I can't believe I hadn't linked to this blog

From time to time I give links to blogs on athletics which may be of interest to my readers. Some of them are by now dead, some are on life support but some are still thriving. Since I am not updating the information on the pages I cite, I suggest that you bookmark them (if you find them interesting) so that you can follow them if you wish. I confess to not following systematically all the blogs I have linked to in the past, but I have them bookmarked, so...

From time to time I visit the pages of an excellent blog: runblogrun. It is curated by Larry Eder who has a huge experience in sports journalism. The blog is active since 2007 (way to go Rethinking) and publishes several articles daily (the record is more than 200 in a month). Between the time I wrote the article, 19/9, and the time I published it, 25/9, runblogrun had published 26 more articles. Of course this means that there is whole team working on the blog, but the high quality result is something that can shame even the official website of World Athletics. So, do not hesitate, take the time to visit this blog.

Visiting the blog I happened upon the article on the ex-IAAF (IAAF is what is now known as World Athletics) president Lamine Diack. The news are that he was just convicted to a jail term and a stiff fine (together with his son Papa Masatta Diack) for his "full protection" scheme aiming at hushing up doping violations of russian athletes. You can read the full article, by Sean Ingle of the Guardian, here.

P.M. Diack who claims to be too rich to be tempted by bribes

The role of the Diack's in the award of the 2016 Olympics to Rio and of those of 2020 to Tokyo is the object of an ongoing investigation by the french judicial system.

Chasing the world record

I was planning to write this piece at the end of the season, after the last Diamond League meeting in Doha. However the events in the Rome meeting pushed me to write this post now without waiting till the end of the month. If something happens in Doha (or later) I will add a postscript to this article.

In my previous post I was writing about how Duplantis quest for the outdoors pole vault world record was reminding me of Ch. Papanicolaou who obtained his world record at the end of October of 1970, when, despite the clement autumnal temperatures in Greece, the outdoors season was at last coming to an end. Since 1998 World Athletics is homologating a single pole vault record, independently of whether it is established outdoors or indoors. In this sense Duplantis is the world record holder since this past winter with his 6.18 m performance. 

Duplantis already celebrating on his way down

However, in the eyes of (almost) everyone, he had not yet erased the name of Bubka from the record tables. The outdoors record of 6.14 m was still standing. So Mondo had to jump higher and on the fifth competition where he attempted a 6.15 m vault he managed to pass over the bar. And as you can see in the animation below he does it with a comfortable margin.

As I have already written, now that he has mastered his new, stiffer, poles, sky is the limit. Barring injuries, Duplantis' is one of the most serious candidatures for an olympic title next year. 

While Duplantis did manage to obtain his world record, his partner in the Scandi support group, K. Warholm, was less lucky. Hitting the last hurdle in his best 400 m hurdles race denied him the world record for a mere 9/100 of a second.

His Berlin and Rome races were of a very high quality, technically excellent, but somehow he did not have the extra something necessary for a world record. Since there is no 400 m hurdles in the program of Doha, Warholm will have to content himself with the 300 m hurdles record he established early in the season.

Speaking of the 300 m record makes me think of all these record attempts over not often run distances. Some attempts were successful, like the hour and 20000 m ones, while others, like the 1000 m were not. However, I, somehow, cannot assign the same importance to the records over these unusual distances as to the ones over the championship ones. Can you imagine that the 500 m record is held by an almost unknown cuban (O. Rodriguez, who was member of the 2012 4x400 m olympic cuban team) with 59.32 s? D. Rudisha has done better, with 57.69 s, but he did it on a road event, running on a straight line. (At least the women's record for 500 m, dating from 1984, is held by world vice-champion T. Kocembova, with 1:05.9 s).

The third athlete chasing a world record was R. Crouser. Early in the season he improved his shot put personal best to 22.91 m and has been vying for an 23+ performance since then. He has had particularly consistent competitions, throwing close to 30 times over 22 m, but the big throw has been eluding him. It's not sure he'll have another chance this season since the shot put does not appear in the program of the Doha Diamond League. 

And it impossible not to mention J. Cheptegei who did not have to chase the record, breaking the 5000 m world record on his first try with 12:35.36. The ease with which he obtained this was astounding. Just look at the splits below:

There is a metronome regularity there. Cheptegei has announced that he will be attempting to improve the 10000 m world record on October 7th. In some sense he is better equipped for this longer race (let's not forget that he is the reigning world champion of the distance). So if anybody can break the old record of Bekele that's Cheptegei.

And of course there was another world record attempt that did not materialise. C. Kipruto had planned an assault at the 3000 m steeplechase record but he tested positive to the virus just before the first Diamond League competition. Although he was asymptomatic he had to quarantine himself, curtailing his season. Kipruto will compete in the Nairobi, October 3, Continental Tour meeting. But Nairobi is situated at some 1800 m altitude so I fear that, as far as the record is concerned, we'll have to wait for next year.

PS. The only thing worth mentioning concerning Doha was that there was again that ridiculous last effort in the long jump.

Once more it altered the classification obtained in the previous five attempts. Why on earth is WA persisting with this stupid scheme that everybody hates?

Athletics is back on track, so why ain't I thrilled?

 In a recent post I wrote about the resumption of Diamond League competitions. Although my view was globally positive I did not hesitate to qualify the Monaco competition "a pale copy of the famous Herculis meetings". And I was crossing my fingers while waiting for the Lausanne Athletissima and the Brussels Van Damme memorial. Unfortunately I had set my expectations too high.
The Lausanne meeting was reduced to a single, street, event. Admittedly that was a very high quality one, with the best pole vaulters participating and an exciting competition. But that was all: one event.
Duplantis was once more superb. Pushed by Kendricks up to 6.02 m he went one to jump a world best outdoors 6.07 m. 

He had one try at 6.15 m but the falling night did not allow him to make a serious attempt. It seems that the performances had exceeded the organisers' expectations: they had not planned for sufficient lighting in the competition area.

The women's event was won by A. Bengtsson who is having a very consistent year. Let's hope she sustains her momentum in 2021 as well.

I was hoping for something richer in the Van Damme. Unfortunately I was in for some disappointment. There were just two field events: men's pole vault and women's high jump (and in the latter without a 2 m+ participant). Duplantis was, as always, masterful. Now that he has mastered his new, stiffer, pole, jumping 6 metres is a simple exercise for him. He had three attempts at 6.15 m but without success. His attempts at what would be an outdoors world record remind me of Ch. Papanicolaou who was attempting a world record at each competition in 1970. He finally did it in October 25th, jumping 5.49 m (a historical first 18 feet jump for the people in the US who are still using the imperial measurements). I am quite confident that Duplantis will reward us with a 6.15 m vault. The season is not over yet.

The one thing I have trouble understanding is why are there no throws in the Diamond League program (apart from the discus throw in Stockholm). And, please, do not start mentioning sanitary reasons. There are many competitions around the world where throws are part of the program. Why have they be shunned from the Diamond League? I am particularly disappointed by the Brussels meeting since a women's triathlon was initially planned but was scrapped when the shot put was dropped from the program, leaving just the 100 m hurdles and the high jump. (This can explain why the participation was not of very high level in these two events: the initial planning was probably for combined events athletes to take part). 
I will not delve into the fact that the organisers planned for a world record in women's 1000 m and a european one in men's 1500 m and then left F. Kipyegon and J. Ingebrigtsen alone to negotiate the crucial last 400 m without somebody to push them all the way. Both runners did their best, coming close to their objective but without attaining it in the end. 
I have mixed feelings concerning the one-hour world record attempts. Somehow I do not feel at ease with M. Farah's comeback to track events. Also it was clear that he let his training partner B. Abdi take the lead at one point so that he could get the 20000 m world record (with 56:20.2). 

Kosgei's single 'misstep'

The women's race was more contested and S. Hassan prevailed over the Marathon world record holder B. Kosgei thanks to her superior speed. It is a pity that Kosgei got disqualified for stepping off the track. The Lets Run website comments on this in non-ambiguous terms:

Kosgei, tiring after 41 laps of running in her first-ever track race, momentarily lost focus, ran slightly too close to the rail, and accidentally stepped on it to steady herself (the “rail” was actually a thick white strip, so Kosgei stepped on it, rather than inside it, but it was still an illegal move). If anything, stepping on the rail slowed Kosgei down — she would have been faster if she hadn’t lost balance and simply remained on the track instead. And even if you want to argue that Kosgei did gain an advantage, it was a miniscule one that did not affect the outcome of the race.

What I did like a lot was the Wavelight pacing system. From what I understood B. Som, ex-european champion and pacer-extraordinaire, was involved in this light-guided pacing system. I find it extremely useful for the athletes but also for the spectators. For the tv viewers it gets even better. There is an embedded animated image of a runner running at the world record mean velocity.

My only criticism concerns the animation for the men's race. The leg frequency of the animated runner is totally unrealistic (my first reaction was "what is this long jumper doing on the track?"). Since the one for the women's animated figure is perfectly OK I don't think it will be difficult to correct this minor problem. 
There remain two Diamond League competitions: Rome on the 17th and Doha on the 25th. Let's hope they will provide a better spectacle than the previous ones. And after all there are the Continental Tour Gold, Silver and Bronze meetings which, while not getting a large tv coverage, may offer interesting competition opportunities to the athletes. The french have  an expression which fits perfectly to the situation: "sauver les meubles" (literally "save the furniture", meaning salvage what you can). I believe this is what World Athletics is trying to do with the 2020 season.

But, please, please, please no more ridiculous experimentation like the horizontal jump absurdity we had to suffer in Stockholm. How will a casual athletics fan looking back from a few years' distance at the results of men's long jump make head or tails of the classification? 
PS. Thank God, the Continental Tour meetings do not follow the miserly programme of the Diamond League and do include throws.

Thanks to this, we have been able to enjoy the majestic throw of J. Vetter in the javelin, where with 97.76 m he did give a serious scare to the long standing world record.

Will the injustice towards Thorpe stop one day?

In a recent post of mine I presented a collection of decathlon-related videos among which figured a link to the movie by Burt Lancaster on Jim Thorpe. (I realise now that I was dismissive concerning Lancaster's movie. This is rather unfair since Lancaster was a close friend of Thorpe and he made sure that Thorpe receive a payment for the movie). Looking for more interesting videos I ended up in a page announcing a project of a new Thorpe movie.

It's amazing that the Thorpe story is still fascinating people, a century later. Had he simply won the two combined events in the 1912 Olympics and turned professional afterwards, he would still be remembered as the greatest combined event athlete by the track and field specialists. However the whole sad story around his disqualification and the fact that the IOC had to wait till Avery Brundage passed away before reinstating Thorpe, kindled the interest of the laymen, not necessarily athletics fans.

Not having the books of Zarnowski with me I decided to look up Thorpe's performances in the Olympic events on the World Athletics site. And there I discovered that the injustice towards Thorpe continues unabated. James Thorpe does not figure among the 30+ Thorpe's listed on the site. There is even Helen Daniel, whose maiden name is Thorpe, but apparently WA never heard of Jim Thorpe. 

I have trouble accepting this. He is one of the best athletes ever, on par with J. Owens (who does figure in the WA lists) and A. Oerter. Ignoring his performances and his existence is unforgivable. 

Bill Mallon, the OG specialist, says apropos of Thorpe: “Nobody was in his class”. He was a natural. Until 1912, Thorpe had never thrown a javelin or pole-vaulted. He was so inexperienced in the javelin that when he competed in the US Olympic Trials, he didn’t know he could take a running start. Instead he threw from a standing position and still he came second.

Thorpe crushed the field in the olympic pentathlon, placing first in four of the events. In the decathlon the first day was contested under pouring rain. On the second day Thorpe discovered that his shoes were missing. He would finish the event with a mismatched pair, winning the high jump, the hurdles and the 1500 m. Even in the pole vault and the javelin, where Thorpe was less experienced, he managed to place third and fourth respectively. For those who are interested, here are his performances

11.2-6.79-12.89-1.87-52.2 15.6-36.98-3.25-45.70-4:40.1

Just by looking at them one realises the unique status of Thorpe. Today's decathletes are either runner-jumpers or jumper-throwers. Thorpe was a runner-jumper-thrower. I cannot even imagine what he would have done with a few more years of experience, hadn't the amateurism zealots not curtailed his athletics career.