Solomon, Symmonds To Chase Indoor Record

America’s two best 800m runners will square off over 600 meters at the Millrose Games.

(c) 2012 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Used with permission. 

NEW YORK — America’s two best 800-meter runners, Duane Solomon and Nick Symmonds, will try to break a 26-year-old record at next February’s 106th Millrose Games, organizers announced today. The two men, who both made the 2012 Olympic Games 800m final, will try to break Chip Jenkins’s 600-meter indoor American best of 1:15.80, set in 1987.

“I’m really excited to be participating in the Millrose Games again and even more excited to take a crack at the indoor 600 American record in front of all the many track and field fans,” Solomon said through a statement. The 27-year-old had the best year of his career in 2012, finishing third at the U.S. Olympic Trials, then running the race of a lifetime at the Olympic Games, where he finished fourth in the 800m final, posting a spectacular personal best of 1:42.82.

Symmonds, 28, won his second Olympic Trials and finished one place behind Solomon at the Olympics, also setting a personal best of 1:42.95. He said he’s very excited to be competing in New York.

“For a very long time it has been a dream of mine to race in the Millrose Games,” Symmonds said in a statement. “To have a chance to finally compete in this meet at The Armory in front of a knowledgeable New York City crowd will certainly be the highlight of my winter season.”

The world indoor best for 600m is 1:15.12, run by Germany’s Nico Motchebon in Sindelfingen in 1999.  The best time in recent years was 1:15.26 by Poland’s Adam Kszczot, who made that mark in Moscow in 2012.

This will be the second year that the Millrose Games will be held in the Armory, New York City’s best and most active indoor track facility, located in Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan. The meet is scheduled for Saturday, February 16.