Jake Yono

JY Journalism

2/10/25

My Recap Of The 2025 Millrose Games

Welcome back, everybody. This article will go in my Big Event Archives section because if you're unfamiliar with the Millrose Games, it is a professional indoor track meet held at the famous Nike Armory in NYC each year. I am so excited to bring you guys this recap because it’s gonna be the first time I'm writing about a track meet that wasn't the Olympics. With this, I’m currently pondering on later developing a page strictly for Track and Field, but I don’t have enough columns to do so, so maybe in the future? With this in mind, let’s start recapping this world-class championship-level track meet.

One thing I appreciate and admire about Track and Field and all individual sports is that if you're younger and good enough, you can move up to the next level. We have seen this play out with Quincy Wilson running on the Team USA 4x400 relay team in this past Paris Olympics, In Ladies' Professional Golf, Rose Zhang made her debut and won the event while she was still in college, and the craziest example of this I can find is Serena Willams making her WTA debut at 14 years old (Her Crip Walk was impeccable at Super Bowl LIX by the way). The Millrose Games showcased a lot of this; the other way of showcasing amateur talent is by having certain fields designed for lower-level athletes at professional events, and the Millrose Games has both of these forms of middle schoolers (competing against middle schoolers) being in the same spotlight as gold medalists. I’m going to start with the Inevitable best action on the track, which was the men's 3k, where it was a showdown between Cole Hocker and Grant Fisher, who met in the middle of their Olympic distances in Hocker running the 1500 and Fisher, who usually does the 5000 and 10000. The 2 men got away from the rest of the field, and it felt like it was just the 2 out there. Grant Fisher was leading the 1st ¾ of the event until with 4 laps to go Hocker made a move and got in front of Fisher, though still within striking distance Fisher with 400 meters to go maintained 1st place held off Hocker and broke the indoor world record with a time of 7.22.91  while doing so and him and Hocker was a half a second behind making them both the 4th and 5th fastest times run in history at this distance. 10 men in this field ended up running lifetime personal bests; that’s what happens when 2 Olympic medalists are leading the pack.

Next, we will stay with the professional men and move on to the Men's Wanamaker Mile, where Yared Naguose, who claimed bronze in Paris in the 1500m, ran an indoor world record with a time of 3.46.63 and would put him in the top 10 in history for the fastest mile thrown down. I also would like to speak about Hobbs Kessler, who was right on his tail the entire time and ran 3:46.9. He is only 21 years old and already an Olympian compared to Negosse, who is 25 years of age. Next, another event on the longer side, the 800 went down where American Josh Hoey took the world indoor lead, throwing down a time of 1.43.9 to defeat fellow American Bryce Hoppel. Also, in this performance, Hoey set a US National Indoor Record. Stepping away from the distance, I would like to highlight the professional men's 60m hurdles, which were won by former unsponsored Walmart employee Dylan Beard of the US, who, in his time of 7.38, set a Millrose Games record and took the indoor season world lead in the event. His story is remarkable, and the best part is that after he made the Olympic trials unsponsored, Walmart Corporate sponsored him, and it’s listed on the results (117th Millrose Games). For my last analysis of the men in this meet, I will be showcasing the men's 600, where phenom 16-year-old Quincy Wilson was competing but struggled against the field but led himself to a lifetime best. The leader of this race, Will Sumner, ran a world-leading time of 1.14.04, which was also good enough for a world-leading time in the indoor-only event.

Now let’s turn over to the women in this historic Millrose Games, and they had many astonishing performances. A quick note I would like to start by saying I’m astonished to say that In Washington, the executive order has been signed to ban men from playing in women's sports (Keeping Men Out Of Womens Sports Executive Order 2/5/25) along with the “only 2 genders act signed by Trump” this directly corresponds as already the NCAA has taken account and the Olympic Committee is reviewing it right now and there is a possibility they could enact this rule. With this let’s transcend to the women at the Millrose Games, starting in the field, I will be showcasing the pole vault where Olympic silver medalist from team USA Katie Moon, won the event, and good enough for a world lead, and it was 0.13m off her lifetime best of 4.95m as she vaulted 4.82m. On the track, I'm gonna begin in the 400m, where a member of the gold medalist 4x400 team in Paris, Alexis Holmes, ran a 51.21, good enough for a win and a season-best. In the half-mile, a woman whom I had honestly not heard of before from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Shafiqua Maloney, finished 4th in Paris in this event. Today, she won the Roses in a time of 1.59.07 for a world lead.  Moving up to the women's mile, Englishwomen Georgia Bell took the win in a field where there was no clear outright favorite coming into the race as athletes such as Heather MacLean who is on the rise after missing out on Paris 2024, Sinclaire Johnson, Kenyan Susan Lokayo Ejore, and Nicki Hiltz who spoke out against the new Executive Order which can be found here (U.S. track star Nikki Hiltz speaks out against Trump's transgender athlete ban). Back to the race, Georgia Bell claimed her first major international win at the Armory, beating Heather MacLean by 0.06 hundredths of a second, running 4.23.35, a new lifetime best. The best women's event of the games was the 3k, where US star Whitani Morgan, the Olympian who finished 14th in the 5k track final in Paris, had a performance coming from a track athlete here, truly everybody would like to have. The favorites going into this race were Josette Andrews and Australian star Jessica Hull. Morgan was a slight favorite, but no one expected this race to play out how it did. The entire race, until up to 2600 m, Morgan was cruising in 6th and dropped the hammer in the last 400, where she negatively split. Leading up to this point, she was averaging around 34.5 seconds for every 200. Until the 2nd to last lap, she ran a 31.3s, and on the bell lap, she hit a 28.93s split. This negative split is remarkable and hard to manage and maintain in track and field, but Morgan did it. Also, I would like to state that her last 1k was 8 seconds faster than her second KM. That's 1.6 seconds per lap, which is huge and very hard to execute in distance running. This was the most remarkable women's performance I’ve seen at the Millrose Games by far.

` Concluding this article, I would like to state that Athletics should be talked about more in the grand scheme of sports, and I’m trying to improve this awareness. Also, I would like to highlight the high school boys' and girls' mile, and these kids are fast. Starting in the girls' division, the senior from New York, Dylan McElhinney, won the field, took first from the gun, and never looked back. This led her to a 4:42 lead to a top 5 time in the nation. On the boy's side, the senior from Georgia Tommy Latham almost broke 4 minutes as he hit 4.00.94, this time was good enough for a meet record and a #2 time in the nation behind Owen Powell, also I would like to highlight fellow runner from Michigan whom I shared the course with T.J Hansen at the state championships who finished 3rd in this field running a 4.04.52 close to his personal best. These athletes at the 2025 Millrose Games at the Armory in NYC are truly impeccable. In the future, I hope to make more articles about intriguing track and field meets to further grow the sport. Thank You.