By David Monti, @d9monti.bsky.social | (c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved; used with permission
NEW YORK (06-Feb) — About 45,000 people live in the western Virginia city of Blacksburg, about a four-hour drive southwest from Washington, D.C., but only one resident there has an Olympic gold medal in athletics: Cole Hocker.
Hocker, 23, who won the 1500m at the Paris 2024 Olympics in a Games record 3:27.65, loves the calm surroundings that Blacksburg –home of Virginia Tech– provides. It’s been the perfect place for the reigning USA 1500m champion to settle down after last year’s Olympic excitement and re-boot ahead of the 2025 season where he hopes to win a world title in the same discipline in Tokyo in September.
“Blacksburg is very quiet; I really love that,” Hocker told reporters today at a press conference in advance of Saturday’s 117th Millrose Games where he will run the 3000m. “I just feel like I can just always really dial-in.” He added: “Being isolated really helps that.”
Hocker, and his training partner and former University of Oregon teammate Cooper Teare, do their workouts under the supervision of Virginia Tech director of track and cross country, Ben Thomas, who formerly coached at Oregon and who has overseen Hocker’s training for six years. The two athletes do nearly all of their training together. Teare, 25, is mainly a 5000m runner with a personal best of 12:54.72, but he’s also fast and boasts a 3:32.16 1500m best. Hocker said that Teare is the perfect training partner, helping Hocker build his strength and endurance on Blacksburg’s many running trails.
“We probably do about 95% of the training together,” Hocker told Race Results Weekly. “Maybe more than that. When it gets to that very nitty gritty, if he’s going more for a 5-K and I’m going more for a fifteen, it can fluctuate a little there.”
Hocker continued: “But I think the most obvious way we complement each other is he pulls me. He ran 12:54 in the 5-K; I ran 12:58. That’s a difference there. He pulls me. Anything over 3000m.”
But Hocker, who also won the silver medal at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships in the 1500m last March, helps Teare with his speed. At last summer’s USA Olympic Trials, Hocker closed in 52.7 seconds for the final lap, even faster than the 53.4 he clocked in Paris. Teare has to work to stay close.
“Under 3000 meters I’m pulling him,” Hocker explained. “I think we both benefit from that. It really just comes down then to timing races and executing on the day. (He’s a) very good training partner. We’ve stayed together for most of my career so far.”
Here in New York, both Hocker and Teare will run the 3000 meters against double Olympic bronze medalist Grant Fisher, who also holds the absolute 3000m national record of 7:25.47 (set outdoors). Fisher showed excellent leg speed last Sunday in Boston where he ran a personal best 3:33.99 for 1500m, and he said openly today that he plans to use his strength to beat Hocker.
“I’m a 5-K, 10-K guy dropping down,” Fisher said at today’s press conference. “So, I know what my strength is and these guys know what my strength is as well: it’s running hard from the gun. Cole has incredible transitions into his top-end speed. I wouldn’t say that’s my natural strength. Leaning into my natural strength is running hard and making it hurt.”
Hocker said he’s ready for that challenge.
“I’m always ready to hurt,” said Hocker, who broke into a smile. He continued: “Not many people in the world have my 5-K, fifteen double (speed). I want to continue to build on my 5-K side, and I think a 3-K is right in the middle there. The 3-K is like that perfect race where athletes like myself and like Grant collide. It makes for a really good race where I’m going to be testing my strength. I’m feeling really strong right now.”
Under coach Thomas, Hocker only plans for one more indoor race, a 5000m at Boston University at the end of the month. He said he would bypass the USATF Indoor Championships later this month, which means he won’t be running the World Athletics Indoor Championships in China at the end of March. Instead, he’ll be competing in the new Grand Slam Track circuit (which opens April 4 and finishes June 29), and he and coach Thomas are planning for a late peak for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September.
“Having this indoor season is, like, an entirely separate build,” Hocker told reporters. “For the World Championships in September, where in the past it was pretty much a separate build you can kind of carry over to outdoor. I’m still going to do that to the best of my ability, but there’s really no sense in trying to stretch this fitness I have at the end of February when I race my last indoor race, stretch that fitness to September.” He continued: “By the time USA’s roll around I’ll be in a completely different build-up. It is a late build this year and I’m going to peak in September.”
For Saturday’s race –which also includes Olympians Stewart McSweyn and Oliver Hoare of Australia, and Jimmy Gressier of France– Hocker is hoping that his focus on building his strength this winter will help carry him to victory. He’s done long runs up to 15 miles and feels good about where he is.
“It’s just these long runs that I’ve kind of been doing, building,” he said, reflecting on his winter training. “It’s still so early, looking at the entire calendar. Even for this indoor season it’s really my opener, so I feel really strong. It’s an interesting place to be in training at this point in the cycle. My long runs have been looking a lot better than last year, some of the best ones of my career.”
The Millrose Games 3000m record is 7:30.14 set by Britain’s Josh Kerr on the way to winning the two-mile in 2024 in a world record 8:00.67.
