Latest / The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show / This Week In Track & Field: Jakob Ingebrigtsen Is Back; Jonah Koech Gets Caught Blood Doping; Stroller Mile WR Tougher Than The Mile WR (?) + Highlights From U20s

Transcript

This Week In Track & Field: Jakob Ingebrigtsen Is Back; Jonah Koech Gets Caught Blood Doping; Stroller Mile WR Tougher Than The Mile WR (?) + Highlights From U20s · The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show

• 0:07
  It is August 11th. I'm Chris Chavez.
• 0:11
  I'm pre majethia. And this week in track and
• 0:13
  field, we've got lots to unpack. Jakob Ingebritsen is back.
• 0:18
  We've got the European Championships underway.
• 0:21
  Preet is on site in the Media Center recording.
• 0:24
  So if you hear a little bit of background noise, that's coming
• 0:26
  from where he's at out in Birmingham.
• 0:29
  And then some big doping news happened with US 1500m champion
• 0:36
  Jonah Kovich getting popped for blood doping.
• 0:40
  We'll get into what we know, what we don't know.
• 0:43
  Then of course we'll highlight some of the best performances
• 0:47
  from the 2026 World U20 Championships that took place
• 0:51
  out in Eugene, OR. But we do want to start with
• 0:55
  maybe the story that has we'll go good news first, then bad
• 1:00
  news. And the good news is Jakob is
• 1:03
  back. He won the European 5K title on
• 1:06
  Monday in 1315, his first race in 11 months following surgery
• 1:13
  back in February on the sheath around his left Achilles.
• 1:17
  And he didn't do it in typical Jacob fashion by pressing from
• 1:23
  the front. After a while, really left it to
• 1:27
  a last minute kick. Preet got the chance to talk to
• 1:30
  him. Then we'll include the interview
• 1:33
  that took place in the mix zone after this segment.
• 1:36
  But overall, Pre, I guess we'll start with you watching this
• 1:39
  from the stands. There were moments, I'm sure,
• 1:42
  where you're watching and you're seeing Yaakov sitting in 20th
• 1:46
  out of 23rd place. And he's 3 seconds back of the
• 1:51
  front, which I think Dominic Lobalu was leading at at 3K.
• 1:56
  And, you know, there's some doubt creeping in.
• 1:59
  But in the end, Yaakov, you know, moved through some traffic
• 2:04
  and kicked to victory. What was it like actually, you
• 2:08
  know, seeing all this go down in the stadium?
• 2:10
  Yeah, I mean, I think all of us in the stadium and and
• 2:13
  afterwards, like speaking to people here, like everyone was
• 2:16
  kind of like, yeah, he doesn't look good, does he?
• 2:19
  In the first like 4K, it was, it was pretty like, you know, he
• 2:23
  was right at the back and it was so strung out that, yeah, OK,
• 2:28
  they weren't going that quickly, but they were, you know, it was,
• 2:31
  it was still more or less single file, which meant there was a
• 2:35
  big gap between the front of the race and and the back end of the
• 2:37
  race. But I, I mean, to be honest,
• 2:39
  like no one tried that hard to make it hard, which was one
• 2:44
  option. I would have thought that I do
• 2:46
  it. They should have tried to make
• 2:48
  it really slow or they should try to make it really fast and
• 2:51
  hope he just hasn't got that fitness.
• 2:54
  They sort of didn't do either, which I think kind of made it.
• 2:58
  It's perfect Jack of territory. He wins all his 5K titles in
• 3:02
  that 1310 to 1330 range. That is the Jakob sweet spot.
• 3:08
  And that's exactly where they went it.
• 3:11
  It just made little sense to me, to be honest.
• 3:13
  But there we are. Yeah.
• 3:15
  He, he and then he moved up and well, to be fair, what happened
• 3:20
  is Gressier was sitting behind Jakob, right, Which he was
• 3:24
  tracking Jakob the whole, you know, most of the race.
• 3:27
  And then he moves up to the front of the race.
• 3:30
  Jakob doesn't immediately follow him, but then then follows him a
• 3:32
  little bit later. And then, then it we got to the
• 3:34
  fun part of the race right where there was a little chat between
• 3:38
  Jakob and, and Jimmy, like Jakob goes to the front with three
• 3:41
  laps to go and Jakob is, is still controlling it.
• 3:47
  Jimmy is kind of trying to go past him, comes up on his
• 3:51
  shoulder and Jakob kind of elbows him a bit and kind of
• 3:54
  puts his hand out and said, stay behind me.
• 3:56
  I'm alright. I'm, I'm, I'm in charge here.
• 3:58
  Like we, we, we all want to know what actually he said.
• 4:01
  I don't think anyone asked him but what he said to Jimmy.
• 4:04
  But like, essentially he was, he looked like he was telling Jimmy
• 4:08
  to stay behind him. Eventually, Jimmy Cressier did
• 4:11
  go to the front with about 600 to go.
• 4:13
  Maybe. Yeah, Jacob was boxed in in the
• 4:17
  last lap and he was on the rail, but he was in 3rd place.
• 4:20
  And so he did have to, you know, round, you know, past who was in
• 4:25
  second at that point, Brem or Dauguino, like one of the two.
• 4:30
  And it wasn't until the final hundred that Jakob, you know,
• 4:34
  blows past and that was, you know, the 1500m speed, which
• 4:39
  there honestly has been no speed work put towards.
• 4:44
  And he just ended up having that last burst of energy there
• 4:48
  because in your conversations with him and his brother, both
• 4:52
  of them have said that they're they have not touched speed work
• 4:55
  yet. Yeah, exactly.
• 4:56
  They said and and I think that their philosophy is pretty
• 4:59
  consistent, right. It is who is the least tired at
• 5:02
  the end of a 5000 meters, right. That is that is their aim in
• 5:06
  life to be the least tired athlete.
• 5:08
  Because she said very openly like that 54 eight was nothing
• 5:12
  special, right. It's not in isolation, 548IS
• 5:15
  nothing special, but if you are the least tired athlete, you've
• 5:19
  done the least amount of work, you've done the least, you know,
• 5:22
  you put the least amount of effort in and you're the least
• 5:26
  tired because you're also better from your training.
• 5:29
  You can run quick on everybody else at the last lap and and I
• 5:32
  think that is the strategy he has employed in winning three
• 5:36
  global titles and three previous European titles over 5000
• 5:40
  meters. And it worked again.
• 5:43
  I mean, yes, he left it a lot later than he maybe has done in
• 5:46
  previous certainly European title winning efforts.
• 5:51
  But he you know, you kind of and you didn't know it was it was
• 5:57
  pretty late. But but yeah, I think everyone
• 6:00
  went a bit crazy because, yeah, we thought he was boxed and then
• 6:02
  he came out and we didn't think he'd have enough.
• 6:06
  But Gressier faded badly. Bream sort of went and yeah,
• 6:13
  yeah, I could just zoom past him and yeah.
• 6:17
  For those who love splits, here's what I think Yakob ended
• 6:21
  up being clocked at. It was 54.
• 6:23
  Eight for the final 426, four for the last two, 12.7 for the
• 6:31
  last 100. Last 600 was 124.
• 6:36
  And if you want to compare how he did, how he closed out the
• 6:40
  Paris Olympics or the Budapest World Championships for those, I
• 6:45
  think he was 119 for the final 600.
• 6:49
  So yes, I mean, this was certainly slower, but you got to
• 6:53
  remember the fact that like, this is one season opener and
• 6:56
  two, he really said, I guess the training hadn't started coming
• 7:00
  around up until three weeks ago. There was a set back, right?
• 7:04
  A couple a month or so before, but what it has now come out
• 7:07
  from interviews he's done with Norwegian media is that the set
• 7:11
  back was more of an illness and not the Achilles.
• 7:14
  So the training camp went well. He didn't hit his full volume in
• 7:19
  training up until three weeks ago.
• 7:21
  And then I think one of the funniest parts of the interview
• 7:24
  is when towards the end, some reporter, I think, asks him, so
• 7:28
  you say you're 100% healthy, but what percent do you put your
• 7:32
  fitness at? And he said 88, because of
• 7:35
  course, he would pick like, a, you know, very specific numbers,
• 7:38
  88 to 92%. But for the next one, I'm going
• 7:42
  to be better than that. You know, astonishingly better
• 7:45
  is how he put it. So only the last three weeks
• 7:49
  have been good for Jacob. And this is the kind of fitness
• 7:51
  that we're seeing. I think Philip told you right,
• 7:55
  that Jacob initially wanted to do the 1500 and the double, but
• 8:00
  the options presented to him were either you do the 5K or you
• 8:04
  don't do European champs at all. And now his 15115 hundreds are
• 8:11
  starting to be put on the calendar for him.
• 8:13
  So this morning, the Celestia Diamond League announced that
• 8:17
  he's going to be in the field. He's already slated to race Cole
• 8:21
  Hawker and Isaac Nader at the Zurich Diamond League.
• 8:27
  So honestly, like there are a couple opportunities for him to
• 8:32
  rack up some points to get a spot for the World Ultimate
• 8:36
  Championships in the 1500. He's already assured a spot in
• 8:40
  the 5K as the reigning Olympic champion.
• 8:43
  But whereas we thought that it might take a while for him to
• 8:47
  get back to the 1500 and you know, really test that speed, it
• 8:53
  seems like that's the next step for him.
• 8:55
  It's like the the the next 5K he might run will probably be at
• 9:00
  World Ultimates and from now until then it'll be all 1500s.
• 9:04
  Yeah, and, and the devil's in the detail about him getting to
• 9:07
  world ultimates in the 1500s. So I think Kyle pointed it out
• 9:10
  on the lap count that for the Diamond League, you can you can
• 9:14
  go into the Diamond League final and you only need to be the
• 9:18
  highest place finisher who is not already invited to the
• 9:22
  ultimate championships, which means, you know, and that's by
• 9:25
  ranking or by being Olympic champion or or whatever, right?
• 9:28
  So if you he doesn't even have to win that Diamond League final
• 9:32
  and you can still make it to ultimate.
• 9:33
  The other thing is, I think just reading again the devil in the
• 9:37
  detail, if you're invited via a national wild card to the
• 9:42
  Diamond League final, you can't qualify for world ultimates far
• 9:46
  this route. It doesn't say anything about
• 9:48
  the global wild card for the Diamond League final, so.
• 9:51
  That's the Sebco super invite, right?
• 9:53
  No, this is the Sebco super invite to the Diamond League
• 9:56
  final. So oh the.
• 9:57
  Diamond League if he gets. Invited to the Diamond League
• 10:00
  final and because we're all assuming that the Sebco super
• 10:04
  invite goes to Josh Kerr and that has to be announced on 17th
• 10:08
  of August. So that's the other thing.
• 10:09
  So we, I don't know whether they will announce it on 17th of
• 10:13
  August, but it will be decided by 17th of August because I
• 10:16
  think they don't have to tell people so they know there's one
• 10:18
  less spot in the field. So I think we will know by next
• 10:22
  week whether Josh Kerr is going to do it.
• 10:24
  I think and with Jacob he could go via this route of if Josh
• 10:30
  Kerr does take up the invite so he can't get a subco super
• 10:33
  invite, then I think he would could take up this route of
• 10:37
  trying to get Saddam league final.
• 10:38
  He could get a wild card in Saddam league final and go into
• 10:43
  the well ultimates via that route of being the highest
• 10:47
  placed non qualified finisher. Which might fall all the way
• 10:51
  down to like fourth place. At exactly, yeah, yeah.
• 10:54
  I mean, to be fair, you'd expect the people in the Diamond League
• 10:57
  final to all probably be people who have already qualified for
• 11:00
  while it's like the vast majority, or at least the people
• 11:03
  who are likely to come in the top five or six at Diamond
• 11:06
  League final, you'd expect them all to be other than maybe
• 11:09
  Yakut, you'd expect them all to be already qualified.
• 11:11
  So it should be quite interesting to see how that
• 11:15
  shakes out. Yeah, OK, so let's give a
• 11:17
  potential scenario, right, to say Diamond League final
• 11:20
  includes Ken Myers, Cole Hawker Yard and a Goose Vinciotti.
• 11:27
  Yakabingo Britsen. What's his name?
• 11:30
  Azadeen Habs. Timothy Cheriot, Right?
• 11:33
  So that's seven names right there.
• 11:36
  If so, Cole's already qualified as the reigning Olympic
• 11:41
  champion. If those six other guys are
• 11:46
  already within the quota and Jacob finishes 7th in the race,
• 11:53
  he gets in. Yeah, he gets into it's.
• 11:57
  Kind of, it's kind of brilliant. Just get into the Diamond League
• 12:00
  final. Yeah, exactly.
• 12:01
  So I know. And as I say, I don't think he
• 12:03
  necessarily has to qualify for the Diamond League final either.
• 12:05
  So should be quite interesting. But I mean, just going back to
• 12:09
  obviously yesterday's race and just watching it and how
• 12:14
  impressive he was in, like, he has still got that aura, right.
• 12:19
  I think you can see that people were still like waiting for him
• 12:23
  to do something. I think certainly at the
• 12:25
  European level, that aura is unmatched.
• 12:28
  Like no one, no one is really willing to try anything against
• 12:32
  him. And maybe a couple of the guys
• 12:34
  who could have done something in his race, like they weren't
• 12:37
  there. But I still think like at the
• 12:40
  European level, like even though these are guys who have meddled,
• 12:42
  like he beat the world bronze and silver medalists in last
• 12:46
  year 5K, he beat the 10,000 meter gold medalist from last
• 12:50
  year. Like he's he's beat legitimate
• 12:53
  like championship 5K runners in this.
• 12:56
  Race I was going to add that it's.
• 12:57
  Just. Although Andreas Almgren wasn't
• 12:59
  in the race and that was someone that I think we wanted to
• 13:02
  highlight last time this field was strong.
• 13:05
  Isaac Kamelli's having a terrible year.
• 13:07
  He finished ninth. Dominic Lubalu tried, you can
• 13:11
  give him credit, 'cause he was up there toward the front of the
• 13:14
  race. He ends up 7th, Jimmy Gressier
• 13:16
  4th. And then that combination of, I
• 13:20
  mean, there's some other people who weren't here, Abdullahi.
• 13:23
  Abdullahi wasn't there, right? Yeah, Abdullahi, Yeah, he's
• 13:25
  injured. George Mills is injured.
• 13:27
  He's the other person who you've.
• 13:28
  Got yon shrub is injured. Yon shrub is injured.
• 13:31
  And so you end up with, you know, Bram and Dalginos on the
• 13:34
  podium. It's still I think a pretty good
• 13:37
  field. Those both both of those guys
• 13:38
  who ended up on there have run 12551256 so and even his on the
• 13:46
  historical side, this is the fastest European 5K since 1986
• 13:52
  is what I saw so. Like Jack Bugner's championship
• 13:55
  record, which is a yeah, he people still can't believe he
• 13:59
  still has it from from back then.
• 14:02
  But it was, it was, it was a really solid field.
• 14:04
  Then you also here, here's someone who's worth a shout out,
• 14:07
  Ireland's Nick Riggs. He ended up finishing fourth,
• 14:11
  right? 8th I think you finished in the.
• 14:13
  End, oh, eighth, OK, it's my bad.
• 14:16
  But still. He was 4 1/2 seconds back of of
• 14:19
  the win. But he also ran most of that
• 14:21
  race with one spike on it. But yeah, it was, it was last,
• 14:23
  Yeah, last mile. He ran with one.
• 14:25
  Cheek and there's a hot rumor out there, I guess, that he's
• 14:29
  headed to Oregon. Somehow, I guess the NCAA
• 14:34
  Clearinghouse has found a way to get him NCAA eligibility.
• 14:38
  Although if you see him the last couple of years, it looks like I
• 14:40
  think he's been racing in a pro kit.
• 14:42
  But who knows in this day and age how it all works.
• 14:46
  But he may be joining the Oregon Ducks, most likely for track.
• 14:51
  I wonder if he can get any cross country eligibility.
• 14:54
  If so, then Oregon, you know, skyrockets up to maybe the NCAA
• 15:00
  cross country favorite, but he's a tremendous talent.
• 15:04
  So that is what could be up ahead.
• 15:08
  Did you notice anything I guess about or did did Jacob say
• 15:11
  anything in the in the mix zone about his bio mechanics?
• 15:15
  He did look like he had a little bit of a hitch in the earlier
• 15:17
  stages of the race. But what Philip, I think note
• 15:20
  noted in your interview is that when the pace does get faster,
• 15:23
  he does start to look better, which I kind of agree and saw in
• 15:26
  those later stages. Yeah, 'cause I, I think the
• 15:28
  sense I got from Philip was even Philip was surprised that he
• 15:31
  won, right? Like that was the that was the
• 15:33
  wildest thing about. I mean, Yakov always pretends
• 15:36
  that he's going to be, he's going to win, right?
• 15:38
  He said he thought he knew he was going to win with 600
• 15:41
  meters. To go.
• 15:41
  Yeah, exactly. So Yakov is always likes to
• 15:44
  exceed an air of confidence. But Philip, I think you could
• 15:49
  see like behind the scenes, like Phillips's brother Phillip
• 15:52
  trains with Yaakov and he was not expecting Yaakov to to out
• 15:57
  kick Bram and Daguino and Gressie.
• 15:59
  I don't think he was. And I think even going in he
• 16:03
  said like even going in, we were thinking he might meddle.
• 16:04
  We weren't necessarily thinking he would win.
• 16:07
  So and maybe, you know, with the field kind of like shallowing
• 16:11
  out a little bit with a few, with a few dropouts, it made it
• 16:15
  more possible. But even then, like, yeah, I
• 16:17
  think first race out, it's really impressive.
• 16:20
  And we have to give him credit. Like having this guy in the
• 16:24
  sport makes the sport better, right?
• 16:25
  Like we love having sports we love and the way he engages with
• 16:29
  the media as well. You sure?
• 16:30
  He gave us a 10 minute interview.
• 16:31
  Like he did one interview, like pooled interview.
• 16:33
  We had to wait till about 11, half, 11 a night.
• 16:36
  Like he'd raced like 2 hours before.
• 16:38
  Like that was his. But you had to go to the medal
• 16:40
  ceremony. I don't know if he did his cool
• 16:41
  down as well in between. But you know, he then came back
• 16:44
  to the mix zone and then spent like 15 minutes with the
• 16:48
  Norwegian journalists and then another 1015 minutes with us and
• 16:52
  did a couple of other interviews as well.
• 16:53
  So yeah, he's he, he's very generous with his time with the
• 16:58
  media, which is also good for the sport because he says
• 17:01
  interesting stuff and the way, you know, we like to dissect
• 17:05
  everything he says. So like it's great to have him
• 17:07
  back and we hopefully get to see a healthy Yakub against Cohoka,
• 17:14
  Josh Kerr, etcetera in the coming six weeks.
• 17:19
  I, you know, that's what we hope.
• 17:20
  I we, we may not get everything, but we may get some of it.
• 17:24
  Yeah, it's encouraging that one, the result and then two, that he
• 17:28
  does have these races lined up for the next couple weeks.
• 17:33
  And to your point of just sort of him being back in the mix
• 17:37
  makes things so much more interesting, so much more fun.
• 17:41
  I think I put up a a tweet about him being back and Noah Lyles
• 17:44
  immediately responded. It's cool that Noah is a Jacob
• 17:48
  fan because both of them are outspoken in very different
• 17:52
  ways, but also some of the most confident athletes.
• 17:55
  And that's what makes them so good.
• 17:57
  So it's good that that that Jacob is is back and making
• 18:02
  things more interesting as things go along.
• 18:05
  He was a little coy, right when they asked him just sort of on
• 18:08
  what some of his goals are in bigger picture wise for the rest
• 18:14
  of the season, right? Like he didn't necessarily state
• 18:16
  it was running X time or winning this sort of race.
• 18:20
  Like I think he's literally taking things race by race.
• 18:25
  I think his 1500 like we have to see like as we saw in as yeah,
• 18:30
  as we saw in Tokyo, right? Like the 1500 is much more
• 18:33
  affected by his injury than his 5K, right?
• 18:37
  So it's how much and, and obviously if he's back Chelsea
• 18:40
  training like 1500 meters, you do need a bit of speed work.
• 18:44
  So like we will have to see how that progresses.
• 18:49
  And obviously in a pace race, we know that the Yakub of old is
• 18:52
  pretty unbeatable. So even if he's 80% of that, he
• 18:57
  stands in with a decent chance of winning in a paced Diamond
• 19:00
  League race. Like we might still see him get
• 19:03
  the win and run 3:30 or 329. I don't, I don't know, like
• 19:06
  that's that kind of the level I'm expecting we might see.
• 19:10
  But it'll be absolutely wild if he goes to Celestia and run
• 19:13
  something like a 327 or something like that would be
• 19:17
  that. That's a very quick track.
• 19:19
  Like it's, it's a very quick track.
• 19:20
  Like it's where he ran his 7173K world record.
• 19:25
  And yeah. What do you think it?
• 19:30
  Looks like he's almost got the almost.
• 19:32
  Yeah, I think yeah, definitely moving in the right direction
• 19:35
  you. Were boxed in coming in that
• 19:37
  last lap. Well, when did you make the
• 19:38
  decision for the movie? Did you panic talk about that
• 19:41
  last lap? Did he look like a panic?
• 19:44
  No, he didn't. No, I think I felt pretty strong
• 19:49
  last 600 and at that point I was in a great position considering
• 19:56
  the people around me. There was a lot, surprisingly a
• 20:00
  lot headwind on the back straight.
• 20:03
  So I thought, I'm definitely not in a position where I'm going to
• 20:08
  do anything more than I have to because I don't know what's
• 20:12
  what's happening in these are the best runs in the world.
• 20:14
  So I had to make everything count and make my move decisive
• 20:18
  and spend my energy as as perfectly as I possibly could.
• 20:22
  I think I did exactly that. But yeah, felt felt pretty good.
• 20:28
  I think last two laps we were pushing quite hard.
• 20:31
  I'm not sure what kind of splits we had, but it felt very fast.
• 20:37
  But yeah, I felt, I think that's when I started to feel liver
• 20:42
  comfort every, everything leading up to that, my sessions,
• 20:46
  you know, my warm up, everything's kind of been a
• 20:48
  little bit better, feeling just a little bit smoother and a
• 20:50
  little bit stronger. And I thinking back if I feel
• 20:55
  like this 600 meters to go, I think I have a pretty good shot
• 20:59
  though. Given everything you've been
• 21:01
  for, all the injuries, where does this rank you from?
• 21:03
  How special is this? I think coming from last six
• 21:09
  months, I think it's yeah, definitely up there.
• 21:13
  I've been put out of a lot of things not being able to train
• 21:19
  properly and but that's worth nothing.
• 21:22
  I'm here to compete and I'm here to do my best.
• 21:26
  But then again, it's it's all about calculating the risk of
• 21:30
  something, me compromising, you know, my training and and
• 21:35
  everything considering that I don't have any foundational
• 21:38
  training at all. So we decided that risk is not
• 21:42
  really there anymore. I'm healthy, I'm 100%, I'm fully
• 21:47
  recovered from my surgery. Now it's all about fitness and
• 21:50
  building again. And these things you can always
• 21:53
  work out. So worst case scenario, if I'm
• 21:56
  here and I'm racing, I'm not winning and I'm not meddling.
• 21:59
  That's the worst case and I can live with that.
• 22:02
  But I think everything aligned and everything was improving all
• 22:07
  the way, and I think we definitely made it more stuff.
• 22:12
  Yeah, Could that last 400 was 54.8, so a pretty fast split.
• 22:16
  And I think I was talking to Philip and he mentioned you
• 22:18
  haven't done much speed work yet.
• 22:19
  So did you know you had that kind of speed in you when you
• 22:21
  left it that late? Doesn't matter how much speed
• 22:26
  you have if you're tired. So I've been trying last three
• 22:31
  weeks to not be so tired. Usually the usually the least
• 22:37
  tired and fatigued runner that wins a half 1000 meter 54.
• 22:43
  Like if you isolate the 54 lap, it's not very fast, but it's
• 22:47
  coming off of 4600 meters. That makes it maybe a little bit
• 22:51
  faster. But yeah, it's I've not been
• 22:57
  able to do too much. Struggling getting back to 100%,
• 23:03
  being healthy. But yeah, it's good enough.
• 23:06
  Jacob. Are you able to train at your?
• 23:08
  Full usual volume at the moment. At the moment, yes, but three
• 23:12
  weeks ago now, so I, I think it was looking at the positives,
• 23:19
  everything that I was able to perform this race.
• 23:23
  I know that that will be better tomorrow and in two weeks that
• 23:26
  will be double. So that is a good, a good
• 23:31
  situation to be in. What do you want to achieve for
• 23:32
  the rest of the season? I know you've got a few races
• 23:34
  lined up. Yeah, nothing in particular.
• 23:38
  I think if I can use this as a good momentum, keep putting in a
• 23:43
  little bit of work. I think of course I'm, I want to
• 23:46
  compete a little bit more, but this was the championship of
• 23:49
  2026 and if I was 100% healthy, I wanted to compete.
• 23:54
  So made sense in the end, Jaco. Mentally, what's the recovery
• 24:00
  being like for you? Mentally.
• 24:03
  It's like dealing with the injury.
• 24:04
  Why do you think I'm a recovered mentally now it's.
• 24:08
  I hope you are. Yeah, but being an athlete
• 24:12
  struggling with injuries, it doesn't really matter what you
• 24:14
  are mentally you because the the mental situation is very much
• 24:19
  reflecting of the fiscal situation and me being sidelined
• 24:24
  for 1 1/2 year. It's not.
• 24:25
  Of course I'm not nice person to be around because I'm always
• 24:30
  struggling with getting back into myself and getting healthy
• 24:33
  again. But as long as as soon as I'm
• 24:36
  starting to feel good again, then I'm a nice person.
• 24:39
  So it's very much correlated. It's the same thing being a
• 24:46
  professional runner for my whole life.
• 24:49
  If I feel good in training, I'm good mentally.
• 24:52
  That's the. Whole thing, How close do you
• 24:54
  think you are fitness wise? You said you're 100% health
• 24:57
  wise, but fitness wise how? How close?
• 25:01
  I can't be too far off can I considering the the amount of
• 25:08
  talent that I'm racing against today.
• 25:12
  I'm not comparing myself too much to others.
• 25:16
  However, this is the best runners in the world that I'm
• 25:19
  racing against both time wise, but also intensive racing.
• 25:22
  So maybe 88 percent, 92% so, but these less percentage can be
• 25:34
  very tiny in numbers and tenths of a second.
• 25:37
  But still, now I can train properly and from here on I'm
• 25:42
  going to be a lot better, like astonishingly a lot better.
• 25:48
  So I'm looking forward to that. Do you wish the crowd was
• 25:50
  bigger? It's going a lot better to say.
• 25:52
  What's that do? Wish the crowd was bigger.
• 25:54
  Of course, of course. But I think we made the most out
• 25:58
  of it. The people that shows up are
• 26:01
  very enthusiastic and I think that's the most important.
• 26:04
  If the the seats are packed with people that doesn't care about
• 26:08
  anything, maybe not that great either.
• 26:10
  I think the people that's here really lives for the sport of
• 26:14
  athletics. They're here to watch the chair
• 26:17
  for everyone and they love to watch us compete and I think
• 26:21
  that's the most important part. Nowadays we are talking about
• 26:25
  numbers, but behind the numbers there are values.
• 26:27
  And what this period of time showed you from the value side.
• 26:30
  From the side, what makes us a human?
• 26:33
  This this strong period of time? What to show?
• 26:37
  Because we are speaking about medals, about the records in
• 26:40
  seconds, but there are values in the humans right on the other
• 26:43
  side. Yeah, of course.
• 26:44
  What to show to you this period? I think very big and difficult
• 26:51
  question to answer. However, I think running is just
• 26:56
  so much. But for me, it's, it's my life
• 26:58
  and it's what I'm doing. And I think working together
• 27:02
  with my team and people around me, it's it's special for us and
• 27:08
  we want to make you know the most out of it and we want to
• 27:11
  have a good time and enjoying what we're doing.
• 27:14
  I think me showing up here and and wanting to compete, this is
• 27:17
  a big part of it. As I said, the risk, as long as
• 27:21
  the risk is to lose, then I'm going to show up and compete.
• 27:25
  I think when it's something else than that, I think you have the
• 27:29
  wrong values. I think this board needs people
• 27:32
  to show up and it needs people to compete and it needs everyone
• 27:36
  to be here. If I'm #1 or #5 or #45 this is a
• 27:42
  championship based on, you know, a certain amount of people
• 27:45
  that's here to represent the country and represent themself.
• 27:48
  And, you know, I think it's so important for me to be here and
• 27:54
  show that doesn't matter what I do.
• 27:56
  Luckily for me, I was able to, you know, do as good as I can
• 28:00
  and perform as well as I did. That wouldn't change if I was
• 28:05
  put on the list or not. I think it's yeah.
• 28:09
  What would be your message to people who struggle not even in
• 28:12
  sport, but in different situations in life and try to?
• 28:15
  Come back and about I. Think it goes out to everything
• 28:20
  that you do. If you just keep on trying,
• 28:23
  doing your best every day, eventually it will be better.
• 28:28
  Sport is a privilege. It's not the most important
• 28:32
  thing in the world, but it's a good thing that can, you know,
• 28:37
  gather people and connect people, bring people more
• 28:39
  together in a world where people are more divided than ever.
• 28:44
  So I think it's, it's very important and and we as athletes
• 28:49
  doing sport can, can be a good, you know, go forward a good
• 28:55
  example. But I think it's, it's just the
• 28:59
  tip of the spare goes through everything you do like, you do
• 29:02
  it as good as you can and you do it with honour and you try your
• 29:06
  best. It will be better, OK.
• 29:10
  Guys, thank you. Thank you.
• 29:14
  This episode of the City of Smack podcast is supported by
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  Sidious Mag 20. Let's hit on some of the
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  upcoming matchups to watch at the European Championship.
• 31:10
  So a morning session just took place and we got to see the
• 31:15
  first glimpse of the women's 800.
• 31:19
  Keeley Hodgkinson leading all of the the the whole entire field
• 31:25
  with a 157 in the first round. Femkibola wins her heat.
• 31:29
  Audrey Buerra wins her heat. So no major surprises there.
• 31:33
  But what has stood out to you so far about make me?
• 31:38
  I mean, it seems like Keeley's carrying herself in a way where
• 31:42
  the confidence is back, which is what the big thing was right
• 31:45
  after pre that, you know, we started to think it's yes, it's
• 31:50
  step one is getting over, you know, the injuries or the tiny
• 31:55
  hiccups that have come up in training.
• 31:56
  But then 2 is building that confidence back up.
• 31:59
  And she seems pretty adamant that, hey, listen, I didn't do
• 32:03
  anything wrong in the first time that I raced against Audrey
• 32:07
  Wearo. Maybe underestimated the fitness
• 32:10
  and level that she was at that go around but not going to let
• 32:14
  that happen twice. Although that's what you can say
• 32:17
  and project. Audrey Werro and her training
• 32:19
  can dictate her side of things, but the duel is on.
• 32:24
  Yeah, I mean, like those heats were wild.
• 32:26
  I think I I I want to like I've been trying to find the stats
• 32:29
  person to test out whether the this is like the fastest set of
• 32:33
  heats at any major championship because literally 159 O 9 did
• 32:39
  not qualify out of the heats on on the time qualif.
• 32:43
  That's the type of thing you see at AUS Olympic trials from the
• 32:48
  semi finals to the final. But I mean in the heats is is a
• 32:50
  whole. Other story European
• 32:52
  Championships is wild to me that it's that high a standard, but I
• 32:56
  I don't think it's necessary that it was just like Keely
• 33:00
  basically wanted to put on a show so she ran 157 point.
• 33:05
  Was it 28 from the front? Like easy as you like looking
• 33:10
  really confident, looking really smooth and you know, and then
• 33:15
  Audrey went through maybe a second slower and then closed
• 33:21
  harder and ran 157 eight or something.
• 33:25
  So that was again massively impressive.
• 33:28
  And it looks like, it looks like they were like flexing basically
• 33:31
  at each other like with with those 22 races.
• 33:33
  And then, and then you have Femko Ball, who looks like she's
• 33:36
  barely trying and still gliding her way to what?
• 33:38
  Yeah, exactly. And yeah, she she, yeah, she
• 33:41
  was, she, she was barely trying. And I think even the other the
• 33:45
  four seat was, was really fast as well.
• 33:46
  So it was just, yeah, it was very, it was very impressive all
• 33:51
  around, like really good running.
• 33:54
  Like there's a few PBS and national records.
• 33:56
  I think it was a Greek national record or something that didn't
• 33:59
  make it through. It was like, what's going on?
• 34:03
  And yeah, Italian national record behind Keely, Like, and
• 34:06
  that was a 1980 national record, Italian national record in the
• 34:10
  800 they got. They got broken by Louisa Cuy
• 34:12
  Rose. So shout out to her.
• 34:13
  But like, yeah, I mean, it's it's not a slow track.
• 34:17
  Clearly it's a fast track, fast enough track.
• 34:19
  The wind, it was windy, but I don't think it was affecting
• 34:22
  them that much because the 100 meter heats that took place just
• 34:25
  a little bit before had a -3 headwind.
• 34:28
  So it is windy in that stadium. It's not like super windy
• 34:31
  because they put up these temporary stands.
• 34:33
  But it doesn't make it easy when Jakob commented last night about
• 34:37
  the breeze on the back straight. So yeah, but it I think it's
• 34:42
  shaping up exactly how we wanted.
• 34:43
  Even these heats were fascinating to watch and yeah,
• 34:49
  and they were good races and, and they were fast races.
• 34:52
  So yeah, I think we're we're hoping it.
• 34:55
  Goes I think that's enough of a selling point.
• 34:57
  Yeah, I think that's enough of a selling point to get people into
• 34:59
  the stands for the 13th. Like where are people?
• 35:03
  And, and this, I don't know, I, I'm honestly very surprised.
• 35:07
  And I think there's a little bit Yeah.
• 35:09
  And, and to be honest, people are confused, right?
• 35:11
  Like, why? Why is this not selling?
• 35:13
  It's a summer holiday. So like, kids are off school.
• 35:17
  People can bring their families and yes, it's a week long
• 35:20
  championships and I think we're definitely expecting more people
• 35:24
  as the week goes on. But obviously, I think last
• 35:27
  night could be one of the best nights of the championships with
• 35:29
  Jakob's victory, with that mixed 4x4, with that women's hundred,
• 35:33
  with the British win like that. That was one of the nights of
• 35:35
  the championships. And it was, I mean, the home
• 35:39
  straight to be fair, which you don't get to see on the coverage
• 35:41
  very much. It's pretty full.
• 35:43
  Like this morning in the morning session, that home straight was
• 35:45
  rammed, right? So there are like 556000 people
• 35:49
  on that, 5000 people on that home straight that you don't
• 35:51
  see. But then the rest of the
• 35:53
  stadium, which I think the capacity is like 23,000.
• 35:57
  They've expanded it to looks, you know, 20% full, which is not
• 36:02
  not ideal, you know, certainly in the morning sessions and
• 36:07
  we're a little bit fuller in the evening.
• 36:09
  But we'll see. We'll see how it builds up.
• 36:13
  What's the get in ticket? Price, So that's the interesting
• 36:16
  thing right? There are some cheap like 20
• 36:18
  pound £25 tickets for a lot of the sessions and you could see
• 36:23
  like I think last night it was hilarious.
• 36:25
  There was like a line about halfway up the stand where you
• 36:28
  could see the Cheaptickets started because they had
• 36:30
  obviously all sold and then there's no one sitting below
• 36:33
  that or like a massive. So yeah, that there are some
• 36:37
  like. But then I think the home
• 36:39
  straight seats are like 90 lbs and 110 lbs which you know,
• 36:42
  $150.00 + 100 and $60.00 for the top tickets.
• 36:47
  And I think that goes up to 200 ish dollars on the for the last
• 36:51
  of three, three nights, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
• 36:53
  So that does get expensive. And yeah, I'd, I, I, and it is
• 37:00
  tricky. Like if you're bringing a family
• 37:02
  like, and this is Birmingham, this isn't London.
• 37:04
  So again, in terms of cost, like in London, that's maybe a little
• 37:08
  bit more palatable. But also, again, people, they're
• 37:10
  not going to come to multiple days of that price, right?
• 37:13
  And those sorts of prices and the food and stuff inside the
• 37:16
  concession stands and stuff, it's really expensive, really,
• 37:20
  really expensive. And you know, it's, it's maybe
• 37:23
  just like 3040% more expensive than it than you'd want it to be
• 37:28
  if you're bringing your family and stuff like it's just, it's
• 37:30
  just, it's just a bit too, too pricey.
• 37:32
  What, what you're getting, especially.
• 37:34
  And because the second part of the controversy is that they've
• 37:37
  given buys to the top 12 in all the sprints, up to and including
• 37:42
  the 400 meters and the 400 hurdles.
• 37:45
  When did they decide this? Because like I I, you were you
• 37:47
  were up in arms about the whole thing and there were people who
• 37:50
  had already bought their tickets to these sessions.
• 37:52
  Right. So Commonwealth Games, they
• 37:54
  literally announced it the day before because Amy Harden, who
• 37:56
  got the silver medal, thought she was running a heat and then
• 37:59
  two days before or day before found out she wasn't.
• 38:01
  But I think here it was well known from the start that that
• 38:04
  was going to happen. Like that was known further in
• 38:06
  advance. But I think if you're not
• 38:07
  following the sport like us, you wouldn't have known that when
• 38:11
  you are buying your tickets to a morning.
• 38:12
  Like if you're bringing your kids to a morning session to see
• 38:14
  some athletics, like in some cases, people just want to come
• 38:17
  see it and they don't know who any of the athletes are.
• 38:19
  But in other cases, like if you want to see some of the top
• 38:22
  stars, what's going? To be crying.
• 38:26
  Yeah, you're not going to see. Them Amy Hunt.
• 38:28
  And, and I think I can understand it in an Olympic year
• 38:32
  where they're trying to get the athletes to come when they've
• 38:35
  got an Olympics a few weeks later, a few weeks or just after
• 38:38
  the Olympics, whichever way round it happens to fall, I can
• 38:41
  understand that. But in because obviously
• 38:44
  European Championships takes place every two years and so it
• 38:47
  in an even year. So it does clash with the
• 38:49
  Olympic year every two year, every four years.
• 38:52
  But in the off year like this year is, I don't see why you
• 38:56
  would do that because there's no need to.
• 38:59
  It's a seven day champs or you just make it a five day, five
• 39:02
  day championships. You don't make it a seven day
• 39:04
  championships because it just stretches it out unnecessarily
• 39:09
  and it's a massive disadvantage to run an extra round in the
• 39:12
  400. And the other stupid thing is
• 39:14
  the qualifying from the heats is 12 fastest.
• 39:18
  So it's not even like the people who are having to run the extra
• 39:20
  round can run slowly and just like win their heat or whatever.
• 39:24
  They have to run as hard as they can to make sure they get in on
• 39:27
  time. So it's like it's, it's I, I, it
• 39:30
  feels like the people who've made those decisions don't
• 39:34
  understand the sport, which seems.
• 39:35
  Did they realize that they're going to be running 3 rounds in
• 39:37
  one day in LA? Well, look, I mean, I think
• 39:40
  again with the, with the women's hundred, like fine, right?
• 39:44
  Like, OK, yes, it's 3 rounds in one day.
• 39:46
  And but then again, it's, it's, it's a massive disadvantage.
• 39:49
  The people that didn't have to run, who had to run the extra
• 39:52
  round, of course. And you know, like that, that,
• 39:55
  that I think is a little unfair. But you know, like it's just
• 39:59
  more generally, it's just doesn't like the whole logic of
• 40:02
  it from a sporting perspective and from a crowd perspective,
• 40:06
  both sides of it don't really make sense.
• 40:09
  So I, I, I just, I just don't get it right.
• 40:12
  I really don't get it. Yeah.
• 40:14
  Well, for one, I hope that the folks organizing the US Olympic
• 40:19
  Trials aren't listening or aren't paying attention to the
• 40:22
  model that's on display here because I guess the document for
• 40:27
  the bidding is out and or has been out for a while.
• 40:31
  And the 2028 US Olympic Trials I believe will be over the course
• 40:36
  of six days as opposed to the 10.
• 40:39
  Interesting choice because in the past the trial schedule has
• 40:44
  been done to reflect that of the Olympic schedule, but this time
• 40:48
  around there's other changes potentially being made where,
• 40:52
  you know, the multi events may be held at a different, you
• 40:55
  know, time and place. Same thing with the 10,000
• 40:57
  meters, which is something we saw in 2023 I believe, where the
• 41:03
  Team USA selection for the 10K was held at the pre Classic and
• 41:06
  then there was no 10K at the national championships.
• 41:09
  So yeah, I just hope that we don't get this European champ
• 41:15
  schedule for the 28 US trials, wherever they may end up being.
• 41:18
  I mean, I don't know if that means they're going to do like 2
• 41:20
  separate weekends. Are they going to do like
• 41:22
  Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday?
• 41:24
  Which in one sense makes sense to get like maximum crowd.
• 41:28
  No, I think this would be 6 days.
• 41:29
  Consecutive days? Because then that seems a bit
• 41:31
  bizarre because then you're losing one whole weekend, which
• 41:35
  if you're in the business of making money, which is what we
• 41:37
  understand US sport in the US to be all about, then that seems a
• 41:40
  bizarre but. It's also lots of really
• 41:42
  expensive to stay in Eugene or in LA for two consecutive
• 41:48
  weekends for the, you know, coaches, the media, the
• 41:51
  volunteers, all that kind of stuff might end up being more
• 41:55
  expensive than that. No, no.
• 41:57
  But I mean, the Olympic trials is the one thing that in US kind
• 42:00
  of does kind of sell out and get attraction.
• 42:03
  Yeah. And I think the one thing that
• 42:05
  going back to here and European Championships is the bid team
• 42:09
  for the London 2029 World Championships that they're
• 42:13
  trying to bid for London is making a final presentation.
• 42:16
  News development that we've had in the last like week or so.
• 42:18
  So it's now London, Nairobi, Rome.
• 42:23
  And Munich. Munich, but the final bid
• 42:27
  presentation is on Friday of this week.
• 42:31
  No, no, but I mean, I think it's just and it's it's the people
• 42:34
  who are organizing the European Championships, which is this
• 42:37
  joint venture between, you know, UK Athletics, London Marathon
• 42:41
  and Great Run, which does like Great North Run, biggest half
• 42:44
  marathon in the world. So you know, they've combined to
• 42:48
  to do this and you know, the organization is phenomenal.
• 42:51
  But if you're saying we can't fill a stadium in Birmingham for
• 42:56
  a week, then the question will be asked in that bid, right?
• 43:01
  Like you're going to have a 60,000 seat of stadium to fill
• 43:03
  for a whole week like or 9 days or whatever, you know that like
• 43:08
  for World Championships. Yeah.
• 43:09
  But they have the, they had that's World Championships
• 43:12
  versus European Championships and they have the back, the the
• 43:15
  back the background of the 2017 World Championships to kind of
• 43:18
  fall back on. So they might be in a little bit
• 43:21
  of a safer place versus other bids.
• 43:24
  Like I think the Kenya bid looks like they have to just give
• 43:28
  their national stadium a tremendous facelift between now
• 43:31
  and 20292030, whichever one they end up getting 2031 right?
• 43:36
  Yeah, so maybe I know a lot. I know a lot of the time they do
• 43:38
  like a double bed and stuff so. Yeah.
• 43:41
  And then of the other ones, I guess what Munich, Munich posted
• 43:45
  European champs not that long ago.
• 43:47
  And Munich. Munich I think is probably the
• 43:50
  most likely contender. Like Rome, do you think so I, I,
• 43:54
  I think I think Rome well, I really don't like I would love
• 43:57
  it and hate it being in Rome because in Rome the.
• 44:00
  State Rome's got some like financial stuff behind the bid.
• 44:03
  I think the city finally decided that they will support it.
• 44:07
  Yeah, and. The problem with with Rome is
• 44:11
  more the stadium is a pain, like it's in the middle of nowhere.
• 44:13
  It's in a bit of an island in terms.
• 44:16
  Of dude at the car seat and. Then like it's, it's maybe you
• 44:19
  know, it's not that far out the city, but there's no public easy
• 44:22
  access, public transport to get there, which you know, like if
• 44:25
  you think about Paris Olympic, like Paris Olympics and how easy
• 44:28
  it was to get in and out stadium Tokyo as well, like, you know, 5
• 44:31
  minutes you could be on on the subway, metro, whatever.
• 44:34
  It was like it was phenomenal for both of those championships.
• 44:37
  And that's not really the case with Rome.
• 44:41
  And it's it's very, very difficult to get in and out of
• 44:42
  that stadium. I Munich.
• 44:45
  Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that their
• 44:47
  organization, I've heard, I've heard good things.
• 44:49
  I wasn't at Munich in 2022, but yeah, so let's see how it goes.
• 44:55
  The the official decision won't be out until September.
• 44:57
  I think it's September, yes, we're here.
• 44:58
  So I wonder whether that will be at World Ultimate.
• 45:00
  So whatever maybe or that, but they'll have the council meeting
• 45:03
  that will decide decide that. But yeah.
• 45:06
  You don't think that like one of Seb's last parting gifts as
• 45:10
  president will be all right? Give this to my home country
• 45:15
  right before I go. I.
• 45:16
  Mean as in I think that was kind of the whole like expectation
• 45:20
  and hope and everything, but I do.
• 45:22
  More cities bid. For it I do worry that the
• 45:24
  publicity and the situation we've got here at Europeans this
• 45:27
  week could impact that decision making where it might you know
• 45:31
  it might influence, but it might it may it may have been like
• 45:34
  more of a kind of a show in before and with this having
• 45:38
  happened this week like. Yeah, but by that logic, like
• 45:41
  Eugene would never get a championship.
• 45:46
  Yeah, but I but I think like, you know, like I think it's got
• 45:49
  a yeah, it's got a because I think in like a championship in
• 45:51
  Europe. We know like with the way
• 45:53
  Budapest like works like, and, and that's the thing in Europe
• 45:57
  you can get everywhere by train. It's very convenient.
• 45:59
  Like Europe just tends to be a little bit easier to kind of,
• 46:03
  you know, you get all the people from all the European countries.
• 46:05
  Like that's how Budapest was and it and it worked so amazingly
• 46:08
  well. And the UK is still convenient
• 46:11
  enough from Europe, but it's still like London is still not
• 46:15
  as convenient as as Munich or all right.
• 46:19
  I've never been to Rome. I've been to Munich very briefly
• 46:24
  for Oktoberfest but never really explored, so I'd love one of
• 46:28
  those two. I've obvious I've been to London
• 46:29
  a couple times, went to Kenya once, so I guess I'll root for
• 46:34
  one of the cities I've I haven't been to.
• 46:37
  Yeah, I'm a bit 50, torn on London because I I really don't.
• 46:40
  I live on. It'd be so convenient for you.
• 46:42
  No, it would not be. That's the problem.
• 46:43
  I live on the opposite side of London to the stadium so it
• 46:47
  would take me an hour and a hour 1 1/2 to get to the stadium and
• 46:49
  back each way like every day right?
• 46:52
  Oh, come on, Pre, we'll. Get We'll get you a hotel.
• 46:54
  Yeah, as in if you guys are front in the hotel like I'm as
• 46:57
  in I don't, I personally, I'm not paying £250 a night for a
• 47:00
  hotel in London. That, that's my, that's the,
• 47:04
  that's the. We'll we'll pick that one up,
• 47:07
  but all right, so other quick hits.
• 47:09
  So we touched women's 800, men's 800.
• 47:11
  The story there is Mark English, right, probably gone.
• 47:14
  He's got so many European medals, but he never got a gold
• 47:17
  right. And you know, he's someone
• 47:19
  who's, yeah, been around. People always try and age him
• 47:23
  out as he's about to retire just because you've got the grey
• 47:24
  hair. The grey hair.
• 47:25
  The grey. Hair does it, but bless it.
• 47:27
  He's not that old. And like, obviously we know
• 47:29
  there were so many commentators that seem to like retire
• 47:32
  athletes on CFA, but you know, he's he's he's coming into his
• 47:36
  best shape. He's 142 is fastest in the in
• 47:38
  the field. But also Max Bergen looks a
• 47:42
  little bit more like himself. So hopefully I think he had a
• 47:45
  virus, which is why he was, you know, at the start of a virus,
• 47:49
  he said. So he that's why he kind of
• 47:51
  struggled in the semi finals. The Commonwealth Games didn't
• 47:53
  make final. So hopefully we do get a big a,
• 47:57
  a good, good final there in in in the men's 800.
• 48:02
  But yeah, I think the semis are tomorrow.
• 48:07
  Women's 1500 Georgia Hunter Bell, have you favorite in this
• 48:10
  one after World indoor gold medal, Commonwealth Games gold
• 48:16
  medal, I mean this, she'll try and add a third one here.
• 48:20
  So she's the clear favorite. Men's 1500, great rematch from
• 48:25
  worlds, you got Isaac Nader versus Jake Whiteman.
• 48:29
  I'll take Whiteman in that one just 'cause, you know, although
• 48:33
  he's just been overshadowed in each, I think of the last couple
• 48:36
  races, obviously 'cause he has put together some good
• 48:38
  performances. It just so happens that if it's
• 48:41
  in the Bowerman Mile, there's someone finishing ahead of him.
• 48:44
  If it's at the at the London Diamond League Mile, there's
• 48:47
  Josh is finishing ahead of him. But Jake has been stringing
• 48:51
  together a really good season. Yeah, he has been.
• 48:53
  I mean, I think he did say at Commonwealth that he had like he
• 48:58
  ran that 1000 meters in Monaco and he then pulled out of the
• 49:01
  Diamond League the week after and he was suffering a little.
• 49:05
  Bit it all mixed up. It was calm games, yeah.
• 49:07
  Yeah, so he, he, he, you know, he didn't, he tried to go with
• 49:11
  Josh and that maybe costumer model medal at the Commonwealth
• 49:14
  Games. And yeah, we we just need to see
• 49:18
  if he is fully recovered. Like he was never going to miss
• 49:20
  the Commonwealth Games, but whether he was 100% given like
• 49:25
  how good he looked earlier on in the season, whether he's 100%
• 49:28
  back to that level or not is, is I think what will determine
• 49:31
  whether he wins or, or, you know, as in with a good chance
• 49:34
  of a win. But I think he will still end up
• 49:36
  on the podium in this field. As I say, Habs.
• 49:39
  And yeah, there's obviously a couple of other guys in the mix.
• 49:42
  But I, yeah, I think it, we hope, we hope to see a good
• 49:46
  matchup between those two medalists.
• 49:48
  Going up in distance, men's 10K, you got Gressier versus Almgren,
• 49:52
  so Gressier who missed out on a medal, now Almgren coming in
• 49:55
  fresh. On the women's side, it's Nadia
• 49:58
  Batacliti who did the double, you know, at the last European
• 50:02
  Championships trying to do that again.
• 50:04
  I'm kind of surprised. Like, no, no woman in history
• 50:07
  has done the European 5K10K double back-to-back global
• 50:11
  championships for gold that you'd think like Saffan Asan
• 50:14
  would have done that at some point.
• 50:15
  But no, it Batacliti with a chance here to make history.
• 50:19
  Yeah, absolutely. And like she, she did win the
• 50:22
  1500 and 5K European Championships.
• 50:24
  She'd like looked a bit I'll she was ill when she was at Rome
• 50:27
  Diamond League, which is when we saw her kind of last on a more
• 50:29
  international stage and she didn't perform that well.
• 50:32
  So there were some concerns. But it looks like she is OK from
• 50:37
  what we're hearing. So she's fully expected to be
• 50:39
  heavy favorite. She's definitely a very heavy
• 50:41
  favorite. The 5K, which is tonight the
• 50:43
  10K. There's Clara Lukan, who's the
• 50:46
  only European to ever 1 sub 30 but on the road.
• 50:49
  I know that name. We've we've crunched enough 10K.
• 50:52
  Rankings with her indeed. And then Maureen Costa and
• 50:55
  there's a couple of others who've run really well this year
• 50:58
  over 10K Obviously Megan Keith is in that race.
• 51:01
  So I I think the 10K is slightly more competitive than the 5K,
• 51:06
  but and especially because Batacluti will be doubling back.
• 51:10
  But I think even then, I think Batacluti heavy favorite in both
• 51:13
  of those. Yeah.
• 51:17
  All right. So those are the distance races
• 51:18
  taking place at the European Championships.
• 51:21
  All right, I think it's time. We're 40 minutes and we got to
• 51:24
  address the bad news. The bad news of the week is a
• 51:28
  bombshell that fell yesterday. And one thing that has been
• 51:32
  interesting, and I think I noted this in our group chat is that
• 51:37
  AIU has been real quiet. It has been way over a month
• 51:40
  since the Athletics Integrity Unit has announced any
• 51:45
  suspension on their Twitter account.
• 51:47
  And that means less graphics being posted from us.
• 51:53
  And I suspect what that means, and they haven't come out and
• 51:56
  said this, is that they're going to move towards more of the
• 52:03
  USADA approach. And that is to see the whole
• 52:08
  appeals process through before announcing a suspension, which a
• 52:13
  lot of people don't like, right? Like a lot of people prefer that
• 52:18
  we have no knowledge of a provisional suspension for an
• 52:21
  athlete. And even sometimes those take a
• 52:24
  little bit of a while. And then from there, you know,
• 52:28
  they get the sanction later on. We haven't had any provisional
• 52:32
  suspensions announced lately. And there I guess hasn't been,
• 52:35
  you know, the AIU coming out and saying, hey, we've shift shifted
• 52:39
  how we're going about our public relations when it comes to these
• 52:42
  suspensions. But that's my suspicion unless
• 52:44
  they're cooking up something huge.
• 52:47
  That's what I think is is happening here.
• 52:49
  And so the announcement that came yesterday came by way of
• 52:53
  the United States Anti Doping Agency.
• 52:55
  It was not the AIU. So you saw it announced that
• 52:58
  Jonakowicz has accepted a three-year ban after his
• 53:02
  athlete, Biological Passport returned an adverse passport
• 53:06
  finding. When they look at samples from
• 53:09
  July 30th, 2025, the day before his prelim at the 2025 US
• 53:15
  Championship and August 8th. And the values and the findings
• 53:23
  there were consistent with blood doping, according to an expert
• 53:28
  that they tapped to review everything.
• 53:31
  And so the standard suspension when someone is blood doping is
• 53:34
  4 years. He gets 3 because he signed, you
• 53:38
  know, the paperwork that they hand over when you have to admit
• 53:42
  any wrongdoing or choose to contest and appeal the
• 53:46
  suspension. So he accepted it.
• 53:48
  And so he gets three years. So now he's out until, you know,
• 53:51
  I think July 2029. So he's out through the this
• 53:55
  upcoming Olympic cycle. So as a result of all that,
• 54:01
  Jonah Kovic is stripped of his US title from last year, where
• 54:05
  he ran 3/30/17. If you remember that race, it
• 54:08
  was crazy finish where he dropped A529 for the final 400,
• 54:16
  running in like lane 2 and close in 12.49 seconds for the final
• 54:23
  100 meters. He hadn't raced in the two
• 54:25
  months leading into that one because he'd had some sort of
• 54:29
  hamstring tightness or injury that had popped up after a
• 54:32
  couple of the Diamond League races.
• 54:34
  He won, and it really announced himself at the Robot Diamond
• 54:38
  League last May, and he won that race.
• 54:42
  That was a pretty crazy 1. And so now it just sort of makes
• 54:47
  a bit more sense when at the moment everyone starts to think
• 54:51
  like, oh, this dude came out of nowhere.
• 54:54
  He really didn't necessarily come out of nowhere because he
• 54:57
  was, you know, a solid 815 guy at UTAP and then at Texas Tech
• 55:03
  graduates joins the US Army, becomes AUS, you know, gets US
• 55:10
  citizenship Allegiant his his allegiance switch happens in
• 55:12
  2021 in time for him to compete at the 2024 out of the 2021 US
• 55:17
  Olympic Trials finishes I think in the semis of that one.
• 55:22
  But the following year makes Team USA competes at the 2022
• 55:26
  World Championships in the 800, gets bounced in the first round
• 55:30
  or advances through the first round but then disqualified for
• 55:33
  jostling and making contact with another athlete. 2023 doesn't
• 55:38
  really have that good of a year. 2024 finishes 5th at the US
• 55:43
  Olympic Trials and then 2025 is this monster year that he puts
• 55:47
  together. But he does PR in the 800, runs
• 55:50
  143, and then runs 3:30 in the 1500.
• 55:55
  A problem I guess that has been pointed out now is that USADA,
• 56:00
  the testing has is pretty public.
• 56:03
  And we noted this I guess in this little write up that I did
• 56:05
  for the site on what you should know kind of about this whole
• 56:08
  case is that he was tested just one time in 2022.
• 56:12
  Presumably that's around the time that he made the World
• 56:15
  Championship team or competed at the World Championships.
• 56:18
  Was not tested at all in 2023, not tested at all in 2024.
• 56:24
  And then you get, I believe it was like 9 tests in Q3 of 2025.
• 56:30
  And that's where you saw that, you know, is starting to build
• 56:35
  this biological passport for Jonah Kovich and why it has
• 56:39
  taken so long for them to come down on him for this.
• 56:44
  And so he probably wasn't in the World Athletics testing pool.
• 56:48
  So maybe that limited just sort of the number of tests that
• 56:51
  World Athletics or the AIU was able to conduct within the last
• 56:55
  couple years. But still, like that is not a
• 56:58
  whole lot of testing for someone who was at the world stage in
• 57:03
  2022. So it's it's really dismaying
• 57:09
  because you know, Ethan Strand should have is now the US
• 57:14
  champion from last year. If when you remove Jonah Kovic
• 57:17
  from the results, that would have been Strands first national
• 57:22
  title. He had just turned pro and
• 57:25
  signed with Nike. Who knows if there would have
• 57:27
  been a national title bonus in that contract or if you would
• 57:30
  have held out. Could he have gotten more money
• 57:32
  for being the US 1500 national champion?
• 57:35
  Potentially. But then, you know, you continue
• 57:37
  to go down the list. Cole Hawker gets elevated from
• 57:40
  3rd to 2nd. And the toughest pill to swallow
• 57:43
  is Hobbs Kessler, who was fifth at the Tokyo or that was fifth
• 57:47
  at the Paris Olympics in 2024. This is out on a chance to
• 57:51
  compete at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo because
• 57:55
  someone ahead of him, you know, was doping at the time.
• 57:58
  And Hobbs is really good. We've seen that this year.
• 58:02
  We saw we've seen it last year and the year before.
• 58:06
  He's also still super young and we just didn't get a chance to
• 58:10
  see what he would have been capable of in in Tokyo.
• 58:13
  So that's the part that is heartbreaking.
• 58:18
  On Instagram Stories, Hobbs posted about it, called it a
• 58:21
  bummer for everyone and apologized to Ethan Strand
• 58:25
  because that moment was taken from him.
• 58:27
  And Strand, I think, didn't say much, posted a photo of both him
• 58:31
  and Hobbs Kessler on the track. So yeah, I mean, this was it's
• 58:37
  a, it's a, it's a bombshell of a case.
• 58:40
  Not shocking I would say, but also it gives us all the clarity
• 58:47
  on like, where the hell has Jonah Kovich been this whole
• 58:50
  entire time? I mean, turns out he was
• 58:53
  provisionally suspended back in July and was caught red handed
• 58:57
  for some wrongdoing in 2025. Who was your reaction to the
• 59:01
  news? Yeah.
• 59:02
  I mean, I I had like two or three kind of main like thoughts
• 59:05
  about this, right? I think obviously, yeah, you
• 59:08
  know, the the what you said about Hobbs and and Ethan Strand
• 59:11
  and you know, that that kind of whole impact on US championships
• 59:15
  and the way the the qualifying system works, which means that
• 59:18
  Hobbs Kessler missed out on going to Tokyo to Tokyo is is
• 59:22
  really unfortunate. But I think just just stepping
• 59:25
  back a little bit, I think there's two or three things that
• 59:29
  that that kind of really stick out to me.
• 59:31
  One is obviously the the lack of testing, right?
• 59:34
  He was a 144 guy. He wasn't like a bad runner and
• 59:37
  they he was injured and they didn't test him in the whole of
• 59:40
  2023. But that is the whole point.
• 59:43
  You should be testing athletes of a certain caliber, even when
• 59:47
  they're injured, right? Like that, that should be a part
• 59:49
  and parcel of the game. And, and you know, he came fifth
• 59:53
  at the Olympic trials in 2024. So you'd have expected him to
• 59:56
  have been tested in 2024 as well.
• 59:58
  And maybe, you know, there is an issue obviously with funding for
• 1:00:02
  testing that he wasn't kind of a level, he wasn't necessarily
• 1:00:05
  racing that much internationally such that he he was in the sort
• 1:00:09
  of ARU testing pool. So, but he should have been,
• 1:00:13
  you'd hoped that he'd be sufficiently on the radar of
• 1:00:16
  USADA. But the problem is like now.
• 1:00:19
  You know, post, you know, 2024 onwards, 144 guys or a dime a
• 1:00:23
  dozen, there's millions of them, right?
• 1:00:25
  Like it's, it's it's, which makes it a little bit trickier
• 1:00:28
  to say, like, how do you? Put and more expensive.
• 1:00:31
  It's yeah, it's very expensive to to test all these cars, but I
• 1:00:34
  think that I'm surprised that he went to the World Championships,
• 1:00:37
  yet he was only testing what Now one thing to know is that
• 1:00:42
  countries that are on a watch list for doping, like Kenya, but
• 1:00:47
  they are required. There are these and Nigeria.
• 1:00:49
  I think there's a couple of others where the athletes like,
• 1:00:52
  if athletes want to compete at the World Championships or the
• 1:00:54
  Olympics, they have to be tested a certain number of times,
• 1:00:58
  minimum times in like a six. Or a minimum of three.
• 1:01:01
  And if people go back to 2021 at the at the Olympics, this is the
• 1:01:06
  reason Zuhair Talbi was unable to compete even though he was in
• 1:01:09
  Tokyo for those Olympics is because the Moroccan federation,
• 1:01:14
  and he's talked about this on this podcast, dropped the ball
• 1:01:16
  on ensuring that he had been tested at least three times in
• 1:01:20
  the lead up to the Games. So it's definitely something
• 1:01:23
  that has you can put some blame certainly on the federation's
• 1:01:28
  for dropping the ball and that kind of stuff.
• 1:01:30
  Sometimes, you know, and there's an athlete, I think Zuhair has
• 1:01:34
  talked about how he was insistent on them, you know,
• 1:01:36
  making sure that they test him that often.
• 1:01:38
  And so it's on them to carry out the test.
• 1:01:41
  But to your point, like, yeah, I mean, because the United States
• 1:01:44
  is not on that watch list, they don't necessarily need to have
• 1:01:47
  check the box of three tests before they compete.
• 1:01:49
  Yeah. But I think the the flip side of
• 1:01:51
  that is right. And, and obviously, yes, you can
• 1:01:53
  get like some of these breakthrough athletes as well.
• 1:01:56
  Exactly right. Like a Cooper luck house.
• 1:01:57
  Like, how much would he have been tested before the 2025
• 1:02:01
  World Championships? There's there's a wrinkle to
• 1:02:03
  some of the stuff, too. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:02:05
  So there is, there is that issue as well.
• 1:02:07
  But but I think from the flip side of it, you kind of feel
• 1:02:09
  like people who have run that quick before should be within
• 1:02:13
  the US, the USADA testing for the very least.
• 1:02:16
  And if they are, they should be being tested even if they're not
• 1:02:19
  racing. And I think that kind of
• 1:02:22
  highlights that issue with the system.
• 1:02:24
  The second issue I think is obviously Jonah Koresh became
• 1:02:29
  AUS citizen via he joined the Army.
• 1:02:31
  He he, you know, transferred allegiance to the US and there's
• 1:02:35
  been these recent change of allegiance rules, right, where
• 1:02:39
  you're only allowed to have 10 change, 10 athletes change
• 1:02:42
  allegiance to your country within an Olympic cycle for
• 1:02:45
  track and field. And within that you're only
• 1:02:48
  allowed to have sort of one like from a certain countries, like
• 1:02:51
  whatever. But now you can see UUSATF are
• 1:02:55
  going to have to make a decision.
• 1:02:56
  There are loads of athletes who obviously do move to the US,
• 1:02:58
  whether they come for the NCAA or whatever.
• 1:03:00
  And sometimes they, they get residency in the US through one
• 1:03:03
  pass away or another. And you can see like in this
• 1:03:08
  situation, you had an athlete who was part of a, he was
• 1:03:11
  sponsored by Under Armour. He was part of a training group,
• 1:03:14
  but he was obviously also training a lot back in Kenya,
• 1:03:17
  like independently of the group. Yeah, let me let me just add
• 1:03:21
  some context there because it is sort of important.
• 1:03:23
  And some of this did come to light a couple months back when
• 1:03:27
  Let's Run was trying to figure out where the hell is Jonah
• 1:03:30
  Kovich? And no one really knew, which
• 1:03:33
  was such a weird thing. So the UA Mission Run Baltimore
• 1:03:39
  800 group, it was coached by Tom Brumlich.
• 1:03:43
  And he had said to Let's Run that Jonah Kovic was someone who
• 1:03:50
  kind of like came and went occasionally with the group, but
• 1:03:53
  for the most part would do his own thing.
• 1:03:56
  Never really lived in Baltimore with this year in particular,
• 1:04:01
  there was a couple team camps that were set up and he just
• 1:04:04
  didn't show up. I don't even know if like the if
• 1:04:07
  the, you know, details probably were were shared with him or not
• 1:04:10
  or if there was an open invitation, but totally ghosted
• 1:04:13
  all of that. So Brumlich had no idea where
• 1:04:16
  coach was. So then you check all right,
• 1:04:19
  well, when he's not training in Baltimore, but he's in the
• 1:04:21
  states. He was out in Colorado Springs,
• 1:04:25
  and while he was there, typically Herron Lagat has been
• 1:04:31
  someone who would oversee some of his training.
• 1:04:34
  But even Aaron Lagat said that he had no idea where Koich was
• 1:04:41
  and just presumed that he was back in in Kenya.
• 1:04:44
  Hadn't worked with him at all since the end of last year.
• 1:04:48
  He worked with him in 2025, but not in in 2026.
• 1:04:54
  So this dude just went ghost and to my knowledge, no one's I I
• 1:04:59
  haven't heard anything of where he's been this whole entire
• 1:05:02
  time. But the detail that also isn't
• 1:05:05
  clear is exactly like, because we don't know is like where
• 1:05:10
  where he where he started doping.
• 1:05:11
  If he did, he admitted to the fact that their blood doping was
• 1:05:15
  taking place. But was it in Kenya where he
• 1:05:18
  does spend some time, you know, doing these training camps?
• 1:05:21
  Very unlikely was in Baltimore or Colorado Springs like so we
• 1:05:28
  we get this ruling from USADA. And then the other part that is
• 1:05:30
  unclear is just sort of OK. He signs this paper where he
• 1:05:33
  admits guilt, but what else did he share with investigators?
• 1:05:37
  And so you hope because you are taking a whole year off of this,
• 1:05:41
  you know, four year sentence, you're hoping you're getting
• 1:05:44
  some sort of information that can go towards combating doping
• 1:05:50
  in other parts. If unless like he's just this
• 1:05:53
  rogue actor who went off on his own, like we've read about in
• 1:05:57
  some of these AIU reports of like all he was in Kenya went
• 1:06:01
  down to just like this pharmacy, picked up the banned substance,
• 1:06:04
  injected himself and then and that was that.
• 1:06:06
  Like, that's sometimes the explanation we get, but
• 1:06:09
  sometimes it could be a bit more complex, a little bit more
• 1:06:14
  strategic. And if you're going to take a
• 1:06:17
  year off someone's doping sentence, you better be getting
• 1:06:21
  good information, not just sort of like, yeah, hand up, I did
• 1:06:23
  it. That's it.
• 1:06:24
  Like, I really don't think that there there should be more
• 1:06:27
  nuances to the admission of guilt here, but we just don't
• 1:06:31
  know. Yeah.
• 1:06:32
  And I think I mean the admission of guilt piece like the way they
• 1:06:35
  do it is just to because it saves them a lot of money on the
• 1:06:38
  appeals process and all that, right.
• 1:06:40
  So, yeah, I think that's the rationale for like offering a
• 1:06:43
  meaningful reduction in the sentence to to kind of encourage
• 1:06:47
  people to, to admit to it rather than to try and get more
• 1:06:50
  information. Although obviously we've seen in
• 1:06:52
  other cases that corporation also gets you time off your your
• 1:06:55
  sentence. But I think the point I was
• 1:06:58
  trying to make was USATF now have a choice of they have to
• 1:07:02
  decide who they want to allow to transfer allegiance to the US.
• 1:07:07
  And unfortunately for Kenyan athletes who like we've
• 1:07:11
  obviously got a lot of Kenyan athletes who come over to NCAA
• 1:07:14
  and some of those may be trying to kind of go on that pathway.
• 1:07:18
  You know, and I feel like this will this in particular is going
• 1:07:23
  to make it like really be like, are USATF going to take that
• 1:07:26
  risk now, especially with the context of like doping in Kenya
• 1:07:31
  more widely and then with the context of, you know, Jonah
• 1:07:35
  Kovacs then being an athlete who comes goes back and forth from
• 1:07:38
  Kenya. And you know, that might be
• 1:07:42
  that, you know, it's an unfair brush to paint everyone with,
• 1:07:44
  but you can see that that might be that where they're thinking
• 1:07:48
  where they've only got a limited number of people that they can
• 1:07:51
  allow to transfer allegiance. They will want to make sure it's
• 1:07:54
  someone who is going to be fully resident staying in the US
• 1:07:58
  almost the entire time where they can kind of be fully part
• 1:08:01
  of a group. And even like this guy was part
• 1:08:03
  of a group and they would still like, you know, able to, to, to
• 1:08:07
  do this. Well, I guess like.
• 1:08:08
  A part of a group, but then also not part of the group like a.
• 1:08:11
  Yeah. We don't know all the details,
• 1:08:12
  but I think yeah, there there there is that context to it that
• 1:08:15
  he was sponsored, he was part of the group like that.
• 1:08:17
  You'd have thought that there would be a bit more kind of
• 1:08:20
  visibility on that. But even in that circumstance
• 1:08:23
  that it, this happened, so I, I worry that it, it closes the
• 1:08:28
  door for for potential Kenyan athletes you want to transfer,
• 1:08:30
  because USATF will say we're not going to take the risk.
• 1:08:33
  We'd rather have another athlete from another country who might
• 1:08:36
  be or might even not be from another country, but might have
• 1:08:39
  kind of just represents another country because of the easier
• 1:08:42
  pathway to, to maybe make teams or something.
• 1:08:44
  But is like a fully U.S. President born whatever athlete
• 1:08:49
  or something like that. They, they, because there are
• 1:08:50
  loads of people, I'm sure that want to transfer allegiance to
• 1:08:53
  the US. So I, I do worry that that that
• 1:08:56
  comes into the picture. So I think that that's an issue
• 1:08:59
  that that comes out of this. And I think it's just, yeah,
• 1:09:01
  it's just really unfortunate. Ruined it for for future
• 1:09:04
  generations. Exactly.
• 1:09:05
  And, and yeah, I think that's just really unfortunate.
• 1:09:07
  And yeah, I mean, it's something that you don't want to see at
• 1:09:11
  any level of the sport, but for someone to come and win US
• 1:09:15
  champs in the way they did. The other thing is obviously a
• 1:09:17
  late career kind of massive kind of improvement, right?
• 1:09:22
  Like that. That's the kind of thing where,
• 1:09:25
  you know, people always like behind the scenes.
• 1:09:27
  People don't always say out loud, but people always have
• 1:09:29
  questions when someone makes a massive improvement and suddenly
• 1:09:34
  makes a massive improvement late in their career.
• 1:09:36
  And I do think that this is a circumstance where like, that's
• 1:09:41
  happened and it's then proven to be too good to be true.
• 1:09:44
  And unfortunately, again, that plays into a separate narrative
• 1:09:46
  around those things, right? So it's it's unfortunate on so
• 1:09:50
  many levels. And yeah, we can only hope that
• 1:09:55
  like the testing and the kind of policing and process around this
• 1:09:59
  stuff gets better. But it's just hard.
• 1:10:01
  It's expensive to test the sheer number of athletes that we have
• 1:10:04
  to the extent that's needed to perhaps keep up with with
• 1:10:07
  doping. Yeah, I'm sure.
• 1:10:11
  Well, hopefully it's not the last.
• 1:10:13
  We just sort of learn from this whole entire case again, like
• 1:10:15
  the the missing details that are out there, what Kowich admitted
• 1:10:21
  to maybe who helped him in this process, why USADA hasn't
• 1:10:27
  explained why they didn't test him for three years.
• 1:10:30
  And then there's the also the part that gets murky is just
• 1:10:34
  like why when his samples were flagged?
• 1:10:37
  This could also be because results don't come back as
• 1:10:42
  quick. But when you flag samples from
• 1:10:44
  July and August in 2025, he still went out and competed at
• 1:10:47
  the World Championships in September of 2025 and he
• 1:10:50
  finished. That we do have some explanation
• 1:10:52
  of, right, because we have the explanation that they needed
• 1:10:55
  more samples to build up a biological passport profile
• 1:10:59
  because he didn't test positive for a banned substance.
• 1:11:02
  No, yeah, and. Blood doping is where you have a
• 1:11:06
  This is old school doping. Where old blood?
• 1:11:09
  Yeah, blood fusions, which kind of then improve your you know
• 1:11:13
  oxygen and like is it the same effect as EPO effectively, but
• 1:11:16
  by just having fresh blood put in and so you know it's it's
• 1:11:22
  very old school doping it but. You put it nicely in our in our
• 1:11:26
  group chat. You're like blood getting caught
• 1:11:27
  blood doping in 20. 26 This is. Why?
• 1:11:30
  Exactly. Like, I mean, but I think, yeah,
• 1:11:32
  it's one of the things where you don't technically test positive,
• 1:11:35
  right? Because all you've done is had a
• 1:11:36
  blood transfusion affected. But I, I just think that, yeah,
• 1:11:41
  yeah, we, we just have to. But I think, yeah, they had to
• 1:11:47
  get more samples. And therefore, and this is not
• 1:11:50
  something where you can slam dunk, say, OK, one off test,
• 1:11:52
  this is what happened. So they had to give it a proof
• 1:11:55
  to make it slam dunk enough that they could then charge him and
• 1:11:58
  go to him and say, you've been doing this, you really have.
• 1:12:01
  And he's obviously then admitted to it.
• 1:12:02
  But they obviously had to have enough evidence.
• 1:12:04
  And that takes time, and it is a little.
• 1:12:06
  Unfortunate. I mean it's their problem was
• 1:12:09
  they didn't test them at all in 2024 to have more.
• 1:12:11
  Samples. Samples, yeah.
• 1:12:12
  Yeah, exactly. Crazy.
• 1:12:16
  Well, so he ruined it if Emmanuel Caprono wants to switch
• 1:12:19
  allegiance to United States. Well, well, well, about time for
• 1:12:27
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• 1:14:00
  We're going to talk about the best performances from the World
• 1:14:04
  U20 Championships now and I think the craziest performance
• 1:14:08
  was Emmanuel Cabrono soloing a championship record 728 to win
• 1:14:16
  gold in the men's 3K. The U20 world record is by Yomi
• 1:14:22
  Kajelcha and he missed it by point O 9 seconds.
• 1:14:27
  I mean he just absolutely took off in 226 for the first K 355
• 1:14:32
  for the 1st 1600 and dominated this whole entire field, soloed
• 1:14:38
  the whole entire thing. If there's one race to go out
• 1:14:41
  and on YouTube and try and find to rewatch, it's probably this
• 1:14:45
  one. To me, like this was the
• 1:14:48
  craziest performance of the U20 championships.
• 1:14:52
  Yeah, I mean, absolutely wild. But like performance and yeah, I
• 1:14:56
  think we've, I think people have been saying, like Jakob has
• 1:14:59
  said, and I think there's all the discussion around Jakob
• 1:15:02
  Paris, you know, Olympic final was he went out too hard going
• 1:15:07
  out in a 54 in a 1500 and this guy goes out in 55 in a three in
• 1:15:12
  the second lap of a 3K and still managing second lap.
• 1:15:15
  Yeah, second lap of a 3K and manages to run 728.
• 1:15:18
  So like hugely like wild way to do it and yeah, I mean it looks
• 1:15:25
  like and I and I think the suggestion is he is not you
• 1:15:28
  know, as much of his offer, the suspicion he is genuinely in
• 1:15:32
  high school. He's not like a, you know,
• 1:15:34
  overrage athlete or anything like the issues we had with with
• 1:15:37
  some of the Ethiopian athletes like last year we discovered
• 1:15:40
  from previous world U 20s. But you know, he's, he's a, he's
• 1:15:44
  the real deal. And yeah, it'll be exciting to
• 1:15:46
  see what what you can do going forward.
• 1:15:48
  I do appreciate that the media kept Jacob's interview at at
• 1:15:52
  Europeans to just solely him breaking down and and analysing,
• 1:15:56
  you know, his performance and the race and just sort of the
• 1:15:59
  injury come back. But there were just sort of
• 1:16:01
  three misses unlike performances.
• 1:16:03
  I would love to hear his opinion on one.
• 1:16:05
  Is Emmanuel Cabrono running this fast time?
• 1:16:08
  No one asked him about Josh Kerr's mile world record, to my
• 1:16:13
  surprise. Like usually those two are just
• 1:16:16
  always asked about. I'm, I'm, I am surprised
• 1:16:19
  actually, to be fair that like the papers because they we were
• 1:16:21
  all in the same interview, like we had the British papers like
• 1:16:23
  the main journalist. And no one.
• 1:16:24
  Asked and no one asked. I was just surprised because
• 1:16:26
  they're normally the guys that will ask the questions that they
• 1:16:28
  know might annoy him a little bit, but but obviously could
• 1:16:31
  give us an interesting sound bite.
• 1:16:33
  But no one did. And obviously I also wanted to
• 1:16:35
  ask him about whether he's going to compete at while Ultimates
• 1:16:37
  and stuff like that. And we we didn't ask him that
• 1:16:39
  either, so. And then the the final
• 1:16:41
  performance is this Stroll I. Know you were, Curly asked that
• 1:16:46
  question. I didn't want to get laughed out
• 1:16:48
  of the interview or or get burned to a crisp by him like
• 1:16:52
  razor, like laser eyes like I was.
• 1:16:57
  I was not ready for that. Yeah.
• 1:16:59
  So this Stroller mile world record, which I do want to talk
• 1:17:03
  about just very briefly. We'll get back to to you 20s in
• 1:17:06
  a second. So Stephen Biebelhausen was
• 1:17:10
  pushing his one year old who was absolutely kicking her legs the
• 1:17:17
  whole entire time. So shout out baby Blake at this
• 1:17:20
  is this all took place at the Guardian Mile on Saturday in
• 1:17:23
  Cleveland. We streamed the races and I'm
• 1:17:26
  glad that Mack chose to stream the Masters and stroller Mile as
• 1:17:29
  a way to kind of test out the stream because we would have we
• 1:17:33
  wouldn't have seen this performance had he not done
• 1:17:36
  that. And so Steven ends up running
• 1:17:38
  417.7. That's 9 seconds faster than the
• 1:17:44
  mile on the track. I think that the Guinness Book
• 1:17:47
  of World Records recognizes as a world record.
• 1:17:50
  I think because of the nature of the bridge in the downhill, I
• 1:17:54
  don't necessarily know if it will meet world athletic
• 1:17:57
  standards for a mile world record, but nonetheless, it is
• 1:18:01
  the fastest mile ever run while pushing a stroller.
• 1:18:04
  And I mean, it's gone super viral.
• 1:18:09
  Washington Post has an article up today.
• 1:18:11
  I saw it aggregated in so many different places.
• 1:18:15
  You know, tons of views on on our Instagram.
• 1:18:18
  I think it was also on Fox News. They were discussing it as well.
• 1:18:25
  But the thing that I think I texted in our group chat is that
• 1:18:29
  you can make a case that Josh Kerr called a shot that he would
• 1:18:35
  break the mile world record. At the London Diamond League
• 1:18:38
  and, you know, ballsy, awesome, epic.
• 1:18:43
  However, maybe that's not as hard as trying to run.
• 1:18:47
  The Stroller Mile World record because unless you're borrowing
• 1:18:51
  someone's baby, which requires a lot of.
• 1:18:54
  Trust from another parent and you want a baby that is perfect
• 1:19:00
  size for a stroller and to, you know, run this record.
• 1:19:03
  Then you need to not just, you know, pick a date and time to,
• 1:19:10
  you know, run this record attempt, but you need to have
• 1:19:13
  the time the baby's birth. Then you need the baby's growth
• 1:19:17
  curve to peak at the exact right moment because if it's too
• 1:19:22
  early, then the baby doesn't have any neck strength and
• 1:19:25
  you're not going to be able to have a baby safely in the
• 1:19:31
  stroller or they're maybe too small.
• 1:19:32
  You don't want to run that risk and if it's too late then you're
• 1:19:37
  pushing too heavy of a baby. So you really need the perfect
• 1:19:43
  race to line up with the perfect fitness and in addition to that
• 1:19:48
  the babies development and fitness.
• 1:19:51
  So more variables, potentially tougher to try and go after that
• 1:19:57
  record, maybe 417 lasts longer than.
• 1:20:02
  Hisham, Al Guru's record said. But although I think the
• 1:20:06
  Guardian miles should lean a little bit more into the
• 1:20:10
  stroller mile, especially when they, you know, just delivered
• 1:20:13
  this epic performance. Colby Alexander, former
• 1:20:15
  professional runner, was second in 431 so.
• 1:20:20
  This could be a good. Fun opportunity for pros to go
• 1:20:23
  out to Cleveland and run on the Memorial Bridge.
• 1:20:26
  Clock a fast time and maybe this record trades hands, but if not
• 1:20:30
  then like you need a lot of things to line up to try and
• 1:20:33
  break 417. So that's my little aside on the
• 1:20:36
  Stroller Mile world record, which I've just been enamoured
• 1:20:40
  and fascinated. With over the last couple days.
• 1:20:43
  Did it make? Did it make I I'm still just
• 1:20:46
  sort of disappointed he didn't ask Yakim about it because his
• 1:20:50
  kid, I think, is at the right side.
• 1:20:53
  Yeah, I think they're at the right side.
• 1:20:54
  You should. Tag his wife because his wife
• 1:20:56
  commented on one of our posts which was quite funny about
• 1:20:59
  Yakim. So maybe just tag his wife and
• 1:21:02
  say get Yakim to do this because she might actually respond and
• 1:21:06
  that'll be fun. But I I as in, yeah, I mean, I'm
• 1:21:10
  worried about the stroller. Like what if the stroller it's
• 1:21:12
  got to be the right stroller as well.
• 1:21:13
  Like it's got to be able to go the.
• 1:21:14
  Memorial Bridge appears to be very well paved and there was
• 1:21:20
  maybe next year. That's a safety precaution.
• 1:21:22
  You require all the the babies to wear helmets.
• 1:21:25
  Yeah, it does feel like that, that that needs to be a cause.
• 1:21:28
  What? If this baby was having the time
• 1:21:30
  of their life, and I do got to say what elevates the video is
• 1:21:35
  also the commentary by Daniel Wynne, Eric Jenkins and Johnny
• 1:21:38
  Grigoric. They were fantastic on the on
• 1:21:40
  the mic for that race. And so, yeah, so good.
• 1:21:44
  So, yeah, maybe we'll see that baby competing at U 20S in about
• 1:21:49
  19 years or so, so or let me know, maybe even less than that.
• 1:21:54
  So, OK, tangent done U 20's. the US finished with 24 medals, 12
• 1:22:02
  gold. The breakout stars were Tay
• 1:22:04
  Taylor. He swept, you know, needed
• 1:22:07
  triple gold where he won the 100 in 994, the 200 in 1983 and
• 1:22:15
  anchored the four by one. He also had Mia Maxwell.
• 1:22:21
  She swept the 100 and 200. LA Ezra Brown.
• 1:22:24
  He was fantastic in the 110 hurdles, ran 1283 in the first
• 1:22:30
  round and then came back and ran 1272 to tie Sasha Zoya's World
• 1:22:35
  U20 record. The caveat to remember is that
• 1:22:41
  the hurdle heights are a little bit lower at the U20 level than
• 1:22:46
  in. The.
• 1:22:47
  Senior level and then I you know what?
• 1:22:52
  The other great performance that I want to highlight is Claire
• 1:22:56
  Stagall. At least like from a Team USA.
• 1:22:59
  Standpoint so she finished second in the women's 1500
• 1:23:06
  Kenya's Josephine Sambayu Mancha won but they this race went out
• 1:23:13
  in 78 for the first lap and then you I I'm watching Claire
• 1:23:21
  Stagall closely because she's just been a fantastic racer over
• 1:23:25
  the last couple months won the U20 championships didn't have
• 1:23:31
  before that didn't have the best NCAA's but I'm choosing to look
• 1:23:37
  past that. Then at the US championships I
• 1:23:39
  think was 5th place as well against you know the pros in a
• 1:23:43
  race that also came down to a kick and yeah so she's run four
• 1:23:50
  O 5 so far this season. A lot of people that doesn't
• 1:23:53
  with all these crazy fast times that people are running it
• 1:23:57
  doesn't really move folks all that much.
• 1:23:59
  But the biggest takeaways is that Claire Segall is such a
• 1:24:03
  good racer. Just when it looks like she's
• 1:24:05
  about to get dropped with a lap to go she responds and hung on
• 1:24:11
  final 200 meter. I mean, close the final lap in
• 1:24:14
  60 seconds. 6073 fastest in the whole field last. 800 was 2O3 in
• 1:24:23
  the last. Couple years from the high
• 1:24:25
  school ranks, everyone's gotten enamored by the success of the
• 1:24:30
  likes of a Caitlin Toohey, Jane Hedegren.
• 1:24:34
  You had Sadie Sadie Englehart never Paige Shepherd still in
• 1:24:41
  high school right now. But Claire has flown under the
• 1:24:44
  radar just completed her freshman year at the University
• 1:24:47
  of Florida. But before that, like she'd
• 1:24:49
  signed her NIL with New Balance as a high school star.
• 1:24:53
  So we've, you know, she's been on our radar for a bit, was a
• 1:24:56
  little bit banged up and injured, mostly focusing on the
• 1:24:58
  800, but really has found her own here in the 1500 and will
• 1:25:03
  certainly be someone to watch over the next couple years.
• 1:25:07
  Just I think the the what she showcased so far and how she
• 1:25:10
  races is really, really encouraging.
• 1:25:14
  Yeah. And I think like we know that
• 1:25:16
  like having that kick and that racing instinct is something
• 1:25:19
  that's hard sometimes to develop.
• 1:25:21
  But if you have that, you can, you know, as you mature, when
• 1:25:24
  you get more training and you you can build up to the faster
• 1:25:27
  times. So it's, it's very possible
• 1:25:30
  that, you know, then if she's able to get down to four flats
• 1:25:32
  and four fitness, then she's very, very competitive in AUS as
• 1:25:37
  like to make teams and, and, and, and, and even like on the
• 1:25:41
  world stage, getting through heats and stuff.
• 1:25:42
  It's that's, that's kind of a skill set that you need.
• 1:25:45
  So definitely a very exciting prospect for the future.
• 1:25:49
  Yeah, she's running. OK, so she's running four O
• 1:25:50
  4.59, second fastest American U20 behind Elise Cranny.
• 1:25:56
  She's ahead of the likes of Mary Kane, Jane Hennigan and this was
• 1:26:02
  the US is only second medal in the 1500 at the U20
• 1:26:05
  Championships. Christina Aragon won bronze back
• 1:26:09
  in 2016 and the cool part is that Claire Stagall is in the
• 1:26:15
  right hands with coach Will Palmer based off of just what we
• 1:26:19
  know so far of of her training. She's a super low mileage
• 1:26:23
  athlete. Paul Hoff Mahoney actually wrote
• 1:26:25
  a whole profile on Claire for the Alligator at the University
• 1:26:30
  of Florida couple months back. But she runs about 20 miles a
• 1:26:34
  week, does work on the altar G, the elliptical, I presume the
• 1:26:39
  arc trainer, if that's what worked for Parker Valley back in
• 1:26:42
  the day at UF. And given Claire's history of
• 1:26:47
  injuries in high school, it's more of a cautious approach to
• 1:26:51
  her college development. And so it's working right now.
• 1:26:55
  And if she's doing this off of, you know, 20 miles a week, it's
• 1:27:00
  once that volume goes up, you know, safely over the next
• 1:27:04
  couple years, she could be even better.
• 1:27:07
  So very, very cool. Was it, was there any other
• 1:27:10
  performance that really stood out to you from you 20s?
• 1:27:13
  I mean, I, I think you have to give credit to, you know, the
• 1:27:16
  obviously Shenoy Douglas of Jamaica as well, like she was
• 1:27:19
  the other favorite coming in and in terms of the sprints and, and
• 1:27:23
  she. Gary Carr too.
• 1:27:24
  So Jamaica's got their two big stars.
• 1:27:26
  Well, the US has Tate Taylor and Mia Maxwell.
• 1:27:30
  Yeah, and they've got Gary Carter, Shenoy, Douglas Ranwell
• 1:27:32
  as well. So I mean, I think the the the
• 1:27:35
  U20 stars showed out. It shows like the future of that
• 1:27:38
  US Jamaica rivalry is in good hands with with with all of them
• 1:27:42
  and and you know, and they are running times which are going to
• 1:27:47
  be very quickly in the next couple of years competitive on
• 1:27:49
  the world level and Tate Taylor's already there and the
• 1:27:51
  others are getting getting close very quickly.
• 1:27:54
  So but. Don't forget about Australia.
• 1:27:56
  Australia also had a great. Chance.
• 1:27:57
  Australia, yeah, Australia. I mean Australia.
• 1:27:59
  And if you think about it, Australia, like if you think
• 1:28:01
  someone who's at U20 level now is going to be at the peak of
• 1:28:04
  their career for Brisbane, you know, for the Brisbane Olympics
• 1:28:08
  in what is it, 2032? So that is very exciting.
• 1:28:14
  You know, you know, they're going to be 2425 years old for
• 1:28:16
  the Brisbane Olympics. So they have a generation,
• 1:28:19
  they've already got a generation that's that's really strong.
• 1:28:22
  Like they obviously rule the roots at the Commonwealth Games
• 1:28:25
  in track and field. And yeah, they're in.
• 1:28:28
  What? What?
• 1:28:30
  What phrase did you use? In track and field no no.
• 1:28:33
  No, you said ruled the. Roost ruled the roost.
• 1:28:36
  Yeah, so like. OK, explain that one.
• 1:28:40
  Well, yeah, when you were like, so the, the, it's the chicken,
• 1:28:43
  like a chicken coop, right? Like the king, like the rooster
• 1:28:46
  rules the rules the chicken coop.
• 1:28:48
  So that's the origin of the phrase.
• 1:28:51
  So yeah. OK, I haven't heard that one.
• 1:28:53
  There you go. I know we've been trying to find
• 1:28:54
  new phrases every time. So that's the one for this week
• 1:28:57
  then. So that's.
• 1:28:58
  One for this week. OK, I'll be using that one.
• 1:29:00
  Yeah, so they, yeah, so they will the roster at Commonwealth
• 1:29:03
  Games and they they sort of did really well at U 20s as well.
• 1:29:06
  And yeah, it's very exciting to see them kind of carry on that
• 1:29:10
  momentum. Do you think Tay Taylor ends up
• 1:29:17
  being one of the biggest stars from these championships?
• 1:29:20
  Has it cooled the hype around Gout Gout?
• 1:29:25
  I don't think so because Gaga was injured.
• 1:29:28
  I mean, like there's there's nothing like obviously we would
• 1:29:30
  have loved to seen the match up and I think it would have been
• 1:29:34
  exciting to watch. I think the height like, and I
• 1:29:39
  think you have to realize that like when you have a star that's
• 1:29:42
  not in the US, it's very different to a star overseas,
• 1:29:46
  right? And someone like Gaga, as long
• 1:29:48
  as he kind of comes back from injury next year, like I hope, I
• 1:29:51
  hope he's able to kind of overcome the injury because
• 1:29:53
  that's obviously always the challenge, right when you're a
• 1:29:55
  sprinter. And if you become injury prone.
• 1:29:57
  Then like we had Amy Hunt, who was basically gone for six years
• 1:30:01
  and then came back and won a world silver medal.
• 1:30:02
  She was the world whatever you 18 or you whatever it was world
• 1:30:06
  record holder for 200 meters. And then she, you know,
• 1:30:10
  disappeared for a few years with severe injuries.
• 1:30:12
  And like, if gout gout keeps up that level of momentum that he's
• 1:30:17
  got, having got the world U20 record, like having kind of got
• 1:30:22
  that profile in Australia, he's able to keep on performing and
• 1:30:25
  improving. I, I think it will be I, I don't
• 1:30:29
  think you lose that momentum so easily when you don't have as
• 1:30:33
  many like especially big Sprint stars, right, like in Australia.
• 1:30:38
  And I think so that so I don't think that's the case.
• 1:30:42
  I think Ted Taylor obviously will be a big star, but because
• 1:30:45
  the US already has a million Sprint stars, right?
• 1:30:48
  Like is he going to over shadow Noah and Shikari unless he
• 1:30:52
  starts beating them? Probably not, right?
• 1:30:56
  I think that's that's a different kind of ball game.
• 1:30:58
  Obviously he's beaten Tobogo, so he's, he's, he's starting to
• 1:31:02
  make a name for himself and like with the times he's running, he
• 1:31:04
  could win diamond leagues. He could like he could establish
• 1:31:07
  himself at that like pro level quite quite well.
• 1:31:11
  But he's still then going to be playing second fiddle to a Noah
• 1:31:13
  Lyles or Kenny B / 200 meters. Like, you know, unfortunately,
• 1:31:17
  like there's just so much competition at US level.
• 1:31:19
  I think it's, it's harder to stand out as a, as a top
• 1:31:22
  sprinter, which is, which is a little unfortunate.
• 1:31:23
  Obviously with his youth that helps, but he's then got to go
• 1:31:27
  and I don't know, win, win the World Championships next year or
• 1:31:30
  something to kind of breakthrough, I suppose, if
• 1:31:33
  you're AUS sprunter. Whereas GAO GAO could rock up
• 1:31:36
  and make the final next year in Beijing and that would make him
• 1:31:39
  like even more of a star. I think that the bar is set very
• 1:31:42
  differently because of the fact that he's from Australia because
• 1:31:46
  of that. Just that US kind of thing,
• 1:31:48
  right? I think he's saying true of
• 1:31:51
  Jamaica as well for the stars in like the sprints, right?
• 1:31:55
  Yeah, we're discussing hype, but I, I mean, do you think
• 1:31:58
  assessing Tate Taylor's pro prospects versus Gout Gout's pro
• 1:32:03
  prospects, like who do you think has the better 2027?
• 1:32:09
  I think I leaned Tate Taylor right now.
• 1:32:11
  Right now maybe, but I think, I mean we know that Gout Gout's
• 1:32:14
  trajectory is 2032. It's not it's not 2027 whilst
• 1:32:17
  yeah, so that's also a different like it's I, I, I I'm not sure
• 1:32:24
  that you're comparing it's hard to compare apples and apples,
• 1:32:26
  apples and apples like it's they are going to be more cautious
• 1:32:29
  with them. I'll take Taylor, We've seen him
• 1:32:31
  this year take every single opportunity and and do very well
• 1:32:34
  with it. But.
• 1:32:35
  I just don't understand if he's going to college like I at this
• 1:32:38
  point. You just want.
• 1:32:39
  Three U20 golds you've beaten to Bogo.
• 1:32:44
  I don't know, I, I think it's time to just sign the pro deal,
• 1:32:49
  but who knows, I guess like that also remains yet to be seen.
• 1:32:54
  All right, well, we got through a lot in this one and you're at
• 1:32:59
  the Media Center getting ready for another session ahead.
• 1:33:03
  So for folks, we will do a recap of the European Championships on
• 1:33:10
  next week's episode. Domestic racing here in the
• 1:33:13
  States. I believe Falmouth is taking
• 1:33:15
  place this weekend, Conor Manse back into action and there
• 1:33:22
  should be some solid races there.
• 1:33:24
  But other than that, we've got Europeans to entertain us.
• 1:33:28
  And the pro tip for folks is I think you can just watch it on
• 1:33:32
  Eurosport. I didn't need to get.
• 1:33:34
  AVPN or. Anything.
• 1:33:36
  Yeah, exactly. It's Eurovision sport.
• 1:33:38
  It is the kind of broadcasting. It's the same people that do the
• 1:33:41
  Eurovision Song Contest, would you believe, but they have a
• 1:33:44
  Eurovision sport app you can download.
• 1:33:46
  You just have to register for a free account.
• 1:33:48
  And you you get like various streams.
• 1:33:52
  You'll get the sort of world feed, which is kind of Tim
• 1:33:55
  Hutchings, Andrew England, Phil Mitchell commentating, so good
• 1:33:58
  commentary feed. You also get multiple like all
• 1:34:01
  the field event feeds and whatever you want as well.
• 1:34:04
  So really, really good, high quality coverage available for
• 1:34:09
  free. So go watch it.
• 1:34:11
  There's track, track and field to watch and those those.
• 1:34:15
  Maybe maybe the stream is so good and that's why people are
• 1:34:17
  staying home and just watching it.
• 1:34:19
  And. Instead, they're not coming out
• 1:34:21
  to the stadium. To be fair, like I'm watching,
• 1:34:24
  obviously I'm at the you can see I'm at the window like by the in
• 1:34:27
  the media centre. I but there seem to be quite a
• 1:34:29
  lot more people coming in for this evening session.
• 1:34:31
  So that's good. Hopefully there will be be a lot
• 1:34:34
  more people there. I have just missed there.
• 1:34:36
  You might have heard the the national anthem of, of the UKUK
• 1:34:40
  playing in the background because they just did maybe Amy
• 1:34:43
  Hunt's medal ceremony. But yeah, so I think there are a
• 1:34:47
  lot. More people go out there and
• 1:34:50
  keep crushing it with the the interviews and we'll catch
• 1:34:53
  everyone next week. Be sure to follow along Cities
• 1:34:57
  Mag, Instagram, Twitter, everywhere for all the coverage
• 1:35:00
  from the European Championships and beyond.
• 1:35:05
  All right, that's a wrap on today's episode.
• 1:35:07
  Thanks for listening, for the time, the curiosity, and for
• 1:35:09
  making this show part of your routine or your run.
• 1:35:13
  A big thanks to our producer Jasmine Fair and to everyone
• 1:35:16
  behind the scenes who helps make the Cities Mag Podcast happen.
• 1:35:19
  If you enjoyed today's episode, a quick five star review on
• 1:35:21
  Apple Podcast or Spotify helps people find this show and we
• 1:35:25
  read every single one. You can find
• 1:35:27
  muchmoretrackandfieldcoverage@sidiousmag.com and you can follow along across
• 1:35:31
  all of Sidious Mag social channels.
• 1:35:32
  We'll see you next time. Thanks again for listening.