23 March, 2022

World Indoors 2022: a fine championship

With three world records, one of which is an absolute one and one that is better than the outdoors', one cannot really complain about the 2022 World Indoors. I was somewhat apprehensive, fearing that most elite athletes would reserve themselves for this summer's outdoors World Championships (and some did) but the level of the Belgrade competition was so high as to satisfy the most demanding among us.

The biggest moment of the championships for me, and a moment of national pride, was the victory of M. Tentoglou in the long jump. Having won the Olympics and known to be a cool-headed competitor, he was the natural favourite of the event. However T. Montler has made considerable progress (and in fact he jumped a 8.38 m PB for silver) and Tentoglou had to surpass himself. He did just that, with a massive 8.55 in his second jump, backing it up with a 8.51 m in his last. I cross my fingers for this summer's World's. 


Speaking of favourites, the biggest surprise of the championships has been the defeat of R. Crouser. He has been dominating head and shoulders the shot put, to the point that he appeared invincible. He has 12 of the 20 best throws ever. And then D. Romani, who has time and again barely missed the podium, managed to push him out of the highest step, 22.53 m to 22.44 m. (Crouser's last defeat was at the 2019 World's where he lost by just 1 cm).


The three brightest stars of these championships where Rojas, Duplantis and Holloway. Y. Rojas won the triple jump with a full metre margin over the silver medalist (M. Bekh-Romanchuk who returned to triple jump after years of absence).  And her winning mark, 15.74 m, is better than her outdoors world record. I found that her style has improved a little (but I still find that her second jump is far from optimal). Anyhow given her constant progress I believe that the 16 m barrier is within her possibilities. 


I have written on several occasions that there is nobody like A. Duplantis. Even S. Bubka who had dominated pole vault for years cannot be compared to him.  Mondo, as everybody calls him, is a class of his own. I have been following his efforts in this winter's indoor meetings where he was going for the 6.19 m world record. It turned out that the Belgrade arena brought him luck. That's where, two weeks before the championships, he cleared the 6.19 m height. And on the championships he managed on his third try to go one centimetre higher. With 6.20 m he is now 4 cm above Lavillenie, 5 cm above Bubka and 14 cm above the 4th performers (Hooker and Kendricks).  

G. Holloway was the favourite of last summer's Olympics over the 110 m hurdles. And he managed to lose. But he took his revenge in Belgrade where he first equalled the world record with 7.29 s in the semis and then won the final, in 7.39 s despite crashing the second hurdle. His fluid style is really impressive.  The hurdles were another great moment me with the qualification of M. Trajkovic to the final. (Trajkovic was the 2019 European indoor champion in the hurdles but had been since plagued by injuries that have slowed down his progression. It is encouraging to see him back in great shape and competitive as before). The hurdles were also a unique occasion of a tie broken by drawing lots. In fact D. King and S. Nomoto finished third in their respective semis with exactly the same time 7.565 s (and both in the 8th position) but only one could go to the final. Curiously this is not the first time this happens. In 1995 two athletes finished ex aequo in the 8th place for the men's 60 m. At that time the decision was taken by tossing a coin. In Belgrade the names of the two athletes were put in a bag from which a volunteer selected one. The drawing favoured King.

The photo finish of the women's 60 m
M. Kambundji created the surprise by winning the women's 60 m with 6.96 s. She had a great start, she kept accelerating longer than all the others and in the end this payed out. I was expecting something better from E. Swoboda and B. Williams but in the end they lost the bronze medal for 2 and 7 thousandths of the second respectively. I will be keeping an eye out for silver medalist M. Brisco.

And that of men's
If there was some doubt as to who is the best sprinter in the world at this time, that was dispelled in Belgrade. Coleman missed the Tokyo Olympics been banned due to a doping violation and it was interesting to see how the duel with Jacobs would turn out. Well, the matter is  now settled. Jacobs did beat Coleman, admittedly by 3 thousandths of a second, (6.41 s for both) but the important thing is that Jacobs is the world champion. (For this once only I am happy with thousandths). Jacobs' fantastic acceleration over the last 20 metres makes him the favourite over a 100 m confrontation. M. Bracy was silver medalist in Sopot, 8 years ago. This time he had to content himself with a bronze medal.

I have been following J. Richards for quite some time now, since the 2017 World's and his great performance at the 2018 Commonwealth GamesThis time he managed to climb to the highest rung of the world hierarchy, winning the men's 400m in 45.00 s. The women's race was a solo performance for the double olympic champion S. Miller-Uibo. She led the 400 m from the outset and won in 50.31 s. F. Bol who takes the winter season away from her specialty of low-hurdles, was second in 50.57 s, but she never represented a real danger for Miller. A. Wilson won the women 800 m in 1:59.09, her first (individual) major title. She was pushed all the way by F. Hailu and world champion H. Nakaayi but she managed to perfectly control her race. Of course the absence of K. Hodgkinson did make the situation simpler. Those who are following the world indoor circuit have certainly noticed M. Garcia who can be seen on the start line revving an imaginary motorcycle. Well, this time Garcia drove his motorcycle all the way to a world title with 1:46.20. He had the world leading performance, with 1:45.12 from last month, so his victory was not really a surprise.


Tsegay's domination in women's 1500 m (with 3:57.19 s) was absolute. The silver medalist was 5 seconds behind, in a race where all three medals were won by ethiopian runners. W. Nanyondo, who has moved up from the 800 to the 1500 m, was once again just outside the medals. I must confess that I was expecting J. Ingebrigtsen to win the men's 1500 m race, just like he did in the Olympics, in particular since he had improved the world record just a month before the championships. Well, S. Tefera had a different opinion and in the end he did prevail over Ingebrigtsen 3:32.77 to 3:33.02 thanks to his better finish. L. Hailu won the women's 3000 m with 8:41.82. (She has the same family name as the 800 m silver medalist but they are not sisters: they are born three months apart in 2001). I was thinking that L. Girma would take his revenge after his recent defeat by S. Barega over 3000 m but unfortunately for him it was a bis repetita. Barega prevailed 7:41.38 to 7:41.63. The major surprise was the elimination of world leader B. Aregawi in the heats.

C. Samba-Mayela created a minor surprise in women's 60 m hurdles winning in a faultless race with 7.78 s. This is her first major title, but then, she is just 21 years old. To tell the truth it was a final with many very young runners: B. Anderson, 21, Y. Mota, 21, Z. Sedney, 20, to say nothing of D. Kambungji, 19, who was in contention for a medal up to the second hurdle but her effort ended in a spectacular fall.


Those who follow my blog know that I have a great admiration for I. Spanovic-Vuleta. For me, she is the perfect stylist in long jump. Her biography in the World Athletics site starts with the sentence "Ivana Spanovic has been gracing long jump pits around the world for a long time". How true! This timed she prevailed in a very high level competition where she took control at her second jump and never relinquished it, winning with 7.06 m. E. Brume and L. Ugen completed the podium with 6.85 and 6.82 m respectively. M. Bekh-Romanchuk could not repeat her triple jump success and has to settle for 6th with 6.73 m. I was keeping an eye open for M. Gardasevic, L. Iapichino and A. Jones but despite quite decent performances (6.59, 6.57 and 6.55 m) they did not make it to the 8 first. Anyhow it is great to see Jones back after her long struggle with injuries and I wonder whether she'll decide to go back to the heptathlon.

The men's high jump was won by S. Woo with 2.34 m. Woo had barely missed an olympic medal in Tokyo finishing 4th. This time G. Tamberi could not repeat his 2016 world indoor performance (he had won in Portland with 2.36 m) and had to settle for third, with 2.31 m. The women's event was really exciting. E. Patterson who had been dominating this winter's meeting led the competition up to 1.98 m where a miss saw Mahuchikh and Dubovitskaya take the lead. And Patterson had a successful second attempt over 2.00 m taking back the lead. However the experience of Mahuchikh did make the difference (In fact it is funny to talk about experience for a just 20 years old athlete). She passed 2.00 m on her third attempt and went on to pass 2.02 m on her first. Patterson missed once and tried twice at 2.04 m but those heights are really beyond what she is accustomed to. And thus Mahuchikh added the World gold to the European one she had obtained last year. 

L. Martinez killed the competition in men's triple jump with a first jump at a world leading 17.64 m. He backed it up with a 17.62 m in his fourth attempt. P. Pichardo tried his best with 17.42 and 17.46 m in his two first jumps but it is clear that he has at this moment some injury that prevents him from going for really top performances. Olympic champion K. Nageotte led the women's pole vault up to 4.75 m. However the title went to S. Morris who cleared 4.80 m on her third attempt adding thus another world title to the one she had won in Birmingham in 2018. A. Dongmo was the favourite of women's shot put, and she led the competition with 19.32 m from her first (and second) throw.  However on the 5th throw (spinner) C. Ealey uncorked a massive 20.21 m taking the lead. But Dongmo really wished to add the World gold to her European, 2021, one (to say nothing of her African ones back in 2016 and 2014 when she was competing for Cameroon). And thus she threw a world leading 20.43 m ending the suspense.


D. Warner led the men's heptathlon from the first event. Just as in Tokyo his high jump was below par but this did not cost him the first place. What did though was the pole vault where his 4.90 m was not enough, given that S. Ehammer jumped 5.10 m taking the lead with 23 points of difference. H-C. Hausenberg's 5.30 m brought him just 6 points behind A. Moloney who had jumped 5.10 m and was third. However neither Ehammer nor Hausenberg are good middle distance runners and thus Warner won easily 6489 to Ehammer's 6363, Moloney winning bronze with 6344. While I hate women's heptathlon I do like a lot the pentathlon. I find the fact that it is contested in just one day making it really challenging. N. Vidts (who was 4th at last year's Olympics) took the command of the event already at the 60 m hurdles and, while A. Sulek surpassed her briefly thanks to the high jump, she regained control at the next event. There was no suspense for the first place in the 800 m. In fact Vidts won the race in an excellent 2:08.81, Sulek finishing second in 2:09.97, for respective totals 4929 (a world leading performance) and 4851. The only suspense was for the third place where H. Mills was trailing K. Williams a whole 136 points and managed with 2:09.97 to make up most of it finishing at just 7 points behind Williams 4673 to 4680. K. Johnson-Thompson, the reigning pentathlon world champion, made a token appearance with below par preformances, leaving the competition after four events.


The men's 4x400 m relay saw the victory of Belgium. Unless I am wrong this is the first global title for this superb team, organised around the BorlĂ©e brothers, who has been competing at the highest level for more than 10 years. The US team did not make it to the final: a hamstring injury hampered I. Harris, who was anchoring the relay, over the last metres (in my opinion Belgium would still have won the heat but the US could have qualified for the final on time). In the women's 4x400 m L. Klaver gave the advantage to the Netherlands team but Jamaica took control in the second relay. After the third one, Jamaica was leading ahead of Poland and the US, but a superb anchor by F. Bol brought the Netherlands to the second place Poland finishing third. Still it is funny to realise that the world leading performance is that of the University of Arkansas (the University of Georgia having the world lead in the men's event). 

All in all it was a very fine championship with some great performances and quite a few surprises. My only criticism is that World Athletics is selling the broadcast rights to whoever pays more and thus one has to pay different providers for each competition. In particular in France the winter competitions were often covered by l'Equipe (and a subscription was necessary) but when it came to the championships they were rebroadcast by the Athletics Federation and again one had to pay for another subscription. I am really thinking about getting a VPN so that I can watch the images on the WA youtube channel (which are free, provided your country does not have an official broadcaster).

15 March, 2022

The spy vortex: the Sime-Ovanessian story

This is a largely unknown story. It did surface only after the demise of D. Sime. For those for which the name does not ring a bell, D. Sime was probably the best sprinter in the entire world in the 50s. I remember that, in 1956, he held the world record of the 200 m on straight line with 20.0 s, when the world record of a curve was still 20.6 s. Sime's record was equalled by the great Tommie Smith only ten years later.

D. Sime and B. Morrow

Unfortunately Sime's prize list is pretty slim: it comprises just one silver olympic medal. In 1956 he injured himself (a stupid, horse-riding, injury) and missed out on the Olympics. B. Morrow, who had never beaten Sime, went to Melbourne and won three gold medals. In 1960 Sime participated in the 100 m and the relay. In the former he was beaten, just barely (10.32 to 10.35 but unfortunately I could not find the photo-finish), by A. Hary, who was an expert at false starting. And while Sime anchored the US relay to victory in the 4x100 m (with a new world record) the team was disqualified because of the first exchange which happened outside the changeover zone.

The Rome 100 m final

But the story I am going to tell here is quite different. It did take place in Rome though.

Igor Ter-Ovanessian (prince Igor) has been one of the most prominent long jumpers of his generation. He represented Soviet Union in five Olympics, obtaining two bronze medals in 1960 and 1964. He was five times European champion and was the first european to jump beyond 8 m. At one point he held the world record with 8.31 m and later with 8.35 m (the latter shared with R. Boston). He was born in Ukraine but as his name indicates he is armenian (from his father's side; his mother was indeed ukrainian).

Ter-Ovanessian's great jumping style

In the 50s, when the Cold War was raging the CIA initiated an operation designed to develop anti-Soviet resistance in Ukraine. Among the various actions contemplated there were some in the sports milieu. It started with a distribution of propaganda pamphlets to the soviet athletes during the 1956, Melbourne, Games and moved to the next phase for the 1960 Games. There the aim of the CIA was to convince ukrainian athletes of the soviet team to defect to the west. During the USA-USSR meeting in Philadelphia CIA operatives mingled among the members of the soviet team identifying targets. Ter-Ovanessian looked the most promising. He had taught himself English and was known to love western books, movies and jazz.

Sime was recruited by the CIA (together with the javelin world record holder Al Cantello) to act as go-between within the soviet athletes. He had a secret meeting in Washington where the plan was set. Sime was to befriend Ter-Ovanessian during the Games. The defection deal was to be made later by an experienced agent. Sime indeed did approach Ter-Ovanessian during training. They hit it off right away and agreed to have dinner together. 

There they talked about Ter-Ovanessian’s life in the Soviet Union. In his own words it was not bad at all: 'I am taken care of. I have an apartment, a car, a teaching slot at the sports university. And if I win a medal here they'll give me a lot'. Sime was a little bit hesitant at this point. He could not promise anything. The only thing the US could offer was freedom and the possibility to live as a track star in California, out near the film stars and beautiful people and fast cars.

The plan continued to unfold and Sime with Ter-Ovanessian had a dinner at some restaurant in Rome. During the dinner a CIA agent showed up, asked Sime to leave, and started speaking to Ter-Ovanessian in his regional dialect. Prince Igor was spooked and walked out of the restaurant with Sime. He said, 'I don’t know if this guy is a double agent or not, but I don’t really want to talk to him. I’m too scared'.

'That was it', said Sime, 'the CIA blew it'.

Sime and Ter-Ovanessian were to meet once more. It was during the 1963 indoor meeting in Madison Square Garden. Their exchange was a briefest one.

'Igor, how are you?'

'Nice to see you David. I can't talk to you any more'.

Ter-Ovanessian never defected. He continued competing till 1972 and later became an athletics coach. He was honoured by the IAAF (World athletics) Special Fair Play award in 2013.

Sime put an end to his athletics career after Rome. He went on to become a successful ophthalmologist, a pioneer in intraocular lens transplants. He passed away in 2016.

08 March, 2022

A potentially great site, but...

I am often linking tio sites that I find interesting and Tilastopaja is one of those. Google translates the site's name as Statistical Workshop. This describes well what the site is about. It contains current results and lists going back to 1996.

Already the home page is quite interesting since it gives access to the exceptional performances of some of the best athletes of the moment. But, here, the positive things I can say about the site do stop.


As you may notice in the screenshot above the site has a free tier and a members one. Apart from the content one can see in the home page one has free access only to World top-20 lists and the all-time top-30 one. 


Even the results of current competitions are reserved to the paying tier. Which brings me to the second negative point. There is written nowhere clearly what does one have to pay, before one initiates the process of registering. Which means that you have first to enter your data and then you are taken (I am guessing here) to a new page where it is explained how much you have to pay. In fact even the About US link does not give any information. I could deduce, in a roundabout way, that the author of the site is Mirko Jalava. 

So, although Tilastopaja site can, in principle, be very interesting to athletics fans, I find that it is set up in a rather user unfriendly way and I cannot fully recommend it. Of course you can go over there and make your own idea about the matter. 

And you should not worry about the current results being reserved only to paying customers. Carles Baronet's excellent blog is a great alternative.

01 March, 2022

The story of Kinue Hitomi (bonus track of "the long and arduous road of women to the Olympics")

I first saw the name of Kinue Hitomi in an article where one could see the photo below.


(I now know that it's a photo from the heats of the 100 m at the Amsterdam, 1928, Olympics). It was telling the story of how Hitomi failed to qualify for the 100 m final and decided, on the spur of the moment, to participate in the 800 m. This led to myself digging deeper and I ended up writing the story of the women's 800 m at the 1928 Olympics and how dishonest reporting almost sounded the death knell for women's athletics.

But let us start at the beginning. Kinue Hitomi was born in 1907. From the outset her parents were pushing her to excel, never telling her that she had to work less because she was a girl. She was most active already in elementary school and even more so in high school where she joined the tennis team. (The anecdote here is that her father did not approve of this activity and, while her mother gave her money for the racquet, Hitomi-san had to hide the latter from her father. Only when he saw that she was obtaining top marks in arithmetic did he reluctantly approve of her tennis activities). 

In 1923, while participating in a sports tournament with her high school, noticing that there were no girls from her school enrolled in athletics events she decided to participate. And she won the long jump with 4.67 m, a national record. From this moment onwards Hitomi dedicated herself exclusively to athletics.


In 1924 she joined the Nikaido college for Physical Education. In the same year, participating in an athletics meeting she jumped 10.33 m in the triple jump. (This performance is reported, erroneously, as an unofficial world record. However A. Kaenel had already jumped 10.50 m the year before. No problem! Hitomi would break the world record one year later with a 11.45 m jump and push it to 11.62 m in 1926). She graduated in 1925, and became a gymnastics teacher. She continued training, adding more and more events to her repertoire: long and triple jump (and also standing long jump), javelin and discus throw, and sprint events from 50 to 400 m. 

The press started paying attention to her and in 1926 she was offered a journalists's job in the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun. Hitomi was also a talented writer and she excelled in tanka poetry. (A tanka,“short poem” is a free verse, 31-syllable poem, initially japanese but now existing in many languages). So Hitomi joined the sports section as the first female journalist in the newspaper's history. She worked during the day and trained in the evening.

Her international career started in 1926 when she participated in the 2nd International Women's World Games, held in Göteborg. I have written about these Games organised by A. Milliat in the main articles of the series. Hitomi could make the trip sponsored by her employer and with the support of Women's Physical Education Fund. She travelled through China and Russia by train. On her stopover in Russia she trained with members of a local club and noticed that her large physique (she was 1.69 m tall), quite exceptional in Japan, seemed to be similar to that of the russian female athletes. When she arrived in Sweden she was received by the japanese ambassador in Stockholm, before proceeding to Göteborg. At that moment Hitomi realised that she was representing her whole country. Instead of buckling under the pressure, Hitomi surpassed herself. She won the long jump with a world record leap of 5.50 m, won also the standing long jump with 2.47 m (she would establish a world record with 2.61 m in 1927), was second in the discus and third in the 100 yards. She ended up being the best overall athlete of the Games and received the prize from the hands of A. Milliat herself.

Hitomi most probably with Fumi and Kimi Terao

After this resounding success the japanese newspapers started interesting themselves in Hitomi-san. However a part of the articles had to do more with her impressive physique than her performances. They were spreading a suspicion concerning the femininity of this woman who had in a few years become the best athlete in the world.  R. Kietlinski in his book on "Japanese Women and Sport" cites an article which appeared in Asahi Shimbun and which treats Hitomi as a giantess, remarking that she would have been a tall athlete even if she were competing in men's events. And the situation became worse after the success of Hitomi-san in the 1928 Olympics. 

I have written about the fateful women's 800 m in Amsterdam. But it is interesting to look at the race from Hitomi's perspective. She arrived in Amsterdam having established world records in the long jump with 5.98 m, the 100 m with 12.2 s and the 400 m with 59.0 s. Unfortunately for her neither the long jump nor the 400 m were in the olympic program. High jump was the only jump for women. (Curiously, the japanese Wikipedia states that Hitomi participated in the high jump but failed to qualify. However there is no mention of her in the official results, and in fact this participation after her having won a medal in the 800 m would have been absurd: she was a so-so high jumper and had no chance whatsoever for a place on the podium). Hitomi opted for the 100 m and after passing the qualifiers easily she exited in the semis finishing 4th with 12.8 s. That was a major blow for her, who saw her olympic dreams shattered. And in a desperate decision she opted for the 800 m. At that time it was possible to enter an event even at the last moment. Hitomi had never run a 800 m before and in fact did not know anything about tactics. She qualified easily just behind the future winner L. Radke-Batschauer in a reasonable time of 2:26.4. In the final Hitomi started too fast but was soon passed by several competitors. The first lap was covered in 64.2 s with Hitomi at the 5th place. But with a little over 200 m to go Hitomi changed gear. She started pushing on her arms, passing Gentzel and chasing Radke all the way to the finish. The latter broke the world record with 2:16.8 and Hitomi dipped also under the previous record with 2:17.6. It was the first olympic medal for a japanese woman (and in the same Olympics M. Oda would win the first gold for Japan, prevailing in the triple jump, an event where he had placed 6th four years before in Paris). The japanese press initially celebrated Hitomi's success but soon turned to the question of the gender of the athlete. 

Hitomi and Radtke (most probably in the semifinal of the 800 m)

Returning to Japan, Hitomi continued to train while pursuing her work at the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun. She set a world record in 200 m with 24.7 s as well as several national records, winning almost all the events in which she participated (she lost only twice: to Y. Hashimoto in a 100m race, and a year before, again to Hashimoto in a 50 m). She jumped over 6 m in the long jump but with a tailwind above the allowed limit. Her last international participation was at the 3rd International Women's World Games held in Prague in 1930. She won the long jump with 5.90 m, placed second in the triathlon, and third in the javelin throw and 60 m. The japanese team of six athletes could not do better than 4th place overall. (The japanese Wikipedia page gives the japanese team the second place). After the games the japanese team stayed in Europe and participated in various competitions with rather mediocre results. The reaction of the japanese media was at best lukewarm and this was a source of disappointment for Hitomi. But what was more preoccupying was that Hitomi started having bouts of fever. Upon returning to Japan the situation did not improve. She continued working hard and this contributed to the downturn of her health. She was hospitalised with pneumonia and passed away on August 2nd of 1931, three years to the day after her race in Amsterdam. She was just 24 years old at the time.


Hitomi was met with distrust by the japanese media throughout her career. (In fact, not only the japanese. While competing in Sweden, she was asked by a female reporter: "Are you really a woman?"). In his book R. Kietlinski gives an excerpt of an article titled "Miss Hitomi Kinue and the question of womanhood". It's an interview which by today's standards would have been not only unacceptable but would probably end by the (male) reporter being fired by the newspaper's editor-in-chief. At a certain point the reporter remarks: "wouldn't that be funny if you were really a man". To which Hitomi-san replies just "I'm embarrassed".

The question of Kinue Hitomi's femininity is not (and cannot be) settled. Given her physique and her outstanding performances, the idea that she could have been hyperandrogenic cannot be discarded. The regular readers of the blog know that I do not hesitate to make searing remarks against the participation of hyperandrogenic athletes in women's events. Still, I will make an exception in the case of Hitomi-san. She was the pioneer. She brought the japanese women athletics to the limelight. And while she dominated the competition in her country, she also served as an example showing to the other female athletes what could be done. 

The statue of K. Hitomi in Okayama where she was born

Her demise at the age of 24 was a great loss. She could have participated in the next two olympiads, although her best event, the long jump did not appear in the program till 1948 (where it sufficed to jump 5.70 m in order to win gold).