It’s a tough gig in athletics proposing new things. People all over don’t embrace change.
Not all athletes are runners. But the overwhelming majority of them will run a mile away from a change. This is not necessarily a bad thing: to run 100 metres in under 10 or 11...
Maurie Plant Meet started off with Claudia Hollingsworth 1:59.81 for the win and U20 National Record against a stack field, leading ahead of Abby Caldwell and Catriona Bisset on the podium. Claudia joins in for a chat about her performance on the night as well as how a typical training week for her goes, how she approaches racing and what her plans are for the year ahead.
Time is marked out in finite units – seconds, minutes, hours, days, etc. But neither time nor events seem to work out that way. Sometimes nothing much seems to be happening. Other times everything seems to be happening at once.
That’s the way it’s been for the week beginning Sunday...
Kelvin Kiptum, the marathon world record holder of Kenya aged 24 has died in a road accident alongside his coach, Gervais Hakizimana of Rwanda who was the national record holder in the steeplechase. Kiptum burst onto the athletics scene with his record debut in the 2022 Valencia Marathon in 2:01:35, then went to set the course record at the 2023 London Marathon in 2:01:25 before becoming the first man to run under two hours and one minute with his performance of 2:00:35 at the 2023 Chicago Marathon, which was just ratified as the world record just last week. He was set for an attempt to run under two hours at this year’s Rotterdam Marathon.
Sport is one of the few settings where the catastrophic ramifications of identity politics are displayed for all to see. Sport is about quality of performance, not equality of outcomes. Yet while society is besieged by pronoun preferences and gender updates, the very foundation that women’s sport is built upon is under threat by basic biology; men are competing as and against women.
It won’t be easy making the team to represent Australia in the men’s middle-distance events at the World U20 championships in Lima, Peru later this year.
Conner Mantz won the US Olympic Trials Marathon in 2:09:05, alongside training partner Clayton Young, confirming their places in the 2024 Paris Olympic Marathon. Leonard Korir was third in 2:09:57, though his actual place in the US Olympic Team is currently unsecured. Fiona O’Keefe won the women’s race in her debut marathon in a trials record of 2:22:10, ahead of national record holder Em Sisson in 2:22:42 and Dakota Lindwurm third 2:25:31 to make their Olympic team.
It’s early in an Olympic year. An unknown young man breaks through at 800, running 1:45.77. A scarcely better-known young woman breaks the national record in the 100 metres, speeding down the straightaway in 11.10 seconds.
Peyton Craig 800m set the U20 800m Record in 1:45.77 in the ACT Track & Field Champs ahead of Jack Lunn. Imogen Barrett took out both the 800m and 1500m, while Connor Whitely won the 1500m state title. Bendere Oboya and Catriona Bisset had hit outs in the 400m.
This writer has long adjusted himself to the fact of not being lord of his own household. Even so, being told not to sit in any chair I chose at the empty kitchen table was a confronting reminder of my status. That it was because one of the world’s greatest marathoners had recently occupied it took a little longer to sink in.
