Grand Slam Track: Miami Recap — Double Trouble In Miami

Josh Kerr, who loves a championship 1500m but still has the footspeed to contend in the 800m, reminded the world this weekend why his early signing with the league was so exciting. With the early-season hip injuries and illness in his rearview, Kerr kicked his way to a 3:34.71 1500m win via a 53.34 final 400m then doubled back to his first 800m PB in nearly six years, running 1:45.01 to improve on his mark from Kingston by over five seconds.

Non-GST sprinters probably don’t love the fact that the league forces athletes to learn how to double… because that necessity has turned both Kenny Bednarek and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden into world-class threats in their respective weaker events. In fairness to Bednarek, he’s been honing his chops in the 100m for the last several seasons, even making the Olympic final last summer, but now he feels nearly equally lethal in both events.

Jefferson-Wooden, on the other hand, didn’t run a single 200m last season, and now she’s lurking in Gabby Thomas’s shadow with a 22.15 PB, good enough to defeat Thomas, the Kingston long sprints Slam champion (Slampion?) in the short sprints standings.

Others learned lessons from Kingston. After losing her first 400m in over a year in Kingston, Marileidy Paulino wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. A few weeks of training later and she fairly handily dispatched rival Salwa Eid Naser in both the 400m and the 200m, leaving nothing up to chance in the latter event as she clocked a personal best and Dominican national record of 22.30. Paulino is one of the fiercest competitors in the game, and while the winning time was a little slower (48.67 in Kingston vs. 49.21 in Miami), Paulino looked to be in the driver’s seat the entire homestretch.

It’s hard to say if Agnes Ngetich learned a lesson or simply is getting more comfortable racing on the track, but the road specialist still was able to muster the kick that evaded her in Kingston against Ejgayehu Taye. This time, when Medina Eisa gave Ngetich a challenge in the final lap of the 5000m, she was able to respond in kind and pick up a critical 12 points thanks to a 29.15 final 200m. Then, in the 3000m, she closed even faster (29.08), and while that was only good for third place, Ngetich had still mustered up enough points to walk away with the Slam title. It’s also worth noting that, despite the long distance fellas’ proclivity for jogging, both the women’s 3000m and 5000m were won in world-leading times.

And it seems like the meet organizers learned something else about the long distance fields: throwing a bunch of sub-3:50 milers at Grant Fisher will force him to work for his second $100,000 check. The 3000m starting slow as molasses meant that Challenger Andrew Coscoran was able to sneak a win with a 25.78 final 200m, the only sub-26 finish in the field, and while Fisher still finished second, he couldn’t play the 5000m quite as strategically to secure his bad. Instead, he learned a valuable lesson of his own: if you close your final 1600m in 3:57, no one will be able to hang with you. The chess match continues, and Grant’s on his way back to the bank.

Not winning can still be life-changing. For unsponsored or minimally-sponsored Slam competitors, the shiny $100,000 first prize isn’t the only reason to show up. For guys like Chris Robinson (second in the long hurdles), Jamal Britt (third in the short hurdles), or Jacory Patterson (second in the long sprints, winning the 400m in 43.98), the opportunity to pick up tens of thousands of dollars with a high finish could be transformative. Patterson will hopefully be able to clock fewer overnight shifts at UPS, for starters.