Two Weeks After Breaking The American Record In 3,000 Meters, Nuguse Has His Sights On The Mile At Millrose

By David Woods for DyeStat

NEW YORK – For even the elite of track and field, there is but one Olympics in a lifetime. Research shows 26 percent of summer Olympians compete in no more than one.

So here was a 22-year-old Yared Nuguse, getting ready for the first round of the 1,500 meters at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, and he was out before he started. He developed a quadriceps injury in warm-ups and withdrew. Would this be it?

In 2022, he was not the authentic Yared Nuguse at NCAA or USATF Championships. In the aftermath of injuries, he was ninth in the NCAA indoor 3,000 meters for Notre Dame, failed to qualify for outdoor NCAAs, and was 11th in the 1,500 at USAs.

“It took me like that whole year to realize I’m still the person I am,” he said Thursday at a news conference ahead of Saturday's 115th Millrose Games at The Armory. “I have to do more work to really stay healthy than I had in the past. That was hard to come to terms with.”

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It is nearly 17 months until the Paris Olympics. Nuguse is on track to get there, maybe as a world-beater. He is aiming at an American record in Saturday’s Wanamaker Mile.

 A world record is not out of the question.

“But the way the race is paced, it’s something that could happen,” Nuguse said. “It’s all about really keeping that pace up once the pacer drops off. It’s something a lot of milers struggle with, myself included.”

Nuguse is coming off an American indoor record of 7:28.24 for 3,000 meters Jan. 27 at Boston University. Immediate target: Bernard Lagat’s American record of 3:49.89 in the indoor mile. Surprisingly, given advancements in facilities and supershoes, Lagat’s time has stood since 2005.

World record in the indoor mile is 3:47.01 by Ethiopia’s Yomif Kojelcha in 2019, also at Boston University.

Nuguse isn’t the only one aiming at sub-3:50. Two of his On Athletics Club teammates, Ollie Hoare of Australia and Mario Garcia Romo of Spain, are doing so. That’s not to ignore Cole Hocker, either, after 3:50.35 a year ago.

“I’d never underestimate someone like Cole Hocker,” Nuguse said. “I know how fast he is.”

Erik Sowinski, the 33-year old who is a much-sought pacer, has been asked to tow the field through a 1:53 half-mile. Also on the start list are Johnny Gregorek, Josh Thompson, Sam Prakel, Drew Hunter and New Zealand’s Sam Tanner. Tanner could be going for a national record of 3:51.06, set by Nick Willis at the 2016 Millrose Games.

Hoare is the defending champion and a Nuguse training partner in Boulder, Colo.

“It’s been a privilege to train with Yared,” Hoare said. “And that’s the problem with training with him. He looks so good all the time, you just worry that he’s never going to feel bad.”

After Millrose, Hoare is traveling from New York to his homeland, where he is on a 4x2K relay team Feb. 18 for the World Cross Country Championships at Bathurst, Australia. Nuguse is entered Feb. 22 in a 1,500 at Madrid.

“We’re both here to win the race,” Nuguse said. “Regardless of what happens, we’re teammates and we’re good friends.”

Transition from college to pro in track and field is harder than in team sports. Besides relocating, an athlete must procure a coach, agent, training group and medical care – all taken care of in the shelter of college program or on a football, basketball or baseball team.

For Nuguse, however, he said pro is easier than college.

He said he has more time and fewer obligations. Change is something he has always embraced, he said, explaining he has not lived more than four or five years in one city. Before Notre Dame, he ran high school track in Louisville, Ky.

“Having that one focus has helped me become the runner I always felt I could become,” he said.

He was 4-0 in late-summer races last year at Memphis, Tenn.; Raleigh, N.C.; Lucerne, Switzerland, and Padua, Italy. He clocked 3:33.26 for 1,500 in the latter, a PB and fastest by an American in 2022. Then he finished second, just three seconds behind Edwin Kurgat, at the Cross Champs at Austin, Texas on Dec. 1.

Nuguse said he had no misgivings about being so fit so early because all of his group’s training is supposed to allow for a peak when it matters most: August’s World Championships at Budapest, Hungary.

“If I can be fit right now at this time,” he said, “I can’t imagine what I’m going to be like outdoors.”

Steiner record bid, New Crouser technique

Track tidbits from Millrose news conference:

>> Another potential world all-time best, or at least American record, is foreseen in the women’s 300 meters. In her opening 200 (of a 400) two weeks ago at Fayetteville, Ark., Abby Steiner clocked 23.24 en route to 50.59. “If I can hold that for 100 more meters, hold that pace, we’re looking at a pretty fast 300,” she said. World record of 35.45 was set by Russia’s Irina Privalova in 1993 and tied by the Bahamas’ Shaunae Miller-Uibo in 2018. Quanera Hayes set an American record of 35.71 in 2017. (Of note: Miller-Uibo, 28, two-time Olympic gold medalist at 400, has announced she is pregnant.)

For more on Steiner's record attempt, read Erik Boal's Story

>> Noah Lyles is reveling in last week’s 6.51 PB for 60 meters at Boston, where he beat Trayvon Bromell. Lyles is pitted against world record-holder Christian Coleman in another 60 at Millrose. “The result that came out of it was a PR and beating somebody who technically a lot of people think I wasn’t supposed to beat,” said Lyles, world champion and American record-holder at 200. “A lot of icing on the cake – ice cream with sprinkles.”

>> With indoor/outdoor world records and two Olympic golds, why change anything? Shot putter Ryan Crouser isn’t thinking that way. Without elaborating, he said he is making a “pretty big change” in technique. “If I have a good round 1, I’ll probably roll it out in round 2,” he said.

>> Anna Hall, a heptathlon bronze medalist at the 2022 Worlds, is not confining herself to combined events. She is seeded first in both pentathlon and 400 meters in next week’s USATF Indoor Championships at Albuquerque, N.M. “I just love getting to compete against the specialists,” Hall said. “It makes it easier to go back to the multis.”

Contact David Woods at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.