An Olympic bronze medallist in the 1500m last year at Paris 2024, Yared Nuguse was leading for much of the final on Saturday (2 August) at the USA Track & Field Championships 2025.
He’d finish fifth.
Minutes later, Masai Russell, the 100m hurdles Olympic champion, stepped to the line to try and earn her way to September’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
Only reigning world champions (from 2023) – not Olympic gold medallists – get byes.
It’s a hot topic this week at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, and one that drips down to the minutia. Like: Should top performers at least be given free passes out of the first round? Or into the final?
“Other countries give their best athletes byes” at their national championships, said Rai Benjamin, the Olympic champion in the 400m hurdles, after his semi-final race. “They don’t have to come out here and run three rounds [domestically].”
But the system Team USA is using is certainly not changing this year. As for Worlds, that’s up to World Athletics, the international governing body.
“Maybe we need to extend the byes to Olympic champions [into Worlds], too,” Benjamin added. “Everyone wants to see an Olympic champion at a World Championships… It’s a conversation. It’ll make better for the marketing: The Olympic champ versus the reigning world champion. It’s exciting.”
Whatever the system is, exactly, to qualify for a Worlds, the sentiment is shared across the board this week: Yes, while the World Championships are the biggest meet of the year. But the U.S. Championships?
They are the most pressure-packed.
“Looking around and seeing the other guys on the starting line was really incredible,” added Cole Hocker, the Olympic champion in the 1500m who ended up third – two spots ahead of Nuguse. Jonah Koech, pictured above, was the shock winner.
Said Hocker: “No other country in the world has this kind of depth.”