Maria Mutola won 16 races at The Prefontaine Classic over the course of her career, with 12 of those wins happening when she toed the line in 800m competitions.
During last year’s 50th year celebration of the Prefontaine Classic, the Women’s 800m race was forever named in her honor. The first Mutola 800m saw eight women dip under two minutes for the two-lap race. Last set in 1983, the women’s 800m outdoor world record (1:53.28) is the longest-standing world record in track and field.
The 2026 Mutola 800m at The Prefontaine Classic will star two-time Olympic medalist Keely Hodgkinson (Great Britain). Last week in France, Keely set the world indoor record in the women’s 800m with a time of 1:54.87. The three-time World Championships medalist has run six 800m races at Hayward Field under two minutes, with the best of 1:55.19 coming at the 2023 Pre Classic. Keely holds 10 Diamond League wins, including her personal best of 1:54.61 at the 2024 London Diamond League meeting. That time on her home soil is the current Great Britain national record.
Georgia Hunter Bell (Great Britain) will join her fellow countrywoman on the track at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon. Georgia won a Bronze medal in the women’s 1500m at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games in a British national record time of 3:52.61. At last year’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Hunter Bell beat Hodgkinson to the line by one one-hundredth of a second to earn the silver medal. Georgia’s time of 1:54.90 in that race is her personal best in the 800m and ranks in the top-ten of all time. As a student-athlete at University of California, Berkeley, she first raced at Hayward Field at the 2017 Pac-12 Championships.
Lilian Odira (Kenya) will join the 2026 Mutola 800m, making the race a rematch of the podium from the 2025 World Athletics Championships. Odira crossed the finish line first in Tokyo in a personal best of 1:54.62 — the seventh-fastest time in history — setting a new championships record that had stood for more than 42 years. A two-time Kenyan national champion, she is the fourth Kenyan woman to win the world 800m title. In the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Odira earned a silver medal at the 2024 African Championships in Athletics in Cameroon.
The Prefontaine Classic will take place on Friday, July 3rd, and Saturday, July 4th, 2026. The Mutola 800m is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, July 4th.
