The 2026 USATF Outdoor Championships Preview

We're finally entering the championship portion of the professional track and field season, and the USATF Outdoor Championships are set to get underway in New York City. The action kicks off this Thursday at Icahn Stadium, and concludes on Sunday.

As is almost always the case, the sprints at this year's U.S. Championships are likely to produce results that can rival those of any global championship - there's just that much high-end depth in the United States across these events.

Though there isn't a traditional World Championship this year - which means the top three finishers at this U.S. Champs aren't fighting for spots on Team USA - there is a new event later this summer called the World Ultimate Championships. This four-day event features a more compact schedule than most global championships and invites athletes based on their world rankings or status as defending World, Olympic, and Diamond League champs.

About a year ago, at the conclusion of the men's 200m U.S. Championship final, Noah Lyles breezed past Kenny Bednarek to break the tape. In doing so, Lyles netted another U.S. title and set the then-world lead. And he proceeded to stare down Bednarek, who responded in kind with a little shove.

By the generally respectful standards of our sport, this was wild stuff! And it revealed that there was some interpersonal beef simmering beneath the surface of what many figured was a garden variety sports rivalry between two of the world's best short sprinters.

Since then, these two have continued to be some of the most accomplished and dependable sprinters in the world, rarely not finishing at the top of the heap in any race they're entered. As an Olympic 100m champ, Lyles has the edge on paper here. But in a race as technically demanding as the 100m, exceptional execution generally trumps a superior pedigree - Bednarek has to be hoping for a perfectly dialed race and for a slip-up from Lyles, who isn't always the strongest starter.

Lyles is slated to run the 100m and 200m, whereas Bednarek's only entered in the 100m. So while this may not be a true rematch from last year, we're still getting to see these two square off. Historically, Lyles has had more success over 100m than Bednarek. Bednarek's global medals have all come in the 200m or 4x100m, while Lyles is - despite arguably being a better 200m runner - is, as we mentioned earlier, the Olympic champ in the 100m. That said, both men boast 9.79-second PRs, and both are fierce competitors.

Based purely on career pedigrees, it'd be a surprise if these two didn't make up two-thirds of the podium. But they'll be joined by half a dozen or so 100m men who hope to have something to say about that. Keep an eye on Courtney Lindsay, Max Thomas, Jordan Anthony, Ronnie Baker, Christian Coleman, Brandon Hicklin, Ajani Dwyer, Cameron Crump, and Pjai Austin. All 11 men mentioned have run between 9.88 and 9.99 this season, meaning there will be at least three sub-10 performers who won't even make the final.

It would essentially take him scratching, false-starting, or forgetting to tie his shoes for Noah Lyles to finish anything short of first in the 200m final. He's the third fastest man ever over the distance and a terrific championship performer. But stranger things have happened, and should Lyles falter, Brandon Hicklin is the best of the rest. Garrett Kaalund and Max Thomas have also run under 20 seconds in 2026.

2024 Olympic champ Quincy Hall headlines the field, but enters with just the eighth fastest seed time. Since his gold medal performance, injuries have kept him relatively quiet, with the exception of a win at last year's Rome Diamond League. If healthy and fit, he's borderline unbeatable here. But those are both big ifs. Chris Bailey has had the strongest 2026 campaign and has the fastest seed time; Khaleb McRae has also posted some solid results. Never sleep on relay stalwarts like Vernon Norwood or Bryce Deadmon, though!

Here at MileSplit we don't toss around the word "wunderkind" lightly. The U.S. tends to churn out a handful of prep athletes each year that would be borderline unbeatable domestically, had they been born in another country. But here, due to our embarrassment of talent riches, they still have to get better as they reach college age and beyond to even get a shot at competing on the world stage.

With all that said, the field in the men's 800m at USAs this year is headlined by three, honest-to-goodness current or former teenage phenoms: Cooper Lutkenhaus, Donavan Brazier, and Hobbs Kessler. Wunderkinds, every last one of them. Yet they all took remarkably different paths to this race.

Lutkenhaus is still in high school, but is using up the last bit of his summer vacation to travel to New York and shoot for his first U.S. outdoor title. Last summer, he shocked the track and field world to qualify for his first global championship at 16 years old. This winter he won the World Indoor Championships in the 800m, and picked up right where he left off outdoors, winning a couple of Diamond League meets before losing to Brandon Miller at Prefontaine. (Miller has scratched from this event.) Lutkenhaus seems to have a ways to go before he reaches his stratospheric ceiling - he took Miller's freshman class 800m record and the next man's American junior record, too - but is he the top man in the field right now?

Brazier is the 2019 World champ over 800m as a 21-year-old. But then injuries struck. He raced sporadically over the next three years, then not at all until 2025, when he showed up at a low-key meet in Tennessee and went 1:44.70. Fans were at first just glad to see him back competing. But the expectations quickly shifted as he shaved over 1.5 seconds from his season best over his next two outings. He wound up winning USAs, before his lack of base caught up to him and he struggled in the rounds at Worlds, failing to make the final. Now, with a longer stretch of consistent training under his belt, he's looking to make it two straight national titles. He's had a quieter season than Miller or Lutkenhaus, but never count out Brazier. Even in a race full of obscene natural ability, he is liable to pop off if everything goes to plan.

Then there's Kessler, the North American U20 record holder in the 1500m. He's still very much a miler by trade - he placed fifth at the 2024 Olympics in the 1500m - but he's also the rare middle-distance man who seems to revel in doubling at championships. That same Olympics, he also competed in the 800m, and though he didn't advance to the final there, it seems the limitation was his tactical know-how and not his fitness or fatigue. Kessler is a legitimate threat despite it not being his primary event - never count out the strength of a miler dropping down in distance after a preliminary round!

Just to get this out of the way up top, there will be no Cole Hocker, or Yared Nuguse, or Hobbs Kessler, or Jonah Koech, or Cooper Teare in this one. That means that you have to go all the way back to 2019 to dig up a U.S. 1500m champ who will be lining up. (That man, Craig Engels, has a season's best about five seconds off of this year's top seeds... don't count him out entirely - he's a wily veteran and a savvy racer!)

But rather than bemoan the lack of superstars with World Championship or Olympic experience, we're choosing to celebrate that this iteration of the men's 1500m - arguably the most exciting event in track and field at the moment - feels wide open and will almost certainly conclude with somebody standing atop the podium who has never done so before.

There's really two ways this thing can go.

The first is that an established presence taps into their experience at this stage, their perfectly peaking fitness, and the lack of anyone with outdoor global hardware, and sneaks in to secure the win. Names like Vince Ciattei and Sam Prakel fit this bill - stalwarts on the international and domestic 1500m/mile circuit who make just about every final, but historically fall just short of top-three finishes. Ciattei has placed fourth at two Diamond League meets this year, including in Rabat where he lowered his PB to 3:30.90 - the fastest of any man in this field. Prakel's last two outings were an outright win over a solid international field in Ireland and a mile PB in the wake of Josh Kerr's world record in London. Between these two, it's really a toss up.

And to complicate matters, there's another possible way this race will be won: by a young upstart looking to announce "hey, I'm not just a great college runner." This is the angle your Simeon Birnbaum, your Gary Martins, and your Nathan Greens will be shooting for. Birnbaum still has NCAA eligibility for the Oregon Ducks and handily won the most recent NCAA 1500m crown, and holds the NCAA record over 1500m - 3:31.69. but what's left in the tank after a long indoor and outdoor season? Martin just wrapped up his collegiate career at the University of Virginia and is now a Brooks Beast. You could ask the same question about Birnbaum as about Martin. He PR'd in the mile and 800m his last two races. But it'll take a lot for him to outclose this field. Green has now been a professional for about a year, and technically has already made a U.S. team (albeit indoors). He's been running great all year and is a notoriously strong championship racer - he's tactically buttoned up, is rarely out of place, and shifts gears well. He doesn't have the most impressive PRs of the bunch, but he may be the favorite by the slimmest of margins.

While the old adage "progress isn't linear" generally holds true across the sporting world, there are occasionally athletes for whom progress very much does appear to be linear. Not to say he hasn't had his ups and downs, or experienced setbacks, but Matt Wilkinson's rise in U.S. men's steepling is about as linear as it gets.

Rather than burst onto the scene, Wilkinson has made a gradually more compelling and louder case over the years that he's the best steepler in the country. He's ranked number eight in the world, brings an 8:09.58 to the starting line, and across his four steeple races this spring - all on the Diamond League circuit - he hasn't been beaten by a compatriot. He hasn't won a U.S. title in the steeple, but he's extremely well positioned to change that this weekend.

But even with the top mark on the startlist and the strongest resume on the year, Wilkinson's victory is far from assured, thanks to a handful of other athletes. For starters, reigning Olympic silver medalist Kenneth Rooks - he's struggled to find the form he displayed in Paris since then, but you simply don't discount the possibility of things clicking for a man capable of so much. Dan Michalski, James Corrigan, and Bernard Keter have all represented Team USA before. Duncan Hamilton has a way of getting in the mix. And young pros Nathan Mountain, Yasin Sado, Carson Williams, and Parker Stokes are all best considered wildcards, to say nothing of Oregon Duck Benjamin Balazs.

Three American men have run under 12:50 this year, but only one - Grant Fisher - is lining up here. Fisher is a two-time Olympic bronze medalist, has won a Diamond League 5000m this year, is in the conversation for greatest American distance runner ever, and nobody in the field has a seed time within nine seconds of his. It'll be a shock if Fisher gets beat, but now it's time for the standard caveat - races aren't won on paper. Youngsters like Liam Murphy, Gary Martin, and Dylan Jacobs, milers like Vince Ciattei, Sam Prakel, and slept on distance specialists like Cooper Teare all would love to spoil the party.

Much like the 5000m, this feels like Grant Fisher's race to lose... but to an even greater extreme. There are only 14 other men entered, and none of them are currently at Fisher's level. That said, Woody Kincaid is in the field. He's run a respectable 27:20.84 this season - the fastest seed time - so he's in solid condition. But more than anything, even at this late stage of his career, his last 200m is the stuff of legends. As much as Fisher would probably love to treat this thing like a tempo run with a hard final 400m - the easiest U.S. title of his career - he'll have to press from a bit further out to keep Kincaid out of closing distance. Fisher loves to make his move with roughly a mile to go in the 10k. That should be enough.

Even without the world record holder and several top athletes lining up, this is an impressively star-studded field. Jamal Britt - who has won four Diamond League races this season - is your headliner. Which is saying something, because the 2025 World champ Cordell Tinch is also in the field. NCAA runner-up Kendrick Smallwood is the second fastest collegiate man ever, and the third entrant here with a sub-13-second seed time. With a 13.04 seeding, Jamar Marshall is the eighth fastest man in the world this year, but just the fourth fastest in this race.

For the first time since 2018, the U.S. champ in the men's 400m hurdles won't be Rai Benjamin. In his absence, Caleb Dean becomes the odds on favorite. He's the sixth fastest man in the world in 2026 and placed seventh at Worlds last year. But he's not leaps and bounds better than the next wave of talent in the field. The experienced CJ Allen is an Olympian and regularly mixes it up on the Diamond League circuit. And Chris Robinson finished fourth at World Indoors this year in the flat 400m. Behind these fellas is a host of hungry collegiate hurdlers who would love to cap off a long season with a U.S. title.

If there's been a steady presence at the top of the women's high jump in the U.S. for the better part of a decade, the men's event has been defined by a rotating cast of excellent - if occasionally inconsistent - jumpers. This field features the 2024 Olympic silver medalist (Shelby McEwen), the 2023 World Championship bronze medalist (JuVaugh Harrison), the 2024 U20 World champ (Scottie Vines), the 2025 World Indoor fourth-place finisher (Elijah Kosiba), and the 2025 NACAC champ (Tyus Wilson). And it's entirely conceivable none of them will be the winner! Tyson Ritz and Charles McBride lack the pedigrees of the aforementioned jumpers, but have quietly had very nice seasons.

This event feels like the changing of the guard. The field features Marquis Dendy, the 2016 World Indoor champ, William Williams, who placed eighth at Worlds in 2023, and Jarrion Lawson, the 2017 World runner-up. But none of them have shown that sort of form this year. Should any of them turn back the clock, they could nab a U.S. title. But they'll have to outjump a handful of youngsters, and one World champion hurdler, to do so. Cordell Tinch is entered here as well, and in addition to being ranked 10th in the world in the 110m hurdles, he's #13 in the long jump. Tied at #13 with Tinch is Kennedy Stringfellow. And 21-year-old Gregory Foster comes in as the 21st further leaper in the world.

Two seemingly contradictory things that are true: Joe Kovacs has won three Olympic silver medals, but hasn't won a U.S. outdoor shot put title in 11 years. That's because his prime has aligned almost perfectly with world record holder Ryan Crouser's.

Crouser is out for the rest of the season due to an elbow injury. Kovacs is in. And he's having a typically solid year. His 22.58m heave from the Rabat Diamond League meet is the second furthest in the world this season but it's also his only toss past the 22-meter mark.

Jordan Geist's best mark is 10cm back from Kovacs's, but he's been more steady, clearing 22m twice and coming 2cm short of it one additional throw. Geist and Kovacs are the only Americans to have thrown over 22m this outdoor season. Do you focus on Kovacs's decade-plus-long resume of big throws and trust he can get back to nearly 23m when it matters most? Or do you prefer Geist's slight edge in recent consistency, as well as the assumption that he's got a bit more tread on his tires?

Either way, your calculus has to include Roger Steen (two-time World Indoor medalist), Adrian Piperi (World Indoor bronze in 2025), Payton Otterdahl (fourth at the 2024 Olympics), and Josh Awotunde (2022 World bronze medalist), any of whom could prevail as well.

Photo credits: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile, Andy Cheung, Emilee Chinn, Ginnie Coleman, Matthias Hangst, David Lidstrom, Alex Pantling, Christian Petersen, Hannah Peters, Patrick Smith, Lintao Zhang, Chris Swann and Isaac Wasserman/NCAA Photos, AFP, British Athletics, Corbis, Image Photo Agency, NCAA Photos and Sportsfile, all via Getty Images. Additional photos: MileSplit.