Koech entered his first career Diamond League in Rabat with a 3:37 1500m pb and emerged with one of the most stunning victories in the DL’s 16-year history

When Under Armour Mission Run Baltimore 800m coach Tom Brumlik first saw the entries last week’s Rabat Diamond League, he thought there had been a mistake.

One of Brumlik’s athletes, Jonah Koech, was meant to be making his Diamond League debut in the 800 meters.

Yet Brumlik was staring at the 800m entries, and Koech’s name was nowhere to be found.

He reached out to Koech’s agent, Peter Wolters. What was going on?

Wolters told LetsRun.com that two weeks ago, Rabat meet director Jean-Pierre Watelle had accepted Koech’s entry in the 800.

But a few days later, Watelle told Wolters there was no longer room for him.

Wolters was not sure exactly why. Perhaps there was a late addition to the field.

Perhaps Watelle had been expecting someone to scratch and no one did.

Whatever the reason, the 800 in Rabat — which eventually featured 12 racers plus a rabbit — was now overbooked.

Koech, whose 1:44.32 season’s best ranked 32nd in the world last year, was the odd man out.

Wolters had already booked Koech’s travel to Rabat, so he asked Watelle if there might be room in the 1500 instead.

Wolters knew it was a big request: Koech’s personal best was just 3:37.27.

Usually, the only way a 28-year-old 800 specialist with a 3:37 personal best is allowed in a Diamond League 1500 is if he is rabbitting.

But Wolters pleaded his case. Koech had actually run 3:37 twice last summer at a pair of small meets in Germany and Serbia, and he had won both races by three seconds, closing quickly each time.

He had also run 2:15.15 for 1,000 meters in Zagreb, finishing just ahead of Olympic 1500m finalist Stefan Nillessen of the Netherlands. And Koech had run 1:44 for 800 during the 2025 indoor season. He was fit.

Diamond League AG for Diamond League AG

“Honestly, with that 3:37 pb, he had no reason to be in this race in the Diamond League,” Wolters said. “…It took a little bit of convincing but the meeting director was willing to take a chance. But that’s definitely not the normal way it goes.”

There wasn’t really room for Koech in the 1500 either (the race featured 17 runners and two rabbits), but Watelle squeezed Koech in anyway.

And on Sunday evening in front of a crowd of 20,000 at Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium, Koech rewarded his faith with a last lap for the ages, passing 12 guys in the final 405m to win the first men’s Diamond League 1500 of 2025 in a six-second personal best of 3:31.43.

Statistically, Koech’s victory goes down as one of the most improbable in the Diamond League’s 16-year history.

Koech is the first athlete sponsored by Under Armour to win a Diamond League in any running event — a fact he made sure to promote as he celebrated, repeatedly pointing to the logo on his singlet after crossing the finish line and clasping his shoe in his left hand as he posed for a picture with the clock.

Koech is just the third American man to win a DL 1500/mile race, after Leo Manzano and Yared Nuguse.

(That’s right: US Olympic 1500m champs Matthew Centrowitz and Cole Hocker have never done it).

And of the 27 men to have won a DL 1500/mile, his 3:37.27 personal best entering the race was the slowest by far.

Slowest pre-race personal bests among men’s Diamond League 1500/mile winners

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“Relax. Don’t panic.”

Brumlik acknowledges that, on paper, going from 3:37 to 3:31 in one race — at age 28 — is a “pretty crazy jump.”

But he has long believed Koech was capable of running a fast 1500, noting that Koech finished 11th at the 2015 NCAA Cross Country Championships as an 18-year-old freshman at UTEP (he transferred to Texas Tech in 2018).

But Koech, who became a US citizen in 2019 after graduating from Texas Tech and enlisting in the Army, has largely focused on the 800 as a professional.

Koech made it to the 2022 Worlds in the 800 but was DQ’d in the first round (Kevin Morris photo)

Koech, who never finished in the top five in an NCAA track final (he was 6th in the indoor mile as a freshman in 2016 and 6th in the outdoor 800 as a junior in 2018), broke out in 2022, running a 1:44.74 pb to finish 2nd in the 800 at USAs.

That qualified him for the World Championships in Eugene, where he finished 2nd in his prelim and was set to advance to the semifinals, only to be disqualified.

Koech did not race at all in 2023 due to injury and got a late start in 2024 but came on strong at the end of last year, running a pb of 1:44.32 to finish 5th at the Olympic Trials before going on a tear and winning his next six races.

Koech felt that had he raced in a fast Diamond League last summer rather than third-tier European meets, he could have run 3:33 or 3:34.

“He’s always been insanely talented,” Brumlik said.

“1500 has always been a distance that he just has never quite got the right opportunity.”

Brumlik also felt that the experience Koech gained by racing — and winning — last summer in places like Szczecin, Poland, and Priboj, Serbia, will serve him well in the 2025 season.

“If you go back and watch Jonah’s races from even the year he made the team in 2022, he got DQ’d at Worlds for just plowing through the field,” Brumlik said. “The European circuit last summer is where he truly started to learn how to race.

That’s to me, been the biggest leap for this year. And obviously a full year of being healthy.”

Koech is nominally based in Baltimore, where he spent this past winter, but he trains in a number of places.

He still has Army duties as a mechanic, which means he spends part of the year in Colorado, and ahead of Rabat he had been training in Iten for a couple of months before relocating to the Netherlands, where Wolters is based.

None of the medalists from last year’s Olympics were running Rabat and Diamond League champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen was nursing an Achilles injury.

That meant the front of the race would be less competitive, but the field size — 19 men on the start line — presented its own challenge.

Brumlik told Koech it was okay to go out near the back of the pack; the important thing was to conserve energy and stay relaxed until it was time to kick.

“I was talking to myself,” Koech said. “Just relax, just relax. Don’t panic.“

Just before the bell, Koech was only ahead of four runners in 13th place.

At that point, he was not thinking about winning; he was just hoping he could run 3:35.

But with 300 to go, he saw his former training partner Festus Lagat, decked out in the same blue and green Under Armour kit, running in 5th place. Catching sight of a man with whom he had shared hundreds of miles was the kick in the pants Koech needed to get rolling.

“If he’s there and we’ve been training together, I need to be where he is,” Koech said.

“So I was like, let me close the gap. And then [at 200] I was like, let’s just go.”

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By the time Koech caught Lagat — who was also making his Diamond League debut and hung on to finish 3rd in a pb of 3:32.06 — Koech was up to 2nd, with only a fading Azeddine Habz of France ahead of him.

Koech stormed past him to take the victory comfortably thanks to a last lap of 53.1 seconds, even though he ran both turns in lane 2.

A new American 1500m contender? Not so fast.

In the days since Koech’s victory, Wolters’ phone has been ringing off the hook with invitations from meet directors for Koech to run the 1500.

He plans to run another one at the Irena Szewińska Memorial in Bydgoszcz on Friday, but Koech has yet to decide whether to focus on the 800 or 1500 at the US championships, which begin on July 31.

People have been trying to move Koech up in distance for a long time. Koech told LetsRun.com’s Track Talk Podcast (available here or in the player below.

Koech joins the show at 88:50) that Paul Ereng, his coach at UTEP (and the 1988 Olympic 800m champion), felt Koech was a 3,000/5,000 runner.

Wolters admits he was “kind of happy” Koech ended up in the 1500 in Rabat as he has been trying to nudge Koech towards that event.

“ My family now, they’re telling me, please, [would you consider doing] the 1500,” Koech said.

Koech (second from right) came just shy of making the Olympic 800 team last year (Kevin Morris photo)

But Koech has always loved the 800, dating back to his days at the famed St. Patrick’s High School in Iten in the 2010s, where he trained under legendary coach Colm O’Connell and alongside the greatest 800-meter runner of them all, world record holder David Rudisha.

“ I think that’s the big thing, because I was training with Rudisha all the time,” Koech said. “Every Saturday, I used to train with him.”

Koech’s path to the World Championship team is harder in the 1500, where the US features the men who finished 1st (Cole Hocker), 3rd (Yared Nuguse), and 5th (Hobbs Kessler) in last year’s Olympic final, as well as a talented crop of collegians such as Ethan Strand, Gary Martin, Nathan Green, and Abel Teffra.

But the competition in the 800 isn’t much easier: Bryce Hoppel ran 1:41 last year, Josh Hoey won World Indoors, and Brandon Miller just ran a personal best of 1:43.52 in Rabat.

Though one of the spots from last year’s Olympic team should be open as Kessler, who made the team in both the 800 and 1500 in 2024, is expected to focus on the 1500 only in 2025.

Brumlik said the decision will ultimately rest with Koech, but it’s exciting to have options.

They have two months to figure it all out.

“1:44 is still a full second away from the top three in the US and 3:31.4 is still two seconds away from the top three in the 1500,” Brumlik said.

“It’s equally challenging. He’s equally capable in both events. At the end of the day, whatever gets him going is going to be what he’ll go with.”

Talk about Koech’s big breakthrough on the world-famous LetsRun.com messageboard: