2017 USATF Outdoor Championships

USA Women's 800m Preview: Brenda Martinez's Last Hurrah

USA Women's 800m Preview: Brenda Martinez's Last Hurrah

Preview of the women's 800m at the 2017 USATF Outdoor Track & Field Championships

Jun 20, 2017 by Johanna Gretschel
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The USATF Outdoor Championships start this Thursday in Sacramento, California, and continue through Sunday afternoon. Viewers in Canada can watch the action live on FloTrack here.

Prelims: Thursday, 4:25 PM PT
Semis: Friday, 8:28 PM PT
Final: Sunday, 2:06 PM PT

In the year since the Olympic Trials and the Rio Games, the outlook of the U.S. women's 800m has radically changed.

Let's Replay That Insane Olympic Trials Final One More Time


At last year's 800m Olympic Trials final in Track Town, Alysia Montano, a six-time U.S. outdoor champion, and Brenda Martinez, the 2013 World Championships bronze medalist, fell to the track in the final curve of the race and failed to make the team. The unheralded Kate Grace, then of Oiselle and now of Nike, made her ascent to stardom by securing the win in 1:59.10. Ajee Wilson and Chrishuna Williams also made the team, but Grace was the only American to make the final in Rio. Molly Ludlow finished fourth. Raevyn Rogers, then a sophomore at the University of Oregon, was fifth, and Phoebe Wright was sixth.


A year later, Grace is racing the 1500m, not the 800m, at USAs. Both Ludlow and Montano have announced pregnancies in the past four months; Ludlow, who has placed fourth at three U.S. Championships, officially retired from the sport while a five-months-pregnant Montano will compete in Sacramento. This will actually be the second time she competes at a national championship while pregnant; she ran at the 2014 USATF Outdoor Nationals while eight months pregnant in what became a viral moment in the running world. Wright has not competed in 2017.

The Contenders: Ajee Wilson, Charlene Lipsey, Chrishuna Williams, Laura Roesler


Wilson was runner-up at the Olympic Trials last summer and briefly held the American indoor record before USADA announced Monday that the 23-year-old's 1:58.27 mark would have to be forfeited because she ate meat containing too much hormone. Wilson hasn't competed at all outdoors while awaiting the results of the USADA investigation and her training partner, Charlene Lipsey, revealed in a FloTrack interview at the adidas Boost Boston Games that she underwent surgery earlier this spring. Coach Derek Thompson told LetsRun.com that the surgery was to remove a cyst, and she had to miss a few weeks of training.

With Wilson's current fitness status a bit of a question mark, LSU alum Lipsey has become a strong contender to make her first world team.

Charlene Lipsey talks about her breakout 2017 and why we haven't seen training partner Ajee Wilson:



Since moving to Philadelphia in the fall to train with Wilson and Thompson, Lipsey herself has become one of the most consistent runners in the U.S. Before the move, she had yet to break two minutes, and she shattered that barrier at the Millrose Games with a 1:58.64. The 25-year-old won the USATF 1K title in March and has since won her last four races, including her section at the Prefontaine Classic over Williams, the former Razorback who scrapped her way to an Olympic bid last year in just her second year running the 800m.

The 24-year-old Williams has been running about as well this year as last year. Her season best is 2:00.41, and she'll need to be under two minutes to make the team. But to be fair, she's only run under two minutes twice in her career. Another consistent performer who didn't have her best day at Prefontaine was Laura Roesler, the 2014 Bowerman Award winner from Oregon. She was just sixth in the Friday night section in 2:01.89, but as a whole, the 25-year-old has enjoyed a strong season and clocked her first sub-two since 2014 at April's Mt. SAC Relays, where she finished behind Raevyn Rogers in 1:59.54.

The Favorites: Brenda Martinez, Raevyn Rogers


The top two candidates here, though, are clearly Martinez and Rogers. Martinez said earlier this season that 2017 is her last year to focus on the 800m before moving up the 1500m -- and surely last year's fall in the Olympic Trials final provided extra motivation to make sure she's on the world team this summer. She's won both 800m races she's entered this year and set a season best of 1:58.78, which makes her the fastest American this season and fifth fastest in the world.

Rogers, meanwhile, was perhaps the brightest female star of the NCAA Championships. she won her fifth consecutive 800m title and anchored the Ducks' 4x400m in 49.77 to net the relay title and overall team title as well as set a new NCAA record of 3:23.13. Rogers cemented her star status in April when she broke Suzy Favor's 27-year-old NCAA record in the 800m at the Mt. SAC Relays in 1:59.1, a time that still ranks No. 2 in the U.S. and No. 7 in the world this season.

Watch Raevyn Rogers break the collegiate record in the 800m at the Mt. SAC Relays:



The Dark Horse: Sammy Watson & #Breaking2


Could Sammy Watson sneak into the party? The Rush Henrietta High School senior is headed to Texas A&M next year but not before one more push at a sub-two-minute 800m. At the Prefontaine Classic, she was third behind Lipsey and Williams and ahead of experienced stars such as Roesler and Chanelle Price, both of whom were on the Team USA gold medal winning 4x800m at the IAAF World Relays. (Price has since scratched from the U.S. Championships.) Watson's outdoor PB is 2:00.78, which ranks No. 3 all-time behind Kim Gallagher, who ran 2:00.07 in 1982, and Mary Cain, who ran 1:59.51 in 2013.


She already has the indoor record. At the Millrose Games in February, Watson finished a few seconds behind Wilson and Lipsey in 2:01.78 to break Mary Decker's 42-year-old national record.

Watch the post-race interview with Watson after she broke the 800m indoor national high school record at the Millrose Games:



Prediction: 1. Brenda Martinez, 2. Raevyn Rogers, 3. Charlene Lipsey