Paris Olympics 800m medalists set for Prefontaine Classic rematch

Reigning Olympic bronze medalist Mary Moraa has her work cut out as she returns to the Prefontaine Classic for the third time in her career.

Two of her fastest 800m times have occurred at the meet: 1:56.71 in 2024 and 1:57.42 in 2023, when the meet served as the Wanda Diamond League Final, and it remains to be seen how she handles the inaugural ‘Mutola 800m’ at this year's meet.

Keely wants the 800m world record

Moraa, who holds the World Record in the women’s 600m discipline and is currently ranked second in the world in the women’s 800m, goes up against Keely Hodgkinson and Tsige Duguma in a rematch of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games final.

This year’s race is named in honor of the Pre Classic’s most successful athlete, Maria Mutola, who won the event 16 times throughout her career, with 12 of those wins coming from the women’s 800m.

A year after they stood together on the Olympic podium in Paris, Great Britain's Hodgkinson, Ethiopia's Duguma and Moraa line-up in Eugene, in a race which could prove to be a dress rehearsal for both the Wanda Diamond League Final in August and the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo the following month.

Hodgkinson claimed her first-ever Olympic gold medal in Paris last summer, beating Duguma (silver) and Moraa (bronze) to claim her first major championship title.

The British star is also a two-time Diamond League champion and has good memories of Eugene. She won the Diamond Trophy at Hayward Field in Eugene, and also notched up an impressive victory over Moraa at the same stadium in 2024.

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It is the Kenyan, however, who goes into this season as reigning Diamond League champion, having wrested the title back from Hodgkinson with victory at last year's final in Brussels.

Duguma, meanwhile, will be hoping to pick up a first career Diamond League win as she hits athletics' biggest one-day series in 2025.