Melissa Jefferson-Wooden wins the 100m at the Prefontaine Classic (© Getty Images)
The fields for the Prefontaine Classic are packed with star quality as global podium rematches and clashes between some of the all-time best look set to light up Hayward Field on Friday and Saturday (3-4).
US aces Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, Ja'Kobe Tharp, Masai Russell and Tara Davis-Woodhall will be joined in Eugene by the likes of global gold medallists Faith Kipyegon, Letsile Tebogo, Collen Kebinatshipi and Keely Hodgkinson when the Wanda Diamond League hits Eugene for its ninth stop of the season.
The Diamond League action takes place on Saturday, when triple world champion Jefferson-Wooden will defend her 100m title against a field of fellow major medallists.
The 25-year-old clocked 10.75 to win at Hayward Field last year before completing a 100m, 200m and 4x100m title treble at the World Championships in Tokyo. The 10.61 she ran in Tokyo makes her the fourth-fastest sprinter of all time and she has not been beaten over 100m since the Olympic final in Paris in 2024, when she got bronze behind Julien Alfred and Sha'Carri Richardson.
Richardson, the 2023 world champion and 2024 winner at the Prefontaine Classic, is among Jefferson-Wooden’s rivals in Eugene, where athletes will contest 100m heats before the final. Both Richardson and Jefferson-Wooden have dipped under 10.90 already this season, as have two-time world 200m champion Shericka Jackson, world 100m silver medallist Tina Clayton and world leader Adaejah Hodge. Adding further strength to the fields are Dina Asher-Smith, Tia Clayton, Shawnti Jackson, Favour Ofili and Amy Hunt.
Botswana’s Olympic champion Tebogo will seek back-to-back wins in the 200m following his Diamond League victory in Oslo. This time his competition includes world bronze medallist Bryan Levell, Olympic finalist Makanakaishe Charamba and José Figueroa, who recently ran a Puerto Rican record of 19.87, as well as Tate Taylor, the recent US U20 100m and 200m champion at Hayward Field.
The men’s 100m is not a Diamond League event but it pits the top two in the world so far this year – Jamaica’s world champion Oblique Seville and NCAA champion Kanyinsola Ajayi – against two-time Olympic and world 200m silver medallist Kenny Bednarek.
Tharp and Russell head top-class hurdles clashes
Ja'Kobe Tharp returns to the scene of his 110m hurdles world record. The US 20-year-old clocked 12.75 during the heats at the NCAA Championships, taking 0.05 off the world record set by Aries Merritt in 2012, and now prepares for the second Diamond League of his career. After finishing third in Monaco last year behind Trey Cunningham and Cordell Tinch, Tharp will again face Tinch – now lining up as the world champion – as well as Jamal Britt, who won the Paris Diamond League in 12.89, and world silver medallist Orlando Bennett.
USA’s Olympic champion Masai Russell edged closer to the world 100m hurdles record at the Diamond League meeting in Xiamen, her 12.14 just two hundredths of a second off the 12.12 set by Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan in Oregon in 2022. The two meet again in Eugene, as part of a field in which all nine athletes have PBs of 12.37 or faster – that being the time achieved by world 60m hurdles record-holder Devynne Charlton when finishing third behind Russell and Amusan in Xiamen. They line up alongside former world record-holder Keni Harrison, two-time world champion Danielle Williams, world bronze medallist Grace Stark and last year’s Diamond League champion Ackera Nugent.
The men’s 400m brings together two reigning world champions – Botswana’s Collen Kebinatshipi and USA’s 400m hurdles star Rai Benjamin – against Khaleb McRae, Jacory Patterson and Michael Norman, who won his world title in Eugene in 2022. Kebinatshipi ran 43.54 to win the Diamond League in Paris, just 0.01 off the PB he set when winning his world title.
Kipyegon back on world record track
Like Tharp, Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon also returns to the track on which she set a world record. The five-time world and three-time Olympic champion set the most recent of her world records – 3:48.68 for 1500m – during last year’s Prefontaine Classic and she returns to contest the mile, the event in which she has held the world record of 4:07.64 since 2023.
The event brings together all the 1500m medallists from the last World Championships and Olympic Games – Dorcus Ewoi and Jess Hull, who joined Kipyegon on the podium in Tokyo, plus Great Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell, who got Olympic bronze behind Kipyegon and Hull in Paris and went on to clinch world 800m silver in Tokyo between Lilian Odira and Keely Hodgkinson.
Odira and Hodgkinson are also in action in Eugene and they go head-to-head over two laps – world champion against Olympic champion. Both are on the hunt for their first Diamond League wins of the season, Hodgkinson after having finished second to Audrey Werro in a national record of 1:54.33 in Stockholm.
Four of the six fastest women of all time clash in the 3000m steeplechase. Bahrain’s Olympic champion Winfred Yavi, who sits second on that all-time list with her 9:44.39 from 2024, renews her rivalry with world champion Faith Cherotich, Tokyo Olympic champion Peruth Chemutai and Norah Jeruto, the world champion in Eugene in 2022. Emma Coburn, the 2017 champion, makes it four world gold medallists in the field.
The two-mile race features Ethiopia’s two-time world U20 cross-country champion Marta Alemayo and her compatriots Hirut Meshesha and Aleshign Baweke.
The men’s Bowerman Mile closes the programme on Saturday and stars USA’s Olympic 1500m and world 5000m champion Cole Hocker against Diamond League 1500m champion Niels Laros, back to defend his title. Laros won last year ahead of Yared Nuguse, Azeddine Habz, Hocker, Reynold Cheruiyot, Cameron Myers and Timothy Cheruiyot, and they all clash again.
Big shots in the field
The women’s shot put hosts another gathering of global champions as Dutch world champion Jessica Schilder takes on Olympic champion Yemisi Mabry, two-time world gold medallist Chase Jackson and two-time world indoor champion Sarah Mitton. Schilder leads the way so far this season with the 21.09m Diamond League record she set in Shanghai.
The men’s shot put brings together the leading seven athletes on the season top list, two-time world champion Joe Kovacs currently at the head of that list after his 22.58m to win in Rabat. Two-time world medallist Leonardo Fabbri has thrown 22.50m this season, while Olympic bronze medallist Rajindra Campbell sits just behind them on 22.44m. Also in action are Tom Walsh, Jordan Geist, Roger Steen and Chuk Enekwechi.
USA’s Olympic and world champion Tara Davis-Woodhall soared a PB of 7.20m in LA last month and heads a long jump field featuring Alexis Brown and Alyssa Jones, who have also surpassed seven metres this season, plus two-time Diamond League champion Larissa Iapichino and two-time world champion Malaika Mihambo.
The world record-holders star in both the men’s discus and the women’s hammer. Mykolas Alekna, who improved his world discus record to 75.56m in Ramona last year, opens his Diamond League campaign after injury against 2022 world champion Kristjan Čeh, who won in Shanghai, and three-time world champion Daniel Stahl, the victor in Stockholm, plus Olympic champion Rojé Stona and bronze medallist Matthew Denny.
In the non-Diamond League hammer, Anita Włodarczyk competes in a field led by Olympic and world champion Camryn Rogers – a line-up that stars the athletes to have claimed the last four Olympic titles and last seven world titles. World leader Rogers, who threw 81.13m in April, and Włodarczyk are joined by Brooke Andersen and DeAnna Price. This is another event that brings together all the medallists from Tokyo and Paris, as world medallists Zhao Jie and Zhang Jiale are entered, along with Annette Echikunwoke, who got Olympic bronze between Rogers and Zhao.
The men’s hammer, starring Olympic and world champion Ethan Katzberg, kicks off the non-Diamond League action on Friday. World leader Valarie Sion, the world and two-time Olympic champion, goes in the discus, while the pole vault features twin sisters Hana and Amanda Moll, who have respectively cleared 4.88m and 4.84m this year, plus three-time world champion Katie Moon.
USA’s 17-year-old world indoor champion Cooper Lutkenhaus ran 1:42.08 to win in Oslo and will be on the hunt for his third outdoor 800m win in a row after also clinching victory in Stockholm, while double Olympic bronze medallist Grant Fisher races the two mile event.
