HOKA ONE ONE Title Sponsor of USATF Middle Distance Classic
Shoe company and Bring Back the Mile sponsor takes major role in May meet at Occidental College.
By Peter Gambaccini, Runner's World
The USATF High Performance Distance Classic track meet at Occidental College in California is now the HOKA ONE ONE Middle Distance Classic. The new title sponsorship agreement will be announced by USATF CEO Max Siegel during his State of the Sport address at the USATF Annual Meeting Tuesday evening in Anaheim, California.
A date for the 2015 meet hasn't been finalized, but it’s likely to be in mid to late May, as it has been in the past. The meet has traditionally been a prime opportunity for Americans to gain USATF, World Championships and Olympic qualifying standards at distances from 800 to 5000 meters. In recent years, it has attracted Olympic or World Championships medalists Leo Manzano, Galen Rupp, Jenny Simpson, Matthew Centrowitz, Brenda Martinez, Shannon Rowbury and Nick Symmonds, along with record holders like Molly Huddle and Mary Cain.
The Classic will feature double the athlete prize money available in previous years and a live webcast at USATF.TV. Partnerships like this one between USATF and HOKA “enable us to elevate developmental meets into events that provide more money and more exposure for U.S. athletes,” said Siegel.
The HOKA ONE ONE Middle Distance Classic becomes part of the Outdoor USATF Championship Series, which includes the adidas Grand Prix in New York on June 13. The Indoor USATF Championships Series will include the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston on February 7. Although the latter two meets have shoe company title sponsors, they’re not USATF-owned meets; they’re both owned and operated by Global Athletics & Marketing in Boston.
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