1999: After successfully defending his 60-meter title, Maurice Greene tosses into the stands white T-shirts emblazoned with the word “Phenomenon.”
2000: Making her 23rd and last appearance at the Millrose Games, 37-year-old Joetta Clark Diggs wins the women's 800 meters in 2:04.79, while 39-year-old Johnny Gray runs away from the field in the men's 800.
2001: A thousand or so diehard fans remain to see Stacy Dragila break her own World Indoor Record in the pole vault, jumping 15 feet 2.25 inches just before midnight. The event was delayed for more than an hour by technical problems; despite the late hour, Dragila stays and signs autographs for the fans who remain.
2002: Bernard Lagat, defending champion in the Wanamaker Mile, comes back hoping to break Eamonn Coghlan’s meet record of 3:53, but a slow early pace (1:58 at halfway) lays waste to his plans. At the bell, Kenya’s Laban Rotich dives for the inside lane and hangs onto it, winning in 3:57.04 “Unfortunately,” says Lagat, “I didn’t pick it up and he passed us like a bullet.”
After winning his fourth Wanamaker Mile in 2006, Bernard Lagat will be going for his fifth at the 100th Millrose Games.
CREDIT: PhotoRun
2003: At the age of 36, Gail Devers sets an American Indoor Record at the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 7.78 seconds. She would break it again later that season at the indoor national championships, when she ran 7.74 in her semi-final.
2004: The biggest cheers of the night, before and after her race, go to Marion Jones. The triple-gold medalist in the 2000 Olympics wins at 60 meters in 7.21 seconds, in her first race after giving birth.
2005: After the traditional spotlight introduction, Bernard Lagat takes off from the gun in a solo chase of the Wanamaker Mile record. He gets it, in 3:52.87.
2006: Kenenisa Bekele, the Ethiopian superstar destined to go down as one of the greatest distance runners ever, makes history by choosing to run the Wanamaker Mile, his professional debut at the distance. Despite raucous support from his many flag-waving Ethiopian fans, Bekele takes second in his showdown with American Bernard Lagat, who wins his fourth Wanamaker. Earlier in the evening, Gail Devers returns after an absence from racing since the 2004 Olympics; although she places fourth in the 60-meter hurdles, she shows off the reason for her long hiatus by introducing her 7-month-old daughter, Karsen Anise.
2007: Kicked off by a “Centennial Gala – An All-Star Relay Through Time” in the famous Rainbow Room on the eve of the meet, the 100th Millrose Games goes into the record books as a fitting end to the event’s first century. Olympic champion Yelena Isinbayeva, competing for the first time in this country, notches the highest women’s pole vault ever in the U.S. in setting a Millrose record, while 40-year-old Gail Devers electrifies a near sell-out crowd with a win in the 60m hurdles. The evening is capped by a stirring victory in the Wanamaker Mile by Bernard Lagat, who fought off a last-lap challenge by Australian Craig Mottram for his fifth Wanamaker Mile victory. Five athletes – Isinbayeva, Lagat, Reese Hoffa, Brad Walker and Tirunesh Dibaba – would go on to win World Championship gold later in the year.
