World Athletics Ultimate Championship: some bizarre choices

In June World Athletics announced the creation of the Ultimate Championship to be held in Budapest across three evenings on 11-13 September 2026. Each session will be of three hours duration and the participants will represent their national teams. There will be 16 athletes in each track event, 8 in each field event and 8 relay teams. 

The good

The year at the midpoint between two olympiads is usually a low-tone one. Of course, there is always the Diamond League and it's the year where the continental championships can gather the discipline's elite, at least as far as European championships are concerned. By introducing the Ultimate Championship, World Athletics offers to the best athletes of the world one more occasion to shine. 

And it is clear that they will come, not only for glory but also for the prizes which are really very substantial: the champions will receive 150000 $, the total prize budget being 10 dollars.

Having a championship in mid-September will necessarily push the Diamond League meetings to earlier dates, making it a rather short season for the vast majority of athletes. 

Also, it was announced that the selection will be based primarily on world rankings. I don't know how "primarily" is to be understood in this context, but I am always wary when there is a question of world rankings. 

The only good thing with such a selection is that the athletes will not have to be subjected to national trials and can focus exclusively on the championships.

The bad

Things start getting bad is when it comes to the events program and in particular the field ones. 

I don't have any remark concerning the track individual events: 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, 800m, 1500 m,  5000 m, 100 m/110 m hurdles, 400 m hurdles. It is not clear yet which distances will be run in direct final and which in semis and final. There will probably be semis up to 800 m and direct final for the 5000 m, with the 1500 m being a question mark. 

But the choice of field disciplines is really strange. Pole vault, high jump and long jump are OK, but why is there a women's only triple jump? (Probably Lord Sebastian is a fan of Y. Rojas who would be coming back after a year spent backstage due to injury).

Adding the men's event wouldn't have burdened the timing. But perhaps the sponsors had put a strict limit to the number of events.

The ugly

But where things are really ugly it's with the throws. Who in their right mind could select javelin throw, a discipline where there has been a single 70+ woman's throw over the past decade (M.Andrejczyk 71.40 m in 2021) and where 2/3 of the men's 90+ throws are more than a decade old? Discus, both men's and women's would have been a far better choice.  

As for the choice of men's hammer throw it's a real mystery. There is just one great hammer thrower today: E. Katzberg. Fajdek and Nowicki have been great in their day but are reaching the end of their careers. Perhaps World Athletics chose the discipline to please the Hungarian organisers. Let's not forget that B. Halasz was third in the Doha, 2019 and the Budapest,2023 World's and second in this year's Olympics (and also second in the Europeans in 2022 and 2024). But, in my eyes, the men's shot put would have been a far better choice.

Having criticised the choice of the field events I would like to conclude my article on a more positive note. It concerns the relays. Back in 2017 I published a post entitled "Mixed relays, hurrah", celebrating the introduction of the 4x400 m mixed race in the program of the World Relays. The event is thriving, being now part of both the World Championships and the Olympics program. Moreover the fact that the order of the runners is fixed (man-woman-man-woman) had made the event much easier to follow.

But in that article I was also making a wish (a prophesy?). I was writing:

Speaking of mixed relays it's the 4x100 m that I would like to see even more than the 4x400 m. The short relay depends crucially on delicately balancing the speeds of the two runners at the exchange of the baton. So, adding the extra difficulty of different top speeds for male and female runners would make this event even more challenging. I cross my fingers for such an event to become part of official competitions. 

And now WA has added the mixed 4x100 m to the Ultimate Championships program. I am impatient to see how this event will turn out in real-life conditions. And I guess that we will not have to wait till 2026. The countries that would like to qualify are well advised to start preparing, organising mixed 4x100 m relays at national level. (And I am curious to see if the US team who is botching two out of three competitions with the men's 4x100 m relay will fare better with the team stabilised by the female presence).

In case you were wondering, there has never been any thought about a combined event in the form, say, of a triathlon. A speed-force event with long jump, shot put and 400 m or a more technical one with long jump, javelin and 110 hurdles would be compatible with the highly focused program of the Ultimate Championship and would be a recognition of the combined event stars. But, of course, one can dream.

The athletes of the year 2024

World Athletics surprised us once more by changing the year's best athletes awards. Last year they had nominated 3+3 year's best in track, field and road. This year I was expecting something similar, all the more so since they had kept this classification when they named 6+6 finalists. But when the winners were announced we discovered that there were in fact 3+3 winners in categories plus 1+1 overall winners. 

So this year's best athletes are L. Tebogo and S. Hassan. To say that I missed them in my predictions is an understatement. As you know my favourites were Tentoglou and Thiam (with perhaps Duplantis and McLaughlin as more realistic choices). But, I would never have predicted the WA choice. 

And what is curious, the 3+3 best nomination was also preserved in this year's classification. So McLaughlin was best women on track (Tebogo being obviously best for the men's category). As I have "predicted" (given Lord Sebastian's sympathy for Ukraine) Mahuchikh is best woman for field. (But I am a fan of Thiam and I cannot understand why she has ben snubbed). Duplantis beat Tentoglou for men's best in field (something I can live with). Hassan and Tola were nominated best for "out of stadium" and Hassan went on to win the global title. Of course, I am happy with Hassan's nomination but, to tell the truth, I was not expecting it.

My single correct prediction is that of M. Furlani as best male rising star. On the female side A. Topic was clearly a victim of her injury during the Olympics. Had she won a medal there, she would definitely have topped the list. But the nomination of Almayew is perfectly acceptable.

In my postscript to my article on finalists I commented that I found only one photo worth mentioning among the three finalists but I was afraid that WA would select a photo of Lyles. Well I was too pessimistic. In the end it was the photo of the final sprint between Hassan and Assefa in the olympic marathon that won the prize.

Since that was my preferred photo, I count it as a correct prediction 🙂.

Speaking if photos, WA were good to their words and did indeed publish a collection of the shortlisted photos. You can find them in what they call a digital exhibition on WA's site. Alas, there is nothing exceptional about this year's photos. If I had to choose three finalists I would have chosen (apart from the Hassan-Assefa one) the photo of Barega with Aregawi and the photo of Neugebauer in the sand pit. (I cannot understand how the photo of the men's 100 m finish could make it to the shortlist. There are hundreds of photos like this. Perhaps it was chosen because it's the one where Lyles won he gold medal).

Just when I was sitting down to write this article, World Athletics announced the name of the Fair Play award winner: S. Skotheim. He was one of the favourites for a medal in the olympic decathlon (after his silver in the Europeans) but then he no-heighted in the pole vault, losing all chances. Still, he decided to pursue the competition and paced his compatriot M. Rooth in the 1500 m, helping him secure the gold medal. I find the choice of Skotheim an excellent one. (Also because it is bringing a combined-events' athlete to the limelight).

Where I sing the praise of Lord Sebastian

I don't like Sebastian Coe. I am always criticising his half-baked decisions and his resistance to change. The only domains where he appears decisive are money and politics. But I hate him for his decision to ban the Russian (and Byelorussian) athletes from international athletics competitions on purely political criteria. But this article will be different.

As you probably know, Coe is candidate for the position of the IOC president. His chances are more than slim. He is in bad terms with the current IOC president T. Bach, and the eligibility rules have been recently modified in a subtle way so as to block his path to the presidency. But a few days ago he gave an interview in which he made clear his stance concerning  the inclusion of transgender athletes (as well as those with DSD) competing in women’s events. He believes  that the current IOC guidelines on the matter are ambiguous, and it is necessary to establish clear and unequivocal rules. In his own words

"It must be a clear policy, and the International Federations must have some flexibility," he explained. "But it is the IOC's responsibility to create that landscape. For me, it is a very clear proposition: if you don't protect the women's category, or if you're in any way ambiguous about it for any reason, it won't end well for women's sport. I come from a sport where that is absolutely sacred".

We have all seen during the Paris Olympics, two boxers, from Algeria and Taiwan, participate in the women's tournament while they had been barred from competing in the 2023 World Championships because, according to the International Boxing Association, both fighters had "male DNA, with XY chromosomes". With the IOC blessing, they won olympic gold medals.

Thanks to Lord Sebastian Athletics has managed to rid the discipline from athletes like Semenya, Niyonsaba, Mboma, to name but a few. 

But the battle is far from over. The question for transwomen participation in female sport has by now become political. People, with progressive ideas and who do not understand anything in sport, blinded by the ambient woke-ism, maintain that the participation must be on the basis of self-determined gender. While I do not share the attitude of the (far-)right, who condemns all LGBTQ tendencies, I draw an impassable line when it comes to sports. Women have fought for ages in order to obtain the right to compete in sports. No supposedly right-thinking arguments can despoil them of their hard-won rights. Transwomen should never be allowed to participate in women's sports.

The IOC should have settled this argument long ago. Unfortunately they keep pretending to be unaware of the problem. And their framework on fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations has opened the road to trans-women (i.e. men) to invade cis-women (i.e. genuine women) sports.

Scientists like Ross Tucker and Emma Hilton have been for years explaining these basic truths to everybody who was willing to listen. They have co-authored an article entitled "Fair and Safe eligibility criteria fo Women's Sport"

Their solution is articulated around the following points

(a) recognising that female sport that excludes all male advantage is necessary for female inclusion; 
(b) recognising that exclusion from female sport should be based on the presence of any male development, rather than current testosterone levels; 
(c) not privileging legal “passport” sex or gender identity for inclusion into female sport;
and 
(d) accepting that sport must have means of testing eligibility to fulfil the category purpose.

Athletes who experience male-typical development from testes producing testosterone, have physiological differences creating athletic advantages and safety risks, even in athletes with XY DSDs who might have been observed as female at birth. The issue is whether male development occurred. This is binary, and is answered by a screen followed by tests run in series (in rare cases) to inform decisions. This is infinitely better than subjective visual judgments of who qualifies and who does not. The current technology enables a screening procedure for “sports sex” that involves a simple cheek swab to determine sex chromosomes. This screen can be performed reliably and quickly.

In case you are wondering about the differences between men and women here is a graphic from a work of R. Tucker showing that the differences can be huge when it comes to force.

Still people, blinded by ill-construed feminism, maintain that there is no real difference and all this is a social construct. Just read the arguments of the "feminist sport approach". Unfortunately, more often than not, the champions of these ideas are women. 

Fortunately there still are some sane voices.  Reem Alsalem, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on violence against women and girls in her report on “Violence against women and girls in sports”, recommends that female categories in organised sport be only accessible to cisgender women. And in an interview, in the wake of the Olympics boxing debacle, she proposed the reintroduction of sex testing and advocated for the cheek swab test. In her own words: "We know that there are simple, efficient, dignified ways of testing sex, that are notinvasive, that are cheap and that are reliable".

The International Consortium on Female Sport, an organisation fighting for the preservation of fairness in women's sport published an pen letter addressed to the IOC urging them to review and re-establish its sex-based eligibility guidelines (female sex verification was abandoned in 1999) and restore safety and fairness for female athletes. The Olympic Charter states that athletes are entitled to participate in Olympic sports without discrimination based on sex. The ICFS asserts that “there can be no greater example of sex discrimination than allowing a male athlete to compete against women and seize from them a medal, a placing or even a chance to compete at all”. Categorisation by gender identity, which forms the backbone of the IOC position, does not guarantee fairness or safety for female athletes. 

To put it in a nutshell, the IOC position simply fails to recognise the rights of female athletes. So, for this once I am praising Lord Sebastian for his uncompromising stance concerning women's sport, and the policy he will implement if he is elected at the IOC presidency. However, unfortunately, the IOC assembly will probably choose, Bach's protégée, K. Coventry over him and one of the first things that she will do, following in Bach's steps, will be to allow men to take over women's sport, essentially killing it.

An interesting article by P. Kyprianou (decathlon coach extraordinaire)

As you certainly know I am following closely the site Décapassion and I stumbled upon a reference to a (somewhat old) article by Petros Kyprianou. For those for whom the name does not ring a bell, Kyprianou (a Cypriot) is the current Director of Track & Field and Cross Country at the University of Illinois. Previously he was head coach of the University of Georgia. He is a specialist of combined events and he has coached many of the Estonian athletes who live and train in the US (Uibo, Erm, Tilga etc).

The article in question had appeared in Decathlon2000 and after reading it I looked for other articles of the same author. And I found a more recent one entitled Developing the Decathlon Technical Model. Kyprianou is a great technician and one things is for sure: he knows the decathlon. In his article he starts with a very interesting comparison. Suppose one aims at a 8000 points performance. Were these points to be uniformly distributed among the events one would have ended up with the following set of performances

However, when one analyses the average scores in each event among ten random decathletes who scored 8000 points the performances are quite different.

Kyprianou concludes that the decathlon is mainly a speed/power event and that sprints/hurdles/jumps appear to offer the best opportunities for point accumulation. And while great performances would be clearly helpful, excessive 1500m training could turn out to negatively interfere with the performance in other areas.

He goes on to formulate his theory of commonality. Instead of teaching all the different techniques in a restricted amount of time it is preferable to try to identify skills and features that the decathlon events hold in common.

I will not attempt to summarise (or plagiarise) Kyprianou's article. Suffices it to say that in just a few pages he not only presents his theory of decathlon coaching but he also outlines a training program that would be useful to everyone who is beginning to coach athletes for combined events. 

But I cannot resist, before concluding this post, to point out this small gem:

"It is ineffective to separate any biomotor development from the technical model. Everything you perform in track and field has a way to be performed. That is called technique".

The World Athletics 2024 finalists

This year World Athletics introduced the three distinct categories for the athlete of the year title, track, field and road (they called it "out of stadium" so as to be able to include cross country) right from the outset (last year they surprised everybody by naming winners in the three categories at the last moment). The finalists list has appeared and there are 2+2 athletes from each group selected. 

Here is the list (I present them in the order track-field-road) for women

Julien Alfred
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone
Yaroslava Mahuchikh
Nafissatou Thiam
Ruth Chepngetich
Sifan Hassan

and men

Jakob Ingebrigtsen
Letsile Tebogo
Mondo Duplantis
Miltiadis Tentoglou
Brian Pintado 
Tamirat Tola

(Just in case you, like myself, had to ask the question "who is Pintado" the answer is that he is an ecuadorian race-walker who won the Olympic title over 20 km). 

Seeing the list one is tempted to make predictions. The case of men's choice is rather easy. I don't think that Pintado and Tola have a real chance. Ingebrigtsen had a good year but the fact that he was defeated over the 1500 and the mile diminishes his chances. Tebogo would have been the undisputable favourite if he had won the 100 m or, at least, if he had led Botswana to victory in the 4x400 m relay. This leaves us Duplantis and Tentoglou. Duplantis was athlete of the year 2022 and was crowned European athlete for 2024. So, I cross my fingers for Tentoglou (and, as you can imagine, I voted for him once the fans' votes were open). But if Duplantis gets the title I will find this perfectly natural.

In the case of women I am much less at ease with predictions. I don't think that either Chepngetich or Hassan can win the title. And Alfred's defeat in the 200 m may prove enough to remove her from the serious contenders. Mahuchikh just won the European title for the athlete of 2024 and this should diminish her chances for the world crown. (But given that lord Sebastian is a great supporter of Ukraine, one cannot be sure). This would leave Thiam and McLaughlin. Thiam secured a third olympic heptathlon title while McLaughlin won the 400 m hurdles title with a great world record. The latter was athlete of the year in 2022, so perhaps this time Thiam will be the one to be crowned. As my regular readers know, I am a great admirer of McLaughlin but this time I voted for Thiam. Of course, it would be perfectly OK if McLaughlin got the title for a second time.

World Athletics published the list of finalists for the Rising Star title. Here they are

Mattia Furlani
Jaydon Hibbert
Niels Laros
Sembo Almayew
Angelina Topic
Ziyi Yan 

Furlani is second in my list of rising stars but since I had placed Wanyonyi (who joined the list of "grown ups" for World Athletics) in first place it is as if Furlani were first. He is my favourite for the title. Laros has just obtained the European title (and so his chances are minimal). As for Hibbert, who figured in my last year's list, I feel that he did not live up to expectations.

I had simply overlooked Almayew for my list and I only recently came to know about Yan. (By the way, World Athletics refers to her in the finalists list as Yan Ziyi, which is the chinese way to give the surname before the name. In fact, in the athlete's profile they are indicating Yan as her surname. However, as for all the other finalists the western-style convention name-surname is used, one is misled into thinking that Ziyi is her surname. One would have hoped that an organisation like WA would have some consistency. But, alas, Lord Sebastian is otherwise occupied). Yan is a superb javelin thrower, very fast and strong, but I don't think that she can grab the title. (If Vilagos and Tzengko manage to realise fully their potential and Yan matures into a top thrower, my fears about female javelin throw, could turn out to be unjustified). The favourite, to my eyes, is Topic. She was my last year's choice and although I decided to put Manuel at first position this year I pointed out that Topic is always my preferred athlete.

I had finished the article and I was ready to publish it when, all of a sudden, I realised that I was not thinking clearly: already last year World Athletics had nominated three "year's best" athletes, one per speciality. So my striving for a prediction of the absolute year's best was unnecessary. With three "best" my prediction for women is easy: McLaughlin, Thiam and Hassan. The situation for men is more complicated. I would select Tebogo over Ingebrigtsen, Tentoglou over Duplantis and Tola over Pintado but I may be 33 % or 67 % or even 100 % wrong. In fact this year WA may go for a race-walker (there has never been one nominated athlete of the year), confirm once more the supremacy of Duplantis (I guess that last year's split into three categories was introduced in order to avoid the Duplantis-Lyles dilemma) and reward Ingebrigtsen, who has been, somehow overlooked the previous years. We'll know in December.

Finally, judging from what happened last year, we may not have access to the finalists for the photograph of the year contest and will have to content ourselves with just the winner. 

PS It turned out I was wrong concerning the finalists for the photograph of the year. Three photos were posted on the WA website and there was a promise that all 11 shortlisted ones will appear later this month. Given that there is only one photo worth mentioning among the finalists (the one with Hassan and Assefa) and that I am afraid that WA will select the photo of Lyles, I am not publishing my choice here but keep it for the article where I will comment on the winners.

The 6.51 m pole vault, another AI stupidity

As you certainly know I am a fan of P.J. Vazel and I am following his twitter (X) stream. Thus I stumbled upon a post where it was question of a 6.5 m jump and artificial intelligence(!). I was intrigued and I followed the link to an (excellent) article by J. Cassirame and collaborators. In the introduction of the article one reads that there have been speculations on the limit of the men's pole vault performances based on AI analyses. A direct reference to the latest one was given, but it linked to an article of Le Monde, unfortunately behind a paywall. But the author of these speculations was explicitly named, Ather Gattami, apparently an expert in AI, and thus I could track down the original publications. 

I found several articles in swedish (but Google can provide quite adequate translations) with one entitled "AI track – Mondo's dream height is 6.51". Duplantis himself has an ambitious career plan and has declared that:

"Jumping 6 meters and 30 centimetres is my next big goal. But why stop there when I can strive for even more? I believe in setting high goals and working hard to achieve them".

So, the swedish olympic committee has sponsored a study led by A. Gattami, which analysed results and data from Duplantis career and "using advanced AI technology identified new dream height for Duplantis at 6.51 meters". Before going further I invite you to savour the (false) precision. It's not 6.50 but 6.51 as if the predictions were accurate to the nearest centimetre.  Gattami explains that "AI can give us tools to push the boundaries in sports", and he concludes that "it is exciting to see how the technology can be used to maximise the athlete's potential and inspire new heights of performance". Would such a trivial statement necessitate AI in order to be formulated? I don't think so: human mediocrity could have sufficed.

Since AI pundits have started talking about almost unrealistic heights it was important to see what a serious scientific analysis could conclude. That's what Cassirame and collaborators set out to do. Already their article is entitled "Why pole vaulting at 6.50 meters seems possible but remains improbable", and not 6.51 m, clearly written by people who understand what is meant by precision. 

The authors are specialists of the biomechanics of pole vault and examine the feasibility of a 6.5 m jump from the point of view of mechanical energy conservation and the relation of the take-of speed to the performance. They estimate that for a take-off speed of 10.3 m/s an elevation of 6.50 m is possible. However this is a naïve estimate assuming just a point mass situated at the centre of mass of the athlete neglecting his corporeal details. On the other hand the athletes are using their arms bending the pole and elevating their centre of mass and so improve the performance predicted by the simple mechanical calculation. I find the figure of Cassirame et al, given below really fascinating. There is a clear (anti-)correlation between take-off speed and energy gained through the work furnished by the arms. 

If you are really interested I urge you to track the article and read it carefully. The conclusion of Cassirame et al, based on purely physical arguments is that while a 6.5 jump by Duplantis is in principle possible, one cannot fully trust the predictions, since Duplantis is an outlier with respect to the general population of vaulters, in terms of take-off speed. 

But even if one accepts the feasibility of such a jump, the second question is whether it is realistic given the career of Duplantis. Given that he is 25 years old and that one can reasonably expect his career to peak before 30, he has just a few more years during which he can improve the world record. Given his actual rhythm, it is not unreasonable to expect an improvement of the current record by 6-8 cm. So while Duplantis' goal of a 6.30 m appears well-thought and achievable, the sensationalistic 6.50 m prediction of AI shamans is pure poppycock.

The rising stars of 2024

Usually, I start my selection of the year's best athletes with the senior ones. But I had noticed in the previous years that ,when it came to the choice of the rising stars, I hadn't been paying sufficient attention and I struggled to establish my list. So, as I did last year, I decided to keep an eye open for the young and upcoming athletes and as a result I am again presenting a post focusing exclusively on the new talents. 

While the rising stars are, in principle, athletes still in their teens, I am always ready to make an exception for somebody who is just 20 years old. This is the case for E. Wanyonyi who was second last year behind L. Tebogo. He is my number one for this year. He has won the 800 m in the Olympics and shares, with W. Kipketer, the second place in the all-time list of the distance, with a 1:41.11 performance, at just 0.2 s from the world record. 

I hesitated a little bit for the remaining places but in the end it's M. Furlani who figures in second place. He had en excellent year winning silver in the Europeans (with a 8.38 m long jump world U20 record) and bronze in the Olympics.

B. Mehary finished 6th in the 5000 m final in the Paris Olympics but, during the Kenyan Trials, had broken the 10000 m world U20 record with 26:37.93 (he is now fifteenth in the all-time list for the distance) but, finishing 4th in the longer distance, he could not make the national team.

Q. Wilson would have been among the first three were it not for his catastrophic performance in the Olympic 4x400 m relay. He came in Paris, at just 16 years of age, with a 44.20 s personal best in the 400 m (world U18 best performance) but ran a 47.27 s first relay leg, and Norwood had to surpass himself in order to get the US into the final. Thanks to the US team winning the final, Wilson became the youngest athletics Olympic gold medalist in history.

I will complement my list of rising stars with cypriot hammer thrower I. Kesidis. He won the World U20 2024 title throwing 82.80 m, more than 7 metres beyond the silver medalist.

For the women's list my preference goes to L.G. Manuel (one cannot guess from her name that she is an athlete from Czechia, but her father is from Angola, and this explains that). I noticed her at the Rome, 2024, Europeans where she qualified easily for the 400 m final in which, with 50.52 s, she finished fourth behind Kaczmarek, Adeleke and Klaver. She reached the semi-final in the Olympics and then went to Lima for the world U20 championships winning gold (just as she had done in the 2023 U20 Europeans).

Topic competes  also in the long jump (albeit with less success)

A. Topic was my 2023 female rising star. This year she is in second position but she is always my preferred athlete. In 2924 she was unlucky, injuring herself during the warm-up of the high-jump in the Paris Olympics. Still she competed in the qualifiers and managed to make the final, but had to withdraw. With the bronze medal being adjudicated at just 1.95 m, Topic, who had jumped 1.98 m a few weeks before the Olympics, had serious chances for a place on the podium. Less than one month after her injury in Paris, Topic participated in the World U20 Championships and won the gold medal.

Ph. Gill won the british national 800 m title with 1:57.86 at just 17 years of age. She has now the European U18 record for the distance. She did not participate in the Europeans due to school exams but went to the Olympics, where she reached the semi-final. It would have been interesting to see Gill running together with S. Moraa in the World U20 Championships, but the former did not pursue her season after the Olympics. Sarah Moraa (a cousin of world champion over the same 800 m distance Mary Moraa) did win the U20 title and thus figures by right in my 2024 rising star list.

I will complete the list of female rising stars with M. Eisa who, after finishing 7th in the 5000 m at the Olympics, went on to win gold over the same distance in World U20 Championships (just as she had done two years before). 

A. Vilagos won the European Rising Star title. She was my choice as number one rising star already in 2022. She is an athlete I am always following closely.

Before concluding this article it is interesting to mention a new award that aims at honouring the best performing male and female U23 athletes at the Diamond League Final. It is called the Jesse Owens Rising Star Award and has the support of the Jesse Owens Foundation. (J. Owens was just 23 years old when he won four gold medals at the Berlin, 1936, Olympics). The first recipients of the Jesse Owens award are L. Tebogo and D. Welteji. Tebogo was the olympic champion over 200 m while Welteji was fourth in the 1500 m final. She has also three Diamond League victories (two over 1500 m and one in the 3000 m) but in the Diamond League final she could only finish second behind the great F. Kipyegon.

The World Athletics choice for 2024 Athlete of the Year

This year World Athletics decided to surprise us by nominating not just 10 candidates  (10 women and 10 men, that is) for the title of the Athlete of the Year. In fact, instead of presenting a list where all disciplines are mixed they started by presenting the list of nominees for Field events, followed by that for Track and later by the  ones dubbed "Out of Stadium".  Given the way they have formulated the presentation of the nominees, we can expect an Athlete of the Year trophy for each of the three specialties. 

Here is the list of the Field athletes 

Valarie Allman
Tara Davis-Woodhall
Nina Kennedy
Yaroslava Mahuchikh
Nafissatou Thiam
Ryan Crouser
Jordan Alejandro Diaz Fortun
Mondo Duplantis
Ethan Katzberg
Miltiadis Tentoglou

All 10 field nominees figure in my list of 13 best (but some of my list like Tamberi and LaFond do,not figure among the World Athletics nominees).

Curiously, for the Track nominees, World Athletics presented a list of 6+6.

Julien Alfred
Beatrice Chebet
Faith Kipyegon
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone
Marileidy Paulino
Gabby Thomas
Rai Benjamin
Grant Holloway
Jakob Ingebrigtsen
Noah Lyles
Letsile Tebogo
Emmanuel Wanyonyi

G. Thomas is not part of my list but only barely so. In fact I am mentioning her when I write about J. Alfred. In the case of the men's list two names are absent from mine: N. Lyles and E. Wanyonyi. For Lyles the reason I had not included him has to do with the excess of hype before the Games. Nobody was talking about anything else but Lyles, so I got fed up. Wanyonyi was left out of my list for a different reason, but revealing it would be a spoiler for a near-future post, so I'll pass. K. Hodgkinson of my list is not among the WA nominees but she figures among the finalists for the European title.

I felt that it would be too long to wait till WA published their "out of stadium" list, where there will certainly figure olympic champion S. Hassan and world record holder R. Chepngetich. So, I decided to publish this post right after the track and field lists of World Athletics were made public and will, if necessary, add a postscriptum once the "out of stadium" nominees are known. 

PS. World Athletics published the list of the ten best "out of stadium" athletes. As expected Hassan and Chepngetich are part of this list as well as olympic Marathon winner T. Tola and World Cross Country Championships winner J. Kiplimo. Y. Kejelcha was probably a last minute addition, since he broke the world record of the half-marathon just one day before the publication of the lists.

The year's best athletes

With the Olympic Games offering an extra incentive to athletes, 2024 year was exceptional in performances. So it was difficult to trim my lists down to just 10 names. And it was extra difficult in the case of women to decide who would occupy the top spot. So I propose an unusual classification. There are two best athletes of the year, Faith Kipyegon and Sydney McLaughlin. 

F. Kipyegon dominated the 1500 m like nobody else has ever done before. She established a world record with 3:49.04, better than the men's 1930 record of Jules Ladoumegue. And while she lost the 5000 m duel beaten by an impressive Chebet, she offered us (again) one of the best battles. 

S. McLaughlin won the olympic 400 m hurdles in an astounding 50.39 s, better than Lituyev's 1953(!) record. And she ran an incredible 47.7 s split in the 4x400 m relay. It would be great if she took a year to hunt for the 400 m flat world record. I am convinced that she can do it. 

And just as there are two athletes in first position I will also have two athletes in third, H. Thiam and S. Hassan. 

N. Thiam won her third straight olympic title in the heptathlon. With 6880 points she did only slightly better than in the Europeans where she had won with 6848 points, but had she jumped at her real potential she would have flirted with 7000 points.

S. Hassan attempted something that no other woman had dared do before, winning 5000, 10000 m and the Marathon. She had to contend herself with bronze medals in the two track events but won the Marathon in a gripping race, the issue of which was decided in the final sprint. I am really surprised that neither Thiam nor Hassan are among the finalists for the European Athlete of the Year trophy, while F. Bol makes the final trio, accompanied by Y. Machuchikh and K. Hodgkinson.

Past the three (well, four) year's best athletes I am giving the list of the remaining without a special ranking.

Y. Mahuchikh had probably badly timed her preparation, and peaked to soon. But, timing notwithstanding, she signed a new world record in high jump, improving with 2.10 m, the 37 years old record of S. Kostadinova.

If I had to choose one race from the whole olympic competition that would have been the women's 5000 m. All the more so, since last year's race at the World's was a breathtaking one. But this year B. Chebet took her vengeance winning ahead of Kipyegon and going on to win the 10000 m as well. 

After her indoor title I had great hopes for T. LaFond in the triple jump. And she delivered. She won the olympic title in great style and secured a place among my year's best. 

V. Allman is the only thrower to make my list. She had won olympic gold in the discus in Tokyo but then failed to win the world titles of '22 and '23. This year she was back with a vengeance winning a second olympic title.

M. Paulino has been dominating the 400 m for the last two years. She was second behind S. Miller-Uibo in Tokyo and again in Oregon, but she became number one last year in Budapest and in Paris added the olympic gold medal to her collection.

N. Kennedy shared the world pole vault title last year with K. Moon. This year she stood alone at the summit of her event. But with 4.90 m she does not have the leading performance this year. When are we going to see women over 5 m again?

J. Alfred was my favourite for the 100 m olympic title. And to tell the truth, for the 200 m as well, although I knew that she did not have the experience of G. Thomas over the distance. Be that as it may, she is the sprinter to follow in the coming years.

T. Davis-Woodhall added olympic gold to her world indoor title for the long jump. She is not just a great jumper. She has a personality that lightens up the field when she competes. And a great technician, something that I always appreciate.

I was waiting for a victory for K. Hodgkinson since the Tokyo Olympics. She had lost there (and again in Oregon) to A. Mu and when, in Budapest, Mu was not in top condition, she lost again to M. Moraa. Well this year she did it, winning the Olympic tile. And she is inching towards the haunted 40+ years old world record.

Turning to the men's year's best list my choice is none other but the one who topped the lists of the past two years: A. Duplantis. One cannot praise him enough. It is rare to have somebody dominate a discipline like he does (not even S. Bubka, despite his six world titles: his larger winning margin never exceeded 10 cm). He is definitely the best pole vaulter of all times.

R. Crouser occupies second place. While he does lose a competition from time to time and his world record is "only" 33 cm better than J. Kovacs' best, Crouser is the thrower who has revolutionised men's shot put.

M. Tentoglou occupies the third place on the podium. Although I was expecting a great jump from him this year, a jump that did not arrive (his 8.65 m in the Europeans is way below his capability) he is still the best long jumper of the last few years. And he shares with Duplantis and Ingebrigtsen a place among the finalists for the European Athlete of the Year trophy.

Speaking of J. Ingebrigtsen, I am including him in my year's best list despite the fact that he lost once more the 1500 m title. Breaking D. Komen's 3000 m record would have suffice in order to secure him a place among the best. I know that Ingebrigtsen wishes to break the 1500 m world record and I think that he is capable of doing this. However I have a crazy idea. When he started his career he was running the 3000 m steeple. And his technique over the hurdles and the river is not bad at all. So it would be interesting if he could take one year to go back to the steeple and bring the world record down to 7:45.

G. Tamberi missed out in the Olympics due to health reasons. But what he did in the Europeans would have been enough to get him a place among the year's best. It's such a pity that he was injured back in 2016 and lost precious years. He would have been the one to threaten Sotomayor's high jump record. 

The 10000 m is usually a race I follow out of the corner of my eye. Well not this year's olympic race. I was following J. Cheptegei, from the very beginning till the end. His race was one of the cleverest I have ever seen. The ethiopians did not have a chance this time and Cheptegei obtained in Paris the title that was missing in his collection.

E. Katzberg is just 22 years old. For a hammer thrower this is kindergarten age. And he is already olympic and world champion. His personal best of 84.38 m is among the best  performances of the 21st century. All of a sudden Sedykh's world record does look out-of-this-world any more.

Speaking about world records, it's the 74.35 discus world record of M. Alekna that obtained him a place among my year's best. That and his short-lived olympic record where he succeeded his father, Virgilijus, who had won the event in Athens in 2004. (Of course the olympic record was not registered in the end of the day, since Alekna lost the title to R. Stona for 3 cm).

J. Diaz-Fortún started by winning the European title (in a memorable fight with P. Pichardo) and went on to add the Olympic one. He is now the third triple jump performer of all times with his 18.18 m jump in Rome.

L. Tebogo was my rising star number one last year. And he confirmed the expectations winning the olympic 200 m final. He is now the fifth performer of all times over the distance. And he ran a great 43.03 s split in the 4x400 m relay. Given that he has the world best performance over 300 m, with 30.69 s, I wouldn't be surprised if, moving to the 400 m, he was the first to run under 43 seconds.

I reserve a place in my list for the hurdler duo G. Holloway and R. Benjamin. The former is the best technician over the high hurdles (but also a 8+ m long jumper) while the latter brought back home two gold medals from Paris, with a 46.46 s in the 400 m hurdles and the 4x400 m relay, which he anchored in 43.13 s.

The last entry in my year's best list is A. Nadeem. He won the javelin throw in the olympics with 92.97 m which makes him the 6th performer of all times. The only one ahead of him among still active throwers is A. Peters. (Well, this is not quite true. J. Vetter, 2017 world champion and with 97.76 m second thrower of all times is stil active. But his injuries are not allowing him to go back to his previous level: he was 6th in the national championships with a 73.16 m throw).

As every year I try to publish my list just ahead of World Athletics. As you have certainly noticed WA and myself do not see eye to eye when it comes to the choice of the year's best. It will be interesting to see who they are going to choose this year (but I expect serious divergences in the men's list). I will definitely follow this and report with details.

The blog is 11 years old

One more year went by and the blog continued its existence. As you know by now, the blog took birth once I had read the book by A. Juilland "Rethinking Track and Field" which gave me the idea to write about things that could (should?) change in the way we are doing athletics. Things that could make competitions more interesting and funnier. (And I must admit that Juilland's title was great, so I did not hesitate to steal it).

Writing the articles for the blog takes time (and requires inspiration) so I decided to pace myself and try to publish regularly without overdoing it. And also, because, I must at all costs avoid readers' burnout. Typically I set myself a lower limit of articles to publish in a year at around 35-40 (roughly three per month). Usually I manage to do better than this. The one thing I cannot control are the views I get. They are, up to a certain point unpredictable, but not totally. This year for instance I obtained a jump of several hundred views of my article "Understanding the Paralympics" just when the Paralympic Games were starting in Paris.

But to tell the truth when one looks at the history of views it is not clear what is really happening. 

Where do those peaks come from? While there was definitely some correlation of this year's  increased views with the Olympics I am not sure that would explain everything. (It would be fun if Google trained its LLM model on my blog. I asked Gemini what happened in the women's 800 m in the Amsterdam 1928 Olympics and, alas, got a non-committal answer. So much for the hope of the blog becoming famous through AI). Be that as it may, the blog is inching towards 300 k views, for 450 published articles. Of course, not all articles get the same number of views. Some like "The javelin controversy" or "Pole vault: before and after" are highly attractive. Others have to contend themselves with just a handful.

The question I ask myself every year is where do we go from here? And at this point I cannot resist the temptation of telling a joke involving detective Monk. If you haven't seen the tv series involving the obsessive detective I recommend that you do it. In one episode Monk (who insists that the count of everything should be a multiple of 10 or of 100) sees somebody doing chin-ups on a horizontal bar and counting 95, 96, 97, reaching 98 and then, with great difficulty, 99 at which point Monk starts encouraging him for one more. Indeed he manages the 100th and surpassing himself we does one more reaching 101. Monk looks seriously at him and says: "now you must go to 200". I feel like being in the same situation. Ten years was a good point to stop. Having gone past that milestone, I can only continue. So, onwards to the 12th year. 

Tygart pranked

Those who follow my blog have heard of Travis Tygart, the guy with the ridiculous hair-style whose unique desire is to see Russia disappear from the international sports arena. He is the head of the US Anti-Doping Agency and a great expert in condemning Russia (and, on occasion, China) while explaining and justifying his acquitting decisions when it comes to american athletes. If you don't remember what I am talking about, I invite you to read my posts on the Knighton and Coleman affairs. (And don't start me on Gatlin who should have been banned for life after his second doping offence, but received just a four-year ban, and went on to win World and Olympic medals). 

In a recent post of mine I wrote about the Friendship Games, that will be held next year in Russia, and how the two russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus trapped the IOC president, T. Bach, and the EU vice-president M. Schinas, pretending to be a "representative of the African Union". 

Lexus and Vovan

Well, this time they did it again, with the USADA CEO, T. Tygart, as victim. (This is not the first time they are tricking Tygart. Back in 2016 they had again contacted him pretending to be Ukraine's minister of sport, O. Zhdanov, asking whether the Sochi biathlon results should be revised, resulting in Ukrainians gaining medals awarded to Russians, to which Tygart said that this could potentially happen). 

The two pranksters posed as african officials. When asked about the Friendship Games, Tygart claimed that athletes taking part in the Games could be banned from future Olympic competitions. His precise words were

"If you compete in those games that don't have doping controls sanctioned by our country or our international sports federation, then you can't compete in the Olympics".

I have trouble understanding this. Why couldn't WADA test the athletes participating in the Friendship Games just before and/or after the Games? And if one supposes that some athletes had taken stimulants during the Games in order to enhance their performance for this particular event, why should this, having no effect on future performances, be unacceptable? Tygart tries to wrap his argument under a doping hide but the main point is governance: it shows through when he speaks about "sanctioned by the international sports federation". This is what this is all about. And Tygart later confirms this by adding that the IOC could feel "seriously threatened" by these games, which could lead to sanctions against participating athletes.

The reactions of russian officials did not take long. Tygart's comments were labeled a "provocation by the United States" and Tygart was invited to "focus on the doping problems in his own country" instead of attacking Russia. And they pointed out that proper doping controls will be in place at the Friendship Games. 

Tygart did not miss the occasion to refer also to the (in)famous Rodchenkov Act (a legislation, passed in 2019, which extends US law enforcement jurisdiction to any international sporting competitions that involve American athletes or have financial connections to the US). It gives the US authorities the ability to detain people also from outside the US if they are suspected of involvement in doping violations. And of course, for zealots like Tygart, the Rodchenkov Act trumps the power of the WADA which is the supreme authority in the fight against doping. But it has been quite some time that the WADA and the USADA do not speak the same language, despite the fact that the former has established the Sports Human Intelligence Network (SHIN), a special intelligence unit that is tasked with spying on athletes and coaches suspected of violating anti-doping rules. But apparently even this is not enough for Mr. Tygart. Perhaps he could lobby the next US administration to institute the death penalty for doping offenders (the non-US ones of course).

Diamond League money prizes

In a recent article Wanda Diamond League announced that the prize money distributed to athletes during the series and the final will get a boost, increasing by almost 30 %. 

Reading the article I realised that I did not know precisely what are the financial conditions now. (Unfortunately the article does not give any precision concerning next year). So I tracked down the prize list of this year's Diamond League. 

Perusing the list it is clear that the prizes increase more or less exponentially. And I decided to check this. In the case of the series this is indeed the case: the increase of the prize with position follows closely an exponential curve. 

However, when it comes to the final, the agreement with the exponential hypothesis ceases to be satisfactory (black dots in the figure below). In particular, the reward of the athlete classified second is seriously underestimated. Thus, I decided to perform a small adjustment by fixing the amount of the prize for the winner and the 8th finisher and obtaining the best fit of the data with an exponential. Once this was done I calculated the prizes for all 8 finalists, rounding them to the nearest 100 dollars, keeping the total sum spent equal to what it was before and trying to be as close as possible to the exponential curve (white dots in the figure below).

The values I obtained are quite realistic. Here is the list

Clearly Wanda must reevaluate the amount for the athlete who comes second and perform a few more adjustments if they wish to be as fair as in the case of the Diamond League series. 

As to why, one of the two prize lists follows closely an exponential and not the other, well, your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps different persons were involved. Be that as it may, with the total prize amount being reevaluated next year, this is the perfect time to remedy a somewhat unfair prize allocation.

Field events at the Paris Olympics

I have given a (more or less) detailed account of the men's long jump competition in my "Stop the presses" article, so there is no point in elaborating further here. Instead I can start with the women's event. My preferred long-jumper, world champion I. Spanovic (the name "Vuleta" was short-lived; she divorced in December) did not manage to reach the final. Fortunately another athlete I really like, T. Davis, dominated the event with 7.10 m, depriving M. Mihambo (6.98 m) of a second olympic title. J. Moore managed something unique in my memory of major championships (unless we count C. Ibargüen's gold medals at the 2018 CAC Games), obtaining bronze medals in both the long (6.96 m)  and triple jumps (14.67 m). L. Iapichino improved her position compared to last year's World's, but she was still outside the medals.

In the absence of Y. Rojas the women's triple jump appeared open. Well, not for me. I was quite confident in the talent of T. LaFond (who, for me, is the best technician of the event) and I was not proven wrong. With 15.02 m she added the olympic title to her world (indoor) one. S. Ricketts was second with 14.67 m. M. Bekh-Romanchuk, last year's silver world medalist, could not do better than 13.98 m in the final. Those who follow my blog may remember the name of A. Smith, a jamaican long- and triple-jumper, and her last year's misadventure in the long jump world final. She was the second jumper to make the two finals in Paris, finishing 8th in long jump and 7th in the triple.

Thea-Lafond kinogram

I must confess that I was somewhat disappointed by the men's triple jump results. The battle between J. Díaz and P. Pichardo, never took place. One would have expected something better (but I admit that I am asking for too much) than 17.86 and 17.84 m. In the end three cubans trusted the three places on the podium, representing Spain, Portugal and Italy (A. Díaz with 17.64 m). Teen-age talent J. Hibbert (who made a sensation last year) was just outside the medals with 17.61 m, just like world champion H.-F. Zango (17.50 m). 

Women's high jump was a bizarre affair. E. Patterson and I. Herashchenko tied in third place at 1.95 m (beating V. Cunningham on count-back) and only N. Olyslagers and Y. Machuchikh continued to 2.00 m. Olyslagers succeeded at her third attempt, Machuchikh having gone over at her first. Up to that height the latter has shown an incredible ease and one would reasonably expect something far better. But something started going wrong at that height. Olyslagers bowed out at 2.02 and Machuchikh having failed in her first two attempts raised the bar at 2.04 m and ... failed again. Since 1980 and S. Simeoni's victory with 1.97 m only R. Beitia's title in Rio (1.97 m) was obtained with such a low performance. 

I will try to forget the men's high jump. The gold medalist, H. Kerr, gave a proof of his absence of personality. He had witnessed the real camaraderie of Tamberi and Barshim who shared gold in Tokyo. But when he tied at first place with S. McEwen at 2.36 m, he opted for a jump-off, not wishing to share gold. Of course, everything was by the book, but, personally, I am disgusted at this attitude. (To tell the truth, judging by the body language of both jumpers I initially thought that it was McEwen who asked for the jump-off. It was only the next day that I found out what had really happened). In case you are wondering Barshim was third with 2.34 m and Tamberi, suffering from some kidney problem, could only jump 2.22 m. 

I gave details on men's pole vault in my "stop the presses" article but I did not mention the 6.25 m world record of A. Duplantis. Well, it was a short-lived one. It was improved to 6.26 m less than a month later in the same competition where Karalis passed for the first time 6 m (joining the elite of 20-something 6-plussers) a competition which saw three jumpers over 6 m (Kendricks also cleared 6 m). 

The women's pole vault was a gruelling affair. The qualification standard was fixed at 4.70 m. However when the bar was raised at 4.55 m only 11 athletes passed and, what is really rare, there were 9 athletes who had passed 4.40 m at their first attempt and missed 4.55. Not having the possibility, given the rules, to break such a tie the organisers qualified all 20 athletes for the final. Among the qualification "victims" where the two british jumpers Bradshaw and Caudery, the latter fouling out at her initial height of 4.55 m. 

A. Adamopoulou was injured and could not participate, but the remaining 19 entered a final where, to avoid the event finishing at midnight, the initial bar was placed at 4.40 m and the next ones at 4.60, 4 70 and 4.80 m. Only 5 jumpers remained at that height and 4.85 m was enough for the podium. A. Newman took bronze beaten on count-back by K. Moon. N. Kennedy passed 4.90 m on her first try, winning the olympic gold after having shared the world one  last year. It is clear that something has to be done in order to avoid situations such as the one in Paris. The simplest solution would be to decide that for the vertical jumps only 12 athletes can qualify for the final and, if there is a tie in the last places leading potentially to the qualification of more than 12, the tie is broken following the procedure used for the first place. 

I concluded my report on the field events of this year's Europeans saying that "I am not particularly optimistic about the chances of the European throwers at the Olympics". Unfortunately my prediction turned out to be true (just 6 medals out of 24 possible). And it would have been worse were it not for an exceptional thrower I had not noticed before. But let us start at the beginning. 

In women's shot, put the number-one favourite, C. Ealey-Jackson failed to qualify for the final. This left S. Milton, the world leader, without dangerous opponents. But in the final Milton committed suicide landing her first two throws at 17 m and fouling her third, a 20+ that would have sufficed for first place. M. Wesche led the competition up to the last throw where Y. Ogunleye send her shot at 20 m winning gold. Ogunleye was silver medalist at this year's world indoors and bronze medalist at the Europeans, but somehow I managed to miss her. Last year I wrote an article on a lithe young thrower I had noticed during the European U20 championships, N.C. Ndubuisi. Well, Y. Ogunleye is built in the same model with just 67 kg for 1.83 m of stature. One can have no better proof that shot putters do not have to be fat  in order to throw far. The new olympic champion is one more example proving De Coubertin and Brundage wrong. 

In the men's shot put R. Crouser did not come to Paris as the incontestable favourite. However when the final started, things changed immediately. With a massive heave at 22.64 m (subsequently improved to 22.90 m) he took the lead and was never menaced. J. Covacs secured the silver medal at his last throw and on count-back as R. Campbell had also thrown 22.15 m. L. Fabri was very far from his year's best and with 21.70m finished at 5th place, P. Otterdahl being pushed out of the medals despite a 22.03 m throw at his 6th attempt. T. Walsh who was on the podium in the last two Olympics was injured and could not have a valid throw in the final.

The men discus reserved a great surprise. World recordman M. Alekna took command of the event with a throw at 69.97 m breaking the olympic record held by his father, Virgilijus (69.89 m, from the 2004, Athens, Olympics). After the first three throws Alekna was leading with Denny and Ceh at second and third positions respectively. And then, R. Stona, a practically unknown jamaican (there were three jamaicans in the final), whose best result was a 6th place in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, sent the discus to precisely 70 m winning the event. Of course Stona, who lives and trains in the US had a 69+ personal best from earlier this year, so his throw was not totally unrealistic. Still his victory was a major surprise. 

Speaking of surprise victories, the women's discus has a tradition of such, since the last two World Championships were won in what I consider a "lucky" throw. (The case of L. Tausaga is particularly interesting: she obtained the qualifying standard during her last throw in the US Trials and then, in Budapest, she was trailing in 6th position when she unleashed a 69.49 m throw, beating V. Allman by 26 cm. This year she failed to qualify for the final of the US Trials.). In Paris the situation went back to normal. V. Allman took the lead from her first throw, all her valid throws being longer than those of F. Bin and S. Elkasevic-Perkovic who had 67.51 m as best throw, Bin winning on count-back.

Canada dominated the hammer throw. E. Katzberg confirmed his position as the best hammer thrower in the world, winning with 84.12 m, four metres more than the second. All of a sudden the out-of-this-world, almost 40 years old, record of Y. Sedykh (86.74 m) does not seem unattainable. A. Wlodarczyk participated in her fourth Olympics, after having won the previous three. Unfortunately she could not add a fourth gold to her collection and in fact missed bronze for a mere 4 cm. Be that as it may, she is the greatest female hammer thrower we have even seen (and I cannot understand why World Athletics have systematically snubbed her). World leader B. Andersen managed to eliminate herself from the competition, failing to qualify in the US Trials. Canadian, C. Rogers (the number-two in the world this year) was the natural favourite and went on to win easily with a 76.97 m throw.

The men's javelin throw was a great competition and an occasion for the greek tv commentators to give another proof of their ignorance. When A. Nadeem threw a humongous 92.97 m (improving the olympic record and winning the event) they explained that he had improved his record by 6 metres, simply forgetting that two years ago he had won the Commonwealth Games with 90.18 m. The two "veterans" of the event Y. Yego and K. Walcott were present, finishing 5th and 7th in the final. The "youngster" of the event A. Peters was once more on the podium, finishing third with 88.54 m.  (He was going to throw beyond 90 m a month later). N. Chopra, has apparently a psychological problem with the 90 m barrier. He had thrown beyond 88 m already in 2018 and he is still unable to get a 90+ performance. In Paris he was second with 89.49 m. (But he has the potential for a great throw and he is still young, so there is always hope).

A kinogram of McKenzie-Little

I left for the end the women's javelin throw. Unfortunately the discipline is becoming a real disaster. Winning olympic gold with 65.80 m is ridiculous. Frankly, I don't think that H. Kitaguchi is a great thrower. She is a 66-67 m thrower but she is an excellent competitor who profited from the state of the discipline winning world and olympic titles. M. Andrejczyk who was the most promising among the new generation may never realise her potential. And I start being anxious about the future of E. Tzengko. Her european 2022 title did not lead to the evolution one would have expected. F. Ruiz-Hurtado, who almost created the surprise in last year's World's, is a tad too old. The only hope is A. Villagos, but she managed to botch her Paris competition, finishing 13th in the qualifiers. At least I discovered in Paris an athlete I have never seen before, J-A van Dyk, from South Africa who obtained silver. 

I don't know what can be done in order to improve the situation. Introducing a lighter javelin, say of 500 gr, will barely add 5 m to the performances, so this is not a solution.  Thus, as long as the discipline is stagnating, every women's javelin competition will be a source of frustration for me.