Coming out of Morton Stadium last Sunday evening, the plan for this week was to try to properly articulate what Mark English had just achieved in winning the 800m at the National Track and Field Championships. Calling on my deep understanding of athletics, going back over 40 years now, it would all make perfect sense.
I would address how, at the age of 32, and 14 years after winning his first senior indoor title, English is running and racing better than ever, lowering his Irish record to 1:43.92 in June. His progress is partly down to the 800m being one of those events where full maturity often only comes over time, given the combination of raw speed and sheer endurance required. This is complemented with naturally developing strength and polished off with increasing confidence and experience.
English also had the young pretender pushing him on Sunday. Aged 23, Cian McPhillips improved his 800m best to 1:44.19 last month, second only to English on the Irish all-time list. His time will come, but McPhillips had no answer to the closing speed of English. Not since the heyday of middle-distance running at Morton Stadium has there been a more popular or celebrated victory.
By Sunday night, however, the plan had to change. Whatever about English running 1:43.92 at the age of 32, there was no making sense of the news that 16-year-old Cooper Lutkenhaus had just run 1:42.27 to finish second at the US Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
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Where to even begin? At 16, Lutkenhaus is just half English’s age. With any sort of natural progress, one can’t help but wonder how he might improve over time. There is simply no telling, except to say Lutkenhaus appears to be without limits. His 1:42.27 last Sunday took over three seconds off his previous best of 1:45.45. That time had already shattered a US high school record which stood since 1996.
It also bettered the age-16 world record, the age-17 world record and ranks second fastest on the all-time age-18 list. His 1:42.27 would also have won Lutkenhaus all but three Olympic 800m titles in history.
US sport has always been obsessed with the teen phenom. No wonder they’ve been falling over themselves to heap praise on Lutkenhaus, who is about to enter his junior year at Northwest High School in the small Texan town of Justin, population 4,409.
Prominent running author and coach Steve Magness, who formerly worked with English, wrote on X: “This is the most impressive athletic feat in history. There are no superlatives. His performance makes high school Lebron [James] look like nobody. Cooper Lutkenhaus take a bow.”
Esteemed website LetsRun.com was a little less hysterical in saying: “As for Lutkenhaus, when it comes to American middle-distance prodigies, Jim Ryun has been the benchmark, and for 60 years, none have surpassed him. But even Ryun, who made his first Olympic team at 17 and defeated Olympic champion Peter Snell to win the US mile title at 18, was not this good, this young.”
LeBron James, aged 40, is still doing the business for LA Lakers, after famously going straight to the NBA after graduating from high school in Ohio in 2003. It’s likely Lutkenhaus won’t even finish high school, not once the professional offers start pouring in, even if that will only put additional pressure on his already impressively broad shoulders.
As for Jim Ryun, now 78, he was also tracked down this week by US journalist Toni Reavis, and had similarly high praise for Lutkenhaus: “One feature of his race that stood out to me specifically was his ability to remain relaxed in his final sprint. At the finish line, you could see all the other competitors grimacing as they raced toward the finish line. Cooper remained very relaxed.”
Lots more people will get to see Lutkenhaus now, as he’s the youngest ever member of the US team for next month’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. There’s no saying what’s achievable there either. Last Sunday, he came from seventh to second inside the last 200m, which he ran in 25.42, out in lane three. Donavan Brazier, the 2019 world 800m champion, completed his great comeback this season to win in 1:42.16, also a lifetime best.
“I saw someone coming up and I was like, ‘Dang, this could be the high schooler,’” Brazier said trackside afterwards. “This kid’s phenomenal. I’m glad that I’m 28 and maybe have a few more years left in me, hopefully won’t have to deal with him in his prime, because that dude is definitely special.”
Run into fourth, and thus missing out on Tokyo, was reigning world indoor 800m champion and US record holder Josh Hoey, the current training partner of English. Bryce Hoppel, the 27-year-old 2024 world indoor champion, was third.
Lutkenhaus is now the fifth-fastest in the world this season. Although he only qualified for the US final by .05 of a second, his baby-face looks won’t disguise his potential in Tokyo.
“Just going out there having fun and trying to see what I can do against the best,” Lutkenhaus said of his race on Sunday. “I knew I could PR, I knew I could run faster than 1:45. But actually going out there and doing it, it was definitely a shock.”
It took current world record holder David Rudisha a few years to reach his best in the 800m. After being eliminated in the semi-finals of the 2009 World Championships, he won that title in 2011, before running his 1:40.91 to win Olympic gold in London in 2012, when he was 23.
There is no telling if Lutkenhaus will be still running at that age, let alone still running his best at age 32, like English. And perhaps for now, only he understands what it takes to run that quickly at 16.
