The fastest two high school girls ever in US history at 1500 meters will be featured in the same race together on May 31st at the IAAF Diamond League meet in the Prefontaine Classic. Held at historic Hayward, high school seniors Mary Cain (a professional runner for Nike) and Elise Cranny (a senior at Niwot High School in Colorado) will compete head to head as well as be competing in a strong professional field of runners to pull them along to fast times.
During the indoor season, Cain had a remarkable run of races including a World Junior record in the 1000 (2:35.80) and posting a mile PR of 4:24 but had to prematurely shut her season down prior to the World Indoor Championships due to injury. The Prefontaine Classic 1500 meter run will be Cain's outdoor season opener after using the past few months to get completely healthy and put in a quality period of training to prepare for a busy summer season on the pro racing circuit.
While the Prefontaine Classic will be a race buster for Cain, Elise Cranny on the other hand comes in very race sharp and quite frankly on fire with her recent performances. At last week's Colorado State Championships at serious altitude, Cranny set two state records in the 3200 (10:17) and 1600 (4:47), while winning the 800 to complete a state championship distance triple. Earlier in the season at the Mt. SAC Relays, Cranny ran a US leading time of 2:04.81 in the 800 and returned to California two weeks later to move up to US #2 all-time in the 1500 with a 4:10.95 performance at the Payton Jordan Invitational held in Palo Alto at Stanford University.
Cain (4:04.62 1500 PR) has certainly proven she can run with the top tier professional runners in the United States and World after making the finals of the IAAF World Championships last summer in the 1500 as well as winning the US indoor title at the distance this past winter, while Cranny will simply be looking to hold on and pace herself well to continue to drop her 1500 time after just recently making a significant drop of 4 seconds from her previous PR at the Payton Jordan Invitational. It will certainly be an exciting and monumental moment for American high school girls distance running to see not one, but two US high school seniors toeing the start line in an IAAF Diamond League elite race against some of the World's best on May 31st at Hayward Field.
Prefontaine Classic - Women's 1500 Meters Entrants
- Abeba Aregawi (Sweden) 3:56.54
- Faith Kipyegon (Kenya) 3:56.98
- Hellen Obiri (Kenya) 3:58.58
- Jenny Simpson (USA) 3:59.90
- Nancy Langat (Kenya) 4:00.13
- Brenda Martinez (USA) 4:00.94
- Siham Hilali (Morocco) 4:01.33
- Hannah England (Great Britain) 4:01.89
- Eunice Sum (Kenya) 4:02.05
- Treniere Moser (USA) 4:02.85
- Laura Weightman (Great Britain) 4:02.99
- Mary Cain (USA) 4:04.62
- Zoe Buckman (Australia) 4:04.82
- Axumawit Embaye (Ethiopia) 4:05.16
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Elise Cranny (USA) 4:10.95
Television Schedule
May 31, 3:30pm – 4:30pm – NBC Sports Network
May 31, 4:30pm – 6:00pm – NBC