Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2024 i AW - Athletics Weekly Magazine

MAY 2024 Oxsne of my favourite details from this year's London Marathon was the fact that Emile Cairess had opted to shun a fancy GPS watch for a good, old fashioned, no frills Casio. “There are kilometre and mile markers all the way so I think I'll be all right,” he grinned. The plan to keep it simple served Cairess well. His third place in 2:06:46, the second-fastest time in history by a UK athlete, confirmed his potential and the attitude of the man himself seems perfectly suited to his chosen event. “A marathon takes time. It's a process. I have to be patient,” he said. There's a clear ambition, too, and a target to step up yet another level to make himself a contender on the world stage. The…

OPINION KATHARINE MERRY World Athletics has been first again and willing to take decisive action in a way that other sports aren't. The announcement last month that $50,000 in prize money will be awarded to the gold medal winners in athletics at the Paris Olympics is, in my view, to be applauded. Just as the sport has done with so many other major issues, once more the athletics stall has been set out and the intentions made completely clear. I'm pleased it's us leading the way but it does also make me wonder when some other sports might start doing some of the heavy lifting. My initial thought when I heard the news was that it's great the athletes are going to get some reward. After all, they're the ones who…

Olivia Forrest dominated the cross-country season, remaining undefeated. One standout moment came during the English Schools Cross Country Championships where the 15-year-old stormed past leader Shaikira King, who fell to the ground from exhaustion, to claim the inter-girls victory. Just one week later, the Brentwood Beagles athlete continued her winning streak by clinching the inter-girls Schools International Athletics Board (SIAB) Cross Country title. Beyond the track, she took a convincing win in the U15 girls race at the TCS Mini London Marathon and also became European Biathle champion (a development sport of modern pentathlon) in 2023, despite only qualifying as a reserve. Her success comes from the support of her family's newly established athletics club, Brentwood Beagles, where she receives coaching from her dad and competes alongside her younger sister,…

RACING AGAINST TIME ROGER BANNISTER “Blood surged from my muscles to my brain and seemed to fell me. I felt like an exploded flashbulb. Vision became black and white. I existed in the most passive physical state without being quite unconscious It was failure that drove Roger Bannister to create a moment of sporting history which continues to echo down the decades. Seven have now passed since the then 25-year-old medical student became the first man to run a mile in under four minutes on May 6, 1954. The feat came at a time when the exploration of human endeavour was a particularly hot topic. In 1953, Edmund Hillary had become the first person to climb Mount Everest and the sub-four-minute mile was viewed as athletics’ equivalent. It was a target…

Jason Henderson head of digital With the “steeplechase mile” making its international debut at the Bannister Miles meeting in Oxford on May 6, it raises the tantalising question of whether a sub-four-minute mile is possible over barriers. I estimate that top men's milers with good hurdling technique could run a “steeplechase mile” around 16-17 seconds slower than a standard flat mile. The current mile world record is 3:43.13, too, which makes it seem possible, although maybe not for a few years yet. Don't rule out a women's sub-four-minute mile as well. Since Diane Leather became the first female sub-five-minute miler in 1954, the record has plummeted. Sifan Hassan clocked 4:12.33 in 2019 and Faith Kipyegon knocked another chunk off with 4:07.64 last year. Katharine Merry Olympic medallist and AW columnist…

COACHING The Bedford International Games (BIG), now in its 30th year and taking place on May 25, is one of the most enduring annual fixtures on the UK athletics calendar. First staged in 1994, it is very much Carol Jackson's creation. “I had to deal with nay-sayers back then,” she says. “I was told that no one would come because we weren't paying any [prize] money, but we had two Commonwealth records broken.” Since then there have been many great performances. For jumpers in particular, it's one of the season's highlights, where their events are spotlighted. However, BIG was not just a field events meet and nor will it be for its 30th anniversary. All field events and track events up to and including the 400m and relays will be…

QUIZ 1 Aside from having run the fastest 100m and 200m in history, which other individual world best does Usain Bolt hold? 2 Where did Bolt finish in the final 100m championships race of his career, back in 2017? 3 Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is a 10-time outdoor world championships gold medallist, but how many times has she been crowned Olympic champion? 4 At which Games did the Jamaican team makes its Olympic debut? 5 How many Olympic track and field medals have been won in total by Jamaica? a) 87 b) 90 c) 93 6 Who was the first female Jamaican athlete to win an Olympic medal? 7 Can you name Jamaica's reigning 400m world champion? 8 In Tokyo, Elaine Thompson-Herah won both the women's 100m and 200m titles. Who was…

DIGEST PICTURE THIS While we look back on Roger Bannister's momentous sub four-minute-mile on p50, it's also 70 years this month since another landmark was reached over the distance. Just 23 days after Bannister's achievement, Diane Leather [pictured left racing in 1958] clocked 4:59.6 on May 29 at the Midland Championships in Birmingham to become the first woman to run the mile in under five minutes. Given the status of women's athletics at the time, her run received only a fraction of the attention. It was not until 1967 that the IAAF (now World Athletics) first recognised women's world records for the mile and it was only after this that women ran the distance at international level. “I wasn't surprised,” she told AW in 2014. “It's just the way it was.”…

OPINION DIAMOND LEAGUE Athletics people, by and large, are a peaceful lot. But one surefire way to start an argument among them is to bring up the Diamond League. Athletes, agents, authorities, fans, journalists – they generally share common ground in believing something has to change about the sport's top circuit, but diverge widely on what it should be. Are there too many meetings? Or not enough? Is the broadcast window too long, unable to engage the TikTok generation? Or is it too short, failing to tell the athletes’ stories? Is the structure too uniform, stripping away the individuality that once gave each meeting its own, distinct flair? Or not consistent enough, with vast differences still existing between the calibre of events? Is it time to ditch, say, the discus or…

JOURNEY TO JAMAICA Passing through the immigration desks at Kingston airport, I glanced down at the stamp I had just received in my passport upon entering Jamaica. It featured two logos. One celebrates the country's independence in 1962. The other is the silhouette of a sprinter. If ever there was any doubt as to how deeply woven the sport of track and field athletics is into the fabric of this Caribbean island nation, then this was the most emphatic of reminders. Running fast isn't just something Jamaicans like to be good at, it's part of an identity. The yellow, green and black of the national flag has become synonymous with some of the greatest speed demons the world has ever seen. Merlene Ottey, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Elaine Thompson-Herah, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Don…

I have been obsessive about athletics for almost as long as I can remember and, with this being my last issue as a member of the AW staff, it feels like the perfect opportunity to reflect on my time in sport. I first became an AW subscriber in 1970 and it soon became clear that I had more in common with my favourite athletics writers Mel Watman and Peter Matthews than I did with the track stars Ian Stewart, Dave Bedford and Brendan Foster who initially inspired me. As a teenager I joined the AW Supporters party and paid my own way to watch the 1977 Athletics World Cup in Germany and 1978 European Championships in Prague. Little did I know then that I would eventually be lucky enough to…

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RESULTS OVERSEAS CHINA Diamond League, Xiamen, April 20 Men: 100 (-0.6): 1 C Coleman USA 10.13; 2 F Kerley USA 10.17; 3 A Blake JAM 10.20. 800: 1 M Arop CAN 1:43.61; 2 W Kinyamal KEN 1:43.66; 3 T Masalela BOT 1:43.88; 4 A Kipngetich KEN 1:44.76; 5 A Kramer SWE 1:44.81; 6 E Ngeny KEN 1:45.37; 7 C Murphy USA 1:45.38; 8 A El Guesse MAR 1:45.65; 9 Liu Dezhu 1:45.66 NR; 10 Ethan Hussey GBR 1:46.20. 5000: 1 L Girma ETH 12:58.96; 2 N Kipkorir KEN 12:59.78; 3 B Balew BRN 13:00.47; 4 S Chebolei KEN 13:00.69; 5 A Yihune ETH 13:01.44; 6 C Kemboi KEN 13:02.49; 7 R Kwemoi KEN 13:02.56; 8 K Girma ETH 13:04.45; 9 B Sigei KEN 13:04.66; 10 S McSweyn AUS 13:05.18; 11…

DIP FINISH It could be a big year for triple jumper Naomi Metzger and her younger brother Nat Ogbeta. While Metzger tries to make the team for the Paris Olympics, Obgeta has been helping Bolton Wanderers in their bid for promotion to the Skybet Championship. Metzger, 25, has won multiple national titles and Commonwealth bronze in 2022 but Paris would be her first Olympics. Ogbeta, 22, played for England and Manchester City as a teenager and is in awe of his sister's achievements. “Athletics is too scary for me,” Ogbeta, who plays as a left full-back, told SportsBoom.com. “It is isolated, so how Naomi deals with the pressure and expectation is special. I am used to team sport so whenever everything is just on you it is a bit daunting.…

DIGEST APRIL 74.35M History was made at the Ramona Throws Festival in Oklahoma as Mykolas Alekna, the 21-year-old discus throwing talent from Lithuania, took advantage of windy conditions at the venue to break Jürgen Schult's long-time world record of 74.08m with 74.35m. The East German mark – the oldest world record in men's track and field – was set in similarly gusty conditions in Neubrandenburg on June 6, 1986. Not only was this 16 years before Alekna was born but the Lithuanian's famous father, Virgilijus, was still only 14 at the time. Virgilijus went on to win Olympic titles at Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 in addition to world titles in 2003 and 2005. If he can translate this kind of form to future major championships, Alekna Jnr could surpass his…

MY GREATEST RACE JOHN MAYOCK That summer, I made sure that I was in the best shape I could be to win the trials to guarantee my place at the Olympics. I'd had a little bit of history in the past when I hadn't been picked for certain things like the World Student Games in Sheffield, so my coach said to me: “John, you have to win.” Once I'd done that, it took the pressure off. I could just go and get ready. I had good coaches in Pete Watson and Peter Elliott. I had a good training group. I had a little bit of money from sponsors, so I didn't have to worry about paying the mortgage, but I also loved to race and I raced three times between the…

MARATHON LONDON AND BOSTON Bekele still capable of brilliance There was an array of superb performances across the 2024 London Marathon weekend, but was there any finer sight than Kenenisa Bekele taking the fight to the opposition in the men's elite race? He has Olympic titles, world titles, world records and nothing to prove, yet the 41-year-old had a glint in his eye as he spotted an opportunity and forced the pace as the contest reached its business end. This was his sixth attempt at winning London and only the most cold-hearted observer would not have been cheering him on. A masters world record of 2:04:15 was the least he deserved. Obiri and Jepchirchir's class shines through In the April issue of AW, Hellen Obiri stated she wanted to successfully defend…

LEADING LADIES An athlete who openly admits to having been inspired by Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is Shericka Jackson. Having seen the “pocket rocket” first sprint to Olympic gold in 2008, Jackson has forged her own path that brought two consecutive world 200m titles and put her within touching distance of the 200m world record. The 27-year-old also has a point to prove at the Paris Olympics, having suffered heartbreak in Tokyo when she eased up too much while in total control of her heat and did not make the final. “It was a really, really tough learning experience,” she says. “The really sad part was learning it at an Olympic Games – I wouldn't have minded learning it at a Diamond League. But I've learned from that mistake and definitely grown…

In a list of attributes that have helped Corey Bellemore become a multiple world record-holder and great of his sport, running talent goes without saying. In the elite company he keeps, that element is not unique. Instead, he points to two other qualities not often associated with track success: namely, a strong stomach and the ability to open his gullet. Combine all three and the Canadian possesses a lethal combination that has made him the undisputed king of the beer mile. It was in 2016, during his time at the University of Windsor, in Ontario, that Bellemore first stumbled across the unlikely event that he would come to reign. At the back end of the winter cross-country season, Canadian student athletes would habitually take part in a beer mile, a…

Abbie Donnelly considers herself to be a bit of a home bird. As she prepares to leave the East Midlands for her first altitude training camp in Font Romeu, she's glad that a few of her Lincoln Wellington AC team-mates will be there, too. “Some people are really independent and know what they're doing, but I'm not one of those people,” she says. “I like to have a group around me. I just stick to people and get carried along.” There is no doubt that Donnelly is a people person. The popular British team captain led by example when she finished 20th at the World Cross Country Championships in Belgrade in March. Accurately described by AW's Jason Henderson as ‘self-effacing and self-deprecating’, her post-race response was comical when he suggested…

FIXTURES MAY 4-5 ● World Athletics Relays Bahamas 24 Nassau worldathletics.org MAY 4-6 ● BUCS Athletics Outdoor Championships Manchester bucs.org.uk MAY 5 ● Prague International Marathon runczech.com ● Belfast City Marathon belfastcitymarathon.com ● Scottish Athletics National League Grangemouth scottishathletics.org.uk MAY 6 ● Bannister Miles – 70th Anniversary Oxford bannistermiles.org.uk MAY 8 ● Birchfield Harriers May Open Meeting Alexander Stadium birchfieldharriers.com MAY 10 ● Doha Diamond League diamondleague.com MAY 10-11 ● 4J Studios scottishathletics District Senior Championships Inverness and Grangemouth scottishathletics.org.uk MAY 11 ● Belfast Irish Milers Meet In Association with Tripadvisor athleticsni.org MAY 11-12 ● County Athletics Championships various MAY 14 ● BMC Gold Standard Races Manchester britishmilersclub.com ● Trafford AC Grand Prix Manchester traffordac.co.uk ● Loughborough Pole Vault Invitational lboro.ac.uk MAY 15 ● BMC Gold Standard Races Watford britishmilersclub.com…