EWOI REPEAT AS BAA INVITATION MALI CHAMPION, SETS COURSE RECORD
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2026 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved, used with permission.
BOSTON (18-Apr) — Dorcas Evoy, Kenya’s silver medalist in the 1500m at last summer’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, repeated as the BAA Invitational Mile champion today, setting a new course record of 4:29.8. The 29-year-old Evoy, who competes for the Puma Elite Running team in North Carolina, dominated the three-lap race, leading from the gun and pulling ahead with each subsequent lap. He won a cash prize of $3,000.
Evoy decided to come here today as a fitness test. He said it didn’t really matter if he won, but he wanted the race to be a really hard effort.
“I was out of good shape, almost two months,” said Evoy, whose training group includes athletes who compete from miles to marathons. He continued. “I was going to run as fast as I could.”
Racing here last year gave the Evo a big advantage today. The course is rectangular and hitting the turns at the right angle and knowing when and where to pitch is key. The quarter-mile splits are in odd places, and after the final corner, runners only have about half a city block to reach full speed for their final push to the finish line. Evoy felt well oriented this year, which gave him the confidence to lead.
“Last year I didn’t really know what I was doing here,” Evoy admitted. “Like, too many angles. I don’t know where I’ve been and I haven’t even checked the course. So this year I’m more familiar with this course and I’m familiar with everyone I raced against today.”
Notably, Evo’s winning time was 4:30 for the first time in this event. The race was established in 2009, and the previous record of 4:33.7 was set by Canadian Nicole Cifuentes in 2017.
2024 US road mile champion Rachel McArthur finished second in 4:34.4. McArthur, who is represented by Asics, ran in fourth position for most of the race but moved up to third at the 1200m and passed Taryn Parks in the final sprint. Parks, represented by adidas, finished third in 4:35.1, while Olympian Heather McLean, who grew up in nearby Peabody, was fourth in 4:35.2.
The men’s race was decided by a mass sprint. Six men rounded the final corner together: Eric Holt, Luke Hauser, Abe Alvarado and Isaac Basten of the United States; Adam Fogg of Great Britain; and Canada’s Foster Malek. Holt, a feisty racer with a personal-best 3:51.46 mile on the course, came off the final turn and was able to maintain the lead heading into the tape. His time was 4:06.7. Malleck, who competed for Boston University during his college career and only arrived here at 11:00 last night because of a visa delay, looked set to finish second. But Basten quickly moved past him to take the runner-up spot. The two men were clocked in 4:06.9 and 4:07.1 respectively.
“Honestly, I think the biggest challenge in my running career is believing in myself sometimes,” said Holt, who is unsponsored. “I think running a lot means believing in yourself, believing that you can win.”
Basten, who is a member of the Boston Athletic Association High Performance Team, was very excited about his second place finish and felt that I had home field advantage.
“I’ve run into Eric a million times,” Basten said. “If I had a dollar for every time I came second, I’d be a rich man. So I knew it would be close. All I could do was what I had. What a great experience to do that in front of the home crowd.”
Sara Blanco of Boston won in 5:17.9 and John Bianchi of Natick in 4:25.6 in the co-ed scholastic mile for regional high school athletes. Blanco, who attends John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science, was nearly caught by Newton’s Maggie Abeli in the final sprint.
“I have the worst shot, not to be unkind,” Blanco told Race Results Weekly. “So I could hear them coming, so that could be it. I listened to the crowd and that really kept me going.”
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FINISHING
