Running News Daily

The Diamond League caravan rolls into Norway this week, and a strong Australian contingent is ready for another major test on one of athletics' most prestigious stages. With the European season gathering pace and championship ambitions beginning to take shape, Thursday's meeting in Oslo promises high-quality competition and several compelling Australian storylines.

Leading the charge is Peter Bol in the men's 800 metres. The Australian star continues his return to elite racing and faces another opportunity to measure himself against some of the world's best middle-distance runners. With every Diamond League appearance carrying added significance, Bol will be looking to build further confidence and rhythm as the season progresses.

Australia's depth in distance running will be on full display in the women's 3000 metres, where Lauren Ryan, Rose Davies, Georgia Griffith, and Linden Hall are all set to take the start line. The quartet represents a new era of Australian endurance running, with each athlete bringing proven international credentials and the ability to challenge in fast-paced championship-style races.

Attention will also turn to the men's 200 metres, where teenage sensation Gout Gout continues his remarkable rise. The young sprinter has become one of the most talked-about prospects in world athletics, and another appearance on the Diamond League stage offers a valuable opportunity to gain experience against established international stars while continuing his rapid development.

In the men's 5000 metres, Ky Robinson will look to continue his impressive progression against a world-class field. Robinson has emerged as one of Australia's most consistent distance performers, and the Oslo meeting presents another chance to test himself in what is expected to be a fiercely competitive race.

The Australian challenge concludes in the men's mile, where Cameron Myers returns to one of the sport's most iconic events. Still in the early stages of his career, Myers has already demonstrated exceptional talent and composure against elite opposition. Another strong performance in Oslo would further strengthen his growing reputation as one of the brightest young middle-distance athletes in the world.

As the Diamond League season continues its journey through Europe, Australia's presence on the international circuit remains stronger than ever. From emerging stars to established contenders, the Oslo meeting offers another opportunity for the green and gold to make an impact on one of athletics' biggest stages.

Norway is next, and Australia's Diamond League campaign shows no signs of slowing down.

What began with just 10 teams in 1923 has grown into one of the largest and most celebrated relay races in the world.

On Saturday, the streets of Oslo turned into a nonstop running festival as approximately 80,000 runners participated in the 2026 edition of the Holmenkollstafetten, setting a new participation record for the historic Norwegian relay. More than 5,500 teams filled the event to capacity, making this year’s race the largest in its 103-year history.

Known throughout Norway as “Vårens vakreste eventyr” — “The Most Beautiful Adventure of Spring” — the Holmenkollstafetten is far more than a race. It is a national tradition that brings together elite athletes, office workers, students, families, and recreational runners in one giant celebration of running and community.

The relay covers roughly 18 kilometers through Oslo on 15 stages, beginning and ending at historic Bislett Stadium. Some legs are short, explosive sprints while others climb steep hills toward the Holmenkollen area, giving the event its distinctive challenge and character.

Throughout the day, Oslo pulsed with energy. Teams stretched along sidewalks waiting for exchanges, spectators packed the streets cheering every runner, and music echoed through neighborhoods as wave after wave moved through the city. Serious racing mixed naturally with laughter, costumes, corporate teams, school groups, and longtime running clubs.

The scale of the event is extraordinary. Just a year ago, participation reached a then-record of nearly 75,000 runners. This year’s jump to around 80,000 confirms the continued rise of a race that has become one of the defining running events in Europe.

The Holmenkollstafetten has evolved dramatically over the decades. In 1984, the race surpassed 1,000 teams for the first time. Today, participation has multiplied several times over, creating a logistical masterpiece involving thousands of volunteers, extensive road closures, carefully timed starts, and nearly nonstop movement through the Norwegian capital.

Organized by the legendary athletics club IK Tjalve, the event also plays a major role in supporting athletics development in Norway. Revenue from the race helps fund youth programs, elite competition, facilities, and club operations.

While participation is the soul of the event, the elite racing remained highly competitive.

In the women’s elite division, SK Vidar captured victory in 55:42, defeating host club Tjalve by 44 seconds. Seventeen-year-old Ingrid Taggart delivered a decisive anchor leg to secure the win, while Sweden’s Hälle IF finished third.

The men’s race produced another dramatic battle as Ullensaker/Kisa claimed its fourth consecutive victory after holding off Vidar over the closing stages. Tjalve finished third. Norwegian ski legend Petter Northug also competed, adding even more attention to the day’s festivities.

One of the unique aspects of the Holmenkollstafetten is that world-class athletes and first-time runners all share the same roads, the same atmosphere, and the same experience. Elite runners race through the stages at breathtaking speed while everyday participants embrace the event for teamwork, fitness, and pure enjoyment.

That combination of serious competition and community spirit gives the Holmenkollstafetten a character unlike almost any other race in the world.

Even with massive crowds and busy exchange zones, the atmosphere remained overwhelmingly positive from start to finish. Families lined the streets for hours, runners celebrated after every leg, and Bislett Stadium stayed alive with energy deep into the evening.

At a time when many sporting events struggle to build lasting community connection, the Holmenkollstafetten continues to thrive by offering something timeless: a city running together.

For one spring day each year, Oslo becomes one giant relay team.

The 2026 Diamond League calendar promises a breathtaking journey across the globe, stitching together cultures, climates, and elite athletic performances into one electrifying season. From the desert lights of Doha to the historic streets of Brussels, the world’s finest track and field stars will once again chase glory, records, and supremacy in a series that defines the pinnacle of one-day athletics competition.

The campaign ignites on May 8 in Doha, where speed meets spectacle under the floodlights. Just a week later, the circuit shifts east to Shanghai/Keqiao on May 16, before returning to familiar territory in Xiamen on May 23. These early stops in Asia and the Middle East often set the tone—fast times, bold statements, and emerging rivalries begin to take shape as athletes test their early-season form.

By the end of May, the tour arrives in Rabat (May 31), marking Africa’s sole stop on the circuit—a meeting that consistently delivers both passionate crowds and world-class performances. From there, Europe takes center stage, beginning with the timeless backdrop of Rome on June 4. The momentum builds quickly with a Scandinavian double in Stockholm (June 7) and Oslo (June 10), two meets renowned for their rich history and electric atmosphere.

Late June brings the glamour of Paris (June 28), where speed and style converge in one of the season’s most anticipated showdowns. Then, the spotlight crosses the Atlantic to Eugene on July 4, a venue often regarded as the heartbeat of track and field in the United States. The European leg resumes swiftly with the iconic Monaco meet on July 10—a race often synonymous with record-breaking performances—before heading to London on July 18, where roaring crowds elevate every stride and jump.

After a brief pause, the Diamond League returns in August with a decisive run toward the final. Lausanne (August 21) sets the stage, followed closely by Silesia (August 23) and Zurich (August 27), meetings that frequently determine qualification battles and title contenders. Each performance becomes increasingly critical, with athletes fighting not just for victory, but for a place in the grand finale.

The season culminates on September 4–5 in Brussels, where champions will be crowned and the year’s defining moments etched into history. It is here that consistency meets brilliance—only the best across the series earn the right to compete for the coveted Diamond Trophy.

Beyond the dates and destinations, the 2026 calendar tells a deeper story: one of global unity through sport, of athletes pushing human limits, and of fans witnessing greatness unfold in real time. Every stop carries its own rhythm, yet together they form a symphony of speed, endurance, and excellence.

As the world watches, one question remains—who will rise, who will endure, and who will etch their name into the legacy of the Diamond League?

There are athletes who win races, and then there are rare souls whose movement feels almost like poetry — effortless yet powerful, gentle yet unstoppable. On a warm August evening in Brussels in 2001, under the honey-gold glow of stadium lights, a slender Ethiopian teenager floated across the track with a quiet certainty that something extraordinary was unfolding.

The crowd watched, curious at first, then captivated. When the clock stopped at 7:30.67 for 3000 metres at the Memorial Van Damme, applause filled the air. It was announced as a world junior record, but what lingered was not just the number — it was the feeling. The feeling of witnessing hunger wrapped in grace, ambition wrapped in innocence.

The teenager was Kenenisa Bekele, and even then, you could sense he was not chasing applause. He was chasing possibility.

For three and a half years, that junior record stood as a quiet monument to ambition before Augustine Choge eventually lowered it. Records, after all, are built to fall. Yet the resonance of Bekele’s performance lingered — the unmistakable arrival of a force that would soon redefine distance running.

Even before Brussels, his ascent had begun to take shape in unexpected corners of Europe. In the small Dutch town that hosts the Montferland Run, he collected victories in 2000 and 2001 with an almost casual authority. Fifteen kilometres through winter air and narrow streets looked less like competition and more like controlled expression. But nothing about Bekele was ever routine. Beneath the calm exterior was a furnace of ambition.

Then came the terrain where legends are forged — mud, grass, cold wind, and pain — the IAAF World Cross Country Championships. Between 2002 and 2006, Bekele achieved something so extraordinary it borders on myth: he won both the short course and long course titles every single year for five consecutive seasons. No athlete before or since has replicated such dominance. The physiological toll alone should have made it impossible — the explosive intensity of the short race followed by the grinding endurance of the long. Yet he returned each year stronger, hungrier, untouchable.

When the short course was discontinued after 2006, he stepped away briefly, then returned in 2008 to claim the long-course crown once more, almost ceremonially, as though closing a chapter he himself had authored. By then his cross-country medal collection had reached staggering proportions — nineteen in total, including eleven senior individual golds. Statistics struggled to contain the scale of his supremacy.

But numbers alone never explained the aura.

On the track, Bekele possessed an almost predatory intelligence. He would sit quietly in the pack, conserving energy with deceptive ease. Then, with laps remaining, something would ignite. At the 2003 Bislett Games in Oslo, he tracked down the Kenyan leader with chilling precision before unleashing a decisive kick to win in 12:52.26. It was not merely speed — it was timing, instinct, and psychological dominance. Rivals knew the surge was coming. They simply could not stop it.

And hovering over his rise was a rivalry that felt almost epic in scale: Bekele against Haile Gebrselassie. The reigning emperor of distance running and the fearless successor. Early encounters favored the veteran, who reminded the young challenger of the existing hierarchy. But by 2003, the balance began to shift. Bekele edged Gebrselassie over 10,000 metres in Hengelo, then continued to outperform him across major championships.

At the 2004 Athens Olympics, Bekele captured 10,000-metre gold while Gebrselassie faded to fifth. Four years later, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, history repeated itself. The apprentice had become the standard. Even on the roads, including the Great North Run, Bekele would later finish ahead. Their rivalry was not merely competitive — it symbolised the passing of an era.

The year 2004 crystallised his dominance. Within nine astonishing days, Bekele broke the indoor 5000-metre world record, then the outdoor 5000, and finally the 10,000-metre world record — as if impatience with history itself drove him. He swept cross-country titles again, led Ethiopia to team victories, and left Athens with Olympic gold and silver. Distance running had a new gravitational centre, and it was him.

Yet life does not always move in harmony with triumph.

On January 4, 2005, a deeply personal loss entered his world during what should have been an ordinary training morning. Alem Techale — the 1500-metre World Youth Champion of 2003 — was running alongside Bekele in Ararat, a forested, hilly area on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. The two were sharing the familiar rhythm of training when she suddenly collapsed. Bekele immediately carried her to his car and rushed toward the hospital, hoping urgency might change the outcome. But on the way, she passed away. What remained was a silence that no explanation could fully fill — only memories of shared miles, shared dreams, and a companionship that had once felt limitless.

For a time, the noise of competition softened around him. But step by step, he continued — not because pain disappears, but because the human heart has a quiet way of learning to carry both love and loss together.

Because in the end, Kenenisa Bekele’s story is not simply about speed, medals, or records etched into history books. It is about the tenderness hidden inside strength. It is about a young boy who ran with wonder in his spirit, a champion who experienced both luminous joy and quiet sorrow, and a man who kept moving forward with grace. His journey reminds us that greatness is not only measured by how fast someone runs, but by how gently someone keeps going — through seasons of celebration, through moments of silence, through life itself — one faithful stride at a time.

World Athletics has revealed the three finalists for its prestigious Photograph of the Year award—an annual honor recognizing the most powerful images captured across the global track and field season.

The finalists showcase emotion, danger, and artistry from three different continents:

• Fabrizio Bensch (Germany) captured a celebratory and intimate moment between Noah Lyles and Tara Davis-Woodhall at the World Championships in Tokyo, just after they medaled in the 100m and long jump.

• Emilee Chinn (USA) froze a dramatic near-disaster during the steeplechase prelims, when George Beamish went down and Jean-Simon Desgagnés’ spikes came frighteningly close to his face.

• Vegard Grott (Norway) created a striking, shadow-filled composition during the iconic Dream Mileat the Bislett Games in Oslo.

Do the winning photographers receive prize money?

World Athletics awards the honor and global recognition, but no prize money is given directly to the photographer. The award is part of the annual World Athletics Awards program.

Norwegian superstar Jakob Ingebrigtsen is already looking ahead to 2026 with one of the boldest ambitions in track and field — to break world records in the 1500 meters, the mile, and the 5000 meters.

In an interview shared by Chris Chavez on X (formerly Twitter), Ingebrigtsen revealed his mindset and meticulous approach to choosing the perfect time and place to chase history.

“I hope to break the world records in the 1500 meters, the mile, and the 5000 meters. If I can do that, I’ll be happy. I’ll have to pick out some meets and dates where I have the best chance to make a good attempt,” he told Norway’s VG.

Ingebrigtsen and his wife are already mapping out potential race venues, with Monaco, Paris, Silesia, and Oslo among the leading candidates. Each of these meets has seen lightning-fast performances and could provide the ideal setting for record-breaking runs.

How he stacks up right now:

The world record for 1500 meters is 3:26.00, set by Hicham El Guerrouj in 1998. Ingebrigtsen’s personal best is 3:26.73.

The world record for the mile is 3:43.13, also held by El Guerrouj from 1999. Ingebrigtsen’s personal best is 3:43.73.

The world record for the 5000 meters is 12:35.36, set by Joshua Cheptegei in 2020. Ingebrigtsen’s personal best is 12:48.45.

While Ingebrigtsen’s personal bests are already within striking distance of both El Guerrouj’s legendary middle-distance marks and Cheptegei’s long-distance record, breaking all three in one season would be unprecedented.

A Legacy in Motion

At just 25, Ingebrigtsen has already cemented himself as one of the most dominant and versatile athletes in modern track history. From his Olympic gold to multiple World and European Championship titles, his consistency and competitiveness have made him the face of a new generation of runners.

However, much of the 2025 season was disrupted by injury. An Achilles tendon issue forced him to withdraw from major meets and limited his racing calendar. Despite the setback, his ambition remains undimmed.

A sweep of these three world records would not only elevate his legacy but also redefine the limits of what’s possible across middle and long-distance running.

As he carefully plans his record attempts, the world will be watching — because when Jakob Ingebrigtsen sets his mind on something, history often follows.

Just when the doubters were growing bold, Jakob Ingebrigtsen dropped a bombshell—without saying a word.

After months of uncertainty, Achilles rehab, and a string of absences from marquee meets like Oslo and the Prefontaine Classic, the Olympic champion and world record holder resurfaced not with a headline but with a treadmill video on Instagram. The caption? Just five words:

“Normal service has resumed ??.”

That was it. No interview. No press release. Just a smooth stride at full clip—and it was enough to send shockwaves through the sport.

Jakob, still only 23, hasn’t raced since winning the European Cross Country Championships last December. In May, he confirmed his withdrawal from the London Diamond League on July 20 due to lingering Achilles irritation. But now, with the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo looming, fans and rivals alike are decoding every frame of that 12-second clip. Was this just training? Or a warning shot?

The Comeback Equation

Jakob’s resume needs no embellishment:

Olympic 1500m champion (Tokyo 2021)

World 5000m champion (Paris 2023)

European record holder in the 1500m, mile, 3000m, and 5000m

World record holder in the 2000m and two miles

But since that shock defeat to Josh Kerr at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest—a tactical masterclass that broke Ingebrigtsen’s golden streak—Jakob has been unusually quiet. Injuries kept him from defending titles on the Diamond League circuit, while rivals like Kerr, Jake Wightman, and Yared Nuguse have stepped into the spotlight.

Now, that silence might be over.

Warning to Rivals?

The timing couldn’t be more dramatic. With Tokyo less than six weeks away, the treadmill reel could mark the start of Jakob’s final prep—if not for London, then for the Worlds. His message may have been short, but the implications are massive: he’s back in motion, the rhythm looks good, and if he toes the line in Tokyo, the narrative resets.

Rivals like Kerr, who’s coming off a strong win at the 2025 Bislett Games, won’t be underestimating him. Their rematch—if it happens—could be one of the defining moments of the championships.

Crown or Collision Course?

Is Jakob ready to reclaim his throne, or is he walking into the fiercest middle-distance rivalry we’ve seen in years? The answer is still unwritten—but one thing is clear:

Jakob Ingebrigtsen is not done. Not even close.

And now, the track world holds its breath.

Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen is heading back to the mountains of St. Moritz to resume altitude training after a difficult first half of the 2025 season marked by injury and family challenges. The 23-year-old Norwegian has been recovering from a strained Achilles tendon that derailed his early outdoor campaign and forced him to miss several key meets.

Recovery First

Ingebrigtsen initially planned to train at altitude in Sierra Nevada in the spring, but his Achilles issue required a change of course. He instead remained home to focus on recovery, missing high-profile events in Oslo, Ostrava, the Pre Classic, and the London Diamond League.

In a recent update shared on social media, Jakob acknowledged the long road back but said he was grateful for the time spent with his young daughter and dogs. “At least I had the best company,” he wrote, sharing photos from a forest outing. His message suggests a turning point in his recovery, both physically and emotionally.

Altitude Training in St. Moritz

Coach Filip Ingebrigtsen has confirmed that Jakob will now join Norway’s altitude group in St. Moritz for a three- to four-week training block. The plan is to carefully build back fitness without rushing into competition. If all goes well, Jakob could return to racing in mid-August, with the Silesia Diamond League meeting in Poland emerging as a likely target.

While his return has been delayed, confidence remains high. Ingebrigtsen’s indoor season earlier this year was exceptional—he broke the world indoor records for both the 1500m and mile. In June, shortly before his Achilles flare-up, he set a new European 1500m record of 3:27.95 and clocked 7:54.10 in the two-mile, a world best.

Personal Challenges and Legal Closure

In the midst of his recovery, Ingebrigtsen also had to navigate a difficult legal chapter. On June 23, his father, Gjert Ingebrigtsen, was convicted of minor assault against Jakob’s younger sister, Ingrid, for an incident involving a wet towel. Gjert received a 15-day suspended sentence and was ordered to pay damages. He was acquitted of similar charges involving Jakob due to lack of evidence.

The verdict marks a formal conclusion to a painful and public family dispute that first came to light in late 2023. With this chapter behind him, Jakob appears ready to shift focus fully back to his training and racing.

Looking Ahead

Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s approach to 2025 has been cautious but strategic. Rather than forcing an early comeback, he’s prioritized recovery, stability, and preparation. If his return to St. Moritz goes as planned, fans can expect to see him back on the track in top form later this summer—potentially just in time to contend for another global title.

The prestigious Monaco Diamond League meet is set to ignite the track today, with a thrilling lineup of distance races headlined by Olympic medalists, world record holders, and rising stars. With world-best times under threat, all eyes turn to Monaco’s lightning-fast track where history is often made July 11. 

Men’s 800m – 2:23 p.m. ET

Arguably the most anticipated race of the day, the men’s 800m features seven of the eight Olympic finalists, and talk of David Rudisha’s legendary 1:40.91 world record is swirling. The pace will be red-hot, with athletes hungry to establish themselves ahead of the Paris Olympics.

Expect fireworks early. The pacing is likely to be aggressive, and with such a deep field, a sub-1:43 clocking may not even guarantee a podium spot. With a record on the line, this race is not to be missed.

Women’s 1000m – 2:43 p.m. ET

The rarely-run but always-exciting 1000m could see the 28-year-old world record of 2:28.98, set by Svetlana Masterkova in 1996, finally fall. Faith Kipyegon, the undisputed queen of middle distance, came close with a 2:29.21 earlier this year and owns the second-fastest time ever. She’s the clear favorite to take another crack at history.

Australia’s Jess Hull brings impressive credentials too, coming off a 3:52.67 1500m (the third-best of her career) and showing solid speed with a 1:58.58 800m PB. Also in the mix are:

• Mary Moraa, 800m world champion, with a 2:33.43 1000m PB,

• Nelly Jepchirchir (2:31.24 PB),

• Jemma Reekie (2:31.11 PB),

• Sinclaire Johnson and Addy Wiley, both looking to move up in distance.

With a blend of speed and endurance, this event has record-breaking potential.

Men’s 5000m – 3:05 p.m. ET

Seven men in today’s lineup have broken 12:50 this season, promising one of the fastest 5000m races of the year. Ethiopian sensation Biniam Mehari, just 18 years old, recently stunned with a 26:43.8210,000m win at the Pre Classic and a 12:45.93 at the Oslo Diamond League, where much of the spotlight went to Nico Young’s American record.

Sweden’s Andreas Almgren enters with momentum after clocking a 12:44.27 European record, currently the fastest time in the world this year.

The Ethiopian federation will be watching closely, as Yomif Kejelcha (12:47.84) and Hagos Gebrhiwetare also lining up—both seasoned athletes capable of upsets.

Final Word

Monaco has a storied history of delivering some of the fastest middle-distance times on the planet. With stars like Kipyegon, Mehari, and Almgren peaking at just the right time, the stage is set for records to be rewritten.

Stay tuned. If there’s ever a day to witness distance running greatness, this is it.

Prudence Sekgodiso of South Africa is charging toward the top of the global women’s 800m leaderboard with a sizzling time of 1:57.16, recorded in the 2025 season. As of July 4, this places her second on the current world list—trailing only Ethiopia’s Duguma, who leads with 1:56.64.

Sekgodiso’s breakthrough has sent waves through the athletics world, as seen in a recent viral post by SuperSport celebrating her ascent. The 800m is one of the most fiercely contested events in track and field, and Sekgodiso’s consistency and fearless racing style are positioning her as a serious medal contender ahead of the Paris World Championships and potentially the Olympics.

? Top 10 Women’s 800m Times in 2025 (as of July 4):

1. 1:56.64 – Duguma 

2. 1:57.16 – Sekgodiso 

3. 1:57.25 – Werro 

4. 1:57.49 – Nowe 

5. 1:57.55 – Wiley 

6. 1:57.66 – Bell 

7. 1:57.81 – Bourgoin 

8. 1:57.83 – Billings 

9. 1:57.83 – Moraa 

10. 1:58.00 – Maloney 

How Sekgodiso Measures Up Historically:

The women’s 800m world record still stands at 1:53.28, set by Jarmila Kratochvílová of Czechoslovakia in 1983—a mark that has stood for over 40 years and is widely considered one of the most unbreakable in athletics. Only a handful of women have ever run under 1:55, including:

• Jarmila Kratochvílová (CZE) – 1:53.28 (1983)

• Nadezhda Olizarenko (URS) – 1:53.43 (1980)

• Pamela Jelimo (KEN) – 1:54.01 (2008)

• Caster Semenya (RSA) – 1:54.25 (2018)

Prudence Sekgodiso's 1:57.16 may not yet challenge these all-time performances, but it signals her potential to enter the elite sub-1:56 territory—especially with major races still ahead this season.

South Africa’s Next Middle-Distance Icon?

Following in the footsteps of Caster Semenya, Sekgodiso has reignited South Africa’s presence in the women’s 800m. At just 22 years old, she combines speed, endurance, and confidence, and her upward trajectory is undeniable.

As she continues her climb, all eyes will be on her next race. With every lap, Prudence Sekgodiso is narrowing the gap—not just between herself and the world leader, but also between today’s stars and history’s greats.

In the fast-evolving world of athletics, records are made to be broken — except, it seems, for one. On July 26, 1983, in Munich, Czechoslovakia’s Jarmila Kratochvílová ran an astonishing 1:53.28 in the women’s 800 meters. Four decades later, that time remains the oldest unbroken individual world record in track and field history.

It has withstood super spikes, altitude training, hyper-focused coaching, and the world’s most gifted middle-distance runners. Olympic champions like Caster Semenya and Athing Mu have come close, but none have truly threatened it. Which begs the question — how did a performance like this come to be? And should it still be recognized?

A Record Born in a Different Era

Kratochvílová’s performance came at a time when Eastern Bloc nations, including Czechoslovakia, were deep into state-sponsored sports programs. In that era, the line between elite preparation and banned enhancement was often blurred. Many athletes from that period, particularly from East Germany and the Soviet Union, have since admitted or been linked to systemic doping programs.

While there has been no formal proof that Kratochvílová used banned substances, the context raises suspicions. Her physical appearance — muscular, powerful, and more commonly compared to male counterparts than to female contemporaries — only added to the speculation. Combined with her unprecedented strength over both 400m and 800m distances, critics argue that the performance is not only unmatched, but possibly unnatural.

Why the Doubts Persist

• Performance Gap: Her time is still more than a second faster than most modern Olympic champions — a massive difference at the elite level.

• Era of Doping: Kratochvílová competed during a time when drug testing was primitive and records were often set under questionable conditions.

• Physique & Speculation: Her highly muscular build and deep voice led some to question if she should have been eligible to compete in the women’s category — though gender testing at the time did not flag her.

• Lack of Longevity: After 1983, Kratochvílová’s presence at major championships waned. Some suggest this could point to the unsustainable nature of her peak performance.

Arguments for Letting It Stand

Supporters of the record, including Kratochvílová herself, insist that the performance was clean and the result of hard work and unconventional training. She famously avoided standard intervals and instead focused on long sessions in heavy shoes and rugged conditions. No positive test exists, and the record has survived decades of scrutiny by World Athletics.

Moreover, some point out that breaking a record doesn’t validate its legitimacy — it simply reflects the evolution of training, equipment, and talent pools. If no one has broken it yet, perhaps it’s just one of those rare, generational performances that transcends time.

Should It Be Removed?

There have been proposals — including from World Athletics — to reset all pre-2005 records due to the lack of out-of-competition drug testing during earlier decades. The suggestion faced pushback, especially from record holders who never failed a test.

But the debate continues. Some believe Kratochvílová’s 1:53.28 represents a performance that belongs to a different set of rules — and therefore shouldn’t be part of the same record book as today’s achievements. Others see it as an enduring symbol of what the human body (with or without help) once accomplished.

Final Thought

Whether you view Jarmila Kratochvílová’s 800m world record as a miraculous outlier or a relic of a flawed system, one thing is certain: it has become the ultimate benchmark. Until someone runs faster — cleanly and unquestionably — the debate will rage on. And with every passing year, this 1983 run becomes less of a record and more of a legend.

Faith Cherotich is rewriting the women’s 3000m steeplechase narrative. The 20-year-old Olympic and World bronze medalist exploded onto the senior stage this year, slashing over 11 seconds off her personal best and firmly establishing herself among the all-time greats. With the World Championships set for Tokyo in 2025, she’s made it clear—she’s not done yet.

Olympic Roots, Meteoric Rise

Cherotich made her Olympic debut in Paris 2024, earning bronze in 9:04.24 behind Winfred Yavi and Peruth Chemutai. Just a year later, she’s running nearly 11 seconds faster.

At the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, she finished second in 9:00.69, already hinting at her vast potential. But 2025 has been a different level altogether.

Diamond League Domination

Cherotich’s progression this season has been remarkable:

• Doha Diamond League – 9:05.08

• Oslo Diamond League – 9:02.60 (meet record)

• Paris Diamond League – a stunning 8:53.37, now the world lead for 2025 and the 6th-fastest time in history

In Paris, she confidently shadowed 2020 Olympic champion Peruth Chemutai before surging ahead for the win.

“I am happy to have run a PB,” Cherotich said after the race. “It was not an easy race… after a few laps I got confident enough to take the lead and knew I could manage the race and win.”

All-Time Rankings & World Record Watch

• Fastest time ever: 8:44.32 — Beatrice Chepkoech (2018)

• Second-fastest: 8:44.39 — Winfred Yavi (Rome, 2024)

• Cherotich: Now #6 all-time with 8:53.37

Her consistency, combined with tactical growth, has vaulted her into serious world title contention

Focused on Tokyo 2025

With the World Championships returning to Tokyo, Cherotich is more motivated than ever:

“My target this season is to win the world title… I want to run good races… I am going to fight and do all my best to achieve my goal… It will be a different result this time in Tokyo.”

She currently leads the Diamond League standings by 10 points over rival Yavi and has shown she can beat any competitor on the day.

✅ Performance Summary

Cherotich isn’t just winning races—she’s chasing history. With the world title in her sights and her confidence growing with every lap, all roads now lead to Tokyo.

When Olympic legend Michael Johnson launched Grand Slam Track (GST), the vision was bold: reinvent the sport with an athlete-first approach, big prize purses, and a reimagined global format. With a $30 million launch budget and promises to reward performance like never before, GST quickly gained traction. But after the abrupt cancellation of its final event in Los Angeles, questions are swirling—and athletes are asking where their promised money is.

The LA meet, originally scheduled for June 28–29, was expected to close out GST’s four-meet pilot season. Instead, the cancellation reportedly saved the organization upwards of $3 million, and left some top athletes publicly wondering when—or if—they’ll get paid.

Brazil’s Alison dos Santos, the 2022 world champion in the 400m hurdles, told Norwegian outlet NRKthat he is still waiting on his $250,000 prize check. He said the cancellation came as a surprise but remains hopeful that the money will arrive later this year.

Others were more skeptical. Emmanuel Wanyonyi, Kenya’s Olympic 800m champion and winner of the short-distance event at GST Kingston, admitted after his victory at the Bislett Games that he hadn’t been paid either. “It might come. Why shouldn’t it come?” he said. “They have to pay us. I’ll be patient and wait.”

American distance phenom Nico Young, who won the 3,000m at the Philadelphia Slam and followed that performance with a U.S. record in the 5,000m (12:45.27) in Oslo, offered a more cautious response: “I don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything about it. We’re working on it.”

Even those with positive experiences are waiting. Charles Philibert-Thiboutot, a two-time Olympian for Canada, praised GST after competing in Kingston. “Grand Slam Track was one of the best experiences I’ve had as a pro,” he told Canadian Running. “I’m sad to see it struggle, because I do think that’s the way athletes should be treated at the highest level.” Still, he acknowledged he hasn’t been paid yet—but was told the money is on the way.

An agent representing multiple GST athletes confirmed that only half of the prize money from Kingston has been paid, and that winners from Miami and Philadelphia are still waiting. Delays in payout aren’t uncommon in professional track, with 6–12 week lags the norm—but with Kingston now 11 weeks in the rearview, patience is thinning.

GST was originally backed by a $30 million budget, with $12.6 million earmarked for prize money—$3.15 million per event. The league also supported athlete contracts and high-end production values across its three completed events in Kingston, Miami, and Philadelphia.

In an email to NRK, GST spokesperson Callum Squires cited poor financial conditions at the LA venue as the reason for the cancellation. “The success of our three previous events has led us to make the difficult choice to end the pilot season and set our sights on 2026,” he wrote. “We will announce investors and new partnerships next week.”

Whether Grand Slam Track can recover and return stronger in 2026 may hinge on what happens next—and especially whether the league delivers on its most essential promise: paying the athletes who brought their best to the track.

The highly anticipated LA Grand Slam Track meet, scheduled for June 28–29 at UCLA’s Drake Stadium, has officially been canceled, marking an abrupt and disappointing end to the inaugural season of Michael Johnson’s ambitious new professional track league.

The cancellation, confirmed via athlete emails and an internal league meeting held shortly after the Oslo Diamond League, follows a string of logistical and financial setbacks that have shadowed the 2025 Grand Slam Track series.

Why Was the LA Meet Canceled?

Multiple factors contributed to the league’s decision to call off its final stop:

• Venue costs: UCLA’s Drake Stadium lease proved to be prohibitively expensive, and cost-benefit analysis showed the meet could not be held sustainably under current terms.

• Market saturation: The earlier cancellation of the LA Grand Prix by USA Track & Field, citing overlap with Grand Slam Track, signaled underlying concerns about the local track market.

• Attendance and revenue: Despite high-profile athletes and large prize purses, audience turnout and ticket sales in previous meets (notably Kingston and Miami) fell short of expectations.

• Operational strain: The Philadelphia Slam was also shortened from three days to two, reflecting broader constraints in the league’s first year.

Recapping the 2025 Grand Slam Track Series

Each meet featured world-class fields and a $100,000 winner’s prize per event—part of a $12.6 million total purse. The series received coverage on Peacock and The CW, and was positioned as a bold alternative to the Diamond League.

What’s Next for Grand Slam Track?

Despite the disappointing end, founder Michael Johnson insists the pilot season met its objectives: proving that a high-stakes, athlete-first, fan-centered pro track league can attract global attention.

The league now shifts its focus to 2026, aiming to:

• Secure new strategic partners and sponsorships

• Optimize venue selection and fan engagement

• Revise its financial model for long-term sustainability

While the LA cancellation raises questions about viability, there is still optimism that Grand Slam Track will return, stronger and more refined, in season two.

The cancellation of the LA meet is a setback—but not a death blow. Grand Slam Track managed to draw eyes, deliver compelling performances, and push the conversation forward in pro track and field. Whether it can evolve into a sustainable, annual series remains to be seen—but the world will be watching.

British distance running has a new star. At the 2025 Oslo Diamond League, George Mills delivered a brilliant performance in the men’s 5000 meters, clocking 12:46.59—a new British national record and one of the fastest times ever run by a European.

The 25-year-old’s performance shattered the previous UK record of 12:57.76 held by Sir Mo Farah and marked Mills’ official arrival on the global stage.

Historic Performance in a Historic Race

Mills’ 12:46.59 came in a race loaded with talent and fireworks. He crossed the line just behind American Nico Young, who won in 12:45.27 to break the American record. It was the deepest 5000m field in Diamond League history, with eight athletes running under 12:51.

Mills stayed composed throughout the early laps, staying close to the pacers and navigating through a crowded lead pack. As the bell rang, he surged into position and kicked hard down the homestretch, finishing just fractions behind Young while securing the #2 spot on the European all-time list—behind only Mohammed Mourhit of Belgium (12:49.71 in 2000).

From 1500m Talent to 5000m Powerhouse

Originally known as a 1500m specialist, Mills has successfully transitioned up in distance. The former European U23 champion and son of Olympic 1500m finalist Danny Mills has long shown promise on the track, but Oslo marks his greatest performance yet.

He now holds a faster 5000m time than British legends like Mo Farah, Dave Moorcroft, and Andy Vernon—and has proven that he belongs on the start line with the very best in the world.

 Final Times from Oslo

• Nico Young (USA) – 12:45.27 – American Record

• George Mills (GBR) – 12:46.59 – British Record

• Thierry Ndikumwenayo (Burundi) – 12:47.67 – Personal Best

• Dominic Lobalu (Switzerland) – 12:50.87 – Swiss National Record

What’s Next for George Mills?

With the World Championships on the horizon, Mills is now firmly in the conversation as a potential medalist. His ability to hang with the world’s fastest over 5000 meters—and still close hard—bodes well for tactical championship-style racing.

British distance fans may have found their next global star.

In a performance that shook the foundations of U.S. distance running, Nico Young stormed to a stunning 12:45.27 at the Oslo Diamond League on June 12. Not only did he win the race, but he also demolished the American 5000m record, vaulting himself into the top ranks of global distance running.

The 21-year-old’s breakthrough marks the fastest 5000m ever run by an American and the fourth-fastest time in world history outdoors. His average lap was 61.4 seconds—roughly 4:06 per mile or 2:33 per kilometer—executed against one of the deepest fields ever assembled.

Standout Performances with Official Times

• Nico Young (USA) – 12:45.27 – ?? American Record

• George Mills (GBR) – 12:46.59 – ?? British National Record

• Thierry Ndikumwenayo (Burundi) – 12:47.67 – Personal Best

• Dominic Lokinyomo Lobalu (Switzerland) – 12:50.87 – ?? Swiss National Record

This was a race defined by speed, grit, and history-making performances. Eight athletes reportedly broke 12:51—unprecedented in Diamond League competition. National records fell on three continents.

Young’s Path to Greatness

Nico Young’s rise began at Newbury Park High School, where he set high school records and led his team to national titles. At Northern Arizona University, he continued to dominate, becoming a multi-time NCAA All-American before turning pro with Adidas.

Training under coach Mike Smith, Young has honed not just his endurance but also his race instincts—perfectly on display in Oslo as he timed his final surge to perfection against the best in the world.

A New Standard

Young’s 12:45.27 surpasses Grant Fisher’s previous American record of 12:46.96 set in 2022. His time now ranks him behind only three men in history: Joshua Cheptegei, Kenenisa Bekele, and Hagos Gebrhiwet.

With this performance, Nico Young has redefined what’s possible for American distance runners and firmly positioned himself as one of the most exciting young talents in the sport.

By My Best Runs — with a special thanks to Eric Giacoletto for the inspiration

On June 1, 1954, Emil Zátopek etched his name into history by becoming the first person to run 10,000 meters in under 29 minutes. Clocking 28:54.2 in Brussels, the Czech legend not only set a new world record but also reshaped the future of endurance training.

Zátopek’s previous world records included:

• 29:02.6 in Turku, Finland (August 4, 1950)

• 29:01.6 in Stará Boleslav, Czechoslovakia (November 1, 1953)

His breakthrough in 1954 wasn’t just a time on the clock—it was a philosophical shift. Zátopek popularized high-volume, interval-based training long before lactate thresholds and GPS watches entered the vocabulary. He trained in ways that were radical at the time: running repeated intervals at what we now call the aerobic/anaerobic threshold. Often without proper equipment or ideal conditions, Zátopek’s approach was empirical, relentless, and incredibly effective.

Despite the lack of modern media, Zátopek became one of the most celebrated athletes of his era. His fame grew not through social media or global broadcasts, but through the power of newspapers and word-of-mouth. His grit, work ethic, and unforgettable running style made him a symbol of human potential.

Zátopek’s Olympic Glory

Zátopek’s 1954 world record was just one chapter in a legendary career. At the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, he achieved an unmatched triple gold medal performance:

• Gold in the 5,000 meters

• Gold in the 10,000 meters

• Gold in the marathon — a race he had never run before

No one had ever accomplished that feat before, and no one has done it since.

He once said:

“If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon.”

This quote continues to inspire runners around the globe. Zátopek didn’t just run races—he ran with purpose, embodying resilience, innovation, and heart.

70 Years Later—A Milestone for Women

Exactly 70 years after Zátopek’s barrier-breaking run, history repeated itself in a remarkable way. On May 25, 2024, Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet became the first woman to run under 29 minutes for 10,000m, recording 28:54.14. Her time? Nearly identical to Zátopek’s—28:54.2 (manual timing).

The symmetry is striking and symbolic. What Zátopek accomplished in 1954 has echoed into the 21st century, reminding us that barriers are made to be broken—again and again.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Norway’s Olympic champion and one of the most dominant middle-distance runners in the world, has confirmed that he will delay the start of his 2025 outdoor season due to a recurrence of an Achilles tendon issue.

The 24-year-old experienced discomfort in his Achilles while training at high altitude in Sierra Nevada, Spain—an injury reminiscent of a previous setback that sidelined him during part of the 2023–2024 season. Ingebrigtsen has since returned to Norway to undergo treatment and has transitioned to cross-training activities including aqua jogging and elliptical work to maintain fitness while reducing impact.

“I’ve been feeling irritation again in my Achilles,” Jakob shared in a video update on his official YouTube channel. “It’s frustrating, but I’ve learned from past mistakes. I want to give myself the best chance to recover fully and be ready for the biggest challenges later this season.”

As a result, Ingebrigtsen is expected to miss the Bislett Games in Oslo, scheduled for June 12, and his participation in the London Diamond League in July remains uncertain. However, he remains focused on regaining top form in time for the World Championships in Tokyo later this year.

Despite this recent setback, Ingebrigtsen had an extraordinary indoor season earlier in 2025. He shattered two world records—running 3:45.14 in the indoor mile and 3:29.63 in the 1500m—both at the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais in Liévin. He also claimed gold in both the 1500m and 3000m at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn and the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing.

Jakob’s cautious approach underscores his long-term focus. “I’m not rushing this. I know what I’m capable of when I’m healthy,” he added. “The goal is to compete at my best when it matters most.”

Fresh off one of the most dominant years of his career, Norwegian middle-distance star Jakob Ingebrigtsen has hit an unexpected roadblock. The reigning Olympic champion and recent world record holder has postponed the start of his 2025 outdoor season due to a minor Achilles tendon injury.

According to Norwegian media, Ingebrigtsen experienced a slight strain during training and has since delayed a scheduled altitude camp. The injury has forced him to withdraw from the upcoming Bislett Games, his highly anticipated home Diamond League meet in Oslo.

“Jakob felt some discomfort in his Achilles, and we’re taking every precaution,” his spokesperson Espen Skoland told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “It’s not serious, but it’s enough to warrant rest and adjustment.”

The news comes as a surprise to fans after Ingebrigtsen’s stellar 2024 season, which included Olympic gold in the 5000m, a European record in the 1500m, and a series of record-breaking performances that reaffirmed his place as one of the most dominant forces in middle-distance running.

Known for his fierce racing schedule and unmatched consistency, Ingebrigtsen has rarely been sidelined. While the injury is not expected to derail his entire season, it’s a rare pause for the Norwegian powerhouse who seemed poised to continue his momentum into 2025.

As he recovers, fans and competitors alike will be watching closely to see when and where he returns—and whether he can pick up right where he left off.

The 2025 Wanda Diamond League kicks off this Saturday, April 26, in Xiamen, China, launching the most prestigious one-day series in global track and field. With 15 elite meets on the calendar, this year’s circuit serves as both a proving ground and a preview for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo this September.

While Olympic champion Grant Holloway will headline the sprint hurdles, it’s the middle- and long-distance events in Xiamen that promise some of the most compelling matchups of the weekend.

Chebet vs. Tsegay in the Women’s 5000m

Saturday’s most anticipated race may be the women’s 5000m, featuring a classic Kenya vs. Ethiopia showdown.

Beatrice Chebet, the reigning Olympic champion and world record holder in the 10,000m, opens her Diamond League campaign against Gudaf Tsegay, the reigning 5000m world champion and world record holder. With personal bests of 14:05.92 (Chebet) and 14:00.21 (Tsegay), the two are expected to push each other deep into record territory.

They’ll be challenged by rising Ethiopian talents Freweyni Hailu and Birke Haylom, both capable of delivering world-class performances.

Kipyegon Returns in the 1000m

Also making her season debut is Kenyan superstar Faith Kipyegon, who will race the rarely-run 1000m. The two-time Olympic and world champion is the current world record holder in both the 1500m and the mile.

In Xiamen, she’ll face Jamaica’s Natoya Goule-Toppin and Uganda’s Halimah Nakaayi, both of whom are known for their championship pedigree over 800m. The 1000m offers an ideal distance for Kipyegon to sharpen her speed and stamina heading into the summer.

Men’s 3000m Steeplechase: A Deep Field Emerges

The men’s 3000m steeplechase will feature a stacked lineup, with top athletes from Kenya, Ethiopia, and Morocco vying for early-season dominance. With the event’s tradition of upsets and tactical drama, this race will be one to watch for fans of distance racing.

2025 Wanda Diamond League Schedule

Following Xiamen, the Diamond League tour travels to 14 more cities before the two-day final in Zurich. Here’s the full schedule:

• April 26 – Xiamen, China

• May 3 – Shanghai/Suzhou, China

• May 16 – Doha, Qatar

• May 25 – Rabat, Morocco

• June 6 – Rome, Italy

• June 12 – Oslo, Norway

• June 15 – Stockholm, Sweden

• June 20 – Paris, France

• July 5 – Eugene, USA

• July 11 – Monaco

• July 19 – London, UK

• August 16 – Silesia, Poland

• August 20 – Lausanne, Switzerland

• August 22 – Brussels, Belgium

• August 27–28 – Zurich, Switzerland (Diamond League Final)

The series leads directly into the 2025 World Athletics Championships, set for September 13–21 at Japan National Stadium in Tokyo.

Ishmael Rokitto Kipkurui, born on February 10, 2005, in Baringo County, Kenya, has rapidly ascended in the world of long-distance running, culminating in his recent NCAA 10,000-meter record-breaking performance.

Early Life and Passion for Running

Growing up in Mochongoi near Marigat, Kipkurui was the third of five children. His passion for athletics was evident early on, often training at 4 a.m., illuminating his path with a torch before attending classes at Sinonin Secondary School by 6 a.m. This unwavering dedication allowed him to balance academic responsibilities with rigorous training sessions. Even during training camps, he carried school textbooks to ensure he remained on top of his studies.  

Athletic Development and Training

Under the guidance of coaches Julius Kirwa and Barnaba Kitilit, Kipkurui’s talent flourished. His training regimen, characterized by early morning runs and consistent discipline, laid the foundation for his future successes. In 2023, he clinched the U20 title at the World Cross Country Championships in Bathurst, Australia, finishing the 8-kilometer race in 24:29.

Transition to the United States

Kipkurui’s exceptional performances caught the attention of international scouts, leading to his recruitment by the University of New Mexico (UNM). In December 2024, shortly after graduating from Sinonin Secondary School, he committed to joining the UNM Lobos track and field team. This decision was influenced by UNM’s strong track program and its history of nurturing international talent.

Collegiate Career and Record-Breaking Performance

Since enrolling at UNM, Kipkurui has continued to excel. On March 29, 2025, at Sound Running’s The TEN in San Juan Capistrano, California, he set a new NCAA 10,000-meter record with a time of 26:50.21, surpassing the previous record of 26:52.72 set by Nico Young in 2024. His teammate, Habtom Samuel, finished closely behind with a time of 26:51.06.

Personal Bests and Achievements

• 3000 meters: 7:38.06 (June 9, 2023, Paris)

• Two miles: 8:09.23 (June 9, 2023, Paris)

• 5000 meters: 13:05.47 (June 15, 2023, Oslo) 

• 10,000 meters: 26:50.21 (March 29, 2025, San Juan Capistrano)

On June 9, 2023, at the Meeting de Paris held at Stade Charléty in Paris, France, Ishmael Kipkuruiset personal bests in both the 3000 meters (split) and the two-mile. He clocked 7:38.06 in the 3000 meters and 8:09.23 in the two-mile race. Notably, his two-mile time established a new Kenyan U20 record. 

Kipkurui’s journey from the highlands of Kenya to breaking collegiate records in the U.S. exemplifies his dedication and potential in long-distance running. As he continues to develop, the athletics community eagerly anticipates his future accomplishments on the global stage.

World Athletics has officially recognized the 300m hurdles as an official event, marking a major shift in the sport’s landscape. While it has long existed as a training and exhibition distance, the 300m hurdles will now count toward world rankings and all official statistical purposes, similar to the 400m hurdles.

In a statement released by World Athletics, the governing body noted:

“It will serve all World Athletics statistical purposes, including world rankings towards which it will score as a similar event to the 400m hurdles. A list of world best performances will be kept, while conditions for setting an inaugural world record will be decided at a later stage, once the popularity of the event has reached a meaningful level.”

Though not yet eligible for world records, the event already boasts elite-level performances. Norway’s Karsten Warholm—the 400m hurdles world record holder—blazed 33.26 in Oslo in 2021, a mark widely recognized as the world best. He followed it up with a 33.28 performance in Bergen last year.

On the women’s side, Dutch superstar Femke Bol holds the top time with her 36.86 run in 2022.

The move to formalize the event brings renewed attention to what has typically been a non-championship distance. A major showcase is already on the calendar: the men’s 300m hurdles will feature at the Oslo Diamond League on June 12, 2025, setting the stage for a high-profile showdown in Warholm’s home country.

With elite athletes already embracing the event and more high-level races on the way, the 300m hurdles may soon become a fan favorite—and a mainstay in international competition.

Photos: Karsten Warholm Sets 300m Hurdles World Record

Norwegian hurdler Karsten Warholm setting the 300m hurdles world record with a time of 33.26 seconds at the Impossible Games in Oslo.  

Femke Bol Breaks Women’s 300m Hurdles World Record

Dutch athlete Femke Bol breaking the women’s 300m hurdles world record with a time of 36.86 seconds at the Ostrava Golden Spike event.  

Track and field has long been the stage for some of the most electrifying athletic performances in history. Each generation has produced legends who have redefined what is possible in sprinting, distance running, and field events. But which era stands above the rest?

From the Silent Generation pioneers to the Gen Z record-breakers, every period has contributed to the evolution of the sport. Let’s break down each era’s greatest stars and their lasting impact on track and field.

Gen Z (Born 1997 - 2012): The Future of Track & Field

The newest generation of elite athletes is already making waves on the world stage. With the benefit of cutting-edge training, nutrition, and recovery techniques, these young stars are smashing records at a rapid pace.

Notable Sprinters & Field Athletes:

• Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (USA) – 400m hurdles world record holder and Olympic champion

• Mondo Duplantis (Sweden) – Pole vault world record holder

• Erriyon Knighton (USA) – One of the fastest teenagers ever in the 200m

Notable Distance Runners:

• Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Norway) – Olympic 1500m champion, European mile record holder

• Joshua Cheptegei (Uganda) – 5000m and 10,000m world record holder

• Jacob Kiplimo (Uganda) – Half marathon world record holder (57:31)

• Gudaf Tsegay (Ethiopia) – World champion in the 1500m, dominant in middle distances

Gen Z athletes are not only breaking records but also shaping the future of the sport through their influence on social media and global visibility. With their combination of speed, endurance, and access to modern sports science, they may soon surpass all who came before them.

Defining Traits: Explosive, record-breaking, tech-savvy

Millennials (Born 1981 - 1996): The Superstars of the Modern Era

No discussion of dominant track and field generations is complete without mentioning Usain Bolt. The Jamaican sprinting legend captured the world’s attention with his charisma and untouchable world records.

Notable Sprinters:

• Usain Bolt (Jamaica) – Fastest man in history (100m: 9.58, 200m: 19.19)

• Allyson Felix (USA) – Most decorated female Olympian in track history

• Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (Jamaica) – One of the most dominant sprinters of all time

Notable Distance Runners:

• Eliud Kipchoge (Kenya) – The greatest marathoner of all time, first to break two hours in a marathon

• Mo Farah (UK) – Dominated the 5000m and 10,000m at two Olympic Games

• Genzebe Dibaba (Ethiopia) – 1500m world record holder

• Ruth Chepngetich (Kenya) – First woman to break the 2:10 barrier in the marathon, setting a world record of 2:09:56 at the 2024 Chicago Marathon

Millennials excelled across all track and field disciplines. They ushered in an era of professional distance running dominance, with African runners setting standards in middle and long distances. Meanwhile, Kipchoge’s sub-2-hour marathon attempt was a historic milestone in human endurance.

Defining Traits: Charismatic, dominant, endurance revolutionaries

Gen X (Born 1965 - 1980): The Tough and Versatile Competitors

Gen X athletes were the bridge between the amateur days of track and the fully professional era. They pushed the sport forward with fierce rivalries and new records, while also seeing the globalization of track and field.

Notable Sprinters:

• Maurice Greene (USA) – Former world record holder in the 100m (9.79)

• Marion Jones (USA) – One of the most dominant sprinters of the late ‘90s

Notable Distance Runners:

• Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia) – Olympic and world champion, former marathon world record holder

• Paul Tergat (Kenya) – Pioneered marathon running dominance for Kenya

• Tegla Loroupe (Kenya) – First African woman to hold the marathon world record

This era marked a golden age for distance running, with Gebrselassie and Tergat setting the stage for the marathon revolution that would come in the next generation. With increased sponsorships, the road racing circuit became more competitive, and Kenyan and Ethiopian dominance solidified.

Defining Traits: Tough, globalized, long-distance pioneers

Baby Boomers (Born 1946 - 1964): The Golden Age of Track & Field

The Baby Boomers took track and field into the modern Olympic era, producing some of the most iconic figures in the sport’s history.

Notable Sprinters:

• Carl Lewis (USA) – Nine-time Olympic gold medalist across sprints and long jump

• Florence Griffith-Joyner (USA) – 100m (10.49) and 200m (21.34) world record holder

Notable Distance Runners:

• Sebastian Coe (UK) – 800m and 1500m Olympic champion, middle-distance legend

• Steve Prefontaine (USA) – One of the most influential distance runners in history

• Miruts Yifter (Ethiopia) – 5000m and 10,000m Olympic champion

This era brought middle and long-distance running into the mainstream, with rivalries like Coe vs. Ovett and Prefontaine vs. the world captivating fans. The Baby Boomers were the first generation of professional-level training and saw athletes truly dedicated to their craft year-round.

Defining Traits: Bold, revolutionary, multi-talented

Silent Generation (Born 1928 - 1945): The Pioneers of Kenya’s Dominance

This generation laid the foundation for modern track and field, producing legends whose influence still resonates today.

Notable Distance Runners:

• Kip Keino (Kenya) – The pioneer of Kenya’s dominance in distance running, winning Olympic gold in the 1500m (1968) and 3000m steeplechase (1972)

• Emil Zátopek (Czechoslovakia) – Triple gold in 5000m, 10,000m, and marathon at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics

• Paavo Nurmi (Finland) – Nine-time Olympic gold medalist in long-distance events

Kip Keino’s triumph over Jim Ryun in the 1500m final at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics is considered one of the greatest upsets in Olympic history. Competing at high altitude, Keino used a fast early pace to break Ryun, ushering in an era of Kenyan middle-distance dominance that continues today.

Defining Traits: Groundbreaking, resilient, visionary

Which Generation Had the Greatest Impact?

Each generation of track and field athletes has contributed to the sport’s evolution in unique ways:

• Millennials brought global superstardom (Bolt, Felix, Fraser-Pryce, Kipchoge, Chepngetich)

• Gen X athletes were fierce competitors in a rapidly changing sport (Greene, Gebrselassie, Tergat)

• The Baby Boomers set records that still stand today (Carl Lewis, Flo Jo, Coe, Prefontaine)

• The Silent Generation laid the foundation for modern track and field (Owens, Zátopek, Kip Keino)

• Gen Z is already breaking records and shaping the future of the sport (McLaughlin-Levrone, Ingebrigtsen, Cheptegei)

While it’s hard to declare one era the best, one thing is certain: the sport of track and field continues to evolve, with each generation pushing the limits of human performance.

Which generation do you think is the greatest? Let us know in the comments!

Launching your own track meet and naming it after yourself is one thing–but Great Britain’s 800m Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson didn’t stop there. On Wednesday, British Athletics revealed that the inaugural Keely Klassic track meet, set for Feb. 15 in Birmingham, will conclude with Hodgkinson trying to break the 800m world record, which has stood for 41 years.

The record of 1:53.28, set by Czechoslovak athlete Jarmila Kratochvílová in 1983, is the longest-standing world record in athletics. Hodgkinson would need to run more than a second faster than her personal best (1:54.61) to even come close to taking it down. The run will mark Hodgkinson’s season opener and first race back from an injury that cut her 2024 season short.

At the Keely Klassic, Hodgkinson promises “a unique, immersive experience that will combine elite competition with an electrifying atmosphere” and extends the meeting invitation to Great Britain’s world-class track and field athletes.

The unveiling comes less than a day after Tuesday’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) ceremony, where Hodgkinson took centre stage. The 22-year-old is the first track athlete to win since Mo Farah won in 2017, and the first female track athlete to win since 2004. Her win also marks the fourth consecutive year that a woman has won the award–the longest streak in history.

“I’m actually in a bit of shock,” Hodgkinson said upon accepting the trophy. “I’m actually more excited for my coach, to be honest, because I wouldn’t be where I am without his guidance, [which] I’ve had since I was 17.”

“This year has been absolutely incredible for me,” she continued. “I achieved everything I set out to do on the outdoor track, which is kind of rare, so I’m grateful to be in this position.”

Olympic triathlon champion Alex Yee was also a contender for the award.

Hodgkinson’s coaches, Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, were awarded Coach(es) of the Year. Along with the Olympic 800m champion, the pair coaches Olympic 1,500m bronze medallist Georgia Bell.

Mondo Duplantis wins Sport Star of the Year

Pole vaulting legend Mondo Duplantis was also acknowledged at the event, winning World Sport Star of the Year. The Swedish-American world record holder was pitted against fellow sports icons, including gymnast Simone Biles, WNBA player Caitlin Clark and Olympic marathon champion Sifan Hassan.

“So sorry that I can’t be in attendance tonight–I’m back here in the States right now, training for the up and coming season. I know I’m in great company–the biggest legends of all time in sports have won this award. This really means a lot to me.”

Since Australia’s Derek Clayton ran history’s first sub—2:10 marathon in Fukuoka, Japan, on 3 December 1967, there have been a total of 4538 sub—2:10 marathons (as of 30 October 2024), 4537 by men, one by a woman.

As with any new ground-breaking performance, Ruth Chepngetich’s 2:09:56 in Chicago on 13 October has forced us to reassess all our past assumptions, or, like many, to doubt the validity of the performance itself. But no matter how we got here, to whatever you want to ascribe it, this is where we are now, 2:09:56 by a woman. 

In this new reality, until proven otherwise, Ruth Chepngetich is the new Paula Radcliffe, just as Paula was the new Grete Waitz, one ground-breaker to the next, 1978 to 2003 to 2024. 

There have been many talented women champions through the years besides those three, including all the pioneers who had to overcome centuries of gender bias that restricted women from even showing their stuff.

But in terms of pure ground-breaking, the 1978 New York City Marathon drew a bright line between what once was and what would be. 

On 22 October 1978, Norway’s track and cross-country star Grete Waitz participated in the marathon for the first time, almost on a whim, as the trip was more of a honeymoon for her and husband Jack after the long track season. 

The 2:32:30 world record Grete ran that day was totally unexpected by both the public and Grete herself. She wore bib #1173, wasn’t included on the list of elite women, and came with no specific marathon preparation (not a single run over 13 miles). In fact, she was so upset with husband, Jack, for suggesting she come run the marathon that she threw her shoes at him in the hotel room following her victory. 

Still, like almost all debuting marathoners, after a short period of recovery and reflection, Grete concluded she could probably improve next time.

Thus, in New York 1979, following a more careful preparation, Grete ripped nearly five full minutes off her 1978 mark to record history’s first sub—2:30 by a woman at 2:27:33. Her margin of victory over England’s Gillian Adams was 11 minutes (2:38:33). The combination of the mild-mannered former geography teacher from Oslo and the raucous New York City crowds proved transformative, elevating women’s running to heights previously unimagined.

Though Japan’s Naoko Takahashi broke the 2:20 barrier for women in Berlin 2001, after Norway’s Ingrid Kristiansen (2:21:15, London ‘85), America’s Joan Benoit Samuelson (2:21:21, Chicago’85), and Kenyan Tegla Loroupe (2:20:43, Berlin ‘99) all challenged the barrier in the 1980s and ‘90s, it was England’s Paula Radcliffe who established new headlands in the marathon in London 2003 with her 2:15:25.  

Nearly two minutes faster than her own 2:17:18 record from Chicago the year before, her 2:15 arced away from Catherine Ndereba’s 2:18:47 from Chicago 2001, completed just one week after Takahashi’s first sub-2:20 in Berlin. 

The quality of Paula’s 2:15 can be seen in the 16 years and an entire shoe technology revolution that developed before Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei did Paula one better in Chicago 2019 at 2:14:04. That performance plowed new ground again. And now we have Ruth Chepngetich in Chicago 2024 with history’s first sub-2:10, just a year after Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa’s first sub—2:12 in Berlin `23 (2:11:53).

Twice before, Chepngetich had come to Chicago with world record intentions. In 2022, she won the race in 2:14:18, just 14 seconds off Kosgei’s record. In 2023 she finished second in 2:15:37. On both occasions she flew through halfway under 66 minutes, only to falter in the second half. Perhaps she was a close reader of Malcolm X. 

“There is no better teacher than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.” – Malcolm x

In simple terms, making innovative strides in athletics requires time, experimentation, and reviewing, similar to how new scientific theories are examined before full acceptance. But women just haven’t been at the marathon game long enough to produce a large enough sample size to define their outer limits with any accuracy. They are barely two generations in since 1978. 

Men have been competing for a much longer time with a much larger sample size. 

Though Eliud Kipchoge surpassed the two-hour barrier in Vienna in 2019, that was accomplished as an exhibition, not a sanctioned race. In that sense, we are still awaiting the next barrier breaker on the men’s side in the Marathon. 

Looking back, England’s Jim Peters stands as the first modern barrier breaker with his 2:18:40 win at the 1953 Polytechnic Marathon between Windsor and Chiswick in West London, England, history’s first sub—2:20. 

Next was Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila, the legendary double Olympic victor in Rome 1960 and Tokyo 1964. His 2:15:17 in Rome still stands as the barefoot marathon world record. 

Next came Australia’s Derek Clayton, the first man under both 2:10 and 2:09. His 2:08:34 from Antwerp 1969 lasted for 12 years, holding off challenges throughout the entire Running Boom era headed by Americans Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers. 

Though never world record holders, the two Americans dominated the 1970s boom era, Shorter through the first half, Rodgers the second. 

The Eighties were the last decade of international marathon champions: American (Al Salazar, Greg Meyer); European (Steve Jones, Carlos Lopes); Japanese (Toshihiko Seko and the Soh brothers); and Australian (Rob de Castella). Kenya’s Joe Nzau won Chicago in 1983 in a thrilling duel with England’s Hugh Jones when Chi-town was still developing its reputation as a world class event. 

Ibrahim Hussein set new records in Honolulu and kick-started the Kenyan marathon revolution

The full East African deluge didn’t begin until 1987 and ‘88 when Kenya’s Ibrahim Hussein (already a two-time and soon to be three-time Honolulu Marathon champion) became Africa’s first New York City and Boston Marathon winner and Ethiopia’s Belayneh Dinsamo set the world record, 2:06:50, in Rotterdam 1988 that lasted over a decade. 

The list of marathon stars from other nations scaled back markedly in the 1990s. Mexico had its turn at the top via greats like Dionicio Cerón (1994-`96 London champion), and back-to-back New York Ciy winner German Silva (1994 & 1995). 

Moroccan-born American Khalid Khannouchi twice ran a world marathon record, first in Chicago 1999 (2:05:42), then three years later in London 2002 (2:05:38). And who could forget the personable Brazilian, Marílson Gomes dos Santos, who won New York City twice in 2006 & 2008, or Meb in NYC `09 and Boston 2014?? 

But the United Nations pickings get rather meager after that as East African athletes have had a stranglehold on the sport of marathoning, most dominatingly by Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge. His run of sustained excellence over 42.2 kilometers was, and is, unprecedented in its longevity, including double gold in Rio 2016 and London 2020. And his last world record of 2:01:09 in Berlin 2022.

Sadly, the current record holder, Kelvin Kiptum, died in a car accident in February 2024 after establishing the 2:00:35 world record in Chicago 2023.

With the 2024 TCS New York City Marathon scheduled this weekend, we don’t expect to see any record performances. Yet, all the above is why we follow the game, isn’t it, to witness the arc of improvement over time, while hoping to discover a new name to remember? It’s as valid a focus as any other in this life. 

And despite its many flaws and corruptions, the sport of marathoning retains an innate dignity that many endeavors do not. People may have bruised, battered, and tarnished it in the name of glory and money. But it survives, nonetheless, as a simple reflection of the human drive to achieve more in the quest to discover our best. 

Doesn’t always turn out that way, but I don’t think we are done with it quite yet. Onward! 

Daniel Mateiko, Nicholas Kimeli, and Bernard Kibet will have the pressure to deliver Kenya's gold medal since Naftali Temu's exploits at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

The trio of Daniel Mateiko, Nicholas Kimeli and Bernard Kibet are tasked with a daunting task to reclaim Kenya’s 10,000m title once they toe the line at the Stade de France on Friday, August 2.

The men’s race starts at 10:20 p.m. East African Time with the trio taking on one of the strongest fields in history with the main aim to reclaim Naftali Temu’s title won at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

Kenyans have had a rough time of winning the gold medal following the emergence of Ethiopians and Ugandans who have dominated the race. Kenenisa Bekele, Mo Farah, Joshua Cheptegei have dominated the global stage with Bekele and Farah winning two titles each.

Selemon Barega won the title at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games with Cheptegei and Jacob Kiplimo taking second and third place respectively.

Mateiko made headlines, winning the Prefontaine Classic to secure his slot to the Olympic Games with Kimeli and Kibet finishing second and third respectively. The trio has the much-needed confidence to impress following their training sessions that have been extensive so far.

Mateiko and Kimeli train with Eliud Kipchoge and they certainly draw inspiration from the two-time Olympic champion who will also be chasing his third Olympic title.

However, they will not have an easy task in title reclamation as they go up against very strong opponents. Defending champion Barega will be out to defend his Olympic gold with Cheptegei also in the mix.

Being the world record holder and a three-time world champion, Cheptegei will going for the only title missing in his decorated CV. The Ethiopians have fielded their best, with world leader Yomif Kejelcha and Berihu Aregawi also in the mix. Paris marks the first Olympics for Kejelcha who will have the pressure on him after the world lead.

Cheptegei has raced sparingly, making it difficult to gauge his shape. He will be competing for the first time since end of May when he finished ninth in the 5000m at the Diamond League Meeting in Oslo.

The American duo Grant Fisher and Nico Young have also been entered and they will also be chasing history for the US. Young will b debuting at the Olympics and the race will just be his third 10,000m race on a track.

On his part, Fisher has great experience racing on the global stage and after finishing fifth at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, he will be out to improve on that.

Timothy Cheruiyot has disclosed what he needs to work on after his second-place finish behind Jakob Ingebrigtsen at the Diamond League Meeting in Monaco.

Olympic 1500m silver medallist Timothy Cheruiyot has disclosed the one thing he needs to work on before descending on the purple track at the Stade de France for the men’s 1500m at the Paris Olympic Games.

Cheruiyot has battled injuries in the past seasons but he has slowly been bouncing back and this season has been steady on him. He qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympics at the Kenyan Olympic trials, finishing third in 3:35.90.

The 28-year-old, after finishing second at the Diamond League Meeting in Monaco, noted that he has to work on his speed endurance if he has to silence his serial rival Jakob Ingebrigtsen.

The Norwegian clocked a stunning 3:26.73 to join the club of legends with a win as Cheruiyot was forced to finish second in 3:28.71. Africa 1500m champion Brian Komen sealed the podium in 3:28.80.

The 2019 world champion was happy to be peaking at the right time, expressing his elation towards the time posted, just less than a month before the Olympic Games.

“The race was good, I am happy about my time and my position. The 1500m nowadays is a very competitive race with a lot of young guys coming up fast," Cheruiyot said in a post-race interview.

“So I am proud because I am peaking myself towards the Olympics. I need to work harder to keep up. I know that I can come back strong. I especially need to work on my speed endurance.”

In the 1500m, Cheruiyot opened his season with a second-place finish at the Diamond League Meeting in Doha before finishing fourth at the National Championships, clocking 3:40.23 to cross the finish line.

Cheruiyot also finished second behind Ingebrigtsen at the Diamond League Meeting in Oslo before the Olympic trials where he finished third. As he heads to the Paris Olympic Games, Cheruiyot hopes to improve on his silver medal won at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

When Ingrid Kristiansen lined up for the 5000m at the 1984 Bislett Games, she was known as the former international cross country skier who had just become Europe’s fastest ever woman in the marathon.

It was only six weeks previously that the 28-year-old mother from the Viking stronghold of Trondheim had made her major breakthrough in athletics, storming through halfway in the London Marathon in a blistering 1:10:52 en route to a winning time of 2:24:26.

In the process, Kristiansen first peeped out of the considerable shadow of the great Grete Waitz as another formidable Norse to be reckoned with on the global running stage.

The London run elevated her to second spot on the world all-time list, behind the 2:22:43 recorded by Joan Benoit of the US in Boston the previous year, but ahead of Waitz’s Norwegian and European record of 2:25:28.7.

It was only fitting that the burgeoning Kristiansen should claim her first world mark on home ground, in the heart of Norway’s capital city on the hallowed Bislett Stadium track.

That was 40 years ago, on the evening of 28 June 1984.

‘Dead tired… pushed on by the cheers of the crowd’

The official world record for the women’s 5000m stood at 15:08.26 – to Mary Decker, or Mary Tabb as she had been when she set the figures on home ground at the 1982 edition of the Pre Classic.

In Apartheid South Africa on 5 January 1984 – and therefore ineligible for recognition – the barefoot Springbok wunderkind Zola Budd had run 15:01.83 in Stellenbosch. By June of the same year, Budd had already become a British citizen and was on her way to being rubber-stamped in the British team for the Los Angeles Olympics.

That night in Oslo, though, Kristiansen’s only rival was the Bislett Stadium clock.

After following Maggie Keyes of the USA through 1000m in 3:02.0, Kristiansen surged clear of the field, reeling off laps of 70-72 seconds.

Passing 3000m in 8:59.8, Kristiansen finished with the flourish of a 68.4 final lap before crossing the line in 14:58.89.

Off marathon training of 170-180km a week, she had become the first woman in history to beat 15 minutes for 5000m.

“I was dead tired during the last two laps but I was pushed on by the cheers of the crowd,” she confessed.

Aurora Cunha, the future three-time world road race champion from Portugal, finished a distant runner up in 15:09.07, followed by Briton Angela Tooby (15:22.50).

Back in sixth was Portugal’s European marathon champion Rosa Mota (15:30.63) – followed by Tooby’s twin sister, Susan (15:44.58), future mother of 2022 world 1500m champion Jake Wightman.

Holding a distance world record triple

Kristiansen was to go quicker over 12.5 laps. At London’s Crystal Palace in 1985, she clocked 14:57.43 but lost the world record to Budd, a clear winner in 14:48.07.

In Stockholm in 1986, however, Kristiansen reclaimed the record with a stunning 14:37.33.

That year she was at her zenith on the track, improving her own 10,000m world record by almost 46 seconds with a 30:13:74 run at Bislett.

Kristiansen was the first runner in history to simultaneously hold world records for 5000m, 10,000m and the marathon.

Returning to the London Marathon in 1985, she brought the women’s 2:20 barrier into sight with a 2:21:06 triumph that stood as a world record for 13 years.

Kristiansen also became the first athlete to claim world titles on the track, on the road and over cross country. Twice a winner of the 15km world road race championship, she won the world 10,000m title on the track in Rome in 1987 and the world cross country crown in Auckland in 1988.

Big heart and big lungs

Many attributed Kristiansen’s phenomenal success to the physiological benefits she had gained from giving birth to her first son, Gaute, in 1983. She felt it was more the edge she had gained from years of competitive cross-country skiing.

“I think it came from my cross-country skiing career,” she asserted. “It gave me a big heart and big lungs, and when I got my legs trained for running I was maybe a little bit ahead of the other runners at the time.”

As a cross-country skiing prodigy, Kristiansen won the European junior title in 1974, was selected as a reserve for the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck in 1976, and finished 15th in the World Championships 20km race in 1978.

She decided to concentrate on competitive skiing for several years after making the Norwegian team for the 1971 European Athletics Championships as a 15-year-old 1500m runner, Ingrid Christensen. But she got bumped off the track in her heat in Helsinki and failed to finish the race.

Her roommate in the Finnish capital was a 17-year-old called Grete Andersen, who finished eighth in the other 1500m heat, missing the cut for the final.

She also made a name for herself in future years: as Grete Waitz, the first of Norway’s barrier-breaking distance-running duo.

Paavo Nurmi was the first and Said Aouita is currently the last man to have held the 1500m and 5000m world records at the same time*.

When Aouita achieved the feat, in the European summer of 1985, there were 27 days between the Moroccan’s 13:00.40 clocking for the longer distance in Oslo and his 3:29.46 metric mile in Nice.

When Nurmi became the first to accomplish this rare world record double, in Helsinki 100 years ago, the interval was a mere 65 minutes and 35.6 seconds.

That was the precise gap between ‘Peerless Paavo’ crossing the finish line in the picturesque sylvan setting of the Elaintarha Zoological Gardens Sports Ground in the 1500m and then the 5000m on the momentous evening of 19 June 1924.

It’s a measure of how huge a phenomenon the enigmatic Nurmi happened to be.

It’s the distance running equivalent of Jesse Owens’ Day of Days, when the great man notched four world records – six, with metric equivalents – in the space of 45 minutes at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1935.

Olympic dress rehearsal

The gap between the start times of Nurmi’s two races at Elaintarha in 1924 was actually 55 minutes; the 1500m set off at 7:05pm and the 5000m at 8:00pm. This was to replicate the schedule for the finals of each event at the Olympic Games in Paris the following month.

Nurmi proceeded to emerge victorious from both events in the pressure cooker of Stade Colombes in Olympic record times. He then claimed three more golds, with individual and team cross country victories and success in the 3000m team race.

To coincide with the 2024 Olympics in the French capital and the centenary of the 1924 Games in Paris, with the assistance of World Athletics Heritage, Nurmi’s record Olympic track and field haul of five golds from a single Games is on display in an exhibition entitled D’or, d’argent, de bronze - une histoire de la medaille Olympique at the museum of the Monnaie de Paris on the left bank of the Seine.

The Phantom Finn

Meanwhile, the land of perhaps the most ardent track and field followers can celebrate the anniversary of the first of the supreme Flying Finn’s finest hours: Nurmi’s wondrous world record double amid the birch and pine trees of the Elaintarha Sports Ground.

At that time, six days past his 27th birthday, Nurmi had established himself as the planet’s preeminent distance runner, having assumed the mantle from his boyhood hero, Hannes Kolehmainen, who completed a hattrick of Olympic golds in 1912, at 5000m, 10,000m and cross country.

Whereas the affable Kolehmainen was regarded as the smiling Suomi star of the Stockholm Olympics, the taciturn Nurmi was seen as the unsmiling Finnish crown prince of distance running.

He had endured a tough upbringing in the south-west of the country, leaving school at the age of 12 after his father died to haul goods up the steep slope to Turku railway station as a delivery boy. He used the trams of Turku as his pacemakers, and walked and ran for hours in the surrounding forests.

“Nurmi was enigmatic, sphinx-like, a god in a cloud,” wrote Norman Harris and Ron Clarke in The Lonely Breed. “He was stern and silent, with uncompromising self-discipline and white-hot ambition, bearing the closest possible resemblance in athletics to Napoleon Bonaparte.”

By 1924, the ‘Phantom Finn,’ as the Greta Garbo of the track was dubbed by the press, had claimed three of his nine Olympic gold medals and set six of his 22 world records. At the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, he succeeded Kolehmainen as 10,000m champion – his ageing idol stepping up in distance to win the marathon – and also won individual and team cross country golds.

“The injury was a bad thing”

When the punishing timetable for Paris was published, the Finnish athletics authorities chose the US-based Ville Ritola as their main man for the 10,000m and omitted Nurmi. The reigning champion requested a place but was asked to run behind Ritola for second place, to save himself for the 1500m and 5000m.

When Nurmi refused, he was offered a slot in the 800m instead. He declined that offer too.

Amid the controversy, Nurmi injured a knee when slipping on ice in a 7km cross country race. He had to rest for two weeks, then walk with his leg straight for several more weeks, pummelling away on a boxing punchbag to maintain some fitness.

Rumours spread that he might not be fit for Paris but, at his insistence, the 1500m and 5000m races were arranged with an hour of each other at Elaintarha. Nurmi wanted to show that he was ready for the mighty challenge in the French capital.

First came the 1500m. The world record stood at 3:54.7, set by Swede John Sander in 1917, though Nurmi had run quicker (3:53.0) en route to his mile record of 4:10.4 in Stockholm in 1923.

It was Nurmi’s want to burn off the opposition with a fast opening lap and he set off with a split of 57.3 on his way to an undisputed world record time of 3:52.6.

There were no signs of fatigue in the 5000m. Nurmi opened with a lap of 65.0 and closed with 62.7. His finishing time was 14:28.2 – a staggering 7.2 seconds inside the global mark he had set in Stockholm two years previously.

“He seemed to be venting anger stored up from the injury,” wrote Harris and Clarke, who knew a thing or two about world record breaking.

It was put to Nurmi that the injury had been a blessing in disguise, that the enforced rest had done him good. “No, not at all,” he angrily replied. “The injury was a bad thing.”

It was a bad thing for Nurmi’s rivals that he arrived in Paris fully recovered and fully firing. Nothing could stop the Phantom Finn from ghosting into the Olympic record books.

The Norwegian completed the double in Rome after victory in the 5,000m and will resume his rivalry with world champion Kerr at the Paris Olympics in one of the sport’s most gripping rivalries 

Norway's Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen won the 1,500 metres in Rome on Wednesday for a record sixth European Championship gold.

The 23-year-old charged down the final metres and was all by himself when he crossed the finish in 3:31.95, a championship record, to become the most decorated male athlete ever in the continental championship.

Belgian Jochem Vermeulen took the second spot on the podium in 3:33.30 while Italian Pietro Arese was third in 3:33.34.

"Today it's about winning. At the same time, I'm looking for answers in every single question I'm asked. Today I got a lot of good answers," he told a Norwegian broadcaster.

Ingebrigtsen is expected to form one of the most compelling rivalries of this year's Paris Olympics against Briton Josh Kerr, who denied him the gold in Budapest last year.

Ingebrigtsen hurled himself over the finish to win last month's Oslo Diamond League meet, after finishing second to Kerr over the mile race days earlier at the Prefontaine Classic.

Former world 1500m champion Timothy Cheruiyot has opened up on his struggles with injuries and his comeback plan to the top of the men's 1500m.

Olympic silver medallist Timothy Cheruiyot has opened up about his injury bout that saw him struggle to produce great results since the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

Cheruiyot, a former world champion, explained that he had been through a tough time with his injury and explained that he had a torn knee which cost him a lot in terms of training and performing well.

He was a favourite at the 2022 World Championships but failed to live up to the billing, finishing sixth in the final of the 1500m before proceeding to a second-place finish at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Last season, Cheruiyot had a bitter exit from the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, where he was eliminated in the semifinal of the race. He explained that the injury has been a nightmare to him but appreciated his management and coach Bernard Ouma for walking with him during the difficult period.

“It was a bit hard because sometimes when an athlete has an injury, it’s a bit of a problem but for me, I thank my management and my coach for coming together and finding a good physiotherapist and a great rehab.

“At the moment I’m very happy to be back…it was hard because I had a torn knee and I’m happy to have come back and I’m training well now,” Cheruiyot said.

This season, the 28-year-old has been in great shape, and has competed in Diamond League Meetings and local races as he eyes the Olympic trials.

He was in action at the Diamond League Meeting in Doha, finishing second behind Brian Komen before almost upsetting Jakob Ingebrigtsen on home soil, at the Diamond League Meeting in Oslo.

Cheruiyot was also in action at the trials for the Africa Senior Athletics Championships, where he doubled in the 800m and 1500m and finished third and fifth respectively.

He has assured his fans of being fully back and will be keen to go back and take his rightful position as one of the greatest 1500m runners the world has ever known.

Timothy Cheruiyot has explained why he loves running against his track rivals, singling out Jakob Ingebrigtsen as one of his favourite.

Former world 1500m champion Timothy Cheruiyot has opened up for his love competing against track rival Jakob Ingebrigtsen.

Cheruiyot and Ingebrigtsen were in action at the Diamond League Meeting in Oslo, where they went head-to-head to the finish line with the Norwegian middle-distance runner dramatically diving over the line to take the top prize.

The two-time world 5000m champion crossed the line in a world leading time of 3:29.74 ahead of Cheruiyot who came in close second in 3:29.77. Frenchman Azeddine Habz sealed the podium, clocking an astonishing season best time of 3:30.80 to cross the finish line.

Cheruiyot, the Olympic Games silver medallist, noted that he loves competing against talented athletes like Ingebrigtsen who usually push him to the limit. Going into Oslo, Cheruiyot had high expectations to win the race but expressed satisfaction with his second-place finish.

He has been out with an injury bout but is slowly coming back to competing and will certainly be a force to reckon with.

“Racing with my compatriot, Jakob - it makes me happy, he's a strong guy and he finished fast today. I'm glad to be here in Oslo for the second time, the track is amazing.

“I was expecting the win but I'm satisfied I managed to run under 3:30 today. Now, I'm going home to prepare for the Kenyan trials - I need to finish in the top three.

“For the last nine months, I've been injured so I need to focus on training more to improve my fitness ahead of Paris, where I hope to get another medal for my country,” Cheruiyot said.

He opened his season with a second-place finish at the Diamond League Meeting in Doha before doubling in the 1500m and 800m at the National Championships.

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Hagos Gebrhiwet of Ethiopia ran the second-fastest 5,000 meters of all time in winning at the Diamond League meeting in Oslo on Thursday.

Gebrhiwet ran a final lap of 54.99 to finish in 12 minutes, 36.73 seconds — 1.37 seconds off the world record set by Olympic champion Joshua Cheptegei.

 Gebrhiwet's time is not only the second fastest time ever it was also a new national record for Ethiopia. New personal bests for the top eight finishers and new National records for Guatemala, Switzerland, Sweden, France and South Africa!

Also at the Bislett Games, home favorite Jakob Ingebrigtsen dived for the line to win the men's 1,500 just ahead of Timothy Cheruiyot in a world-leading 3 minutes, 29.74 seconds.

More details: Hagos Gebrhiwet produced the standout performance of the Bislett Games – and one of the biggest surprises of the year so far – when winning the men’s 5000m in 12:36.73 at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Oslo on Thursday (30).

It was one of three meeting records and five world leads set on an enthralling night of athletics action in the Norwegian capital, just two months away from the Paris Olympic Games.

Going into the men’s 5000m, many eyes were on world record-holder and Olympic champion Joshua Cheptegei, two-time world cross-country champion Jacob Kiplimo and last year’s Bislett Games winner Yomif Kejelcha. But Gebrhiwet – who produced the first sub-13-minute run of his career on this track as a teenager back in 2012 – ensured his name won’t be forgotten in the lead-up to the Olympics.

The early pace was strong but not spectacular as the field was paced through the first 1000m in 2:33.13 and 2000m in 5:07.05. Addisu Yihune maintained that tempo through 3000m, reached in 7:41.05, with all the big contenders still in contention.

Kejelcha took control soon after and started to wind up the pace. Gebrhiwet stayed close to his fellow Ethiopian with Ugandan duo Kiplimo and Cheptegei close behind as 4000m was reached in 10:11.86, the previous kilometre being covered in 2:30.

Cheptegei was unable to hold on for much longer and started to drift back. Kejelcha continued to drive the pace but the challenge from Gebrhiwet and Kiplimo wasn’t fading, despite the increase in pace. Gebrhiwet struck as the bell sounded and moved into the lead, kicking past his compatriot and pulling away with each stride.

With a final lap of 54.99, Gebrhiwet charged through the line in 12:36.73 to win by more than two seconds from Kejelcha (12.38.95) – the first time in history that two men have broken 12:40 in the same race.

Gebrhiwet’s winning time is just 1.37 seconds shy of the world record Cheptegei set in 2020 and moves him to second on the world all-time list, one place ahead of Kenenisa Bekele, whose Ethiopian record Gebrhiwet broke.

Kiplimo held on for third, setting a PB of 12:40.96, while Spain’s Thierry Ndikumwenayo (12:48.10) and Yihune (12:49.65) also finished inside 12:50.

It was just the second time in history that 13 men have broken 13 minutes. Along with Gebrhiwet, there were national records for Guatemala’s Luis Grijalva (12:50.58), Switzerland’s Dominic Lokinyomo Lobalu (12:50.90), Sweden’s Andreas Almgren (12:50.94), France’s Jimmy Gressier (12:54.97) and South Africa’s Adriaan Wildschutt (12:56.67).

“I’m really happy with my time,” said Gebrhiwet, the world road 5km champion. “I set a PB when I first ran in Oslo, and now it’s even better. The conditions and the crowd were great. It was a very fast race and it wasn’t easy for me, but it went very well. I’ll now try to qualify for the Olympics in the 10,000m too.”

There were notable performances in two other endurance events in Oslo.

Australia’s Georgia Griffith continued her breakthrough to win the 3000m in an Oceanian record of 8:24.20. The field had been paced through 1000m in 2:50.34, then that pace was maintained through 2000m in 5:40.73.

The field became more strung out over the final kilometre as the pace increased. Griffith made a break in the closing stages and Ethiopia’s Likina Amebaw tried to come back, but her challenge was in vain as the Australian won in a meeting record of 8:24.20, 0.09 ahead of Amebaw in a race where the top six women finished inside 8:30.

In the closing event of the night, Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen was made to dive for the line to ensure a home victory for the Norwegian fans.

He controlled the pace in the second half, but still had 2019 world champion Timothy Cheruiyot for company on the final lap. The Kenyan challenged the Norwegian down the home straight and appeared to have timed his kick to perfection, but Ingebrigtsen collapsed over the line to get the verdict in a world-leading 3:29.74, 0.03 ahead of Cheruiyot. The first 11 finishers all set either season’s or personal bests.

Former world 1500m champion Timothy Cheruiyot has opened up on his comeback strategy after injuries almost threatened to end his career.

Olympic 1500m silver medalist Timothy Cheruiyot is slowly gaining his confidence as he outlines his comeback plan to where he feels he rightfully belongs, the top.

Cheruiyot suffered an injury bout that cost him since 2022 where he failed to defend his world title at the Oregon World Championships and also faltered at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

The former world champion is now plotting a great comeback and he has already started competing after his exit from the World Championships in Budapest.

He opened his season with a second-place finish at the Diamond League Meeting in Doha before doubling in the 1500m and 800m at the National Championships.

He now heads to the Diamond League Meeting in Oslo, where he will be up against a strong field, but he can’t be downplayed since he is also an able athlete.

Cheruiyot also disclosed that his main focus is on the Olympic trials where he intends to shine and go to Paris to improve his silver medal from the delayed 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games.

“I feel good…the races were good and I was well prepared. I decided to do two races, the 800m and 1500m, and it was really good because we are focusing ahead,” he said.

“I feel so great because last year I was having an injury but now I’m getting better. For now, I’m focusing on the Diamond League races and then the trials,” he said.

The Olympic silver medalist also noted that at the Diamond League Meeting in Doha, his body was about 85 per cent and fired warning shots at his opponents.

“At the Diamond League Meeting in Doha, my body was about 85 per cent because that was my first race after nine months, since Budapest. So, it was about gaining confidence and now, I’m ready to go. The confidence is coming back,” he added.

After a record-setting 2023 season, it has been a quiet year (so far) for Norwegian distance star Jakob Ingebrigtsen. The 24-year-old has been sidelined with an Achilles injury, which will keep him out of next month’s World Indoor Championships in Scotland and World XC in Serbia.

In an exclusive interview with Norwegian broadcaster NRK, Ingebrigtsen remained confident that he would be good to go for the summer track season. “Plan A is to start the season in Eugene [Diamond League, on May 25], run Bislett Games [Oslo Diamond League] on May 30, and the European Championships in Rome after that [June 7],” said Ingebrigtsen. “I think that will work well this year. And then full focus on the Olympics after that, so most likely a good season in the late summer.”

Last year was one of the most dominant seasons of Ingebrigtsen’s young career; he set world bests over two miles and 2,000m and clocked the second-fastest mile time in history (3:43.73) at the 2023 Diamond League Final in Eugene. He also went through a lot off the track, marrying his longtime partner Elisabeth Asserson and having a public falling out with his former coach and estranged father, Gjert Ingebrigtsen.

Ingebrigtsen told NRK that he took some time off from running during his wedding and honeymoon in the Maldives, and when he tried to start training again, the challenges began. “I got sick during the break,” said Ingebrigtsen. “When I started training again, it hurt like hell, then the Achilles tendon snapped.” He believes the problem occurred from inflammation around the Achilles tendon on his right foot.

He also admitted in the interview that he was struggling with pelvic pain before the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, where he defended his world title in the 5,000m and took silver to Great Britain’s Josh Kerr in the men’s 1,500m, losing to a British middle-distance runner for the second year in a row (Jake Wightman, 2022 worlds).

Ingebrigtsen said he is still motivated by his loss to Kerr and is trying to use it as a lesson: “It is again very important to try to analyze what you have done, or what you have been through, to see that it is not necessarily to blame, but what you can perhaps do differently. And I’m a big fan of that.”

Kerr and Ingebrigtsen have been public about their dislike of one another. After Kerr won the world title in Budapest, Ingebrigtsen called the Scottish runner “just the next guy.” In a podcast, Kerr responded by saying that Jakob has “major weaknesses” and “surrounds himself with yes men.” On the prospect of another duel in Paris, Kerr said: “I just hope he’s ready to go. I hope that when we cross that finish line in Paris, everyone can shake each other’s hand and be like, “Whoever wins is good, they’re the best.”

With Ingebrigtsen currently training on the elliptical and water running, fans will be denied a potential early clash between the world and Olympic 1,500m champion at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow in March. Kerr hopes for glory on home soil, competing in a major championship in his home country for the first time.

World Under 20 gold medalist Emmanuel Wanyonyi has been nominated as a Rising Star by the World Athletics.

The three categories of achievements he has been slotted for include World Championships 800m silver medalist, Diamond League champion and winner in Rabat, Paris and Xiamen World cross country mixed relay champion.

In recognition of the achievements, World Athletics acknowledged;

“The nominations reflect some of the standout performances that the sport has witnessed this year, at the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23, World Athletics Cross Country Championships Bathurst 23, one-day meeting circuits and other events around the world.”

Wanyonyi, boasts of a personal best of 1:43:27 he clocked 1:44:53 and finished behind Marco Arop of Canada silver in Budapest.

Subsequently, he kicked off his Diamond League campaign with a victory in Rabat, Morocco at the end of May, followed by another triumph in Paris, France in early June.

In February, the young athlete commenced the year with a gold medal victory in mixed relays at the 2023 World Cross-Country Championships held in Bathurst, Australia. In May, he successfully defended his Kip Keino Classic title in Nairobi.

The middle-distance runner also ran a new Championship Record of 1:43.76, cruising to victory in the men’s 800m at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships in 2021 at Moi Sports Center Kasarani.

Back home, the 19-year-old is among the over 3.5milion Form Four candidates sitting for the Kenya National Examination Council (KCSE) examinations. He has undertaken the finals at Kosirai Secondary School in Nandi County.

The two others nominated under the same category are Jamaica’s Roshawn Clarke for World Championships 400m hurdles fourth place, equaled and then broke the world U20 record with 47.85 in Kingston and 47.34 in Budapest and Jamaican champion and CARIFTA Games U20 champion.

Erriyon Knighton from the USA for World Championships 200m silver medalist, US champion and Winner of Diamond League races in Florence and Oslo.

An international panel of experts will select the 2023 Men's Rising Star Award winner, and the announcement will be made on World Athletics' platforms on December 11th.

Lilian Kasait has given a candid assessment of her season after completing her doping ban in February.

Lilian Kasait is one of the few athletes who bounced back after a doping ban threatened her career and she has come out to give an assessment of her 2023 season.

According to reports by BBC, the Kenyan runner was banned for 10 months for the use of the hormone therapy drug Letrozole.

The former world Under-18 3,000m champion had her results annulled on January 20, 2022, the day she provided her positive sample. Her suspension ran from April 2022 to February 2023 after admitting to her guilt.

Speaking to Nation Sport after ending her season at the World Road Running Championships, Kasait expressed her delight to have made a comeback and ended her season on a high. She bagged a silver medal at the global showpiece where she was debuting.

“I’m very happy because I’ve ended my season with a medal. The road race was my first and I just went there hoping for the best,” she said.

Kasait opened her season with a fourth-place finish at the Kip Keino Classic before proceeding to reign supreme in the 1500m and 5000m at the Kenya Prisons Championships.

She then began her Diamond League Trophy campaign at the Meeting in Paris where she finished fourth in the 5000m before heading to the Meeting in Oslo where she competed in the 3000m and finished second.

The former All Africa Games champion then jetted back to the country for the National Championships and World Championships National Trials. She secured a ticket to the global show in the Hungarian capital and managed to finish 10th.

She soothed her World Championships heartbreak with a win at the Diamond League Meeting in Brussels before closing her track season at the Prefontaine Classic with a fourth-place finish.

All the digital training data in the world may not tell you whether your workout was any good

The next frontier in training science, currently being debated in publications like the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, sounds like it was torn from the pages of Robert Pirsig’s 1974 road novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig’s narrator is obsessed to the point of madness with the seemingly intractable question of how we know what is good. “Some things are better than others,” he proclaims, “that is, they have more quality.” That’s true of training, too, according to Norwegian sports scientist Thomas Haugen: some workouts are better than others, in ways that aren’t necessarily indicated by stats like pace, power, heart rate, and cadence.

Earlier this year, Haugen, a professor at Kristiania University College in Oslo, published a paper with colleagues attempting to transform this observation into a more concrete definition of training quality—and suggesting ways that athletes and coaches can improve it. It’s a riddle Haugen has been contemplating since the 1990s, when he was a sprinter and an assistant coach with legendary sprint guru Leif Olav Alnes, who currently coaches Karsten Warholm, the world record holder in the 400-meter hurdles. “One of the things I observed was that all other sprint groups in Norway tried to copy our training program, without achieving the same progress and success,” Haugen says. “That made me realize that the training program itself was of limited importance.”

What does it mean, then, when you complete a training session feeling that it was a great—or at least high-quality—workout? The easy answer is that you went faster, lifted heavier, or felt less effortful than you had in comparable workouts. But that’s a trap. Hammering your workouts at the wrong time can blow up a season and torpedo your competitive goals. When Australian researchers interviewed elite swimmers to understand how they viewed training quality, their answers were more nuanced. A common theme, in the words of one of the study’s participants, was “whether you’re hitting the times you’re supposed to be hitting”—that is, not necessarily going faster, but nailing the intended pace.

The swimmers also emphasized less quantifiable quality benchmarks like “feeling my stroke” and “feeling determined and driven.” On that basis, the researchers, led by Stephanie Shell of the Australian Institute of Sport, proposed a Subjective Training Quality scale that asks athletes to rate, from one to ten, their agreement with three statements: I met my physical training objectives in this session; I met my technical training objectives in this session; and I was mentally and emotionally engaged in this session. The STQ, Shell and her colleagues suggest, could be incorporated into training logs alongside conventional metrics like pace and subjective effort, offering a reminder of how well you’re doing at following your workout plan.

There’s a gap in the STQ, though, as Haugen and his colleagues point out. What if you do an amazing job of following your plan, but your plan is bad? Part of high-quality training is having workouts that are well chosen for a given athlete at a given time working toward a given goal. And even with a good plan, rigidly observing it doesn’t always make sense. “Based on how you felt today, was the easy long run slightly too fast?” Haugen asks. “Or, if you felt really good on the intervals, why didn’t you add two or three more to the session?”

In their paper, Haugen and his colleagues define training quality as “the degree of excellence related to how the training process or training sessions are executed to optimize adaptations and/or improve overall performance.” It’s hard to argue with so general a definition, but it’s also tricky to figure out how to make practical use of it. How do I assess whether this morning’s fartlek was very good, very bad, or somewhere in between for my overall performance in a race a few months from now?

Haugen’s practical advice focuses on three key windows. Before a workout, you should be clear about the purpose of the session; make sure you’re properly fueled, hydrated, and equipped; and get yourself in the right head space. During the workout, you need to monitor how well you’re adhering to your goals, whether with a smartwatch or by tracking subjective effort; make adjustments based on how you’re feeling; and stay focused, fueled, and hydrated. After the workout, you need to recover well and—perhaps most crucially—debrief and assess how the workout went in relation to your goals. “The best practitioners have established a culture of continuous learning,” Haugen and his coauthors write.

The great cliché of the Strava age, borrowed from corporate management gurus, is that what gets measured gets managed. But even the business world knows that isn’t the full story. Management writer Simon Caulkin suggests a qualification: “even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it.” Much of the fire hose of training data that our wearables collect could be said to fall into this category. But the broadest definitions of training quality land at the opposite end of the spectrum, so vague and generic in their guidance that they risk being ignored. To manage training quality, or at least keep it on our radar, maybe we do need something to measure.

A useful option is the STQ; a simpler one is the intention-execution gap: How close did you come to doing what you meant to do in the workout? You could quantify this with average pace, power, or heart rate. But the easiest and most generalizable option is your subjective perception of effort. How hard, on a ten-point scale, is the workout supposed to be? And how hard did you actually push? This approach works whether you’re in the gym or on the bike, out for hours or crushing short intervals. It adjusts for whether you’re feeling better or worse than expected. It gives you a quick and easily understandable metric for whether you pushed yourself to the degree your training plan called for. And if you start noticing a pattern of big misses, it tells you that you’ve got a problem.

Haugen recognizes the benefit of tracking some quantifiable quality metrics. But that is just part of the story, he says. The core of training quality is, well, qualitative. “This involves a strong sense of ownership of the training process, motivation, dedication, determination, and training intelligence,” he says. These are the characteristics that athletes and coaches spend a career or perhaps a lifetime pursuing, and they don’t lend themselves to checklists and shortcuts. But they matter. Training quantity is nothing without training quality—and for now, the best way to improve quality might be to keep arguing about what it means. After all, as Robert Pirsig pointed out, “If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn’t exist.”

Between setting world records, winning Diamond League titles and even taking on beer miles, Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway has had a September to remember. On Sept. 23, he added another milestone to his life by marrying his partner of seven years, Elisabeth Asserson, in their native Norway.

Asserson and Ingebrigtsen’s love story began when they were just 16, and Ingebrigtsen popped the question in 2021. Their wedding had an American-style flair, featuring 10 attendants, with Ingebrigtsen’s brothers Henrik, Filip and Kristoffer proudly serving as groomsmen.

The wedding took place at the Bragernes Church in Drammen, Norway, which is quite a distance from Ingebrigtsen’s hometown of Sandnes, which is approximately 400 km away. Asserson had a connection to the church, as one of her grandmothers hailed from Drammen, which is a short distance from Oslo.

The guest list was extensive and reportedly included several of Ingebrigten’s competitors and friends. However, one notable absence was his former coach and father, Gjert Ingebrigtsen.

According to the Norwegian magazine Se og Hør, Gjert was not in attendance and posted a cryptic photo on his Instagram on the wedding day, bearing the message: “You must not endure so much the injustice that does not befall yourself.”

As Ingebrigtsen takes a break from training, the newly married couple plans to celebrate with a honeymoon in the Maldives. Whether Ingebrigtsen will incorporate sand sprints and swim training into his honeymoon activities remains to be seen.

On the first day of the USATF Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Ore., U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson made a triumphant comeback, leaving spectators in awe as she blazed to a 100m world lead. Richardson set a new personal best and the fastest women’s 100m time of the year, clocking an impressive 10.71 seconds (+0.1 m/s).

During the heats of the women’s 100m on Thursday evening, Richardson delivered an outstanding performance, winning the first heat and securing her spot in Friday’s semi-finals. Her time not only surpassed her competitors by a significant margin but exceeded the previous world-leading time of 10.75 seconds set by Marie-Josee Ta Lou of Ivory Coast at the Oslo Diamond League just a month ago.

Richardson’s achievement was even more remarkable as she improved her best by one-tenth of a second from her previous record of 10.72 seconds, set in 2021 at the Miramar Invitational in Florida. Her new personal best now ranks as the sixth-fastest 100m time in history and the fourth-fastest ever by an American woman.

As anticipation grows, Richardson advances to the 100m semi-finals and ultimately aims for a spot in the final, scheduled for Friday evening. The stakes are high, as the top three U.S. sprinters in these races will earn the privilege to represent Team USA at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest next month. With her exceptional performance, Richardson is undoubtedly a strong contender for one of those positions.

Richardson’s journey hasn’t come without obstacles. Following her victory in the 100m at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials, she faced a ban and disqualification due to a positive cannabis test, causing her to miss the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In 2022, she also faced challenges, failing to reach the final in the 100m and 200m at the U.S. Championships and missing out on qualification for the 2022 Worlds team.

The 2023 USATF Track and Field Championships are taking place from July 6 to 9 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore

Double world record holder Faith Kipyegon is contemplating whether to compete in both the 1500m and 5000m at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, in August.

Kipyegon who holds the world records for the two distances said she is consulting widely before making a decision.

Speaking when she was named the LG/Sports Journalists Association of Kenya player of the month for June, Kipyegon said: "I will start my journey of defending my world title at the national trials this weekend."

"However, I am still consulting on whether I should double at the World Championships."

Kipyegon, a two-time Olympic champion over 1500m, said since she is qualified for Budapest after winning the world title in Oregon last year, she will compete in the 5000m race at the Athletics Kenya trials set for Friday and Saturday at the Nyayo Stadium.

This, she said, will also form part of her preaparations for the July 21 Monaco Diamond League.

At her training base at Global Sports Communication in Kaptagat, Uasin Gishu county, Kipyegon was crowned by the scribes after running two consecutive world records over 1500m and 5000m last month.

In Florence, Italy, on June 2, Kipyegon tore Genzebe Dibaba's record over 1500m with a new world mark of 3:49.11 over 1500m.

She was at it again in Paris a week later as she timed a new world record of 14:05.20 over 5000m.

“I’m so happy to be among the few athletes to win this award more than twice,” Kipyegon said.

“It's always good to see corporate entities acknowledge the good work of athletes. I am thankful to LG for their efforts to whip up the enthusiasm of sportsmen and women in this country. The win in Florence boosted my confidence levels and I feel I have to continue pushing for better track limits.”

She becomes the second athlete, after Angela Okutoyi, to win the SJAK award thrice. Kipyegon beat five other nominees among them Commonwealth Games champion Beatrice Chebet who produced a scintillating run to clinch the 3,000m title at the Oslo Diamond League in eight minutes, 25.01 seconds, which also counted as the latter's new personal best and world leading time.

Others were Carl Tundo and McRae Kimathi for their WRC2 and WRC3 finishes on the Safari Rally,  Moses Shumah for scoring Harambee Stars solitary goal at the Four Nations Tournament, Emma Wangila Nekesa for being the only African wrestler and Kenyan to have qualified for the World Beach Games in Indonesia.

Maureen Kemunto, LG East Africa Corporate Marketing and communication manager, said: “LG has been actively supporting the identification and recognition of sporting talent in Kenya through a partnership with SJAK."

"The purpose of this award is to recognise exceptional Kenyan sportsmen and women for their achievements across diverse disciplines each month and also to signify our commitment to contribute to the development of sport in the country."

SJAK President James Waindi congratulated Kipyegon and thanked LG for their continued support over the past eight years.

“With the monthly award, we are seeing a growing number of upcoming and talented sports personalities among them Angela Okutoyi who won the Wimbledon Open Junior category and won this award for a record three times, "said Waindi.

" Rewarding sportsmen and women is an important step towards whipping up the enthusiasm of sports personalities across all disciplines.”

The world cross country champion Beatrice Chebet has her eyes trained at setting a personal best and a podium finish in the 5000m race in world championships in Budapest, Hungary next month.

Chebet's sentiments come on the back of winning the Diamond League meet in Stockholm on Sunday where she cut the tape in a time of 14:36.52. 

"My main goal now is the new PB at 5000m, so maybe in London, if the conditions are good, I can try to do it. My body is in perfect shape so anything is possible,” said Chebet in a post-race interview.

The world silver medalist turned up the heat in the final lap beating the Ethiopian duo of world indoor 3000m champion Lemlem Hailu (14:38.06) and 18-year-old Medina Eisa (14:40.02) to second and third respectively.

This was the second consecutive Diamond League victory for Chebet following her 3000m triumph in Oslo, Norway on June 15.  

The 23-year-old said she was undeterred by the wet weather conditions at the Olympic Stadium.

‘The first thing was to get the win. The second was to fight the tough conditions. Yes, the weather was not really good but you need to run in any conditions. It was not easy to finish the race,” she added.

On the World Championships she said: "I am already thinking about Budapest where my main target is to get on the podium in my specialty."

Records are falling and times are dropping. Is it the shoes, or something else?

Consider the Paris Diamond League meet in early June. Jakob Ingebrigtsen smashed the two-mile world best by more than four seconds, becoming just the second man to run back-to-back sub-four-minute miles. Then Faith Kipyegon notched her second world record in a row, outsprinting the reigning record-holder over 5,000 meters just a week after becoming the first woman under 3:50 in the 1,500 meters. Then, to cap the night, Lamecha Girma took down the steeplechase record.

It was a great night—but it was just one of many great nights that track fans have been treated to recently. A week later, at the historic Bislett Games in Oslo, eight men broke 3:30 for 1,500 meters in one race, setting a new record—including Yared Nuguse, who set a new U.S. best. Meet records fell in almost every event. At the collegiate level, an analysis by Oregon-based coach Peter Thompson shows that the number of middle- and long-distance runners hitting elite benchmark times has doubled, tripled, or in some events even quadrupled in the last two years. Earlier in June, four high-school boys broke four minutes for the mile in a single race, matching the total number of people who’d done it in history prior to 2011.

I could go on.

There are two main questions that arise from this buffet of speed. First, is it real? Are runners getting faster across the board, or are we just being fooled by the brilliance of a few individuals and random fluctuations in the depth of different events? Second, if it’s really happening, then why? The easy answer is, “It’s gotta be the shoes” (or, in this case, the super spikes), but does the data really back that up?

I don’t have any definitive answers at this point, but here are my thoughts on some of the possible explanations.

It’s easy to make an anecdotal case that runners are faster than ever. Backing that up with data isn’t quite as straightforward. If you look only at whether the top-ranked time in the world is getting faster or slower from year to year, any trends will depend on whether you happen to have a generational athlete in the event at a given point in time. The effect of an Usain Bolt is bigger than the effect of, say, a new shoe design. Even if you go deeper, the top ten times in any year often come from just one or two races that took place in exceptionally good conditions. So you’re better off looking farther down the list.

For example, here’s some data for the men’s 1,500 meters between 2009 and 2022, drawn from the World Athletics database. I’ve shown the first, tenth, 100th, and 1,000th ranked performers (not performances) for each year. The horizontal dashed lines show the average for 2009 to 2018. The first super spike prototypes had shown up on the circuit by 2019 at latest, and were widely available by 2021. The big spike of slower times in 2020 is because there were so few races due to the pandemic.

The number-one times don’t show any particular trend. The tenth-best times show a dip since 2021, but no bigger than the dip in 2014-2015 (which corresponded to two particularly fast races in Monaco). For the 100th and 1,000th best times, the pre-pandemic data finally starts to look more consistent, which makes the dip since 2021 more telling. The 1,000th-best performer is now 0.9 percent faster than the pre-pandemic average, and the 100th-best is 0.5 percent faster. This is smaller than the 1.3-percent estimate derived from lab testing of super spikes, but in the ballpark.

Here’s comparable data for the women’s 5,000 meters:

Again, the first- and tenth-ranked times fluctuate too much to draw any conclusions. The 100th and 1,000th places do show an apparent drop in the last few years, by 1.9 and 2.0 percent respectively—more than the lab estimate. There are lots of possible explanations for this discrepancy, including that the benefits of super spikes are reduced at faster speeds.

I’ll add one more graph just for context. Supershoes came to road running way back in 2016 (for prototypes) and became widely available by 2018. I think most observers agree that these shoes really have affected road-running times. So what does the comparable data show for, say, men’s marathon times? Here it is:

The data is confounded by the effects of the pandemic, particularly in 2020. Still, the post-supershoe improvement looks fairly similar to the track data. Compared to the 2009 to 2016 average, last year’s times were 0.7 percent faster at tenth, 1.6 percent faster at 100th, and 1.3 percent faster at 1,000th.

The conclusion I take from all this data? It does like there’s something going on, both on the track and on the roads. But it’s way less obvious in the data than I expected. My subjective feeling was that the last few years have seen records broken and times redefined at a totally unprecedented rate. I thought I’d see robust improvement of at least three or four percent. But that scale of change is not there, at least in the events I sampled.

So with that in mind, what explains the changes we do see?

My starting assumption is that any performance improvements we’ve seen in the last few years are because of the shoes. I’m not going to belabor that point here, because I’ve already written plenty on both road supershoes and super spikes.

But I do want to make one key point. The reason my prime suspect is the shoes is that we have direct laboratory evidence that both types of shoes improve running economy, by around 2 percent on the track and at least 4 percent on the roads (and, to complete the circle, lab evidence that improved running economy directly translates to faster race times). It would take some weird and hitherto undiscovered science in order for the shoes not to make us faster. In contrast, the other hypotheses that I’m going to discuss below may be compelling to various degrees, but all rely on some assumptions and guesses and hand-waving.

Here’s a sentence you wouldn’t have read prior to 2018, from Letsrun’s description of Kipyegon’s thrilling 1,500 world record in Florence: “Kipyegon sprinted away from the pacing lights with 200m to go, lengthening her gap from the green lights as she rounded the turn and entered the home straightaway.” I wrote about World Athletics’s introduction of Wavelight pacing lights when Joshua Cheptegei set the 5,000-meter world record in 2020, positing that more even splits could make a notable difference to times. Good pacing has been a hallmark of this year’s records too, all assisted by Wavelight.

Wavelight doesn’t factor in on the roads, but ever since Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-two marathon exhibitions, big-time marathons have devoted more attention to providing top-notch pacers for their elite runners. That has the double benefit of saving the mental effort of setting the pace, and of reducing air resistance. I think good pacing and drafting are both beneficial. But that can’t explain why the 100th and 1,000th performers seem to be getting faster, because Wavelight and paid rabbits are generally reserved for the front of the pack.

Freed from the tyranny of over-frequent racing during lockdowns, runners spent 2020 building up a massive base of endurance that has catapulted them to new levels. It’s even possible that, having learned their lesson, they’ll continue with this more patient approach to training. This theory has the disadvantage of being both unprovable and unfalsifiable. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s untrue, but if performance levels don’t start regressing to their pre-pandemic means over the next few years, I’ll remain skeptical.

It’s the “big, sexy thing” in endurance training these days, as miler Hobbs Kessler put it in a recent interview: lactate-guided double-threshold training, as popularized by Norwegian Olympic champions Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Kristian Blummenfelt. As I explained in this article, the approach emphasizes high volumes of threshold training with very tight control on the intensity to avoid going too hard. Whether it’s objectively better than other training approaches remains to be seen—but it hasn’t yet been adopted widely enough to make a noticeable impact on the top-1,000 list.

In the past, when I’ve looked at broad trends in performance over time, one of the first factors I’ve considered is changes in drug availability or drug testing. It’s extremely noticeable (though of course not proof of anything) that long-distance track times took off like a rocket shortly after the introduction of EPO in the early 1990s. If you look carefully, you can find what seems to be the performance signature of various drug-related events like the introduction of EPO testing and, more recently, the implementation of athlete biological passports.

Is there something new on the scene over the last few years? Or are we still seeing the effects of pandemic-related disruptions in out-of-competition drug testing? I certainly hope it’s not the case, but you’d have to be amnesiac to discount the possibility entirely. Once again, the best counterargument is that the performance improvements are noticeable even at the 1,000th-best level—though perhaps I’m being naive.

As you can probably tell, I don’t think any of the alternative explanations I’ve offered so far hold water compared to my default assumption that it’s the shoes. But this last category is a little different. If you spend enough time arguing with people about why runners are getting faster, you’ll encounter a number of broad, hand-waving theories that are hard to substantiate but nonetheless sound reasonable.

For example, I can attest to the fact that the Internet has made training knowledge far more widely accessible than it was when I was a young athlete in the 1990s. Ideas and approaches (like the Norwegian model) are endlessly debated and dissected, and any student of the sport is exposed to multiple perspectives. (In contrast, when I arrived at university and found that the workouts were different from those I’d done in high school, I thought the world was ending.) This theory has been offered frequently over the last decade or more as an explanation for steadily improving U.S. high school times. Maybe it’s true more broadly: people everywhere simply know more about the principles of training, and are doing it better (or at least fewer people are doing really stupid training) compared to the past. Even if elite coaching was always pretty good, this creates a wider pyramid of prospective talent feeding into the elite coaches.

I also have the sense that the pendulum has swung away from sit-and-kick racing towards aggressive front-running. After the 2019 world championships, where super spikes first made headlines, I wrote an article about the unusually fast early paces of the races. Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the current king of the 1,500, is notable for running from the front and pushing the pace rather than relying on a finishing sprint—which likely helps explain why he led those seven other men under 3:30 in Oslo. If runners these days are more focused on running fast times rather than trying to win sprint finishes, it stands to reason that times would get faster overall.

And there are plenty of other theories out there—broader support for professional training groups, better nutrition and recovery, the inevitable march of progress, and some that I’ve undoubtedly missed completely. As I said at the top, I don’t know the answers, and I don’t think anyone else does either. Times do seem to be improving, but not as much as I would have guessed based on all the hype about recent record-breaking. The shoes almost certainly play some role—but if there’s some other secret sauce in there, it’ll be fun trying to figure out what it is.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Lamecha Girma both made history earlier this month in Paris, where they set a world two-mile best and a world 3000m steeplechase record, respectively. Now they have the chance to push each other to fast 1500m performances when they return to Wanda Diamond League action in Lausanne on Friday (30).

Norway’s Ingebrigtsen, who broke the world indoor 1500m record by running 3:30.60 in Lievin in February, clocked 7:54.10 in Paris to improve Daniel Komen’s world best for two miles. Despite still having that race in his legs, the 22-year-old improved his own European 1500m record to 3:27.95 in Oslo six days later – a time that places him sixth on the world all-time list.

Although the world record had not been his aim in Oslo, Lausanne’s Athletissima gives Ingebrigtsen another opportunity to take further strides toward Hicham El Guerrouj’s almost 25-year-old world record of 3:26.00.

“I 100% have more left in me,” Ingebrigtsen said after his performance in Oslo. “I just have to keep focused on each race ahead in the build-up to Budapest (World Championships), where it really matters.”

Girma will hope to be up there with him. The Ethiopian 22-year-old stormed to a time of 7:52.11 for his specialism in Paris, taking 1.52 seconds off the world 3000m steeplechase record set by Said Saeed Shaheen in 2004, and then turned his attention to attacking the Ethiopian 1500m record of 3:29.91 at the Continental Tour Gold meeting in Ostrava on Tuesday (27). He still looked like he had plenty left in the closing stages but having to run wide down the home straight, he focused on the win, running a PB of 3:33.15 that he will aim to improve again in Lausanne.

It will be the first time that Ingebrigtsen and Girma have clashed in any discipline.

In Oslo, Ingebrigtsen led the first eight men under 3:30 for the first time in history, and this time the line-up includes two other men who have dipped under that barrier so far in their careers: Britain’s Olympic bronze medallist Josh Kerr and Australia’s Stewart McSweyn. They are joined on the entry list by Ethiopia’s Teddese Lemi, New Zealand’s Sam Tanner and Britain’s Neil Gourley.

In the 5000m – the discipline in which Ingebrigtsen won world gold last year after his 1500m silver – Olympic champion Joshua Cheptegei will take on Olympic 10,000m gold medallist Selemon Barega, world 5km record-holder Berihu Aregawi, Telahun Haile Bekele, Birhanu Balew and their fellow sub-13:00 runner Muktar Edris.

In the women’s 3000m steeplechase, world U20 silver medallist Sembo Almayew is back on the track after her world-leading PB performance of 9:00.71 to win in Florence. The 2021 world U20 gold medallist, Jackline Chepkoech, was second on that occasion and is also racing, along with world record-holder Beatrice Chepkoech and world bronze medallist Mekides Abebe.

The world leader also heads the entries in the women’s 800m, where world and Olympic silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson – who improved her British record to 1:55.77 to win in Paris – will look to make another statement as she renews her rivalry with Kenya’s Mary Moraa.

World bronze medallist Moraa, who won Commonwealth Games and Diamond League titles ahead of Hodgkinson last year, has run a best of 1:58.72 so far this season and the strong field also features Habitam Alemu, Noelie Yarigo, Jemma Reekie, Catriona Bisset, Natoya Goule and Switzerland's Audrey Werro, who recently ran a world U20 1000m record of 2:34.89 in Nice.

At the Paris Diamond League last week, the incredible Norwegian athlete and Olympic 1,500m champion  Jakob Ingebrigtsen achieved a remarkable two-mile world best. On Thursday evening (afternoon for viewers in North America), the 22-year-old superstar will be competing in his home country, aiming to challenge his national record of 3:28.32 at the Oslo Diamond League.

Jakob’s WR bid

Ingebrigtsen headlines a deep men’s 1,500m field, featuring the silver and bronze medallists from Tokyo 2020, Kenya’s Timothy Cheruiyot and Josh Kerr of Great Britain. Other notable athletes are American Yared Nuguse and Mohamed Katir, who came off a Spanish national record performance over 5,000m in Florence two weeks ago, taking the win in 12:50.79. 

During the pre-race press conference, Ingebrigtsen put his confidence on display and said he’s eager to chase a personal best and even take a shot at Hicham El Guerrouj’s 1,500m world record of 3:26.00 “If I break the world record Thursday, I deserve a statue,” said Ingebrigtsen. The Bislett Games meet director responded: “If you do it, I’ll personally set up a statue outside Bislett [Stadium].”

Although there has been a lot of world record talk from Ingebrigtsen and the media, the Wavelight pace in the 1,500m will be set to the meeting record of 3:29.12, going through 800m in 1:52 and the first kilometre in 2:19. Ingebrigtsen will have to close the final 500m in 66 seconds and a sub-53-second final lap if he hopes to take down the world record. 

Canadians in Oslo

Two prominent Canadian athletes are competing at Oslo Diamond League Thursday. Olympic 200m champion Andre De Grasse looks to get his season back on track in the men’s 200m. The last year hasn’t been easy for De Grasse, changing coaches, battling injury and a slow start to the 2023 season. In his first three 200m race of the season, he has struggled to dip under the world championship standard mark of 20.24 seconds, a time he has frequently sailed under over the last two seasons. In his first Diamond League race in Doha on May 5, his turnover in the final 70 metres wasn’t there, and he faded to sixth in 20.35. It’s been three weeks since his last race, and he will come into Oslo as one of the favourites on paper, having the second-fastest personal best in the field after the young American, Erriyon Knighton.

Canadian mile and 1,500m record holder Gabriela DeBues-Stafford had a successful outing in her Diamond League return in Florence two weeks ago. After a full year off due to injury, the 27-year-old Olympic finalist ran to a season’s best 4:03.64 over 1,500m. She will come into the Oslo Diamond League as the top-ranked woman in the mile event. This race in Oslo should be more tactical and better suited for DeBues-Stafford’s racing style than the 1,500m in Florence, which resulted in a new world record for Faith Kipyegon. 

Two other athletes who will be a tough test for DeBues-Stafford are Jessica Hull, who recently set an Australian record of 3:57.29 in Florence, and Ethiopian rising star Birke Haylom, who ran a giant personal best of 3:57.66 for third place at the Rabat Diamond League. DeBues-Stafford’s mile best is 4:17.87 from Monaco Diamond League in 2019, but any result under 4:23 for her would be a step in the right direction as she continues to prepare for the 2023 World Athletics Championships later this summer. 

While winning a global gold medal might be the pinnacle of the year – if not career – for many athletes, Beatrice Chebet remains motivated for another title to add to her ever-expanding CV.

The world 5000m silver medallist became the world cross country champion in February, winning the senior women’s race and leading the Kenyan squad to the team title at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships Bathurst 23. Now the 23-year-old has turned her attention back to the track as she plots her path to the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23 in August.

Chebet started her season on a high note, winning the 5000m at the Kip Keino Classic, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting, in Nairobi, Kenya, on 13 May.

Her victory in front of a home crowd at the Moi International Sports Centre in Kasarani was a good indication that her training is going well, and on the right course, for her next big goal: to win the world 5000m title in Budapest.

“I will be happy if I place on the podium this year in Budapest, although my main aim – which I know should be the same for all the runners who will be running at the World Championships – is the gold medal,” Chebet says. “However, I will be thankful for any medal I get there.”

On the morning of 23 August, Chebet – who already has a wild card place to run in Budapest after winning the 2022 Wanda Diamond League title, subject to selection by her national federation – will be standing at the start line for the heats of the women’s 5000m at the National Athletics Centre to begin her quest for the world title. But, with all the best runners in the world yearning for gold, she knows it won’t be easy.

From her experiences during past battles on the world stage, Chebet believes that the Ethiopian runners and some of her Kenyan compatriots are likely to be her main rivals. The defending champion, who won the 5000m title in a close race ahead of Chebet in Oregon, for example, is Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay. Another Ethiopian athlete, Letesenbet Gidey, is the world record-holder who had looked on course to beat Chebet to the world cross country title in Bathurst before she fell in the closing stages.

Chebet had similar encounters when winning her world U20 5000m title and world U20 cross country gold in 2019. In the latter, she won in a photo finish ahead of Ethiopia’s Alemitu Tariku and Tsigie Gebreselama as they all clocked 20:50 for the 6km race.

“I talked with Gidey some time after the incident in Bathurst, and she was doing well, health wise, and looking forward to coming back strong,” Chebet says.

Their rivalry is a friendly one. When asked whether she thinks Gidey will be looking forward to revenge in their next competition, Chebet replies: “We didn’t talk about competing against each other. It was to check up on her.”

While the rest of her 2023 racing calendar is yet to be confirmed, Chebet – who has a 5000m PB of 14:34.55 that she ran at the Oslo Diamond League in 2021 – will be hoping to remain a strong presence in the 12-and-a-half lap discipline this year.

“My training is going on well,” she says. “I am working hard and praying to God for good health and that everything else goes well. In my races this year, I will watch and hope to see continuous progress. I know all will go well with good training.”

Chebet currently trains in Kericho, on the undulating and beautiful landscapes of Kenyan tea plantations, under coach Gabriel Kiptanui as part of the Kericho Athletics Club.

Being part of the same training group and working with the same coach that guided her during her great 2022 season seems to be a good forecast of what Chebet’s season could look like this year.

“I hope I have another good year, like last year,” she adds.

So far, her career highlight was when, at the age of 18, she won her first gold medal at the World Athletics U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland. It was a tough battle in the final 400m of the race between Chebet and Ethiopia’s Ejgayehu Taye, who Chebet edged at the finish line by a mere 0.10. Taye’s compatriot, Girmawit Gebrzihair, completed the podium.

“Of all the medals and titles that I have ever won, the one that I cherish the most is the world U20 gold medal that I won at the Ratina Stadium in Tampere in 2018,” Chebet says of the 5000m victory that ended a 10-year winning streak by Ethiopian athletes. “It was my first big victory, so I will not forget it.”

Since then, Chebet has remained a force to be reckoned with in the women’s 5000m event. She won the African U20 title in 2019 and the African senior title last year in Mauritius, before she claimed her silver medal at the World Championships in Oregon and gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Can she emulate her 2022 success this year? It looks good so far, and a world title in Budapest would be the icing on the cake.

At the first World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meet of the 2023 season in Melbourne on Thursday, a Grade 11 student from Canberra, Cameron Myers, became the second-youngest person in history to break the four-minute mile barrier, at 16 years and 259 days, setting a new U16 world record of 3:55.44. 

Myers placed third in the men’s mile at the Maurie Plant Classic, behind 2022 Commonwealth Games 1,500m champion Olli Hoare and New Zealand’s Sam Tanner, and beating a lengthy list of pros, including 2016 Olympic 1,500m champion Matt Centrowitz. 

The 16-year-old is the second youngest runner in history to break four minutes in the mile; the youngest was Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen. Ingebrigtsen first went sub-four at age 16 years and 250 days, when he ran 3:58.04 at the 2017 Prefontaine Classic in Oregon. Myers, who is only nine days older than Ingebrigtsen was then, produced a quicker time than Ingebrigtsen when he first went sub-4.

Myers’s run stripped an incredible 12 seconds off his previous mile personal best of 4:07.04. His time also broke Ingebrigtsen’s U16 world record of 3:56.29 from the 2017 Bislett Games in Oslo.

“At 16, it’s impressive to see Myers running better than most college athletes in the U.S.,” said Hoare to reporters post-race. “He’s an amazing talent for Australia moving forward, and I’m excited for him.”

Hoare won the mile in 3:52.24, coming off a bronze-medal performance in the mixed relay team event at the World Cross Country Championships in Bathurst last weekend. Hoare’s time was the third-fastest mile time in history by an Australian. 

Two Canadian athletes also competed in Melbourne–John Gay placed 10th in the men’s 3,000m in 8:03.91, while Erin Teschuk was 13th in the women’s 1,500m. Both athletes represented Canada at the 2023 World XC Championships five days ago. 

If you’ve ever read about a race or endurance event and asked yourself “why?” this short film is for you. “I love running and can truly understand why people want to challenge themselves both mentally and physically,” says endurance athlete and filmmaker Göran Winblad. Despite that, the Bislett 24-hour Indoor Challenge, held in the basement of the Bislett stadium in Oslo, Norway, left Winblad baffled.

Winblad heads to the event to figure out what motivates the athletes “running in circles with nothing but cement walls to look at.” Arriving at the stadium after the 20th hour, Winblad says he doesn’t know what to expect or if anyone will even be functioning well enough to speak to him.

Watch this short film for the remarkable humans Winblad talks to and the insight they share, but also for Winblad’s stunning filmmaking skills–who would have thought a race in a basement could be beautiful? Frank Løke, who completes 217 km by the end of the event, calls it the “toughest thing he does all year.” But, he adds, it helps him train to summit Everest and K2. “How can you train for the toughest mountain in the world? You have to do some crazy sh*t,” Løke says.

One of Norway’s best ultrarunners, Bjørn Tore Kronen Tarenger (who leads the event with 260 km) calls the monotony and challenge “fun.” (To be fair, he looks like he’s out for a 5K jog in the park.) Winblad asks Tarneger what, exactly, makes the event fun, and Tarenger’s response is what one might expect from someone who enjoys running in circles for 24 hours: “I feel the pain.”

One runner, whose feet are so sore by the time Winblad speaks to her that she’s forced to run “like a penguin,” says she thinks it’s “something you have to do once in a lifetime.” She quickly adds that it’s her second time. Winblad notes that many of the runners say they’ll never do the event again when he speaks to them, yet keep returning year after year–the race sells out in moments.

The Bislett Stadium hosts many renowned track and field events, and Karsten Warholm famously set the world 400m hurdles record there, the drive behind which Wimblad can understand: “fame, money, being the best in the world.”

Kenyan runner Tabitha Gichia Wambui has been banned from competition for seven years after testing positive for norandrosterone and tampering with the anti-doping process.

Wambui argued that she was injected with the testosterone booster at hospital where she was being treated for "a headache and general body weakness".

However, an investigation from the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya showed that the 37-year-old did not attend the hospital on the same dates as her medical reports stated and the hospital also had no record of the outpatient number on the documents the athlete submitted.

This attempted cover-up resulted in the tampering charge, which Wambui later admitted.

The athlete was banned for four years for the failed test and four for tampering, with one year removed from the overall sanction because Wambui was judged to have admitted the offences early and accepted the sanction.

The beginning of Wambui's ban is backdated to September 19 2021 and all of her results from that date have been disqualified, including victory at the Poznań Half Marathon in Poland on October 17 last year.

All titles, medals, points, prizes and appearance money must also be forfeited by the Kenyan from this period.

September 19 was the date that her first urine sample was taken, in-competition at the Copenhagen Half Marathon, before a second sample was collected at the race in Poland.

The following day, the WADA-accredited laboratory in Oslo reported an adverse analytical finding for norandrosterone in the first sample.

Norandrosterone is a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) non-specified substance as it is a product of nandrolone, an anabolic androgenic steroid.

Wambui's ban comes just a month after her compatriot Lawrence Cherono, the eighth-fastest marathon runner of all time, was banned from competing at the World Athletics Championships in the United States.

Cherono had tested positive for trimetazidine which can be used medically to prevent angina attacks.

It was also the same drug the Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva tested positive for before the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

Kenya is one of seven Category A nations deemed by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) to have the highest doping risk and threaten the overall integrity of the sport, along with Bahrain, Belarus, Ethiopia, Morocco, Nigeria and Ukraine.

There are currently 49 Kenyan athletes listed as banned in the AIU database.

Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen will be heavily involved in the Munich 2022 European Athletics Championships, part of the wider multisport European Championships, as he defends the 1500m and 5000m titles he won as a 17-year-old at the Berlin 2018 European Athletics Championships. 

The Olympic 1500m champion and world 5000m champion will not, however, face the either of his brothers Filip and Henrik who are both injured nor the Brit who unexpectedly beat him to the world 1500m title in Eugene last month, Jake Wightman. 

The latter is concentrating on the 800m in Munich – the event he originally planned to do at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games until he was nudged back to the longer distance because of the number of friends and family who had bought tickets for the final last Saturday when he won bronze in a high quality final in 3:30.53. 

With a personal best of 1:44.18 from 2020, Wightman has a realistic chance of adding another European medal to the bronze he won over 1500m in Berlin four years ago – and his victory over 1000m at the Monaco Diamond League meeting on Wednesday night in 2:13.88, ninth fastest of all-time, will have done his confidence no harm at all. 

France’s Benjamin Robert has the fastest 2022 time of all entrants – the 1:43.75 he clocked in winning at the Paris Diamond League on 18 June in boisterous fashion, squeezing in between the two leaders with enough physicality to be disqualified before being reinstated on appeal. If things get physical in Munich, Robert is unlikely to come off second best. 

Tony van Diepen is also well acquainted with the hurly-burly of the track having been a part of the Dutch teams that won 4x400m silver at the Tokyo 2020 Games and mixed 4x400m silver at the World Championships in Oregon. 

Individually, van Diepen has won European indoor silver in 2021 and bronze in 2019 over 400m and has a best 800m time of 1:44.14 set this year in Paris after M. Robert had burst past him at the Stade Charlety. 

Robert’s compatriot Gabriel Tual, seventh in last year’s Olympic final, is third fastest on this year’s European list with 1:44.23, set in – you’ve guessed it – Paris. But the French team will be without the popular Pierre-Ambroise Bosse, the 2017 world champion, due to injury.

Poland’s Patryk Dobek has run 1:44.59 this year and even though he exited in the heats at the World Athletics Championships, he can also draw upon the experience of winning bronze at last year’s Olympics in Tokyo. 

Other medal prospects include Sweden’s Andreas Kramer (1:44.59), Ireland’s Mark English (1:44.76), fellow Brits Ben Pattison (1:44.60) and Kyle Langford (1:44.61), Spain's reigning world indoor champion Mariano Garcia (1:45.12) and the very experienced former two-time world medallist Amel Tuka from Bosnia and Herzegovina (1:46.15) whose lifetime best of 1:42.57 dates back to 2015.

Aside from Bosse, another notable absentee will be the three-time reigning champion Adam Kszczot from Poland who retired at the start of the year.

Ingebrigtsen's path to double gold is clearer although not without challenges

With Wightman elsewhere, Ingebrigtsen will surely feel happier about the prospect of his 1500m defence, but he will still face a field full of Spanish and British medal threats. 

Second on this year’s European list with 3:30.20, Spain’s Mario Garcia will be looking to give the Norwegian wonderboy another run for his money after finishing fourth - two places behind Ingebrigtsen - in Oregon. 

The Brits dominate the 2022 European list with six athletes in the top nine and despite the absence of Wightman and Olympic bronze medallist Josh Kerr, Jake Heyward (3:31.08), Neil Gourley (3:32.93) and Matt Stonier (3:32.50) form a trio with clear medal-winning ability.

But Ingebrigtsen, who ran 3:29.47 to take world silver, and ran an Olympic and European record of 3:28.32 at the Tokyo 2020 Games, should have enough to cover any challenge in both events. 

In the 5000m, it might be the athlete who appears second from last on the entry-list in terms of season's bests who could provide the biggest challenge to Ingebrigtsen. That athlete is Spain’s Mohammed Katir who won a bronze medal behind Ingebrigtsen in the 1500m at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon and will be focusing solely on the longer event in Munich.

Katir, 24, has a modest season's best of 13:43.61 from the Spanish Championships but he showed what he can do over the longer distance by running a national record of 12:50.79 in Rome last summer in the same race where Ingebrigtsen broke the European record with 12:48.65.

Another strong potential challenger is the experienced Spaniard Adel Mechaal, who was fifth in the Olympic 1500m final last year and set a 5000m personal best of 13:06.02 in Oslo in June. Mechaal didn't make it through to the final of the World Athletics Championships but that wasn't too surprising as he had only just recovered from an untimely bout of coronavirus which forced him to miss the 1500m.

In both the 5000m and 10,000m, watch out for Italy’s Yemaneberhan Crippa, 25, who has been a star performer in numerous European competitions, winning bronze at the 2019 European Cross Country Championships and the European 10,000m Cup in the same year. 

Crippa has the fastest time among the entrants based on season’s best performances in the 10,000m with 27:16.18 ahead of another showboating, talented figure in Jimmy Gressier of France – he of the famous faceplant as he won the 2018 European U23 cross country title. This didn’t stop him from walking through the line to win the same title the following year, demonstrating just how much time he had to spare. 

There weren’t quite the same histrionics at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Dublin last December but Gressier let his running do the talking and he came away with his first senior medal in a race where Ingebrigtsen ruled triumphant once again.

Gressier will be focusing solely on the 10,000m in Munich and the Frenchman is the second fastest performer this year with 27:24.51 which he set at the European 10,000m Cup on home soil in Pacé in May when he ran away from the field for the individual title.