“Let the debates begin”, writes Bryan Green, an invitation most of us can’t resist.

So I might kick things along by saying I have no idea who would win a fantasy 800 between the past three world record holders – Sebastian Coe, Wilson Kipketer and David Rudisha.

That said, I have a strong view on who would not win, and that’s Sebastian Coe. I’d back him against pretty well anyone in history at 1500 but the case against Coe at 800 can be summarised _ a little unfairly, I’ll admit _ in three words: Hans-Peter Ferner.

Hans-Peter Ferner was the largely undistinguished German middle-distance runner who upset Coe in the 800 at the 1982 European championships in Athens. The comparison is not entirely fair to Coe, as he had missed a lot of the 1982 season ill.

“I’ve taken a lot out of a shallow well,” he said in attempting to explain the inexplicable.

The loss to Ferner, however, did serve to underline the fact that for all his greatness at 800, Coe struggled to win a major title at the event. In the 1978 European championships, he was third, passed by Steve Ovett in the final metres before both were swamped by East Germany’s Olaf Beyer. At the Moscow Olympic Games, the two great British rivals famously ‘swapped’ specialties, Ovett winning the 800, Coe redeeming his career with his win in the 1500.

After two years of illness and injury, Coe was again at peak strength for the 1984 Olympics. He successfully defended his 1500 crown, but only after finishing second in the 800 to Brazil’s Joaquim Cruz.

Indeed, not until the 1986 Europeans _ by which time he had been the world record holder for seven years _ did Coe finally land an 800 gold medal. He beat Tom McKean and Steve Cram in a British clean-sweep. Then, in an outcome eerily reminiscent of Moscow 1980, he lost the 1500 to Cram.

Cram had earlier won the Commonwealth 800-1500 double, taking the 800 in 1:43.22 from McKean. Coe, who was ill, did not take his place in the final.

So, over eight years from 1978 to 1986, Coe lost two fast championship 800s (1978, when he went out in 49.3, and 1984, when Cruz won in 1:43.00), two tactical races (1980 and 1982) and didn’t get to the line for a race Cram won in 1:43.22.

Coe was obviously a great 800 runner, but the evidence suggests he was vulnerable in head-to-head races against the very few men who could be regarded as his peers.

Kipketer won four world championships but likewise failed to win an Olympic gold medal. He missed his best chance in 1996 when he was ineligible, a few months short of becoming a naturalised citizen for his adopted Denmark. It’s hard to see how Kipketer would not have won then.

Rudisha, of course, has no medal at all at senior global championship level, his one attempt ending in the semi-finals in Berlin last year. That bitter experience sparked the sequence of fast times which included the world record 1:41.09 in the same Berlin stadium a week ago.

Rudisha’s current status raises another point of debate in 800 running: all things being equal, will a good big man always beat a good little man?

Peter Fortune, Cathy Freeman’s coach, observed of Rudisha that “he’s not only big; he runs magnificently and he’s quick.” Of course, as well as one of Rudisha’s  1:43 performances in Melbourne, Australians also saw evidence of his speed when he ran a 45.50 400 in Sydney earlier this year.

On whether good big men always beat good little men, Fortune was not so sure, but he says: “When they’re tired, big men remain strong.”

Most 800-metre races are run slowing down. I saw some ‘stats’ this week that indicated 18 of the 21 improvements of the world record/world best (a couple were not ratified) featured a slower second lap. Most of this slowdown comes in the last 200. In both Kipketer’s previous record of 1:41.11 and Rudisha’s 1:41.09, the slowest 200 was the last 200.

Intuitively, physical strength must play a role here. Intuitively again, big men are stronger than smaller men and stocky men stronger than lean rivals.

This issue got a really good working over back in the days when Alberto Juantorena ruled the roost. Juantorena (nick-name El Caballo, the horse) won the 400/800 double at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and remains the only man to do so. He set world records both in winning at the Games (1:43.50) and the following year (1:43.44).

In Montreal, Juantorena destroyed his smaller US opponent Rick Wohlhuter, who had set two world records in the run-up to the Games, in the final straight.

Mike Boit of Kenya missed that race as the African nations boycotted Montreal in protest at New Zealand’s rugby ties with South Africa. Tall, but lean, Boit took Juantorena on in a classic race at the World Cup in Dusseldorf in 1977. The pair engaged in a side-by-side battle up the last straight before Boit fell into his opponent’s giant stride pattern and lost narrowly, 1:44.04 to 1:44.14.

Coe’s championship losses to Beyer-Ovett and Cruz also fall into the big man/small man category.

Anyway if you want to make your own judgement, you can see the 1976 Olympic final here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBTG-QwbNsE&feature=related) and the 1977 World Cup race here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9C2CDZvOOY).

Finally, as Rudisha contemplates his championships aims for the next two years, it’s sobering to think that the last man to win an Olympic gold while also holding the world record was Dave Wottle back in 1972 in Munich.

Let the debates continue!

By Len Johnson

It was hard not to feel the warmth at Bondi Beach last Sunday.

It was a warm day for the 40^th running of the City2Surf. The sort of day they say is regularly turned on for the world’s biggest road race, and on the rare occasions when it is not, the sort of day they say is usually turned on for it.

It was the sort of atmosphere in which Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott would love to have basked. Even Mark Latham may have mellowed out a little had he been there.

Mostly, it was the weather _ clear, sunny, almost no wind. But there was also the warm glow generated by being among 80,000 like-minded souls.

Pretty well every person at Bondi Beach on Sunday, 8 August was there for the City2Surf. Eighty thousand had run, jogged or walked from the start at Hyde Park, others had come there to meet loved ones or friends. At noon, when I finally left Bondi, there was almost as big a crowd walking up the hill to Bondi Junction and the trains as there had been running up the Rose Bay to Vaucluse Hill in the race a few hours earlier.

As a sports journalist for over 20 years, I was often caught up in crowds gathered for a single purpose. I experience it at AFL grand finals, at the opening day of Olympic and Commonwealth Games, or at world championships. The atmosphere was tweaked a little higher still on day one of Brisbane 1982, Sydney 2000 and Melbourne 2006.

There is one difference between such occasions and the City2Surf _ and it is a significant one. At major sporting events, the crowd has come to watch others perform, the event itself is a celebration of the highest performance level of a sport _ Olympics, AFL, NRL, whatever.

At the City2Surf, however, the celebration is of everyman and everywoman. The 80,000 participants range from the fleetest of foot _ who negotiate the 14 kilometres from city to beach before many of the back-of-the-pack folk have even set foot on the road _ to the slowest of the slow.

It is not 80,000 gathered to watch a handful of elites perform, but to share roughly the same experience. It’s as if the entire crowd at the AFL grand final were on the field having a communal kick-to-kick.

Apart from breaking the course records, this year’s race had pretty much everything you could ask for. On paper, there seemed little between defending champion Michael Shelley, 2008 winner Martin Dent, Commonwealth Games marathon selection Jeff Hunt and Delhi 5000 representative Ben St Lawrence.

This expectation was borne out on the roads. The four race through the early part of the course together. Shelley was the aggressor up the big hill, but it was still all together at the top and well around the corner through Dover Heights. Only then did Dent start to drop back a little; only in the last few hundred metres did Hunt drop a few seconds behind.

And only in the last 100 metres was the issue settled between Shelley and St Lawrence. Even then, it swung first St Lawrence’s way and then Shelley’s, before St Lawrence edged decisively ahead to win by a second in 41:05.

Lara Tamsett had a bit more to spare in winning the women’s race. Her 46:54 was the 10^th-fastest women’s performance in race history. St Lawrence’s was a victory and Tamsett’s a performance to burnish the warm glow surrounding the morning. 

I’m one of those who have always preferred the descriptor athletics for my favourite sport to the grander-sounding track and field.

One reason is that the latter term does not even encompass one of two of the more popular forms of competition _ road and cross-country. A more basic one is that athletics is a more holistic sort of word, implying a whole that is more than just the sum of its parts, while, to my taste anyway, track and field suggests two fundamentally different sports under the one umbrella.

It’s all a matter of semantics, but results at the recent continental championships, particularly the African and European championships, indicated that perhaps there is a disturbing element of truth to the two sports/one umbrella concept. Specifically, if you want to see field athletics, go to Europe; if you want to see track, go to Africa, the Caribbean, the US _ but go somewhere else.

In looking at the results from Nairobi (African champs) and Barcelona (European), this distinction virtually leapt off the page. As some have already observed (notably Pat Butcher in his www.globerunner.org blog), the field event results in Spain were right at the top of world-class, but the track results were spotty; in Kenya, the opposite was true.

There was a gender divide _ the women’s track results in Barcelona were generally superior to those in Nairobi _ but there are other social and cultural factors operating here. Women’s middle and long-distance performances were also better at the Europeans, but female African runners have joined their male counterparts in dominating those events at world level.

Pat Butcher also commented on the implications of these outcomes for the sport in Europe. Track events, he argued, are far more marketable than field events, so it cannot be a good thing that Europeans are virtually invisible on the world stage in track events.

Be that as it may, a quick comparison of the men’s events at the African and European championships shows the medal performances _ not only gold, but all medals _ in Nairobi were generally much superior to those at Barcelona.

Amazingly, one event in which they were not was the 3000 metres steeplechase. Good as the French pair who went 1-2 in Barcelona _ Mahiedine Mekhissi and Bob Tahri _ are, fast as they ran (8:07.87 and 8:09.28 and despite the fact that they have both been very competitive in recent global championships, I don’t think anyone would argue they are a threat to the Kenyan hegemony in the event.

Still, one other thing which was apparent in Barcelona was the strong performances by British athletes. No doubt this level of performance is rising as a home Olympic Games draws ever closer. Hopefully, there will be a wash-over effect into other European countries. After all, an Olympics in London in 2012 is also far more a “home” Games for French, German and Scandinavian athletes than was Beijing in 2008.

With the post-championship phase of the Diamond League and European season about to start up as I write, the other major thing to ponder is what the results in Nairobi and Barcelona imply for the remainder of the season. Freed of the mental and physical burden of preparation for the year’s major objective, what performances might some of the champions now produce (not to mention others spurred on by failing to achieve desired results).

In Nairobi, David Rudisha ran 1:42.84, leaving 2007 world champion Alfred Kirwa Yego some two seconds behind (Abubaker Kaki did not run). Now he is free to resume the chase after Wilson Kipketer’s world record.

Silas Kiplagat and Aamine Lalou excited us with the year’s first sub-3:30 1500 metres performance in Monaco recently, but in Nairobi Olympic champion Asbel Kiprop handled them both. What will they produce when the chase for fast times resumes, I wonder.

Sadly, one thing we won’t get to find out is how fast Wilson Kiprop might run at sea level. For the second time he produced an amazing 10,000 metres performance at altitude (Nairobi is around 1700 metres above sea level). In the Kenyan trials it was 27:26.93. In the championships, he was just as impressive, winning in 27:32.91. But there is no Brussels 10k this year, due to the fact that it is the Diamond League final and the distance is 5000.

The women’s distances seemed more affected by the altitude than the men’s, but Olympic champion Nancy Lagat, who has lost just once this year, again defeated Ethiopia’s Gelete Burka in the 1500 and world champion Vivian Cheruiyot produced a 2:46 final kilometre to win the 5000 metres from Meseret Defar in 16:18.72.

From the Europeans, Blanka Vlasic finally got a European title with a 2.03 win in the high jump, Natalya Antyukh ran under 53 seconds to win the 400 metres hurdles, Andreas Thorkildsen continued to rule the men’s javelin, Phillips Idowu showed his best form when it counted to win the triple jump with a personal best 17.81, Christian Reif produced a world-leading and championship record 8.47 to win the long jump and Renaud Lavillenie was untroubled to win the vault at 5.85.

With the big pressure off them, some of these athletes will be out to produce something out-of-the-ordinary in the remainder of the season.

It’s the 40^th running of the City to Surf this year. I guess that means it’s here to stay.

Around 70,000 entries have been received. Reports of the death of the running boom appear to have been exaggerated.

The race from the centre of Sydney to the most famous surf beach in Australia _ Bondi _ was first staged in 1971. Then it started at the Town Hall; now it starts from Hyde Park. Then, and for the first five editions, it wound its way up through Kings Cross; now it goes through the tunnel.

Then it was won by visiting American runner Kenny Moore from Australia’s John Farrington. Beth Stanford was the first woman to finish out of just under 80 female entrants. That figure represented approximately four percent of the 2000-or-so total entries. Now, female participation rates hover around 50 percent, and women constituted a majority in the 2006 race.

Then the race was run on the first Sunday in September; now it is the second Sunday in August, though organisers graciously brought the race forward in 2000 to allow the Sydney Olympics a little clear air for publicity!

Back then, on seeing a runner, some ‘dags’ could not resist winding down the car window and enquiring: “Who do you think you are _ Ron Clarke?” Now, we’d know enough to retort: “No, but I’m channelling him!”

Now, of course, the City to Surf has a City2Surf tag, leading me to wonder whether this column should not be headed: “The City2Surf @ 40”, but in so many ways the race is the same as when it started. For a few, it’s about getting from the city to Bondi as quickly as possible. For a few more, it’s about running from the city to Bondi in the company of thousands of like-minded souls.

For the rest of the participants, and for all the spectators, the City to Surf is a festival of running. For one day each year, the community from the centre of town, through some of Sydney’s most exclusive suburbs and some of its most inclusive, is pretty much united by one event.

Everyone who has run a City to Surf has a favourite moment. Mine still remains the first, the moment I took a quick glance over my shoulder as I headed up William St into the tunnel to see the whole street filled with runners.

My next favourite moment concerns a race I didn’t even run _ the 1985 edition, when I was (kind of) responsible for getting the winner to Australia. I’d done a little bit of work for the City to Surf and other Fairfax running events, and was asked to suss out the possibility of Olympic marathon champ Carlos Lopes coming out.

I headed off to the 1985 world cross-country championships in Lisbon armed with several folders of promotional material and a few t-shirts (runners, even good ones, came relatively cheap then). I never did speak to Carlos, my nerve and my Portuguese both being pretty much non-existent.

But I did invite English marathoner Hugh Jones over for a cup of tea and a chat while we were training on the Algarve, told him about the race, gave him the t-shirt and the organiser contacts. Fivemonths later, Jones became the first overseas winner since Kenny Moore and my career as a race promoter came to an end with a 100 percent strike rate.

I finished my first City to Surf, the 1978 race, still holding an orange t-shirt. Back then, the elite and semi-elite runners used to line up on the traffic-light island across the intersection from the official start. The practice was condoned by race organisers, but they also disqualified any runner detected not starting from the official line.

So you wore an old t-shirt to cover your race number. I intended to discard mine along the way but, in the excitement, I carried it in my hand all the way to the finish.

That was also the year of the ‘false start’, when all the runners were given an arbitrary two-minute penalty. There certainly was a premature start and the official timing no doubt started late, but I reckon we were ‘dudded’. Six years later, I ran my second City to Surf and recorded pretty much the same time despite not being in anything like the same form.


Over the years, the City to Surf has been run, and won, by some of Australia’s best. John Farrington won three in a row after that first race, Angie Cook went from first schoolgirl in the inaugural race to a two-time winner in 1974 and 1975. Robert de Castella, Chris Wardlaw, Bill Scott and Steve Austin _ Olympians all _ were among the early winners.

‘Deek’ set a race record 40 minutes eight seconds in 1981, which Steve Moneghetti chased for four years before beating it by five seconds in 1991. Allison Roe of New Zealand, Lisa Ondieki and, finally, Susie Power, set outstanding female race records. Ondieki ran so fast that her coach, Dick Telford, wearing a light-weight head-cam for television, had to take a short-cut from New South Head to Old South Head Rd to keep up with her.

‘Mona’ did even better as a wired-up runner in 2004, leading pretty well all the way before losing out in a sprint to Tanzania’s three-time winner Patrick Nyangelo and his teammate Dickson Marwa. Apparently he’d just asked them: “Can’t you run any faster?”

Actually, I made that bit up. But there are 70,000 stories in the City to Surf, and that could have been one of them. The 40^th running this year, the 40^th birthday next year, still going strong.

The City to Surf is Australia’s most famous road race and, often, its best. Long may it run.

It’s the return of the ‘wow’ factor.

Ryan Gregson, three minutes 31.06 seconds, 1500 metres Australian record, Monaco Diamond League Meeting. Wow!

That would just about sum up the general reaction to Gregson’s performance. We knew he was good, knew he was that good even: but that good, this soon? Wow!

It’s not so easy to get ambushed by a result these days what with cable, live internet streaming, the 24-hour news cycle and Runner’s Tribe. It’s sobering to think that it was only 15 years ago _ 1995 _ that the IAAF went ‘live’, well live-ish, anyway, with internet cover of its Atlanta Grand Prix meeting held to mark the opening of the 1996 Olympic stadium.

Back then, even us mainstream media people had limited access to results. Unless it was big enough to make the morning radio news you had to wait until you got to the office to access the overnight results.

Now, however, many results are only as far away as the importance you place on them. Thus, if you have cable and an international sports channel, you can watch live in the middle of the night. Otherwise, you can log on to the internet as soon as you get up.

Performances such as Ryan Gregson’s in Monaco, however, transcend the technology to elicit a delighted ‘wow’. A ‘pb’ by four-and-a-half seconds, breaking a national record that had stood for 18 years, and all this from a man just turned 20 _ ‘wow’ barely covers it.

It was an amazing performance in an amazing race. Silas Kiplagat of Kenya improved by five seconds to win in 3:29.27, the fastest in the world this year, the fastest since 2006. He became the 19^th man to break 3:30, Amine Laalou, the Moroccan who followed him home, the 20^th.

Gus Choge, the Commonwealth Games 5000 metres champion, was third in 3:30.22. Choge was going to win in something like 3:28 before the ‘bear’ jumped on his back on the final bend. He had led by 10 metres at 1200.

Then came the two revelations _ Andrew Wheating, the US NCAA 800/1500 champion from Oregon, and Gregson _ in 3:30.90 and 3:31.06, respectively. Six of the first eight ran PBs, the other two _ Choge and Bernard Lagat _ their fastest of the year.

Kiplagat’s previous best _ if you had looked hard enough _ was a 3:34.28 chasing Asbel Kiprop home in the Kenyan championships. Among those he beat was Nicholas Kemboi, who before Monaco held the year’s fastest time, so he was obviously more than handy.

So ‘wow’ it was, for Gregson and all-round.

By Len Johnson.

Looking at Tyson Gay running down Asafa Powell in last weekend’s Gateshead Diamond League 100 metres, I couldn’t help thinking of Cathy Freeman and Melinda Gainsford-Taylor.

Gay is developing an uncanny knack of beating Powell in the last 20 metres of their races over 100, and the manner in which he does it must feed back into the psychological approach of both men. Powell must be thinking: “How far in front do I have to be to hold Tyson off?”; while Gay must feel: “No matter how far behind Asafa I am, I’ve always got a chance.”

As I said, it puts me in mind of Freeman and Gainsford-Taylor and some of their epic clashes over 200 metres in Australia during the 1990s. Gainsford-Taylor generally had the upper hand, and invariably led with her sprinter’s start and superior bend running. She was one of the best bend runners in the world.

Yet every now and then, Freeman would come out of the ground to beat her great rival. It seemed there was a zone around Gainsford-Taylor usually about two or three metres, and if Freeman could get inside that zone, she could win. It was like a magic box, from Freeman’s perspective anyway. Once she put a foot inside that box, you could almost see the self-belief in her face.

What would inevitably follow, was that Freeman would come out of the ground to grab Gainsford-Taylor and win. One such race was in the 1999-2000 Australian championships. It was the first meeting conducted in the Olympic stadium, a potent additional motivation for Freeman.

The 200 final was on the last day of the championships. Gainsford-Taylor had already won the 100; Freeman had run 50.00 _ her second-fastest ever in Australia up to that point _ to beat Ana Guevara of Mexico in the 400.

Now it came down to the 200 final. It was a classic meeting of the two. Gainsford-Taylor held the advantage coming into the straight, but Freeman was inside the magic box. With 20 metres to go, it still looked as if Gainsford-Taylor would win, but Freeman jumped out of the ground to make up two metres in the last few strides and win _ 22.78 to 22.80.

Freeman and Gainsford-Taylor swapped wins throughout their career, but Gay has a worrying habit (from Powell’s point of view, at least) of beating Powell, leading one to ask: has Tyson got Asafa’s number.

It wasn’t always so. In 2006, Powell’s great year, he never lost to Gay, beating him on half-a-dozen or so occasions. But the tide turned with Gay’s win over Powell in the final of the 2007 world championships and, unless I’m forgetting one, I think Powell has beaten Gay only once in eight meeting since.

Still, a they came to Gateshead, Powell was the dominant force in the 100 this year. Both Bolt and Gay had already had injury down-time. Powell had the fastest legal time in the world for the year (equalled by Bolt a few days earlier in Lausanne) and several wind-aided 9.7-second runs.

Yet, in cool conditions and into a 1.7 metres per second headwind, Gay ran him down, 9.94 to 9.96.

“Asafa’s one of my favourite competitors and I managed to get him today,” Gay said after the race. “I really had to stretch to get to the finish line and he didn’t see me coming.”

Powell’s take was: “I think I forgot it was Tyson Gay out there. In the last 20-30 metres I should have run differently. But he’s a great sprinter and I gave him a chance. I didn’t see him coming.”

That’s the thing. Gay is always coming at Powell. To some extent this is style, Powell has a great first 60-70, Gay is second-to-none as a closer. Powell is tall and upright and thus does not put himself in a physical position for more than a token ‘throw’ at the line. Gay is good on ‘the lean to the line’.

It was much the same with Freeman and Gainsford-Taylor. The latter would drive to the line tall and strong, but with most of her energy expended getting to, around and off the bend. Freeman was at her best over the final 50 metres anyway.

Powell compounds his difficulty with Gay by his seemingly deep-seated habit of not running through the line. Against most sprinters, it doesn’t matter so much. Head-to-head against Gay, it leaves the door ajar. And that’s all Tyson needs.

Powell is due to clash with Bolt over 100 in the Paris Diamond League as I write. Perhaps he had half a mind on this race when he went to the line in Gateshead and Gay genuinely did catch him unawares this time. In any case, Powell’s performance against Bolt takes on added significance. He needs a good one to maintain his early-season momentum.

By Len Johnson

As I write this, the US national championships are being held. The venue is Drake Stadium at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, also the venue for the eponymous Drake Relays.

In the international calendar, this weekend and this period of the year are set aside for national championships. Jamaica, Kenya and the UK are among other notable ones  on at the same time.

What’s surprising, particularly in the case of the US and Jamaica, is the number of star athletes who are not running their national titles. Tyson Gay, who is “not injured but not totally healthy” either, and Chris Solinsky, the first non-African to run sub-27 minutes for 10,000 metres and the first to run both sub-27 and sub-13 for 5000, are among the major no-shows at the US champs. Other big names are not doing their favoured events.

Usain Bolt, nursing a sore achilles tendon, heads a list of major names not competing in Jamaica (Asafa Powell, the only one of the big three of men’s sprinting currently going round, is running).

Of course, 2010 is not a major championships year. There is no world or Olympic title for the Americans to chase, and only the second-tier European championships, African championships and Commonwealth Games for the British, African and Caribbean nations. Not surprisingly, some of the missing big names are citing the “no major championships” excuse.

No doubt many of the excuses offered by and for the missing athletes are genuine, but it is a sad thing that fewer athletes these days see a national title as something to be cherished for its intrinsic worth.

Asafa Powell apparently does. Another whose attitude to her national championships is exemplary is US hurdler Lolo Jones.

"To win a national title, to be a U.S. champion, that means a lot," Jones told USA Today for a championships preview.

It means even more this year to Jones, who grew up in Des Moines and will have a lot of friends and family at Drake Stadium. "I would have never imagined the U.S. nationals would be here," Jones said. "It's a dream come true for me."

More than a dream, a title _ school, state, national, world or Olympic _ is also a tangible achievement. Winning one demands an ability to perform against all-comers on a nominated day.

When Galen Rupp was looking for a chance to break the US national record for 10,000 metres _ the record which ultimately went to Solinsky with his historic 26:59.60 _ he virtually went race shopping to get the best conditions. When he won his national title in Des Moines on Thursday night, he had to take the conditions and the competition as he found them. It’s not unknown for record-chasers to keep dangerous opponents out of the field on the international circuit; at a championship, you compete against whoever’s there.

I remember an Australian championships back in the 1990s when Alison Inverarity, one of Australia’s most consistent performers at the time, happened to express some reluctance at being there after she won the high jump with what was, for her, a sub-par performance. Unfortunately for Alison, it was also a slow news day, and Nic Bideau _ then in his journalist days _ and I jumped all over the story, taking her to task.

Inverarity’s remarks might have been manna for a couple of journos looking for a story, but the implications behind them resonated back then and still do now. Championships are what mark an athlete and they become the benchmarks of their career. It is a truism that records are made to be broken, but medals are forever.

It is relatively easy to find the winner of a championship _ be it Olympic, world, European, Commonwealth or national. Any number of sources carry the full lists. Finding record progressions is a much more difficult thing. I went looking for Australian records progressions a little while back _ I never found a full set, I had to construct one.

Rod Mackinney was the first Australian to break two hours 20 minutes for the marathon. He did it at Fukuoka in 1966. That feat, though significant, is not recorded anywhere on Athletics Australia’s website; the fact that Rod ran second and third in two Australian marathon championships is.

The ability to win at a lower championship level is also a far more reliable predictor of performance at a higher level than anything else. It indicates ambition, as well as talent.

I’m by no means suggesting that any of the big names missing various national championships around the world for various reasons are not outstanding athletes. Just that those missing stars, and those of us who follow the sport, would be wise not to ignore those who are taking part _ and win. 

By Len Johnson.

Usain Bolt is faster.

Liu Xiang wondered recently whether Bolt is from another planet. “You do not belong to the earth,” he told him at a Shanghai Diamond League press conference in a comment which obviously lost very little in translation.

Tyson Gay is also faster and, going on their head-to-head record since the 2007 Osaka world championships, mentally tougher.

So how come we’re all talking about Asafa Powell again? Well, one obvious answer would be that, of the big three of sprinting, Powell is the only one going round at the minute.

Bolt started his season with a sizzling 19.56 200 metres in Kingston, won in Shanghai and then ran the second-fastest time ever over 300 metres in Ostrava late last month. Now he has a stiff and sore achilles tendon.

Gay broke 45 seconds for 400 metres in April, making him the first man to have a sub-10, a sub-20 and a sub-45 to his name, and then broke Tommie Smith’s world record for the straight 200 metres in a Manchester street race. He is out of the weekend’s New York Diamond League with soreness in his hamstring. According to his agent, who is also the meeting manager, told Reuters: “There’s a readiness needed to run the 100 metres and he does not have that.”

Not injured, just not ready, then. Result the same _ not running.

Meanwhile, Powell just keeps churning out fast 100-metre races like they were going outof style. On Thursday night at Rome’s Golden Gala meeting, he ran 9.82 seconds, nipping a hundredth of a second off the year’s best he set in Ostrava. This was despite dwelling in the blocks, his reaction time _ 0.214 seconds _ more akin to a 400 metres runner than a straight-line speedster.

It was Powell’s 63^rd wind-legal sub-10 and 70^th overall. Nice numbers those.

Powell might accumulate sub-10s like Steve Waugh used to accumulate Test runs for Australia, but he performs more like Steve’s more profligate twin brother, Mark.

Now Mark Waugh could bat, and on several notable occasions he put his head down and ground out big scores just like his flinty brother, but he could also give his wicket away with all the misplaced generosity of a drunk on a spree.

Asafa Powell runs like that. For all his prodigious talent, there are times when you wonder just what on earth he is doing. Like when he gave away the silver medal when Gay had him beaten in the Osaka 100 final, or when he faded to fifth in the Beijing Olympic final. Or, when he lost to Justin Gatlin at the Prefontaine Meeting in 2005 when even a cursory ‘dip’ at the finish line would have got him home the winner.

For the most part, Powell’s problems have come at major championships. When others step up, he seems to shrink. Kinder folk have suggested he consult the sports psychologist; harsher critics, many of whom would not run for a bus for fear of losing, go for the ‘choker’ term.

Whatever _ 2010 is not a major championship year and Powell is already shaping up for his best season since 2006, also a non-championship year.

Back then, Powell did win his only individual gold medal _ at the Commonwealth Games on the Melbourne Cricket Ground. He also compiled one of the most impressive seasons ever by a sprinter. After Gatlin sidelined himself with a positive drug test in April, Powell had no challenger (Gay was emerging, but not yet a major force; Bolt was still a junior prodigy struggling to overcome injuries).

Powell equalled the world record he shared with Gatlin (whose performance was subsequently annulled) with 9.77 in Gateshead in early June, and equalled it again in Zurich, ahead of Gay, just over two months later.

In between, he ran 9.85 in Paris and Rome, then 9.86 in Stockholm. He again ran 9.86 in Berlin at the start of September, and won at the World Athletic Final in Stuttgart a couple of weeks later.

This year, Powell again seems to be in that sort of form. He has reportedly lost weight by paying a bit more attention to his diet and appears more relaxed and happy _ though outwardly, it must be said, he gives the impression of being relaxed and happy most of the time.

Presumably, both Bolt and Gay will be back in mint physical condition soon. If they are, Powell will take some beating this year. If not, he is once again showing he is capable of carrying the show on his own.

By Len Johnson.

As I write this, Oslo’ Bislett Games are only a few hours away.

Meeting three in the IAAF Diamond League series, the Bislett Games scarcely need association with the new track and field showcase for credibility. Rather the reverse, I would think, given Bislett history.

One of the goals the Diamond League aims is to offer more head-to-head competition, so it’s hardly surprising that one of the featured events was the men’s 800 metres in which rising young guns David Rudisha and Abubaker Kaki were to clash.

As much by accident as design, 21-year-old Rudisha and 20-year-old Kaki find themselves at the top of an event which has stagnated since the retirement of world record holder Wilson Kipketer. Neither has achieved his potential as a senior: Kaki is world indoor champion but bombed out at both the Beijing Olympics and the Berlin world championships; Rudisha was run out in the semis in Berlin.

Rather it is the thought of what they might do that excites. Rudisha bounced back from his world championships disappointment with a string of fast times, culminating in a 1:42.01 in Rieti last September which left him behind only Kipketer, Sebastian Coe and Joaquim Cruz _ middle-distance royalty all _ on the all-time list.

Kaki has had extenuating circumstances for his two major championship blow-outs _ sick in Beijing, coming back from a hamstring injury (incurred, ironically, at last year’s Bislett) in Berlin. He looked imperious in taking the world indoor title in Doha, as did Rudisha in wins in Melbourne, Doha and Ostrava this year.

So if neither yet has the status of a Coe or a Steve Ovett, each appears capable of attaining it and it might be a canny thing for the Diamond League to get in early on what could be the next great middle-distance rivalry.

Sport thrives on great rivalries. So often great performers come along in pairs _ Nadaland Federer or Borg and McEnroe in tennis; Bannister and Landy in pursuit of the four-minute mile; Zola Budd and Mary Decker. Sometimes it’s more than two _ Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz and Ingrid Kristiansen in the women’s marathon in the mid-1980s, with Rosa Mota and Lisa Ondieki coming along in the second half of that decade; Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay currently in the sprints; Ron Clarke, Kip Keino and Michel Jazy in the 5000 in the 1960s.

And, of course, there was Coe and Ovett in the 800 and 1500 in the late 1970s _ a rivalry given sharper piquancy by the fact they rarely raced against each other.

Coe and Ovett are also an example of how great rivalries do not always play out the way expected. Only at the 1980 Moscow Olympics _ where, ironically, each man won what was regarded as the other’s specialty event _ did the two clash at both 800 and 1500 in peak condition. The scarcity of their meetings led to a series of races, immediately dubbed ‘The Covett Series’, being planned over 3000, 800 and 1500 metres in 1982.

Announced with great hoopla at the end of 1981, the series was a fizzer. Within days, Ovett seriously injured himself when he ran into some iron railings on a training run. He recovered in time to run the 3000 only of the scheduled three races; Coe fell ill in 1982 and missed all three.

Fortunately, in an athletics sense if not commercially, the first race of the ill-fated series saw the emergence of a British saviour in the form of Dave Moorcroft. A fine athlete who won the 1978 Commonwealth 1500 and 1982 Commonwealth 5000 metres titles, Moorcroft chose 1982 for his year of years. He broke Henry Rono’s world record for 5000 metres _ and almost 13 minutes _ in running 13:00.41 in Oslo (Bislett again!) and won the ‘Covett’ 3000 in 7:32.79, a few tenths outside another Rono world record.

Another rivalry which confounded expectations was that between Rob de Castella and Alberto Salazar in the marathon. Salazar ‘broke’ Derek Clayton’s long-standing world record with 2:08:13 in New York in 1981 on a course which turned out to be around 150 metres short, then defeated fellow-American Dick Beardsley in an epic duel in Boston in 1982. ‘Deek’ ran 2:08:18 in Fukuoka in 1981 then won the Commonwealth Games marathon in Brisbane.

Sports management company IMG, which represented both athletes, was desperate to arrange a ‘match race’. Of course, there was the world championships coming up in Helsinki, but the athletes would get nothing to run that and 25 percent of nothing is – nothing. After several possibilities fell through, Rotterdam 1983 saw the meeting of the big two.

It was a magnificent race, won by de Castella in a time only 20 seconds outside his world record after a last-man standing duel with his closest rival over the last five kilometres. Only problem was, his closest rival was not Salazar, but Carlos Lopes. Salazar was fifth; Lopes went on to become Olympic champion the following year and then world record holder the year after that.

Other rivalries, of course, produce great race after great race. Even the invincible Herb Elliott had Merv Lincoln dogging his heels throughout most of his career. One mile race between them was so close that both were given the same time; crucially, Elliott was given the win by an official margin of “inches”; Haile Gebrselassie and Paul Tergat at 10,000 metres; Sonia O’Sullivan and Gabriela Szabo at 5000 (and other distances); Kenenisa Bekele and Zersenay Tadese at 10,000 are others that come to mind.

Come to think of it, by the time this is posted, the result of the Rudisha-Kaki clash will be known. Which of them won? Or did someone upstage them both? Are we on the way to a new grand rivalry? Stand by.