Arguably the deepest and most competitive U.S. Olympic Trials 1,500 meters in recent memory played out both as expected and somewhat unexepectedly on Monday night.
As expected, the top three who advanced to the Paris Games were Cole Hocker (in an Olympic Trials record of 3:30.59), Yared Nuguse and Hobbs Kessler. What was perhaps unexpected was how close Under Armour Dark Sky’s Vince Ciattei came to cracking the elite top three.
Ciattei, who moved to Flagstaff late last year, ran a huge personal best by almost two second (3:31.78, well under the Olympic standard) but didn’t have enough left in the stretch to pick off third-place Kessler from the inside. The fourth-place finish was Ciattei’s highest outdoor finish in national competition, either indoors or outdoors, and he did it with aggressive tactics.
Kessler, 21, is from Michigan but spends a lot of time training in Flagstaff and actually attended NAU for a while. Like Ciattei, Kessler went out in the lead pack with Nuguse, who knew that Hocker boasts the best kick. The first 400 meters went out in 56 seconds, and it only settled a bit after that before the mad dash at the bell lap.
Ciattei hugged the rail through 800 meters, running as little extra as possible. At the bell, Nuguse still led, with Kessler and Ciattei close behind. Hocker lurked in fourth but soon hoved into view and used that kick to take the lead on the backstretch. He never gave it up. Kessler pulled away from Ciattei on the backstretch and into the final turn, but Ciattei made a gusty bid at reeling him in from the inside. Kessler ended up beating Ciattei by two-tenths of a second for the final Olympic spot.
In mixed zone interviews afterward, Ciattei said the fourth-place finish was bittersweet, given how close he came to qualifying in a stacked field.
“It’s a testament to the quality of those guys,” Ciattei told reporters. “They all medaled at World Indoors this year. I didn’t let the fact that no one was picking me to beat any of those guys get to me, because no one was picking me.
“But I had so much self belief, so much support from my coaches and teammates. It’s tough to put forth an effort like that and still not be enough. It’s hard.”
Ciattei, 29, advanced on time out of Saturday’s semifinals, finishing sixth in the faster heat with a time of 3:34.63, just shy of his previous personal best of 3:34.62 set at the Los Angeles Grand Prix in May. In the first round, on Friday, he placed third in a tactical heat in 3:37.
Ranked 35th in the world before the final, well within the qualifying quota, he had raced against many of Monday’s finalists indoors at the U.S. Indoor Championships, finishing fifth behind Hocker, Kessler, Henry Wynne and Cooper Teare. Before joining Dark Sky officially in 2024, Ciattei ran for the now disbanded Nike Oregon Track Club and trained unofficially with Hocker and Teere under Ciattei’s college coach at Virginia Tech, Ben Thomas.
On Monday, he beat Wynne and Teare but couldn’t quite take the final step to catch Kessler.
In the other final Monday night involving Flagstaff runners, the women’s 5,000 meters, it was a classic finish, as Elle St. Pierre edged Elise Cranny by two hundreths of a second for the win, with Karissa Schweizer third. St. Pierre set the Olympic Trials record in 14:40.34 as she strained to hold off Cranny, now coached by NAU associate head coach Jarred Cornfield.
Flagstaff’s Rachel Smith went out with the lead pack, headed by Parker Valby, andd stayed in second place through 2,500 meters. But Smith, coming back from a hamstring injury, faded to ninth in 15:22.16. NAZ Elite’s Abby Nichols was 10th and teammate Katie Wasserman 14th.
Earlier in the night, in the semifinals of the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, Hoka NAZ Elite’s Krissy Gear finished sixth in her heat but made the final via time. Dark Sky’s Angelina Ellis finished fifth in her heat, imrpessive because she fell about 1,000 meters into the race but gethered herself and slowly worked her way back into finals contention. She outleaned Annie Rodenfels (who advanced on time) at the finish to take fifth. Madie Boreman, a former Colorado runner who lately has been training in Flagstaff, finished fourth in the same heat as Ellis and moved on to the finals on Thursday.
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