US Track & Field Trials 2025: who's in and who's out

The US Athletics Trials were held from July 31st to August 3rd. For American athletes they are of capital importance since they determine who will be selected for the national team that will represent the US in the Tokyo World Championships. All the more so, since only seven athletes have obtained a wild card, having won the world title during the 2023 Championships: N. Lyles (who won both 100 and 200 m), G. Holloway (110 m hurdles), R. Crouser (shot put), S. Richardson (100 m), K. Moon (pole vault), C. Ealey-Jackson (shot put) and L. Tausaga-Collins (discus throw). I'm not going to give a full analysis of the Trials but just point out what I found more interesting. 

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden winning the 100 m

K. Bednarek dominated the 100 m and went on to finish second in the 200 m yielding the first place to Lyles over the last metres, feeling the tiredness of five demanding races (but this did not prevent Lyles to behave as a jerk after the race). T. Bromell finished 4th in the men's 100 m and so will make the team only for the relay. I just hope they will not take the 5th finisher (C. Coleman) to Tokyo. And E. Knighton, finishing 5th in the 200 m, will not make the team this time.  Does this have something to do with last year's doping problem?  M. Jefferson-Wooden was really impressive, wining both 100 and 200 m. Her 10.65 s over the former distance is the 5th best time ever. I was somewhat disappointed by the 4th place of T. Terry but, at least, she got to run in the relay. S. Richardson ran only in the heats. And then she managed to get arrested at the airport on a domestic violence offence, with her boyfriend C. Coleman. (I liked her better when she preferred girls). G. Thomas managed to scrape into the team by just a millisecond. In fact Thomas, Brown and Long were given the same time, 22.20 s, and were separated for 3rd, 4th and 5th place by milliseconds: 22.197, 22.198 and 22.199. Unfortunately, I could not find the photo-finish of the race. 

This is the best I could do for the 200 m final

S. McLaughlin won easily the 400 m in 48.90 s. Now, why on earth, did she opt for the 400 flat dropping the hurdles? Both Nasser and Paulino, with 48.67 and 48.81 s, have better times this year. Of course all three can run under 48 seconds, but the risk of McLaughlin being beaten by either or both is quite appreciable. When I saw the entries of the 400 m I was rejoicing at the return of B. Wilson whom I had noticed in 2022 when she ran a most promising 53.08 in the 400 m hurdles. Unfortunately she finished 6th in the final and will not go to Tokyo. I don't know what is happening with A. Mu(-Nikolayev). Not only is she not qualified, she did not even make the final. If you don't count the performances of the doping-uncontrolled years and you throw away Semenya's as well, Mu is the third performer of all time after Jelimo and Hodgkinson. (I just hope that the hamstring injury of the latter will not totally spoil her season). In my report on the 2022 World's I was writing that I was "wondering whether D. Brazier, heralded as the new talent of 800 m, was just a shooting star, bright once and then gone. Well, it turns out that I was wrong. Brazier did a spectacular comeback winning the 800 m in 1:42.16. The men's 800 m in Tokyo will be the race to follow. All the more so, since C. Lutkenhaus made the team with a world U18 record in 1:42.27. You should watch the race in YouTube, it's amazing. (The other young prodigy, Q. Wilson, who had recently ran a 44.10 s U18 world record did not manage to make the final in the 400 m). 

D. Muhammad winning the 400 m hurdles

Masai Russell was impressive in the 100 m hurdles. I don't see who will stop her from adding a world gold to her olympic one. K. Harrison is once more just below par when it counts, finishing at 4th place due to a sluggish start. D. Muhammad is having an excellent year (which is supposedly the last of her long career). She won the 400 m hurdles in 52.65 s and, together with her teammate A. Cockrell, they will try to snatch gold from F. Bol. (I wished to see the video of the final but the as...le who had uploaded it did not give access outside the US. Fortunately I have an excellent VPN). G. Holloway decided to use his champion's bye for the 110 m hurdles but, be that as it may, I don't think he is in the same good shape as the previous years. But perhaps I am wrong. 

The last day of the US championships coincided with the ones in Greece. And guess what, the guy who won high jump in Greece did that with 2.21 m, just missing 2.25 m, while J. Harrison and S. McEwen, world and olympic vice champions respectively, ended their contest at 2.22 m. Sad! Equally sad was seeing KC Lightfoot (he had the 4th best all-time performance before Karalis' great 6.08 m jump the same week-end) unable to go beyond 5.62 m in the pole vault and S. Kendricks making the team with just 5.72 m. The women's pole vault, won by S. Morris, was a bizarre event. 

At 4.73 m Morris and Moon were tying at first place while the two Moll twins occupied the 3rd and 4th place. And they both passed 4.78 m! I cannot grasp the logic of this. Since Morris and Moon passed, the Moll sisters should on the contrary have tried that height. If they managed to pass they would have pushed Moon (in view of fact that she did not go beyond 4.73 m) out of the selection. At least Hana Moll should have gambled (all the more so, since her personal best is 4.81 m). But both decided to skip 4.78 m and, as a result, only one of the sisters, Amanda, will jump in Tokyo. I am a fan of T. Davis-Woodhall and once more she showed her great talent, but the one I was following was J. Moore. Would she manage two selections once more? Well, not this time, as she could do no better than 5th in the long jump. But she totally dominated the triple jump where all her jumps were better than the jumps of all the remaining athletes.

The same is true for V. Allman in the discus throw where with 71.45 m she threw almost 7 metres more than the second (2023, lucky, champion L. Tausaga-Collins). The women's hammer throw saw the return of two world champions, D. Price and B. Andersen, who won in 2019 and 2022 respectively. But the great surprise was the men's shot put. I was following the results live but it was getting late and I decided to call it a day after the third round where J. Kovacs was leading with 22.07 m followed by T. Piperi and P. Otterdahl. I went to bed and I saw the final result the next morning. And I found that Kovacs would miss a World Championships selection for the first time since 2015. (He was world champion in 2015 and again in 2019 in that unforgettable contest where he won with 22.91 m ahead of Crouser and Walsh, both having thrown 22.90 m). Awotunde won with a last attempt throw of 22.47 m, Otterdahl obtained his selection with 22.35 m while Piperi had surpassed Kovacs at his 4th throw with 22.29 m. R. Crouser, being the reigning world champion, used his bye but we are hearing that he has some elbow problems, so the competition in Tokyo will be wide open. 

Anna Hall dominated the heptathlon with 6899 points registering personal bests in high jump and the throws. I think that her long jump is slightly below par and it is clear that she did not push herself to the limit in the track events. I believe she is ready for a 7000+ performance in Tokyo. In the wake of Hall, T. Brooks obtained her qualification for the World's with a 6526 points personal best. M. Atherley, having a bye thanks to her victory in the 2024 Combined Events Tour, participated in just 4 events where she showed that she is in great shape. 

In the men's decathlon I was waiting impatiently the come-back of G. Scantling after the three years' suspension for a doping "whereabouts" violation. And it was a deception. After two so-so events, trailing at 10th position, he dropped out. K. Garland confirmed his great shape winning with 8869 points. H. Baldwin and H. Williams were second and third but their score was below the qualification minimum of 8550 points set by WA. (They are both qualified for Tokyo though: Baldwin on last year's performance and Williams on ranking). 

On the Grand Sham Track

No, I haven't misspelled Slam. I'm just giving my opinion on what I think the whole thing was from the outset.

OK, let's go back to when the GST was announced. In my first article I did make it clear that one of the reasons I did not like the new form of competition was because I have never liked Michael Johnson. In a second article I produced a more serious, technical, argument. And, in a spell of honesty, I wrote that not everything was bad about GST. After all, it's thanks to the special format of this competition that we got to watch Sydney McLaughlin run the 100 m flat. (Please forgive me if I don't add systematically her married surname, Levrone. It is getting too long and I'm lazy. Why didn't she change her name to her husband's name as many female champions have done? Ivanna Spanovic did it for just one season, just to spite future uninformed Athletics statisticians, before divorcing).

So, what happened with Grand Slam Track? I was following the US Trials (an article on them is under preparation) and I was intrigued by the fact that McLaughlin did not participate in her specialty 400 m hurdles. She is in great shape, as attested by her 48.90 s in the 400 m flat, and has a 52.07 s season's best on the hurdles from the beginning of May (which is second only to Bol's 51.95 s). So I decided to have a look at the results of the last round of GST, planned for the end of June in Los Angeles. And I found out that the competition was listed as "upcoming" in the GST page. I started sniffing around and, there it was: the Web was boiling over with news about the GST defaulting on the payment of bonuses.

M. Johnson's startup had promised athletes that it would pay a first instalment of prize money by the end of July. And they missed the deadline. And we are talking about just the 3 million dollars from the Kingston competition, held in April (for which the athletes got just the appearance fees). In total GST owes the athletes 13 million dollars for the three events already held. (And of course, for Philadelphia and Miami, not even the appearance fees were paid).

Enter Michael Johnson. He tried to justify the situation in an interview with Justin Gatlin(!). (If you read this blog, you know what I think about the latter. All in all, I find that he is a fitting company for M. Johnson). Johnson blamed the downturn of the global economy in April that led one of his investors to back out. He stated that they are working with the remaining investors but he admitted that the process is pretty complex. 

It's a sad situation for the athletes; champions like Gabby Thomas literally begging for their due. Grant Fischer declared that "if the money doesn’t come through, then no athlete is ever going to want to take a chance on a new idea". And, of course, if they do not pay their debts there is no chance whatsoever for the competition to return next year (despite Johnson's reassurances). The new deadline is now September's end. But one has every right to be skeptic. 

And how about World Athletics? After all, Lord Sebastian had welcomed the competition, when it was announced with the words: “I welcome innovation, I welcome external resources”. Now WA has warned GST of a potential punishment. Let's get serious! What can WA do? Grand Slam Track is dead in the water. And, most probably M. Johnson has learned his lesson. The athletes will or won't get their money after years of fighting GST in court. And there is nothing Sir Sebastian can do about this. If he wishes to do something for Athletics, he should recognise the women's decathlon championships to be held in a few days and introduce an official WA championship from next year. (I hope that I am not surprising you with this ending of an article on GST. I wanted to end on something positive and there is nothing better for me than women's decathlon).

The SRY gene test is here

Well, not exactly "here". World Athletics announced today that the test will be mandatory for athletes wishing to compete in the female category starting from September 1st. For the time being it is not clear for which competitions the test will be a requirement. Judging from the words of Lord Sebastian 

“We are saying, at elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female. It was always very clear to me and the World Athletics Council that gender cannot trump biology",

it will probably concern only high-level ones. It will only be required to pass the test once-a-lifetime and it can be conducted by a simple cheek swab (but also through a blood test). 

So, what is the SRY gene test about? The aim of the test is to detect the presence of the SRY gene, which is the Sex-determining Region on the Y chromosome, responsible for initiating male sex development in mammals. The gene is coding for a protein that triggers the formation of testes and male sexual characteristics. The test is cheap and highly predictive of male development. It can classify 99.99% of individuals as either male or female.

Of course one can wonder about the remaining 0.01%. This is, and by far given the size of people practicing competitive sport, a non-negligible class. There can indeed be discrepancies between the screening results and the individual's development. If such a thing happens the athlete has to undergo further testing, conducted by medical experts. The aim of this is to detect whether the athlete has experienced male development during puberty (in which case he cannot be admitted in the female category). It's a perfectly ethical way to handle the atypical situations that leaves the final decision to experts. 

Let us have a look at these "atypical" situations. The three more common ones are Swyer syndrome, CAIS and 5-ARD. 

The Swyer syndrome (also known as 46,XY complete gonadal dysgenesis) is a condition where an individual has a 46,XY karyotype (typically male chromosomes) but develops a female phenotype with normal female external genitalia, uterus, and fallopian tubes. However the individual does not undergo puberty naturally and is infertile. The syndrome is often caused by mutations in the SRY gene. Women with Swyer syndrome have no advantage due to the presence of the X chromosome and should be allowed to participate in female competitions, despite failing the SRY test.

The Complete Androgen InSensitivity (CAIS) is a condition where an individual has a 46,XY karyotype but the body’s cells completely fail to respond to androgens. The external genitalia are female and the testes are usually undescended, located inside the abdomen. The syndrome is caused by mutations in the androgen receptor gene which blocks the ability of the body to respond to testosterone. The individuals do not experience male development and do not have any advantage associated with androgenisation. Again, women with CAIS should be allowed to participate in female competitions.

The 5-alpha reductase deficiency (5-ARD) is a condition where a genetic male (46,XY) has a deficiency of the enzyme 5-alpha-reductase, which converts testosterone into dihydrotestosterone (DHT). The latter is the hormone essential for the masculinisation of external genitalia before birth. In this case the individuals are born with ambiguous genitalia and may be assigned female at birth. However the testes are present and the deficiency of DHT does not impact the male-level testosterone production at puberty nor the androgen receptor response. So, these individuals have a male development and all the advantages of masculinisation. (I am looking at you, Semenya). Clearly, women with 5-ARD should not be allowed to participate in female competitions.

For World Athletics the athletes who may compete in the female category are biological females and, as we explained above, biological males with CAIS (and, I suppose, Swyer syndrome as well). Transgender women are excluded. On this point the rules of WA are less logical since they accept biological males with DSD (probably, 5-ARD) provided they satisfy the transitional conditions (that have to do with lowering the testosterone level) and, in some way, sidestep the issue of transgender claiming that there is none competing at the elite international level under the current regulations. This is, of course, pure rubbish. What one expects from World Athletics are clear rules that would apply to everybody and not just the elite.  

When I saw the article on the WA website I rushed over to the X/twitter page of Ross Tucker (a sports physiologist for whom I have a deep respect). And, as expected, his commentary was already there:

"Excellent & necessary step, which I hope other sports follow. Fairness & safety in women’s sport requires that male advantage be excluded. That means drawing a solid boundary around it, and screening to confirm who is eligible, and who should be excluded". 

Tucker and collaborators had published (after the fiasco of boxing during the Paris Olympics) an article entitled "Fair and Safe Eligibility Criteria for Women's Sport". As was expected the trans lobby reacted with fallacious arguments, hiding behind a cloak of respectability with Professor (does he really need to sign as "professor"? Does he need to use an appeal to authority even for himself?) A. Williams claiming that many disagree with the proposed measures. This is utterly ridiculous. We are electing governments for which sometimes almost half the population is against. Does this mean that we should not have any government at all? But anyhow, just to set this straight, Tucker and collaborators refer to a survey of female athletes after the Atlanta 1996 Olympics where 82% supported sex testing and only 6% reported discomfort about the test protocol. I am willing to bet that in the case of the cheek swab for the SRY test the female athletes' agreement will be overwhelming. (And, of course, a disagreeing minority will always exist).

The main reason we are still talking about the need to protect women's sport is that the IOC, who could have settled the question long ago, preferred, once more, to wash their hands and leave the decision to the federations. But while the richest federations can finance scientific studies on which to base their measures for the protection of the female category, the poorer ones (the vast majority) are left to fend for themselves. Before her election at the IOC presidency, Kirsty Coventry had stated that it was important to ensure fairness in women's sport and to maintain the integrity of women's categories. What will she do now that she is at the head of the Olympic Committee? Will she, like her predecessor, hide behind neutrality? Perhaps not. In fact at a recent press conference she stated that  "There was overwhelming support for the idea that we must protect the female category. Therefore, we will create a working group composed of experts ... We [the IOC] should be the ones to bring together the experts and international federations and ensure consensus". (I will believe it when I see it).

The article in the WA site ends with the statement that

World Athletics does not judge or question gender identity.

I don't either, but I cannot stand mediocre men who, since they cannot prevail over other men in competition, decided that it is easier to beat women. This is as sexist as it can be and the (non-athlete) women who advocate for (male) transgender athletes to be admitted into female sports should awaken from their misguided, beliefs. Women had striven for years in order to be admitted to sports. Now that they are, at long last, there, their efforts should not be in vain because of the woke-induced illusions of a minority who distastes sports.