Running News Daily

SECOND CHINESE MEETING POSTPONED UNTIL 2021

The Wanda Diamond League today announces further changes to its 2020 calendar, with the postponement of a second Chinese meeting until 2021.

Originally scheduled to have taken place on 17th October, the meeting would have joined Shanghai to become one of two Chinese meetings on the Wanda Diamond League circuit. 

The new meeting has now been postponed, and is to be launched in 2021, when the Wanda Diamond League hopes to return to a full calendar of 15 meetings.The new host city, as well as further details about the meeting, will be revealed in due course.

The 2020 Wanda Diamond League season will now culminate in Doha on 25th September. 

Reggae Marathon will go virtual this year

Reggae Marathon, Half Marathon & 10K  will go virtual this year. That is the decision of the organisers, the Jamdammers Running Club of Kingston, supported by their partners and stakeholders. 

“COVID-19 has altered the ‘runscape’ worldwide, and Jamaica is no exception.  With the rise in positive cases locally and globally, we took the decision to cancel the physical participation this year, in the interest of the international and local participants, with the objective of staying safe.  However, we look forward to returning to the normal participation in 2021,” said Alfred Francis, race director.

Francis further added that “this is the first time in its 19 years of running that Reggae Marathon is being cancelled. 

"We had put many plans in place to celebrate the 20th staging, but we have had to rethink them in light of the negative impact of the pandemic.  We will have additional information on our website for persons who have already registered and are looking at the various options offered in light of the cancellation.“

Since its inception in 2001, Reggae Marathon has seen 24,890 participants, of which 13,169 or 53 per cent were visitors from more than 40 countries worldwide.

Virtual Boston Marathon is about to be run

Missing: Boston’s raucous crowds and smiles for miles. Still there, sort of: Wellesley College’s iconic “scream tunnel” and the thunderous cheers along the finish line on Boylston Street.

The 124th running of the Boston Marathon finally gets underway next month, but virtually — meaning real runners will do the hard work, and an interactive mobile app will help augment their not-quite-authentic experience.

Rather than lining up in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and making the long trek to Boston, athletes will run this year's marathon solo because of the coronavirus pandemic. A weeklong TV special and the new mobile app will showcase their stories as they go the distance on their own.

Amazon and WBZ-TV are teaming up on a “Boston Marathon Live” broadcast that will be aired nightly starting Monday, Sept. 7, through Sunday, Sept. 13.

Co-produced by the Boston Athletic Association, which puts on the marathon every year, the show will air at 8 p.m. EDT and again at midnight on television and be streamed on CBSBoston.com.

The marathon normally is run on a Monday in April, on Massachusetts' unique Patriots Day holiday, but was postponed to mid-September because of the pandemic. Then, at the end of May, it was canceled altogether — the first time in its 124-year history that the storied race in its traditional format was scrapped.

Instead, registered runners are being encouraged to complete the 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) distance by themselves — wherever they are in the world — and share accounts of their preparation, motivation and execution.

Athletes also will be able to use a mobile app the BAA is rolling out to upload their routes and finish times. The app includes audio cues that will sync with an individual runner's progress and play at key mile markers, such as the roar of the crowd as runners approach the irrepressible women of Wellesley, a marathon tradition, and the finish on Boylston in downtown boston.

“Boston Marathon Live” will be hosted by WBZ-TV anchor Lisa Hughes. Each show will feature interviews with marathon personalities, including champions, and profiles on people participating in the virtual edition.

Athletics Kenya readies to replace athletes in U-20 team

Athletics Kenya (AK) will select more youth and put them in camps in various regions ahead of 2020 World Under-20 Championships slated for August 17-22 next year in Nairobi.

While welcoming proposed health protocols issued by the government to guide resumption of sports activities countrywide, AK’s Youth Development chairman Barnaba Korir on Thursday said many athletes who could have made Team Kenya for the championship this year will not be eligible to compete in 2021.

He said this as 14 upcoming athletes at Kapsait Athletics Camp in Elgeyo Marakwet received assorted food donation and Sh3,000 for their upkeep to shield them from adverse effects of Covid-19.

“We shall continue giving support to the youth and at the same time we are aware that many athletes who could have made the team this year will not be eligible to compete in 2021. AK Youth Committee will go back to the drawing board to identify other athletes and prepare for the World Under-20 Championships slated for next year,” said Korir.

The athletes who have been struggling to put food on the table were happy to get food rations from the federation.

Kapsait is home to world marathon record holder Brigid Kosgei who is currently training for the London Marathon race slated for October 4.

The youth are among 1,400 probables who had been identified for residential training in various parts of the country to prepare for the World Under-20 Championships in Nairobi before Covid-19 struck, halting sports activities worldwide.

AK started distributing food rations two months ago across the country in collaboration with Ministry of Sports.

“We thank the Ministry of Sports through the Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed who has given guidance in the distribution of food. We hope the virus shall be contained and we shall get the best team for the global event next year as we seek to bag more medals,” added Korir. During the food distribution exercise, AK’s Youth Development head coach, Robert Ng’isirei, asked the young athletes to continue training.

Run across Europe (virtually) in this 2,500K race

The Great European 2,500 is a virtual relay that takes runners the distance of London to Budapest

If your motivation is waning after months without races, the Great European 2,500 could be the slump-buster to get you excited to run again. The virtual race is a 2,500K run for teams of up to six, 12 or 24 people with a route that starts at Buckingham Palace in the U.K. and weaves through eight countries before its finish line in Budapest, Hungary. In the year when you can’t travel wherever you would like for a race, you can participate in a virtual run through some of the best places Europe has to offer. The event starts on October 3, and teams have until December 3 to collectively complete the 2,500K run.

How it works

“Run anywhere,” a promotional video for the event says, “and race across Europe.” You don’t even have to run, actually. Organizers say any time you travel by foot — whether that’s on a training run, a walk with your dog or a hike — you can log your mileage. Using any tracking app you like, from Strava to MapMyRun or something else, participants track their individual kilometres and upload them to the race website. If you don’t have a GPS watch or a phone to track mileage, you can manually log the distance you ran, but organizers note this is not encouraged.

Teams are split into groups based on the number of members and their genders. There are open (more than 50 per cent male), female and co-ed (at least 50/50 men and women) categories, and teams can have up to six, up to 12 or up to 24 racers (although you can have fewer participants than the total allotment in each category, such as four runners in the “up to six” division). As you and your teammates log your runs, you’ll be able to see your progress on a map of Europe and where you stand compared to the rest of the field.

You have two months to complete the 2,500K route. Registration for this event closes on October 24 at 11:59 p.m. If you want to race but can’t find anyone to run with, organizers recommend visiting the Great European 2,500 Facebook page to find any teams who are looking for extra runners.

What you’ll “see”

Race organizers will follow along as each team runs across Europe, highlighting different parts of the virtual route along the way. For example, the route takes runners through Paris and by the Eiffel Tower, over the Swiss Alps, past former Olympic sites in Germany and so many other global attractions. You won’t be there in person, but you can learn about the different places you run by, even if it is virtual.

To learn more about the race and to sign up, click here.

Japan keeping 5,000-spectator limit with coronavirus cases in Olympic host country high

apan is set to keep the limit of spectators at sporting events at 5,000 as coronavirus cases in the Olympic and Paralympic host country remain high.

The limit had been put in place until the end of August but is set to be extended, as reported by news agency Kyodo.

This will affect Nippon Professional Baseball games and J-League matches, although organisers of the latter had already decided to keep the 5,000 spectator limit until at least September .

The limit was increased from 1,000 to 5,000 on July 10.

Japan has reported more than 1,000 coronavirus cases for the past three days, leading to the extension of the spectator limit.

In total, the country has reported more than 53,500 cases and 1,085 deaths.

There are also concerns about the coronavirus figures in Japanese capital Tokyo, which is due to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games next year.

There have now been more than 17,000 cases of coronavirus in the city, with 338 deaths.

To prevent the spread of the virus, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike urged people to avoid travelling or returning to their hometowns during the holidays.

Venues serving alcohol are also expected to close by 10pm until the end of August.

Due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Japan and around the world, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were delayed by a year and are now scheduled to open on July 23 2021.

Coronavirus countermeasures are viewed as key to the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games taking place next year following their postponement.

The process will be led by the Japanese Government as part of a three-party council, which will also feature the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee.

Meetings are set to begin this autumn to determine "robust countermeasures" and which are expected to be announced by the end of 2020.

With thousands of athletes due to arrive from across the world to take part in the Games, the health situation outside Japan will also need to improve if they are to go ahead.

Eugene woman sets Oregon Pacific Crest Trail speed record: 455 miles in 7 days

When Emily Halnon’s mother died of cancer earlier this year, she decided to honor her memory by trying something big. 

She chose one of Oregon’s most grueling challenges. 

In the early morning darkness of Aug. 1, the 35-year-old Eugene resident laced up her shoes at the Oregon-California border and stepped onto the Pacific Crest Trail.

Then she started running.

Over the next week, Halnon ran up mountains and down river valleys, through a frigid thunderstorm and boiling temperatures, felt her shins ache and feet swell up on 17-hour days in remote wilderness.

When she reached the Washington border on Aug. 9, Halnon had set a new speed record for the Oregon section of the PCT: 455 miles in 7 days, 19 hours and 23 minutes.

That’s averaging 57 miles per day.

The supported speed record — meaning she was helped by a team along the way — is the fastest among both men and women, and the fastest overall, according to the website Fastest Known Time, the best metric for tracking trail times.  

In the process, Halnon raised $32,000 for the Brave Like Gabe foundation, which funds rare cancer research.

“It was a celebration of my mom — she was my fuel,” Halnon said. “There have been days when the grief is crushing. Channeling myself into this, into something that would make her proud and that felt like it mattered, was my way of working through it.”

But the run was also about fun. Halnon was supported by a team of friends who threw impromptu dance parties on the trail, invented romance stories to keep her smiling and created a wilderness spa one night near Diamond Peak. 

“There was a lot of singing and dancing and laughing — Emily has fun with the process,” said Eric Suchman, a close friend and social studies teacher at North Eugene High School. “But she's also very tough, very driven. When things are difficult, she can dig deep.”

“Emily is a badass,” said Danielle Snyder, who previously held the women's speed record on the Oregon PCT. “She can be laid-back and goofy. But in the end, she’s a badass.”

Distance running comes in the family

Emily Halnon was inspired by her mother. 

Growing up in Vermont, Andrea Halnon modeled how to be an athlete and runner even in later years.    

"She had a health scare when I was a teenager and that motivated her to start being more physically active," Emily Halnon said. 

It started with walking 5 kilometer races. Then running them. Next came 10 kilometer races and a half marathon. The year Andrea Halnon turned 50, she ran her first marathon. Not finished, she learned to swim so she could complete a triathlon at 60.

The mother inspired her daughter. The duo ran their first marathon together on Emily's 23rd birthday.

“She beat me by 20 minutes,” Emily said. 

The first time Emily visited Oregon was to run the Eugene marathon. But it was trail running in the Pacific Northwest that brought her in Oregon for good, where she started running major distance, including five 100-mile ultramarathons. Her mom supported her every step.

“The joke was how many times she would post on Facebook during those races,” Emily Halnon said. “It was usually about 18 times per race." 

Andrea Halnon was diagnosed with a rare form of uterine cancer in December of 2018 at 65 years old.

“When that first round of chemo didn't work, her oncologist had terrifyingly few options to offer her,” Emily Halnon wrote on Instagram. “One of them was giving up, something my tenacious mother would never do. But dealing with rare cancer often means running out of options. And my mom ran out of treatment options within months of her diagnosis.”

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Andrea Halnon fought for 13 months, still riding her bike, walking and staying active amid chemotherapy. 

“The way she fought was extraordinary,” Emily Halnon said.

Andrea Halnon died in January. But her toughness lived on through her daughter.

Inspiring more female athletes

The idea of establishing speed records in the outdoors isn’t a new idea, but its appeal has grown over the past decade.

In a time when every blank spot on the map has been filled, and every mountain route climbed, doing adventures in the fastest known time — known as an FKT — has become one way athletes test themselves.

Emily Halnon had her eye on the Oregon PCT since 2015, but once her mom passed, she decided she’d shoot for the FKT.

One of the first people she reached out to was Snyder, who’d set the women’s speed record in 2019. Snyder responded with enthusiasm.

“I work with women to be bold and step into their own, and it was really exciting to have Emily go for it,” said Snyder, who finished the Oregon PCT in 9 days and 15 hours. “Trail running draws a lot more males than females, especially for FKTs. Encouraging more women to go for them is about more than a record.”

Halnon upped her training and milage. She ran the Timberline Trail and climbed Hardesty Mountain three times in one day.   

“In a lot of ways, I’ve been training for this for eight years,” she said. 

How to prove a record

Part of the FTK isn’t just accomplishing it, but being able to prove the record.

As speed records become popularized, some records have proved to be fraudulent. The bar is high for proving a FKT, especially on a high profile route like the Oregon PCT.

Halnon signed up for a Garmin In Reach that allowed people to track her, a blue dot on the map, from a computer screen. In addition to time-stamped pictures, she got a second GPS device — a watch — that took a computerized track she could submit.

“There’s not a governing body for FKTs,” she said. “But the process is pretty rigorous." 

The run and her team

On Aug. 1, Halnon headed to the PCT on the Oregon-California border. It was dark when she began running, but that would become a common theme. 

Her pace was straightforward: run strong and steady on flat, downhill or slightly uphill terrain, while moving to a “strong hike” for steep climbs.   

Earlier that week she’d announced her attempt on Instagram, adding that she would be raising money for rare cancer research. She had modest expectations — maybe $4,500.

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“I waffled on the fundraising part of it in the middle of a pandemic,” she said. “But I just decided, if people have the means to give, great. If not, that’s understandable.”

Halnon’s attempt was for a “supported” record — as opposed to a self-supported record. It means she had a team, and it turned the effort into a communal undertaking. 

Halnon’s boyfriend Ian Petersen and dog Dilly met her at many trail crossings for water, fresh clothes, shoes, snacks and sometimes a hot meal — like a race car coming into a pit stop. Different friends paced her on the trail. 

The challenge of eating and romance novels

The first two days spanned a massive area, taking her from California all the way to Crater Lake National Park — a total of 131.5 miles. 

And it became clear what a big challenge might be: eating.

“Every half hour I’d say, ‘time to eat again,’ and she just hated that,” said Snyder, who ran with Halnon on the second day. “When you’re running like this, your body stops processing food as well. You feel crappy and don’t want to eat. It makes you feel tired and nauseous.

“I’d say: ‘I don’t care what you say, you have to eat. If you don’t, you won’t make it through the day, let alone to Washington.’”

Far from the cliché of Cliff Bars and Gu Energy packets, Halnon and many ultra runners opt for tastier fare: Cheetos, gummy worms, Swedish fish, rice crispy treats and Fritos. At stops, she ate quesadillas and instant mash potatoes. 

The days were long. She averaged 16 to 17 hours each day, reaching camp in darkness, sleeping 2 to 5 hours and getting up before dawn to do it again.

Her feet swelled up a half size and shins ached. The mental willingness to keep going meant Halnon’s running partners also had to keep things fun. They danced, sang Taylor Swift music and made up romance novellas.  

“When I did my run, I listened to a lot of romance novels to keep me occupied,” Snyder said. “They’re great. So, on the second day, Emily told me to play her one, but I hadn’t downloaded any. So she was like: ‘Fine! Then you have to tell me a romance story!’

“So I made up a romance story for her. I think the major plot points were about me finding a random trail man and falling in love in the forest. It was pretty bad, but it worked, and it helped us get through a lot of miles.”

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The best day on the PCT: hog dogs, friends and Diamond Peak

There were plenty of difficult days on the trail, but the highlight was day four — 48 miles from  Windigo Pass to Charlton Lake.

The run brought her past emerald lakes and below Diamond Peak, and was close enough to Eugene that her friends threw a mini trail party. 

After 22 miles, she stopped for a break and was surprised when her friend Eric Suchman brought her a hot dog, French fries and ice-cold Powerade from Dairy Queen.

“It was so perfect,” she said. “I’d been fantasizing about a cold beverage for miles and love hot dogs."

That night, after passing the 200-mile mark, she ran into camp in daylight for the first and only time — and she wasn't alone.  

“My Eugene running friends have showed up in force,” she wrote on Instagram. “They meet me 3 miles up the trail to run me in hooting and hollering, to a beautiful lakeshore set up with a grill, coolers, a fireside massage and friends! Everything a girl could dream of greeting her halfway through this PCT run.

“I am ready to head back out onto the trail with recharged legs and a fuller heart and soul.”

She would need that boost. The weather had changed and would bring the biggest challenge yet.

The worst day: thunderstorm and darkness across Mount Jefferson

Day six was one Halnon had been waiting for the entire trip: 59 miles from McKenzie Pass to Brietenbush Lake, across the Three Sisters and Mount Jefferson wilderness areas, the most scenic stretch of the PCT in Oregon.

But the weather had turned against her. A cool thunderstorm blew in, bringing high winds, little visibility and rain that became a winter mix at high elevations. 

“Records aren’t supposed to be easy,” she said.  

From McKenzie Pass she ran across the slick lava rock in a thin rain jacket that wasn’t nearly warm enough, then across exposed ridgelines.

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“It was wet for 14 hours, but the winds on the high ridges were most dramatic,” said Suchman, who ran with her that day. “There were times when we were almost getting blown over. There were no other people on the trail that day, but we passed a ton of tents that looked really warm and cozy.”

As darkness fell, Halnon and Schuman reached a pit stop at Woodpecker Ridge. 

“I shiver through changing clothes and burrow into a sleeping bag with hot ramen,” she wrote, adding that she fell asleep. “I could stay here forever. Warm and not moving.”

One problem: to keep on pace, she had to complete another 10 miles to Breitenbush Lake.

“I reluctantly stand up and groggily start moving,” she wrote. “The next 10 miles are an unending torture chamber of running. Violent river crossings. Icy snow fields. Rocky trails that are hard to follow and travel. Harsh cold again.”

They stumbled into camp at 4:30 a.m.

Just a few hours later, she had to wake up again.  

“I was totally broken the next morning,” Suchman said. “But she woke up at 7:30 a.m. Honestly, watching her get out on the trail was one of the most incredible accomplishments I’ve ever seen.”

Indeed, Halnon ran another 53 miles from Breitenbush Lake to Barlow Pass near Mount Hood on day seven, finishing at 2 a.m.

It set up a final sprint for the record.  

Sprint to the finish, and huge amount of money for rare cancer research

Halnon posted on Instagram throughout the trip, and gradually saw the amount of money she was raising tick upward, all the way to $14,000.

“What I heard from a lot of people was that in the middle of this darkness, the pandemic and everything else, a lot of people were looking for something positive to follow and be part of,” Halnon said. “The run gave them a way to do it.”

The morning of her final day on the trail, she posted: "I'm going for the overall FKT (fastest known time). Can you help me get there with donations to @bravelikegabe?”

To get the fastest known time overall, she needed to finish the final 57 miles by 3:30 a.m. 

“I thought: ‘I can do this, but this day needs to go well,’” she said.

Normally, Halnon said she doesn’t look at her phone during runs. But this time, she kept checking in because the amount of money raised began to rise quickly. 

“I’d get service, press refresh, and see thousands more dollars coming in,” she said. “And I thought: this is why I’m out here.”

But her shin, which had hurt for days, was throbbing. Luckily, Joe Uhan, a physical therapist from Eugene, was along to help at her next pit stop on the trial. 

“People spring into action when I arrive and I'm on Joe's table, his fingers digging magic into my shin, while Lucy spoon-feeds me ramen,” Halnon wrote. “Ian reads me comments people have left about why they're donating. I am a puddle on Joe's table. Cancer has touched and challenged so many lives. And so many people are inspired by my mom.”

The final stretch

The final push was not easy. 

Hanlon was doing well time-wise, but the Bridge of the Gods at Washington's border felt as far away as Australia as she entered the rocky, uneven terrain of the Columbia Gorge.

“I thought about my mom a lot,” she wrote as darkness fell. “I push as hard as I can, which doesn't amount to much speed or grace at mile 446. But I am emptying myself out for this run.”  

Finally, she saw headlights in the distance. Excited hollers. Then the outline of the bridge.

“I hit the bridge surrounded by a tidal wave of love,” she wrote. “The Washington sign cracks me like an egg. I feel so strong and so raw as I finally stop running after 7 days and 19 hours and 23 minutes.”

Her time is a few hours faster than Brian Donnelly, who set the self-supported record of 7 days, 22 hours and 37 minutes in 2013. The final push raised the total over $30,000, which has increased to $32,000. All the money will be donated to Brave Like Gabe for rare cancer research, Halnon said.

After the run, Halnon spent a lot of time sleeping and eating. And thinking about her mom.

“In some ways, I’m glad that she couldn’t follow the blue dot on the screen because it would have really worried her,” Halnon said. “But she would have been beyond proud. And for me, this was my way of feeling connected to her.”

You can still donate to Helnon and the Brave Like Gabe fund here.

Fastest known times on Oregon Pacific Crest Trail 

Supported, female

Emily Halnon: 7 days, 19 hours, 23 minutes (Aug. 9, 2020) 

Lindsey Ulrich: 9 days, 13 hours, 39 minutes (Aug. 5, 2020)  

Danielle Snyder: 9 days, 15 hours, 8 minutes (Aug. 31, 2019) 

Scott Loughney and Yassine Diboun: 8 days, 12 hours, 5 minutes (July 25, 2016) 

Self-supported, male

Brian Donnelly: 7 days, 22 hours, 37 minutes (Aug. 17, 2013) 

Emily Halnon's record, day by day

Day one: California border to Keno Access Road, 61.5 miles / 8,900 feet of elevation gain

Day two: Keno Access Road to Crater Lake National Park, 70 miles / 9,300 feet

Day three: Crater Lake to Windigo Pass, 58 miles / 6,700 feet

Day four: Windigo Pass to Charlton Lake, 48 miles / 6,400 feet

Day five: Charlton Lake to McKenzie Pass, 57 miles / 6,800 feet

Day six: McKenzie Pass to Brietenbush Lake, 59 miles / 8,800 feet

Day seven: Brietenbush Lake to Barlow Pass, 53 miles / 5,700 feet 

Day eight: Barlow Pass to Bridge of the Gods, 57 miles / 8,500 feet

Total: 463.5 miles* / 61,100 feet of climb 

* Mileage taken from Halnon's GPS. It's slightly longer than official Oregon PCT listed milage of 455, but that's normal for GPS systems.  

London Marathon releases race day schedule

A series of elite events will take place in St James’s Park on October 4

The race schedule for the elite-only Virgin Money London Marathon has been announced, with a series of events taking place throughout the day on Sunday October 4.

The action will kick off with the elite women’s race at 07:15 before the elite men’s race at 10:15 and the wheelchair races at 13:10.

As announced earlier this month, the 2020 London Marathon will not feature a mass race and the elite racing will take place within a “secure biosphere” in St James’s Park.

As recently confirmed by World Athletics, the times recorded in London will be eligible for Tokyo 2020 Olympic qualification.

ELITE RACE SCHEDULE

07:15 – Elite women’s race

10:15 – Elite men’s race

13:10 – Wheelchair races

The elite men’s field features distance running greats Eliud Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele in a highly-anticipated clash, together with Mosinet Geremew and Mule Wasihun, who placed second and third in 2019.

Britain’s Mo Farah will be a pacemaker to athletes looking to achieve the Olympic marathon qualifying standard of 2:11:30, with his compatriots Jonny Mellor, Chris Thompson and debutants Ross Millington and Ben Connor all set to run.

World record-holder and defending London Marathon champion Brigid Kosgei leads the women’s field and is joined by five other women who have run inside 2:20: Ruth Chepngetich, Roza Dereje, Vivian Cheruiyot, Valary Jemeli and Degitu Azimeraw.

Among the leading British women confirmed to race are Steph Twell and Lily Partridge.

In the wheelchair races, both Daniel Romanchuk and Manuela Schär will defend their titles.

Athletes will cross the same traditional finish line on The Mall after each completing 19.8 laps of the St James’s Park course, while mass runners will take on their 26.2 miles from home or anywhere in the world as part of the event’s first virtual edition.

Bashir Abdi and Sir Mo Farah talk about their upcoming one hour world record attempt

When the global implications of COVID-19 were made clear in early March, the UK’s Mo Farah and Belgium’s Bashir Abdi immediately thought about their families. Abdi had just come off of a stellar performance at the Tokyo Marathon – finishing 2nd in a time of 2:04.51 to break his own national record. He then went to Belgium to spend some time with his family but was planning to return to Ethiopia for a training camp in the spring. Farah was still in Ethiopia, training through an injury and looking to find his next race. Deciding to transition back down to the track from the roads meant that he wanted to sharpen his skills a few times in the leadup to the Olympic Games.

Neither, however, had any plans to line up at the beginning of September in an empty stadium in Belgium to break a world record. But since the end of July, the two have been training in Font-Romeu, France, with the goal of breaking Haile Gebrselassie’s one hour record. On September 4, they will be chasing a distance, rather than a time, at the reimagined AG Memorial Van Damme competition.

Months earlier, in highland Ethiopia, Farah was focused on getting into some races. “At that time I wasn’t thinking anything except finding a race to test myself,” he said. “I was supposed to go leave at the end of March but so many countries were going into lockdown and I left quickly to make sure I didn’t get stuck and could get back to the UK to be with my family.”

With his four children at home due to school closures, Farah embraced the time with his family after his safe arrival. It allowed him to recover from his injury and was a welcome distraction to the Olympic Games being cancelled. He even got some of his competitive juices flowing while being a stay-at-home dad, challenging his kids and his wife to competitions like mini-triathlons, and shooting football penalties in a dizzied state.

Abdi was in Belgium but was so sure of his plans to return to Ethiopia in April, that he left many of his belongings in a house the Mudane team rents outside of Addis Ababa. Instead, he trained in the uncertainty in a much colder and damper Belgium, and was able to care for his wife before she gave birth in June. “Cancelling the Olympics was obviously sad to hear, especially after getting so much motivation from the race in Tokyo,” Abdi said. “But the most important thing is health, and it was nice to get to spend more time with my family. It would have been a difficult period welcoming in a new child and training for the Games.”

Even as they both embraced the circumstances and stayed in shape at home, the itch to compete lingered. Thus, as soon as the idea was presented to chase the record, they were in.

While in cycling, the one hour record is an oft-contested event, in running it is far more rare. Although the event has roots dating back to the mid-1800s, it never garnered comparable popularity, despite legends such as Paavo Nurmi, Emil Zatopek, Jos Hermens, and the current record holder, Haile Gebreselassie, owning impressive titles at various points.

To get the record, Farah will have to beat Gebreselassie’s distance of 21,285 meters, which he ran in 2007 at the 46th Golden Spike Grand Prix in Ostrava, Czech Republic. However, Gebreselassie had an important asset on his side, which Farah and Abdi will not: a packed stadium. Because of the pandemic, the event will be closed off to spectators. In the final meters when they are throwing down the hammer, the arena will remain still and silent.

But little phases Farah at this point in his career, whose accomplishments are too long to list. “I’ve been running since I was 12 and over the years you just learn from races what works for you and what doesn’t work for you,” he said. Obviously this is a different style of running, but he plans to employ similar tactics for this attempt. “It’s really first just about getting fit – once I’m fit enough to run under 60 minutes for a half marathon I can build smaller components from there.”

Brigid Kosgei will be targeting records in Brussels

Brigid Kosgei is set to make her serious track debut at the AG Memorial Van Damme Diamond League meeting in Brussels on September 4, when she will join Sifan Hassan in attacking the one-hour world record.

Netherlands’ Hassan was announced for the event earlier this month, with the world 1500m and 10,000m champion targeting Dire Tune’s 2008 mark of 18,517km.

Now world marathon record-holder Kosgei has been added to the field as she works toward the defence of her title at the elite-only Virgin Money London Marathon on October 4.

According to her World Athletics profile, the Brussels meeting will be Kosgei’s first serious track event, with only road performances – including her incredible 2:14:04 marathon in Chicago last October – listed so far.

The 26-year-old has a half-marathon PB of 64:28 which she set when winning the Great North Run last year. Although that course is not record-eligible, Kosgei’s performance there is the fastest ever half-marathon time run by a woman.

The Kenyan’s best time for 15km is 48:54.

The meeting will also include a men’s one-hour event, with Britain’s four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah among those targeting Haile Gebrselassie’s 21,285km mark.

He will be joined by his training partner Bashir Abdi of Belgium and Norway’s Sondre Nordstad Moen.

Meanwhile, Kenya’s Olympic 1500m champion Faith Kipyegon will aim to break the world 1000m record of 2:28.98 – a mark she missed by just 17 hundredths of a second in Monaco – when she lines up at the AG Memorial Van Damme.

The women’s 1000m replaces the 4x400m mixed relay event which had originally been planned, with the Borlée brothers having decided to end their season due to “slight injuries”.

Another change to the programme is the cancellation of the triathlon which had been set to see Belgium’s Olympic heptathlon champion Nafissatou Thiam and Britain’s world gold medalist Katarina Johnson-Thompson go head-to-head in the 100m hurdles, shot put and high jump.

Thiam has withdrawn from the meeting due to injury and Johnson-Thompson will now contest just the hurdles and high jump.

According to organizers, Thiam is suffering “continuous pain at the Achilles tendons and does not want to take any risk”.

The triathlon shot put will be replaced by a women’s 100m, while Brazil’s Olympic champion Thiago Braz has been added to the pole vault field alongside world record-holder Mondo Duplantis of Sweden.

Organizers had initially hoped to be able to welcome around 9000 spectators “in a safe and secure way” but the event is now set to take place behind closed doors.

Tokyo Marathon 2021 could exclude non-elite runners again due to pandemic

Organizers of the Tokyo Marathon are considering excluding runners from the general public for a second consecutive year over coronavirus concerns, Jiji Press learned Thursday.

Next year’s Tokyo Marathon, scheduled for March 7, may accept elite athletes only. The Tokyo Marathon Foundation will make a decision on the matter early next month, informed sources said.

In this year’s race, held on March 1, participation by some 38,000 runners from among the public was canceled due to the spread of the new coronavirus. Spectators were asked to refrain from watching from along the marathon route as elite athletes ran in the race, which served as a qualifier for Japanese athletes for the men’s marathon in the Tokyo Olympics.

Suguru Osako set a new Japanese record of 2 hours, 5 minutes and 29 seconds to place fourth in the race. He was later selected to compete in the Tokyo Olympics, which has been postponed by one year to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Tokyo Marathon, which started in 2007, is one of the largest marathon events in Japan in terms of the number of participants.

The foundation has already notified runners from the general public for this year’s race that they are eligible to participate in the Tokyo Marathon for next year or for 2022. They were initially asked to choose the year by last month, but the selection process has been postponed.

2020 Boston Marathon Virtual Experience Launches Thursday

The new 124th Boston Marathon Virtual Experience mobile app is scheduled to launch to registered participants on Thursday, according to the Boston Athletic Association.

This year's in-person marathon, originally scheduled for April 20, was postponed until September and then ultimately canceled altogether due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In its place, the B.A.A. said it would be holding the marathon virtually, with registered participants completing 26.2 miles within their neighborhoods instead of on the race course itself.

The Boston Marathon Virtual Experience will run from Sept. 5 to Sept. 14, with daily programming available in the app starting Sept. 7 and a Mile 27 Post-Race Party on Sept. 14.

The new mobile app and web platform will only be accessible to registered participants, who will login with the email they used to register for the race. The app will include:

• Spectator tracking for friends and family of participants• Map tracking for participants to see where they would be on the actual Boston Marathon course• A virtual toolkit with printable winner's breaktape, mile markers, cheer cards and instructions to make an at-home finish line• A downloadable bib with each participant's number• Results and leaderboards• Audio cues from Boston Marathon champions, the roar of the Wellesley Scream Tunnel, crowds on Boylston Street and other iconic elements• Pre-race audio, including the Star-Spangled Banner and official start sound• A photo booth with Boston Marathon stickers to share on social media• A Shake Out Run for participants to practice the app's functionality before their big day

Participants will be able to submit their times by using their phone's GPS tracker, a compatible device like a Garmin or Fitbit or by manually uploading a time directly to the app or web platform.

After dealing with a plantar fasciitis problem in Europe, Donavan Brazier ends his season

Donavan Brazier’s 2020 outdoor season is over.

The reigning outdoor champion and U.S. record-holder in the 800 meters has been dealing with nagging plantar fasciitis problem in his right foot according to Pete Julian, Brazier’s coach.

Not that anybody could tell from his performances. Brazier won his 10th consecutive race -- a streak that dates to 2019 -- Sunday in the Stockholm Diamond League meet, taking the 800 in 1 minute 43.76 seconds with a late charge on the home straight.

And, for Brazier, that was that.

In a text message, Julian said Brazier’s has been dealing with “one of those types of injuries that most runners can relate to. Not bad enough to stop but not good enough to bring fuzzy happiness. It’s all always about finding the right combination of what you can and cannot do.

“As long as he was getting through the training and making a little bit of progress from week to week, and with the support of his doctor, I welcomed the adversity as a teaching tool. He did a great job keeping his head straight and focusing on winning stead of whining. By Stockholm, his foot was feeling better and you could tell in the way he raced.”

Just the same, Brazier and Julian decided enough was enough.

“He was fishing on the banks of Stockholm the next day,” Julian said.

Julian said the runners in his training group will go different directions soon. Craig Engels, Jessica Hull, Raevyn Rogers and Shannon Rowbury are entered in a meet in Goteborg, Sweden on Saturday. After that, Julian and some of his athletes will head home.

Engels is penciled into the 1,500 at the Diamond League in Brussels on Sept. 4. Hull and Rowbury are scheduled for the 1,500 in Berlin on Sept. 13.

“Shann and Jessica want to stay in Europe and keep racing any willing participants,” Julian said.

Napoli City Half Marathon to restart in February

The countdown for the Napoli City Half Marathon has started. The registrations are officially open for the 8th edition of the race, scheduled for February 28, 2021.

Napoli Running, a project of RunCzech, is ready to restart and with all health and safety measures advised by the Italian Institutions and FIDAL (the Italian Federation of Athletic), will organize an event which organizers call a “must” in the international calendar of road running.

The success of the 2020 edition, the last international mass participation event which took place in Europe before the lockdown, is still in the minds of the 7,000 runners, including 1500 visitors from 61 countries around the world.

The event has an economic impact on the Naples metropolitan area of approximately 4 million euro (4.7m USD), and is seen by more than 500 million viewers worldwide.

The Napoli City Half Marathon 2020 celebrated remarkable performances by the winners, Kenyan Henry Rono (RunCzech Racing) in 1:00:04 (a course record) and the compatriot Viola Cheptoo in 1:06:47, second fastest performance of all time on Italian soil.

2021’s route will start from Viale Kennedy and the Mostra d’Oltremare, and will lead the runners through the most fascinating areas of the city, running along the coast for more than 15km.

Organizers promise compliance with all the health and safety measures advised by the Italian authorities to ensure a safe event.

Reigning Olympic 1500m champion Faith Kipyegon has set her sights on the world 1000m record in Brussels

Reigning Olympic 1500m champion Faith Kipyegon has set her sights on the world 1000m record at the Memorial Van Damme, a Wanda Diamond League meeting in Brussels on September 4.

Kipyegon, who came up 0.17 shy of Svetlana Masterkova's 2:28.98 record at the Diamond League meeting in Monaco earlier this month, will give it another try in the same stadium and meeting where the record was set in 1996. Kipyegon's 2:29:15 performance in Monaco elevated the 26-year-old Kenyan to No2 all-time over the distance.

Organizers also announced that Brigid Kosgei, the world record-holder in the marathon, has joined the field in the women's one-hour run, a bid on the 18.517km world record in that event, which includes double world champion Sifan Hassan. Kosgei, who smashed the marathon world record with a stunning 2:14:04 run in Chicago last year, will be making her track debut. 

Slight injuries by key local athletes have forced some changes to the programme.

Nagging achilles tendon pain has sidelined Olympic heptathlon champion Nafi Thiam, cancelling her triathlon duel with world champion Katerina Johnson-Thompson of Great Britain. Johnson-Thompson will still compete in the 100m hurdles and the high jump.

Injury woes have also struck the Borlee brothers, thus cancelling the mixed 4x400m relay. That made room on the programme for the women's 1000m.

Meanwhile, the removal of the triathlon shot put has made room for the women's 100m to give rising Belgian star Rani Rosius an opportunity in the spotlight. The 20-year-old improved her career best to 11.39 at the national championships recently to move up to No2 on the Belgian all-time list.

Olympic champion Thiago Braz of Brazil has joined the men's pole vault field, taking on world record holder Mondo Duplantis and local star Ben Broeders.

Local restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic have forced the meeting behind closed doors but will be broadcast live across several platforms. Details will be announced shortly.

Shannon Rowbury just might make her fourth US Olympic Team post-pregnancy

Shannon Rowbury proved she can run elite times post-pregnancy. Next year, she hopes to be the latest example that an Olympic career doesn’t end with motherhood.

“Having a child isn’t a death sentence,” she told fellow Olympic runner and mom Alysia Montaño in a recent On Her Turf interview. “You can come back even better.”

Rowbury, a 35-year-old, three-time Olympian, raced this month on the Diamond League circuit for the first time in three years and since having daughter Sienna in June 2018.

It went pretty well. She clocked her second-fastest 5000m ever, a 14:45.11 to place fifth in Monaco.

Only four other Americans have ever gone faster. One is retired (Shalane Flanagan). It’s very possible that two of the others could focus on other distances next summer (Shelby Houlihan and Molly Huddle).

Rowbury is right in the mix to make a fourth straight Olympics, given three U.S. women qualify per event. She can become the oldest U.S. woman to race on an Olympic track since Gail Devers in 2004, and one of the few moms to do so.

Rowbury is the former American record holder at 1500m and 5000m with a pair of fourth-place finishes from racing the former at the last three Olympics.

In 2018, she returned to training eight weeks after having Sienna. Ramping up too quickly led to a stress fracture in early 2019. She felt fatigued from sleep deprivation and breastfeeding and struggled with her identity.

Will I ever be the same? How much do I have left? Who am I without sport? 

“I love my daughter,” she said last year, “but I loved my life before as well.”

She kept running. Rowbury placed sixth in the 5000m at the 2019 USATF Outdoor Championships, racing on a lack of training due to the injury. She missed an Olympic or world championships team for the first time since 2007, when she graduated from Duke.

Then in November, she won the U.S. 5km title on the roads in New York City. Rowbury raced for the first time this year in July and is still in Europe, torn while spending three weeks away from Sienna and husband Pablo Solares, a former middle-distance runner from Mexico.

“I felt very strongly that I would never prioritize my career over my family and over my daughter,” she said. “My performance right now is testament to the fact that you can have a healthy, natural weaning process, and you can still compete at a very high level.”

Rowbury partly dismissed motherhood earlier in her career because she was afraid of potential consequences. In more recent years, runners including Rowbury, Montaño and Allyson Felix fought for maternity protection in the sport, such as with health insurance through USA Track and Field and in sponsor contracts.

“I don’t think that any woman should be told she needs to do something in order to compete as an athlete or to pursue her dreams,” Rowbury said.

Kenyan Victor Chumo looking forward to London Marathon duties

As world marathon Eliud Kipchoge and Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele, the biggest threat to the Kenyan's 2:01:39 mark, prepare for the October 4 London Marathon, ‘Rabbit’ Victor Chumo is preparing for an equally daunting task.

Chumo will be pacing for Kipchoge as he seeks to retain his title in the streets of London and has revealed his kind of routine as he battles to stay sharp for the task ahead.

The reigning Barcelona Half Marathon champion disclosed that he has been running at least 30km daily ahead of what is expected to be a highly-charged race.

Chumo will be guiding the elite-runners only event, occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic, where he leads the first group while Chicago Marathon champion, Mo Farah, will be pacing for the second group.

He said he fully understands what is at stake now that it will be the third time pacing for the only man to have dipped under two hours over the distance.

“I first paced Kipchoge during the Nike Breaking 2 where he ran 2:00: 25. I then paced him during Ineos 1:59 Challenge, running 1:59:40. With this, he has trust in me and I have to once again deliver," said Chumo.

Kipchoge will be chasing his fifth title in London after winning the 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019 editions.

“There will be a strong field in London and that needs a strong pacesetter. You can imagine how speedy the race will be with some of the greatest marathon runners on show,” said the former Kenya Defence Forces man.

Kipchoge and Bekele (2:01:41) will also have to contend with some of the toughest challengers including nine who have dipped under 2:06.

They include Mosinet Geremew (2:02:55), Mule Wasihun (2:03:16), Sisay Lemma (2:03:36), Tamirat Tola (2:04:06), Marius Kipserem (2:04:11), Shura Kitata (2:04:49), Vincent Kipchumba (2:05:09), Sondre Nordstad Moen (2:05:48) and Gideon Kipketer (2:05:51).

Other pace-setters include Noah Kipkemoi, who also paced at Ineos Challenge, Erick Kiptanui, Alfred Barkach, Shadrack Kimining, Matt Clowes (Great Britain), and Jake Smith (Great Britain).

2020 Virtual TCS New York City Marathon will be Featuring Elite and Celebrity Athletes

Although the long-planned 50th edition of the TCS New York City Marathon cannot take place this year due to the COVID pandemic, the virtual version will still offer some of the usual star power of the in-person race. Race founders and organizers New York Road Runners announced today that national champions Steph Bruce (Hoka Northern Arizona Elite) and Emily Sisson (Team New Balance) will among those running their own 42.195-kilometer race during the October 17 to November 1 Virtual TCS New York City Marathon event window.

"New York is a dream goal of mine," said Bruce in a video message from her home in Flagstaff, Ariz. "And even though 2020 looks different I still need a reason to get out there to train and race."

Bruce, the 36 year-old mother of two boys, finished sixth at the 2020 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Atlanta last February. She has a personal best of 2:27:47 and has won national road running titles at 10 km (2018) and the half-marathon (2019). She has run the TCS New York City Marathon twice, finishing 10th in 2017 and 11th in 2018. Despite the pandemic, she's done a pair of 5000-meter track races this year, running 15:29.95 and 15:19.21. She has run 11 career marathons.

"At every level we all need something tangible to train for," Bruce recently wrote on Twitter. "Something that gets us out the door and fired up. I've been training for some big opportunities coming up. I'm not gonna waste them."

Sisson, 28, made an excellent marathon debut in London in April, 2019, clocking 2:23:08, despite falling during her warm-up and banging her knee. In her second marathon, the 2020 USA Olympic Trials, she failed to finish. The hilly course left her legs trashed, she said.

"It sounds dramatic, but that was probably the most disappointing race I've had in my career," she told NBC Sports recently.

Sisson had planned to run the 2020 TCS New York City Marathon before it was cancelled on June 24. She's hoping that the virtual race --which does not offer any prize money-- will fill some of the void in her training and racing schedule.

"Nothing gets me as fit as marathon training," Sisson said in a video statement today. "I'm hoping to use this as a springboard into the new Olympic year of 2021."

New York Road Runners also announced that 17-time Paralympic medalist Tatyana McFadden would be competing as a wheelchair racer. McFadden, 31, has won the women's wheelchair division of the TCS New York City Marathon five times.

"I'm so excited to be running the virtual TCS New York City Marathon this fall," McFadden said through a video statement.

Other noteworthy participants include American Olympic marathon medalists Deena Kastor and Meb Keflezighi, former pro tennis player James Blake, reigning TCS New York City Marathon men's wheelchair division champion Daniel Romanchuk, and former New York Giants running back Tiki Barber.

"Virtual racing continues to redefine the runner experience by creating an innovative and safe way to participate during these challenging times while also providing an opportunity for runners from all over the world to stay connected through running," said New York Road Runners president and CEO Michael Capiraso through a statement. "We are excited to welcome an inspiring group of prominent runners to our third-annual Virtual TCS New York City Marathon."

The Virtual Air Force Marathon 2020, Sells Out Amidst COVID-19

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Air Force officials had cancelled the 2020 Air Force Marathon which would have been held Saturday, Sept. 19. However, call it foresight or a stroke of luck, ironically a virtual race option was already planned to be added this year and all seven virtual events are now sold out.

“Being an Air Force event, we initially created the virtual option so military members anywhere in the world had the opportunity to still be a part of the event if they could not be here in person,” said Brandon Hough, Air Force Marathon director. “Little did we know that our initial intention would have a whole new meaning behind it.”

The virtual race allows runners from all over the world to join in from afar. Participants will virtually complete the Air Force Marathon, half marathon, 10K, 5K, Tailwind Trot or Fly! Fight! Win! Challenge Series race.

Runners will be required to run their selected distance during the month of September and encouraged to upload their race results online.   

“We were hopeful that we would get a good turnout but we never expected to sell out and sell out so quickly,” said Hough. “I think the appeal is that running in a virtual race allows runners to have the ability to run their event from wherever they are and have the flexibility to pick anytime to run it throughout the month.” 

With the success of the number of participants in this year’s marathon, Hough said that he is considering to continue to offer virtual events in the future. 

This year’s virtual race will have more than 11,600 athletes participating from all 50 states and 32 countries.

Once athletes complete their selected race, participants will receive their 2020 bib, commemorative patch, official race shirt, and finisher’s medal celebrating this year’s featured aircraft, the HH-60G Pave Hawk.  Challenge Series athletes will receive finisher’s medals for all three races selected in addition to a special Fly! Fight! Win! finisher’s medal and quarter zip pullover.

Along with the virtual race, there will also be a virtual Health and Fitness Expo where athletes will be able to shop their favorite expo booths and learn about new products and developments in health, fitness, and nutrition. The virtual expo will be available online Sept. 1-30 and is free and open to the public.

With the marathons cancelled, Emily Sisson chose a virtual one

Sisson, a 28-year-old based in Arizona, plans to run exactly 26.2 miles for the virtual competition with no prize money (Sisson is sponsored by New Balance, which is a New York Road Runners partner). She said last week that she was still deciding on her route.

“It’s hard to find somewhere where I can get 26.2 miles without having to stop for traffic,” she said.

Sisson originally planned to race the in-person New York City Marathon. When it was canceled in June, she was left in a foreign state — training without any competitions on the horizon. She was eager once told about the virtual option.

“Obviously, a virtual race can’t completely replace the New York City Marathon,” she said. “But it’s something to put on my schedule, to work towards and train for right now.

“That’s the reward for working really hard.”

Sisson, after her marathon debut in London in April 2019, spent last fall and winter with Leap Day circled. She flew to Atlanta among the contenders to make the three-woman U.S. Olympic marathon team. Many tapped her the overall favorite.

But her legs felt off early on the hilly course, Sisson shared on the Ali on the Run podcast in April. Tightness crept up around mile 11. She looked at the elites around her. Laura Thweatt was bounding. Des Linden was floating.

Sisson’s quads were taking a beating. She was dropped around mile 20 and, by mile 22, stepped off the course and into the arms of her husband, Shane Quinn.

“It sounds dramatic, but that was probably the most disappointing race I’ve had in my career,” she said last week. “I’ve never had to drop out of a race before. I’ve also never blown up like that in a race before. Take that back, I fainted once. I’ve never had a race where I performed so far off where my fitness level was.”

Sisson implemented the plan B that coach Ray Treacy discussed the night before. If your chances of finishing top three are done, pull the rip cord and save your legs for the 10,000m at the track trials in June.

Sisson’s legs were “destroyed.” She took three weeks off from running, consulting with a chiropractor while weighing the risk of that long of a rest. She also knew that the Olympics were under threat of postponement, which eventually was announced on March 24, three and a half weeks after the marathon trials.

The U.S. Olympic marathon team of Aliphine Tuliamuk, Molly Seidel and Sally Kipyego is expected to remain in place for next year. The track trials are now in June 2021. Sisson will race this virtual 26.2 miles, then will probably focus on the 10,000m. Her unfinished business in the marathon — the in-person variety — will be on the agenda after the Tokyo Games.

Sisson will set at least one personal best this year. Her virtual marathon will be her longest-ever solo run, though Quinn will likely ride a bike alongside her. She will put on headphones and probably listen to music.

“It’s hard hitting pause on a low,” Sisson said, reflecting on the Atlanta trials. “It’s nice to have something else right now.”

Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon launches first ever Virtual Club and Racing Series

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year's Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon will involve a "unique alternative race format" with virtual and possibly "physical components", its event organiser said on Monday (Aug 24).

In a press release, event organiser Ironman Group said that these components are being explored "depending on regulations to replace the traditional road race". 

The race format will allow runners to take part in the race "safely and virtually", said Ironman Group, and they can still enjoy the "signature finisher experience", complete with the finisher photo. 

"With the health and safety of the runners, community and supporters being of utmost importance, race organisers will continue to work closely with relevant Government agencies for the unique race format for the 2020 Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon," said the organiser.

VIRTUAL CLUB PLATFORM LAUNCHED:

In order to help runners stay active and train for the December marathon, the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon Virtual Club (VC) platform has also been launched.

The platform, which is free to join, includes weekly races and challenges, an online store with redeemable rewards, training and nutritional resources, and performance tracking.

"Runners can track their training data easily, compare themselves against their peers across local and global leader boards," said the press release. 

"They can also improve their performances through the nutrition and training guides available and join themed weekly challenges and races to build up their training mileage for the race at the end of the year."

Part of the platform is the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon Virtual Racing Series, where a total of 15 races will allow runners to gear up for the "grand finale", said Mr Geoff Meyer, who is Asia managing director for Ironman Group.

"That will build every week, all the way down to that weekend in December where we call it our grand finale," he said at a virtual news conference on Monday.

As part of the race day, the physical component could involve participants running on treadmills or clocking their runs outdoors. And there will be an augmented reality course "through the heart of Singapore", said Mr Meyer.

RUNNERS CAN CREATE AVATARS FOR THE VIRTUAL ROUTE

For the virtual reality component, runners can create avatars who can navigate through the virtual marathon route in real time, competing with fellow runners, said the press release.

Given that planning for the race is still ongoing, more details will be shared soon, said Ironman Group.

“We would love to be launching a 50,000-person event running through the streets of Singapore, but obviously this is not to be the case in our current environment. The safety of our athletes, volunteers, staff and all Singaporeans is our priority," said Mr Meyer. 

Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong said: “The Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon will be a unique experience this year. With the launch of new innovative solutions, we will be able to continue training and connecting with fellow runners and athletes from around the world."

Seth DeMoor and Brittany Charboneau win Pikes Peak Marathon

Not even a global pandemic, extreme heat and dry air, wild fires and lingering smoke from said wild fires could stop the 65th annual Pikes Peak Marathon from happening. With the cancellation of the Boston Marathon this year, the Pikes Peak Marathon is now the longest continuously running marathon in the United States.

While the start and finish lines may have looked different, the course was exactly the same and runners had the chance to test themselves against the grueling 7,800′ climb and descent as well as mother nature torturing athletes with probably the worst air quality in the race’s history.

Seth DeMoor, a 35-year-old from Englewood grew up in Buena Vista watching his dad, Joe, race on Pikes Peak in the ‘90s and has a video blog dedicated to his trail running with nearly 100,000 subscribers. After finishing second in the 2019 Ascent — the 2020 race was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic — DeMoor decided to enter his first Pikes Peak Marathon and won the race in 3 hours, 36 minutes and 31 seconds, a record for the 35-39 age group.

Brittany Charboneau, of Denver, took the women’s victory in 4:25:21 in her first attempt on the mountain.

DeMoor owned a six-minute lead when he turned around just shy of the under-construction summit house and held off David Sinclair (Truckee, Calif.) on the descent, winning by less than two minutes. Charboneau trailed Allie McLaughlin by roughly 40 seconds at the turnaround and made her pass in the final five miles of the descent.

As if the coronavirus pandemic wasn’t enough for a race director to navigate, Pikes Peak Marathon’s Ron Ilgen had the added task of monitoring wildfire conditions in the days leading up to Sunday’s Pikes Peak Marathon.

Ilgen said part of the planning that went into putting on such an event as safely as possible included conversations on search and rescue, monitoring storms for lightning strikes that could cause issues locally and increased sanitizing measures, especially in the aid tent just beyond the finish line.

There was more consensus on the health protocols in place. Runners started in waves and most used face coverings immediately before and after the race.

Ilgen said he was pretty pleased with how things went and credited the participants for their cooperation during a race week unlike so many previous ones. There was no big celebration to open or close the race weekend, but race directors and racers seemed to make the most of it.

Tokyo Olympic flame will be put on public display at the Japan Olympic Museum from September 1 to November 1

The Tokyo Olympic flame will be put on public display at the Japan Olympic Museum from September 1 to November 1, Tokyo 2020 organizers announced here on Monday.

A display ceremony will be held on August 31 and attended by Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori and Japanese Olympic Committee President Yasuhiro Yamashita.

The Olympic flame, which was lit in Olympia, Greece, on March 12, has been kept in a secret place since its last display in Fukushima was canceled on April 7 when Japan prepared for a state of emergency.

The flame arrived in Japan on March 20 for a torch relay originally scheduled to kick off on March 26 at the J-Village National football center in Fukushima. But the relay was called off after the postponement of the Olympic Games.

Reports said last week that Tokyo Olympic organizers will try to preserve the torch relay schedule developed for 2020 to be used in next year's postponed Games, which means that the relay will still last 121 days and traverse all 47 prefectures.

Nozomi Tanaka takes down Japanese 1500m record at Golden Grand Prix in Tokyo

It may not have been the competition that Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium had originally been set to host in August 2020, but Japan’s leading athletes got a taste of the big time at the Seiko Golden Grand Prix, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting, on Sunday (23).

To help minimise risks, no spectators were present and the fields were entirely made up of domestic athletes. But thousands of fans were still able to tune in via TV coverage and the live stream to watch Japan’s leading athletes in action.

They rose to the occasion, too, especially Nozomi Tanaka. The world U20 3000m champion stepped down in distance to the 1500m and front-ran her way to a national record. The 20-year-old had announced her intentions to break the mark ahead of the race, having come within a second of Yuriko Kobayashi’s 14-year-old mark (4:07.86) with a 4:08.68 clocking in Shibetsu last month.

With no pacemakers, Tanaka started conservatively and led the field through the first lap in 66.42. Japanese 800m and 1500m champion Ran Urabe, compatriot Kaede Hagitani and Kenya’s Japan-based Hellen Lobun were the only ones capable of following the early pace.

At 800m, reached in 2:11.91, Urabe moved into second place as Lobun and Hagitani dropped behind. Tanaka continued to wind up the pace, and after hearing the bell ring with 3:02.37 on the clock, she kicked it up another gear and pulled away from Urabe.

Tanaka flew around the final lap in 63 seconds to cross the line in 4:05.27, smashing the national record by two seconds. Urabe finished six seconds in arrears, clocking 4:11.75.

"I thought about all kinds of race plans, but I also knew that if I thought about it too much, I’d get anxious," said Tanaka, whose mother, Chihiro, is a two-time Hokkaido Marathon champion. "So today I decided not to be too conscious of the time and to just run. I’ve been confident with my finish in training, so I just gave everything I had. I realised in the final 100 metres that I was going to break the national record.

"I’m very excited that I finally broke the national record that had been held by Yuriko Kobayashi, who is from my home town," added Tanaka, who is coached by her father, Katsutoshi. "With my performance today I was able to show my appreciation towards to the people who have supported me."

Jamaican Usain Bolt tests positive for covid, days after celebrating his 34th birthday

Usain Bolt has tested positive for coronavirus just days after partying with guests including England star Raheem Sterling for his 34th birthday in Jamaica, according to reports in the country.

Nationwide90fm, a radio station in Jamaica, reports that the greatest sprinter of all time has contracted the disease and will spend time in self-isolation as a result. 

The publication says Bolt took a test for the virus a few days ago following his party on Friday last week, and discovered on Sunday that he had tested positive. 

Today the sprint star posted a video on his Twitter page confirming he is in self-isolation at his home in Jamaica and took a Covid-19 test on Saturday, but is yet to get the results.

He said: 'Good morning everybody, just waking up. Like everybody, I've checked social media, social media's saying I'm confirmed [as having coronavirus]. I did a test on Saturday because I have work [abroad].

'I'm trying to be responsible so I'm going to stay in for me and my friends. Also, I have no symptoms. 

'I'm going to quarantine myself and wait to see what the protocol is. Until then, I'm quarantined by myself and just taking it easy. Be safe out there.'

World 1,500m champion Timothy Cheruiyot unstoppable in the Stockholm Diamond League on Sunday

World 1,500m champion Timothy Cheruiyot stamped his authority to seal his season’s double with an emphatic front-running victory in the Stockholm Diamond League on Sunday.

World 800m bronze medallist Ferguson Rotich might not have been lucky yet, but staged an improved performance to finish fourth as compatriots, Continental Cup 1,500m champion Winny Chebet and World 5,000m title holder Hellen Obiri failed to click in their respective races.

Nine days after clocking a world lead of three minutes and 28.45 seconds in Monaco, missing a personal best by four seconds, Cheruiyot timed 3:30.25 this time around in the Swedish capital.

Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen once again played second fiddle, finishing second in 3:30.74 as Australian Stewart Mcsweyn dug in for third in personal best 3:31.48.

“It was a bit windy, but the pace was good and I am pleased with my win today. We are travelling around many countries but we are following all precautions and wearing masks so I am happy to be racing,” said Cheruiyot.

Ingebrigtsen noted that his target was to get close to Cheruiyot and see if he could beat him, but the Kenyan still looked stronger.

“I didn't have the great legs that I had in Monaco, it was a tough race, it wasn't too easy today, “said Ingebrigtsen

“I am closing in on him though, and it’s just a matter of time before I beat him.”

The Norwegian, who set a new European record and personal best 3:28.68 in Monaco, explained that his goal to get a fast race this season and he did that in Monaco.

In the men's 800m, Rotich clocked 1:45.11 to lose the battle to World champion American Donovan Brazier, who sealed his second win in 1:43.76.

Marco Arop from Canada and Swede Andreas Kramer settled second and third in 1:44.67 and 1:45.04 respectively.

Laura Muir from Britain, who finished second behind Kenya’s World 1,500m champion Faith Chepng’etich in 1,000m race in Monaco, cashed in on Chepng’etich's absence to win the metric mile race in Stockholm.

Muir returned a world lead of 3:57.86 in a race where Chebet settled fourth in 4:02.58 as Obiri, the Olympic 5,000m silver medallist, who won the 5,000m in Monaco, came in 12th in 4:10.53.

Norway`s Karsten Warholm powered to the second fastest 400m hurdles performance of all time to highlight the Bauhaus Galan Wanda Diamond League meeting in Stockholm on Sunday

Running in lane eight, Warholm went out in his typically rampaging style, building a visible lead by the third hurdle. He then added to it with each stride, powering off the final bend and into the home straight very much alone, showing no signs of slowing down. For some moments, Kevin Young’s 46.78 world record, set at the Barcelona Olympic Games 28 years ago, looked to be under serious threat. 

But it didn’t come to pass after the 24-year-old Norwegian clipped the final barrier, costing him valuable ticks of the clock. He nonetheless did claw his way closer to Young’s venerable performance, clocking 46.87 to break his own European record by 0.05 seconds and solidify his No.2 position on the world all-time list. 

“I hit that last hurdle because I went really hard for the first nine, and stuff like this happens,” said Warholm, who sped to a 47.10 performance in his season’s opener in Monaco just over one week ago.

“But I think I was rewarded by just going all in at the end and I got a great time. It's a great lesson for me to always run until the finish line.” 

Frenchman Wilfried Happio was second in 49.14, just ahead of compatriot Ludvy Vaillant who clocked 49.18. 

But he wasn’t finished. Warholm chose to double back 94 minutes later in the 400m and won big there as well, clocking 45.05, well clear of Slovenia’s Luka Janezic who clocked 45.85. 

Boston 10K for Women cancelled, will be run virtually in 2020

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, the all-women’s race will not be held in its traditional mass participatory form this October.

organizers of the Boston 10K for Women, are proud to introduce a virtual event for race participants to enjoy this October. Though the 44th running of the event was initially slated for Monday, October 12, organizers have followed the guidance of state, city, and public health leaders in deciding not to hold the mass participatory road race and surrounding events in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beginning on Wednesday, October 7 and continuing through Monday, October 12, race participants will have the opportunity to complete the 6.2-mile distance at a time and location of their choosing. Participants can share their times to a leaderboard, and will receive a 2020 participant shirt, training plan, and products from race sponsors. 

Registration for the 44th edition of the Boston 10K for Women will open on Monday, August 24 at 10:00 a.m. For a reduced entry fee of $25, those who sign up by Monday, September 14 will receive a commemorative long-sleeve shirt and participants will have the option to donate additional funds to one of the event’s official charities. Registration will occur at www.boston10kforwomen.com.

The virtual event will include the mailing of a pre-race participant package, and several perks sent via e-mail. There will be no programming at Boston Common on Monday, October 12.

The race is the largest all-women’s sporting event in New England, and traditionally attracts thousands of women from around the world, including an elite field competing for $17,000 in prize money. Last year, Rhode Island’s Molly Huddle won her fifth title on the flat and fast course, breaking the Charles Street breaktape in a time of 31:50, adding to her 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2015 victories.

Established in 1977 as the Bonne Bell Mini Marathon, the Boston 10K for Women is the longest-running all-women’s sporting event in New England. With thousands of runners and spectators each year, it’s New England’s largest all-women’s road race, and has been organized every year by Conventures, Inc. The race features a flat out-and-back course through Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood and scenic stretches of Memorial Drive in Cambridge. More than 181,000 women have raced in the event since its inception.

2020 Amsterdam Marathon has been cancelled due to the pandemic

The 2020 Amsterdam Marathon has become the latest race to be cancelled because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The event was due to be held on October 18, but has been called off because of the rise in cases of Covid-19 in the Netherlands; the country has reported more than 400 cases per day since August 4.

In a statement, Ron van der Jagt, managing director of race organiser Le Champion, said, ‘It’s extremely regretful that we have had to cancel the TCS Amsterdam Marathon due to the corona crisis.

‘It is our mission to help as many people as possible to take part in sports and exercise and contribute to a healthy society.

‘Public health is always our top priority, which is why we wanted nothing more than to allow the TCS Amsterdam Marathon to take place in a safe, responsible way with a modified edition this year.

‘However, the development of the corona crisis over the past few weeks, both in the Netherlands and beyond, has made it impossible for this edition to go ahead.’

Runners will be able to defer their place to the 2021 edition of the race. Similar to London Marathon, organisers are also developing an app that will allow runners to take part in a virtual race on what would have been race day.

Colorado runners rule Pikes Peak Marathon

Colorado runners ruled the Pikes Peak Marathon on Sunday in a year without elite international competition.

Seth DeMoor, of Englewood was the first to the summit of Pikes Peak and held off David Sinclair to win the men’s race in 3 hours, 36 minutes and 31 seconds, unofficially. Sinclair finishes in 3:38:20.

Denver’s Brittany Charboneau reached summit behind Allie McLaughlin but made up ground during the descent and won the women’s race in 4:25:21. Golden’s Ashley Brasovan was second with McLaughlin, of Colorado Springs, finishing third.

New Wisconsin justice sworn in during ultramarathon

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- New Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsky finished her 100-mile ultramarathon Sunday after being sworn in mid-run. Karofsky was sworn in around 1 p.m. Saturday at the 35-mile marker of her route in south-central Wisconsin. State Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Dallet administered the oath of office in Basco. Karofsky began running Saturday at 6 a.m. WMTV-TV reports the run took her about 34 hours to complete. Karofsky shared an image of herself at mile 99 on Twitter around 3 p.m. Sunday. The liberal-leaning Karofsky defeated incumbent Daniel Kelly in April to narrow the court’s conservative majority to 4-3.

In-person running races start again in Colorado with new coronavirus precautions

After a five-month hiatus, Colorado road runners are starting to have a few options for in-person racing with a pair of events scheduled over the next three weeks and another coming in October.

Previously scheduled for May 9, the Greenland Trail races will be held Aug. 29-30 in Larkspur, governed by strict regulations developed with the Tri-County Health Department. Spread out over two days instead of one for a maximum of 250 runners each day in compliance with health department orders, those races will include an 8-mile, 4-mile, 50K (31-mile) and 25K (15.5-mile). Runners will start one at a time in 8-second increments for social distancing.

Soon to follow will be the Labor Day Half Marathon in Parker, which also will offer a 10K and a 5K. The Greenland and Parker races are produced by Colorado Runner Events, which staged the Cookie Chase 5K this past Sunday in City Park. That race attracted 300 runners.

On Thursday, organizers of the Colfax Marathon announced a new race to be held Oct. 10 in City Park. Called the Welcome Back Denver 5K, it will be limited to 700 runners with four hourly start groups of 175. There will be multiple starting line chutes with groups of 25 people launching in 2-minute increments.

On Sunday, the Pikes Peak Marathon (up and down the mountain from Manitou Springs) will be held, but the Pikes Peak Ascent (one way) originally scheduled for Saturday was canceled.

“The Marathon, being a smaller field and spread out over 13 miles, is more manageable,” said Ron Ilgen, president of the Pikes Peak Marathon. “We’ve gone through exhaustive work in redefining the event in order to meet government health guidelines at all levels. We are able to keep the runners at the required six feet distance at both the start and finish areas, as well as requiring that they wear facemasks while in Manitou Springs. We also ask that they pull up their facemasks when they pass on the course.”

No one is under the illusion that road racing as we knew it before the pandemic is coming back anytime soon. In addition to the health rules related to the pandemic, demand so far has been low.

“I think there’s a lot of people that are not ready to come back,” said Jessica Griffiths, race director for Colorado Runner Events. “There’s people saying they’re ready, but they’re not actually signing up. The shorter distances could possibly sell out. The 50K maybe has 50 people in it right now. People have not been training for that distance because they didn’t expect it to happen. The 25K (has) about 100 people right now.

“Demand is very down. But for the people that are wanting to come out, they’re very enthusiastic, and they seem very, very grateful that we’re even trying to put on an event. It’s been a challenge. The guidance changes a lot.”

The Cookie Chase had more than 1,400 finishers in 2019, so the 300 that turned out this week represented a huge drop.

“Not that we wanted or were allowed to have a large event, but it gives you an idea of where the demand is currently,” Griffiths said. “We had small waves start from 7 a.m. until 9:30, so those 300 people were very social distanced throughout the 3 miles.”

Griffiths said guidelines mandated by Tri-County Health for the Greenland Trail races include:

-Registration tables and portable restrooms must be cleaned and recorded on an hourly timesheet.

-Only pre-packaged food and sealed bottles of liquids are allowed at the finish line.

-Hand sanitizer is required on all tables.

-Staff and volunteers must wear masks at all times.

-Staff and volunteers are required to have temperature checks and COVID-19 screenings.

Similar rules will be in place for the Labor Day races, including the staggered start, Griffiths said, although the interval times for the start launches may be tweaked depending on how the Greenland races go.

“We paced it out,” Griffiths said. “If you have an elite runner who’s running about 6-minute miles, and one person starts every 8 seconds, they’re going to cover 120 feet before the next participant starts. Even the walkers, in 8 seconds, will cover 30-35 feet before the next person starts. It will be very strung-out. We wouldn’t have people running in big groups. I think for the people that are coming, they are just excited to have something to train for and something to do that’s in person, even if it’s not going to be the same.”

Colfax Marathon officials Andrea Dowdy and Creigh Kelley spent much of the summer working through ideas on how a return to racing would look, not just for their races but for the industry at large. They came up with a set of guidelines in concert with state and city public health officials that have been reviewed by the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The resulting document has been offered to other races — in Colorado and around the country — as a template.

Denver officials allowed the Cookie Chase to happen last weekend under those guidelines. Now the hope is that other races will be able to follow the template, although Kelley says it’s impractical to stage races longer than 5Ks until COVID-19 restrictions are eased or lifted.

“We knew we needed to create recommended guidelines so that race directors or event organizers, including charities — all these charities that are losing a lot of money — would have a document they could read and understand that would allow them to begin to think about putting on an event so they don’t have to wait another year,” Kelley said, adding that 10-15 race directors around the country will be using the template to bring their races back. “Our whole mission was to give our industry a way they can get their arms around the possibility of putting on an event again, safely.”

Paris Marathon cancelled: Rescheduled November race called off due to coronavirus

Event had been postponed from April until November but with coronavirus cases on the rise across France, a decision has been taken to cancel the race until 2021

The rescheduled Paris Marathon on 15 November has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The race was originally scheduled to take place on 5 April, but was postponed at the start of the coronavirus crisis and moved to the end of the year in the hope that conditions would improve sufficiently to a level where the mass participation event could take place.

But with cases in France on the rise once again, a decision was taken to cancel the full event, meaning there will be no race for professionals or for the thousands of amateur runners who take part.

"Faced with the difficulty that many runners, especially those coming from abroad, had in making themselves available for the 14th/15th November, it was decided that it would be better and simpler for those concerned if we organised the Schneider Electric Marathon de Paris in 2021," organisers said in a statement.

"There will be great disappointment among those who have sacrificed time training for what had become an autumn marathon.

Renovated Helsinki Olympic Stadium to re-open on August 22

The Helsinki Olympic Stadium will be re-opened on Saturday (August 22) following the completion of renovation work at the venue.

The stadium has been closed since 2016 amid renovation work, which was funded by the Finnish Government and the City of Helsinki.

The renovation is claimed to have respected the original architecture of the venue, with sustainable choices made.

City of Helsinki officials say the stadium has been extended by adding a level of underground facilities, which will meet the requirements of national and international events and serve the city's residents and visitors more comprehensively all year round.

Stands will be able to seat 36,200 people, with the capacity rising to 50,000 spectators for concerts.

The new shelter roof is made of three million kilos of steel and received a constructional Steelwork Award for 2019.

The stadium now has 12 bookable meeting and multipurpose facilities, as well as indoor exercise facilities.

It is claimed the renovated stadium is an example of Finnish functionalist style combined with modern functionalities.

"The Olympic Stadium is one of the iconic sites in Helsinki," said Jan Vapaavuori, Mayor of Helsinki.

"The massive renewal is a testimony of the city's great commitment to holding its history and identity in high regard.

"In these difficult times, in particular, the great input and focus on events and experiences is important – not only for the entire events industry but for all of us who live in Helsinki.

"The renewed, modern, function-focused and sustainably refurbished stadium serves Helsinki in many ways and also contributes to our international attractiveness now and long in the future."

The original stadium was inaugurated on June 12 in 1938, with construction beginning four years earlier.

Construction took place prior to Helsinki's planned hosting of the 1940 Olympic Games, after they were moved to the Finnish capital from Japan.

The Games were later cancelled due to the outbreak of World War Two.

Helsinki would ultimately host the Summer Olympics in 1952, with the stadium having a maximum capacity of 70,000 at Games-time.

"The Olympic Stadium crystallises a unique part of our past and embodies memorable moments in Finnish history," said Annika Saarikko, Finland's Minister of Science and Culture.

"I find it inspiring that the heart of the Olympics summer of 1952 is now ready to go on as the venue of the unforgettable moments of both sports and culture.

"The stadium is a bold example of functionalist architecture.

"I am convinced that its architects Yrjö Lindegren and Toivo Jäntti would be proud and content to examine the results of the refurbishment work now completed.

"The improvements allow us to make sure that the stadium is not only a monument of the past but also a part of the most heart-stirring Finnish sports and cultural experience in the future."

Nasima Ramyar, the chair of Stadium Foundations, added: "For generations, the stadium has been the arena of moved spectators with beating hearts.

"Besides the sports and entertainment experiences of the audiences, the new stadium makes the Helsinki locals and other Finns move, in the concrete meaning of the word.

"The new and renewed premises of the stadium will open a full world of physical exercise where both clubs and individuals can enjoy physical activities in the facilities of the legendary sports venue."

The stadium will be opened and inaugurated for a second time on Saturday, with a live television broadcast showing the ceremony.

Members of the public will then be able to book tickets for visits to the Stadium Tour, which will be conducted in line with Government COVID-19 guidelines on public gatherings.

The stadium's athletics track will be opened to the public from September 14 to 19.

The first match of the National League Women's Finnish Football Championship Series is the opening fixture scheduled for the re-opened venue.

The stadium is scheduled to host the UEFA Super Cup in 2022.

A recent poll shows that more than half of Japanese companies want the Tokyo Olympic Games to be cancelled or postponed again

Japan's Kyodo news agency said on Thursday that in the online survey by Tokyo Shoko Research covering 12,857 companies, 27.8 percent want the Tokyo Games to be canceled while 25.8 percent said the sporting event should be postponed again.

That means a combined 53.6 percent of the responding firms are against holding the games from July 23 to Aug. 8, 2021.

The survey, which was conducted between July 28 and Aug. 11, shows that 46.2 percent want the games to go ahead in some way -- 22.5 percent are in favor of holding the Olympics as planned, 18.4 percent want it to be held but with fewer spectators and 5.3 percent without any spectators.

Japan is suffering a second wave of COVID-19 infections, with new confirmed cases increased by 1178 in the country and 339 in Tokyo.

Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko is urging residents to take thorough precautions in every aspect of daily life.

Tokyo 2020 organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori has said that the delayed Tokyo Olympics, originally scheduled from July 24 to Aug. 9 this year, could not be held next year if COVID-19 pandemic continues as it is. He also said that the games will have to be canceled if it could not be held next year.

The organizers will start discussing concrete countermeasures against COVID-19 this autumn onwards with the Japanese government and Tokyo Metropolitan government. 

World champion Ruth Chepng’etich promises thrilling battle at London Marathon

World champion Ruth Chepng’etich says her clash with world marathon record-holder Brigid Kosgei at London Marathon on October 4 will “read like a script from a thriller.”

“Nothing can really describe that rare moment when some of the best marathoners clash,” said Chepng’etich, who has been training in isolation in Ngong, Kajiado County.

“People should expect thrills and a tough battle. That is why I want to be in one of my best shape before meeting my good friend Brigid and the rest of the star-studded pack,” explained Chepng’etich as the London Marathon organisers Friday unleashed the star-studded elite cast for the rescheduled race on October 4.

NTV has exclusive rights for the race in Kenya and will broadcast the eagerly-awaited clash live.

The 26-year-old Chepnng’etich said everyone will be heading into the race with unknown qualities owing to Covid-19 pandemic restrictions.

“You really can’t tell what someone has been doing in isolation or predict the winning time,” said Chepng’etich, adding that it will feel great running her first World Marathon Majors race.

“It will take a lot of courage and focus to face some of these athletes who have conquered races at the World Marathon Majors like Brigid and Vivian Cheruiyot. I have a lot to learn from them too,” she said. Kosgei, who has a personal best of two hours, 14 minutes and four seconds, will be making her third stab at the London Marathon, having won last year in 2:18:20 after finishing second behind compatriot Vivian Cheruiyot in 2018 clocking 2:20:13.

Agemates, Kosgei and Chepng'etich will have company in Cheruiyot, who won in London in 2018 in a career best 2:18:31, and Valary Aiyabei, the winner of the 2019 Frankfurt Marathon (2:19.10).

British athletics legend Mo Farah has agreed to be one of the pacemakers for this year’s London Marathon with his aim to help fellow Britons make the qualifying time for the Olympics.

The 37-year-old will also hope to tee up a spectacular final duel between two fellow legends in Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele and Kenya’s world record holder Eliud Kipchoge.

For First Time in its 61-Year History the Karatsu 10-Miler has been cancelled for 2021

Amid the continued spread of the coronavirus, the 61st edition of the Karatsu 10-Mile Road Race, scheduled for Feb. 14 next year in Saga prefecture, has been cancelled.

According to city officials it is the first time the race has ever been canceled. The event's organizing committee met on Aug. 11 to discuss the possibility of staging the race but decided that with a large number of runners coming from across the country and the risk of spreading the virus among locals watching along the course it would not be advisable to move forward.

Known for its start and finish at the municipal track and field grounds and for passing through nationally-recognized scenic areas, the Karatsu 10-Miler attracts top corporate league and collegiate runners every year.

A record 1035 people entered last February's 60th anniversary edition.Translator's note: Karatsu joins the Marugame Half, Ome 30 km, Kumanichi 30 km, and nine large marathons among major events in the first quarter of 2021 to have already cancelled.

Canadian marathon record holder Cam Levins runs 1:02:12 solo half-marathon

Canadian marathon record holder Cam Levins posted to Instagram on Friday that he ran a new personal best in the half-marathon, hitting 1:02:12 for 21.1K in a solo effort. The runner’s old personal best was a 1:02:14 from the 2020 Houston Marathon in January.

This is just one of the many impressive solo efforts that runners are putting on paper during the pandemic. Just two weeks ago, American marathoner Sara Hall ran a half-marathon personal best as well, hitting 1:08:17. 

Levins wrote, “Unofficial half-marathon PB this morning in 62:12. Went out fast (2:38 first kilometre) and hung on. Lots of wind that caught up with me by the end but overall pleased with the effort and happy to know that my fitness during this difficult time has been maintained. Finished the morning by helping remove some graffiti on a sign around the course.”

Levins’s initial plan for this spring was to run the Rotterdam Marathon and hopefully hit the Olympic standard (2:11:30) there. It was cancelled as the world settled into the new normal of pandemic life.

Like all runners, Levins is unsure about what the future of road racing looks like, but he’s managed to get himself in the best half-marathon shape of his life and hopefully he can test himself on a real start line sometime soon. 

Man running from California to Delaware raising money for kids with cancer stops in Avon’s Nottingham Park

Peter Halper running over 3,000 miles to raise money for kids with cancer

Peter Halper is a man on a mission.

The Wisconsin resident stopped in Avon’s Nottingham Park on Tuesday as part of Emery’s Thunder Run, a 3,076-mile, four-month trek to raise funds for kids with cancer.

He started planning this run two years ago and was originally scheduled to start his run from California to Delaware in April. However, he postponed it to July to allow more information about COVID-19 to come out. He’s received a few questions along the way about running cross-country during a pandemic.

It’s a good question, and I appreciate the question, but we’re not running despite a pandemic, I’m running because of it, more or less because the parents who are going through Neuroblastoma with their kids, they still got to deal with the same problems. Their issues don’t go away, so it just compounded everything for them, so it’s even more important that we continue on,” Halper said.

Halper and his team of rotating volunteers are coordinating the run to raise money for Emery’s Memory Foundation.

“This run is a crazy stunt to help us find real solutions for the childhood cancer crisis,” the Emery’s Memory Foundation website says. “Funds from this run will go to Neuroblastoma research, support families in treatment and raise awareness about Neuroblastoma.”

Neuroblastoma is a form of cancer that starts in certain types of very primitive nerve cells found in an embryo or fetus, according to http://www.cancer.org.

Emery, the foundation’s namesake, is Halper’s sister’s granddaughter, who died at age 3 of Neuroblastoma Stage 4. Halper had never met his great-niece.

“The first time I met Emery was at her funeral,” Halper said. “When I was sitting in the pews, it hit me like a ton of rocks. How are these parents going to do what they are about to have to do? I decided that day that I was going to offer to run for them, for their foundation.”

Generosity from town to town

Halper’s four-month schedule includes running over a marathon a day for six days a week, taking Sundays off — that’s almost 115 marathons in four months. Upon arriving in Avon, he was a little over 1,000 miles into his run.

He will leave the valley and head east, over Vail Pass. Once in Kansas, he’ll take some time to spend some with family there. Halper has four children and is looking forward to seeing his wife.

“I’m not technically in the exact middle, but Denver, Colorado, feels like the middle and it’s kind of a big transition area to the plains so I feel like I’m in the middle,” he said.

However, he is planning to return either before leaving Denver or once arriving in Delaware — the Grizzly Creek Fire canceled his segment from Glenwood Springs to Gypsum.

“If it doesn’t open soon, I’ll go to Delaware, finish and I’ll buy a plane ticket back to Denver the day I get to Delaware, come back here and finish,” he said, adding he wants the run to be as continuous as possible to send a strong message to the parents and children dealing with Neuroblastoma. “We’re willing to suffer for them. We will finish all of it, even if we have to come back.”

Halper has been running for 11 years and has found a unique ability to run long distances.

“I hated running when I first started,” he said. “I’m not a professional runner. I’m not a sponsored runner. I’m a carpenter by trade. That’s what I do at home.”

Running across the western part of the country so far, Halper has noticed a surprising amount of generosity.

“It’s always been the people with the least offering the most,” he said. “I haven’t gone through a town where people haven’t been really generous and kind. I think that spirit is still really strong.”

He says Native American reservations have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There, you can see it on their faces and the way they carry themselves. Everything’s boarded up that you can tell wasn’t boarded up months ago,” he said.

The Emery’s Thunder Run has a goal of raising $200,000. As of mid-August, it has raised over $109,000. To donate, sponsor a mile or learn more, visit http://www.emorysmemoryfoundation.com.

“I have good days and bad days, like you might expect,” Halper said Tuesday, “but I’m feeling good today.”

Japan’s finest athletes to assemble at Golden Grand Prix

Most of Japan’s finest athletes will be out in force for the Seiko Golden Grand Prix, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting, in Tokyo, on Sunday (23).

The meeting, to be staged at Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium, was initially intended as a late spring preview for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, but those plans were halted in their tracks with the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Postponed at first from its original date, it’s now being held as a national event without spectators to align with restrictions on public gatherings. Nonetheless, it will still provide a strong competitive opportunity for Japanese athletes on the track that will host the Games next year.

World U20 3000m champion Nozomi Tanaka will be the focus of attention after her 8:41.35 performance in Fukagawa last month to break the national 3000m record. She will contest the 1500m on Sunday where she’s already improved to 4:08.68 this season, not too far from the national record of 4:07.86.

The men’s 100m features five of the fastest 11 Japanese men of all time. Asian champion Yoshihide Kiryu, the first Japanese athlete to break the 10-second barrier, has a 9.98 career best as does Yuki Koike, who clocked his at the Diamond League meeting in London Last year.

They'll be joined by Ryota Yamagata, who has clocked 10.00, and Shuhei Tada, who led off Japan's bronze-winning quartet at the past two World Championships. Kiryu and Koike (heats) were also on the 4x100m relay squad in Doha.

Aska Cambridge, a 4x100m relay Olympic silver medallist in Rio four years ago, will also be in the field.

The men’s 200m features Olympic 4x100m silver medallist Shota Iizuka and world 4x100m bronze medallist Kirara Shiraishi.

Sprint hurdlers Shunya Takayama and Asuka Terada will also be in action. Takayama twice equalled the Japanese 110m hurdles record of 13.36 last year before breaking it outright with 13.30 and then reducing it further to 13.25. Terada set two national records last year in the 100m hurdles, first with 13.00 and then with 12.97 two weeks later.

On the infield, the men’s long jump is building to be a competitive event, with Koki Fujihara, who broke the Japanese U20 record last year with 8.12m, taking on national record-holder Shoutarou Shiroyama and 2018 world U20 champion Yuki Hashioka.

Naoto Tobe, the World Indoor Tour winner in the high jump in 2019, heads the field in his event. Tobe, who improved to 2.35m indoors in 2019, will take on Takashi Eto, a 2.30m jumper. Daichi Sawano, Seito Yamamoto and Masaki Ejima, all 5.71m men last season, will compete in the pole vault.

National record-holder Haruka Kitaguchi leads the javelin throw field, joined by three other Japanese women who’ve thrown beyond 60 metres: 2018 national champion Marina Saito, 2011 Asian bronze medallist Yuka Sato and two-time Asian bronze medallist Risa Miyashita.

The men’s javelin is of a similar high standard with four 80-metre throwers entered: Asian bronze medallist Ryohei Arai, 2012 Olympic finalist Genki Dean, Takuto Kominami and Yuta Sakiyama.

Organisers will also provide some of Japan's finest high school athletes an opportunity to compete against their nation's best athletes on the Olympic Stadium track through a ‘Dream Lane’ set aside in nine men’s and nine women’s events.

The decision to include high school athletes came after the Interscholastic Sport Games, the annual national high school championships in 30 sports, were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A selection committee, which included 2000 Olympic marathon champion Naoko Takahashi, 2008 Olympic 4x100m relay silver medallist Shinji Takahira and High Performance Committee Track & Field Director Kazuhiko Yamazaki, selected 28 athletes. Some of the athletes include Kosuke Kawata, who has a 10.39 best in the 100m and Haruto Ishizuka, a 3:44.62 1500m runner.

Beers, Bomb Suits and Blue Jeans: The Weirdest Mile-Run Records Known to Man-13 baffling ways humans have covered 5,280 feet

The running and drinking communities have long shared an unlikely Venn diagram. In the 1930s, some athletes would bring beer along for lengthy workouts, believing that its hearty grains might propel them to longer distances. For decades, at the end of the Berlin Marathon, runners who’ve made the podium are given medals and enormous boots of Erdinger. And these days, running clubs like Toronto’s RUNTOBEER start and finish at breweries around the city. Hell, there’s even a craft brewery in Chico, California, called Sufferfest that’s operated by lifelong runners and makes light, low-calorie ales designed for the highly active beer drinker.

Still, there is no greater (nor less subtle) collision of these two disciplines than the infamous Beer Mile, a concept that is arguably more popular than any internationally sanctioned event in the entire sport of track and field. It’s an irresistible blend — the familiarity of elementary-school gym class with the low-class hijinks of college — and it’s at the forefront of an unofficial, utterly unasked-for movement in both the amateur and professional running circles: run four laps hard, but make it weird.

In the last five months, runners have set two new, preposterously specific mile-run records: one while handcuffed, and one while wearing a pair of blue jeans. It would be tempting to laugh these efforts off, if only they weren’t so fast. (The jeans miler rumbled in at an unholy 4:06.) And really, at the end of the day, it’s fun to embrace these races, which wed the appeal of an old, oft-forgotten sport with stunts and gimmicks that thrive on social media.

Which is exactly what we’ve done. Below, find the 13 weirdest mile-run records known to man — including the fastest miles ever run in a bomb suit, with a dog and under the influence of chocolate milk.

Fastest Beer Mile

Corey Bellemore, 4:33

Bellemore actually ran a 4:24 about a year after his 4:33 mark, but got disqualified for leaving a combined 4.5 ounces of beer in his “empties.” Those judges are serious. As is his running ability; he’s an Adidas-sponsored athlete with a personal best of 3:57 to his name. Which is a crucial theme in the world of wacky mile records: always eager for a challenge, the pros inevitably hijack the bonkers creations of layman runners. Just six years ago, for instance, the running world had celebrated its first sub-five beer mile. Check out the full catalogue of all-time bests here, including stats on the favored beers. (Budweiser is currently in the lead, though Bellemore, a Canadian, prefers the craft stuff from Ontario’s Flying Monkeys Brewery.)

Fastest Mile in Jeans

Johnny Gregorek, 4:06

This past May, Asics athlete Johnny “The Jet” Gregorek ran a blistering 4:06 in a pair of Levi 501s. It was enough to beat Dillion Maggard’s former record time of 4:11, and horrify millions across the internet who think wearing jeans on a plane should be a “criminal offense.” Gregorek, who is a middle-distance star with a silver medal from the 2019 Pan American Games, trained for his record by running 100-meter sprints in the blue jeans to break them in. On race day, he also managed to raise $31,000 for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, in an homage to his late brother. Levi’s donated $5,000.

Fastest Walking Mile

Tom Bosworth, 5:31

Of all the feats listed here, this is the only one that doesn’t actually involve running. And yet, it’s also the only one you’re likely to find at a legitimate track meet. Racewalking is very much a sport, despite the fact that it looks like several minutes of that “This one is serious” dash people make for the bathroom after eating bad shellfish. The only rule? Keep one foot in contact with the ground at all times, which distinguishes it from the leaps and bounds of running. Distances usually start at 3,000 meters, and hike all the way up to 100 kilometers (that’s 62 miles), but mile races have some popularity, too. At the 2017 Diamond League in London, British race walker Tom Bosworth clocked in at 5:31, to the delight of a very excited commentator.

Fastest Mile Downhill

Mike Boit, 3:27

We recently covered a virtual, March Madness-style running tournament called “Survival of the Fastest,” in which runners were pitted against each other each week to race a new, specific distance. Downhill racing was allowed in the competition (even encouraged) and by the time the bracket had been whittled down to a final four, every runner involved was hitting start on Strava from the top of a mountain in order to ensure the most competitive time possible. It really does make an absurd difference. Hicham El Guerrouj has holds the official world record for the mile run (3:43), but Mike Boit’s performance in 1983, when he sprinted down a hill through the center of Auckland to a 3:27 finish, is the fastest a human being has ever covered 1,600 meters on his own two feet.

Fastest Mile in Alaska

Ben Blankenship, 3:57

“An Alaskan Mile” was an official selection for the Flagstaff Mountain Film Festival in 2018, and it chronicles an effort by eight elite runners — with Oregon and Olympian pedigrees among them — to become the first to break the four-minute barrier on Alaskan soil. As Trevor Dunbar (one of the runners, the event organizer and from Kodiak, himself) points out, Alaska only has three months where such an accomplishment would be remotely possible, and even then, high winds or even frost could arrive right before the gun goes off. It’s worth the 20-minute watch if you’re interested, but just know that Alaskans were amped to see Minnesotan Ben Blankenship go well under four, setting a new state record.

Fastest Mile on a Treadmill

Anthony Famiglietti, 3:58

It’s Anthony Famigletti’s party, and he’ll run a 3:58 mile on a treadmill if he wants to. A former Olympian who competed in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in Beijing, Famiglietti recruited the fastest American miler ever, Alan Webb (3:46), to help him start breaking four-minute miles into his forties. It worked. This is Famiglietti late last year, on his 41st birthday, running at a 3:58 pace for a full mile on his treadmill. Forget anything you’ve heard about treadmills juicing performance; that’s irrelevant here. Him staying on that machine is akin to deftly canoeing through Class V rapids. And better yet, he got to do it at his own Reckless Running store in Mooresville, North Carolina, which he owns with his wife.

Fastest Mile with a Dog

Anthony Famiglietti, 3:59

More Famigletti. Another impressive sub-four — this one a year earlier, at age 40 — but all credit here goes to Bailey the dog, who casually rolled out of bed to brush against the pinnacle of human athletic achievement, and wanted more. Famigletti affixed Bailey to his waist via a hands-free “bungee” leash (which doesn’t exactly square with our dog running tips, by the way) and ran hard to earn his time. But the fact that Bailey basically dragged an adult 5,280 feet and didn’t once chase a squirrel is the real takeaway here.

Fastest Backwards Mile

Aaron Yoder, 5:54

The Guinness World Record for fastest backpedaled mile ended with the following exchange:

Fastest Chocolate Milk Mile

Mars Bishop, 4:56

On paper, it’s the PG-rated beer mile. But subbing chocolate milk for beer is no joke, and arguably more likely to end in puke penalties. At the 2nd Annual Chocolate Milk Mile in Cranston, Rhode Island, runners slugged cups of the good stuff from East Providence’s Munroe Dairy Farm. A number of runners had to run shame laps for spewing, but runner Mars Bishop torched the track to the tune of 4:56. Because the rules to the Chocolate Milk Mile are exactly the same as the Beer Mile, beermile.com has apparently decided to include the results in its database. (Under beer of choice, they put a chocolate milk logo.) With all respect to Bishop, this record — from 2017 — seems ready to be broken again.

Fastest Mile While Handcuffed

Jeremy Greenwald, 4:52

Save your “running from the cops” jokes, YouTube’s finest have already handled that. Besides, we’re legitimately interested in this from a physical standpoint. Despite the amount of long-distance runners you see without much meat on their arms, the mile is a bang-bang event, where many competitors rely on a dramatic, arm-pumping “kick” in their last lap. To break five with those arms rendered useless is a real challenge. It’s clear from the video that Greenwald, a former Division 1 runner at Georgia Tech, had to rely heavily on his core muscles while keeping his shoulders straight and back; after all, if he fell, the whole thing was over. The previous record for this “event” was 6:37.

Fastest Mile in a Bomb Suit

Daniel Glenn, 8:57

Advanced Bomb Suits weigh 80 pounds, and are reinforced with Kevlar ballistic panels that can withstand blasts traveling at supersonic speeds of over 1,600 m/s. If you’ve seen The Hurt Locker, you have an idea of how serious they are: soldiers routinely get heat exhaustion from just walking around a few paces in one, so for Lt. Daniel Glenn to complete a full mile in one is unheard of. But to do so at the clip of an average American mile time (nine to 10 minutes) is staggering. Even more impressive: he did it in Florida.

Fastest Mile While Juggling

Zach Prescott, 4:43

Yeah, you were probably going to get through your entire life without discovering that “joggling” existed, and you would’ve been just fine. Sorry. Joggling is running while juggling three objects in time, and for decades, Kirk Swenson was the undisputed king of the sport. He joggled a 4:43.8 way back in 1986. Then Boston University runners Zach Prescott came along, and threw three lacrosse balls around en route to a buzzer-beater 4:43.2 victory. Guinness World Records is still in the process of verifying the new record.

Fastest Mile in Death Valley While Wearing a Darth Vader Suit

Jonathan Rice, 6:13

This happened and and there is NOTHING any of us can do about it.

Donavan Brazier Keeps Win Streak Alive, Runs 1:15.07 For 600m in Hungary

Meet organizers for today’s Gyulai Memorial meet in Székesfehérvár, Hungary, the second World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meet of 2020, were hoping that 800m American record holder and world champion Donavan Brazier would be able to beat Johnny Gray‘s 1:12.81 world best for the 600 meters, which has stood since 1986. But Brazier, who won the 800 at last week’s Herculis meet in Monaco, never had the same intentions and didn’t attack the mark in today’s race.

Brazier actually barely won the 600 in 1:15.07, as he had to come from way behind to beat Puerto Rico’s Wesley Vázquez (1:15.31). Vázquez, the Puerto Rican record holder at 800 who was 5th at Worlds last year, had close to a five-meter lead when he hit the homestretch but tied up on the way home and Brazier got the win, passing Vázquez with roughly 20 meters to go. Vázquez remains the world leader at 600 as he ran 1:14.85 in Puerto Rico on August 1

Race organizers said Brazier’s splits were 24.07 for 200 and 48.43 for 400 (Gray’s pace averages out to be 48.54 per 400). Brazier’s time today was well off his pb for 600 as Brazier owns the fastest time ever indoors (1:13.77 in 2019) and ran 1:14.39 indoors this year as well. For comparison’s sake, when David Rudisha ran his 1:40.91 800m WR, he hit 600 in 1:14.30. Non-US visitors can watch today’s race at this link.

Brazier has now won nine straight races across all distances, dating back to July 2019.

In other action of note in Székesfehérvár, American Noah Lyles won the men’s 100 in 10.05 (+.3 m/s) over Brit Adam Gemili‘s 10.28 and the 200 in 20.13 (+1.3 m/s) as Italy’s Eseosa Desalu was second in 20.35.

The resurgence of 2018 NCAA 400 champ Lynna Irby of the US continued in the women’s 200 as Irby won that in a seasonal best 22.55 (+.7 m/s) over 2015 and 2017 world champ Dafne Schippers (22.94). It was Irby’s best time since May 2018.

There was an upset in the men’s triple jump, as 2019 world bronze medalist Hugues Fabrice Zango of Burkina Faso jumped a world-leading 17.43m to defeat world/Olympic champ Christian Taylor (17.34). And in the 110 hurdles, Spain’s Orlando Ortega got the best of American world champion Grant Holloway for the second time in six days. Just as in Monaco, Holloway got out to a fast start, but once again, Ortega ran him down off the final hurdle and won in 13.21 to Holloway’s 13.22.

Big Sur Marathon Foundation Suspends Operations Amidst Pandemic

Plans for all 2021 races have been frozen until further notice

CARMEL, CA –The Big Sur Marathon Foundation (BSMF) announced Thursday that they will suspend all race operations, effective September 30, 2020. Citing the many unknowns concerning the coronavirus pandemic, organizers say the timeline for resuming race planning and registrations is unclear and ever-changing.

“We are devastated about canceling all our in-person events and programs for 2020 and now for 2021,” said Race Director Doug Thurston. “That said, we have refocused our staff’s creative efforts on producing our Big Surreal Virtual Challenge and look forward to hearing how our runners enjoy the experience.”

By placing the 36-year-old nonprofit organization in a  hibernation of sorts, race officials hope to minimize financial and operational damage so the organization can once again organize world-class races when safe to do so. Securing permits  to hold large mass-participation events  like marathons likely won’t happen until vaccines or other coronavirus therapeutics are widely in use. 

As a result, the following events/programs have been cancelled:

The November 2020 Monterey Bay Half Marathon in-person and virtual races. Registration had not yet opened for either event.

The JUST RUN youth fitness program for the 2020-2021 school year.

BSMF has suspended all plans for the following 2021 events/programs:

The April 2021 Big Sur Marathon weekend of races

The June 2021 Run in the Name of Love

The November 2021 Monterey Bay Half Marathon 

With no current races on the horizon, the BSMF Board also made the difficult decision to reduce their staff to just two employees – Race Director Doug Thurston and Administrative Manager Chris Balog. Five of the organization’s seven full-time employees have been laid off.

The organization says it will continue to monitor updates regarding the pandemic including vaccine development and distribution and remain hopeful that they will be able to safely hold races and other programs in 2022.

For answers to common questions related to these updates, please visit the FAQ page located on the Big Sur Marathon website. BSMF asks fans to continue to monitor their social media pages and websites for updates in the months to come.

The Big Sur Marathon Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to create beautiful running events that promote health and benefit the community. Under the brand are three individual race weekends: Big Sur International Marathon in April,Run in the Name of Love 5K and 2K in June, and theMonterey Bay Half Marathon, 5K and 3K in November. In addition, the Foundation oversees the award-winning JUST RUN® youth fitness program.

Moroccan steeplechaser Soufiane El Bakkali has huge admiration for Kenyan athletes.

In fact, as the delayed elite season opened with the Monaco Diamond League meeting last week, El Bakkali was excited upon seeing the Kenyan contingent at the Stade Loius II in the heart of the principality.

“The men from Africa!” he screamed and then posed for selfies with the Kenyan delegation headed by coach Bernard Ouma.

“He actually asked for the group photo on our way out of the track,” Ouma added, describing the Moroccan as an “amiable character.”

“We had our last breakfast together in Monaco on Sunday on his way to Paris,” Ouma added on Thursday.

First-placed Morocco's Soufiane El Bakkali competed in the men's 3,000 metres steeplechase event during the Diamond League Athletics Meeting at The Louis II Stadium in Monaco on August 14, 2020.

The 24-year-old Moroccan has now expressed his interest in running with the Kenyans at the October 3 Kip Keino Classic leg of the World Athletics Continental Tour at the Nyayo National Stadium.

This sets up a potentially mouthwatering race given that El Bakkali ran the season’s best (world lead) time of eight minutes, 8.04 seconds to win in Monaco ahead of Kenya’s Leonard Bett (8:08.78).

Morocco's Soufiane El Bakkali (top photo) celebrates after winning the men's 3,000 metres steeplechase event as second-placed Leonard Bett of Kenya looks on during the Diamond League Athletics Meeting at The Louis II Stadium in Monaco on August 14, 2020.

Down with Covid-19, Kenya’s world and Olympic champion Conseslus Kipruto should be fit by then to set up a classic from 4.23pm at Nyayo National Stadium on October 3, according to the draft programme of events. “El Bakkali’s management say he wants to fly from the Doha Diamond League meeting (September 25) direct to Nairobi,” Kip Keino Classic meet director Barnaba Korir confirmed on Thursday. “We are finalising the arrangements for him and this (steeplechase) definitely should be one of the highlights of the Kip Keino Classic.”

With, bizzarrely, Morocco having failed to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games since the legend Hicham El Guerrouj struck a 1,500, and 5,000m double in Athents 16 years ago, the north African nation is banking on El Bakkali to pan the elusive medal at the Tokyo Games, now shifted to next summer.

Olympics 3,000m steeplechase champion Conseslus Kipruto (right), and another athlete during training at St Francis Cheptarit High School in Mosoriot, Nandi County on August 06. 

El Bakkali (PB 7:58.15) won silver at the 2017 World Championships in London and followed up with bronze in Doha last year, finishing behind Kipruto and Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma whom he could face at the Kip Keino Classic on October 3.

He was fourth at the 2016 Rio Games and was the only Moroccan athlete signed up by Visa (credit card) in its promotions for Tokyo 2020.

On Thursday, Ouma, who is preparing his athletes for this weekend’s second Diamond League meeting in Stockholm, said there could also be a possibility of bigger names coming to Nairobi in October.

“It (Kip Keino Classic) will be a very entertaining meet,” he summed it up.

London Marathon Elite Fields Released, 2020 elite field will be the best in years

Eliud Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele face battle from six more sub-2:05 runners in elite men’s race.

World record holder Brigid Kosgei among six sub-2:20 athletes in elite women’s race.

The Virgin Money London Marathon today confirmed the full fields for the historic elite men’s and women’s races on Sunday 4 October.

The elite men’s race – headlined by the greatest marathon runners in history, Eliud Kipchoge (KEN) and Kenenisa Bekele (ETH) – will include eight athletes who have run sub 2:05 marathons, including Mosinet Geremew (ETH) and Mule Wasihun (ETH) who were second and third respectively at the 2019 Virgin Money London Marathon.

Sisay Lemma (ETH), Tamirat Tola (ETH), Marius Kipserem (KEN) and Shura Kitata (ETH) are the other men to have run inside 2:05 while Sondre Nordstad Moen (NOR), who broke the European hour record in Norway earlier this month by running 21.132km, is also included.

The news that World Athletics will lift its suspension of the Olympic qualification system for marathon races from 1 September means there will also be a clutch of athletes racing with the ambition to achieve the Olympic standard of 2:11:30.

Adding yet further superstar quality to the event, the Virgin Money London Marathon can also announce that Sir Mo Farah will be a pacemaker for this group of Olympic hopefuls.

Farah, the four-time Olympic champion, said: “The London Marathon has been so important to me since I was a schoolboy and when they asked me to do this I thought it would be great to help. I am in good shape, I’ll be in London that week and it fits in with my training.

“I’ve been training here in Font Romeu with some of the British guys who are going for that Olympic qualifying time and they are good lads. I know just how special it is just to compete for your country at an Olympic Games and it would be great to help other athletes achieve this. With the current global situation and lack of races, the Virgin Money London Marathon in October is the best chance for athletes to run the Olympic qualifying time.”

Hugh Brasher, Event Director of the Virgin Money London Marathon, said: “This is the greatest Olympian in British track and field history coming to run as a pacemaker to help others achieve their dreams of making the Tokyo Olympic Games. It is a wonderful gesture of togetherness from Sir Mo and I’m sure his presence and support will inspire the athletes chasing that qualifying time on Sunday 4 October.”

At present only two British athletes other than Farah have run inside this time: Callum Hawkins, who has been pre-selected for the Olympic Games marathon, and Jonny Mellor who ran 2:10:03 in Seville in January. Farah himself has opted to run on the track at the Olympic Games.

Mellor is one of a number of British athletes running the 2020 Virgin Money London Marathon – The 40th Race – on Sunday 4 October. Other British men joining Mellor on the Start Line are Chris Thompson and debutants Ross Millington and Ben Connor.

Among the leading domestic women confirmed to race are Steph Twell, who ran a personal best (PB) of 2:26:40 in Frankfurt last year to go sixth on the British all-time rankings, and 2018 British marathon champion Lily Partridge.

The elite women’s field is headlined by world record holder Brigid Kosgei (KEN). Confirmed today are five other women who have run inside 2:20: current world champion Ruth Chepngetich (KEN), 2019 Valencia Marathon champion Roza Dereje (ETH), 2018 Virgin Money London Marathon champion Vivian Cheruiyot (KEN), 2019 Frankfurt Marathon winner Valary Jemeli (KEN) and 2019 Amsterdam Marathon champion Degitu Azimeraw (ETH).

Ashete Bekere (ETH), the winner of last year’s BMW Berlin Marathon, Alemu Megertu (ETH), the 2019 Rome Marathon champion, plus Sarah Hall (USA) and Sinead Diver (AUS) are also included in a star-studded race.

The Helsinki Marathon will be held as planned on October 3rd

The Helsinki City Marathon has a long history it was organized for the first time in the year 1981 and it has always been the most international and largest marathon event in Finland.

This year will be the 40th edition for HCM – come and celebrate it with us at the renewed Helsinki Olympic Stadium! The Garmin Helsinki City Marathon’s route will offer you a beautiful sea views and also offers views of Helsinki’s city center on October 3rd, 2020.

Protective measures are in place as follows:

Participants will be divided in smaller start groups.

There will be enough space in start groups/start area to keep distance to other runners.

Start and Finish area will be built to be more spacious than normally.

We kindly instruct our runners to keep a safe distance to other runners. We hope you all will show understanding for the exceptional practicalities that in the end enable the event during these challenging times.

Based on the guidance given by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare it is not allowed to participate in a public event if you have any symptoms related to illness caused by coronavirus (including fever, cough, shortness of breath, muscle pain, fatigue, rhinitis, nausea, diarrhoea, or a sudden loss of smell and/or taste).

“If you have any of these symptoms, you cannot take part in the event,” warned race organizers.

Mo Farah will be the pacemaker for the elite men's race at October's rescheduled London Marathon

Briton Mo Farah, 37, is among the competitors to have achieved the Olympic-qualifying time of two hours 11 minutes 30 seconds.

Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, who won last year's event, leads the men's field with Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia.

Reduced fields of 30-40 athletes will also compete for the elite women's and wheelchair titles on 4 October.

The races will take place on a bio-secure closed course amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"The London Marathon has been so important to me since I was a schoolboy and when they asked me to do this I thought it would be great to help," said Farah, who finished third in 2018 and fifth last year.

"I am in good shape. I'll be in London that week and it fits in with my training."

Ethiopians Mosinet Geremew and Mule Wasihun, who finished runner-up and third respectively in 2019, are among eight athletes who have run marathons in under two hours five minutes.

Brigid Kosgei of Kenya heads up the women's elite field alongside compatriot and world champion Ruth Chepngetich.

Ethiopia's Roza Dereje and Kenyans Vivian Cheruiyot, Valary Jemeli and Degitu Azimeraw are the other picks of the line-up.

The full elite wheelchair fields will be released next week.

The route will consist of laps of about 1.5 miles, taking in The Mall, Horse Guards Parade, Birdcage Walk and Buckingham Palace.

Ultrarunner Ryan Sandes broke his own 100K FKT in South Africa

South African ultrarunning champion Ryan Sandes set a new record on Tuesday for the 13 Peaks Challenge, a gruelling 100K run that features 6,200m of climbing. Sandes is quite familiar with this challenge. Not only did he own the previous record, but he is the founder of the 13 Peaks route.

He first ran the challenge in March 2019, and then again in September, when he set the last record of 15 hours, 51 minutes and 48 seconds. His most recent shot at the run was even better, beating his best time by two hours and covering the multi-peak route near Cape Town (where he lives) in 13 hours, 41 minutes and 10 seconds. 

Sandes spoke with Canadian Running in April, just after he finished his #HomeRun, a 100-miler that he ran on a 110m loop that went around and through his house. At the time, a strict quarantine was being enforced in Cape Town, and running around his property was Sandes’s only option. Now, as is the case around most of the world, South Africa‘s restrictions have eased and Sandes was able to tackle the 13 Peaks Challenge once again. 

13 Peaks:

As the name suggests, the 13 Peaks Challenge covers 13 mountains in South Africa’s Table Mountain National Park, starting and finishing at a peak called Signal Hill. As Sandes told Red Bull after his first time around the circuit, “The idea came about when I just jotted down some peaks which I thought would make a nice logical route.” He said he “just wanted to do a good, chilled day out on foot.” Sandes didn’t put much planning into the route other than which peaks he wanted to summit, and so before he ran it the first time, he had no idea how long it would be. 

“I probably should’ve actually measured the distances between the points, but because it was on quite a small piece of paper, I reckoned it was 40K. Max 55,” he said. “It was to be an eight-hour mission.” It turned out to be much longer, and he and a friend he enlisted to run with him covered a little over 100K. 

After completing the route yet again and setting a new best time, it looks like he might hold onto the record for a while. But we won’t be surprised if he goes after the 13 Peaks again, just to see uf he can beat himself. As he showed the ultra world when he ran his #HomeRun challenge, Sandes doesn’t need races to keep him busy during this pandemic. He just needs a route to run and a time to beat. 

Uganda's Joshua Cheptegei now eyes 10,000m record

Freshly minted 5,000 meters world record holder Joshua Cheptegei will be looking to smash the 10,000m world record before the Olympics.

However, the Ugandan, 23,  said it will depend on if organisers of Diamond League races and other major events include the 5,000m and 10,000m races.

Cheptegei, who is also the World Cross Country Championships 10km champion, shattered Ethiopian legend Kenenisa Bekele’s 16-year-old world 5,000m record on Friday last week, setting a new time of 12 minutes and 35.36 seconds during the Diamond League leg in Monaco.

“I would like to improve my 5,000m world record as well as take a shot at the 10,000m world record. I’m in good shape. Let’s hope more long distance events on the track will be organized,” he said.

Bekele, who has since moved to road running, holds the 10,000m world record, having broken it twice - the first time on June 8, 2004 (26:20.31) in Ostrava, Czech Republic and on August 26, 2005 (26:17.53) in Brussels, Belgium.

Cheptegei is alive to the fact that staying healthy is key during the Covid-19 pandemic. “It’s hard to predict the future since it’s in God’s hands. The best you can do is to strive to remain healthy,”  he said.

The 10,000m race had not been held as a Diamond League event for over five years and World Athletics (WA) scrapped the competition entirely from the Diamond League alongside 5,000m and 3,000m steeplechase last year. The longest track race is 3,000m but events that will accommodate 5,000m and 10,000m won’t have them featured on prime time.

Only four events have been lined up in this year’s Diamond League series that have been delayed with some events being scrapped owing to Covid-19.

The next events are in Stockholm, Sweden on August 23; Rome, Italy on September 18 and Doha on September 25.

AJC Peachtree Road Race has been cancelled, will be run virtually

The Atlanta Track Club bought time and considered going to great lengths to stage The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race as an in-person race. However, the coronavirus’ continued pervasiveness claimed another landmark sporting event. Initially delayed from its customary July 4 date to Thanksgiving Day in hopes that COVID-19 would have been under better control, the Peachtree now will be run solely in a virtual setting.

“We’ll do so with mixed emotions, but we’ll do it knowing that this is going to be the safest route and also the route that delivers the most authentic Peachtree possible,” track club executive director Rich Kenah told the AJC.

The long-standing Atlanta tradition will no longer be an event featuring 60,000 runners and walkers making their way through the streets, cheered on by a mass of spectators. Instead, participants will design a 6.2-mile course of their choosing with the use of an app and run on Thanksgiving. The track club will create the app that will enable participants to track their times and measure their performance against other finishers.

In May, when Kenah pushed the race from July 4, its home since the race’s inception in 1970, to Nov. 26, he described himself as “cautiously optimistic” that the world’s largest 10-kilometer race could be run down Peachtree Road. However, the spread of COVID-19 has not been curtailed as hoped, particularly in the state of Georgia. Bringing together tens of thousands participants, plus race staff, became less and less of a feasible option. Kenah said that it seemed that the chances of getting a permit from the city of Atlanta to hold the race decreased on a daily basis.

“And, to be honest with you, as we made some educated guesses, we never thought that the Southeast and Georgia specifically would be seeing the level of virus we’re seeing right now,” he said.

Custodian of a tradition cherished by thousands of Georgians, Kenah acknowledged feeling the aggravation shared across the state and region, saying that, “I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I feel as if we’re here as a result of a failure of leadership and collective sacrifice. And that frustrates me.”

Kenah added that he was not referring to any leader in specific.

“No, we as a country just need to own this together,” he said. “I’m not pointing fingers, but it disappoints me that, here we are, that our schools are day to day, our sporting events are being taken down one by one, and the rest of the world seems to have made the sacrifices necessary to try to get back to a new normal.”