The 1500m races at the Diamond League lived up to the hype and were riveting. We break down the 1 vs 1 duels between some of track's biggest stars.
Archived Homepage For September 11, 2021
Archived Homepage For September 11, 2021
The 2021 Diamond League action came to a close with a bunch of meet records. We recap it for you here.
*Thompson-Herah: "Next year, the world record is definitely on my mind"
Americans won the 100, 200, 400, and 110 hurdles, while Kenyans swept the 800, 1500, and steeple. Olympic champs Karsten Warholm (47.35) and Mondo Duplantis (6.06m) won the 400 hurdles & pole vault.
- Zurich MB Talk
- Official 2021 Wetklasse Zurich Discussion Thread
- If Jakob doesn't break his PB tonight at Zurich he will never break the WR.
- Gjert Ingebrigtsen: "Cheruyiot will never beat Jakob again"
- Tim beats Jakob
- Mboma 21.78 WJR
- Intersex athletes are making a mockery of our sport
- The blond girl sitting next to Duplantis' people
- THANK YOU NBC for Kara Goucher
- Intersex athletes are making a mockery of our sport
- Man, the 800m sucks this year.
On The Boards
On The Boards
Last Lap of Men's 1500
Last Lap of Women's 1500
LRC Post-Zurich Instant Reaction Show
Great North Run is Sunday
- MB: Mo Farah won't be back looking for a 7th straight win but lots of big names will be racing - Bashir Abdi, Rupp, Seidel, Obiri, Mcsweyn, Scott, McColgan, and Cheserek all running at the Great North Run
- Sir Brendan Foster admits he feared Great North Run 'might never happen again' as region gears up for return
- Olympic champion Sir Mo Farah wishes runners luck ahead of 'beautiful' Great North Run
- Great North run course to start and end in Newcastle due to Covid-19 concerns, feature staggered starts Normally it runs from Newcastle to South Shields and features one massive start.
Previous Zurich
Niyonsaba won her fourth DL in 20 days, while Aregawi, who was 4th in the 10k in Tokyo, won his first career DL race.
Francine Niyonsaba says moving from Eugene to Kenya was right move when she moved up in distance “It was the right decision to move from America to Kenya because I knew Kenya is home of champions in long distance,” she said. “To meet many athletes there... Meeting Kipchoge in the morning, it gives you motivation!”
When you are great, it's hard to enjoy and when you are retire, you miss it
"When I told my coach I was going to retire he sat me down and said 'when you retire that's it. I'm not doing any comeback tours, nothing. So make sure you are ready to retire'. I remember I went to him in 2019 and said 'what do you think about coming back for the Olympics?' And he looked at me and said 'don't even start'."
Karsten Warholm admits to post-Tokyo emptiness "When you achieve all those things you have been dreaming about, you get happy but somehow you empty as well. Everything you have been working towards, and motivated for, is over."
Distance News
- Podcast Interview With Jenny Simpson Carrie Tollefson talks to Simpson about her 2021 season and missing making her fourth Olympic team and the benefits of having world-class training partners.
- Cornell grad Sage Canaday named one of "Top 5 Male Pros to Follow on Strava"
- MB: USADA covers up Eliud Ngetich positive for nearly 7 years Ngetich apparently tested positive for nandrolone in 2014 and served a 4-month suspension in 2015 and his remaining 8-months began this August (his ban was reduced from 2 to 1 years for providing "substantial assistance.")
- Eliud Kipchoge Talks About The Importance Of Clean Air “Plant a tree on your special day and in two years, we will be breathing better air. This is not rocket science. We must protect that which provides us with clean air, clean water and is a perfect training ground for our athletes.”
- RIP 3-Time NCAA Champion Jerry Thompson, 98 Thompson won titles at 2 mile and 5000m in the 1940's and also served in the Navy during WWII.
Sprints / Jumps
- Usain Bolt Releases Debut Album, "Country Yutes" The 15-track album includes the song, "Living the Dream," which Bolt released earlier this year.
- Lolo Jones Named To US National Bobsled Team The driver she won a world championship with, Kaillie Humphries, was also named to the team but her status for the Beijing Olympics is up in the air.
- The Telegraph: "How Tokyo Isolation Helped Team GB Sprinter Imani-Lara Lansiquot Write Her Name Into History Books" She ended up winning 4x100m bronze and writing her debut play while in isolation in Tokyo.
- Brittney Reese's Hometown Holds Ceremony/Parade To Celebrate Her Olympic LJ Silver Medal
- World Athletics Profile: "Letsile Tebogo And Udodi Onwuzurike Set The Pace For Africa's New Generation Of Sprinters" Tebogo won World U20 gold for Botswana this summer while Nigeria's Onwuzurike won 200m gold.
Road News
- Tokyo Marathon Set To Be Cancelled Due To Extension Of State Of Emergency While it hasn't officially been cancelled, the published guidelines for the 2021 race said they would cancel it if there was a state of emergency one month before the race.
*MB: Tokyo Marathon 2021 cancelled - September 26: Kenenisa Bekele And Hiwot Gebrekidan Lead Powerful Ethiopian Challenge At The Berlin Marathon Bekele won this race in 2016 and 2019, each time missing the WR by only seconds. Gebrekidan has the fastest time in the world this year at 2:19:35.
- September 12: Ethiopians Betesfa Getahun (2:05:28) And Gelete Burka (2:20:45) Lead Fields For The Vienna City Marathon
- 2:22:50 Kenyan Marathoner Racheal Mutgaa Banned For Doping
USATF 20k Champs
True won a tight 4 person sprint finish as Kemp dominated. Jordan Hasay struggled in 74:18, far off the 66:35 she ran in 2017 to win the race.
This Weekend's Results
The big distance result came in the 3k where world jr champ Tadese Worku upset the Olympic steeple champ El Bakkali, 7:36 to 7:37. Other winners included Andre de Grasse (20.21), Michael Cherry (44.94), Wycliffe Kinyamal (1:44.63), Ryan Crouser (22.39), Hansle Parchment (13.26), and Jemma Reekie (2:35.47). *Full Results
*MB: World Jr 3k champ Tadese Worku takes down Olympic steeple champ El Bakkali 7:36-7:37
More Weekend Results
- Sweden Men And Women Defeat Finland At The Finnkampen Meet In Stockholm The Swedish men won the dual meet against Finland with 230 points to 201 points and the women won 223.5 points to 207.5 points.
- Johannes Vetter Wins Chorzow, Poland Javelin Throw With 89.60m
- AW Extensive Weekly Round-Up
Stories That Caught Our Eye
- Wow. World junior 800 champ Emmanuel Wanyonyi (1:43.76) dropped out of school as a kid for 7 years to work as a herdsman for between $1.82 and $9.09 per month The article also says he believes he can run 1:40. *Discuss
- David Weir finishes 5th in Paralympic marathon and then joins Jonnie Peacock in call for equal pay for Paralympians In doing so, he makes a ridiculously bad argument. "We do 26.2 miles, you wouldn’t pay different to men and women – so why not us?" The answer to that for the marathon is simple. An able-bodied marathoner can't run marathons on back-to-back days like they are doing in Chicago and Boston this fall. Under his logic, why not mandate that track stars get paid as much as NBA stars? *Discuss
NCAA XC Has Begun
- 2021 NCAA XC Season Is Underway! You can check out the pre-season rankings here. The big result of the weekend came in California where the LRC intern Karl Winter racked up his first win since hs.
*MB: Black page? LRC intern Karl Winter starts his season with a bang, picks up his first xc win since
*Pre-Season Rankings
Interesting Reads
- Alan Abrahamson: "Almost every single facet of Houlihan’s defense was — is — absurd", says it's "time for Shelby Houlihan to come clean"
*MB: Alan Abrahamson writes column RIPPING Shelby H and all the journalists who have defended her & asks her to come clean - Philip Barker: The stolen IAAF Presidential election of 1981 A fascinating read on how Primo Nebiolo got into power with some help from adidas head Horst Dassler.
- Fred Kerley: "I know I have got the potential to break the 400m record." Does this mean he's moving back to the 400? It sounds like he wants to be the greatest 100-200-400 tripler ever.
- Even though he failed to make 400 final in Tokyo, WR holder Wayde van Niekerk is optimistic for 2022 "I don’t think I am that far off from where I need to be and it is not much of a worry for me.”
- TFN editor Gary Hill watched the Olympics on tv at home for the 1st time since 1968
More Sprint News
- TFN updates it's best women's 100 times ever - adjusted for wind and altitude Thompson-Herah has put up marks #2 and #3 this year.
- Usain Bolt's World XI team beat England 3-0 at Soccer Aid 2021 A bunch of big names were in this one including Wayne Rooney, Roberto Carlos, etc.
- MB: Justin Gatlin is running the last race of his career in Italy (Gala' dei Castelli) on 14 of September
- TFN updates it all-time 100/200/400 combined rankings Fred Kerley moves up to #5.
Brussels DL - 2021 Memorial van Damme
Sifan Hassan gave the mile WR a scare and Brussels entertained but the big storyline was 40% of the women's running events were won by intersex athletes.
One on One With Paul Chelimo
Chelimo was the only American distance runner to medal at the 2016 and 2020 Olympics. He's got a lot more to say than just his medal guarantee.
Paralympic News Of Note
MB: Mikey Brannigan pulls a Prefontaine, boldly goes for gold, fades to 4th in 2020 Paralympic 1500
Double amputee Hunter Woodhall (48.61) earns 400m bronze at Paralympics German Johannes Floors just missed his own WR in 45.85. Woodhall ran 46.22 at Arkansas.
Tokyo Paralympics will deploy staff of thousands to tell spectators to stay off marathon course A total of of 4,500 people will be used to make sure marathons are held safely including 1,600 people on course to tell spectators to not watch
Interesting Reads
- New 24 hr WR holder Aleksandr Sorokin says he didn't start running until age 32 as used to drink and smoke 'a lot' & admits he loves the Alphaflys He also credited junk food for his epic run. "I will often eat a lot of chips, chocolate, cookies, candy and drink Coca-Cola during races.” *Video interview with Sorokin after his WR
- Sore muscles? It might be your diet
- Good coaching article The Body doesn't know miles or pace, it knows stress Coach David Roche says a burgeoning area of training science theorizes that the less stressed a runner is, the more positively he or she may adapt to training stimuli" and urges you to run often without looking at your watch.
- Ridiculous Some in Jamaica are calling for a boycott of Nike because they are running ads with Sha'Carri Richardson and not Elaine Thompson-Herah Memo to the Jamaicans, the ads were on US television.
- Irish great Sonia O’Sullivan writes about the differences or similarities between the Diamond League now and the IAAF Grand Prix of the 1990s "Not a lot has changed since I first competed on the circuit, as we called it back in the 1990s."
- The Telegraph does a lengthy profile on Markus Rehm: "The 'Blade Jumper' who is beating Olympians but not allowed to compete with them"
- Germany's 'Blade Jumper' Markus Rehm gets gold (8.18) but no world record (8.62) at Tokyo Paralympics
- Q&A with Lovisa Lindh - the Swede who qualified for Tokyo but was screwed over by the federation and left at home They didn't think teh 1:58 runner was likely to finish top 8. Meanwhile 16 of the 21 Swedes didn't finish top 8.
Your latest American stars share their insights.
American Record Holders
American Record Holders
Keira D'Amato, the new American record holder in the marathon, was joined by Deena Kastor, who held the record for 15 years.
Sisson was the guest on the LetsRun.com Track Talk podcast after she became the first American to go sub 67 in the half marathon on a record-eligible course. Podcast highlights above. Full pod here.
Woody Kincaid joined us after he broke the American record indoors at 5000. He talks above why he left the Bowerman Track Club. Podcast highlights and link to full podcast here.
Coogan's New Balance Boston team had 3 Olympians in 2021 and 2022 could be the biggest year yet for the program with 2 new additions and the TRACK at New Balance coming on March 1st.
Danny Mackey has taken the Brooks Beasts from an unproven club to the Olympic podium in its first decade.
Dathan Ritzenhein is the first of the top pro coaches to sit down and talk about his club heading into the 2022 campaign.
Best of Jon Gault
Best of Jon Gault
Take Your Love of LetsRun to the Next Level
Take Your Love of LetsRun to the Next Level
LetsRun Classics
LetsRun Classics
