Joshua Cheptegei, Nike and the rise of technology in running

The ghost of Bekele’s 2005 effort then, in the form of neon green lights, failed to escape Cheptegei’s metronome-like rhythm, but now, with Tokyo on the horizon, a debate over technology and fairness lingers. “The main thing for me is I’m happy with what I wear,” explains Jake Wightman, a New Balance athlete who ran the second fastest British 1,500m of all time in Monaco two months ago. “I never feel like I’m at a disadvantage because the spikes I […]

October 3, 2020

Brendan Foster hails Blitz spirit of London for not giving up on Marathon

Brendan Foster has hailed the Blitz spirit of organisers in refusing to surrender to the pandemic and pressing ahead with tomorrow’s London Marathon. Every major city marathon from Berlin to Chicago, Boston to New York, has been called off in this coronavirus-blighted year. Yet London has found a way to stage an elite race in a bio-secure bubble in the nation’s capital – and even got Mo Farah to run as a pacemaker for Brits in search of an Olympic […]

September 13, 2020

‘I’m black and I’m the best there is’: Freeman’s race was all about race

Twenty years later, Cathy Freeman still sits at the end of the track in quiet bewilderment. She remains shocked, not only at what she did but what people thought of what she did. Now, 20 years on, she has a skimming appreciation of the enormity of what she did. The least of it was to win a footrace. Cathy Freeman, with documentary director Laurence Billiet and co-director and choreographer Stephen Page. Like Adam Goodes before her, Cathy Freeman decided to […]

August 6, 2020

London Marathon 2020 will be for elite runners only as organisers abandon mass-participation plans

The 2020 London Marathon will not be a mass-participation event, organisers have announced, and will instead be open only to elite runners. The race route has been redrawn to entail 19.8 laps of St James’ Park before finishing on the Mall, and spectators will not be allowed to attend. The event director, Hugh Brasher, said in a latter to runners that he had little choice in the current climate of the coronavirus pandemic. “We had hoped that by moving our […]

July 25, 2020

Team GB set for Olympics history with more women than men competing at Tokyo

Team GB is set to have more women than men competing at the Tokyo Olympics for the first time in our history. With a year to go to the Games yesterday, proud team chiefs declared it the 'year of the female Olympian'. Based on current predictions, our Olympians will be 52 percent female (194) and 48 percent male (180) next year. In a move towards gender balance, Tokyo will see the highest ever number of women competing in the Games. […]

July 2, 2020

Christian Malcolm backed by Darren Campbell for atop job in UK Athletics rebuild

Darren Campbell says the “time is right” for Christian Malcolm to be handed a top job in British athletics. Malcolm, born in Wales of Jamaican descent, is in contention for the head coach role at UK Athletics. And Campbell insists whether it is that position or another lead role, his former Great Britain team mate should be lured back from Australia, where he heads up their high performance and coaching programme. “Christian has all the attributes you’d want in a […]

June 27, 2020

Dai Greene on athletics’ whereabouts failures: ‘These guys are getting away with it’

“Every athlete has a whereabouts failure at some point,” says Dai Greene. “Maybe there’s a doctor’s appointment you need to be at and you might forget to update the system. That might be once in your career. But three in 12 months…?” Three in 12 months triggers an anti-doping violation, and it is why the world’s fastest man, Christian Coleman, is facing possible a two-year ban. Coleman put out a rambling statement last week taking responsibility for only one of […]

June 15, 2020

London Marathon ‘extremely difficult’ to hold in October, claims Great North Run founder Brendan Foster

It will be “extremely difficult” to hold the London Marathon this year amid the coronavirus pandemic, Great North Run founder Brendan Foster has said. Foster’s event, due to be staged on September 13 with a record 60,000 adult participants, was cancelled on Monday due to the insurmountable challenges posed by the Covid-19 outbreak. A decision on whether this year’s London Marathon – already postponed from April to October – can go ahead is expected to be made on Sunday. Download […]

June 13, 2020

Dai Greene frustrated by lack of athletics and ineffective anti-doping measures

Dai Greene has voiced his frustration at the lack of competition for British athletes and the slow pace at which the sport is returning from lockdown. He has also blasted the “madness” of track and field allowing Salwa Eid Naser to become world champion over 400 metres when the Nigerian-born Bahraini already had three missed drugs tests against her name. Wales’ former world 400m hurdles champion looked on enviously as current No.1 Karsten Warholm headlined the Impossible Games on Thursday, […]

May 29, 2020

Katarina Johnson-Thompson relishing the chance to train on her old stomping ground

Katarina Johnson-Thompson has been enjoying training on familiar territory after escaping her regular base in France during the coronavirus pandemic. The reigning world champion heptathlete has been back home in Liverpool after the strict lockdown that had been in force in France forced her to relocate in order to keep up even basic training. “It was difficult at the start for sure,” the 27-year-old said on Athletics: How Dina and Kat struck world gold, which will air on BBC 1 […]

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