an accomplished field, including KM Deeksha of India, 800m World Indoor Championships competitor Allie Wilson, and Venezuelan 5000m record holder Joselyn Brea. Coming off of her 4:28 high school mile record performance, Sadie Engelhardt will take on the pro field in Portland.
The Running Warehouse Men’s 1500m figures to be the event of the night, as World Champion and Bowerman Mile winner Josh Kerr takes aim at his 1500m PB of 3:29.05, a performance that would break the US soil record and possibly best Mo Farah’s British record of 3:28.81. Kerr will face competition from 3:32 man Cooper Teare, last year’s PTF 1500m champion Amon Kemboi, and his own Brooks Beasts teammates Henry Wynne and Brannon Kidder.
Full fields can be found at Portlandtrack.com on June 5th.
The Portland Track Festival’s live stream will be free to watch worldwide. The program is supported by Bandit Running. By using their email to sign up at Tracklnd.com, viewers can access the live stream and receive promotional information about Bandit Running’s products and programs.
Thanks to our partners, Portland Track provides an initial purse of $25,000 spread across 10 events and allows fans to ‘Sweeten the Pot’ by adding to the race purses at Tracklnd.com.
In-person tickets for Sunday are $15 and are available now at portlandtrack.com. Children 18 and under will have free entry into the meet. Those who can’t make it can catch the live stream at https://tracklnd.com/meet/ptf.
