My choice of the year's best athlete

All of a sudden I realised that October was the proper moment for the publication of my list of the year's best athletes. Last year's November publication was due to the fact that the World Championships took place unusually late, in October. In fact I asked myself if World Athletics are going to go through their usual selection of the year's best given the unique situation forced upon us by the epidemic. But, whatever they decide, I felt that I had to go through my yearly report and choose the athletes I appreciated most during the 2020 season. 

For men's top three the choice was easy. Three athletes really distinguished themselves this year. Foremost is A. Duplantis. 

He started with two superb world records arriving at 6.18 m, indoors (but, for vertical jumps, indoor world records do count as absolute ones). And then in order to silence those who were thinking that he had not yet surpassed Bubka he did jump 6.15 m outdoors becoming the indisputable ruler of pole vault. 

J. Cheptegei began the season with a road 5 km world record in February. But the serious things came later when he erased Bekele's name from the world record tablets with two superb performances over 5000 m (12:35.36) and 10000 m (26:11.00). Had he managed to win the World Championship of half-Marathon (he finished 4th) he would have shared the first place with Duplantis. As things stand he is in second place.

The third place goes to K. Warholm who has chased the 400 m hurdles world record ending up at less than a tenth of a second with his excellent 46.87 s. What would have occurred had he not stumbled over the last hurdle is still a matter of debate. The record over 300 m hurdles (33.78 s), obtained early in the season, is a consolation. 

The remaining 7 athletes of the top-ten are usually given without any special order. This time I will make an exception and give J. Vetter the 4th place. With his 97.76 m javelin throw he showed us that the 24-years old record of Zelezny is not unattainable. 

R. Grouser has been going after the world record in shot put but he finally had to settle for an 22.91 m.

T. Cheruiyot was unbeaten over the 1500 m this year obtaining a 3:28.45 in the Monaco Herculis meeting in an epic battle with J. Ingebrigtsen where the latter established a European record with 3:28.68. Both have won their place in the top ten.

D. Stahl dominated the discus throw, winning 18 out of 20 competitions, with a year's best of 71.37 m. 

H.F. Zango has won his place in the top-ten for his superb African indoor record in triple jump with 17.77 m at just 15 cm from his coach's (T. Tamgho) world record of 17.92 m.

The last place goes to N. Lyles for his 19.76 s over 200 m together with D. Brazier for his world leading 1:43.15 over 800 m.

As always there is also a "rising star" category, focusing on young, typically U20 (but I do not always apply this rule), athletes. 

The first place is a no-brainer. By winning the World Half-Marathon championships, J. Kiplimo established himself as one of the best long-distance runners. He would have won a place in the men's top ten had I not reserved him for the rising star crown.

The second place goes to  M. Volkov (son of 1980 olympic silver medalist K. Volkov) who at 15 years of age jumped a U16 world record of 5.50 m in pole vault.

Finally, for third place, we have S. Zhoya who improved the U20 60 m hurdles world record with 7.34 s. 

For the women's top the things were less clear. I finally opted for a first place to S. Hassan who improved the 1 hour world record with 18930 m and made a serious attempt at the 10000 m record of Ayana, finally settling, due also to the disastrous meteorological conditions, for "just" a European one with 29:36.67.

The second place goes to P. Jepchirchir who repeated her 2016 victory by winning the 2020 edition of the half-Marathon World Championship, this time accompanied by a (women's only race) world record 1:05:16.

L. Gidey, who broke the 5000 m world record with 14:06.62 occupies the third place in my list of the year's best athletes.

There is no particular order from here onwards. E. Thompson and S. Miller were the best sprinters this year. The first with 10.85 s over 100 m and a brief appearance in the european Diamond League circuits, while the second did not cross the Atlantic, favouring the US circuits, where she ran a 21.98 s 200 m.

F. Kipyegon has been chasing Masterkova's 1000 m record during all summer. In the end she had to settle for an African record of 2:29.15, just 17/100 s off the World one.

M. Lasitskene jumped only during the winter season but managed a world leading 2.05 m in high jump confirming her position at the top of the discipline. Let us hope that the ANA program is not scrapped and that she'll be allowed to participate in the Tokyo Olympics next summer (provided they are held, of course, which is not at all obvious at this point in time).

Y. Rojas improved the indoor triple jump world record with 15.43 m and then she went on to a so-so summer season. If only she had profited from this season's lack of competitions in order to improve her technique ...

I really like this photo of Allman

V. Allman surprised everybody with a US discus record of 70.15 m . With this throw she became the 25th member of the event’s still-exclusive 70-metre club. Allman, trained in dancing, believes that having a deep connection with body movement through dance has been “incredibly beneficial” during her discus career.

I had to choose the tenth athlete among a slew of women who have had a great season: B. Kosgei (winner of the London Marathon and second at the half-Marathon championships), M. Mihambo (who jumped 7.03 m outdoors and 7.07 indoors in the long jump), K. Klosterhalfen (who, with  14:30.79, established a European record over 5000 m indoor), L. Muir (who won all her races over 1500 m, and had a world best of 3:57.40), H. Obiri, undefeated over 3000 m and 5000 m, the two dutch hurdlers, N. Visser (and her world-leading 12.68 s over 100 m hurdles, winning 13 of her 14 races) and F. Bol (who won all her six races, and registered a world leading 53.79 over 400 m hurdles) and A. Sidorova (who jumped a world leading 4.95 m, indoors, in pole vault).  

Finally I settled for the heptathlete I. Dadic. She has the world-leading performance in heptathlon with 6419 points but, what is really impressive, she completed a one-hour heptathlon in July obtaining 6235 points. Her performances are impressive: 13.64 s, 1.80 m, 14.84 m, 24.32 s, 5.76 m, 47.60 m and 2:19.10. Were it not for the slightly below par long jump (where she lost probably 150 points) she would have done almost equally well in the one-hour compared to the two-days event.

For the women's rising star the first place goes to Y. Machuchikh, thanks to her U20 2.02 (indoor) record obtained in February. Unfortunately the remaining season was not on par with this performance since she managed "only" 2.00 m outdoors. So my recommendation is less enthusiastic than the last year's one.

I have reserved the second place to a greek athlete, E. Tzengko. She threw a 63.96 m in the javelin throw improving the U20 world record. Unfortunately due to some technicality (the anti-doping test was performed the following morning) her record cannot be homologated. 

In the third place we have L. Iapichino, the daughter of F. May and G. Iapichino, who, by jumping 6.80 m this summer, showed that she is following in her mother's footsteps.

G. Stark improved the indoor U20 60 m hurdles world record with 7.91 s. A. Shukh (she is 21, but as I said I do not abide WA's rule of under 20) is, at last, starting to show her real potential as heptathlete with a 6386 performance this summer. If she manages to improve her basic speed there is no limit to what she can do. S. Richardson, at 20 years of age, is constantly improving, with 10.95 and 22.00 s over 100 and 200 m. All of them are rising stars.

When (if) World Athletics publish their top-ten list I will definitely report on that, comparing their list to mine.

Competition in the times of the epidemic: a personal experience

I do not write about myself in this blog. In fact, apart from some of the very first posts where I wrote about how I came to be interested in athletics, there is one mention of the sport I practice in the post on mixed relays. There are of course several blogs of mine dealing with my sport but "rethinking" is a blog totally devoted to athletics (where, of course, I present my personal, totally subjective, view of things). This post will be an exception to the general rule. Here I intend to draw upon my personal experience as athlete and present my view on the disastrous, panicky, and responsibility-avoiding handling of the epidemic by the various governments.

But before going into this let me give some background. I am a finswimmer. For those of you who do not know this sport I suggest you google the term finswimming. There are even semi-decent wikipedia articles on this. I am training and swimming at competition level, participating in the masters's age groups competitions. This year the world championships were planned for June. They got postponed to October and transformed into european championships due to the existing travel restrictions.

The author (middle) on the podium of this year's European Masters'

First came the lockdown. All of a sudden one could go out just one hour per day in order to exercise. I am reading the accounts of several top-class athletes who had to improvise training in their backyards or in the street. Now, why on earth an open-air training ground couldn't be accessible to a certain number of athletes is a mystery to me. My assessment of the situation can  be summarised in a single word, panic. The various governments, caught unprepared without even a reserve of the today omnipresent masks, decided to enforce isolation on everybody. And when they realised that this was ruining the economy (was that so difficult to predict?) they lifted the lockdown but kept the training grounds off-limits.

For swimmers the situation was even worse since we need a pool to swim in. In France the swimming pools were inaccessible from March to September. The way I found in order to keep in shape was by doing indoor biking and occasionally going for brisk walks. Running is out of the question unfortunately: after 40 years of finswimming my ankles cannot take much beating. When summer arrived I left for Greece and started training in the sea. I came back to France just when the swimming-pools were opening so that I could do my final preparation for the Europeans. It was a close call since just upon my return from the championship I learned that the swimming pools were again "temporarily" closed. This is something I have trouble understanding. How can closing swimming-pools help mitigate the spreading of the epidemic? Swimming-pools are among the safest places as far as the sars-cov-2 virus is concerned. With a minimum of preventive measures (which are already in place) people can swim (and train) safely. It all boils down to deniability. Governments like to be able to claim that they cannot be held accountable since they have taken these and those measures.

But it is not enough to be able to train. In order to participate in the championships one must be able to travel. And there the nightmare starts. The restrictions imposed by the various governments change every week. I can now understand why there have been so few american athletes present during the Diamond League circuit of competitions. And for professional athletes this is a disaster since they need the money they get from competing in order to live. 

However what is even more important (and applies equally to professional athletes and to amateurs like us) is that one cannot be an athlete without competition. Competition is not about beating the others (although this is also part of the game). Competition is about surpassing oneself. And this is something that all athletes crave for. I cannot describe to you the elation I felt when I found myself in the championship swimming-pool.

This year's competitions were "spectator-free". As far as us finswimmers are concerned this is not a big deal. Our competitions do not attract big crowds. So the fact that it was only us competitors in the pool did not make any difference. (But the fact that you had to wear a mask while in the stands and during the award ceremonies was not the nicest of experiences). I don't know if the elite athletes are feeling the absence of spectators. Compete in a stadium in the presence of tens of thousands people must be a unique feeling.

I really like this photo of Hassan

And now the season is over. Its conclusion was a superb european record by S. Hassan in the 10000 m with 29:36.67 beating at last Radcliffe's 2002 record (E. Abeylegesse's 29:56.34 was expunged for a doping violation). As chance would have it, Radcliffe missed the 30 min barrier by a mere second due to the heavy rain she had to run under and Hassan had to convert her assault at Ayana's world record to a more modest objective due to the same pesky rain.

The night of the world records

I was looking forward to this event ever since Cheptegei broke the 5000 m world record. What I did not expect was that what was planned was a double assault, with Gidey taking a shot at the long-standing Dibaba's 5000 m record.

M. Gidey is more of a 10000 m specialist. She was second in last year's  World's over that distance. Her previous best over the shorter distance was "just" 14:23.14 from 2018. So I was somewhat sceptical when the attempt was announced. However I was to be proven overly cautious. Paced superbly by none other than the steeplechase world champion and record holder B. Chepkoech, she passed at 3000 m in 8:31.85 right on the planned pace. And from there onwards she continued even increasing slightly her rhythm drawing on her last reserves on the final stretch and finishing with a amazing 14:06.62.

It was a unique moment when Chepkoech rushed to hug Gidey, literally lifting her off her feet. 

When A. Ayana ran that "out of this world" 29:17.45 during the Rio, 2016, Olympics, I pointed out that that performance was equivalent to a sub-14 min 5 km.

It looked quite possible since at the time Ayana had a 14:12.59 personal best in that distance. (And then Ayana went on to loose the olympic 5000 m, and essentially disappear after 2017). But now that I have seen Gidey running in such a regular and efficient way in Valencia, I am again optimistic about a sub-14 min 5000 m record in a not-too-distant future.

Speaking of regularity, I think that the best innovation in track events is the Wavelight pacing system. Not only does it ensure a correct pacing all the way up to the finish line, something impossible with human pacers, it is also of great usefulness to the spectators. It was funny, over the last lap, to see Gidey turn her head to see how far ahead of the lights, moving at the world record pace, she was. 

J. Cheptegei is the new name in middle-to-long distance running. When he announced that he was going to tackle the 10000 m record I did a fast calculation and it resulted that all he had to do is run a constant 63 s lap. Well, this is easier said than done, but if anybody could do it that was Cheptegei. In his enterprise he was helped by a superb pacer, N. Kimeli, a last year's World's finalist in the 5000 m with PBs of 12:51.79 and 26:58.97 in the 5000 and 10000 m respectively. Kimeli led Cheptegei to a 13:07.73 first 5000 m (and, surprisingly, he did not drop out of the race, as almost all pacers do, but carried on, finishing in 27:12.98). Cheptegei necessitated a few laps before finding his own pace, but once he reached the seventh kilometre it was clear that the record was within his grasp.

His final time, 26:11.00, is even better than the 63 s per lap I talked about in the previous paragraph. There has even been some pre-race speculation that Cheptegei could attack the 26-min barrier. My own feeling was that it was a tad too early for this. But now that he has mastered the sub 63 s pace, a 62.5 s one (corresponding to a round 26 min) is not unrealistic. 

In the meantime Cheptegei has another objective: the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships, which will take place on October 17th. It might turn out that 10 days are not enough for Cheptegei to recover from his herculean effort, but one never knows. In any case I will keep an eye open. 

PS. Well, 10 days were not enough. Cheptegei could manage just a 4th place, in a race won by his compatriot, young and talented, J. Kiplimo.