At least six distance runners with Utah connections will compete in the world track and field championships, which will be held Sept. 13-21 in Tokyo.
Five of those athletes will represent Team USA — Olympians Clayton Young and Kenneth Rooks, national champion Lexy Lowry, double Olympic bronze medalist Grant Fisher and the runner-up from the U.S.championships, Dan Michalski. Cam Levins, a former NCAA champion from Southern Utah and a former Olympian, will represent Canada.
Young, Rooks and Lowry are all former BYU athletes.
Olympian Conner Mantz, a two-time NCAA champion from BYU who is America’s No. 1 marathoner, refused the offer of a spot on the U.S. team so he can focus on training for the Chicago Marathon. According to his coach, Ed Eyestone, Mantz is targeting the American record.
Similarly, Rory Linkletter, another former BYU All-American who represented Canada in the Olympics, also passed on the world championships to focus on a fall marathon, where he hopes to attack the Canadian record held by Levins.
Here’s a closer look at current and former Utahns heading into the world championships:
Grant Fisher (5,000, 10,000) — Fisher, a former NCAA champ from Stanford, overhauled his training program at the end of the 2023 season, when he decided to leave Nike’s Bowerman Track Club, move to Park City for the benefits of altitude training, and return to training under his high school coach. It appears to have paid off. He won bronze medals in both the 5,000- and 10,000-meter runs at last summer’s Olympic Games. That made him the first native-born American to medal in the 5,000 and the second to medal in the 10,000 since 1964. He’s in good form again this year.
Kenneth Rooks (steeplechase) — He’s had an up-and-down season, but he did post the second-fastest time of his career early this summer (8:14.25) and won his third-consecutive national championships. He’s a big-meet performer and a savvy racer, which serves him well in championship races. He delivered one of the biggest surprises of the Olympic track and field competition in Paris by claiming the silver medal with a time of 8:06.05 — nine seconds faster than he had ever run and the second-fastest time ever by an American. He faces the same situation he did in Paris headed into the upcoming world championships — his season-best time ranks only 34th in the world.
Clayton Young (marathon) — Young finished ninth in last summer’s Olympic marathon, one place behind Mantz. He is the seventh-fastest American ever, at 2:08:00. He posted a time of 2:07:04 to place seventh in Boston, but point-to-point performances don’t count for record purposes. Young is another consistent, savvy racer who tends to perform well on the big stages.
Dan Michalski (steeplechase) — Since Michalski moved to Provo last spring to join the pro training group led by Eyestone, his career has taken off. Just short of his 30th birthday, he has knocked seven seconds off his four-year-old personal record and placed second in the U.S. championships. He’s tall (6-foot-3) and has good closing speed, a requirement of global championships, which tend to be decided by late kicks.
Cam Levins (marathon) — Levins is 36 years old and presumably nearing the end of a very accomplished running career. He won the NCAA championships in the 5,000 and 10,000 for Southern Utah and since then has competed in numerous Olympics and world championships, as well as the world’s biggest marathons. He placed fourth in the 2022 world championships marathon and a year later he set the Canadian marathon record of 2:05:36.
Lexy Lowry (steeplechase) — Lowry, a native of Idaho, had a sensational senior season at BYU, placing second in the NCAA championships behind Kenya’s/Alabama’s Doris Lemngole and becoming the second-fastest collegian ever, as well as the fifth-fastest collegian ever at 5,000 meters. She has the 11th-fastest time in the world this year in the steeplechase, 9:08.68. It would be a victory if she managed to qualify for the final; Africans have taken this event to a new level — four of them have run under 9 minutes this year and defending Olympic champion Winfred Yavi ran 8:45.25, narrowly missing the world record.
