Silence turns to triumph at the 50th Pre Classic
Two world records fell on a day that began on a winding road east of Hayward.
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EUGENE — The rock is so close to everything, just a couple of minutes from campus, up in the twisting residential streets carved through the hilled woods that make up Skyline Boulevard.
Fresh off a win at Hayward Field, Steve Prefontaine was driving home from a party when his gold 1973 MGB convertible crossed the center lane, hopped a curb, ran into the rock and flipped, fatally trapping the Coos Bay native beneath.
He was dead at 24, about a four-minute run away from where he became a legend.
Six days later, the “Bowerman Classic” began with a new name.
“Our Oregon Track Club Board concurs that in living memorial to Pre — his inspiration, his ambition — the meet he did so much to make successful should bear his name,” retired Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman said in 1975. “Next Saturday evening you may attend the Steve Prefontaine Classic, a first step in a parade of opportunities to share directly in the dreams of Steve Prefontaine.”
Jamaica’s Don Quarrie ran the 220-yard dash in 19.9 seconds on that June Saturday to break the world record. Six more have fallen since and Eugene buzzed Saturday in anticipation of a 50th Pre Classic that included 17 Gold medalists and full podium rematches from Paris in five disciplines.
But 30 minutes before the competition on Saturday, it’s quiet at Pre’s Rock as sun peeks through the trees and brightens a memorial that’s become a pilgrimage for runners.
Visitors have left Nike, Adidas and Under Armour shoes. There are water bottles, runners’ bibs, photos, flowers, wristbands, a rubber duck and a baton. “PRE 5-30-75” is scratched into the rock and a two-hour parking zone waits around the corner.
The road is empty, and as a breeze picks up the only sound comes from medals hung up along a railing chiming against one another. They’ve come from marathons in Taipei and Austin, from the Portland Turkey Trot, from the high school championship races and others earned with enough something for the owners to think of them as a worthy offering to the runner who captivated the sport.
It’s getting close to 10 a.m., a sellout is expected down the road and the serene silence of this Saturday morning is about to segue into the roar of Hayward Magic.
It’s time to go.
There’s 12,606 spectators here to watch events around the track. Music hums, there’s the occasional burst of applause for the field events and the crowd always charges into gear with runners down the home stretch.
But just before a big race, as anticipation meets the present, a hush falls over Hayward as quiet as the morning at the rock.
The only sound heard as the Women’s 5,000 sets to begin is the whir of the television cameras flying around the stadium on cables as Beatrice Chebet eyes a second Pre moment. A year ago, the 25-year-old Kenyan smashed the 10,000 world record by seven seconds, becoming the first woman to break 29 minutes (28:54.14). Now, after a recent win, she returned to Eugene eyeing the 5K throne.
“After running in Rome, I said I have to prepare for a record, because in Rome I was just running to win a race, but after running 14:03, I said that I'm capable of running a world record,” Chebet says later. “When I was coming here to Eugene, I was coming to prepare to run a world record, and I said I have to try.”
Chebet keeps even with the 14:00.21 world record pace for most of the race and shifts into another gear on the final lap. She kicks as she enters the final straightaway, passing lapped runners as fans rise to their feet and the silence gives way to a roar.
“She’s going to get the world record!” a young girl screams from the row behind me. “She’s going to get the world record!”
Chebet crosses at 13:58.06, finishing with a 61-second final lap to become the first woman to break the 14-minute marker. She raises her arms. She embraces her coach and eventually makes her way around the track in a victory lap, slapping fives and sharing hugs with fans revelling in the moment.
“I just had to believe in myself. The last 400 I had to get the energy,” Chebet says later. “I pushed for myself. I was the one who wanted the world record so I had to push for myself and go for it.”
The run leaves the stadium buzzing, even as the next few events fail to live up to the same type of moment. Melissa Jefferson-Wooden wins the women’s 100m in the 15th-fastest time in world history as Olympic gold medalist Shaccari Richardson finishes last. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone wins the women’s 400 but admits the race “wasn't my best work.” The Bowerman Mile saw a thrilling photo finish between Niels Laros (3:45.94) and Yared Nuguse (3:45.95), but the race was without world record-holder Jakob Ingebrigtsen (3:43.73 in 2023 at the Pre) and saw Oregon favorite Cole Hocker, the gold-winner in Paris in the 1500, finish a second-and-a-half off in fourth.
“You have to be in world record shape if you want a medal. You have to be flirting with that,” Hocker says later. “I wanted to race better today than I did, but I’m really confident about the next one.”
The crowd tries but can’t quite lift Mondo Duplantis above the bar in his world-record attempt in the pole vault, and the electricity in the stadium begins to grow as the meet’s final event, the women’s 1500, approaches.
The race is highlighted by Faith Kipyegon, who fell six seconds short in her publicized bid to become the first woman to break a 4-minute mile a week earlier. Kipyegon’s attempt was featured as a documentary on Amazon Prime and she came to Eugene fully understanding the responsibility of an athlete chasing a record at the Pre.
“I think it’s an honor,” Kipyegon said before the race. “[Usually] the mile is the last one on the track, and to have the 1500 be the last one, I feel even better. You have many people believing in you, and then your event is moved to being the last one, that is a big honor in a high way.”
Kipyegon is the star of this event and embraces competing not just with her peers, but the memories of a crowd that’s celebrated the likes of Allen Webb’s 3:53.43 mile as a high schooler, Maria Mutola’s 12 wins in the 800m, Ingebrigtsen’s 2023 double and every single time this meet’s namesake emptied his tank.
Prefontaine understood these legend-crafting moments more than most, even back in high school when he ran a 4:06:09 mile to win the Coos County meet and was later found crying.
“They all came to watch me break 4 minutes, and I failed them,” Prefontaine told his friend, Ron Apling.
Kipyegon and former Oregon runner Jessica Hull have both requested the track’s Wave Light pacer system to be set at World Record time. The runners are introduced, they take their marks in the southwest corner of the track and silence falls over Hayward once more.
The starter’s pistol sounds and Kipyegon charges out to the front. Hull and Diribe Welteji keep a step behind for the first three laps as the three maintain a record pace. With 300 meters to go, Kipyegon pushes her lead to 10 meters. She doubles it with 200 left and is accelerating here entering the final stretch.
Hull and Welteji are gone. The crowd is on its feet. And when Kipyegon passes through the finish line to beat her own world record by half a second (3:48.68), Hayward Field unleashes its final offering: a befitting roar that surely echoed a mile east, cutting through the woods and breaking the silence at the rock.
— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor
Pre and Mel Renfro are the only autographs I ever sought or got - Pre's when he spoke at my school in North Eugene in the weeks following Munich in '72 and Renfro's when he showed up at an Oregon Spring football game. Both class acts.
Thanks for writing about the Pre meet. A great afternoon! Besides the two world records there were 7 meet records, a US record and an African record and some great drama in many of the other races and events.