Japan Ends 2020 And Starts 2021 With Ekiden Action

Recommended Read: Komazawa Pulls Off Last-Second Come-From-Behind 2021 Hakone Ekiden Win After an “out-of-nowhere” day 1 win, underdog Soka University started the final day with a 2:14 lead and were poised to make history with a 3:19 lead going into the final 23km leg. But Komazawa caught up with 2km to go to pull off the first anchor stage comeback at Hakone in 20 years.
*Soka University Wins First-Ever Hakone Ekiden Day One Title

Fujitsu Wins Its 1st New Year Ekiden Title Since 2009 Olympic marathon Trials winner Shogo Nakamura gave Fujitsu the lead on the 4th leg and they never gave it back. Some new course records were set on legs 2 and 3. How about 21:53 for 8.3 km and 37:39 for 13.6?

More New Year Stuff

• GB Athlete New Year Resolutions And 2021 Targets Thank you to British champions Jess Judd (5,000m) and Keely Hodgkinson (800m) for actually giving a straight answer to the resolution question.
• NAZ Elite 2020 Review: From Aliphine Tuliamuk’s OT Win To The Marathon Project
• USATF 2020 Review: Despite Difficult Year, Team USATF Shined Bright
• DyeStat’s 2020 Memoriam – Paying Respects To Prominent Members Of The Track Community Who Died This Year
• Athletics Weekly’s 2020 Quiz

New Year’s Eve And New Year’s Action

• Paul Chelimo Doesn’t Come Close To American Record In Spain He was third in 28:14 as Daniel Ebenyo won on 27:41. Yulemzerf Yehualaw Densa (31:17) crushed Ruth Chepngetich (31:50) to win women’s title.
• Genzebe Dibaba Comes Up Short In 5k WR Attempt As She Runs 15:00 In Barcelona She went out hard (5:52 for 2k) but faded and failed to get the 14:44 record.
• Hellen Obiri Fails To Get 29:43 WR As She Wins In 30:53 After Falling 2 Minutes Into The Race
• World 5,000 Silver Medalist Margaret Kipkemboi Wins Italy’s Bolzano 10k In 30:43  Dorcas Jepchirchir was 2nd as 8:59 steeplechaser Norah Tanui was third in 30:46.
• 19-Year-Old Ugandan Oscar Chelimo Wins Bolzano Men’s 5k In 13:18 Unheralded  Belgian Robin Hendrix just missed the European 5k road record in 2nd in 13:19 as Muktar Edris was just 6th in 13:24.

Previous News From Kenya

• Kenyan Senate Unanimously Passes Bill That Criminalizes Doping With Jail Sentences
• Senators Ask Government To Exempt Athletes From Double Taxation Some think it’s unfair runners often get taxed where the race is held and then again in Kenya.

The History Of Seb Coe

• Athletics Weekly: Seb Coe: Britain’s Greatest-Ever Athlete? AW is putting out a six-part series on Coe, this one focusing on the highlights of his racing career including his top 10 races.
• Coe Chronicles – The Junior Years A rundown of Coe’s races from 15-19 years old.
• Coe Chronicles: 1976 To 1979 – Early Senior Strides To First World Record

More 2020 Highlights

• World Athletics’ 2020 Middle And Long Distance Review The highlight of the year can be summed up in two words: Joshua Cheptegei.
• Athletics Weekly’s 2020 Recap They run through the month-by-month highlights.
• Runner’s World: Average Running Pace And Running Data in 2020 – How Covid Affected Running There was more running, but it was done at a slower pace.
• DyeStat: 20 Men Who Made The Most Of A Difficult Year In 2020 Joshua Cheptegei, Galen Rupp and Donavan Brazier are among those on their list.
• DyeStat: 20 Women Who Made The Most Of A Difficult Year In 2020 The list includes the BTC women, Sara Hall and Keira D’Amato.
• World And European LJ Champion Malaika Mihambo Named German Athlete of The Year She held the world lead both indoors (7.07m) and outdoors (7.03m).

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)

Miscellaneous

• Joshua Cheptegei Focusing On Becoming Just The Eighth Man To Win The 5,000/10,000 Double At The Olympics “It would be a mountain to climb, but the challenge is up to me. It is demanding a lot, in terms of racing and mindset but I want to give myself a try to win both gold medals.”
• Seb Coe Says He Has “No Problem” With Athletes Taking A Knee At The Olympics
• Dawna Stone Named CEO Of Running USA Stone built and sold national magazines Women’s Running and Women’s Half Marathon Series.

End-Of-Year Stuff

• World Athletics’ 2020 Jumps In Review Mondo Duplantis (PV) and Yulimar Rojas (TJ) highlighted with their world records indoors, but at 2.33m, this was the men’s HJ lowest world indoor lead in 37 years.
• 2020 Year-In-Review: Throws Ryan Crouser was easily the top men’s shot putter in 2020.
• T&F News Explains Why For The First Time Since 1946, They Won’t Be Doing Their Yearly World Rankings Editor E. Garry Hill says they “didn’t want to get into the business of handing out ‘participation trophies.'”
• The Telegraph Chooses Mondo Duplantis On Their List Of Names Expected To Dominate The Headlines In 2021
• 2020 Racewalks In Review