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Posted by: Mack. 1st January 2020, 12:29 PM

A thread to discuss all things athletics related such as events, debates and news and anything to with the world of athletics in 2020.

Posted by: Mack. 10th January 2020, 08:55 PM

Two-time London Marathon winner Wilson Kipsang has been charged for 'whereabouts failures' and 'tampering' by the Athletics Integrity Unit.

The 37-year-old Kenyan is now banned from competing until his hearing has taken place.

Posted by: Mack. 29th January 2020, 11:15 PM

The 2020 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing have been postponed because of fears over the spread of the coronavirus in China.

The championships were to be held from 13-15 March but governing body World Athletics pushed them back 12 months.

Posted by: ukchartstatsfan 4th February 2020, 11:17 PM

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce says she believes she can keep the younger generation at bay to win Olympic gold in Tokyo.

The 33-year-old became the oldest women to win a world or Olympic 100m title with victory in Doha in September.

She only came back to competition early last year after spending two years away from the sport to have her son Zyon.

Posted by: ukchartstatsfan 5th February 2020, 11:15 PM

Nike has launched a mass market version of its controversial Alphafly prototype shoe that it says complies with new World Athletics rules.

Posted by: ukchartstatsfan 5th February 2020, 11:42 PM

Mo Farah has withdrawn from 'The Big Half' race on 1 March with a minor Achilles injury.

Farah, winner of the half marathon event in London for the past two years, suffered the injury in training.

Posted by: Mack. 7th February 2020, 12:27 AM

World Athletics has insisted it will not let running-shoe technology spiral further out of control despite the release of another “gamechanging” Nike marathon shoe on Wednesday.

Posted by: Mack. 14th February 2020, 02:24 PM

Perri Shakes-Drayton, who won two world medals as part of the British 4x400m quartet, has retired from athletics at the age of 31.

She ran the first leg in Daegu in 2010 as she Nicola Sanders, Christine Ohuruogu and Lee McConnell took bronze.

She helped Britain through the 2017 heats in London, before Eilidh Doyle came into the team that won silver behind the United States in the final.

Posted by: Mack. 15th February 2020, 02:15 AM

Double Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya competed in her first track meeting since June with victory in the 300m in Johannesburg.

The South African won her race in a national record of 36.78 seconds.

The 29-year-old is currently unable to compete in events between 400m and a mile without taking testosterone-reducing drugs following a rule change by

Posted by: Mack. 16th February 2020, 01:35 AM

Armand Duplantis broke his own pole vault world record by clearing 6.18m at the Indoor Grand Prix in Glasgow on Saturday.

The USA-born Swede, 20, had only beaten the previous mark of 6.16m a week earlier when he cleared 6.17m in Poland.

Posted by: Mack. 16th February 2020, 01:38 AM

Armand Duplantis broke his own pole vault world record by clearing 6.18m at the Indoor Grand Prix in Glasgow on Saturday.

The USA-born Swede, 20, had only beaten the previous mark of 6.16m a week earlier when he cleared 6.17m in Poland.

Posted by: Mack. 16th February 2020, 01:13 PM

Christian Coleman came close to breaking his own world record after winning the 60m at the USATF Indoor Championships in New Mexico.

Despite stumbling out of the blocks, Coleman, 23, clocked 6.37 seconds to beat Marvin Bracy and Brandon Carnes.

Coleman equalled the second-fastest time in history behind his own record of 6.34 seconds, set in 2018.

Posted by: Mack. 16th February 2020, 06:58 PM

Uganda's world 10,000m champion Joshua Cheptegei has broken the 5km road world record by 27 seconds in Monaco.

The 23-year-old ran 12 minutes 51 seconds to smash the previous record, set by Kenya's Rhonex Kipruto en route to victory at January's Valencia 10k.

Posted by: PeteFromLeeds 17th February 2020, 11:00 AM

A prett decent achievement there! Also one of the few athletes I remember by name because he's got such a catchy surname

Posted by: Mack. 20th February 2020, 12:53 AM

Jemma Reekie beat world champion Halimah Nakaayi over 800m in France to record her second IAAF World Indoor Series win in five days.

The Scot won in two minutes and 0.34 seconds to beat the Ugandan - who won gold in Doha in October - in Lievin.

Reekie, 21, won the 1500m at the Grand Prix in Glasgow on Saturday, having recently broken three British indoor records inside a week.

Posted by: PeteFromLeeds 21st February 2020, 08:06 PM

Reekie is really making a name for herself - just watched her victory in Glasgow, certainly looking like the next big thing.

Oh and apparently Duplantis has broken another world record...

Posted by: Mack. 21st February 2020, 10:26 PM

Former UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner says he tried to convince Mo Farah to leave his now disgraced ex-coach Alberto Salazar in 2015.

Salazar was banned from the sport for four years in October 2019 after being found guilty of doping violations following an investigation by the US Anti-Doping Agency and a two-year court battle.

Posted by: Mack. 27th February 2020, 12:44 AM

Double Commonwealth Games bronze medallist hammer thrower Mark Dry will be banned for four years after UK Anti-Doping successfully appealed the decision to clear him.

Posted by: Mack. 29th February 2020, 11:59 PM

Mo Farah says fresh questions raised in a BBC Panorama investigation over his relationship with his banned former coach Alberto Salazar are "depressing".

The four-time Olympic champion, who left the Nike Oregon Project headed by Salazar in 2017, has never failed a drugs test or been accused of doping.

Further allegations of unethical practices at the US training base were revealed in the programme last week.

"I can sleep at night knowing I've done nothing wrong," Farah told the Mirror.

Posted by: Mack. 9th March 2020, 11:14 PM

Olympic 3000m steeplechase champion Ruth Jebet has given a four-year ban after testing positive for man-made EPO.

Posted by: Mack. 15th March 2020, 04:07 PM

Two-time Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya says she is "supernatural" as she confidently targets the 200m at Tokyo 2020.

The 29-year-old cannot compete in events between 400m and a mile without taking testosterone-reducing drugs after a World Athletics rule change.

South African Semenya ran 200m in 23.49 seconds - 0.69secs outside the Olympic qualifying time - at an event in Pretoria on Friday.

Posted by: PeteFromLeeds 17th March 2020, 04:11 PM

Bold of her to assume the Olympics are going ahead

Posted by: Mack. 18th March 2020, 07:14 AM

The first three meetings of the Diamond League season have been called off because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The events were scheduled to take place in Doha, Qatar on 17 April, Shanghai on 16 May and another Chinese venue that was yet to be named, on 9 May.

Organisers hope to stage the Shanghai meeting on 13 August.

No new dates for the other two meetings have been announced, but they could be held after the Diamond League final in Zurich in September.

Posted by: Mack. 🐠 24th April 2020, 11:21 PM

The Diamond League plans to stage a behind-closed doors exhibition event in June after two meetings were called off due to the coronavirus pandemic.

An event named 'The Impossible Games' is set to take place in Oslo on 11 June and will be televised by Norway's public broadcaster NRK.

Norway's double world champion Karsten Warholm will attempt to break the world 400m hurdles record.

Organisers said the event would conform with pandemic guidelines in Norway.

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said: "This is really positive news for athletes and fans and promises, even in this early stage, to be another great night of athletics from the Bislett stadium."

The event will also see a pole-vault contest between world-record holder Mondo Duplantis and multiple Diamond League champion Renaud Lavillenie, though organisers stressed a full programme of competition has not yet been confirmed.

Posted by: Mack. 🐠 3rd May 2020, 08:55 AM

World record holder Armand Duplantis will take on two-time world champion Sam Kendricks and 2012 Olympic champion Renaud Lavillenie in a live-streamed pole vault contest this weekend.

The event, to be held on Sunday at 16:00 BST, will see each man attempt to clear 5m as many times as possible in 30 minutes.

Swede Duplantis will be vaulting at his American training base, with Lavillenie and Kendricks competing at their homes in France and the United States respectively.

Posted by: Mack. 6th May 2020, 07:22 PM

Commonwealth Games 200m medallist Leon Reid's build-up to next year's Olympics is including training stints with South African 400m star Wayde van Niekerk.

Irish sprinter Reid spent the early part of this year training in South Africa with the Olympic 400m champion.

Reid plans another training period with the 400m world record holder next winter as part of his Tokyo build-up.

Posted by: Mack. 20th May 2020, 03:01 PM

Eilish McColgan aims to become the first Scottish track and field athlete to compete at four Olympics.

The 29-year-old middle-distance runner will make her third appearance in the 5,000m at next summer's rearranged Tokyo Games.

Posted by: Mack. 28th May 2020, 10:41 PM

The Boston Marathon has been cancelled for the first time in its 124-year history because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The race had initially been postponed from 20 April to 14 September.

However, Boston mayor Marty Walsh said the race could not be held in 2019 because of public health fears.

"There's no way to hold the usual race format without bringing large numbers of people into close proximity," Walsh said on Thursday.

Posted by: Mack. 18th June 2020, 11:15 PM

World 100m champion Christian Coleman has been provisionally suspended after missing a third doping test.

The American, 24, has disputed the third whereabouts failure, on 9 December, which has been confirmed by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU).

He claims he was Christmas shopping "five minutes away" from home and the tester made no effort to contact him.

"I have never and will never use performance enhancing supplements or drugs," Coleman posted on social media.

"I am willing to take a drug test every single day for the rest of my career for all I care to prove my innocence.

"I have nothing to hide but it's not possible to show that if I'm not even given a chance to."

Posted by: Mack. 27th June 2020, 11:07 PM

The British Athletics Championships have been rescheduled for 4-5 September and will be behind closed doors.

The event in Manchester, which normally acts as trials for the Olympics, was meant to be held on 20-21 June and had already been rescheduled once.

"We are delighted to be able to offer our athletes an opportunity to compete," UK Athletics chief executive Joanna Coates said.

There will be live coverage of the Championships on the BBC.

It will be shown on BBC Two at 18:30 BST on Friday 4 September and on BBC One at 13:15 BST on Saturday 5 September.

Posted by: Mack. 3rd July 2020, 11:55 PM

Former marathon world record holder Wilson Kipsang has been banned for four years for anti-doping rule violations.

World Athletics said between April 2018 and May 2019 the 38-year-old Kenyan, twice a London Marathon winner, had missed four "whereabouts appointments".

Three such failures within 12 months leads to an automatic ban.

Kipsang said he missed a test in May 2019 because of a traffic accident and provided a photo of the crash, but that was found to be from August 2019.

Posted by: Mack. 8th July 2020, 11:47 AM

Team GB sprinter Bianca Williams has received an apology from the Met Police after she and her partner were pulled over in their car in a stop-and-search.

Ms Williams's three-month-old son was also in the car on Saturday when it was stopped in Maida Vale.

Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick told a committee of MPs officers had visited Ms Williams to apologise for "distress" caused by the stop.

The force has also launched a review of its handcuffing practices, she added.

Footage of the stop-and-search has been shared widely on social media.

Ms Williams believes officers racially profiled her and her partner Ricardo dos Santos, a Portuguese international 400m runner, because they are black and were driving a Mercedes.

Posted by: Mack. 9th July 2020, 06:26 PM

A high-tech race between American legend Allyson Felix, Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo and Swiss star Mujinga Kambundji headlines Thursday's innovative Inspiration Games.

The meeting is being staged using seven different venues around the world and involves 28 athletes in eight events.

Miller-Uibo, Felix and Kambundji are racing over 150m, running in Florida, California and Zurich respectively.

Television viewers will watch them race in a synced-up three-way split-screen.

Posted by: Mack. 16th July 2020, 05:37 PM

USA Olympic 200m finalist Deajah Stevens has been banned for the Tokyo Games in 2021 for missing anti-doping tests.

The 25-year-old has been banned for 18 months from 17 February to 16 August 2021, eight days after the rearranged Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to finish.

Stevens, seventh in the 2016 200m final, can appeal against the decision.

The Athletics Integrity Unit handed out the ban for missed tests in February, August and November 2019.

The ruling said that on the first occasion, the doping control officer could not reach the American's specified location because of restricted access at the given address in Oregon and attempts to reach her by phone were unsuccessful.

Posted by: Mack. 15th August 2020, 12:51 AM

Uganda's Joshua Cheptegei produced an astonishing run in Monaco to break the 16-year-old 5,000m world record by almost two seconds.

The 23-year-old, who won the 10,000m world title in Doha last year, had promised he would take a shot at the time but success seemed unlikely.

However, guided by trackside lights illustrating world record pace, he came home in 12 minutes 35.36 seconds.

The previous mark, set by Ethiopian great Kenenisa Bekele, was 12:37.35.

Posted by: Mack. 20th August 2020, 10:50 PM

Heptathlon world champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson will be part of an innovative long-jump competition at the Stockholm Diamond League on Sunday.

Instead of the event being decided by the best effort from six rounds, the top three jumpers after five rounds will then contest a one-jump final.

Also in the field are Olympic champion Caterine Ibarguen and world silver medallist Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk.

Posted by: Mack. 24th August 2020, 07:47 PM

Housemates Jemma Reekie and Laura Muir dominated their track events on a successful day for British athletes at the Stockholm Diamond League meeting.

Reekie, 22, won the 800m - her fourth victory this season - in one minute 59.68 seconds and fellow Scot Muir, 27, clocked three minutes 57.87 to take the 1500m.

England's Holly Bradshaw cleared 4.69m to win the pole vault.

Adam Gemili was a class apart in the 200m as he won in 20.61 seconds.

Posted by: Mack. 4th September 2020, 01:07 PM

Mo Farah will aim to break a world record when he returns to the track at Friday's Diamond League meeting in Brussels.

Farah will target Haile Gebrselassie's one-hour record of 21.285km (13.255 miles), set in 2007.

"I believe I can do it. I want to set a world record," said Farah, who switched to road running after the Rio Olympics.

The 37-year-old Briton, who has not competed since last October's Chicago Marathon, has never set a world record.

The rarely run one-hour race, in which athletes try to cover as much distance as possible within 60 minutes, will take place without any fans because of coronavirus restrictions.

Posted by: Mack. 5th September 2020, 12:31 AM

Posted by: Mack. 5th September 2020, 12:00 PM

Kenya's Peres Jepchirchir has set a new world record for a women-only half marathon.

The 26-year-old ran a time of one hour five minutes 34 seconds in Prague to take 37 seconds off the time set by Ethiopia's Netsanet Gudeta in 2018.

Posted by: Mack. 18th September 2020, 01:55 PM

Armand Duplantis produced the highest ever outdoors jump in the pole vault as he cleared 6.15m at the Diamond League meeting in Rome.

The 20-year-old Swede set the world record at 6.18m at the Indoor Grand Prix in Glasgow in February.

Posted by: Mack. 29th September 2020, 06:22 PM

Degitu Azimeraw and coach Haji Adillo Roba have both tested positive for Covid-19 and did not board a plane from their native Ethiopia chartered for this weekend's London Marathon, race director Hugh Brasher has confirmed.

Azimeraw, 21, is a former women's winner at the Amsterdam Marathon.

Compatriots Shura Kitata and Alemu Megertu are coached by Adillo but were not in recent contact with him and flew to the UK after negative tests.

Posted by: Mack. 4th October 2020, 10:47 PM

World record holder Eliud Kipchoge was beaten in the London Marathon as Shura Kitata won a thrilling sprint finish to claim an unexpected victory.

Four-time winner Kipchoge was the favourite, but fell behind with two laps to go and finished eighth.

Ethiopian Kitata pushed ahead of Kenya's Vincent Kipchumba on the home straight to finish in two hours five minutes and 41 seconds.

Brigid Kosgei, who holds the women's world record, defended her title.

Posted by: Mack. 5th October 2020, 01:40 PM

New British champion Natasha Cockram says she did not expect to finish Sunday's London marathon after being injured in the build-up.

The 27-year-old finished 13th overall in a time of 2:33:19, which is outside the Olympic qualifying time of 2:29:30 that she is still hoping to hit.

The Welsh runner suffered an ankle injury three weeks before the race, which was won by Brigid Kosgei.

"I didn't even think I'd make the start line," Cockram told BBC Radio Wales.

"Just to make it to the start line felt surreal. I wasn't even expecting to perhaps finish the race - the British title was just an incredible feeling.

"I wasn't sure if my ankle would hold up, but I patched it up. I hadn't run all week prior to the race. It just hurt too much.

"It was just [about] going out there and hoping for the best.

"There was no pressure because I wasn't the favourite to win so I just went out there and wanted to do the country proud and that's what I did."

Cockram's British rival Steph Twell, who reached world finals and won a European medal on the track, also missed out on the Olympic qualifying time.

The 31-year-old limped out around mile 16 as she failed to repeat her rapid time from Frankfurt last year.

Posted by: Mack. 7th October 2020, 06:07 PM

Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie are among the nominees for Scottish Athletics' performer of the year award.

Despite limited competition across 2020, the lockdown housemates have managed to enjoy considerable success on the track.

Muir is the quickest in the world over 1500m this season and set a new UK 1,000m record.

Reekie lost only one 800m race all year and is fifth on the fastest times list, one place above Muir.

Jake Wightman broke his own Scottish record in his only 1500m outing to make the shortlist, along with fellow middle-distance runner Josh Kerr, who has had three wins in the United States.

Callum Hawkins established a new Scottish best for the 10km in January, while Steph Twell set a new Scottish record in the Frankfurt Marathon at the end of October 2019.

Eilish McColgan won the Great South 10-miler event and in December set the second fastest Scottish time over 10km.

Joasia Zakrzewski is also recognised for a 24-hour track run of 236.561km, which is a Scottish record.

Posted by: HeadlessJockey 27th October 2020, 08:34 PM

World 100m champion Christian Coleman has been banned for two years after missing three drugs tests.

The 24-year-old American, who is suspended from 14 May 2020, will miss the postponed Tokyo Olympics next year.

Coleman won 100m gold at the World Championships in Doha in 2019.

The indoor 60m world record holder has 30 days to file an appeal against the Athletics Integrity Unit's (AIU) decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

Posted by: HeadlessJockey 28th October 2020, 12:43 PM

Seems like Makhloufi is in trouble (again?)

I actually like him, but this is not very surprising.

https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/olympic-and-world-medallist-linked-to-gym-bag-full-of-drug-paraphernalia/

Posted by: Mack'sXmasSack 10th December 2020, 12:29 PM

Nanjing will host the World Athletics Indoor Championships in 2023 after the 2021 event was postponed because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The Chinese city had been scheduled to host the Championships in March 2020 but that was pushed back to 2021.

Nanjing will now host the event one year after the next World Indoor Championships in Belgrade in 2022.

"We must fully respect and carry out the pandemic prevention policy of the host country," said World Athletics.