Fisher, Hocker battle for 3000m world record
Grant Fisher calls his race with Cole Hocker a "battle for the ages" as he secured a world record in the men's 3000m at the 117th Millrose Games.
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NBC Sports
3 days ago
- NBC Sports
Cole Hocker wants to follow Olympic gold with two more career firsts in 2025
Naturally, Cole Hocker wants to follow his 2024 Olympic gold medal by taking the world title this September, but that's not his only goal this summer. Hocker, who last Aug. 6 became the second American in the last 116 years to win an Olympic 1500m, was asked what would make 2025 a successful follow-up campaign. 'World champion,' he said without hesitation. 'That's, without a doubt, the goal. To go back to back in what I think is one of the most competitive eras that the 1500m has ever seen, that would make it a success without a doubt. Obviously, fast times are always in the cards, and I want to run fast, but most importantly, I want to win.' Beyond winning, the 23-year-old has sights set on another event. 'Also making the U.S. team in the 5k alongside the 1500m, I think that would be a huge step in the right direction for my career,' said Hocker, who was seventh in the Olympic Trials 5000m in his fifth total race of that meet. No American has competed in both the 1500m and 5000m at an Olympics or World Championships since Bernard Lagat, who won both events at the 2007 Worlds and took silver and bronze in 2009. Elle St. Pierre did qualify for both events for the 2024 Paris Games but dropped the 5000m to focus on the 1500m. To make his double happen, Hocker will most likely have to place in the top three in both events at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships from July 31-Aug. 3 at his old college home in Eugene, Oregon. Unlike Olympic Trials, he would only have to race three times at nationals. In the 1500m, the U.S. has developed depth over the last few years, just as the world has. At nationals, Hocker must deal with Olympic bronze medalist Yared Nuguse, Hobbs Kessler (fifth in Paris) and possibly emerging talents like Jonah Koech, who won a Diamond League race last week. In the 5000m, Olympic bronze medalist Grant Fisher was the lone American to finish in the top eight at either the 2023 Worlds or the Paris Games. Hocker, who trains under Virginia Tech coach Ben Thomas, will be race tested like never before thanks to the new Grand Slam Track series. He has faced both Nuguse and Olympic silver medalist Josh Kerr of Great Britain at three meets already this season. Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the Tokyo Olympic champion, hasn't raced since March 23 while recovering from an Achilles injury. In six total 1500m races since Paris, Hocker has finished second, third, third, third, third and second. Hocker's gold medal — won with a kick from third place in the last 100 meters — sits on a dresser in his room. No fancy display case. 'From what I've experienced and what I've gotten, you put feelings and emotions onto this object,' he said. 'I try to detach myself from that and just let it be a mark of what a beautiful season I put together. Look at the full season as almost like a work of art. That was a perfect season for me. So I feel like the gold medal for me is just that all encapsulated into an object, but I hate to give any object too much value.' Nick Zaccardi,
NBC Sports
04-05-2025
- NBC Sports
Fisher secures title in 5000m at Grand Slam Track
Grant Fisher cruised to a victory in the 5000m at Grand Slam Track Miami to pick up his second consecutive Slam title.
CNN
01-05-2025
- CNN
American runner Grant Fisher on his ‘super, super rare' back-to-back world records
For a six-day period, Grant Fisher felt like everything he touched would turn to gold. The American distance runner had never held a world record at the start of the year, but over the course of back-to-back races in February, he broke two in the space of a week: first in the indoor 3,000 meters, then the indoor 5,000 meters. Looking back, Fisher calls them both 'super, super rare' moments when all the factors needed to break a record lined up in his favor. For a brief time in New York and then in Boston, he felt invincible. Holding off the challenge of compatriot Cole Hocker at The Millrose Games on February 8, Fisher ran 7:22.91 for the 3,000m – almost a second faster than Ethiopian Lamecha Girma's mark set two years ago – before running a solo 12:44.09 in the 5,000m on Valentine's Day to take the record from another Ethiopian – the legendary Kenenisa Bekele. Even now, it still hasn't sunk in. 'The times don't seem real to me – 12:44 doesn't sound like a 5k time, and 7:22 doesn't sound like a 3k time,' Fisher tells CNN Sports. 'But those are attached to my name forever.' Perhaps most impressive was that Fisher ran both the world records in entirely different circumstances. In New York, he was pushed right to the line by Hocker, only moving past the Olympic 1,500m champion on the final straight. 'We just kept winding it up and winding it up, and it ended up that I needed a world record to beat Cole that day, which is kind of crazy,' says Fisher, who beamed through exhaustion after crossing the finish line. Then in Boston, the 27-year-old was essentially on his own for half of the race, weaving through slower runners on the closing laps. By that point, he didn't need to look at the clock to know that he was edging closer to a world record; the roar of the crowd told him as much. With no competition near him, Fisher could only tell himself to push harder and harder –arguably a bigger mental challenge than having a rival to race against. 'It was just me grinding against me,' he says, 'a different mindset when there's no carrot in front of you. Fisher placed himself among the world's top distance runners by winning Olympic bronze medals in the 5,000m and 10,000m last year, but the two records have propelled his career to even greater heights. He is set to run in the inaugural Grand Slam Track meet in Jamaica on Friday – a new league spearheaded by American legend Michael Johnson which features some of the world's best sprint and endurance athletes. The goal for the coming weeks, when Fisher will race eight times across Grand Slam Track's four events, is to win each time he steps onto the track. 'There are two kind of big sides to the sport,' says Fisher. 'One is see how fast you can go, and one is can you beat everybody else in the world? I know I can go fast, so the next piece is to see if I can beat everybody else out there.' Fisher is one of 48 'racers' contracted to compete in Grand Slam Track, receiving a base salary and up to $100,000 in prize money should he win an event. He'll face strong competition from Kenyan Ronald Kwemoi, who won 5,000m silver ahead of Fisher at the Olympics, but not Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the winner of that race in Paris who hasn't signed up for the new series. However, Fisher feels confident that Grand Slam Track will allow the fastest runners to race against each other more regularly, as well as being a way to crown the world's best athletes in a season-long competition outside of the Olympics and World Athletics Championships. 'I know I'm world class,' he says. 'I have been really close to being the best in the world before, but I never really have had that title, so I'm going for the win every single time. I think all eight people in these fields are going to say that same thing – that's the reason to show up to these things is to win.' Up until last year, Fisher was in danger of becoming a nearly-man at major races, finishing fourth and sixth at the world championships in 2022 and fifth and ninth at the Olympics the year before. But a coaching change at the start of last year shifted the trajectory of his career. Fisher left the Bowerman Track Club in Oregon at the end of 2023 and relocated to Park City, Utah to be trained by his high school coach Mike Scannell. He says that the coaching change, as well as living and training at altitude, has over time been 'massive' for his development, carrying him to world records and Olympic medals. In doing so, Fisher has established himself as a core part of the US' flourishing crop of male middle- and long-distance runners, alongside Hocker and 1,500m bronze medalist Yared Nuguse. 'American distance running is at an all-time high right now, I think,' says Fisher, pointing to Matt Centrowitz's 1,500m Olympic gold in Rio as a moment that inspired his generation. 'When I was younger, the narrative was kind of that Americans couldn't really compete with the rest of the world, and specifically the really strong East African nations in distance running. '(Centrowitz's) performance there, Galen Rupp's performance in 2016 as well, those I think unlocked the minds of a lot of younger athletes … People go into races now, and Americans aren't afraid.' If self-belief is a central ingredient to success, then Fisher is sure to only have bigger and better things on the horizon. Off the back of his world records, he's still wrapping his head around how fast he managed to run twice in the space of six days, still adjusting to his name being mentioned alongside some of the greats of the sport. As the year progresses, that will likely be happening with more and more regularity – especially if Fisher is able to maintain the form of his life.
