2020 Outdoors

[LuckySpikes]

Today the Stirling XC took place. It's no longer the Europe vs GBR vs USA match but is now a leg of the British Cross Challenge as well as being the Home Countries International (which used, I think, to be hosted by the Antrim XC International which also seems defunct!)

Anyway, there was a shock defeat for Andy Butchart in the Men's 8km, not just by one man but by three - Kris Jones, Jamie Crowe and Adam Hickey.

In the Women's 8km Kate Avery won by a few seconds from Abbie Donnelly with Bronwen Owen in 3rd. The depth of this field was somewhat affected by 3 of the usual suspects of the British Cross Challenge - Charlotte Arter, Jess Piasecki & Jenny Nesbitt - all being in Valencia to race the big 10km road race tomorrow morning. See the Live Streaming Links thread for info on where to watch that race.

[LuckySpikes]

Renovations at the Rome Olympic Stadium mean that Naples will host the Golden Gala Diamond League meeting this year. It will be in the same big stadium that hosted the Universiade athletics last year.

[LuckySpikes]

Something of a surprise winner at the WA XC Permit meeting in Elgoibar. Tadese Worku, the World U20 XC silver medalist, handily beat the likes of Aron Kifle, Richard Yator & Paul Chelimo. Milkesa Mengeshu who beat Worku in Aarhus was 5th.
Fair play to Antonio Abadia, steeplechaser Fernando Carro & Abdessamad Oukhelfen - they've been running Spanish XC events (WA Permit or not) virtually every weekend this season and even fitted in the Madrid 10km on New Year's Eve.

No such upset in the women's race. Hellen Obiri took off with 2km to go for a comfortable victory. Kate Holt was 6th a few seconds behind Irene Sanchez-Escribano with Lauren Hall (nee Howarth) 8th.

At the Egmond Half Marathon in the Netherlands they have to run the first few kilometres on the beach so I'm sure the last thing they wanted to make it even harder was a howling headwind. Even though it was a loop course you could see them really battling the wind for much of the course. Bashir Abdi won the men's in 1:08:22 and 21yo Tsehay Gemechu (1:06:00 PB) beat Linet Masai in 1:20:17 (!). In both cases they were the slowest winning times since 1985 when the Africans hadn't yet discovered this race.

I haven't seen the big 10km in Valencia yet - I'm watching the repeat of that tonight.

[LuckySpikes]

RECORD DEL MUNDO!!
RECORD DEL EUROPA!

In the Valencia 10k Rhonex Kipruto took a sledgehammer to Joshua Cheptegei's recently set 26:38 WR. After passing through 5k in 13:18 (also a WR but not the fastest time ever) he stopped the clock at 26:24! Julien Wanders improved his European Record to 27:13.

Super fast times in the women's race too with 3 women running three of the 4 fastest times ever, all sub-30.

Callum Hawkins ran 28:02 and Ben Connor 28:10. No sign of Charlotte Arter or Jess Piasecki on the results though. I don't know what happened to them. Charlotte definitely started.

So, I think I have to come out of denial about the Vaporfly Next% shoes or whatever they're called. They're definitely allowing the record books on the roads to be rewritten. It's not just at the very top level either. For example, there's a ton of women running 2:25 marathons who I thought of as 2:28 or 2:29 runners and, another example, a load of barely-known American men running 2:10/2:11 when for years the USA has struggled getting that 2nd tier of men under 2:12.

The horse has definitely bolted out of the stable. I think it's already too late to ban these particular shoes but perhaps WA need to act quick to set some boundaries (e.g., heel height) for the future.

Or, is it just a natural evolution of shoe technology? After all, the shoes of the 70s and 80s were superior to those of the 50s and 60s but no-one made a fuss then ...

[Ursus]

I think it’s just an evolution we have to live with. And hats off to the designers.

A great illustration of why people put more more store in medals than records.

[LuckySpikes]

Hannah England has retired after a good career that included being the NCAA Champion both outdoors and indoors and winning silver at the World Championships in Daegu 2011. She was also 4th in the 1500 at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

In fact, she's still the only winner (or even participant?) of the Women's NCAA 1500 final who has also medalled in a global championship.

Of late she's been active in the European Athletics Athlete Commission so I wonder if she'll continue to be closely involved in athletics.

[LuckySpikes]

A new Japanese NR for Hitomi Niiya, winning the women's Houston Half Marathon in 66:37, beating a really good field and smashing the 13yo 67:26 NR of Japanese running legend Kayoko Fukushi (who's still running 2:24 marathons at age 36 last year).

Very well done to Steph Twell who ran around 68:51, beating the likes of Gelete Burka, Sarah Hall & Molly Huddle. That puts her #5 UK all-time on record-legal courses.

Jemal Yimer won a close men's race in 59:23. I think 8 men went sub-60.

Yesterday's night race in Jaén, Andalucia was definitely a good addition to the live streaming roster.

It was a hilly course through the city lined by really good crowds, a lot of them holding flaming torches. Making her 10km debut, Gudaf Tsegay managed to edge out World Half Marathon champ Netsanet Gudeta at the end to win in 32:15. The men's race was loaded with top Spanish talent and, after Chiki Perez had led by about 8s at 7km, Fernando Carro won a good 3-way battle outsprinting Perez to win in 29:26.

A bad day at the races for Hellen Obiri at the Cross de Italica on the outskirts of Sevilla. She seems to have a few of those. Just 4th, well behind Margaret Kipkemboi Chelimo, Beatrice Chebet & Tsehay Gemechu (winner of last weekend's Egmond Half Marathon.) Kate Avery was 10th about 22s behind Irene Sanchez-Escribano with Dani Chattenton a further 10s or so behind Kate.

[LuckySpikes]

Nairobi has been announced as the other World Continental Tour Gold meeting and will open that series of meetings on 2nd May. The 10 Silver meetings are also confirmed. Up to 50 meetings around the world will make up the Bronze level, including many of the meetings that were previously European Classic Permit meetings.

I love the poster for Sunday's Osaka Women's Marathon:



It could be an exciting race if any of the Japanese women are on pace to run the 2:22:22 or faster needed to knock Rei Ohara off their Olympic team.

[philipo]

Nairobi has been announced as the other World Continental Tour Gold meeting and will open that series of meetings on 2nd May. The 10 Silver meetings are also confirmed. Up to 50 meetings around the world will make up the Bronze level, including many of the meetings that were previously European Classic Permit meetings.

I love the poster for Sunday's Osaka Women's Marathon:



It could be an exciting race if any of the Japanese women are on pace to run the 2:22:22 or faster needed to knock Rei Ohara off their Olympic team.

looks like we are going to have a pretty early start to the quality outdoors this year; with first half of May capable of providing some interesting performances.

[LuckySpikes]

looks like we are going to have a pretty early start to the quality outdoors this year; with first half of May capable of providing some interesting performances.

It seems to be ramping up a week or two earlier than usual due to the Olympics being a bit earlier than they have been recently. There's some of the good European meetings in late May too - Nancy, Bellinzona, Andujar & Bydgoszcz.

[LuckySpikes]

Full broadcast of this morning's Osaka Women's Marathon (with the ad breaks taken out) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erb0r2e0AYs

An exciting race, focused on whether any of the Japanese women could break 2:22:23 and thereby snatch the 3rd spot on Japan's Olympic team which, pre-race, was held by Rei Ohara who finished 3rd at the MGC (Olympic Trials) last September.

The Japanese are certainly on to a winner with this format of leaving the 3rd spot open for a special performance after the MGC. It delivered lots of anticipation, drama and emotion in this morning's race.

If you want to watch the race, DO NOT read my report of the race that follows in the rest of this post!

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To run the necessary 2:22:22 they had to average 16:52 for each 5km and the pacers set out with intent, pulling a group of 5 or 6 Japanese plus all the Africans through 5km in 16:37. But, by 7 or 8km just three Japanese women remained in the lead group - Mizuki Matsada (bib 6), Rei Ohara (8) herself and Kayoko Fukushi (5). They had started as the 3 fastest Japanese women on paper. The split to 10km was 16:31 meaning that they were now on pace to finish in sub-2:20.

It was unusual to see not just one but three non-Africans keeping up with the Africans at such a fast pace but by 17km the cracks started to show in Rei Ohara and she started to fall off, possibly also seeing her spot on the Olympic team disappearing down the road as Matsada and Fukushi maintained the sub-2:20 pace. Fukushi was the next to struggle though, around 20km, and by 25km her race was run as she stepped off the course.

That left just Matsada, who had finished 4th behind Ohara at the MGC, and she was continuing to run aggressively and look strong. The first five 5km splits had all been covered between 16:31 and 16:37 meaning that she was still on sub-2:20 pace at 25km! However, the kilometre splits started to slow in the next 5km, covered in 16:59. Matsada had "time in the bank" but she decided to take matters into her own hands and pushed the pace on again up to 32km, managing to drop Mimi Belete (BRN) to lead the race outright.

The split to 35km was covered in 16:54 and the overall finishing pace was now 2:20:45 - she was still going strong but 7.2km can be a long way in the marathon ...

With 5km to go the task was clear, cover it in 18:02 or faster and she would have a provisional spot on the Olympic team. Barring disaster, the glory would be hers.

With a kilometre to go it became very obvious that she wasn't going to blow up, and she made it to the finish line ...

... with 35s to spare. 24yo Mizuki Matsada had done it! 2:21:47! That she won the race as well almost seemed secondary to the very significant numbers on the clock (she also won it in 2018).

Cue huge jubilation and also some tears when they invited her up to the TV studio.

I hope for her sake that the celebrations aren't premature! There's one last chance in the Nagoya Women's Marathon on 8th March for another woman to snatch the spot away from Matsada by running faster than 2:21:47. However, the 2 main contenders to do that - Fukushi and Ohara - were both in this race and didn't fare well in the end. A dramatic turnaround in 6 weeks would seem highly unlikely - Kayoko Fukushi is 37 now with her best days a bit behind her and Rei Ohara really slowed over the 2nd half and was in a bad way at the finish.

Barring a minor miracle in Nagoya they can both try again on May 9th to make the Olympic team - that's the date of the Japanese Olympic Trials in the 10,000.

[Occasional Hope]

Very well written summary, Lucky!

[LuckySpikes]

Thanks!

[LuckySpikes]

Kenya have named their teams for the Olympic marathons:

Men:
Eliud Kipchoge
Lawrence Cherono
Amos Kipruto
Bedan Karoki (Reserve)
Titus Ekiru (Reserve)

Women:
Brigid Kosgei
Vivian Cheruiyot
Ruth Chepngetich
Sally Chepyego Kaptich (Reserve)
Vallery Aiyabei (Reserve)

Although the women's team of 3 is extremely strong the ommission of Mary Keitany might raise some eyebrows. She was controversially left off the team for Rio 2016 too.

[LuckySpikes]

Anna Emilie Moller whopped Jess Judd at the BUCS Cross Country Championships in Holyrood Park yesterday.

1 Moller 28:03
2 Judd 28:49
3 Jenny Nesbitt 29:22

Mahamed Mahamed won the Men's long race.

Full results at http://www.thistletimingresults.co.u...RId=1395&EId=4

They also have some "Short" races which are only 2km shorter than the Long races - 6km vs 8km for the women and 8km vs 10km for the men. Seems really quite pointless!!

[LuckySpikes]

Five National Records (2 Men's + 3 Women's) at this morning's Marugame Half Marathon in Japan. Callum Hawkins & Charlotte Purdue were racing.

I won't tell you what happened in case you want to watch it on Youtube via the link I posted in the Live Streaming Links thread. But, there's a report on the World Athletics site.