The blog is seven years old

 Last year, at the end of my anniversary post I was giving an appointment to my readers for this October, saying "once we have survived the Tokyo Olympics". Who in their right minds could have imagined what would happen just a few months later? The epidemic arrived and nothing was the same anymore. The year that had started incredibly well, went all of a sudden sour. All major competitions were adjourned, beginning with the Olympics. Now we have to wait till next July for them and it is already made clear that there will be no further postponement: if the Games are not held in 2021 they will not be held at all. In which case Tokyo will have the unique "privilege" of having seen the Games programmed for it cancelled twice.

In this topsy-turvy situation World Athletics tried to save what could be salvaged. Some competitions were organised both in the Diamond League series and the Continental Tour ones. There were even some nice performances, foremost among which are the pole vault jump of Duplantis and the 5000 m world record of Cheptegei. But, on the whole, the year was rather underwhelming, failing to create the excitement associated with the major championships.

The blog fared well, managing over a thousand views per month since March (with the exception of April which was smack in the middle of the lockdown period). But of course the statistics are rendered meaningless by the October 2019 spike of 24k visits. I have never managed to understand where those visits were coming from, but their presence makes the analysis of the numbers nigh impossible.

In the absence of major competitions I managed to keep the blog alive thanks to more technical and sometimes historical articles. If you are new to the blog and wonder what to read, I would recommend the January 1st post on "Eleven wretched women, or how fake news almost killed women athletics". It tells the story  of the first olympic 800 m for women, during the Amsterdam, 1928, Olympics and how the ambient misogyny tried to stifle women's athletics. 

It is clear that the coming months will be no picnic, but will the blog continue? Definitely yes, despite the difficulties. I am not through yet with rethinking athletics.