What’s up and welcome to this *weekend edition* of The Blue Line. It’s very similar to a normal issue of the newsletter you grew up with (this one), but it comes out on a Sunday instead of a Friday.
There is lots happening in the sport right now - Elise has a fantastic look at the results we’ve been seeing in Diamond League this season and a wrap up of what might be causing them, we just had a fantastic Launceston Running Festival, and the Gold Coast Marathon is only a week away.
We’ve also got a great recap from Fraser on his recent experience competing for Australia at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships.
Let’s dive in.
by Elise Beacom
The Gold Coast elite half marathon fields are out, and boy oh boy, it’s set to be spicy in both the female and male races. (Did we mention we’ve released an FTK hot sauce?)
In case you missed it, friend of The Blue Line, Brett Robinson is the padrón pepper in the men’s race with a PB (and Australian record) of 59:57. He’s in shape after his 10k win at Launnie, but he’s most looking forward to his cool down with you all at the FTK shake out (can’t wait to see loads of you there).
Japanese runner Keijiro Mogi is second seed and in hot form, having set a PB at Yamaguchi earlier in the year (1:00:33). (I’ll leave the chilli associated words behind from here – anything beyond the third paragraph feels contrived.) Fellow Japanese young-guns, Kazusa Takanuma andJin Yuasa are also ones to watch.
The Aussie contingent includes the likes of Ben St Lawrence, Seth O’Donnell, Andre Waring (he’s been cleaning up races in Victoria lately), Adrian Potter and the man known almost everywhere as “Gen’s husband”, Ryan Gregson. Full list is available here.
On the women’s side, we have former American record holder in the marathon Keira D’Amato who rolls a PB of 1:07:55. Check out this interview with Chris Chavez on an easy run in Central Park where Keira announces her spot on Team USA for the World Championships marathon in Budapest.
A couple of Aussies are following the same template into Budapest, namely FTK’s own Izzi Batt-Doyle and Sarah Klein. Ellie Pashley will arrive on the Gold Coast fresh off her half-marathon win at Launceston almost a fortnight ago, where Tara Palm (also appearing at Goldy) ran well for 2nd place. Speaking of Launnie, our recently crowned 10k Australian all-comer record holder, Leanne Pompeani is also doing the half and is bound to be competitive.
We have a raft of other Aussies (including Gemma Maini on debut), three sub-1:11 Japanese runners, Kaede Kawamura, Chiharu Ikeda and Yuki Nakamura, and Kiwi Camille French (you may know her better as Camille Buscomb – congrats on the nuptials). See the full HM list here. And there’s a great line up for the full marathon as well – find that here.
If you’re heading to Goldy for the marathon on the Sunday, do yourself a favour and spend your Saturday morning out on the course cheering for the half-marathoners. A remote option is watching the live feed curled up with a cuppa. Both are guaranteed good times.
by Fraser Darcy
In the words of the immortal Kanye West, ‘Yo track and field, I’m really happy for you, I’ma let you have Budapest and all but Innsbruck just had the best World Champs of all time’. Having finally recovered from the 4 day festival and 40 hour commute back home to Australia I’ve found the time to reflect on what I believe is both the best celebration and competitive atmosphere in running ever.
Starting with the vertical race. What event in the Olympics or the World Champs or a Major Marathon do you see every athlete in the race, not just the winners, being crowded around like it’s the Tour de France. Patrick Kipngeno, the Kenyan male who took home 1st was even handing out fist bumps in the final 50m! Can’t do that on the track! In the women’s race Austria had a hometown favourite get up. Andrea Mayr and all her local fans didn’t have to pay a cent to come and stack the ski slope to watch her. On top of the running, last year’s World Champ Allie McLaughlin flew off the top in her own paraglider after finishing 13th. The equivalent is Sifan Hassan riding a unicycle home after the Olympics. Absurd scenes.
And that was day 1. The Short trail on day 2 was just as hectic. Held on a public holiday, it meant the 45km route was lined with people and their cowbells the whole way. Too bad if you like trail running for its serenity (*i.e. me and Darryl Kerrigan*). Stian Angermund defended his title by just over two minutes but the competition was packed. The top 10 in the men’s race were all separated by less than 15 minutes. Compare that to the female’s version where the top two (France’s Clementine Geoffray and the Swiss Judith Wyder) both put 15 minutes into third place. The big news from the trail short too was that some adverse weather forced the race to be stopped before the cut-off time had elapsed. Think Bathurst World XC conditions but instead of being at a sleepy NSW country town put those conditions on top of a 2100m high mountain. Makes World XC look like a running competition for kindergarten…
Surely it couldn’t get any better? Well folks, does the headline act play on day 2 of Falls? No? That’s right. Day 3 layered on top with the Trail long event. Re-routed due to avalanche danger on the original route the organisers lengthened it and added more elevation. Half the women’s field and a third of the men’s didn’t finish in the end it was that badass. The expected male winning time was 9 hrs but only one Frenchman (Benjamin Roubiol) made it in under 10 hrs. Each event at these championships rewarded individual place getters AND a combined team time. Having this element in there created an almighty finish from Team USA. Zach Miller and Drew Holmen sprinted against each other like it was the 5000m at Budapest to limit the damage to the French team with Eric LiPuma coming in next. Watching the American team’s staff yell at Eric LiPuma to kick it for the final kilometre after being out there for 10 hours was one of the greatest moments personally. The bloke’s cooked out of his brain but finds an extra gear to put his body on the line for 7th place and potentially first in the teams medal. In the end, as we all madly refreshed the timing website, the Frenchies grabbed first place in the team’s event. Oui oui.
Now we finally arrived at day 4. The headliners. The Mountain Classic. OK so running through Innsbruck and a little pine forest in the ‘burbs isn’t exactly a ‘Mountain’ but it was terrific from a spectator view. Yep, no $30 entry fee to sit in your little flip flappy seat and order your $8 chippies. Find a spot anywhere you like, change it up over the four races (junior and senior, boys and girls) and then watch people throw down. Personally, my favourite spot was standing on the corner of the poorly designed City Trail. Being only 2m wide I was within touching distance of the leading runners as they powered around. It’s great to watch Kenyans and Ugandans metronomically cruise around a track or a big city marathon but this view, from right up close was hands down (and almost on them) better. I could’ve had their sweat fall on me.
If you’re lucky like me, World Champions will even come to you! Grayson Murphy, winner of the Women’s Mountain Classic event, knocked on my door back at the hotel as a mistake and I was too star-struck/concentrating on my packing to realise too late. I guess I’ll have to head back in 2025 to Spain to laugh about it with her…
Lastly, how did the Aussies go? Well I painted the picture last issue on the fact that you should be looking at the Aussie athletes' faces as they crossed the line. All of them either looked crushed or fell over the line (Nathan Pearce in the vertical race). We may be slower than most of the competitors but we were certainly tougher than most with a lot of Aussies improving their position throughout the race due to everyone else dropping out. The classic Aussie battlers. Maybe that’s our new team name? Or the Aussie Bushwhackers? We’ve got time to workshop it before Spain in September 2025 and you’ve got time to save up money for flights and join in on the World’s best running event.
by Elise Beacom
What the absolute hell? It’s early in the (northern hemisphere) track season and world records, national records and meeting records are going down like sacks of potatoes. It makes for superb viewing, but why are we seeing such displays of excellence at seemingly every Diamond League meet?
There’s some good commentary out there attempting to answer this question:
The Real Science of Sport podcast explores advances in shoes, introduction of wavelights for pacing, track surfaces and other technology making an impact on record-breaking performances. Check out their episode here.
This Guardian article recaps the Paris Diamond League meet in which two world records (5,000m in 14:05.20 by Faith Kipyegon; 3000m steeplechase in 7:52.11 by Lamecha Girma) and one world best (2 mile in 7:54.10 by Jakob Ingebrigtsen) were broken. It points to the track at Stade Charlety being super fast, combined with the warmer weather, wavelight technology and faster shoes. It also reminds us to exercise a degree of caution, which we don’t want to put front and centre, but is never outside the realms of possibility in athletics.
This video from Total Running Productions dives into Ingebrigtsen’s extraordinary 2 mile run (3:57.1/mile or 2:27.3/km pace) and speculates that more world records could come from Ingebrigtsen. His 3000m split during the race rocketed him to third fastest all-time, and he’d certainly be thinking about the 1500m world record (Hicham El Guerrouj, 3:26:00) after running 3:27:95 in Oslo. Side bar, if you plug his 2-mile into the Tinman Elite Running Calculator, his time equates to 99.3% of the estimated natural limits of human performance.
Runner’s World also explored the bonuses that make breaking records attractive for athletes. This article reveals that Faith Kipyegon was paid 5 million Kenyan shillings (over AUD 52,000) for the 1500m and given a house worth 6 million Kenyan shillings (AUD 63,000) for the 5000m.
And if you want to relive some of the best moments in athletics from the past few weeks, we’ve done the heavy lifting for you. Check out these vids:
Florence Diamond League, women’s 1500m – World record for Faith Kipyegon, 3:49.11 (Kenya), area record for Jess Hull, 3:57.29 (Australia). The commentators nail the drama of this race. It’ll give you goosebumps.
Paris Diamond League, women’s 5000m – World record for Faith Kipyegon, 14:05.20 (Kenya).
Paris Diamond League, highlights package (very hard to find standalone English-language full versions of the following races: men’s 3000m steeplechase – world record for Lamecha Girma, 7:52.11 (Ethiopia); men’s 2 mile – world best for Jakob Ingebrigtsen, 7:54.10 (Norway).
Oslo Diamond League, men’s 1500m - Area records for Jakob Ingebrigtsen, 3:27:95 (Norway), Yared Nuguse, 3:29:02 (USA), Olli Hoare, 3:29:41 (Australia) and national record for Andreas Almgren, 3:32:00 (Sweden).
Oslo Diamond League, women’s mile (50:26 into the video) – World junior record for Birke Haylom, 4:17.13 (Ethiopia), area record for Jess Hull, 4:18.24 (Australia) and special mention to Linden Hall (Australia) who ran 4:19.60, a time that would have beaten the previous area record.
If you are on the Gold Coast next weekend, come and join the FTK Shakeout jog on Saturday morning. It’s in Surfers Paradise, so it’s very convenient if you’re looking to get a tattoo, some fast food, or….other things, afterwards.
Anyway, it’s sure to be fun - Brett and Joel will both be there, as will Gen Gregson and Jordy Williamsz, just one day before they go head-to-head (sort of, not really) over the marathon distance.
We can’t finish this issue without a tip of the cap to Ethiopian superstar Yomif Kejelcha, who walked in the Wales Bonner show in Paris this week. See it here.