THE TOKYO MEDALS you saw athletes celebrating with immediately after their events were the real thing. After they got through the interview zone, they were collected for engraving and returned at the Awards Ceremony…
Altogether, WA handed out $8,498,000 in prize money in Tokyo. Winners got $70,000, with the number descending to 8th place earning $5000. Relay winners split $80,000. That’s not including any bonuses paid by federations or athletes’ apparel companies…
Ser-Od Bat-Ochir made his 12th appearance in the World Championships marathon, finishing 65th. The 43-year-old Mongolian, who has a best of 2:08:50, had his highest placing in Daegu ’11, at 19th…
Anita Włodarczyk’s 6th-place mark in the WC hammer, 244-10 (74.64), is a 40+ record…
WA caught some flak from athletes for having the warmup track about a mile and a half away from the stadium. While Seb Coe admitted the setup was “not perfect,” WA released a statement saying, “This type of configuration is not unique — as we have seen from previous Olympic Games and other major athletics championships. For Tokyo 25, we ensured that team leaders were fully briefed at a site visit in March in order for teams to have ample time to prepare — and the rules regarding warmup, call room, and transport apply to every team and every athlete without exception.”…
The wedding ring that Caio Bonfim lost during the 20K walk was found and returned to him. Not that it was ever a problem with his wife, Juliana, who said, “In 2020, we were at the beach, I went into the sea with my wedding ring on, and the water caught it. He forgave me and gave me another one. So it’s only fair that they forgive him, and with a gold medal to boot. So he’s more than forgiven.”…
Great Britain was decidedly unhappy with failing to win a gold for the first time. Said performance director Paula Dunn, “The boundaries change, the expectations are higher, rightly so because we want to be one of the best nations. Sometimes you have those years which are a rebuild year. We have been really unlucky with the injuries. We had no good fortune.”…
There was also disappointment in Kenya, winner of 11 medals. The gist of it? Eight went to women (golds 800 through marathon) and only three to men. National coach Julius Kirwa said, “We must go back to the drawing board to reexamine the selection criteria for the [5K & 10K], and especially, the men’s cadre.”…
The 8 athletes who struck gold at both the Tokyo ’21 Olympics and the recent Worlds: Valarie Allman (DT), Ryan Crouser (SP), Mondo Duplantis (PV), Peres Jepchirchir (Marathon), Faith Kipyegon (1500), Katie Moon (PV), Pedro Pichardo (TJ), Daniel Ståhl (DT). Another, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, won gold in a different event (400H to 400)…
Long jump WR holder Mike Powell has been suspended by WA’s Case Management Group following an AIU referral. He is barred from all WA events for what they are calling a “safeguarding concern.”…
Spain’s Mohamed Katir had a day at CAS. They rejected his appeal but also rejected WA’s bid to add a year to his 2-year ban. Plus he gets to keep his awards and results…
It’s safe to say that no one ever caught doping has shown the endurance that Italian walker Alex Schwazer has in filing appeals. Now he is appealing his 8-year ban to the European Court Of Human Rights, claiming that the Swiss Federal Tribune did not properly review the latest CAS decision…
The former coach of British stars Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie, Andrew Young, has been banned for “putting performance above athlete welfare, ignoring medical advice and using manipulative and coercive behavior, including on one occasion abandoning an athlete at the roadside following a row.”…
An Indian teen has gotten a 3-year jail term in Kenya for importing and selling performance-enhancing drugs. He was also fined $7700. Critics attacked the sentence as too lenient…
Ian Roberts, the superintendent of the Des Moines school district in Iowa, was arrested by ICE, which maintains he is in the country illegally. A 2000 Olympian for Guyana, he placed 7th in the ’99 NCAA 800 for St. John’s…
Prior to his win in the Berlin Marathon, Kenyan Sebastian Sawe reached out to AIU to establish a vigorous drug-testing protocol to dispel any doubts about what he had hoped would be a WR performance. Funded by adidas. Sawe had 25 tests in the 2 months leading up to the race, including unannounced samplings…
Already, some 80,000 tickets have been sold for the ’26 European Championships in Birmingham, England…
WA has awarded Heritage Plaques to the Sports History Forum in Berlin, which has been documenting and preserving the history of the sport since 1954. Another Heritage Plaque went to the Trento Giro al Sas International road race in Italy, which began in 1907…
Eastern Michigan has opened a new outdoor track facility…
New and reelected members of WA’s Athletes Commission: Andreas Almgren (Sweden), Lia Apostolovski (Slovenia), Lisanne de Witte (Netherlands), Thea LaFond (Dominica), Anna Ryzhykova (Ukraine), Gia Trevisan (Italy). The only American on the commission, Jasmine Todd, has been serving since ’23…
British sprinter Jeremiah Azu wore a headband in Tokyo that read “100% Jesus,” a violation of WA’s rules on political and religious slogans. A WA rep said, ““We are aware of the headband, and as he may compete in the relay we will remind the team ahead of competition of our regulations and of consequences.”…
Letsile Tebogo might have left Tokyo disappointed in his individual results, but at least now his face is on money. The Bank of Botswana unveiled a 50 pula banknote (about $3.50) honoring him and the 4×4 team that won Olympic silver…
Isabelle Black, who ran on the French 4×4 in Tokyo, is the daughter of Roger Black, who won 400 silver for Britain at Tokyo in ’91…
Ukrainian soccer star Mykhailo Mudryk, who is provisionally suspended following a positive test, was the subject of reports that he would turn to sprinting. He supposedly has been clocked at 22.79mph. For comparison, Usain Bolt’s average speed in his 100 WR was 23.35. However, Mudryk’s track debut is not to be, as WADA rules don’t allow athletes to switch sports to dodge suspensions. Now his agent says the move was never seriously considered…
A reported $13.5M Netflix deal for Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce turns out to have been fake news, part of an AI-driven scam that also targeted NBA star Ja Morant and talk show host Steven Colbert…
With WA paying out a $100,000 bonus for every WR, Seb Coe has joked that Mondo Duplantis, now on record No. 14, might be causing the organization some financial pain: “I have actually told him that one more World Record, World Athletics loses its Christmas party, two more World Records we lose the summer party. “There are 105 people hoping that we don’t have too many more World Records at this juncture.” ◻︎
