Tweet



2010/2011 season was a season to remember. It began with me changing from my high school coach, David Miles, to Pat Clohessy. Here I was introduced to the cruel world of hard training. In my final year of school my training program consisted of 45km weeks. Moving to Pat, I soon realised to become competitive, I needed to be stronger and faster. To do this I had to increase my training load. Soon after moving to Pat’s I was introduced to 75-85km weeks on a consistent basis.

After a few weeks I noticed significant improvement in my strength and fitness with the increase of my training load. I competed in a 3km winter carnival up at the University of Queensland where I ran an 8.45min (PB). This was a 7sec PB for me and was the first sign that my new training program was working for me.

A few weeks later Brisbane hosted the National Cross Country Titles. I was excited to race having produced a big PB in the 3km and been training hard with boys in my squad such as Jay Twist and Sam Schofield. Here I finished 8th, a huge improvement from my previous national cross placing of 32nd the year before. Narrowly coming behind Juniors Kevin Batt and Hugh Williams, gave me confidence that I was starting to become more competitive in the Junior ranks.



With a strong placing at Nationals, Pat and I decided to focus upon selection in the Junior World Cross Country Team for Worlds in Spain. With Peter Nowill back from London, the next few months involved lots of training and little racing. I would like to thank Pete for all those sessions he has pushed me since returning from London. Three races that we focused upon were the 5km Noosa Bolt, 1500m Classic and Zatopek.

In all of these races I produced massive PB’s as a result of my hard training. In the Noosa Bolt I ran a 15.10min, a 30sec PB. In the 1500m Classic, I ran a strong 3.52min, a 7sec PB and at Zatopek I finished with an 8.26min, a 19sec PB.



As a result of my good form towards the start of summer, I was given an opportunity by Athletics Australia to attend their Junior Camp down at Falls Creek. Here I ran with some of Australia’s top Junior and Senior athletes such as Collis Birmingham and Brett Robison.

The highlight of this camp was missing the bus back to the hotel from a training run one morning and getting a lift from Steve Moneghetti. Speaking to one of Australia’s greatest runners about my running was an honour.



Two weeks after Falls, I travelled to Canberra for the World Cross selection trial. It was a race I had been working towards for six months and by race day, I was ready to give it my all. The race started off slow for the first lap before Josh Johnson put down the pace and broke up the pack. By the last lap I was in a strong position and knew if I could hang on and hold off Ethan Heywood I would be picked in the team. I finished third in the end behind Josh Johnson and Hugh Williams and as a result was picked in the team with Ethan Heywood as well.

Receiving that call from Athletics Australia later in the week letting me know that I was picked made all those hard months worth it. Representing Australia at World Juniors with some of my best running mates is what every Junior dreams of and I thank Athletics Australia for believing in me and giving me the opportunity.

Looking back at the 2010/2011 season, it was a season full of PB’s and experience for me. Running at World Juniors Cross and placing 41^st was the highlight of my season. The trip, the race, the experience and the mates I made from it, is something I will always remember. The season has given me the opportunity of meeting some of my greatest mates I now have, such as the boys in the CIS (Clayfield Institute of Sport) house and Ethan, Hugh, and Josh who I got to experience falls and worlds with. These are the boys that help you through that last km rep and push you harder in your races. The major thing I learnt from the season is self belief. Believing in your training program, your coach and training partners when that gun goes, is an asset that I will always cherish.



At the moment I am involved in heavy training working towards Junior National Cross. In the coming months I will be looking at competing once again at the Noosa Bolt, 1500m Classic and Zatopek as I work on producing fast track times and possible selection in the World University Cross team next year.

I would like to thank SIS and Runner’s Tribe for giving me this opportunity to blog for them and I hope you enjoy reading what I thought was a breakthrough season for me.  

Tweet

A fit Sally Pearson can win the 100 metres hurdles at the world championships in Daegu.

Tyson Gay cannot win the 100 metres. Asafa Powell can. Usain Bolt probably will.

David Rudisha is back on track to win a world championships gold medal to sit alongside his 800-metres world record plaques.

If timing is everything, Allyson Felix appears to have picked precisely the right time to attempt, or at least seriously consider, a 200/400 metres world championships double.

If Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibaba or Steve Hooker is to defend the titles they won in Berlin they will have to hit the ground running, or falling from a great height, pretty soon. Likewise, Olympic champion and world record holder, Yelena Isinbayeva.

Mid to late-June brought the European Team championships, the US and Jamaican championships and the resumption of the Diamond League in Lausanne.

Let the last be first. Despite its sometimes-wild early summer weather, Lausanne usually produces a slew of outstanding performances. Remember Usain Bolt running 19.59 in pouring rain in 2009 and Steve Hooker sending plumes of water spraying in all directions when he hit the landing bags on his winning vault?

This year it was chilly and windy, but that didn’t deter Sally Pearson one little bit. The Beijing 2008 silver medallist was having her first start in Europe and she stamped her authority immediately, with a 12.47w win over Danielle Carruthers of the US.

US champion Kellie Wells was back in sixth place and there were decidedly sub-par performances from Jamaican pair Delloreen Ennis-London, eighth, and 2009 world champion Brigitte Foster-Hylton, a non-starter in the B-race.

It seemed likely 2009 would be Pearson’s year as she continued on from her Olympic silver. It was not to be, however, as an ill-timed back injury cut her down and she finished fifth in Berlin – good, but not as good as it might have been.

Perhaps 2011 will be the year it all goes right.

As always, championships answer some questions and pose others. The US championships are brutal in the events in which the US has depth. One-2-3 are in, the rest can please themselves. So when Tyson Gay was not able to take his place in the semi-finals of the 100, that meant he was out of the Daegu team. (He is apparently out for the season, too, meaning no Bolt-Gay-Powell clash for another year.)

Across the north American continent, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, Asafa Powell was coming into the Jamaican championships beset by doubts. Actually, the former world record holder was beset by the doubts of others after pulling up in a race in Morocco a few weeks earlier with a hamstring cramp/strain. The man himself was insisting all was well.

For once, Powell turned out to be the best judge of his physical, and mental, health. Despite a clash of arms with Steve Mullings as they came off the blocks, he came through to beat Bolt’s young training partner Yohan Blake and Mullings to take the title.

Now, in Lausanne, Powell has run the year’s fastest to date of 9.78 – the eighth sub-9.80 of his career, one more than Gay, two more than Bolt. (Thanks to Ken Nakamura, I can tell you he also has 68 sub-10s and 33 sub-9.90s.)

Can he convert this into one world championships gold medal. Hard to say, but it seems clear that he, Gay and Bolt still stand clear of the rest. Gay is out, Bolt’s physical shape is equivocal (albeit heading ominously in the right direction), so maybe, just maybe, this could be Powell’s year.

In March, it seemed it certainly would be David Rudisha’s year. Having set two world record in the 800 in 2010, the young Kenyan opened 2011 with yet another 1:43 in Melbourne, followed by a further win in Sydney. Injury then struck, however, a dodgy ankle threatening to bring it all undone.

Now, Rudisha has returned with two excellent results within a week. First, he ran a world-leading 1:43.46 in a low-key French meeting and now he has run 1:44.15 to win in Lausanne. He doesn’t appear to be in the same awe-inspiring shape as last season but, like Bolt, if he is back healthy then time is on his side.

Allyson Felix is not yet confirmed as a 200-400 doubler in Daegu, but as defending champion in the former and US champion in the latter, is eligible for both events at the world championships.

If she does attempt the double (previously done by Michael Johnson at the 1995 worlds and Johnson and Marie-Jose Perec at the 1996 Olympics), Felix may find the timing is just right. Olympic champion Veronica Campbell-Brown will be tough at 200, but the 400 looks more open with defending champion Sanya Richards-Ross slow to return to top form from injury.

At least Richards-Ross is back on the track. Berlin champions Bekele, Dibaba (5000 and 10,000) and Hooker and Olympic champion Isinbayeva are yet to get there.

Hooker is slated to return at Monaco on 22 July and may compete before that. Bekele is said to have several months training behind him after a persistent calf injury and to be returning sometime this month.

Dibaba is an unknown quantity at this stage and Isinbayeva competed twice in the indoor season, but has yet to appear in outdoor competition.

Of course, you would write any or all of these champions off at your peril, but the clock is ticking. There are more questions to be asked and answered yet.

Tweet

When I ran my second marathon back in 1977, the first official split came at what was supposed to be three miles.

As soon as our pack of (ever-so-slightly) sub-six minute milers heard, “the minutes are 14”, we knew something was wrong. We expected “17,’ might have been fooled by “16”, but 14: no way.

Someone had moved the mile posts. We all had a laugh about it then, but we weren’t laughing later when, instead of turning into the finish on the oval at Point Cook RAAF base, we were directed back the way we had come to make good the missing distance.

These days, it’s moved goal posts that get most of the limelight. Whenever the slightest change is proposed to a pre-existing set of circumstances – like a government benefit – someone complains loudly that “you can’t move the goal posts.”

If the goal posts are moved, annoying as it is, the remedy is simple. All you have to do is adjust your sights.

Mile posts, however, are a measure of progress. Moving them is much more disruptive. Someone always has to decide where the goal posts are set, but each mile post is supposed to be precisely one mile after the preceding marker.

How many of us tick off each successive kilometre or mile in a marathon. It’s easier to break the distance down into manageable chunks than to always think of 26 miles 385 yards, or 42 kilometres 195 metres.

Don’t mess with the mile posts then which, unfortunately, is something Athletics Australia has been doing for quite some time over its attitude to world championships and Olympic qualifying performances.

First, here’s how the system works. The IAAF, acting either on its own behalf (world championships) or on behalf of the IOC (Olympics) sets an entry, or qualifying, standard for each event on the program. Indeed, it sets two – an A-standard and a B-standard.

For the Olympics, national federations can enter up to three athletes per event provided all have the A-standard, or one provided that athlete has achieved the B-standard. At world championships, it’s permissible to mix A’s and B’s, but you can only enter one athlete with a B-standard.

The IAAF also sets a qualifying period which, up until 2011, was 1 January of the previous year. For this year’s world championships, however, the qualifying period was shortened, commencing from 1 October, 2010. For London 2012, the period started on 1 May, 2011.

Why do I say Athletics Australia has moved the mile posts in recent years? Two reasons: first, because it has habitually shortened the qualifying period; and, second, because it has stopped acknowledging B-qualifiers.

It is quite entitled to do so, but both measures have the effect of ignoring athletes who have passed a significant athletics milestone in qualifying for selection for the world championships or Olympic Games.

Regularly through the year, Athletics Australia produces and updates a list of qualified athletes for major championships. These always used to include those who had achieved the B-standard. For some time, they haven’t. As well, the lists do not include athletes who achieved either an A or B-standard within the IAAF period but outside the Athletics Australia period.

Does it matter? Yes, it does, I would argue. Athletics is the most measurable of sports. These measures apply to many categories – world records, area and national records, all-comers’, meeting and personal records and qualifying performances.

Now, of course, the mere fact of achieving a qualifying performance does not guarantee selection, but it does make you eligible to be selected. It is a milestone whose passing should be acknowledged.

Each and every record is remarked upon. No-one ever says the fact that a record is a poor one, nowhere near world standard, is reason not to acknowledge it. Qualifying performances have already jumped that particular hurdle – even a B-standard is a world-class performance.

The other thing about acclaiming all those who reach the qualifying standards is that it emphasises the depth in the sport. From a publicity point of view, far better a long list of ‘eligibles’ than a short one, I would have thought.

From time to time, our premier Olympic sports go the other way. Even further back than the period of which I am now writing, Athletics Australia once announced a AA-standard, denoting an even higher level of performance as the basis for automatic selection. When it came to that year’s nationals, only half a dozen or so athletes qualified for automatic selection.

Swimming did the same thing this year and our most successful Olympic sport managed to turn its national championships’ narrative into one about how few swimmers had won an automatic spot in the team. Geoff Huegill, one of 2010’s great news stories with his comeback, was reported as “missing” selection because he did not attain the standard.

Huegill, who was otherwise fully qualified, was selected anyway. This raises another point: if you are going to select most of those who get the international federation’s qualifying performance anyway, why bother with the automatic process in the first place.

Here are some of the athletes who do not appear on AA’s list of ‘qualified athletes’ for Daegu but have achieved a B-standard since 1 October. Steve Hooker is on top of it (though he and Dani Samuels qualify as defending champions), but it also includes Steve Solomon and Sean Wroe, Lachlan Renshaw, Jeff Riseley and Craig Mottram, Dale Stevenson and Jarrod Bannister, Tamsyn Lewis, Jana Rawlinson and Lauren Boden.

All these athletes, and others who have attained the B-standard, deserve recognition for attaining that particular milestone. For some, it is merely a mark on the way to something bigger and better; for others, it is the most significant mark they will ever reach.

In all cases, in the most measurable of sports, it should be acknowledged. 

Tweet



Recapping on the recent domestic season brings mixed emotions. Personally I was slightly disappointed with my performances, sure it was great to be back finally getting through a season uninjured and once again mixing it with the best girls in Australia, you must crawl before you can walk therefore be the best in your country before you can think about trying to mix it with the best in the world! However the reality hit home hard that I am not 19 anymore and that you just don’t simply bounce back from injuries as quickly as you once did!

 

I have come a long way in 16 months, more than what my performances show. But from personal experience the first and second injuries you ever get hurt you most emotionally, but in most cases you recover and return to pre-injury shape relatively quick.  The problem arises when you find yourself spiraling down a path of consecutive serious long term injuries that keep you sidelined for months and unable to build any sort of consistency.

 

For years I have been able to bounce back into reasonable shape within a six month window but the wheels just kept flying off in all different directions leaving the small foundations of the house I just built crumbled into pieces all around me, I had finally come to a cross road, exhausted and unsure which direction to look.

 

I took all of 2009 off to decide how I wanted to proceed with running and life in general! I managed to visit every bar available in Melbourne on a Thursday through to Sunday night, enjoying the city life with all my girlfriends that I usually choose to sacrifice as part of being an elite sports person. I chatted to many past and present athletes and asked myself all the tough questions available to ask. Am I good enough seems the obvious question to ask but in fact it really shouldn’t influence why you choose to pursue something. The question is more do I really want to do this and am I going to enjoy the process, the early mornings, the sacrifices, the tough days when things just simply aren’t going your way.

 

The process of what we choose to do shapes “who” we are as people. It’s not always about achieving the final goal but about making the decisions and choices along the journey that give you the best chance of achieving your dream and aspirations. Very few of us get to achieve what we set out to do but the experiences, the friends you make and the lessons you learn following what your heart wants is simply priceless that no amount of money or knowing the right people can buy.

 

So obviously I decided that I wanted to have one last crack but in doing so I needed to get the environment around me right, making the process of what I do the most enjoyable I can…..

 

I had been doing some business strategy for the small business I am working for, about how to become a successful company/organisation and how it all starts by getting the right people on the bus. Obviously in athletic terms you the athlete need to be driving the bus but then the first step is about getting the right people on the bus with you, the second step of putting the people you have on the bus in the right seats, and lastly ensuring that the communication channels are flowing so everybody knows their roles and when and when not to contribute so the car runs along smoothly without any confusion or confrontation!

 

Sounds simple but in fact it’s a long lengthy process of trial and error, learning from mistakes and good HONEST communication that I feel now after 16months back running (mostly injury free).  I have a great team of amazing people around me that will give me the best chance of making the London 2012 Olympics.

 

I can honestly say that it’s been the most enjoyable 16 months of my running career, my coach Andrew Russell is amazing but also Mark Hipworth who supervisors me along with the great group of boys and girls I have to train with who are both inspiring with their dedication and enthusiasm and in their support and encouragement of me.

 

The highlight for me this summer was the women’s 800m, it was so fantastic to see so many girls fighting it out each meet. My hat goes off to Tamsyn, once again her spirit and courage is unquestionable and inspiring, and Athletics Australia and our fellow athletes will miss her greatly when she decides to “hang up the boots”. The rise of Kelly Hetherington and her superb finishes, the courage of Sianne Toemoe to have a crack and go with Tamsyn in Perth and lastly little Eliza Curnow, its amazing when FINALLY given an opportunity what one can do, to run a PB for a spot in the 800m National final and then get up again and storm home to run another PB in the final to come 5th is what the sport is about. I can honestly say I was the most excited I have been in a long time to see such a great race with so many inspiring girls!!!!

 

So the season is over, winter is here and lots more work is to be done in preparation for better performances!  Exciting times ahead…….

When Ava Gardner was filming On the Beach in Melbourne, she joked that Melbourne was a good place to make a film about the end of the world.

Neville Shute’s novel depicted the world in the aftermath of a nuclear war, with Australia and Melbourne virtually the last place on the planet to be swept by the wave of deadly radioactive fallout which had already engulfed the rest of the world.

Melbourne in the 1950s was a good place to make a film about the end of the world, and must have seemed even more so to a film star with a taste for the wilder side of Hollywood lifestyle.

The pubs shut at 6pm, a ‘temporary’ measure brought in to assist the war effort (that’s the 1914-18 world war), but not without an unedifying swill when seasoned drinkers would line several glasses of beer up on the bar when last orders were called. The less said about Sundays, the better: no newspapers, no bread, no cinemas - ironically, about the only thing that wasn’t banned on Sunday was saying something about Sunday.

You didn’t have to be Ava Gardner to think Melbourne an ideal place to make a film about the world’s final days.

In a different way, Punta Umbria is a good place to stage a championship which is the end of the world cross-country, or at least the end of it as we know it. From this year, the IAAF’s oldest world championship becomes an annual event.

This Andalusian beach resort has a permanent population of 15-20,000 which swells tenfold, to 200,000, in summer. It’s exactly the sort of host which is ideal for an event like world cross-country. The championship is the biggest thing in a small town blessed with infrastructure beyond its size. The course is manicured grass, with three sets of three logs to negotiate and three artificial mounds on each lap.

Fast, spectator-friendly, but with enough artificially induced interruptions to the runner’s rhythm to prevent the race’s being a straight-out burn-up for track athletes.

Not only is it an ideal course in an ideal location, Punta Umbria 2011 also affords an ideal opportunity to reflect what the change will mean to world cross-country.

For most of its 39-year history, the world cross-country has been constant – a men’s 12km championship, a women’s race from between 4km (initially) and 8km. The two major changes have been the addition of a short-course race from 1998 to 2006 and, now, the decision to go from an annual to a two-year cycle.

The way the championships coped with the short-course event may be a good omen to how it will cope with the change of frequency.

The introduction of the short-course event was an ill-fated attempt to attract the world’s top middle-distance runners. An unintended by-product (assumedly unintended, anyway) was the opportunity it gave for athletes to double their gold medal tallies.

When Sonia O’Sullivan won the double in Marrakech in 1998, the very first occasion on which the short-course race was contested, it was assumed she had pulled off what would prove to be a rare feat. Very quickly, that view was reassessed as more athletes excelled in both races.

Kenenisa Bekele may well be the greatest cross-country runner ever to pull on a pair of spikes. Even if he were not, he has set a record of 11 wins that will be impossible for anyone to better. No fewer than five times – from 2002 to 2006 – did he win the ‘rare’ double. Well done it may have been, but a steak is not the only thing that cannot be rare and well done at the same time.

Sticking to the long race only, Bekele is still the greatest winner in world cross-country history. He won for a sixth time in Edinburgh in 2008, putting him one ahead of John Ngugi and Paul Tergat, who each won five times. Carlos Lopes has won four times.

Tergat aside, I was lucky enough to see each of these great champions run the race. I saw Lopes win in Lisbon in 1985, Ngugi win in Auckland in 1988 and Stavanger in 1989, and Bekele win in Fukuoka in 2006.

Each race was different. Lopes was ruthless in the way in which he dealt with his opposition – both on and off the course. Before the race, he heaped the hometown pressure on his teammate, the brilliant but mentally fragile Fernando Mamede. In it, he ran away from his rivals over the last of five laps.

The 1985 cross-country was still the style of race which normally prevailed. Over 250 started, of whom 200 were loosely in one huge pack after a lap. This number was roughly halved lap by lap, until Lopes surged off the front of a pack of 20 to victory.

Auckland in 1988 was run in fast conditions around Ellerslie racecourse on a brilliant sunny day. There was little between Ngugi and his teammate, Paul Kipkoech, the 1987 world 10,000 metres champion, for most of the race. Kenya placed eight in the first nine in a display of rare dominance.

Stavanger was different, a mud-heap on which only three men broke 40 minutes for 12km. Runners tackled a long rise each lap on the muddiest and most uneven part of the course. I remember Ngugi negotiating the climb like a drunk bumping his way along a hotel corridor, weaving from side to side of the course as he sought the best going. He won that day by almost 30 seconds, the biggest winning margin in history.

Of them all, Bekele probably gave out the strongest aura of invincibility. Certainly, he did that day in Fukuoka, controlling the race from the front before surging away to victory.

Of the women, I missed Grete Waitz’s five victories (one of them in Spain, in Madrid in 1981) and Lynn Jennings hat-trick of wins from 1990 to 1992. But I saw Ingrid Kristiansen win at her ninth attempt in 1988 and Tirunesh Dibaba out-duel Lornah Kiplagat in a dramatic 2006 long race (Kiplagat had her revenge a year later in Mombasa).

Annette Sergent of France was as dominant over mud as Ngugi, winning in Stavanger in 1989 two years after her first title in Warsaw.

And I’ve seen Linet Masai lose two years in a row despite controlling and dominating the race from gun to the last few strides both times. She deserves a win (perhaps has one by now), but so have a lot of other great runners.

Gold medals will not be as easy to accumulate, nor bitter performances so quickly atoned for as we move to a two-year cycle.

The racing, we hope, will be just as memorable.

Tweet

Those who come to the world cross-country championships in Punta Umbria, Spain, next weekend will be there to praise the event, not to bury it.

Make no mistake, however, cross-country, or rather the world cross-country, is critically ill, with European support for the event collapsing and showing no sign of recovering. The oxygen of publicity, once largely provided by European television networks, has been shut off.

From this year, the championships will go on to a two-year cycle, in the hope that continental championships will fill the gap and provide a pathway to the world event. There are also continued attempts to get cross-country onto the winter Olympic program, which would certainly boost its profile again.

It’s not as if the alarm bells haven’t been ringing. Four years ago, Mombasa provided the magnificent backdrop of the Indian Ocean, huge crowds of passionate Kenyan spectators, the dethroning of the (then) five-time world champion Kenenisa Bekele – and precious few Europeans. The highest placegetter representing Europe in the men’s race was Britain’s Mo Farah in 11^th. African-born runners filled the first 39 places.

Three years ago in Edinburgh, no less a figure than Sebastian Coe spoke up for cross-country at the pre-championships press conference, saying it had been critical in his development as a middle-distance runner and that, in his view, it remained the basis for developing middle and long-distance runners. In the senior men’s race the first non-African finisher was 19^th; the first European, 24^th.

A year later, the championships went to Amman, the sort of exotic location distance runners used to love to go to – as a distance runner, I was raised on stories of Australia’s first participation in Rabat, Morocco, in 1975. Again Europeans were notably absent, with real or imagined security fears being added to the list of excuses. The first European in the senior men was 26^th.

Last year, the championships went to Bydgoszcz in Poland, with the promise of mud (maybe even snow) and jumps to lure the traditionalists back. Poland sent a full team – natch – but few other European federations bothered. Simon Bairu of Canada was 13^th, Farah 20^th: both are African born.

It’s not as if European cross-country is not doing well. Cross-country events haven’t been immune from the channelling of more and more money into the professional football codes, but Europe still supports a full calendar of cross-country events. The European championships, too, are thriving. It is just that few of the runners and countries who take part turn up to the world cross-country a few months later.

Europeans in general, it seems, have given up on being competitive in distance running on the world stage. It doesn’t matter whether it’s cross-country or track. This attitude persists in the face of the evidence provided by Craig Mottram, Chris Solinsky, Matt Tegenkamp and Dathan Ritzenhein, to name a few, that it is possible to compete well against the east African runners.

It is not just a defeatist attitude that is dragging cross-country down. Fewer coaches, and hardly any athletes’ agents, see cross-country as an ideal lead-up for the northern hemisphere marathons.

In Gateshead in 1983, Carlos Lopes finished second in the men’s race, Albert Salazar fourth and Rob de Castella sixth. A few weeks later, ‘Deek’ out-lasted Lopes to win a memorable Rotterdam marathon, with Salazar falling away late in the race to finish fifth.

These days, however, runners are advised to forget the cross-country as a lead-up to a marathon. Few of those following this advice are as good as de Castella, Lopes or Salazar in absolute, much less relative, terms.

Back then, few races clashed directly with the world cross-country. Now, they do, Next weekend sees major half-marathons in Lisbon and New York. New York features Farah and Galen Rupp, two athletes who might otherwise be in Punta Umbria and, in terms of preparation for Daegu and London, might be better off for it.

Indeed, a look at the medallists and finalists in track distance events at recent major championships would suggest that Punta Umbria is the best place to be in late March if you want to do well on the track six months later.

Some argue that 12k cross-country for men, or 8km for women, requires different training than say 1500 or 5000. Yet many middle-distance athletes thrived on cross-country. Coe used it as part of his winter preparation, so too John Walker (4^th in Rabat in 1975), Steve Ovett (4^th in an English national over 14k!), Steve Cram, Hicham El Guerrouj.

Asbel Kiprop emerged as winner of the 8km junior race in Mombasa. Didn’t seem to hinder his progress to fourth in the 1500 at the 2007 world championship and the Olympic gold medal in Beijing the following year.

Reviving cross-country should be linked to reviving track distance running. Maybe more athletes would run the world cross-country if a top-30 pacing, say, on three per-nation basis was regarded as the equivalent of an A-standard for 5000/10,000 (the IAAF already regards a top-20 marathon finish in the world championships as an A-standard in that event).

That would certainly be a more accessible path into the track distance events than trying to get a start in the handful of 10,000 races run in sub-27:40 (men) or sub-31:45 (women).

In any case, once the racing is done in Punta Umbria next weekend, we’ll all have two years to reflect on the future of the world cross-country championships, the IAAF’s oldest world championship event.

Whatever solutions are proposed, they will surely founder without a renewed commitment from all parties to cross-country, and track distance running.

Tweet

An upset, a near-upset and a masterclass: that’s what the three big races at the Melbourne Track Classic provided.

Given that the upset – Jeff Riseley defeating Olympic champion Asbel Kiprop in the 1500 metres, and near-upset – Ben St Lawrence threatening to do the same to Bernard Lagat off the final bend of the 5000, both involved Australians, the two most competitive races of the night fulfilled the expectations loaded onto them in the build-up to the meeting.

Since the masterclass was given by 2010 male athlete of the year in the 800 metres, there weren’t too many complaints about that either. David Rudisha set up a mighty impressive season off his 1:43.15 in Melbourne last year, he’ll be hoping his 1:43.88 on Thursday night is a prelude to another one.

Predictably, given Melbourne’s history as the self-proclaimed ‘Oslo of the south’, middle and long-distance featured heavily on the schedule for the final international meeting at Olympic Park.

This, after all, is the track where John Landy set off in lonely pursuit of the first sub-four minute mile; where Herb Elliott first broke four minutes; where Ron Clarke set the first of almost 20 world records; where Charlene Rendina – a teammate of Greg and Carolyn Lewis back in the 1970s, set a national record for 800 metres which defies all comers, but chiefly their daughter, Tamsyn, to this day; and, where Craig Mottram emerged as a top-class 5000 runner with a 13:12.04 against Stephen Cherono in 2002.

Jeff Riseley evoked all that spirit, and more, when he sprinted past Kiprop up the final straight of the 1500. Sure enough it was a first-up race for the Olympic gold medallist, but it was just Riseley’s second outing since returning from the foot injury which put him out of the Commonwealth Games and here he was surging home ahead of Kiprop, Alan Webb and Olympic silver medallist Nick Willis – not a bad collection of scalps.

It was a race lost as well as won. Kiprop sat behind the erratic pacemaking of compatriot Gilbert Kipchoge who ran 53, 1:53, the old too fast then too slow trick. Riseley followed that, too, but critically got the sit on his rival.

The other thing it showed was just how difficult it is to run the world championships A-standard of 3:35.00 other than in the orchestrated races of the Diamond League. With the pace on from the start, Riseley still ran ‘only’ 3:36.71. He will surely get the time, but the result emphasised how difficult qualifying will be for so many athletes.

Ben St Lawrence raised hopes of a second upset when he loomed at Lagat’s shoulder on the final bend of the 5000. Already, he was travelling at a pace which would lead to a 15-second ‘pb’, and now it looked as if ‘Benny Saint’ might defeat Lagat, the 2007 world champion, 2009 silver medallist and second only to Kenenisa Bekele among 5k runners in recent history.

“S**t, I’m going to pass him,” St Lawrence thought. And so thought all of us, too, but it didn’t quite happen, Lagat sprinting decisively clear to win 13:08.43 to 13:10.08.

St Lawrence is now second on the Australian all-time list behind Craig Mottram, while Lagat has his first win in three starts over 11 years in this country. His first was in finishing third behind Noah Ngeny and Hicham El Geurrouj in the Sydney Olympic 1500, his second in finishing behind El Guerrouj in the 2001 IAAF grand prix final at Olympic Park the following year. Now, Lagat has closed Olympic Park with the fastest 5000 ever run at the track.

And what about Mottram? He finished sixth in 13:25.15 behind the first two, Chris Solinsky, Matt Tegenkamp and the surprising Andrew Bumbalough. It was an encouraging step back along the road after the latest of a long series of achilles tendon problems.

 Unlike Kiprop and Lagat, there were no rude shocks for David Rudisha in the 800. His 1:43.88 saw him home an unchallenged 10 metres ahead of Nick Symmonds.

It was another business-as-usual run for the world record holder, his preferred pacemaker taking him out in a tick over 50 seconds, his rivals racing for second from then on. Rudisha’s test will come at the world championships, when he attempts to add a major title to his world record performances.

Lachlan Renshaw continued to show that his move to the OTC Elite has been a good one, running a ‘pb’ 1:45.66 in third place and there was a huge run, too, from 18-year-old Alex Rowe whose 1:46.28 was within 0.37 of 1994 world junior champion Paul Byrne’s national U20 record.

All up, three great races with more than enough local content to keep the most demanding fan happy.

There was much else besides, including a sub-2 minutes 800 from Jamaica’s Kenia Sinclair ahead of Tamsyn Lewis and a stirring battle between Jemma Simpson and Kaila McKnight in the women’s 1500, won by Simpson, 4:08.49 to 4:08.94.

Note: both the IAAF (www.iaaf.org) and Athletics Australia (www.athletics.com.au) websites have full summary and results of the meeting.

Tweet


The mind is a wonderful thing – when it’s up and running smoothly, that is.

About 70 percent of the audience at Friday’s John Landy Lunch Club were reminded of this when film of Charlene Rendina’s 1:59.0 national record at the Victorian championships went up on the big screens.

I saw that race. So did many others at the lunch. Unprovable assertion warning here - I’d guess that most people there thought that Judy Pollock had led that race before Rendina pulled away in the last 150 metres. I’ve written it that way several times, the most recent just a few days before the lunch in material supplied to The Sunday Age highlighting five performances at the Victorian championships.

Cut the lights. Cue the film. Guess what? Charlene Rendina led at the bell, Pollock clinging to her heels until the final bend.

Even Pollock, who along with Rendina was at the lunch, was surprised. “I’ve always told (Charlene) I led that race,” she said.

Rendina wasn’t. “That was my race,” she said of the record, which still stands.

Pollock, and many of the rest of us, were misled by two facts. One was general - Pollock did lead most of their races; the other was specific – in the national championships three weeks later, also at Olympic Park, Pollock scorched the first lap in 56 seconds, leading by a long way before fading in the last 200.

Rendina won then in 2:00.1 with Pollock running 2:02.1.

This year’s Landy lunch, which also served as the launch for Thursday night’s Melbourne Track Classic, took as its main theme Olympic Park history. I wonder how many other memories were revised by the archive footage.

Still, it was nice to know that there was a huge crowd watching the mile at the 1956 Australian titles when John Landy went back to check on the fallen Ron Clarke before resuming the race, chasing down a 40 yards’ deficit, and winning.

A lesser, though still substantial, crowd attended the 1964 twilight meeting when Clarke took down world record holder Murray Halberg of New Zealand, and the world record, over three miles. Notable on this occasion was the presence of Herb Elliott – in his work suit, no less – crouched on the infield waving Clarke on with 200 metres to go.

Ron Casey and Merv Lincoln did the commentary. Casey was Channel Seven’s head of sport, a great caller and commentator in his own right. Lincoln was the man whose destiny it was to be the second-best Australian behind Landy and then Elliott, which pretty much meant second-best in Victoria, Australia, the Commonwealth and the world.

Clarke also told how he had got the New Zealanders – not only Halberg, but also Olympic 800 and 1500 champion Snell and John Davies – to Melbourne in return for him racing in New Zealand. He had convinced Seven to televise the meeting and the network was to take the unprecedented step of running the athletics into its nightly news service.

The timing was almost scuttled by several false starts in the 100 yards. Casey was almost beside himself. Clarke ran down to the start to tell Olympic starter Judy Patching: “For God’s sake, just fire the gun and don’t call them back, otherwise they’ll pull the coverage.”

Of course, all these stories are only as reliable as someone’s memory, too.

It made me wonder whether some of my other recollections of Victorian championships were in need of ‘revision’. Like over 100 athletes running the heats of the men’s 5000 metres, like heats of the men’s 10,000 metres, like Marian Fisher (now O’Shaughnessy) winning four individual titles one year.

As a journalist, I always made it a rule not to use a statistic unless I’d looked it up. Every time I broke this rule, it seemed, I made an error.

So I checked these memories against the Athletics Victoria results archive. In 1972, there were 61 entrants in the 10,000. Three heats were run on 19 January, with the final on 31 January. In 1980, there were 107 entrants in the 5000 metres heats and five heats were run a week before the final.

Finally, yes, Marian O’Shaughnessy, a prolific winner of titles back then, won the women’s 100, 200 and 400 metres at the main titles in 1978, having won the 400 metres hurdles a week earlier. Cathy Freeman was another who amassed titles in clumps, taking the 100/200/400 treble four years on the trot from 1992 before restricting herself to a mere double in 1996.

Regularly, there were four rounds of the men’s sprints. In 1985, amazingly, there were four rounds of the men’s 800 metres, too – heats on 1 March, quarter-finals on 2 March, semi-final and final on 3 March. At the end of it all, Mike Hillardt won in a very smart 1:46.04 (his career best was 1:45.74). Understandably, he did not double, leaving the 1500 to Peter Bourke.

Where did they all go? These days, there is an almost total disconnect between the club athlete and state, much less national, titles. Sometimes we see this situation reversed, such as the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to run on the MCG in the 2006 Victorian titles.

Well, 2011 is the last chance to run at Olympic Park. It’s a different appeal – whereas no-one had ever run on the MCG before, everyone has run at Olympic Park. But it’s going to be very interesting how many people jump (run and throw) at the last chance to run at the Park on 4-6 March.

I look upon my running as “work” and I believe in order to succeed in the sport, I need to enjoy it.

The trouble with anticipation is that it is as often dashed as fulfilled.

That caveat in mind, however, I have to admit to a growing sense of anticipation at the 5000 metres at next month’s Melbourne Track Classic.

“I’m really excited to be coming down to Melbourne to run the 5000 on 3 March,” Bernard Lagat said this week when it was announced the 2007 world 1500 and 5000 metres champion would be competing in the race.

Lagat’s participation followed the announcement a few days earlier that Chris Solinsky and Matt Tegenkamp would be running and confirming the race would feature a clash between Craig Mottram and Collis Birmingham.

And, of course, there’s Ben St Lawrence, who just happened to defeat Birmingham – among others – in winning both the 2010 national title and the Zatopek ‘10’, and a fourth American, Tim Nelson, a mere 13:20 performer.

Less than a year ago, the prospect of a Mottram-Birmingham meeting alone was enough to headline a media release promoting the 2010 nationals. Now, it is just one more ingredient in a mouth-watering dish.

The Melbourne 5000 is also the national title race. It’s a good fit with the history of Olympic Park, which closes down as a track venue after this year’s national championships on 15-17 April.

Olympic Park has been the venue for outstanding performances across the entire range of events, track and field, but Melbourne’s strongest passions have always been stirred by middle and long-distance running. The 3 March race fits like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

Take Lagat: it is a given that he is one of the world’s best middle-distance performers. Olympic bronze medallist (for Kenya) at 1500 in 2000; silver medallist at 1500 behind Hicham El Guerrouj after an epic battle in Athens in 2004; world champion at 1500 and 5000 in Osaka in 2007.

Lagat’s only previous visit to Olympic Park was for a memorable race. He finished second to El Guerrouj in the 1500 at the 2001 IAAF Grand Prix final, El Guerrouj running an Australian all-comers’ record of 3:31.25.

Mottram is fit and healthy after two years battling injury. Hopefully he is on course back to the form which made him a world championships bronze medallist and a sub-13 minute runner. Solinsky and Tegenkamp have reached that level of performance in the past two years.

Solinsky ran sub-13 three times in 2010, as well as becoming the first non-African born runner to break 27 minutes for 10,000. He has generated the same sort of excitement as mottram did in his break-through years.

So it all shapes up to a great race in Melbourne. Let’s hope it produces something commensurate with the level of anticipation.

Of course, Melbourne has seen some great line-ups for middle and long-distance races over the years. Lasse Viren, Eamonn Coghlan, Steve Ovett, John Walker, Dick Quax, Rod Dixon, Dave Moorcroft, Henry Rono, Noah Ngeny, El Guerrouj, Grete Waitz, Sonia O’Sullivan are just a few of the great internationals to have graced Olympic Park.

One of the best races, and it was at 5000, came at the Melbourne Games of 1977. It was a warm, humid night in early February, so the all-comers record remained unchallenged. But seven runners were in contention as the field came up to the bell and the first six finished within four seconds.

Chris Wardlaw – coincidentally now Mottram’s coach – set the crowd alight when he took up the running coming up to the bell, but Germany’s Olympic bronze medallist Klaus-Peter Hildenbrand took control down the back-straight.

Hildenbrand won in 13:31.4, four tenths of a second clear of 1976 Olympic steeple silver medallist Bronislaw Malinowski of Poland. It was some run from Malinowski – he had already run, and won, the steeple in 8:24.6.

Karl Fleschen of Germany was third in 13:32.0 with the late Dave Fitzsimons getting past fellow Olympic 10,000 finalist Wardlaw to be first Australian home (13:33.2 to 13:34.2). Gerard Barrett was next in 13:35.4 with a third German, Detlef Uhlemann, seventh in 13:38.8.

Uhlemann backed that form up with a third in the world cross-country championships a month later. Who said track and cross-country were incompatible over such a short time?

Actually, the times weren’t that slow. Back then, the 5000 world record was Emile Puttemans’ 13:13.0. Now, it is Kenenisa Bekele’s 12:37.35.

We’ll be very happy indeed, I’d suggest, if the winner on 3 March has to go 12:55 or better.