The year had started fantastically well. Two great world records by M. Duplantis in the pole vault and a U20 world record my Y. Machuchikh in high jump. J. Rojas established a new indoor world record in triple jump. G. Stark and S. Zhoya set world junior records in the 60 m hurdles. K. Klosterhalfen registered an excellent European record over 5000 m and H.-F. Zango an African one in the triple jump. M. Volkov set a new world U16 pole vault record. And J. Cheptegei added the 5km record to his 10km and 15 km collection. Yes, the year had started incredibly well. And then the epidemic struck and all went south from there.
After some tergiversation the IOC and the japanese organisers decided to postpone the Olympics by a full year. What is funny is that I could not find the dates for the athletics competitions, neither at the WA site, nor at the IOC one. Fortunately Wikipedia, always the best information source, was there. The 2020 Olympic athletics will be held from July 31 to August 8, 2021.
The change in the olympic program had as a consequence a cascade of modifications. The qualification period for the Games to be held in 2021, had been suspended till December. The next World Championships to be held in Eugene in 2021, will finally take place one year later, from July 15 to July 24, 2022. This means that in the summer of 2022 we will have in succession the World Championships, the Commonwealth Games and finally the European Championships (August 15-21). An uncertainty remains concerning this year's Europeans. They are scheduled for Paris, from August 25 to August 30. However their feasibility is currently under scrutiny and a final decision will be taken at the beginning of May.
What does all this mean for the blog? Last year I published 40 articles and about half of them were referring directly to athletics events or were inspired by them. This year most of these occasions will be missing. Does this mean that the blog will go into radio silence? Let me reassure you. The blog is alive. While there will be fewer things to report, I will try to present more technical analyses of the kind that I love. And, who knows? Perhaps the epidemic will abate, come summer, and the activity will pick up again.
PS. And without waiting for May the decision to cancel the European Championships was announced today. In this case the championships are not postponed but really cancelled. We'll have to wait for 2022 for the next Europeans.
After some tergiversation the IOC and the japanese organisers decided to postpone the Olympics by a full year. What is funny is that I could not find the dates for the athletics competitions, neither at the WA site, nor at the IOC one. Fortunately Wikipedia, always the best information source, was there. The 2020 Olympic athletics will be held from July 31 to August 8, 2021.
The Marakana stadium with its dependencies
transformed into a makeshift hospital
The change in the olympic program had as a consequence a cascade of modifications. The qualification period for the Games to be held in 2021, had been suspended till December. The next World Championships to be held in Eugene in 2021, will finally take place one year later, from July 15 to July 24, 2022. This means that in the summer of 2022 we will have in succession the World Championships, the Commonwealth Games and finally the European Championships (August 15-21). An uncertainty remains concerning this year's Europeans. They are scheduled for Paris, from August 25 to August 30. However their feasibility is currently under scrutiny and a final decision will be taken at the beginning of May.
What does all this mean for the blog? Last year I published 40 articles and about half of them were referring directly to athletics events or were inspired by them. This year most of these occasions will be missing. Does this mean that the blog will go into radio silence? Let me reassure you. The blog is alive. While there will be fewer things to report, I will try to present more technical analyses of the kind that I love. And, who knows? Perhaps the epidemic will abate, come summer, and the activity will pick up again.
PS. And without waiting for May the decision to cancel the European Championships was announced today. In this case the championships are not postponed but really cancelled. We'll have to wait for 2022 for the next Europeans.
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