Steve Prefontaine, the brash distance-running prodigy who died young 50 years ago, wanted to be a miler. But his top-end speed wasn’t up to snuff for that event.
So one day, spotting sprinter Vince Buford training alone at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field track, Prefontaine prevailed upon his Duck teammate to help him break 24 seconds for 220 yards.
As Brendan O’Meara relates in “The Front Runner” — an exceptional new biography of the legend known as “Pre” — the distance runner followed the sprinter in a series of dashes, finally getting down to 23.4 seconds over the half-lap.
“Steve wrapped Buford up in a giant bear hug and lifted him up off the ground,” O’Meara writes, quoting Buford: “He was ecstatic!”
One wonders what Prefontaine would have thought about two wonder women at Saturday’s 50th anniversary track classic bearing his name — setting world records at distances Pre prized.
First came Beatrice Chebet, 25.
The two-time Olympic champion thrilled the sellout crowd (12,606 ticketed spectators) at the rebuilt Hayward Field with the first female sub-14-minute 5,000 meters.
Chebet’s time of 13 minutes, 58.06 seconds for 3.1 miles, averaging 4:29.75 per mile, would have been a men’s world record as recently as May 1954 — when Roger Bannister ran the first sub-4-minute mile.
It was fellow Kenyan Faith Kipyegon — who a week ago sought to become a sub-4 miler herself in a Nike-hyped event in Paris — who set the crowd aroar with her own world record.
Running by herself the last lap of the 1,500-meter event, the day’s final race, Kipyegon crossed the line with a look of happy shock.
Her time of 3:48.68 — equivalent to a 4:06.97 mile — was barely behind the pace of her “Breaking 4” mile race June 26 at Stade Sébastien Charléty (when she clocked 4:06.91 with a flotilla of pacesetters and special shoes and tracksuit).
Said three-time Olympic gold medalist Kipyegon, 31: “This is the road to Tokyo (world championships in September) and I would say I am in the right direction.”
She credited her coach and managers — and competition.
“To be honest, the ladies are pushing me, too, because they are running quick now and I’m happy that when I broke a world record, they are all running very fast, and that is what I wanted, to motivate the younger generation to come and do even better.
“For them to follow me, it feels so great that they are pushing me as well to break records.”
Track’s global governing body — World Athletics — was certainly impressed. In a relatively new metric, the meet was ranked the best one-day invitational in history.
Chebet and Kipyegon overshadowed a raft of marks that rated headlines, including an American record in the hammer throw by 30-year-old Rudy Winkler of Washington, D.C.
In the Diamond League series’ first event — at 10 a.m. before the national NBC telecast at 1 p.m. — Winkler spun the 16-pound ball-on-a-steel-wire 83.16 meters (272 feet, 10 inches).
He upped his own national record of 82.71 (271-4 1/4) set at the same stadium-adjacent venue in 2021. And he thus beat Paris Olympic champion Ethan Katzberg of Canada.
A throw of 83.16 would have been a world record as recently as 1982 during a period of Soviet dominance.
“I saw it land, and I was like ‘It looks like it could be a PR,’ and then it came up as 83 and then I kind of blacked out for a few seconds,” Winkler said, “but I had to regain my composure for my last couple of throws.”
Also notable: former world champ Brooke Andersen, a graduate of Rancho Buena High School in Vista, took second in the women’s hammer throw, going 76.95 (252-5 1/2) behind Olympic champ Camryn Rogers of Canada at 78.88 (258-9 1/2).
Many in the crowd, greedy for even more records, were dismayed to see hurdles superstar Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone fall short of the 48.70 U.S. standard in the flat 400, winning in “only” 49.43 seconds. And recently married Tokyo Olympic champ Athing Mu-Nikolayev taking last in the 800 — after tripping and falling in last year’s Olympic Trials on the same rust red oval.
And pole vault GOAT Mondo Duplantis failing three times at a world record 6.29 meters (20-7 1/2) after winning at 6.00 meters (19-8 1/4). But so be it.
Typically, the Prefontaine Classic ends with the Bowerman Mile, where sub-4 is assumed for the whole field.
In Saturday’s edition, the winner was Niels Laros of the Netherlands, catching American record-holder Yared Nuguse in the final yard after making up a 30-yard deficit.
Laros ran 3:45.94. Nuguse: 3:45.95. Only a photo could separate them.
And Paris Olympic champion Cole Hocker (an Oregon grad) was fourth at 3:47.43 behind France’s Azeddine Habz’s 3:46.65.
How deep was the mile field?
In 15th place was Oliver Hoare of Australia. He ran 3:51.60.
(And in the invitational “B” race earlier, Ethan Strand won in 3:48.86 as fellow Americans Vincent Ciattei and Gary Martin trailed in 3:49.68 and 3:49.73.)
When Chebet set her 5K mark Saturday, she beat earlier 5K world records set first by Kipyegon and then Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay — 14:00.21 at this meet in 2023.
When Prefontaine set his first American record at 5000 — in 1971 at the USA-USSR dual in Berkeley — his time was 13:30.4. Or only 2.2 seconds a lap faster that Chebet’s pace.
“When I was coming here to Eugene, I was coming to prepare to run a world record,” Chebet said. “I said if Faith is trying, why not me?”
As for Kipyegon, her remarks in the media tent were open and honest.
“I was preparing myself for something special, which was to run under four minutes in a mile, and I think I pushed myself, getting better and better toward the 1500, so I knew it was possible to still run under 3:49,” she said.
