Do you say baton or stick? ⏱

Mar 30, 2022

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India’s World Leader 🇮🇳

When India’s Neeraj Chopra surprised the world this summer with an Olympic gold medal in the javelin, the athletics community burst into rapturous celebration over the possibility of tapping into a market of 1.3 billion potential fans. Chopra immediately became a celebrity and has since amassed 5.7 million followers on Instagram — a level of popularity that is unheard of for anyone in the sport not named Usain Bolt, especially from a country that has only won one Olympic medal in athletics in 121 years.

Well there’s a new Indian star in the making — this time on the track.

Gopal Saini held India’s national record in the steeplechase of 8:30.88 for 37 years. And then Avinash Sable came along. Born in the Beed district of Maharashtra, a region known for villages so dry that those living there routinely go a day without water. Of all the events in the sport, there is poetic beauty to the one Sable’d eventually dip his toes into.

Sable only discovered running six years ago while serving in the Army. Since then, he has broken the steeplechase national record on seven occasions and also set the Indian half marathon record of 1:00:30. In 2020, he was India’s only distance runner to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. And although he finished just short of making the final, he set a personal best of 8:18.12.

Last Wednesday, at the India Grand Prix in Thiruvananthapuram, Avinash opened his season in the steeplechase winning by 20 seconds in a world leading time of 8:16.21 — it was 87 degrees with a dew point of 75. Imagine what that converts to in Monaco!

Athletics is proud to call itself a global sport, and yet it seems every major meet is held in the United States or Europe. I’m not necessarily suggesting Thiruvananthapuram be upgraded to Diamond League status right away (although it'd be something to eventually aspire to). But of the 146 meets in the World Athletics Continental Tour, there isn’t one in India. If even just .01% of Neeraj Chopra’s Instagram followers show up to watch a home meet, then it will be about as packed as an average SEC football game.

The idea however is not to sell out one stadium one time because of Neeraj Chopra’s celebrity, but to capitalize on this chance at capturing the next generation. This isn’t just the case for India, either. When any nation has a budding star who transcends the sport and catapults their way into mainstream popular culture it becomes an opportunity. When athletics has the attention, then resources and investments need to be made to seize the moment, specifically emphasizing youth programs and outreach.

You know how the old saying goes: If you have a guy who can throw a javelin far, sell out one stadium. But if you teach millions of kids that throwing javelin is cool, then you’ll sell out stadiums for a lifetime.

This is why I am so excited about Avinash Sable — because maybe it doesn’t have to just be the javelin.

Don’t everyone jump at once!

If you’re a diehard runner in some sort of position of power within your local municipality and would like a projected $20 million of economic impact for your city, then may I suggest placing a bid to host the 2024 Olympic Trials? There are some minor costs associated with it like a $100,000 rights fee, $600,000 of prize money, and paying for the flights, hotels and meals of 400 athletes, and of course actually putting on the race. But think of the Instagram pictures!

I have no concept of how this sort of thing works, although on the surface it seems like an extreme amount of money for USATF to ask someone else to pay them to put on their race. However, the Buffalo Bills just got $850 million of taxpayer money to build a new stadium, so there is some precedent here and this is a bargain in comparison. For a mid-size city, this could be the perfect way to make a name for yourself in a niche community of sports fans — maybe it’s a good fit for somewhere like Minneapolis. It wasn’t too long ago that Mayor Jacob Frey finished 22nd at the 2008 Olympic Trials in New York! How about another go?

Texas Relays 🤘

Being a distance runner from New York, when I moved to Austin to exhaust my NCAA eligibility and discover the Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit, the hype surrounding the Texas Relays caught me completely off guard. Where I come from, there is only one relay meet that matters, and it’s at Franklin Field! But I soon learned every corner of the country has its own crown jewel, when it comes to century-old traditions surrounding baton passing. So if it impresses anyone from the Lone Star state to know, I once ran a couple unimpressive legs at Mike A. Myers stadium and won two watches or wheels or whatever they gave us.

The Texas Relays was founded in 1925 in response to it being much too cold in the rest of the country to run fast in the beginning of the season. Despite climate change’s best warming efforts, that has largely remained the case, and so the meet serves as a coming out party for many of the country’s top sprinters to begin the outdoor season. (There is also a notable amount of loosely connected Sixth Street parties in Austin throughout the weekend under the guise of celebrating track and field.)

Now the best part of the event is not just the heat, but the wind. Many athletes will end up running their season’s best* in the first race of the season because there is a notoriously favorable wind blowing down the home stretch. If you’re lucky, you can get a +4.0 m/s tailwind, but if you’re very lucky, and pray for it then, maybe you’ll get a legal +2.0 m/s. Regardless, the crowd doesn’t care — it’s fun to see fast times and the oohs and ahhs that result from it is part of the Texas Relays experience.

Some highlights from the weekend:

Texas’ Jonathan Jones ran a personal best of 1:45.83 to win the 800m, leading wire-to-wire. He finished second at NCAA indoors and is the Barbados national record-holder for 400m (44.63) — keep an eye on him. It may not be the equivalent of saying you saw Mumford & Sons play at the Red House Pizzeria in 2009 at SXSW, but you’ll still be ahead of the curve!
Benjamin Azamati of West Texas A&M University by way of Ghana ran 9.90 (+2.0) in the prelims to set a new meet and Division II record. (I didn’t actually do any research to confirm it’s the Division II record, but like, it has to be, right?) [Editor’s note: I did check, and he’s right.] On Saturday, Boston University’s Toby Makoyawo also ran 9.90, but with a borderline criminal wind reading of +4.6.
USC’s Celera Barnes had the fastest time of the meet 10.82 (+2.8) from the collegiate section, unofficially beating out Gabby Thomas’s 10.92 (+2.9) in the pro section. I know, it’s not head-to-head, but it’s still interesting! The Olympic bronze medalist then returned to win her signature event in 21.69 (+3.1) before presumably heading back to the library to study.
Florida won the men’s 4x400 in 3:02.20, as Joseph Fahnbulleh held off three different anchor legs that split 44 seconds. He also anchored the squad to a win in the 4x100 for a nice tuneup before the Florida Relays this weekend.
An all-star team of Shamier Little, Raevyn Rogers, Dalilah Muhammad, and Athing Mu ran the 4x400 in 3:24.60. This time is four seconds faster than the winning time from the World Championships last week, an event where the United States did not medal. But what became the theme of the weekend, the college kids ran faster than the pros did as the Texas women ran 3:22.94 to win the university section. I don’t think I carry much clout in Austin since dropping out of my graduate program, but I vote we match ‘em up in the future!

Finding refuge in Jerusalem 🇺🇦

“I have not trained for almost a month but when I saw the marathon in Jerusalem I thought I need to run. I need to show the world that peace and love is the most important thing. I hope this can show the world that we can participate together not just in running but in life. I hope for peace in my country very soon.”

When Valentyna Veretska fled Ukraine with her 11-year-old daughter, while her husband remained home to fight in the war, running for sport was no longer a priority. However, she took advantage of the invitation to compete in the Jerusalem Marathon and won the race in 2:45:54 on what is a famously hilly course (over 2000 feet of elevation gain). Although the time is a bit away from her personal best of 2:38:51, it was a beautiful demonstration of her country’s resilience.

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Fighting the federation 🇵🇭

In May 2021, Filipino pole vaulter, Ernest John Obiena published an article in The Philippine Star ahead of the Tokyo Olympics thanking his ‘village’ for all the support in his career. Like all good children should, he first mentions his parents. Then he gets to the taxpayers for the venues and travel they’ve funded. He then writes extensively about the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (PATAFA), their financial backing that made it possible for him to train in Italy, and for their unwavering backing during an ACL injury. He specifically mentions Dr. Philip Juico, the president of the organization and writes, ‘he stood by me over the years and threw his support to help me get chances to prove myself.’

Oh, how things have changed!

Obiena should have been competing in Belgrade at the World Championships for The Philippines first ever medal. His personal best is 5.93m from September, 2021, and at the beginning of March he set an indoor national record of 5.91m — the fourth highest jump in the world this year. Ultimately, it would take 5.90m to win bronze, but Obiena didn’t get a chance to reach the podium, because he did not have the endorsement of his country to compete at all.

In November of 2021 a dispute between Obiena and PATAFA became public. There were accusations that the funding he received to pay his coach, Vitaly Petrov, was misused. The federation has asked that Obiena pay back the €85,000 that was intended for Petrov, however, the legendary coach whose list of pupils includes Sergey Bubka, Yelena Isinbayeva, and Thiago Braz, maintains no such problem exists and that he has always been paid.

Obiena admits that he may have paid Petrov late at one point, so the entire controversy seems to simply be a misunderstanding — a slip up of paperwork and timing. Requests by the athlete for the federation to pay his coach directly were denied, despite that being the obvious and most simple solution here.

Currently, Obiena continues to seek an amicable resolution with the Philippines. It’s clear he is very proud to represent his country, which only had one other athlete compete at the World Championships and Olympics. Since this public spat began, the Philippine Olympic Committee launched an ethics investigation into Dr. Juico’s involvement and as a result declared him a persona non grata, finding he had harassed an athlete with malicious public accusations. However, because the committee does not have jurisdiction to remove him, they had to go one step further and last week the POC suspended PATAFA as the national governing body.

For American readers, this is the equivalent of the USOC stripping USATF of the power to select international teams.

This whole thing is a huge mess with Obiena hiring multinational consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers to audit his paperwork. I assume they have a team poring over every Venmo charge of his from the past four years. And now even the government is involved!

There are four key takeaways from all this:

This is making every other federation look amazing in comparison. Low bar, but our problems suddenly don’t seem that bad!
If you want to pay a coach, pay them directly. In the words of Ernest Obiena, “I am a pole vaulter — not an accountant.”
How in the world did he manage to vault 5.91m a couple weeks ago amidst all this stress and distraction? Let’s hope this gets resolved soon so Obiena can reach his full potential.
This all feels personal, like we are missing some vital piece of information. If you are the president of a federation whose job description is to help athletes represent your nation and perform internationally, and there are only two athletes on your whole country’s roster, why are you playing games with them?You just lost fifty percent of the team and the best shot at the Philippines first ever world championship medal!

Commentating with Hannah England

Announcing track meets is a tough and often underappreciated job, in which a successful day at the office is marked by knowing everything, sharing just enough, and staying out of the way of the actual action. Well, for those of you out there who truly revel in the misfortune of ill-prepared track announcers without a rock-solid background in the sport, we’ve got some bad news. There’s a new announcer in town, you probably already know her name, and she’s really good at it.

I had the chance to chat with Hannah England, two-time NCAA champion for Florida State, and World Championship silver medalist at 1500m, about her newfound success behind the mic. There is a certain amount of pressure to be the one responsible for conveying the gravity and excitement of each situation, but like the veteran of the sport she is, Hannah has done it.

How did you get into broadcasting? Was this something that you always knew that you wanted to do while you were competing?

After I retired my goal was to find a way to stay connected to athletics, especially if that meant I could continue to watch it for free! It sorta fell into my lap during COVID, as there were some travel restrictions in place and therefore the opportunity came up. I have had the support of Steve Cram, Tim Hutchings, Geoff Wightman, and others who have done it before and remain incredibly supportive. Each time you’re on the microphone you learn more and the feedback that you receive is valuable for the future. This was my first global championship in the role and being in the energy of a packed stadium was incredible — it was a bit different than watching a screen and talking into the microphone from home.

I think the thing that stands out about your voice during broadcasts is that you have a general passion for the sport as a whole, it’s clearly not just about distance running for you. Did you have to develop those interests for the job?

My father was a physicist and he thought endurance running was the most boring thing in the world. He was much more captivated by the other events and so that inspired me to always be more aware of what was happening outside of the distance running world.

The diversity in our sport is the most unique and special part. Coaching a youth team, I have seen kids in all shapes and sizes come out for the first time and be able to find an event that fits them and their interests, no matter their abilities.

I am still learning how to describe the technical side of what’s happening in the field and a lot of that comes from learning through conversations with athletes. Once, when I was speaking with a shot putter, I referred to it as the spin or the shuffle and they corrected me like, ‘Do you mean the glide and rotation?’ So there is still room for improvement there.

What has been the hardest part of the job and is there a particular area that you have had to work on the most?

The best piece of advice that I ever received on commentating was from Steve Cram, who told me, ‘use the statistics to support what you are seeing on screen.’ I think that it’s easy to lean on the numbers, but especially to casual fans it can be less interesting than describing the nerves or the emotion. It’s a balance speaking to the experienced viewer and those who are newer to the sport. Also, becoming more concise has probably been the aspect I have had to work on the most, as I am definitely one for a chat.

First off, I am a fan of the sport, which is mostly a good thing. I follow along, but then it’s a lot of research leading into the competition. I take a lot of notes the days beforehand and then that equips me to hopefully know enough to convey it once live. It’s sort of like an open book exam, but you don’t want to become dependent on your notes. As the action unfolds I’ll maybe reference 30% of what I had written down previously, but using my experience to build-up what is happening in real time.

And of course there is the difficulty surrounding name pronunciation, as you never want to be disrespectful. However, at Worlds I kept stumbling over Josette Norris’s name, which is not a hard one and I know how to say it, but it kept happening. I felt really bad afterwards.

What have you enjoyed most about commentating? Traditionally this has been a male dominated space, but we have seen more women thriving at it. Is that something you ever think about?

It’s been an opportunity to share athletes' stories. My biggest concern is that I never want to be too critical of their performances, mainly because of my experience being in their shoes and understanding that I wouldn’t like that. Instead, I want to bring a different viewpoint and appreciation to what fans are watching at home, especially being a female voice. I think traditionally in sports there is a tendency to use women on the field for interviews, almost to say, ‘look at us, we aren’t just men.’ It’s a bit less common to have women in the studio calling races (or games) and providing analysis and commentary, but that’s changing.

I know there are probably some young girls who are listening and I hope that hearing me speak with enthusiasm resonates with them. But it’s not just about the diversity of sexes. We had Aled Davies on our broadcast team, who is a Paralympic champion in the shot and discus, and the way he approached describing the technical side of the field was so much different than anything I could have ever said. There are valuable perspectives to learn from everywhere.

Rapid Fire Highlights 🔥

Newbury Park High School continues to impress as Leo and Lex Young ran 4:00.77 and 4:04.68 in the mile to go 1-2 at the Meet of Champions. Colin Sahlman held off his brother Aaron 1:48.84 to 1:48.91 in the 800m. If you missed CITIUS MAG’s behind the scenes video of the New Balance Nationals 4 x Mile, then watch it here.
Duke commit, Dalia Frias won the girl’s mile at the Meet of Champions in a California state record of 4:35.06. Just behind her was Sadie Engelhardt whose 4:36.63 is the national freshman record.
Lee University’s Christian Noble ran the second fastest 5000m in Division II history to win the Raleigh Relays in 13:24.78. Puma’s Taylor Werner won the women’s race in 15:31.14. Besides the 4x100 and 4x400, there were no other relays run, which has led to many questioning why this meet hasn’t been renamed.
Dom Scott won the inaugural Northside Hospital Atlanta Women’s 5k in 15:43 over second place finisher Whittni Orton Morgan. After two hundred plus years of men’s only races, it’s long overdue for some more women’s only events to pop up.
Italy’s Nick Ponzio understands that he’s an entertainer and every time he steps in the ring that’s apparent. Since discovering his Instagram, I’ve become a huge fan and will continue to push him on all of you.
At the Istanbul Half Marathon, the 2x World Champion, Hellen Obiri won the women’s race by over a minute in 1:04:48. Afterwards, she shared that her focus will remain on the 5000m in Eugene this summer and that her eventual marathon debut will likely come in 2023. On the men’s side, Rodgers Kwemoi held on better than anyone else after an initial 10k split of 27:35 — his time of 59:15 was 50 seconds ahead of the runner up.
All roads lead to Rome… and they’re mostly made of cobblestone… which makes Fikre Bekele’s 2:06:48 and Sechale Dalasa’s 2:26:09 all the more impressive. The use of drones is something that needs to become way more prevalent in road racing because it’s very cool and super useful, especially for equitable coverage of sexes.
The world champion at 5000m, Muktar Edris, had an epic finish at the San Antón International 10k on his way to running 28:31 — just like drones, we need to find ways to incorporate more fire in racing. Francine Niyonsaba won the women’s 10k in 32:01.
CJ Albertson had quite the tune up ahead of the Boston Marathon!
Fred Kerley ran 9.99 (-0.6) in Miami this weekend for the second fastest time in the world. That pairs nicely with his world leads in the 200m (20.04) and 400m (44.47) — not bad for the first 13 days of his season!
Interested in racing Allyson Felix over 100m at the Arcadia Invitational? For a $2500 charitable donation to help support athletes you can! Contact info@usatffoundation.com to reserve your lane.

Thank you to COROS for sponsoring this week’s newsletter! I really enjoy writing editions like this that are during quieter racing periods because I get to explore and dive into some stories that are less familiar. Let me know if you feel the same and pass on any hot tips for #content!