Grant Fisher Runs American Record in 5K
Over the past weekend at the Memorial Van Damme Diamond League meet Grant Fisher took Bernard Lagat’s 11 year old American outdoor 5,000 meter record. Diamond League meets are a series of elite professional track meets. He ran 12:46.96 to break the previous American record by over five seconds and broke the North American record previously held by Moh Ahmed. With this time, Fisher is within ten seconds of the world 5,000m record of Joshua Cheptegei. During this race Grant Fisher averaged a pace of 4:07 per mile, which is eight seconds per mile faster than the Saint Lawrence mile record.
Throughout this 5k Fisher ran in the top group of the race. With two laps to go he made a move from fourth to move up to stay with the top two guys in the race, Jacob Krop and Nicholas Kipkorir. With a lap to go Fisher passed Kipkorir to move into second but was unable to pass Krop to take the victory.
More impressive than taking the American outdoor 5,000m record is that throughout the 2022 indoor and outdoor track seasons, Fisher has set 4 American records this year. He has run the outdoor 3,000m, indoor and outdoor 5,000m, and the outdoor 10,000m record within the span of nine months. This explosion of achievement Fisher has had this season is not unexpected because he has been running fast times all through his career. Fisher is one of 17 high schoolers to run sub four minutes in the mile, running a time of 3:59.38, being the seventh to do it at the time. Throughout college he was a 12 time All American across cross country and track and won a 5,000m NCAA title. Despite only winning one NCAA title, Fisher consistently placed in the top five at the national level. His inability to win large races has been consistent throughout his career, but this is bound to change as he gets more experience and speed.
However, some critics have tried to add perspective to Fisher’s accomplishments in this season due to advancements in technology in running shoes and pacing. In 2020 Nike came out with an innovative racing shoe that made athletes faster. Additionally, pacing lights have been installed along the edge of the track which light up at a predetermined pace have allowed athletes to better pace their effort, resulting in faster times. The same could be said when we started using the rubber rack surface that is common today instead of cinder tracks. This allowed athletes to run faster and it’s part of the technological progression of track and field.
As the 2022 track and field season comes to an end, Fisher has shown that he is able to compete on the world stage. Despite not winning any major titles or races, 2022 has been a breakout season for Fisher.