Inside the creation of the 2026 Prefontaine Classic merchandise line

The 51st edition of the meet is inspired by its namesake’s envisagement of racing as a work of art.

By Owen Murray

“A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways they're capable of understanding.” – Steve Prefontaine

The words driving this year’s Prefontaine Classic merchandise line won’t be found anywhere on a shirt or a poster. Look a little deeper, though, and they’re everywhere.

The namesake of the world’s best track and field meet has left his trace across Eugene. Steve Prefontaine’s legacy is embedded far further into the community than just at Hayward Field, but it’s on that track where his memory shines in early July. For the Prefontaine Classic design team, the legendary runner’s mentality needed to weave itself into this year’s work.

They just didn’t need to spell it out.

“The goal is to embody it more than to just let people read it,” the Pre Classic design team said. “We want to represent it instead. Pre represented so much to this community, to the sport in general. We just want to do him a service in that way.”

It starts with the poster — a creation adapted from an archival photo of Prefontaine in the Hayward Field stands at the 1972 Olympic Trials. The team has been kicking that photo around as the anchor for an idea for a couple of years, but decided that this was when it was necessary.

“It very much captures his personality,” they said. “We think that comes through along with the art.”

Prefontaine’s visage is framed by brushstrokes on the poster. The dark background is filled with the streaks of light which make it that work of art. It’s more about representing Prefontaine’s personality through elements of art, they say, than it is his words.

When the meet rolls around on July 3 and 4, the stadium becomes an exhibition.

“Once we start putting stuff out and get into the stadium, for ‘A race is a work of art,’ we can try to think of the stadium as a canvas for the stuff that relates to that personality,” they said.

Exclusive merchandise will land at Hayward Field on both days of the meet. Friday night features a “dark mode” theme with a black-on-black t-shirt only available to spectators in attendance that night, while Saturday will make a shirt with a version of the meet poster design on the back available.

“We always try to not overcomplicate things with Pre, because Pre is Pre, you know, and it’s got such a great historical foundation, and we have great fans and incredible history and culture,” the Pre Classic team said.

“We were thinking in terms of five or 10 years ago, when operating systems like iOS and Windows got a dark mode. It all used to be pretty robotically bright. And we were like, ‘It’s going to be under the lights.’ We think we said ‘Pre Classic Dark Mode vibes’ or something.”

With that in hand, the Pre Classic team headed to Hayward, where the Friday night logo was tested on the video boards. The TrackTown video team created a showcase clip with the tagline Stars Shine Brightest At Night.

“It was really just, ‘Let’s create suspense and momentum for this thing, just kind of do something that’s going to resonate with people,” they said. “A lot of people will be like, ‘Oh, it’s in dark mode. It’s at night time.’ Something that’s really easy to understand that anybody from age 12 to age 60 would understand: dark mode, under the lights.”

For the Pre Classic design team, working for the Pre Classic has been their first time in a collaborative design environment. Their office is littered with track and field mementos — backdrops and posters — plus their own shared histories from lives spent elsewhere.

In Eugene, they say, they find inspiration. It wasn’t so much an active search for a spark, but more something to “root the brand in; something that would reflect Pre’s personality.” It doesn’t matter whether they’ve been in Eugene for months or years. The community is that anchor.

“It really helps that this entire place is pretty inspiring when it comes to track and field,” the team said.

When Eugene — and the world — files into Hayward Field on back-to-back days in July to stand watch over world records, it’ll be that community which has seen a half-century of history at the meet which dons the 51st year of art. Their work is all-but-done; their satisfaction comes from others’ enjoyment years down the line.

“It's cool to see it purchased at that event,” they said. “But if we see it in three or four years out in the wild being worn, that's significantly cooler. We want to make stuff that people like.”

There’s another quote driving the design team’s inspiration, too. It comes from an unexpected place: the mid-aughts AMC drama Mad Men. The drama’s main character, creative director Don Draper, tells secretary Peggy Olson that in order to find inspiration, she has to “think about it. Deeply. Then forget it, and an idea will jump up in your face.”

“That’s a good way to put it…I feel like I relate to it,” a member of the design team said. “When you stop working on it, I think that’s where you come up with stuff.”

Some of their work, like the poster idea, has been around for a while. They pulled details from an old design and worked it together with new elements — like art. They stepped away from it, then came back and found their inspiration.

“It just kind of blends all these different elements that we were going back and forth on for a while,” they said.

Also featured at the meet will be first-time merchandise supporting the two events with attached athletes: the Mutola 800m and Bowerman Mile. Their designs include a pair of shirts highlighting Mutola and Bowerman, respectively, alongside legendary athletes featured in this year’s fields.

To get on the shirt, an athlete also competing in the races in 2026 had to be one of the event’s reigning champions at the Pre Classic, an Olympic or world gold medalist in the event, or a multi-time event winner. That limited the athletes to 2025 champions Niels Laros and Tsige Duguma, reigning Olympic winners Cole Hocker and Keely Hodgkinson, reigning world champion Lilian Odira, and multi-time winner Timothy Cheruiyot.

“It’s just getting to do those athletes justice and everything that they’re working for — being able to celebrate all their hard work and achievements,” they said. “The style of those is very different from the other stuff you’ll find at Pre, but is still very much within the Pre brand; just in a new light that we’re excited to showcase.”

Those athletes are the new history — the ones who make Pre the best meet in the world — alongside the original trailblazers. They’re together in this year’s merch tent. In the design team’s eyes, that’s the key.

“We definitely want to keep the historical aspect of Pre in mind, but still also put out a product that will reflect that we are the best meet in the world and want to continue that way,” they said.