ETHIOPIAN YOMIF LEADS BOSTON’S MIDDLE-DISTANCE CLASHES

Organizers of the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix have announced that world indoor champion Yomif Kejelcha, multiple NCAA champion Edward Cheserek and a handful of the USA’s leading 800m runners are among the latest additions to the line-up for the IAAF World Indoor Tour meeting in Boston on 26 January.
Yomif, who successfully defended his world indoor 3000m title last year, will step down in distance to contest the mile in Boston. Last week he opened his 2019 campaign by clocking 2:18.34 for 1000m and 3:52.61 within the space of half an hour on Seattle’s oversized indoor track.
He will face Kenya’s world indoor 1500m bronze medalist Bethwel Birgen, two-time Olympic 1500m medalist Nick Willis of New Zealand and Canada’s two-time NCAA champion Justyn Knight.
The men’s 800m in Boston will be just as competitive as USA’s Donavan Brazier, Clayton Murphy, and Boris Berian take on Spain’s world indoor bronze medalist Saul Ordonez.
Brazier, the North American U20 record-holder and US indoor champion, returns to the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix as the defending champion in the men’s 800m. He won last year in 1:45.11, just 0.11 off of Johnny Gray’s North American indoor record set back in 1992.
In the men’s 3000m, three of last year’s top four finishers return for a rematch: defending champion and history’s second-fastest indoor miler Edward Cheserek, event record-holder and Olympic 5000m bronze medalist Hagos Gebrhiwet, and Spain’s European indoor 3000m champion Adel Mechaal.