From June 21 to 30, the best track and field athletes in the United States will compete at the 2024 Olympic Trials for a chance to qualify for the upcoming Paris Olympics. The meet is being held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, for the fifth time in history.
Here are the highlights from the Olympic Trials.
Olympic Trials Results
Day 3, Sunday, June 23: Lyles wins 100, Steeple craziness
Noah Lyles wins the men’s 100 meters
Noah Lyles entered Hayward Field with Snoop Dogg—and left a U.S. champion in the 100 meters.
Lyles, 26, the reigning world champion at both the 100 and 200 meters, secured his spot on the U.S. Olympic team with a time of 9.83 seconds.
Kenny Bednarek, 25, the Olympic silver medalist in the 200 meters, placed second in a personal best 9.87 seconds. And after a tumultuous year in which he split from his sponsor, Olympic silver medalist and 2022 world champion Fred Kerley, 29, took third to secure his return trip to the Games.
Although he has an Olympic bronze medal in the 200 meters from Tokyo, Lyles failed to make the team in the 100, placing seventh out of eight at the Trials three years ago. Those two events provided motivation for this victory, Lyles told NBC’s Lewis Johnson after the race.
“If I didn’t get that third place in Tokyo, I wouldn’t have had that desire, I wouldn’t have had that fire burning,” he said. Now, he’s looking to the future: “Anything can happen.”
The fourth Olympian in the final, Christian Coleman, got off to his characteristically fast start—but was overtaken and finished fourth in 9.93 seconds. Recent high school graduate Christian Miller, 18, was fifth in 9.98 seconds. All five men will compete again in the 200 meters, which begins on Thurs., June 27.
Kenneth Rooks defends his national title in the steeplechase
In his first year as a professional runner, Kenneth Rooks broke away in the last two laps of the men’s steeplechase to claim the Olympic Trials crown. The graduate of Brigham Young University won the title in 8:21.92. Matthew Wilkinson finished second in 8:23.00, and James Corrigan of BYU placed third in 8:26.78. With a hard close, 2016 Olympic silver medalist Evan Jager finished fourth in 8:28.73.
Because none of the top 4 achieved the Olympic standard of 8:15.00 within the qualifying period, their Team USA selection will be determined by their respective world ranking in World Athletics’ scoring system. Currently, Rooks is No. 24, Wilkinson is tied for No. 30, and Jager is tied for No. 33—all rankings that, unless they shift before the Olympic qualifying period closes on June 30, would qualify them to head to Paris. However, as of Sunday, Corrigan doesn’t appear on the list.
The final rankings won’t be posted until July 7. The official Team USA roster will be announced after the final rankings are determined, which means we have to wait a week after the Olympic Trials concludes to know for sure who will be competing in Paris.
The race started off at a conservative pace with athletes jostling for position. Different leaders shuffled in and out of the front as Wilkinson, Joey Berriatua, and two-time Olympian Hillary Bor threw in surges early on. As the pace increased, Bor took a hard fall into the water pit with three laps remaining.
The big break came with 800 meters to go when Rooks sprinted ahead of Wilkinson. The move put significant distance between the 2023 NCAA champion and the former Carleton College standout, who held on to claim his highest finish ever after placing sixth in last year’s national championships.
For Corrigan, the performance was the race of his career after placing ninth in the NCAA final just two weeks ago.
After battling a series of injuries in the last few years, Jager is returning to form in an attempt to make his third Olympic team this summer.
Kendall Ellis wins women’s 400 meters
Kendall Ellis, 28, who won gold and bronze medals in the relays in Tokyo, will now have her chance to vie for an individual Olympic medal. She ran a personal best 49.46 seconds to win the 400 meters.
In fact, all three podium finishers ran sub-50 second personal bests. The University of Georgia’s Aaliyah Butler, who missed the finals at the 2024 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships two weeks ago, was second in 49.71. Alexis Holmes—the bronze medalist at this year’s World Indoor Championships—was third in 49.78. All three will represent Team USA at this summer’s Games in Paris.
Day 2, Saturday, June 22
Sha’Carri Richardson dominates the women’s 100 meters
The reigning world champion unleashed a winning time of 10.71 to defend her national title in her signature event. Richardson pulled away in the last 15 meters to run a season’s best and world-leading time. Her training partners, Melissa Jefferson and Twanisha Terry finished second (10.80) and third (10.89), respectively. All three athletes will compete on the U.S. team headed to Paris this summer.
Richardson, Terry, and Jefferson celebrate qualifying for the Olympics.
Richardson’s Olympic Trials victory marked redemption for the star sprinter. In 2021, the former LSU standout won the Trials, but the result was removed from the records after she tested positive for marijuana. In the years since, Richardson has become a three-time world championship medalist. Now, she will compete on her first Olympic team.
Yared Nuguse ties the Olympic Trials record
Leading the men’s 1500-meter semifinal, Yared Nuguse cruised to victory in heat 2, winning in 3:34.09. In his second race in two days, the American record-holder looked very comfortable while tying the Olympic Trials record set by Matt Centrowitz in 2016. Behind Nuguse, Hobbs Kessler finished second in 3:34.16, the second-fastest time of the day. Henry Wynne, Nathan Green of Washington, and Elliot Cook of Oregon also automatically qualified for the final. Both time qualifiers came out of the second heat with Vincent Ciattei placing sixth (3:34.63) and Craig Engels finishing seventh (3:35.08).
The first heat was led by 2021 Olympic Trials champion Cole Hocker, who pulled away on the homestretch to win in 3:37.89. Behind the Tokyo Olympian, a battle for the remaining four automatic qualifying spots played out all the way through the line. In a sprint to the finish, collegians Liam Murphy of Villanova and Ethan Strand of North Carolina kicked past Cooper Teare and Joe Waskom. All four will advance.
With Nuguse looking stronger by the day and Hocker showing expert tactics early on, the men’s 1500-meter final is shaping up to be an exciting showdown between the two. The race for the top three spots on Team USA is scheduled for Monday, June 24.
Rapper Snoop Dogg watched the 100-meter heats with Noah Lyles’s mom, Keisha.
Day 1, Friday, June 21
Grant Fisher crushes the men’s 10,000 meters
Under the lights at Hayward Field, Grant Fisher, Woody Kincaid, and Nico Young became the first athletes to make the U.S. Olympic team. American record-holder Fisher led the charge, winning the 10,000 meters in 27:49.47, ahead of runner-up Kincaid (27:50.74) and Young (27:52.40).
The race got off to a blazing start, with Olympic marathoner Conner Mantz setting the tone. From the gun, the Mantz set out on pace to chase the Olympic standard of 27:00, coming through 1600 meters in 4:18 (26:53 10,000-meter pace). The strategy strung out the field right away, with the podium contenders opening a gap up front. Mantz led at the 5K point, in 13:53, with Young, Fisher, Kincaid, and Andrew Colley following.
Just before the 5K split, the pace began to slow, and the chase pack, led by Sam Chelanga, soon made up ground on the leaders. The field regrouped, with 10 men within a two seconds of Mantz.
With six laps to go, Young went to the lead, with Fisher and Kincaid right on his heels. Some surging in the final mile separated the group once again, as Paul Chelimo and Sam Chelanga moved in and out of the front.
Ultimately, it was Fisher who broke the race wide open with two laps remaining. His long kick in the last stretch couldn’t be matched as Kincaid, Young, and Drew Hunter attempted to chase him down.
“My plan was to go to the front with 1200 to go,” Fisher said. “I know I’m good off a fast pace. If I leave it down to a 400-meter sprint, it’s a bit more of a tossup. Woody has really good 400-meter speed. Nico has good speed. I could control the outcome a lot more if I went early.”
Running 1:58 for the final 800 meters, Fisher broke the tape, his first U.S. title in the 10,000 meters. Paris will be his second Olympic team. He finished fifth in the 10,000 meters at the Tokyo Games.
After outsprinting Fisher for the 2021 and 2023 U.S. titles, Kincaid finished second, making his second Olympic team. (He placed 14th in Tokyo three years ago.) A hip injury took Kincaid out of training for 10 days in May. Although he said he had four different MRIs, the injury was never diagnosed. He went to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, cross-trained on an Alter-G treadmill and got physical therapy until he was able to return to his training base in Flagstaff, Arizona, and run again.
For Young, the third-place finish comes after a breakthrough collegiate season that included a collegiate record in the 10,000 meters and NCAA titles in the 3,000 and 5,000 meters. Paris will be his first Olympics. On the final lap, Young was locked in a sprint with fourth-place finisher Drew Hunter.
“I wasn’t thinking a whole lot,” Young said. “I was just thinking, ‘I need to finish this as hard as I can.’ I’m so excited. To be able to call myself an Olympian is pretty crazy.”
Mantz, who finished in sixth place, had to come to Eugene anyway for team processing, when athletes who make the Olympic team try on their uniforms and make sure their paperwork is in order for international travel. He decided to hop in the 10,000 while he was here, although the race got hard only eight laps into the 25-lap race, and he thought about dropping out at several points after that. “Almost every race, I think about dropping out,” he said. Apparently doubt creeps into the minds of even the country’s best racers.
Sha’Carri Richardson wins with her shoe untied
Despite a stumble right out of the blocks, the reigning world champion recovered to win her heat of the women’s 100 meters. In the final race of the day, Richardson ran 10.88 with one shoe untied. It was by far the fastest time out of the first round. Richardson will compete next in the women’s 100-meter semifinal on Saturday, June 22. The final will follow almost two hours later.
Athing Mu opens her season at the Trials
In her first race since September, the reigning Olympic champion looked very comfortable moving through the first round of the women’s 800 meters. On Friday, Mu cruised through heat 2 with a third-place finish in 2:01.73. The first six athletes in each heat automatically advanced.
In May, the U.S. record-holder’s coach told Runner’s World that she’s been nursing a sore hamstring, which kept her from competing in the spring. Without expending too much energy, she looked very much in control heading into the semifinal on Sunday, June 23.
Quincy Wilson breaks under-18 world record
In the first event of the meet, the 16-year-old crushed the U-18 world record in the men’s 400 meters. Wilson, who competes for Bullis School in Potomac, Maryland, ran 44.66 to win heat 2. He also achieved the Olympic standard while advancing to the semifinal on Sunday, June 23.
