Organisers have made the Games as safe as they can be – now athletes must follow the rules and embrace their opportunityNo matter who you are, or what sports you enjoy, the Olympics remains the greatest show on earth. It’s bigger than anything in football. Bigger than anything in any other sport. And, while I know there are many who don’t feel it is right that Tokyo 2020 is taking place during a global pandemic, I respectfully disagree and can’t wait for the Games to get under way.Let me try to explain why. It’s about wanting the best athletes in the world to have the opportunity to display their talents on the biggest stage of all, so they can provide...
Recent feats of the American and of Fraser-Pryce suggest new standards are being set and we can move on from the 1980sIf you were watching the skies over Eugene, Oregon, last weekend you saw a new star come swimming into ken. Gabby Thomas, a 24-year-old Harvard graduate studying for a masters in epidemiology, set three personal bests in three days in the women’s 200m: 21.98sec in the heats, 21.94 in the semis, and 21.61 in the final of the US Olympic trials. That last time wasn’t just the fastest anyone has run the distance this year, it was the fastest anyone has run it in 33 years. The only woman who has ever been quicker was Florence Griffith-Joyner, twice, back...
Bureaucracy may prevent one of the nation’s greatest public health initiatives from resuming after the end of lockdownSlowly, if a little unsteadily, the endgame out of lockdown approaches. From Monday England’s pubs and restaurants can swing open their doors. Next month, clubs and casinos can join them. All of which makes the uncertain fate of parkrun, one of Britain’s greatest ever public health initiatives, even more extraordinary. It had planned to resume on 6 June. Instead it has become mired in a bureaucratic nightmare worthy of Kafka and faces indefinite postponement.You might ask why, given that parkrun has spent six months working with Sport England, Public Health England and the DCMS on a framework to resume again. But those who...
Records are being smashed but the runners involved are reluctant to admit the difference the new technology is makingWhen the double Olympic 1500m medallist Nick Willis first tried athletics’ super spikes last month, they didn’t feel wildly different. A bit more cushioned, sure, which reduced the rigid impact of hitting the hard track. But then he checked his watch. It showed he had run a lung‑busting 1200m time trial two seconds faster than he expected. “I was really surprised,” he told me. “It made me a believer.”Willis reckons the new spike technology, which is powered by a superlight and highly responsive Pebax material, is worth between one to three seconds a mile, depending whether or not someone is a “high...
Track and field takes doping seriously, banning 66 Olympic and world medallists since the Athletics Integrity Unit’s launch in 2017And still the headlines come. On Thursday the Rio Olympic 100m hurdles champion, Brianna McNeal, was provisionally suspended and could face an eight-year doping ban for “tampering”. The week before, the 2017 long jump world champion Luvo Manyonga was suspended and could face a four-year ban for whereabouts violations. Both cases are yet to be prosecuted, and the usual caveats about being innocent until proven guilty apply, but the message is increasingly clear. Track and field is a sport which takes anti-doping seriously. Related: Brianna McNeal, Olympic 100m hurdles champion, could face eight-year ban Related: Sebastian Coe shrugs off concerns that...