End-Of-Year Action

• Stewart McSweyn Breaks Australian All-Comers Record With World-Leading 3:50.61 Mile Stewart had a pacer for the first 800m, but ran the second half solo and won by 19 seconds.
  *MB: WTF Stewy McSewyn runs 3:50.61 mile in of all places Penguin Tasmania!
• Paul Chelimo Racing The San Silvestre 10k On New Year’s Eve (translated) He’s going to be trying to break the US 10k record of 27:48 held jointly by Bernard Lagat and Mark Nenow. (Note: The usual course is not record eligible as it’s downhill, but this year the mass race is cancelled and the elite-only looped course is record eligible.)
• AW Weekly Round-Up: Former NCAA XC Champ Kate Avery Wins Podium 5k In The UK (16:18)

Tokyo 2020 Updates

• Japan Bans Foreign Visitors As COVID-19 Cases Spike And New Faster-Spreading Strain Detected No foreign travelers will be allowed to enter the country until at least the end of January.
• Japanese Olympic Minister Under Fire For Breaking COVID-19 Guidelines She attended a group dinner with over five people. There were six! 😱
• AFP: Masked And Muted Olympics To Dominate Crowded 2021 Sports Calendar
• Tokyo 2020 Host Towns Facing Uncertainty And Concerns Over COVID-19

More 2020 In Review

News From Japan

• Japanese Rio Olympians Anju Takamizawa And Hanami Sekine Retire At Age 24 Both women had injury issues which led to their early retirements.
• Lake Biwa Marathon To Be Subsumed Into The Osaka Marathon For 2022 2021 will be the last stand-alone edition of Japan’s longest-running marathon.
• Tokyo 2020 Refunds 21 Percent Of Paralympic Tickets

News From The Commonwealth

• Great Read Ian Stewart – My Greatest Race – The 1975 World XC Race Stewart talks about how he tracked down Bill Rodgers to win gold in 1975 in a hot-as-hell Morocco.
• Athletics Weekly Takes A Look As It Does Every Year At Which Brits Will And Won’t Be Training On Christmas Day
• Tom Farrell Completes 300-Mile Charity RunVent Challenge He ran 1 mile on the 1st, 2 on the 2nd and then 24 on the 24th to cap off a 147-mile week. He hasn’t quite hit his £2,000 goal. Donate now.
• Champs Was Cancelled In 2020 But Jamaicans Believe It Can Be Held Safely In 2021
• 1976 200 Olympic Champ Donald Quarrie Gives Prep Talk To Jamaican HS

More Marathon Project News

• Marty Hehir (2:08:59) And Colin Bennie (2:09:38) Weren’t The Only Syracuse Grads To Run Well For The Reebok Boston Track Club – Paige Stoner’s 2:28 Debut Was A US U-25 Record Stoner: “I’ve been looking up to Colin and Marty since the day I got to Syracuse. They were just examples of how to do it right.”
  *Coach Chris Fox Says Stoner Will Be Ready To Run 2:23 In 2024
• Sara Hall Wasn’t The Only Woman To Run A Country’s #2 Time In History At The Marathon Project, Natasha Wodak’s 2:26:19 Is The Second-Fastest Time In Canadian History
• Ben Preisner Talks About Having The Race Of His Life At The Marathon Project 2:10:17 for a guy who didn’t make it to NCAAs on the track and whose best XC finish was 72nd.

End-Of-Year Stuff

Track And Field News Only Ranking Top 3 Per Event Due To Covid-19

• Women’s Track Top 3 Yet another pub that makes the mistake of having Gidey as the #2 choice in the 5,000.
• Men’s Field Top 3
• Women’s Field Top 3
• Men’s Track Top 3
• Jake Wightman And Jemma Reekie Named British Athletes Of The Year At British Athletics Writers Association Awards
• British Writers Give Ron Hill The Vikki Orvice Inspiration Award Well deserved as he ran 2:09:28 in the marathon 50 years ago and then also ran every day for 52 years.

News From Over The Pond

• GB Young 800m Star Max Burgin Is Putting School On Hold To Focus On Running The 1:44.75 18-year-old is taking a gap year before going to the University of Leeds to train for the 2021 track season.
• AW Weekly Round-Up: Ireland’s Tommy Hughes Threatens World M60 10,000m Record The 1992 Olympian ran 34:02.52, just missing the 33:57.16 record.
• Athletics Weekly: From 1,500m To The Half Marathon, Marc Scott Has Had A Stellar Year The Bowerman Track Club runner says his favorite performance of the year was running his 13:08 British and European 5,000m record indoors back in February.
• UK Athletics To Release Survey Pushing For Equal XC Distances For Men And Women Athletics Weekly writer Jason Henderson: “Of course women are capable of racing these longer distances, but do they really want to? UKA is about to find out.”
  *The Telegraph: “UK Athletics Praised For Formally Beginning Long-Awaited Push Towards Gender Equality In Cross-Country”
• Video: Laura Muir Answers Christmas Questions Her favorite Christmas movie is Home Alone.
• BBC: Stephen Maguire Stepping Down As Director Of Performance And Coaching At Scottish Athletics

Sprint Stuff

• Top Japanese Sprinter Yoshihide Kiryu Now A Believer In Asics’ Spikless Sprinting Shoes An Asics study found that traditional spikes sticking in the track can slow athletes down and they could take 0.48 seconds off in the 100m if they removed the spikes and increase propulsion. The “Metasprint” is now on sale for $380.
• Q&A With Andre De Grasse On What He Learned In 2020 And What He Expects In 2021 On the 2020 season being cancelled: “As a father, it’s kind of good because I got to spend more time with my daughter and my family, get to know her more now. Before all this happened, I think I missed stuff.”
• T&F News: Keni Harrison Looking For Championships Golds Harrison is the 100H WR holder and was ranked #1 in the world the last three years, but hasn’t yet managed to win an outdoor global title.
• Karsten Warholm: “If you have big dreams in sport, you have to live with the pressure.” Episode 2 in European Athletics mini-documentary series. Video is 4 minutes.
• GB Sprinter Dina Asher-Smith Writes Column About Mental Health Asher-Smith mentions Alexi Pappas‘ recent NY Times video where she talks about post-Olympic depression and how her mother’s suicide impacted her as an athlete.

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