Testing, testing... ⏱️

Sep 04, 2024

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This week’s newsletter was compiled by David Melly and Paul Snyder.

What Should We Take Away From The World U20 Championships? 🤔

As track and field nuts, our impulse after a thrilling Olympic program is to want more. We’re knocking off midday meetings all throughout August to focus our attention on European Diamond League meets. We’re wearing out the YouTube replay button on some of the Games’ more memorable finals. And of course we’re poring over the results of the World U20 Championship to familiarize ourselves with the next batch of guaranteed Olympic medalists and surefire future superstars.

But how studious do we really need to be? Are the promising young athletes standing atop the U20 podium in Lima, Peru, really the smartest bets to do the same come Los Angeles? If past is prologue, the Paris Olympics should be full of former global junior stars, right? So we looked at every medalist from every event in Paris, then looked up to see what their highest finish was at a U18 or U20 World Championship, if they even competed in one when eligible.

Here’s a summary of our – pushes nerd glasses further up bridge of nose – findings:

The majority of events did see one or two athletes ascend successfully from the U18/U20 podium to the Olympic equivalent.
The women’s 3000m steeplechase was the only event in Paris where the podium was comprised solely of past U18/U20 medalists.
10 events didn’t feature a single medalist who had won hardware at a U18/U20 World Championship.
A handful of athletes who medaled in Paris actually medaled at a U18/U20 World Championship in a different event from their now-primary one, like Mary Moraa (third in the 800m in Paris; second in the 400m at the 2017 U18 Championships), Karsten Warholm (second in the 400mH in Paris; winner of the octathlon at the 2013 U18 Championship), and Ryan Crouser (winner of the shot put in Paris; second in the discus at the 2013 U18 Championships).

With all that said, let’s acknowledge the limitations of this exercise.

World Athletics (née IAAF) stopped holding the U18 meet in 2017, so plenty of younger Olympians never had a shot to collect some hardware there. The U20 meet is only held every other year, so there’s a bit of randomness associated with success. The reality is you’re almost certainly going to be a better athlete at 19 than you are when younger, so being a wee 18-year-old in a U20 Championship year puts you at a disadvantage.

Then there’s the matter of who actually goes to these meets. Countries might not send a squad for a variety of reasons, many of them stupid. For plenty of athletes competing in the American collegiate system, qualifying comes after the NCAA season ends, so peaking for it can be tricky. And for some truly prodigious talents, there’s more money to be made by moving to the roads or senior level earlier.

All that said, here’s the real official Lap Count takeaway: medaling at a “youth” championship is a solid, but imperfect, indicator that you’ll be highly successful at the next level, too, barring injury or other catastrophic setback. And when you see somebody really dominating at the U18/U20 level, that’s a promising indicator of future grown up global dominance. Particularly in smaller countries with a strong history of global participation, junior championships may be some rising phenoms’ first chance to even face serious competition – there’s no Foot Locker analogue in Europe or AAU championship in Africa.

While a true track head may want to keep tabs on every finalist from Lima, here are a few athletes who stood out to us as future stars. Is it scientific? No. It’s sports, where a vibe check can mean more than any advanced metric.

We aren’t exactly going out on a limb when we say that Sembo Almayew of Ethiopia is a burgeoning steeplechase star. She not only won U20s in a championship record; she’s run 9:00.71 and placed fifth at the Olympics this year. Plus, she’s already had a surprisingly long resume, with a world U18 best and a U20 silver medal in 2022.

Another Olympics/U20s double-dipper, Lurdes Gloria Manuel of Czechia won the U20 400m by a big margin, has run 50.X several times this year, and only turned 19 last month. The women’s 400m is crowded right now, but she’s got plenty of time to shave off the second or two she’ll need to be truly globally competitive.
Remember the name: Ziyi Yan. The 16-year-old Chinese javelin thrower is the U20 world record holder won in Lima by almost 9 meters and would have very likely found herself atop the podium in Paris this year, were it not for the fact that U18 throwers aren’t allowed to compete in the Olympics.
Ethiopian Abdisa Fayisa is yet another U20 champ who competed at the Olympics. He was bounced from the semis of the 1500m, but came to Lima and impressively kicked down Australian 3:50 miler prodigy Cameron Myers for the win. He ran 3:32.17 back in June, and in October of 2022 showed some promise in the longer stuff, going 13:22 on the roads as a 17 year old.

Full U20 results can be found here.

Why Is The Women’s Steeplechase So Weird? 🏃‍♀️

Winfred Yavi winning the 3000m steeplechase at the Rome Diamond League in 8:44.39, just 0.07 seconds off the world record. (Photo by Diamond League AG)

If you kicked off your Labor Day weekend by tuning into the 2024 Golden Gala, a.k.a. the Rome Diamond League, one result probably stuck out to you: World/Olympic champ Winfred Yavi winning the steeplechase in 8:44.39, just 0.07 seconds off Beatrice Chepkoech’s 2018 world record.

Wait, eight-FORTY-four? I think you mean 8:54. No? Really?!

While sub-9 steeplechase performances have become relatively common in the last decade, this was only the second sub-8:50 in history (the third came seconds later when Peruth Chemutai finished behind Yavi in 8:48.03). With all the hoopla over super spikes, wavelights, and the fast times they produce, this was the first time since Chepkoech’s record-setting run that anyone had gotten within 6 seconds of her mark, and aside from Yavi and Chepkoech’s 2023 Prefontaine Classic battle, the next-best pre-2024 performance was Norah Jeruto’s World Championship-winning 8:53.02 from 2022.

Winfred Yavi and Beatrice Chepkoech battling it out in last year’s Prefontaine Classic 3000m steeplechase. (Photo by Kevin Morris / @Kevmofoto)

It’s not like there are no other good steeplechasers around to threaten Chepkoech’s spot atop the all-time list. Yavi’s been competing in global championships since 2017, along with Chemutai, the 2021 Olympic champ, and Jeruto. In fact, 10 of the 13 sub-9 performers in history are active in 2024. So why did it take this long for anyone to get remotely close?

Part of the answer is that Chepkoech’s run in 2018 took the world record in this relatively young event into a whole new ZIP code. Remember – the women’s 3000m steeple is the newest individual Olympic event, only added in 2008, so there hasn’t been a hundred years of record attempts by the best athletes in the world.

Since Gulnara Samitova-Galkina set a world record of 8:58.81 in the first Olympic steeple, it’s only been broken twice: first by Ruth Jebet, who ran 8:52.78 in 2018 before getting busted for EPO, and then by Chepkoech. Jebet’s mark is still officially on the books, but if you take her out of the results, Chepkoech would’ve knocked a whopping 14(!) seconds off then-world-#2 Celliphine Chespol’s time. The depth of the event is still relatively shallow, but knocking 2.6% off a world record is a huge margin. That’s like Mondo moving the pole vault record from 6.26m to 6.42m in one go, or Jakob clocking a 3:20 1500m.

Chepkoech is undoubtedly a generational talent, but there’s ample evidence to suggest that the sub-8:50 club should have way more than three members. There are 10 men within six seconds of Lamecha Girma’s steeplechase world record, and when adjusting for the longer distance (2 seconds/1k), four women and 10 men within the same margin in the 5000m. The ongoing growth of women’s sports globally will help to erode some of these disparities, but that’s not the full story.

The steeple is also, quite simply, a hard event to get right even for the GOATs. It’s not uncommon for the best steeplers in the world to run 10-15 seconds off their best times without having a bad day or the race being “tactical.” Watching a women’s steeple hit 1km in 2:55 is not uncommon on the Diamond League circuit; watching them close in 2:55 is far rarer. In the last decade, the fastest men’s time in the world has ranged from 7:52.11 to 8:08.04, and even when ignoring the pandemic-impacted 2020 and 2021 seasons, there have been three different years where 8:01 has led the world. More than almost any other distance event, you’ll regularly see World and Olympic champions dying at the end of races after going out a little too hard. Turns out, when you’re 2400 meters into a race and have to clear another 10 or so giant wooden barriers, it can be really, really tough to summon closing speed that would come easily in a flat race.

The unpredictability of the women’s steeplechase is part of what makes it so fun and engaging. The last four global podiums have featured nine different athletes (only three repeat medalists), which opens the door for unexpected heroes like Tokyo silver medalist Courtney Frerichs to contend with athletes 10+ seconds faster than her. As the event enters its third decade of contention at global championships, more rising stars will take on the challenge and the record books will see the results. So stay tuned for the next big breakout, but don’t be surprised if it comes when you least expect it.

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Using PTO To Win UTMB ⛰️

Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc – the crown jewel of the global trail and ultra world – was held over the weekend, and boy was it fun. The “short” race (57km with 11,000+ ft of climbing) was won by American Eli Hemming in 5:11:48 and Miao Yao of China in 5:54:03. In the CCC event (101km, about 20,000 feet of climbing) Hayden Hawks, an American, took home top honors in 10:20:11, along with South Africa’s Toni McCann who broke the tape in Chamonix, France, in 11:57:59.

One name that may have popped out to marathon fans: Suguru Osako, the Japanese 2:05:29 man and Nike Union Athletic Club member, came back from a 13th place finish at last month’s Olympic marathon to place 52nd overall in the less competitive but still wildly hilly MCC 39k event.

And in the big kahuna, the eponymous UTMB (176km, somewhere in the ballpark of 30,000 feet of climbing), American Katie Schide secured her second event victory, and knocked 21 minutes off of Courtney Dauwalter’s course record in the process, finishing in 22:09:31. Breaking a Courtney Dauwalter record is seriously a big deal: it’s the first time one of the long-long distance runner’s course records has fallen in a major competition. Schide has had a busy summer, having already won Western States.

It takes a lot to upstage a performance like Schide’s, but men’s winner Frenchman Vincent Boulliard, may have done just that by virtue of what he is not: a professional ultra runner. Boulliard pays the bills thanks to Hoka, but not in the same way a Hoka-sponsored athlete like Hayden Hawks does. Boulliard is an employee with a normal desk job. Per his LinkedIn, his title is “Senior Manager of Product Engineering - Innovation.”

His win was a shock, but Boulliard is no slouch. He’s got a background on the track and has taken to ultras quite well, having won a couple of decently competitive races in the U.S. He lives and trains in Annecy, only about an hour from the UTMB finish line in Chamonix, so he gets to train on the sort of terrain he traversed on race day – a huge advantage on a course as technically challenging as this one. And things shook out in his favor on race day: Boulliard had a near-perfect outing, while pre-race headliners like Jim Walmsley dropped out.

It’s the sort of result every amateur runner dreams about, and we can only imagine this performance will inspire dozens of our readers to sign up for an ultra they’re now irrationally confident they can dominate, only to drop out at 20 miles. At least when Vincent logs into work on Monday, his coworkers in the footwear space will have actually heard of the race he won!

Let’s Send These Tests Back To The Lab… 🔬

Abrham Sime after winning the first-ever mile steeplechase in 4:15.36 at World Athletics’ “Track Lab” event in Fribourg, Switzerland.

Congratulations are in order to Abrham Sime on his new world-best time of 4:14.36… in the mile steeplechase. Yep. The new middle distance event World Athletics wants to workshop was contested this past weekend in Fribourg, Switzerland, as part of a “Track Lab” event.

As the meet’s lab’s website promised, this was “...not a another meet, [it was] a lab.” Experimentation was prioritized over performance, and the goal of the meet was to explore the feasibility of several “innovations.”

What that ultimately included was – in addition to the mile steeplechase – a somewhat contrived team scoring component, significant changes to a couple of field events, and the elimination of the reaction time false start for the sprints and hurdles. The 800m received no structural tweaks, and honestly, it should be thankful.

Aside from some at times interesting camera angles, this real-life brainstorm didn’t inspire much hope that the changes on display are the ones that will elevate track and field’s stature in the sporting kingdom. You can watch the full broadcast here. If you’re only curious about the mile steeplechase (the meeplechase? the stile?), fast forward to the 1:32:38 mark. And if you wisely would prefer to take our word for it, here are the Lap Count Takes on our time in the lab.

The worst explored change to any single event in Fribourg was scoring the pole vault by “actual cleared height” rather than the usual “did you clear the bar?”

The pole vault is exciting specifically because of that brief moment of beautiful tension when the athlete is suspended in space, having just barely brushed the bar. It doesn’t take an expert, a slow-mo camera, or even an official to tell whether a vault was valid. The problem this change is trying to solve is “what if an athlete clears the bar by a considerable margin?” Guess what? In the pole vault as it exists today, if an athlete does clear a bar by a lot, they get to go again, at a higher height! Problem already solved.

The team concept is something actual fans have actually asked for, but it fell flat in this setting.

People don’t support their favorite NFL team because they want to root for a color. They slather on body paint and drop their paychecks on nosebleed tickets because their team represents their hometown, they enjoy watching the melding of different athletic specialties in the service of a singular goal, and it’s nice to have a weekly, social ritual. In a one-off event with no stakes, context, or storylines, you’ve gotta do more to make the team thing pop. It’s a concept with promise, but no one has quite figured out a way to make it stick outside of NCAA championships.

One good idea: making DQ reaction times make sense.

WA tried out the possibility of taking out the “faster than human capability” threshold of 0.100 seconds, instead going with the simpler “did you move before the gun went off?” This sort of DQ is probably something worth revisiting in the sprints and hurdles since it comes up and pisses everybody off frequently enough, however – we aren’t sure about getting rid of it entirely. But what do we know? You’re the lab! Conduct some studies and determine what the fastest possible human response time to a starter’s pistol actually is, scientifically. There’s no way it’s a nice round number like 0.1 seconds.

Spare a thought for the broadcast director cutting between 1,000 camera angles.

That poor soul – seemingly an overworked octopus in a swiveling chair – may have had more cameras to cut to and from than anyone in the history of track and field televising. Some of the shots were pretty neat! Some were less so. And ultimately, having options for cameras is nice, but they need to be in service of the viewing experience at home. During the 100m hurdles – a race that takes between 12 and 13 seconds to complete – the broadcast switched cameras four times. One of them was a drone that was chasing the athletes. But pretty useless in a straight-line race where a side view is really the only way to determine who’s gonna win. Rather than an Oscar-winning filmmaker producing a magnum opus, this felt more like a toddler jumping up and down saying “Hey mom – look what I can do!”

Who asked for this?

Credit where credit is due: the meet lab organizers went out on a series of limbs here to try new things. And while we agree that some changes need to be made to the sport if it wants to remain in the public eye outside of a quadrennial two-week blip, these aren’t those changes. We find it hard to believe that World Athletics conducted a meaningful survey of athletes, fans, or really, well, anyone, and these were the results. No casual TV viewer will choose to embrace track and field fandom because the long jump is now measured from any point within a designated 40cm zone as opposed to from a standardized line. The product is mostly great as it is – it’s the packaging that needs improvement.

Rapid Fire Highlights 🔥

Josh Kerr is back to defend his 5th Avenue Mile title after winning in 2023. (Photo by Kevin Morris / @Kevmofoto)

– The NCAA Division I Cross Country National Coaches’ Pre-Season Polls have been released. Oklahoma State tops the men’s rankings heading into the season, and NAU and NC State are locked in a tie for first for the women. Unfortunately there isn’t a pre-season poll of all NCAA cross country runners ranking the perceived speed of their coaches.

– University of Florida miler and Indian national record holder in the mile Parvej Khan has received a provisional suspension after testing positive for EPO. Khan’s offending sample was collected in late June at an Indian championship meet. It’s worth pointing out that NCAA athletes are not held to World Athletics standards when it comes to drug testing, which has all sorts of downstream effects on things like world rankings and should probably be rectified.

– In exciting new for our readership who’s capable of correctly pronouncing Polish names, Addy Wiley went 1:56.83 at the Mędzynarodowy Memoriał Wiesława Maniaka, moving up to #5 all-time on the U.S. list for the women’s 800m. Then three days later, at the Mityng Ambasadorów Białostockiego Sportu, she went 200m farther and faster, breaking Regina Jacobs’s 25-year-old 1000m American record in 2:31.49.

– Gabby Thomas and Simone Biles took in an Indiana Fever game, and met stars like Aliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark afterward. It looked like all parties had fun, and it gave fans of the “tall athlete, short athlete” photo genre something to cheer about.

– Once again, the annual New Haven Road Race also hosted the USATF 20km championships. Yes, that’s a thing. Why USATF needs a 20km, half marathon, and 25km championship remains a mystery. Hillary Bor won the men’s race in 58:09, and now semi-permanent Utah resident Keira D’Amato went 1:06:25 to claim the women’s title. Full results can be found here.

– Elliot Giles held off Yared Nuguse at the New Balance KO Meile in Dusseldorf to establish a new world record for the road mile. Giles’s time of 3:51.3 obliterated the previous mark of 3:54.6, which belonged to Emmanuel Wanyonyi and was still un-ratified as it’s less than six months old. And for those with short memories, World Athletics is only two years into ratifying road miles as official records.

– At the ISTAF meet in Berlin, Kenyan 800m specialist Mary Moraa ripped a 1:21.63 600m to take the world record from Caster Semenya, who set her own mark at this same meet in 2017. Full results can be found here.

– It appears Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s apparent disdain for racing the Diamond League circuit doesn’t bother Brussels meet organizers much, as she’s been given wild card entries for the 400m and 200m in the DL final.

– Fields have been announced for the NYRR Fifth Avenue Mile, where the top performers from Paris will be 1500m silver medalist Josh Kerr and 6th-placer Susan Ejore. Fan-favorite Emma Coburn will also compete in her first race back from her untimely early-season ankle injury. The full fields can be found here.

– For fans of longer-distance road racing, the Valencia Half Marathon fields feature a star-studded field with many of the big names from the Olympic distance events, including Selemon Barega and Yomif Kejelcha on the men’s side and road 10km world record holder Agnes Jebet Ngetich on the women’s. The race will take the streets of Spain’s most running-heavy city by storm on October 27th.

– And congrats, of sorts, to Shannon Rowbury, who looks set to receive an Olympic bronze medal in the 1500m from 2012 – a race in which she crossed the finish line in sixth. That race’s original winner, second-, seventh-, ninth-, and now its fourth-place finisher, Tatyana Tomashova, have been DQed as a result of a doping and/or tampering ban. Following the CAS ruling, all of Tomashova’s results from between June 21, 2012 to Jan. 3, 2015 have been retroactively disqualified.