The women's distance races at NCAAs are chock-full of past national champions and rivals who have just missed out on those titles. Stars like Weini Kelati and Jazmine Fray will try to carry top times to their first NCAA wins, while Jessica Hull, Allie Ostrander and Danae Rivers will look to use their championship pedigree to add more hardware to their mantles.

Here's what to watch in the women's distance races in Austin this weekend. 

Women’s 800m - Like Indoors, Another Wide Open Race

Even with a collegiate record holder (Jazmine Fray) and an NCAA champion (Danae Rivers) in the field, the women’s 800m can best be described as a crapshoot with eight women having run times between Fray’s 2:02.27 NCAA leader and Rivers’ 2:03.58 season’s best.

The Texas A&M senior Fray, who set the indoor collegiate record (2:00.69) way back in 2017, has historically underperformed on the biggest stage-- her best nationals finish is fourth-- but there’s no question that she’s fit after front-running her way to a 2:02 at West prelim. Fray will have to conquer the demons of NCAA Championships past, but she certainly has the talent to win.

Rivers has had a solid outdoor season after she won her first title indoors, but it’s tough to call her the favorite with nine women having run faster than her this spring. A lot of that can be chalked up to circumstance-- the Penn State junior didn’t race an 800m at all in April-- but still, her modest 2:03.58 season’s best plus her narrow NCAA win indoors doesn’t separate her much from the pack.

Speaking of that narrow indoor NCAA win, the woman who Rivers just slipped past for victory in Birmingham, Penn’s Nia Akins, poses an intriguing case in Austin. Like Rivers, Akins hasn’t run super quick yet, but she also hasn’t really been tested, either. Akins ran her 2:03.34 season’s best at prelims (2:03.44) and looked totally controlled in doing so.

One other athlete to watch is UNLV’s Avi-Tal Wilson-Perteetee, a super-talented sophomore who scorched a  2:01.14 last year as a frosh. ATWP ran 2:02.41 back in April, and she owns the fastest PB in the field.

Women’s 1500m - Jessica Hull And Everybody Else

Oregon’s Jessica Hull won the NCAA 1500m title a year ago and hasn’t looked back since. The Aussie improved from cross country irrelevancy in 2017 to third this past fall, and then swept the 3k and DMR indoors in March. She arrives in Austin on such a roll that not even the volatility of the 1500m or the Austin heat can shake her status as the overwhelming favorite. The senior ran a 4:09.90 season’s best in the quarterfinal and has not lost a track final 1500m and above in over a year.

Hull can win this race in any style she pleases-- both her kick and her strength are the best in the field-- but the expected slow pace in the warm weather is likely to give several fast finishers a shot to upset her. Ohio State’s Julia Rizk came out of nowhere to win the mile title indoors, and her finishing speed gives her staying power despite a meager 4:15 PB. 

On the other end of the spectrum there’s Oklahoma State’s Sinclaire Johnson, who seems primed for a high finish after running an NCAA-leading 4:09.50 at West. The junior has never appeared in an NCAA individual final, however, so it’s difficult to imagine her trumping Hull without experience on her side.

Women’s 3,000m Steeplechase - Erica Birk Enters Allie O v. Cohen Sweepstakes

The narrative surrounding the women’s steeplechase dating back to before the season has been the highly-anticipated battle between two-time defending champion Allie Ostrander and 9:29 steepler Adva Cohen of New Mexico. That narrative only intensified when Allie O and Cohen went blow-for-blow in a photo finish at Payton Jordan on May 2, with Ostrander getting the slight edge by .05 seconds. At that time, there was no other athlete that seemed capable of breaking up that duo.

But then BYU’s Erica Birk entered the picture at West prelims by beating Cohen and lowering her lifetime best by 13 seconds to 9:42. Ostrander ran faster in a separate heat, but Birk’s superior 1500m speed (4:13) and defeat of the New Mexico sophomore Cohen makes her a huge threat this weekend. Add in the variable of Austin’s exterior steeple pit-- a rarity in elite competitions-- and this event has the potential to defy convention.

Ostrander is clearly the favorite, but Cohen, and now Birk, are very close by. Everyone should be there with a lap to go, and whoever covers the final water barrier best is likely to win.

Women’s 5,000m - XC All Over Again As Kelati Takes On Jones

A women’s outdoor 5k that three months ago seemed likely to come down to one NCAA champion-- Alicia Monson of Wisconsin-- and her indoor runner-up, New Mexico’s Weini Kelati, has since experienced a slight plot twist. One NCAA champ has been swapped for another. 

Monson picked up an injury and will not be in Austin, but in her place as a Kelati foil is another woman who has won an NCAA title over the New Mexico star in the last year: Colorado’s Dani Jones. The 2018 NCAA cross country champion missed all of the indoor season and much of the outdoor one as well, but has returned seemingly no worse for the wear with a PAC-12 5k title and a PR at prelims in the last few weeks. Even with a abbreviated run up to the championships, an athlete with Jones’ range from 1500m (4:07.33) to cross country poses a major threat to Kelati.

But the version of Kelati Jones will face in Austin is on a different level then the one she raced last November. The sophomore has not lost to collegiate competition this outdoor season, and overall has seemed to have extra bounce in her step that was missing before. Kelati solo’d the Mountain West 10k in 32:09, going out in 15:48 to do so. The 10k is probably her better distance, but two NCAA-leading 15:23s and a 4:40 last mile in her prelim 5k shows she has plenty of speed to win over 12 and a half laps. If she still feels fresh after the 10k two days prior, expect Kelati to attempt to neutralize Jones’ kick by taking the pace on early on Saturday.

Two other names to watch: Stanford’s Fiona O’Keeffe and Boise State’s Ostrander. O’Keeffe was third in the indoor 5k and finished right behind Jones in the PAC-12 5k, while Allie O has shown incredible strength this season with a 32:06 10k PB to go along with her steeple chops. Ostrander won’t be at full strength coming off the steeplechase final, but someone with her talent and experience can’t be counted out.

Women’s 10,000m - Kelati Will Win Her First Title

Weini Kelati winning the women’s 10k is one of the surest bets of the entire meet. Notre Dame’s Anna Rohrer has a faster lifetime best, but it seems unlikely that she is on 31:58 form having only recently come back from an injury. Plus, there’s no doubt that Kelati would have a much faster PB than 32:09 had she not run that effort entirely alone.

The Austin heat is sure to make for plenty of surprises over 25 laps, and even Kelati isn’t impervious to a bad day in warm conditions, but she’s so far clear of this field that it would take a near meltdown for her not to win.