HERE’S THIS MONTH’S collection of short takes on generally off-track activities that have gone/will go a long way towards shaping the way the sport is headed.
U.S. Team For World Roads Is Expanded
As reported in the March edition, there was a major cock-up at the USATF Half-Marathon Champs when the lead vehicles took a wrong turn near race’s end, with the top 3 — Jess McClain, Emma Grace Hurley and Ednah Kurgat— ending up way off-course.
The sponsoring Atlanta TC said it will compensate McClain with $20,000 and Hurley and Kurgat will each receive $9750. But what wasn’t on offer was the opportunity to be on Team USA for September’s World Road Championships in Copenhagen.
However, good news came several weeks later when WA announced the Solomonic decision that USATF would be allowed to have a 7-member team in Denmark instead of the usual 4. The short-coursers won’t be eligible for prize money or medals.
How Many Minutes Is 222 Seconds?
Josh Kerr has announced that he has his sights set on Hicham El Guerrouj’s mile WR of 3:43.13, and his key sponsor Brooks is backing him in a big way.
The company is designing a speedsuit for the speedy Scot, as well as a special pair of spikes, all part of what it calls Project 222 (the number of seconds in a 3:42).
“[The spike] won’t be great for anything else,” says Kerr. “It will be created for me to run four 55-second laps. We’ve been doing round after round of testing and there will be one more round before it’s completely right. It’s going to be a fully certified spike. But it will be specific to me, and specific to that speed and distance.”
The attempt will come at the London DL on July 18. “Project 222 is about embracing pressure,” says Kerr. “Calling your shot, putting yourself out there when everyone is watching, and seeing what’s possible when belief, preparation, and the right support come together.”
He adds, “I am really excited. There are no guarantees in this; it is a record that deserves a lot of respect. I believe I am respecting it by coming out and talking about it. I want to do it with the people I have behind me, I have an amazing team.”
Bad News For Alekna
There will be no collegiate discus title for WR holder Mykolas Alekna this year. In mid-March the 23-year-old Lithuanian, now a grad student at Oregon, Instagrammed a picture of himself in a hospital bed.
“Life slowed me down for a moment,” he wrote. “Last week, I fully tore my pec [not on his throwing side]. Huge thank you to Dr. James Voos for taking me in and for performing the surgery so quickly after the injury. Big thanks to the Oregon team for helping me find the best surgeon in the country and for their unconditional support. I’ll be back stronger.”
GST Working Toward Bankruptcy
The bankruptcy plan that Grand Slam Track floated last month has encountered strong opposition from some of the organization’s creditors. While athletes would receive about 85% of what they were promised, other debtors would only get 1.5%.
More than 100 of those unsecured creditors filed an objection, placing much of the blame on Winners Alliance: “Winners orchestrated the Debtor’s every step from before the Debtor was even incorporated. The Committee’s investigation to date into the Debtor has identified shocking levels of incompetence, bad faith, self-dealing and failures to fulfill its fiduciary duty by the Debtor’s management and Winners.”
The creditors also said that Michael Johnson paid himself $500,000 in the days before the GST financial woes became public. GST denied those charges, but in reaching a deal with the creditors, promised that Johnson would return the money, which they characterize as a reimbursement.
The latest deal will pay athletes about 70% while most vendors will get 14–15%. The judge and other classes of creditors would need to approve the plan, with another hearing scheduled for April.
AIU Reveals A Secret Suspension
Just two days after Adaejah Hodge won her first NCAA title for Georgia, the AIU announced that she had served a secret, or shadow, doping ban. She had tested positive for two forms of GW1516, a banned receptor agonist, at the World U20 Championships in August ’24 while working with her high school coach. The test came a year after teammate Issam Asinga tested positive for the same drug, and the same summer that another teammate, Skyler Franklin, tested positive.
The 2-year ban ended early, with 7 months suspended. She was cleared to compete on January 27 and began her undefeated season at 200 that weekend.
In a statement to LetsRun, the AIU explained why the ban was secret: “The athlete provided substantial assistance to an important ongoing investigation. Announcing her case earlier could have jeopardized the other investigation. The timing of the AIU’s announcement related solely to this case and the related investigation — nothing else.”
Team USA’s Summer Coaching Staffs
USATF has named its team staffs for various international competitions this year.
*In this issue, we cover the World Indoor Championships, where Oklahoma’s James Thomas headed the coaching lineup.
•WA Race Walk Team Championships: Loubna Hasseine-Silva (head).
•WA Relays: Darryl Woodson (head), Chris Turner (event manager).
•WA U20 Championships: Carmelita Jeter (head), Andy Bloom (throws), Marissa Chew (jumps/multis), Milton Mallard (distance).
•WA Road Running Championships: Devon Martin (women), Chris Lundstrom (men).
The WA Council met prior to the World Indoor and made several decisions on championship hosts. The next two editions of the indoor title meet will go to Asia, with the ’28 edition (March 03—05) in Odisha, India, and ’30 heading to Astana, Kazakhstan (March 15—17).
Said Seb Coe, “I am delighted that the World Indoors continues to go from strength to strength, captivating audiences around the world, and that our next two hosts reflect our strategy of taking our events to emerging markets.”
Other Council decisions:
•The ’28 World Race Walking Team Championships will be in Hefei, China, on April 09.
•The qualifying system for World Championships and Olympics has been tweaked. Now 40% of the athletes will get in on standards, and the remaining 60% through WA world rankings. Previously the mix had been targeted at 50—50.
•The rules on eligibility and transfer of allegiance have been revised, with guidelines on “excessive numbers/en masse applications, recruitment led by clubs of athletes at younger ages, and a cap on the number of applications during an Olympic cycle.”
•Age verification will be easier for WA and the AIU in the future, as they will be able to set specific requirements in cases where there is a “high degree of risk of age manipulation.”
•Among the technical rule amendments is one allowing throwers in the circle events (shot, discus, and hammer) to be exempt from shoe regulations and wear whatever they want.
Age-Cheating Charges Against Ethiopia
WA has wiped 5 World U20 Records from the books as part of an AIU investigation into charges of age-cheating in Ethiopia.
Birke Haylom lost the mile mark of 4:17.13, the indoor 1500 of 3:58.43 and the outdoor 5000 of 14:23.71. Melknat Wudu lost the indoor 3000 best of 8:32.34. Medina Eisa lost the absolute 5000 best of 14:21.89.
The investigation revealed an exact birth date for just Eisa, who was born October 17, 2002, and not on the January 3, 2005, date that had been on her passport. For the other two, the WA newsletter has noted that “date of birth has not been established to the satisfaction of the AIU.”
No word yet on whether the athletes might be facing bans, which potentially could be from 2 to 4 years long.
Continental Tour’s Gold Schedule
The WA Continental Tour keeps getting bigger, with the number of meets at all levels (Gold, Silver, Bronze and Challenger) topping 280 this season. Several nations are newcomers to hosting: Egypt, Ethiopia, Korea, Lesotho, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
This year’s Gold circuit started with the Maurie Plant meet in Melbourne, March 27–28. The remainder of the schedule, which includes a pair of U.S. stops:
April 24 — Keino Classic, Nairobi, Kenya
May 17 — Golden GP, Tokyo, Japan
May 29 — Szewińska Memorial, Bydgoszcz, Poland
June 03 — Nurmi Games, Turku, Finland
June 06 — USATF Lone Star GP, College Station, Texas
June 13–14 — USATF LA GP, Los Angeles, California
June 16 — Golden Spike, Ostrava, Czechia
June 21 — FBK Games, Hengelo, Netherlands
June 26 — Hanžeković Memorial, Zagreb, Croatia
July 14 — Gyulai Memorial, Budapest, Hungary
2-Year Whereabouts Ban For Kerley
Name in the news again: American sprinter Fred Kerley. This time it’s for missing 3 tests in ’24. The AIU has ruled that Kerley was at fault for the missed samplings and that he was “negligent and, to a certain extent, reckless” in not adhering to anti-doping rules.
He was levied with a 2-year suspension, backdated to August 12 of last year when he was first provisionally set down. No word yet whether or not he’ll appeal his penalty to CAS.
Given typical datings of the USATF Championships, he wouldn’t be eligible to compete in the ’27 edition, meaning no World Championships team. If Kerley competes, as he has said he will, in the Enhanced Games, timing questions could be moot.
The IOC’s Controversial Stance On Sex Testing
IOC president Kirsty Coventry has made waves with her first major decision in her new post, announcing a new policy called “Protection Of The Female Category.” Beginning at the ’28 Games, female athletes will have to pass the SRY gene test, administered either through a cheek swab or saliva sample.
The policy would effectively ban transgender women from Olympic sports, as well as DSD (difference of sex development) athletes, such as 2-time Olympic 800 champ Caster Semenya. The IOC had discontinued chromosomal sex testing in ’99.
“We know this is a sensitive issue, but it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category,” said Coventry. “At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat, so it’s absolutely clear that it would not be fair.”
As expected, opposition to the policy has been fierce. Semenya said, “It’s like now we need to prove that we are worthy as women to take part in sports. That’s a disrespect for women.” She promised a lawsuit.
Luigi Di Luigi, an Italian endocrinologist, is one of many medical professionals who say the policy is misguided: “We must distinguish the issue of transgender people from that of hyperandrogenism and Differences Of Sex Development: the measure treats them in the same way and on the same level, but they are two completely different matters.” ◻︎
