Latest / The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show / This Week In Track & Field: Audrey Werro Takes Down Keely Hodgkinson Again, Femke Bol Shines Again, Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s Beef With Josh Kerr Still Alive + 2028 Olympic Trials Return To Eugene

Transcript

This Week In Track & Field: Audrey Werro Takes Down Keely Hodgkinson Again, Femke Bol Shines Again, Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s Beef With Josh Kerr Still Alive + 2028 Olympic Trials Return To Eugene · The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show

• 0:07
  All right, it is August 18th. I'm Chris Chavez.
• 0:11
  I'm Kyle Merber. And this week in track and
• 0:14
  field, we are recapping some of the biggest performances that
• 0:17
  took place at the European Championships, including an epic
• 0:22
  women's 800 that lived up to the hype.
• 0:25
  We saw some of the best in the world get lapped in a men's 10K.
• 0:30
  Georgia Hunter Bell added yet another international gold medal
• 0:33
  to her collection this year. Amy Hunt swept 4 gold medals in
• 0:39
  Birmingham. And then we also got the news
• 0:43
  that we have another trip to Eugene on the horizon in 2028 as
• 0:48
  the US Olympic Trials have been awarded to Hayward Field for the
• 0:52
  6th time. And then last but not least, the
• 0:57
  Josh Kerr Jakob Ingebrigtsen beef is alive and well and will
• 1:01
  unpack Jakob's latest comments saying that athletes who skipped
• 1:06
  championships are ruining the sport.
• 1:09
  And we know just exactly who that was directed at.
• 1:12
  But I guess let's just catch up a little bit, Kyle, because it's
• 1:17
  been a while since you've been on the podcast with me.
• 1:20
  Last week we dropped the episode with you and coach Galen Rupp.
• 1:25
  What's been sort of the reaction from it?
• 1:28
  I feel like you've picked up a couple Strava followers.
• 1:31
  I've picked up more than a couple Strava followers.
• 1:33
  People want to see what Galen would do with a a mediocre,
• 1:37
  washed up runner and they're going to find out.
• 1:40
  It's been fun. I mean, people have been like,
• 1:42
  I've never heard Galen talk for this long and this in depth.
• 1:46
  And so that was like the entire premise of why we thought it
• 1:49
  would be fun to do. He's now 40 and has lots of
• 1:53
  experience in the marathon, and we've never heard enough of it.
• 1:56
  So, yeah, again, like the thing that's just really fun for me is
• 2:02
  I don't, I don't think I was prepared for him to be so into
• 2:05
  it. Yeah, I you.
• 2:07
  You shared one of the text messages that he sent you with
• 2:10
  me and it was paragraphs long about just kind of think he was
• 2:14
  kind of unpacking a couple weeks of training, but it was like
• 2:17
  well thought out and explained like what he's got you doing.
• 2:21
  No, he's, he's fully in, so I've got no excuse now I have to
• 2:27
  fully commit and do my best, but.
• 2:30
  Now, what's the extent of the the relationship?
• 2:33
  Like are you texting him after these workouts being like, hey,
• 2:35
  like this one really sucked or like are you just a one text a
• 2:39
  week? Like you don't want to just come
• 2:41
  off too strong. I mean, we're not even 2 weeks
• 2:44
  in yet, so it's mainly before the workout, make sure I have an
• 2:51
  understanding or if I'm thinking about a pace adjustment or rest
• 2:55
  or whatever. And then afterwards I just let
• 2:57
  him know how it goes. But yeah, I don't want to.
• 3:00
  You can't go seven days a week. No, he's going to be like, I'm
• 3:04
  not paying him. Yeah.
• 3:06
  He's doing it ad hoc, pro bono, and so yeah, we're having fun
• 3:15
  with it. Now is he, does he feel like a
• 3:18
  blend of old school and new school?
• 3:20
  Because like he, he does crossover between two eras of
• 3:24
  the sport And like there's elements of the training that I
• 3:27
  feel like you're just like, oh, like this sounds like what I
• 3:31
  used to do. And then there's other parts of
• 3:33
  it that are probably like, oh, this is the the, the trendy side
• 3:37
  of things that is seeping into his philosophy.
• 3:40
  He's definitely got some old school mentality there.
• 3:45
  I mean, he's like giving me the green light to hammer already,
• 3:48
  like just like make it hurt, whatever, you'll be fine.
• 3:51
  Which I feel like it's a very old school mentality of just
• 3:54
  like hammer yourself into shape. But then he also like, I think
• 3:59
  some of the most fun tidbits from the podcast were like
• 4:03
  insight into things that he's done in his marathon prep.
• 4:06
  So he was describing like before running the Boston Marathon, how
• 4:09
  he threw wooden planks underneath the treadmill so he
• 4:13
  could run downhill. And before his first 3
• 4:17
  marathons, he just like went to 711 and picked up some Powerade
• 4:21
  as his as his fuel. So I was joking saying like
• 4:25
  you're, you know, kind of get this reputation, but you're
• 4:27
  quite blue collar at the end of the day.
• 4:29
  Like it is, you got to run a lot, and he definitely runs a
• 4:32
  lot. So yeah, it's been fun.
• 4:35
  First time that anyone who owns an underwater treadmill and has
• 4:39
  their living room set to altitude has ever been called
• 4:42
  blue collar. Hey, look, gotta do the work.
• 4:46
  But yeah, it's been fun. We'll we'll see how it goes.
• 4:49
  A little bit of pressure now to perform.
• 4:54
  Yeah, now my hair is wet because I just got back jumped in the
• 4:57
  shower right before this workout.
• 4:58
  So I'm like on the fence right now as to whether or not I want
• 5:02
  to put in a hard effort for a marathon.
• 5:05
  Also just listening to that podcast, like kind of got me
• 5:08
  fired up. And so now I'm like, all right,
• 5:11
  I'm doing all this training in the summer for what like do I
• 5:14
  get try and go for PR at some point?
• 5:17
  So I am signed up for the wine glass marathon, but we'll see
• 5:22
  just exactly how strong that commitment is.
• 5:25
  They're very nicely provided a bib and we'll, I don't know,
• 5:29
  'cause running, you know, the the word is out.
• 5:32
  Eric announced it on Off the Rails.
• 5:34
  We are running the New York City Marathon.
• 5:37
  So you're doubling back after Chicago, but this one's more for
• 5:41
  fun and. We'll enjoy it.
• 5:43
  I think so, yeah. It's the I'm a because of
• 5:47
  writing the book, I'm more of a history buff.
• 5:49
  Like I want to appreciate like being at all 5 boroughs.
• 5:51
  This is the 50th anniversary of the five borough course and so
• 5:55
  I'll be the annoying one in the pack who's just pointing out to
• 5:59
  people like, oh, this is when this was added to the course and
• 6:02
  this is different from 50 years ago and so it should be a good
• 6:06
  time. So as we get closer.
• 6:09
  What that's that's when I'm going to start hammering.
• 6:11
  As soon as you start going into tour guide mode, I'll be like,
• 6:14
  all right, if Chris. Go on.
• 6:16
  But as when we get closer, we'll, we'll spread the word a
• 6:20
  little bit. If people are interested in
• 6:22
  joining the CITIUS MAG party pack, I think that's what I've,
• 6:24
  I've been calling it because it's literally we're going to
• 6:27
  try and, you know, celebrate and party for 26.2 miles.
• 6:30
  So it should be a good time. Stop doing your.
• 6:34
  Stop trying to do your long run at 10 AMI.
• 6:36
  Know that cost me last week but and then today the humidity cost
• 6:41
  me and I got out there early so I'm in I'm in a no win situation
• 6:44
  here but anyway, all right let's dive into some of the action
• 6:48
  that took place over the past week.
• 6:51
  I want to start with obviously European Championships and the
• 6:54
  race that was the most anticipated of the whole
• 6:58
  championships last week. We touched on Jacob's return,
• 7:02
  but it was really everyone fired up for this women's 800 because
• 7:06
  you had Audrey Werro versus Keely Hodgkinson for the first
• 7:10
  time I think since Stockholm and Werro beats Hodgkinson and to
• 7:17
  win her first major title running 15481, took it to the
• 7:22
  front and then just like never let up.
• 7:24
  Keely fought pretty damn hard, ended up silver 155 O1, also
• 7:30
  under the previous European Championship record.
• 7:33
  And then he also had Femke Bol running a personal best of
• 7:36
  155.54 for bronze in her first ever championship 800.
• 7:43
  No one else was within 3 seconds of that lead pack.
• 7:48
  Keely, I think took it to the front a little bit after the
• 7:51
  first bend, but then Werro went wide on the back, the back
• 7:55
  straight to take the lead at 300.
• 7:57
  They went through the 1st lap, 56, four second 400, covered
• 8:01
  with a 29, two through 600. And then Werro really opened up
• 8:06
  a gap off the final turn. So it was honestly thrilling
• 8:13
  because in your head you're watching this thinking, does
• 8:16
  Keely have enough fight to get it back?
• 8:19
  But Audrey just asserted herself as the stronger one in this one.
• 8:23
  And the the big thing is, is I it was very impressive from
• 8:29
  Wearo. And I don't think that Keely
• 8:32
  made any sort of mistakes. She would she there.
• 8:34
  She just happened to run into someone who was better than her,
• 8:37
  which has been the the case in the past.
• 8:40
  If you think back to 2021 Olympics, 2022 World
• 8:43
  Championships. So that's gonna happen.
• 8:46
  And we're just really lucky to be in this era of women's 800
• 8:50
  meter running because now, I mean, we'll get to just sort of
• 8:53
  what's coming up next. They're not shy to, you know, go
• 8:56
  up against one another. And I just love the storyline
• 9:00
  that has come up between these two.
• 9:02
  I. Mean it was such a good race the
• 9:05
  the fact that the podium went you know, essentially exactly as
• 9:09
  we would have determined, but by winning the Femke third back to
• 9:14
  4th place was over 3 1/2 seconds.
• 9:17
  So I guess if you predicted that podium accurately, it's not that
• 9:22
  impressive because they are quite a ways away from the rest
• 9:26
  of the field. But it did just deliver And I
• 9:31
  mean it was a tight race. I, I found it fascinating that
• 9:34
  they were both sharing the lead in the beginning.
• 9:38
  You know, I, it's funny 'cause I feel like it would been easy for
• 9:40
  Keely just to say, all right, we know Audrey likes to lead, let
• 9:42
  her go, but we've seen Keely lead plenty of times in control
• 9:46
  entire 8 hundreds. And so eventually Audrey won out
• 9:51
  and I, I, it's amazing to me that Keely is now like the
• 9:57
  veteran at 24 years old. She's, it's like, oh, like,
• 10:01
  yeah, she's been doing this forever.
• 10:02
  I think she's meddled at every single global championship since
• 10:06
  the 2020 Olympics 20. 1212 straight championships like if
• 10:11
  you so this is global and international championships.
• 10:15
  Yeah, so including Commonwealth and Europeans.
• 10:18
  And so it's just like incredible how much she's how consistent
• 10:23
  she's been, especially because it's not like she's been healthy
• 10:27
  the entire time, but she's found a way in the middle of the
• 10:29
  season, even when she has little things pop up to to bounce back
• 10:34
  and get into good form when it counts.
• 10:38
  It was awesome. I mean, Femka's right there
• 10:40
  though, closing the gap. We've got such good storyline
• 10:45
  developing here, obviously for the rest of the season, but just
• 10:48
  the next couple years. And I just these 34 because
• 10:53
  Keely is obviously young and has always been there because Audrey
• 10:56
  is young, because Femke is brand new.
• 10:59
  It's like, how do you, if you're someone else, how are you
• 11:02
  looking at this thinking where do I break?
• 11:04
  In well, well, you know, I, I am very excited by how well Femke
• 11:10
  has taken to this event and knowing how big of a threat
• 11:14
  she's going to be by the time LA rolls rolls along.
• 11:19
  But then I had to just remind myself that where is 22?
• 11:25
  She's two years younger than Keely, 4 years younger than
• 11:28
  Femka, five years younger than Lillian Odira, 10 years younger
• 11:33
  than Georgia Hunter Bell that, you know, although we are very
• 11:37
  excited by, you know, Femka's potential to overtake this event
• 11:44
  in two years. Werro can also lay claim to
• 11:46
  like, no, I'm not going away anytime.
• 11:49
  She's gonna be 24 by the time LA 2024 rolls 2028 rolls along.
• 11:54
  Yeah, I and has now like broken 155 S consistently that.
• 11:59
  Four of the five fastest times in the world this year, the only
• 12:02
  two sub 154 since the 1980s. Audrey, congratulations 15481
• 12:10
  from the front. Was it always the plan to to
• 12:12
  race the race like that? Yeah, it was always the plan to
• 12:15
  to go in the front because that I know that I am the yeah,
• 12:20
  strongest when I'm in the front of the race.
• 12:22
  So yeah, decided to go in the front and to mark a strong pace
• 12:27
  every 100 metres. And yeah, it was a little bit
• 12:29
  hard at the end to keep the pace.
• 12:32
  But yeah, I still manage it and now I'm just really happy.
• 12:36
  Yeah. And I mean, how did it feel to
• 12:37
  to cross that finish line in first place and, and sort of,
• 12:40
  you know, I'm guessing, you know, that's been part of what
• 12:43
  your season's been building. Towards.
• 12:46
  It was really a surprise because, yeah, I knew that I had
• 12:49
  the capacity to finish first, but with all the roller coaster
• 12:53
  that happened in the last, yeah, hours before the race, it was,
• 12:59
  yeah, really a surprise for me to finally be at the end of my
• 13:03
  championships and to finish with the gold medal.
• 13:06
  So yeah, I was just really just happy and surprised.
• 13:09
  You didn't feel sore or anything like that after the fall it.
• 13:13
  Was no, I was good, just some scratch but nothing.
• 13:17
  Yeah, serious. And yeah, I had also a good team
• 13:23
  around me and yeah, we did everything well and.
• 13:26
  I was ready for the final. Well done.
• 13:28
  Congratulations. Thank you.
• 13:30
  Something that I think was just really cool to see it was how
• 13:34
  like all three of the top finishers just were pumped after
• 13:39
  like thrill just be part like they recognize it.
• 13:42
  I think Keely was probably just caught off guard in Stockholm
• 13:46
  because she assumed that she was the the class of the field that
• 13:50
  day. And then where I had clearly,
• 13:54
  you know, levelled up. But it's just like they're all
• 13:57
  just enjoying it seems like. They're not scared to race each
• 13:59
  other. They're not scared to send it
• 14:01
  either. Sometimes you get 3 big dogs in
• 14:03
  a race and no one wants to go. And it's just like, all right.
• 14:06
  I think like we're going to see a lot of very good battles out
• 14:09
  of them for a long time. And thank God the the average
• 14:14
  British person is not in charge of determining who makes it into
• 14:17
  the final after getting tripped, because we may have never seen
• 14:20
  this match. Yeah, OK.
• 14:22
  I did want to address 2 sort of like online sets of online
• 14:26
  critics that took place over the weekend.
• 14:28
  So the first one is the people who didn't believe where I
• 14:32
  should have been in the final because the backdrop to that is
• 14:35
  obviously where it was clipped from behind and fell late in
• 14:38
  Thursday's semis. This is sort of like where
• 14:40
  there's a Zapruder film out there that people believe that
• 14:44
  where oh tripped herself. And you know, it's the
• 14:48
  equivalent of people reviewing the JFK shooting and officials
• 14:54
  decided to advance where to the final.
• 14:57
  A lot of people argued that she got a free semi final while
• 15:03
  Hodgkinson and Femka had to run 157.
• 15:07
  And I just think that it's absolutely ridiculous because
• 15:10
  she went down hard, hit the rail and you could see her on the
• 15:15
  broadcast. She was limping a little bit
• 15:17
  afterwards. And so it's not that she just
• 15:22
  got like a walked it in and was totally fine from it.
• 15:25
  That was a hard this is. This is the problem, like we all
• 15:28
  want the sport to be more popular and in the Great Britain
• 15:33
  it is very popular. But then you get mainstream fans
• 15:36
  who don't fully understand how things work chiming in with
• 15:40
  their opinions and man, you could tell who actually watches
• 15:44
  track and who just was there to root for.
• 15:46
  Keely Hodgkinson. These.
• 15:48
  People would have wanted Abby D'agostino DQ D from the Rio
• 15:52
  5000 meter heat. It's so obviously a reason to
• 15:57
  advance an athlete when you get clipped from behind.
• 15:59
  Now look, that doesn't mean that Audrey Werro doesn't have a very
• 16:03
  long history of falling in races.
• 16:05
  That's true. That dates back well into her
• 16:07
  junior career. And part of that is because she
• 16:09
  has such a long stride, and probably 1 of the reasons why we
• 16:13
  see her lead races all the time. But the fact of the matter is,
• 16:17
  if you had to choose between getting punched in the face or
• 16:20
  running 157 to advance the finals, most people would just
• 16:23
  be like, yeah, I'll just run 157.
• 16:25
  That seems a lot easier than eating the track.
• 16:28
  Yeah. So a ridiculous like what should
• 16:32
  be praised as inability to bounce back from like a probably
• 16:37
  a stressful and painful event being held against her by a
• 16:42
  certain population is is a fascinating spin zone.
• 16:45
  All right, so the other online population is the the folks who
• 16:49
  have turned against Keeley Hodgkinson for some reason.
• 16:52
  Like what what have you made of of of that?
• 16:54
  Is it just sort of like, like just this thought of because she
• 17:01
  was so good during the indoor season, she's the Olympic
• 17:05
  champion, that people just kind of assumed that the world record
• 17:12
  and all these wins would come to her.
• 17:14
  But now there's just been like a rise in other talent and it's
• 17:19
  just so weird. Like some there.
• 17:20
  The Keely haters are out. I think there's a few things at
• 17:25
  play. 1 is when someone's been good for a really long time, you
• 17:30
  got tired of seeing them run really well and you just want to
• 17:32
  see something else, right? Like that's I I'd wrote about
• 17:36
  why it was fun, like rooting for Jakob again, and it was because
• 17:41
  he was so good for so long. It reminded me of when he was
• 17:44
  really young and it was so exciting to see him like coming
• 17:46
  up and we're obviously rooting for him all the time.
• 17:49
  And then at some point, you're like, all right, well, he wins
• 17:50
  everything. It'd be nice to see someone else
• 17:53
  win. And you're not that you're
• 17:54
  rooting against him, but you're rooting for other people because
• 17:57
  it's like a more interesting story.
• 17:59
  And so Keely's like in this part of her career where she's just
• 18:03
  so good that it's like interesting to see someone else
• 18:07
  take a turn. So really, it's like a
• 18:10
  compliment in some way. And then I also think there are
• 18:16
  just such die hard Keely fans out there that people are not
• 18:21
  rooting against Keely. Keely's great and she is humble
• 18:26
  in defeat. She says the right thing.
• 18:28
  She brings a lot of personality. Like she's super talented.
• 18:31
  We like Keely, but I think there's a lot of Keely fans that
• 18:37
  are like crowning her before the race.
• 18:40
  And then when you're accusing Audrey of having like an
• 18:44
  advantage because she fell, it's like, all right, there's
• 18:47
  probably a population people rooting against Keely fans, not
• 18:51
  Keely herself. Yeah.
• 18:55
  I need to get selfie lights. Keely, what will the overriding
• 19:00
  emotions be from tonight? I think I've had a bit of time
• 19:04
  to think about it. I think when you feel like
• 19:08
  you've like not really put a foot wrong and it was a great
• 19:11
  race and it was really close, I can't really be too
• 19:13
  disappointed. I do think overall probably a
• 19:16
  bit better than that like time wise or would you probably say
• 19:20
  the same thing? But that's just how the race
• 19:22
  went. If we were both really strong.
• 19:25
  I thought till the end, I thought I was going to have it
• 19:27
  in the last 50, but ultimately she just had more and that is
• 19:31
  just that's it. How do you break down that race?
• 19:33
  What will the kind of the, what's the mindset going
• 19:35
  through, you know, 400 metres into it, I.
• 19:38
  Think what's really hard about the 8 is it's actually over so
• 19:40
  quickly and you can go into it with your plan.
• 19:43
  You can have 5 scenarios lined up for what could happen.
• 19:46
  And you do have to like think on your feet a little bit,
• 19:48
  especially in that 1st 200 meters.
• 19:50
  And that is part of the art of learning the 800.
• 19:54
  But yeah, I think it was a really honest race.
• 19:57
  It was fairly quick through 4 hundreds and obviously coming
• 20:00
  off the third race in four days, that's also another element to
• 20:03
  it. But yeah, I would have loved
• 20:05
  gold today. Didn't go my way but I did my
• 20:08
  best. You obviously have the knee cut
• 20:11
  situation before London. Do you feel like you're kind of
• 20:13
  back to that? Shape that you were.
• 20:15
  In Stockholm, in terms of the knees of feeling OK and you feel
• 20:19
  like I'm. Obviously fine, like healthy,
• 20:21
  happy. I'm in shape of my life.
• 20:22
  That's why I feel like I was a bit better than that today.
• 20:24
  A bit disappointed they didn't come out, but yeah, there's not
• 20:27
  really much I can do. I feel like I did my best.
• 20:29
  I no issues going into it. Yeah.
• 20:33
  And last one for me, that noise at the end in that last 100
• 20:36
  meters was similar to what Josh experienced in London.
• 20:39
  It it, it felt, it felt a bit like that.
• 20:41
  What do you hear much of that when you're going?
• 20:45
  Through I did hear the last hundreds and it definitely gave
• 20:48
  me a little bit of boost and I really thought I was going to
• 20:50
  have it, but no. Big thank you to everyone that
• 20:53
  came out to support us. It was a great race and it it's
• 20:56
  made even more fun and even better having a huge crowd like
• 20:59
  that, so I appreciate myself. It's you're talking about the
• 21:02
  crowd there and the support and running can be such like a
• 21:04
  numbers based sport. How does this like race and this
• 21:08
  whole season feel for you as an athlete outside of that?
• 21:10
  Because obviously it's maybe not exactly.
• 21:12
  What you wanted? But still, the races you've been
• 21:14
  running, have you've had some amazing.
• 21:16
  Results this season, so how do you see the position you're in?
• 21:19
  Yeah, I think overall I have had a really good season.
• 21:21
  Obviously I've met with a few challenges along the way, but I
• 21:24
  think that's life. It doesn't always go exactly how
• 21:26
  you envisioned and I think it's how you bounce back from that.
• 21:29
  You know, I'm blocking out the noise and just doing what you
• 21:32
  can do, controlling what you can control.
• 21:33
  Definitely learnt a lot about myself this year and how to
• 21:36
  manage all of that. But yeah, ultimately it's
• 21:40
  another championship done, another medal after the
• 21:42
  collection. I got to be proud of that and
• 21:43
  yeah, I think as time goes on I'll feel better.
• 21:47
  I can imagine the medal cabinet's.
• 21:49
  Getting pretty heavy just now as well.
• 21:50
  I think that one in my 1414. 14. But.
• 21:54
  Yeah, overall, very happy with just one of.
• 21:57
  It's all right, it's all right. Not satisfied, but you know,
• 22:01
  we'll get there. Keely, sort of in that first
• 22:04
  kind of couple 100 metres when Audrey kind of pulled up on your
• 22:07
  shoulder and you've kind of got to make a decision, do you let
• 22:09
  her go or do you kind of fight her for the lead?
• 22:12
  How do you kind of make that decision?
• 22:13
  And kind of obviously you've had that in a few races where, you
• 22:16
  know, in championships where you've had to make that
• 22:18
  decision. How do you kind of deal with
• 22:21
  that? Because obviously that does have
• 22:23
  probably the biggest impact on the race.
• 22:25
  Yeah, I think that's that's experience, that's learning the
• 22:27
  event, that's knowing your strengths and what to do, trying
• 22:31
  to be as smooth as possible. She wanted to take it on as
• 22:33
  happy to let her and just play to my strengths and control what
• 22:37
  I can control. But the thing about these races
• 22:39
  and athletes is so close together, you really don't know
• 22:41
  what's going to happen and that's what makes it exciting.
• 22:43
  Do you think something or you're?
• 22:45
  Your race today? Well, do you change something
• 22:48
  with your race today? No.
• 22:50
  Would you? What do you think I could?
• 22:52
  Even better. No, I think I did everything I
• 22:56
  could and I covered every move right.
• 22:58
  And yeah, she's just very strong today.
• 23:00
  And in terms of the quality of the field with their lay of
• 23:03
  mind, this could transcend this. All right.
• 23:05
  How good is this for athletics to have such a start feeling?
• 23:08
  To be part of that, yeah, We've had it for a long, quite a few
• 23:11
  years now. And when it's eight, to be
• 23:12
  honest, like we've had people come and there's always been
• 23:14
  someone new popping out every year and the depth's been really
• 23:17
  good. I mean, you've seen the depth
• 23:18
  even in these European Championships, you know, through
• 23:19
  the rounds. So I think it's really great and
• 23:22
  it's going to just push on and hopefully the young boys and
• 23:25
  girls watching will be inspired to come try it.
• 23:28
  Championship records today. Anything world record before
• 23:30
  before the end of the year? Guess we see.
• 23:31
  Thanks. Guys, thanks.
• 23:35
  This is a consequence of Twitter just becoming a cesspool over
• 23:39
  the last couple of years that I was just scrolling and I was
• 23:42
  just like, so mind boggled by the reactions to where a winning
• 23:46
  or or or Hodgkinson losing, the many different ways that this
• 23:49
  performance was framed. And I was just like, let's just
• 23:52
  bring it back to a place of appreciation that like we get to
• 23:55
  watch like these three talented stars right now.
• 23:59
  And now coming up will be the Zurich Diamond League on the on
• 24:04
  the 27th where you have all three of them, you have Werro
• 24:09
  Hodgkinson, Burger's bowl, and then you add in Georgia, Hunter
• 24:13
  Bell and Lillian Odira. Whatever they're paying for that
• 24:18
  sort of match up is fantastic. And thank you to to those
• 24:23
  organizers for making that one happen.
• 24:25
  I think that there's a good portion of that group will also
• 24:28
  run it back in Brussels and then we'll have Budapest for the
• 24:33
  World Ultimate Championship. So this is the year, honestly, I
• 24:37
  feel like of these for this event, are we gonna see the
• 24:41
  world record fall? I don't like, I don't know, but
• 24:45
  it's been regardless, it's just so fun to continue to see these
• 24:49
  150 fours. Yeah, I think it could fall in
• 24:53
  the next couple years. And one of the reasons why I
• 24:55
  root for Femke when the three of them line up is because I've
• 24:58
  been noted on this podcast as saying I think she's going to
• 25:01
  break the world record. So I root for Femke just to back
• 25:05
  myself up in the words I've said.
• 25:08
  All that to say is I just don't know if the record is there this
• 25:14
  year. I mean, they had a run after
• 25:18
  three rounds, so it's not necessarily fair to do a
• 25:21
  comparison versus A1 off Diamond League.
• 25:25
  It's been done before, but I don't know.
• 25:27
  It's just like a long season when you don't have like a
• 25:29
  specific peak. It's just kind of like you're
• 25:33
  racing whenever and we don't know at which point everyone is
• 25:37
  in their training. There's an argument to say that
• 25:40
  like maybe they're peaking for World Ultimates.
• 25:43
  Keely obviously like had some hiccups in the middle of the
• 25:46
  season that probably threw like her projected peak off a little
• 25:48
  bit. So maybe she comes on really
• 25:50
  strong here at the end. But and Femka, you know, I would
• 25:54
  love to see her mileage graph from this year versus last, so.
• 25:59
  One more thing on Femke 'cause we focused on the the top 2, but
• 26:03
  so she ties Ella van Langan's 34 year old Dutch record from the
• 26:06
  1992 Olympic final. She was the only athlete in this
• 26:09
  field to set a personal best. And the thing that I, I'm trying
• 26:17
  to wrap my head if like this felt maybe like a little bit of
• 26:22
  a Diamond League type of race for her in the sense that she
• 26:27
  hasn't necessarily had to, she hasn't thrown herself into an
• 26:30
  800 yet where she's had to accelerate, decelerate, cover,
• 26:33
  move, get out of a bad box. And that's what you'll see in a
• 26:38
  more tactical championship final.
• 26:42
  Whereas in this one, it was just like a Diamond League where you
• 26:46
  do have Werro and Hodgkinson still like ahead of you and you
• 26:50
  just can gauge off of their pace.
• 26:52
  And I think she did admit that she wishes that she was a little
• 26:55
  bit closer at 700 meters. But what is it that you want to
• 27:00
  see from Femke in these next couple races that hopefully, I
• 27:06
  mean, she's the she's right there.
• 27:09
  She has a real shot at Hodgkinson and where, oh, next
• 27:12
  season? But I'm trying to think if
• 27:14
  there's a where, if there's a place where it's even closer by
• 27:17
  the end of this year in Budapest.
• 27:19
  Yeah, I think the yeah, it's just the nature of the event
• 27:25
  that right now it's being run fast.
• 27:27
  You have two athletes who'd like leading races the the front of
• 27:32
  the pack and because of that, they're just going to keep
• 27:35
  things honest. And so we were in that phase
• 27:38
  right now. So it's the idea of like
• 27:40
  throwing a many surges or a big negative split.
• 27:43
  It's not really necessary with Audrey and Keely the way that
• 27:46
  they run. With that said, the thing that I
• 27:48
  want to see out of Femka here at the end of the season is I want
• 27:51
  to see her make a move at some point.
• 27:53
  She's did try to swing wide. She's been riding the rail hard
• 27:58
  and finally like tried to move to the outside at one point at
• 28:03
  the end of the final, but had to do like a step back to even be
• 28:06
  able to do it. And it was just too late.
• 28:10
  She didn't have the the last hundred.
• 28:12
  I just want to see her at like 1:50 to go in one race.
• 28:16
  Just be just absolutely send it. Like I want to see her run a
• 28:19
  700, see if she could be in the lead at 700 and just see what
• 28:23
  happens the last 100. Like you shouldn't be scared
• 28:27
  anymore. You keep running 155.
• 28:29
  I feel like we'll get people who comment saying like we just need
• 28:33
  to see her pump her arms more and go, and we just need to
• 28:37
  maybe come to terms with the fact that her running form just
• 28:40
  doesn't visibly show strain. It's not the same.
• 28:43
  It's not that she's not trying, she clearly is.
• 28:45
  It just looks so different on her.
• 28:48
  Yeah, I mean, maybe she's saving that for 2028, but she's.
• 28:53
  Like maybe this will be the year I start pumping my arms at the
• 28:55
  end. At some point, I understand like
• 28:57
  trying to correct high school athletes form at some point
• 29:02
  after you have like a certain number of global metals, I think
• 29:05
  like that ship has sailed. Like you're not changing your
• 29:07
  form in your mid 20s with any significant.
• 29:12
  Yeah, that's just not going to happen.
• 29:15
  Yeah, but it's exciting. And I don't know, like, I could
• 29:19
  see a world where she ends up better than third in one of
• 29:23
  these races coming up. Congratulations.
• 29:27
  Did you enjoy that out there? Yeah, definitely.
• 29:29
  I mean, the crowd was crazy loud.
• 29:32
  It was completely packed, and I had a lot of fun today.
• 29:36
  There was so much hype going into this race between all three
• 29:38
  of you, you know, Audrey Keely and then yourself.
• 29:41
  Did you feel all of that coming into it as well?
• 29:44
  To be honest, I always delete social media, so a lot of hype I
• 29:47
  often don't feel. But yeah, you knew it was a race
• 29:50
  people were really looking forward to, especially Keeley
• 29:52
  being there, like she's from close to here.
• 29:55
  And of course, Audrey being in this amazing shape.
• 29:58
  And yeah, it was really cool to be also put with those other
• 30:01
  two. And I think it was an amazing
• 30:03
  race. I'm really happy I'm navigating
• 30:05
  those Keats semis and then find out that's something that's
• 30:08
  different for you in 800. How did you you find all of
• 30:11
  that? Yeah, it was something new.
• 30:13
  I think I learned a lot how to do this and how it works.
• 30:17
  And yeah, I really enjoyed it. I'm happy how my body was
• 30:20
  feeling today after running 28 hundreds.
• 30:22
  I didn't know how it would be so and then to run a nation record
• 30:25
  today, it shows that I recovered well.
• 30:28
  Yeah. Thank you that you know, 34 year
• 30:31
  old national record and you've managed to equal it.
• 30:33
  That must feel really good. Obviously it's special to equal
• 30:35
  it rather than to pass it almost.
• 30:37
  You can then do that another time.
• 30:38
  That must feel really cool. Yeah, definitely.
• 30:40
  And I mean, Ella Falung is really a legend.
• 30:41
  That national record is legendary, and I also have a lot
• 30:44
  of contact with her. So actually I'm very proud that
• 30:47
  I equalled it, that we have it together.
• 30:49
  I sit somewhere else. I hope not for too long, but I'm
• 30:51
  going to enjoy that we have it together right now.
• 30:54
  Yeah. And in that in the race,
• 30:55
  obviously, you know you, it felt like you were closing towards
• 30:57
  the end on Keely. Like, did you feel like you had
• 31:00
  that extra gear in you that you were kind of able to push on in
• 31:03
  that last sort of 100? Well, I shouldn't have.
• 31:07
  I mean, I should stick with them and be with them at 700 and then
• 31:10
  see if I can change gears. I think that's if I made a
• 31:13
  mistake, that's it. I just tend to subconsciously
• 31:16
  protect myself a little bit, I think because 200 meters is
• 31:19
  still far for 400 former 400m runner.
• 31:23
  So I just tend to hold a little bit back.
• 31:25
  And then it's nice I come back the last 50, but it's just too
• 31:28
  late, especially with this high class field.
• 31:29
  So I'm very happy with today and they're I'm not going to
• 31:32
  complain. I think it's nice that I'm
• 31:35
  getting stronger in the last 50. If I look at the beginning of
• 31:37
  the year now, it's getting stronger.
• 31:38
  So that's very nice to see. You got a massive reception from
• 31:41
  the crowd there as well. When you came out you got a
• 31:43
  really big cheer. It must be super cool being able
• 31:45
  to see that sport behind you and then also get a medal to back it
• 31:48
  up. Yeah, definitely.
• 31:50
  I mean, I always, I love every crowd, but the British crowd is
• 31:54
  quite something else sometimes. They love the sport like they
• 31:57
  love the athletes and it's always special to run here.
• 31:59
  That's also why I love always London Diamond League.
• 32:02
  So to have them behind me and then of course to be with
• 32:05
  Audrey, they are behind Audrey and of course they're behind
• 32:07
  Philly. I mean, who wouldn't be tonight
• 32:09
  in the stands? So yeah, it was really an
• 32:11
  electric feeling to run in this and.
• 32:13
  We spoke to you in London about how you always look quite
• 32:16
  relaxed, especially up until 600 you said.
• 32:18
  Did you feel quite relaxed through the 1st lap at least
• 32:20
  today? I had a bit of more people
• 32:24
  around me than I'm used to with their races, so I really try to
• 32:27
  stay relaxed. Even though you had a bit more
• 32:30
  shoving and pushing. But yeah, I think so.
• 32:32
  I mean, I always look relaxed. It's like this.
• 32:35
  But I also really have a tough time sometimes.
• 32:38
  But yeah, I think it's OK. I just need to learn how to be
• 32:42
  active and relaxed, I think on the 800.
• 32:44
  Yeah, Overall, very happy. Yes, definitely.
• 32:46
  Thank you. Congratulations.
• 32:47
  Thank you. To think of what the podium
• 32:50
  could be when you do have that Zurich field, it's a little bit,
• 32:55
  it's way more unpredictable I think than what we just had at
• 32:58
  Europeans where the top three were pretty clear cut, I think.
• 33:01
  Do you want to put one out there yet?
• 33:02
  Like who do you think it's? It's Audrey Burrows home, home
• 33:06
  field advantage this time. So I still kind of want to give
• 33:09
  her the edge. I could see, I could see Georgia
• 33:14
  swooping in that last 100 and picking up a body or two.
• 33:18
  Yeah. I feel like we don't even know
• 33:20
  fully what George is capable of right now.
• 33:24
  We just know she's really fit and dominating 15 hundreds.
• 33:27
  So yeah, we'll see if she can break in.
• 33:32
  I wouldn't. I wouldn't bet against it.
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• 35:27
  All right, couple other performances from Europeans.
• 35:31
  Andreas Almgren won the 10K that, you know, hilariously
• 35:37
  funny way I think he lapped. He was out in front after two
• 35:40
  laps. 8K split, his eighth K was 234 and he closed the
• 35:49
  second-half in 1319 after the first half I think was like
• 35:53
  around 14 flat huge gap between first, second and third.
• 35:58
  He believed that he was in 2630 pace if he would have, if this
• 36:02
  would have been one with a pacer.
• 36:04
  And yeah, I mean, it was just such a funky race cause like it
• 36:09
  was over pretty quickly in the sense that he was gonna win it.
• 36:14
  And then you had just like these weird subplots where Jimmy
• 36:18
  Gressier was sprinting for the bronze medal, looking over his
• 36:23
  shoulder celebrating and just a weird move.
• 36:28
  What did you, what did, how did you think of this one or what
• 36:32
  did you make of this race? Yeah, I thought it was really
• 36:35
  funny, like how slow they started like sometimes when
• 36:41
  you're like, alright, I'm going to go out and just like hammer
• 36:42
  everyone into the ground. You kind of just do that from
• 36:45
  the very beginning and instead I'm great came through the 1st K
• 36:49
  in 317 and then picked it up. Yeah and so it's kind of funny
• 36:53
  because it's like if the the plan is I'm going to make this
• 36:57
  honest and like just see if I could drop people kind.
• 37:01
  He kind of just like allowed the field to be lulled into like
• 37:05
  this, this false sense of confidence that the entire race
• 37:10
  was going to be slow and that they were going to have like an
• 37:11
  easy day out there. And so then when he just all of
• 37:14
  a sudden just starts dropping 60 threes, they were completely
• 37:18
  caught off guard and probably upset.
• 37:23
  They were like, I thought we were going to jog 9 K and just
• 37:25
  see you as the best last lap, but it just felt so old school.
• 37:31
  Just like straight up, like I think I'm the best runner.
• 37:33
  I'm going to go to the front and I'm just going to absolutely
• 37:36
  pound it. And they held on for as long as
• 37:38
  they could. But then when they broke, they
• 37:40
  broke. You know, Foppin ended up
• 37:43
  dropping out. And then Gressier completely
• 37:47
  gave up on trying to get second. At one point, I guess having
• 37:51
  come forth in the 5K, he said I'm not leaving here without a
• 37:53
  medal. And he just sat on Crippa.
• 37:56
  And the two of them just kind of started jogging, knowing it was
• 37:59
  coming down to a medal. I mean, everyone got lapped.
• 38:03
  It looked like it was an indoor track out there.
• 38:05
  Yeah, yeah, with the New Balance indoor marathon relay, that's
• 38:10
  what it looked. Like legitimately, like even
• 38:13
  coming up to the finish, What did he, like cross the line
• 38:17
  basically like hand in hand with 5th and 6th place?
• 38:20
  Yeah, like it. It was fascinating.
• 38:24
  I think that if you get lapped in a 10K, you should have to
• 38:26
  drop out. I think that would be just an.
• 38:30
  We've seen it in Olympics in the past where like lapped runners
• 38:33
  have kind of impacted the outcome or just like kind of
• 38:35
  gotten in the way of races. Yeah, I mean, they people love
• 38:41
  to stay in lane 1 despite being like 2 laps behind at the
• 38:44
  Olympics, but I think you should just get kicked off the track if
• 38:48
  you get lacked. That'd be like incentive to not
• 38:53
  wait. I don't know.
• 38:54
  I don't know what the incentive is It just if you, it feels like
• 38:57
  you're losing by too much. What are we doing just?
• 39:00
  It would, yeah, probably force people to try and run faster.
• 39:03
  I kind of like the rule, although you will get people who
• 39:07
  say like, well, this is like that athletes 1 shining moment,
• 39:10
  like they've worked their whole entire lives and you're cutting
• 39:13
  it short. And it was like, well, it's
• 39:15
  about who's the best. I'm not willing to die on this
• 39:19
  hill but I think it should be considered and at the very least
• 39:22
  you should be forced to run in like lane 4.
• 39:24
  Yeah, all right, let's hear it in the Spotify comments section.
• 39:27
  Should lap runners in a 10K be forced to end their race?
• 39:33
  Let's let's see how the the the listeners feel about that one.
• 39:37
  We're. Workshopping ideas.
• 39:38
  Yeah, yeah. The the thing I think the, the
• 39:42
  subplot with Gressier that came out about the reason why he was
• 39:46
  I guess so amped up as he'd previously been 4th and 5th at
• 39:49
  the European Championships. And so I guess he was really
• 39:51
  happy to come away with the medal.
• 39:53
  But I don't know, this kind of goes back to our overall point
• 39:57
  about the the titles pyramid that we came up with months ago.
• 40:03
  It's like, where do certain athletes like rank?
• 40:05
  And this even in the discussion we'll have later on with with
• 40:08
  Jacob and Josh, like it's clear that for some of these athletes,
• 40:12
  they value their medals a little bit differently.
• 40:15
  And so maybe for Gressier, the European 10K gold medal wasn't
• 40:21
  worth more. In his, in his repertoire, or I
• 40:26
  mean, for Almgren, he's not even running the ultimate champs.
• 40:28
  He's choosing to go to the world half marathon champs.
• 40:34
  And yeah, yeah. I actually am like the the
• 40:40
  there's so few 10 KS now even on the track that the idea that
• 40:45
  athletes were like running 10 KS at the European Championships at
• 40:50
  all is a testament for like non European.
• 40:52
  They create a marathon there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, even better
• 40:57
  point. Like, I mean, Pedros gave up a
• 41:01
  serious appearance fee to win a European champion.
• 41:04
  What did he win in? It was like two O 9.
• 41:10
  It was two O 911 and I mean, look like it was a tight race
• 41:18
  and they had so many people together to a nine and like
• 41:21
  clearly these guys are capable of faster, but like they they
• 41:28
  passed up opportunities to, you know, go get a nice appearance
• 41:33
  fee from a early fall marathon. Yeah, they, they, they probably
• 41:38
  won't be doing Berlin. I could see some of these folks
• 41:42
  bouncing back for New York or for someone like Petrus, like
• 41:47
  seems like a Valencia guy. Like he'd probably want to try
• 41:50
  and target the European record maybe 'cause he's run 2O four O
• 41:55
  3. That could be on the table if he
• 41:58
  chooses to go out there. And then Alyssa Veno has run her
• 42:02
  6th marathon in the last like, 12 months, wins the European
• 42:05
  women's title. And then I didn't know this
• 42:08
  cause like, you know, usually with these championships, the
• 42:10
  bonus money isn't all that crazy, but there was a bonus
• 42:15
  awarded to like the best distance performance.
• 42:19
  You you caught this. Controversy right about so they
• 42:22
  do it based off of what the score ends up being from World
• 42:25
  Athletics and because the women's half marathon race walk
• 42:31
  world record fell that ends up getting like the $50,000 or
• 42:36
  whatever it is bonus over Alyssa Vano's marathon.
• 42:42
  And if she would have wanted to, if she would, she basically
• 42:45
  lined up with zero chance of winning the $50,000 bonus, no
• 42:50
  matter how good of a day she had, because she would have had
• 42:53
  to have run 24 of 214 equivalent in order to knock off the rates
• 42:59
  walk result as like the top result for for the distance
• 43:04
  races. And so I did see some folks were
• 43:07
  a little upset over the race walk getting that over a pretty
• 43:13
  strong marathon performance. Cause yeah, I mean, 6 marathons
• 43:16
  in the last 12 months and you're still winning is very
• 43:19
  impressive. Amy Hunt swept 4 gold medals
• 43:24
  hundred 204 by 1, mixed 4 by 1, an unprecedented haul.
• 43:31
  She took the 100m gold on the opening night and then closed
• 43:36
  with the mixed relay on Sunday. So I think for her, this is a
• 43:44
  coming out party in in a sense of just, you know, restarting.
• 43:48
  Oh well, I mean, she is the coming out again world silver
• 43:52
  medalist in the 200. And but the thing I guess I
• 43:57
  struggle with is like, it's, it's great that she got her.
• 44:00
  Well, she got herself out in front of the British and
• 44:04
  European audience and like put herself on top of Europe
• 44:10
  because. And I guess now there's a case
• 44:13
  for her for BBC Sports Personality of the Year, which
• 44:16
  is a big deal over there, which Josh is likely in that
• 44:20
  conversation as well for the world record.
• 44:24
  And then you, you know, you have other athletes like Jude
• 44:27
  Bellingham from the World Cup, who probably I would think is
• 44:31
  the favorite for it. I mean, he was so good.
• 44:34
  Yeah, but still like so you you still have to fill out just sort
• 44:38
  of like how many other people will be nominated.
• 44:40
  And so I presume that this gives Amy Hunt a nomination because
• 44:43
  for European gold medals is a big deal to them.
• 44:46
  But in that case, my, my suggestion is sure, end the
• 44:49
  season there like 'cause then when you add more things to your
• 44:53
  resume over the course of the next couple of months, you'll
• 44:55
  realize that actually she's ranked 14th in the world this
• 45:00
  year in the 200 meters and 25th in the hundreds.
• 45:03
  So it was really, it was really nice for her to, you know, get
• 45:07
  this confidence from these championships and these
• 45:10
  performances. But part of me, and this is,
• 45:13
  again, being a North American, remembers that like, oh, you
• 45:18
  didn't have any of the Jamaicans or the Americans, or you didn't
• 45:24
  have Julian Alford there as well.
• 45:26
  When we've talked in the past about like the big six in the
• 45:28
  women's 200, I'm not including Amy Hunt in there right now.
• 45:33
  It's what Gabby, Melissa Jefferson, Julian, Alfred,
• 45:38
  Sharika Jackson. Who else were we in that?
• 45:44
  Deja Hodge So none of those people were at the European
• 45:49
  Championships. Great, great, golden, awesome
• 45:51
  moment. Congratulations.
• 45:53
  But it's just sort of like zooming out, you realize, it's
• 45:56
  like, oh, well, in those events, they're a little ways off from
• 46:01
  where the rest of the world is. Look at the men's 100 meters at
• 46:05
  at the European Champs. No, I'm I'm gonna come in and
• 46:10
  I'm gonna defend Europe on this. You can only raise two shows up
• 46:14
  and I think. Well, some people are not
• 46:17
  allowed to show up. Yeah, but she's there and she
• 46:21
  ran well. I mean, look, you could do that
• 46:22
  across every event in any sort of championship.
• 46:27
  It's like, oh, OK, we're just praising Andres Omgrand.
• 46:30
  Well, guess who wasn't there? Ethiopia and Kenya and America.
• 46:35
  How can you didn't do that whole line for Andres Elmgren?
• 46:38
  You're just we're full of praise for him, but also Navy Hunt wins
• 46:41
  for. Well, because he had, he had the
• 46:43
  world champion in, in, in that. Race, yeah, but he was not a
• 46:50
  championship form, clearly. And I didn't see Grant Fisher or
• 46:56
  Vidya Meharry or many other athletes there.
• 47:00
  So you can just always do that. And I feel like the thing you
• 47:04
  should be praising is that despite having one of, you know,
• 47:10
  the more modest 200 meter bests, Amy Hunt's starting to collect
• 47:15
  hardware because she shows up when it matters and she's a
• 47:18
  championship runner. Sorry, Birmingham is not the
• 47:22
  Sprint capital of the world. For all we know, in different on
• 47:25
  a different track in Jamaica or Eugene, this might have been a
• 47:29
  215I don't know. So you can only beat who's
• 47:34
  there. And she did that.
• 47:36
  And if you want to, if you want to criticize the mixed 4 by 100
• 47:41
  as an event, yeah, I'm on you. I'm I'm with you there.
• 47:46
  But she ran great. And I think, you know, look,
• 47:52
  you're saying Keely has haters all of a sudden.
• 47:54
  Amy Hunt has haters on this podcast.
• 48:00
  She's very great. What do you want?
• 48:03
  No, I I don't want anything else.
• 48:04
  I just kind of want the reminder or the frame of reference and
• 48:11
  like just zoom out and realize like OK, like there are really,
• 48:16
  really talented. All right, fine.
• 48:17
  Next time someone wins 4 gold medals at the Knack Act
• 48:20
  Championships, so I'm expecting them to be nominated for an SP.
• 48:24
  Yeah, I mean, look, yeah, again, you can do this for every event.
• 48:28
  Like you think Romel Glaive, like did you have a like he had
• 48:32
  oblique. Seville wasn't there.
• 48:34
  No, Elias wasn't there. It's just that's.
• 48:37
  You didn't even have to go that that that high in caliber.
• 48:40
  The Texas high school champion wasn't there.
• 48:43
  Yeah, but again, they didn't break 10.
• 48:46
  We're in Birmingham. Yeah, Now beaten.
• 48:48
  Who shows up? I've taken Preet's role since
• 48:52
  he's not here to defend the nation.
• 48:55
  But look, that's to to pivot to the hierarchy.
• 49:02
  That is why Europeans is great. It's really fun.
• 49:05
  Love that it's free in the US to watch.
• 49:08
  Don't love that I can never get in easily to see the results.
• 49:13
  But at the end of the day, if we're going Europeans versus
• 49:18
  Commonwealth as an entire like value of a medal, I think
• 49:25
  Commonwealth is harder to win with Europeans maybe being more
• 49:31
  prestigious. Is that fair to say?
• 49:35
  I think it's been, well, it's just the history and tradition
• 49:40
  of the Commonwealth Games is there, but I just think to a
• 49:44
  modern audience, Europeans maybe matters more, I don't know.
• 49:49
  Europeans, you have so many rivalries and like if you just
• 49:56
  SAT an average American down to watch the Commonwealth Games,
• 49:59
  one, they don't know it exists and two, they would be so
• 50:01
  confused that the collection of countries there and like what
• 50:04
  their relationship is to one another.
• 50:06
  But because because of the inclusion of some of the island
• 50:12
  nations and because of the inclusion of some African
• 50:15
  nations, there is no event that is easy to win.
• 50:19
  Like everyone who is winning a Commonwealth gold would likely
• 50:24
  end up on the podium at a world championship and that wouldn't
• 50:28
  necessarily be the same in Europe.
• 50:30
  That being said, Europeans is so easy to understand for all of
• 50:34
  Europe and it gets a lot of hype.
• 50:38
  Like a ton of hype obviously. Like consuming Irish news like
• 50:42
  Ireland having themselves a nice little weekend was a huge deal.
• 50:46
  Fully mainstream friends and family who don't follow track
• 50:50
  protects me about it so. Yeah, Is Mark Englich doing the
• 50:54
  rounds on the night shows yet? Yeah, I mean, maybe.
• 51:00
  I imagine he's probably continuing his season.
• 51:03
  I don't know. I've I haven't seen him on the
• 51:07
  Late Late Show or whatever it is.
• 51:10
  So the big wins for Ireland were him and Kate O'Connor.
• 51:16
  Rashida got a Cosgren. Cosgren.
• 51:19
  Yeah, Four, yeah. So it's pretty good.
• 51:24
  It was a good performance, yeah. Basically, I think we need to
• 51:28
  revisit with Georgia Hunter Bell and now that she's accumulated
• 51:34
  four of these medals this year, right, with European, European
• 51:38
  Indoor, World Indoor, Commonwealth and European
• 51:45
  Outdoor, she's like the perfect person to ask just sort of like
• 51:50
  how you weigh all these in title.
• 51:53
  Pyramid, yeah, does. Wait, so does she have a medal
• 51:59
  from every championship that she could have?
• 52:01
  Conceivably this year the world ultimates, but even not even
• 52:05
  this year, she has a European, she has Commonwealth, she has
• 52:09
  Olympic, she has Worlds, she has World Indoors.
• 52:13
  She. Doesn't have world cross.
• 52:16
  Oh, we got to get her on a four by two or four by K.
• 52:20
  She's got, yeah, I'm looking. Olympic World, world indoors,
• 52:25
  European, European indoor, Commonwealth and then national
• 52:30
  championships. Yeah.
• 52:33
  Is she? I'm just starting this out
• 52:35
  there. Like how many people could this
• 52:37
  possibly apply to? Is there anyone else?
• 52:41
  Jess Hall doesn't. Well, can't win.
• 52:45
  Your can't. So, but like is there any
• 52:50
  European who would have every single one of these?
• 52:55
  Does Keely I guess. Keely has all of these, yes.
• 53:03
  This is a medal from all. It would be someone who's
• 53:05
  English. What about Sonya O'Sullivan from
• 53:10
  back in the day? Oh, and she would have a world
• 53:15
  cross. Yeah, Sonya's got Olympic World,
• 53:20
  World cross, World half marathon World indoor, European, European
• 53:24
  cross, NCAA, NCAA Indoor. Yeah, Sonya's.
• 53:32
  This is like an EGOT right the. Yeah, I.
• 53:35
  Mean Grammy, Oscar, Tony. We need something.
• 53:39
  We need to decide what 8 championships matter and figure
• 53:44
  out some sort of acronym for it. It'll be a disgusting acronym
• 53:49
  when you mix in XC in there. Yeah, Also the fact that like,
• 53:56
  championships have changed names or like championships have come
• 54:00
  and gone. Like I'm looking at Sonia.
• 54:02
  It's like, yeah, she's got the World Cup.
• 54:05
  Yeah, World University Games, that's still around.
• 54:11
  Not as prestigious. The Patriot.
• 54:12
  What is it? The Patriot Games.
• 54:15
  Did you see it? Does Sonia Does Sonia Sullivan
• 54:19
  have a Patriot Games title? No, she also is lacking a New
• 54:22
  Balance Nationals outdoor title. Oh, Sonia, didn't see you at the
• 54:30
  New York State high school meet? You don't have everything.
• 54:37
  You didn't win everything. That's that's like the classic.
• 54:40
  Like, did you know Noah Lyles never won an NCAA title?
• 54:44
  Yeah, yeah. Went on to still do great
• 54:48
  things. That should be on one of the
• 54:50
  trading cards that he's been promoting, which is like on the
• 54:52
  back. Fun fact, never won an NCA
• 54:56
  title. I like I my former Twitter bio
• 55:00
  years ago was 0 times all American because I just suck.
• 55:05
  And then Drew Hunter put it in his zero time all American and
• 55:10
  it's because he's doesn't suck. So yeah, Well, well, well, about
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  time for a refreshing twist. The Sidious Mag Podcast is
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• 56:52
  All right, just to close out on on Europeans, Jakob did the
• 56:58
  meteor rounds after and he told the BBC that he was very
• 57:04
  disappointed Josh Kuris skipped the European Championships.
• 57:08
  His argument was the championships exist so that the
• 57:11
  best athletes compete. It isn't really for athletes to
• 57:14
  choose where they participate and that not showing up damages
• 57:17
  the sport. And he added that he could never
• 57:19
  see himself in that position. He's got that trump card in his
• 57:23
  pocket because he did show up to Tokyo last year, hurt as a dog
• 57:28
  and just jogged in one heat of the 1500 and then put together
• 57:33
  honestly a solid 5K. But you know, he did give kudos
• 57:39
  to Kurzmile world record being an extremely good race and a
• 57:42
  strong performance. But he questioned Josh's absence
• 57:47
  and that people go to work every day.
• 57:50
  Being a professional runner doesn't exempt you from that.
• 57:53
  So it's fun to see that Jakob isn't giving up on the bit.
• 58:00
  But I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I guess like it just, it's so funny at
• 58:08
  this point because there's an element to like, well, Josh
• 58:12
  hasn't said anything about, about you.
• 58:16
  You did you you. I guess it was red meat and he
• 58:19
  took it. Yeah, look, Josh is not in that
• 58:23
  small club of of Olympic World, World Indoor, Commonwealth and
• 58:28
  European Games champions. And New Balance.
• 58:29
  National he doesn't have and New Balance national he doesn't have
• 58:33
  the NAA checked off. He has a European junior title.
• 58:39
  Maybe he thinks that counts. It doesn't count.
• 58:42
  That's totally. That's a different category.
• 58:45
  But Jakob would counter that he's got European junior cross
• 58:49
  and cross. Yeah, no, I it's just, I don't
• 58:56
  know, I just feel like Josh has done his part this season that
• 59:02
  he should be exempt from any criticism for at least like a
• 59:07
  few months. His schedule selection and this
• 59:11
  approach that he has is part of the reason why he's breaking
• 59:16
  world records at 28 years old, whereas Jakob, you know, lost
• 59:22
  the last 18 months or so of his, of his, of what could be part of
• 59:29
  his prime because he's chosen to show up injured to these
• 59:34
  championships. So there's there's that argument
• 59:37
  to it too, that it's like, no, I mean, like you can criticize
• 59:40
  Josh all you want for skipping these things, but part of the
• 59:42
  reason and being so selective is so that he can be the best when
• 59:46
  he chooses to. Yeah, I think like I admire
• 59:51
  Jakob for always showing up, like and of course I wish Josh
• 59:55
  showed up at Europeans, but there's like sort of an irony to
• 1:00:03
  the fact that Josh running a time trial, which was like
• 1:00:08
  always the thing that. He in theory was criticized as
• 1:00:13
  not being able to do is the reason why he's now being
• 1:00:16
  criticized to not go to a championship, which is something
• 1:00:19
  we've always known he's very good at.
• 1:00:23
  I don't know, it's just good banter.
• 1:00:24
  Like it is. Yeah.
• 1:00:27
  And now the thing here the the interesting, the part of the
• 1:00:31
  season that gets really interesting is that Jakob is
• 1:00:34
  throwing himself into the fire. I didn't think that we'd be
• 1:00:37
  seeing him in the 1500 as much this year and that it would be
• 1:00:40
  more of a all right strength, aerobic, you know, focus on the
• 1:00:45
  5K this year with him having already the bye for the ultimate
• 1:00:49
  champs. But he's been announced for the
• 1:00:52
  Celestia Diamond League. That's where he'll go up against
• 1:00:55
  Cole Hacker, Isaac Nader in a very strong field.
• 1:00:59
  Of the whole entire field, I think there's eighteen guys in
• 1:01:01
  the whole entire thing. Eight of them have personal best
• 1:01:03
  under 330. Only one guy, if if you
• 1:01:07
  remembered where we were 12 months ago with the number of
• 1:01:09
  guys who have broken 3:30 this year hasn't been all that
• 1:01:13
  common. And Jake Whiteman I think is the
• 1:01:15
  only one who's entered in Celestia who has done it so far
• 1:01:19
  this season. So when you look at just sort of
• 1:01:21
  like everyone ramping up in the second-half, which is where
• 1:01:25
  we're going into now, this is the second-half of the season.
• 1:01:28
  And this is I think where we're going to start to see those fast
• 1:01:33
  1500 meter performances come. And the likes of a coal have
• 1:01:38
  been in the dark for the last couple months, presumably
• 1:01:41
  training really hard to get ready to come out firing, I
• 1:01:44
  think in these races. And now it'll be a really tough
• 1:01:47
  test I think for Jakob to see if he's right there in 328 like
• 1:01:53
  form. I think at this point, that's
• 1:01:55
  what it's taking to win some of these diamond leagues so far
• 1:01:57
  this year. Yeah.
• 1:01:59
  I think in general, like this long break in the middle of the
• 1:02:02
  season for any diamond leagues, particularly for US athletes,
• 1:02:06
  have made it a tale of two seasons, right?
• 1:02:08
  Like there was a first half and there's a second-half and the
• 1:02:12
  second-half is going to erase our memory.
• 1:02:15
  Like we're getting zapped by the light men in black about
• 1:02:18
  everything that happened in the first half of the season.
• 1:02:21
  Like do you remember this happened at the Stockholm
• 1:02:24
  diamond? It's like no, no one remembers.
• 1:02:27
  Like that will quickly be old news if it's not already.
• 1:02:33
  And new heroes will emerge the next few weeks.
• 1:02:37
  And then when we look back on the on the entire 20, I think.
• 1:02:40
  It's the usual heroes, it's the people who are really good at
• 1:02:44
  the championships will emerge again, the Yaris, the coals,
• 1:02:47
  yeah. People who we're focusing had
• 1:02:52
  the liberty to focus on the end of the season from the beginning
• 1:02:55
  of the season. It's a, you know, they're not
• 1:02:58
  trying to qualify for the world ultimate.
• 1:03:00
  It's like they know they're going to qualify.
• 1:03:04
  So they have that ability, that flexibility to push things back
• 1:03:08
  to later in the year. So.
• 1:03:11
  We were texting. About, yeah.
• 1:03:13
  We we were texting about this yesterday because we were trying
• 1:03:16
  to figure out, OK, so a couple weeks ago when Josh says that he
• 1:03:21
  was flying too close to the sun and he wasn't going to expend
• 1:03:24
  himself in every single thing that everyone wants him to do,
• 1:03:27
  right? Which was we want to see him
• 1:03:29
  break the 1500 meter world record.
• 1:03:31
  And a good opportunity for that presumably would have been
• 1:03:33
  Zurich. Doesn't look like he's in the
• 1:03:35
  Zurich Diamond League field. So I'm thinking that means he's
• 1:03:39
  going to be at the World Ultimate Championships and that
• 1:03:43
  would require the Sebco. Super Bowl, yeah When do we know
• 1:03:48
  when Sebco invites are being sent out and are they public
• 1:03:55
  'cause I want to know if Josh and others get it so I had
• 1:04:01
  recommended 4 invites earlier in the season and you need.
• 1:04:07
  To know Seb, read that edition of The Lab Count.
• 1:04:11
  I know people at World Athletics read the laugh count, so if
• 1:04:16
  something is relevant, maybe it makes its way up the chain.
• 1:04:20
  And one of them was that, you know, Josh.
• 1:04:24
  But that's in the entire 1500 category.
• 1:04:27
  Jakob's already good in the 5K, but I want to know if people
• 1:04:30
  turn it down. Like if Josh got invited, I want
• 1:04:32
  to know. And if he said no, I want to
• 1:04:34
  know because that would only give fuel to to Jakob.
• 1:04:38
  But. Yeah, wasn't one of the rye as
• 1:04:41
  well. Yeah, Rye needs another 400
• 1:04:44
  still in order to. Qualify.
• 1:04:45
  I think he's slated to run the 400 against Kevin Ishippy one
• 1:04:48
  more time and then he's also entered in a 400 hurdle race, I
• 1:04:53
  think is what someone shared in our group chat, which means the
• 1:04:59
  the double S on the table. If this hurdle race goes well, I
• 1:05:02
  think that could be fun. That would make That would be
• 1:05:07
  very interesting. It's a lot of big races in a
• 1:05:11
  very short period of time, which is why we like World Ultimates,
• 1:05:16
  but. We were discussing the path for
• 1:05:19
  Jakob to World Ultimates, which is very funny, 'cause I, I, I
• 1:05:22
  looked at this, we, we, we explained how it would happen in
• 1:05:25
  last week's episode with Preet. But now that we've got a little
• 1:05:28
  bit of a clear picture, I'll share sort of what the
• 1:05:32
  information is. So if Kerr gets the subco buy,
• 1:05:36
  that's one spot right for for world ultimates Diamond League
• 1:05:39
  final is 10 guys and you can add a wild card in there.
• 1:05:43
  Three guys already qualified yard Ken Myers, Tim Chariot 7
• 1:05:47
  spots left. If Josh is currently in those
• 1:05:51
  seven spots, you can pull him if you don't think he's going to
• 1:05:54
  run Zurich or Brussels. So that means that the Diamond
• 1:05:56
  League final field could be Yard Cam Chariot, Hobbs, Kessler,
• 1:06:02
  Vinciotti, Robert Fark and Ethan Strand, Azidine, Habs, Isaac
• 1:06:06
  Nader, JK Ward. Some of the those last couple
• 1:06:09
  might change when you have the likes of Cole Hawker re enter
• 1:06:13
  into the Diamond League picture or Fanwell Kowich if he runs
• 1:06:17
  well enough. So some of those names might
• 1:06:20
  change. Then you have to look at just
• 1:06:22
  sort of who's already qualified for the Ultimate Championships
• 1:06:26
  and it's a majority of those names except for I believe it's
• 1:06:34
  Ethan Strand and JK Word right now are not in the ultimate
• 1:06:40
  picture. So if Jakob finishes as far down
• 1:06:46
  as 7th but none of the guys behind him are, but the only
• 1:06:49
  guys behind him are Ethan Strand and JK, he's just got to race
• 1:06:52
  JK, Ward and Ethan Strand and he could get a spot at the Ultimate
• 1:06:57
  Championships. He's like, who?
• 1:06:58
  Funny. Who do I have to race?
• 1:07:06
  Yeah, I mean, I don't know how I feel about the fact that the
• 1:07:09
  descending order on the Diamond League, like whoever is the
• 1:07:11
  highest finisher in the final gets to go.
• 1:07:14
  Like in theory, you come in last.
• 1:07:17
  But there's a chance that that could happen, yeah.
• 1:07:20
  I don't know if I love that, although I do like the fact that
• 1:07:22
  it incentivizes everyone to want to run the Diamond League final.
• 1:07:29
  But yeah, all right, so it's it's on.
• 1:07:32
  There's a possibility. You're saying there's a chance?
• 1:07:34
  There is a chance, All right. Final topic.
• 1:07:37
  It's official 2028 trials to Eugene, June 17th to the 22nd, 6
• 1:07:44
  days. USATF announced this on Monday.
• 1:07:48
  6th straight trials in Eugene, 9th overall, no rest days.
• 1:07:53
  Shortest trials since 1964. Every trials since 1992 was 10
• 1:08:00
  days. We felt that, so it's gonna
• 1:08:05
  change a little bit of the format to it, I think.
• 1:08:07
  Jonathan Galt from Let's Run reported.
• 1:08:08
  The five KS gonna be a straight final, USATF announced.
• 1:08:11
  That field events. And the field events, yeah,
• 1:08:14
  straight final, which means they'll be less qualifiers for
• 1:08:17
  that. You're gonna have some people
• 1:08:21
  crying about the 32nd ranked 10K runner not being able to get a
• 1:08:26
  spot in the in the race or whatever. 32nd best 5K runner
• 1:08:31
  not getting a spot. But like, again, this is about
• 1:08:34
  choosing the Olympic team. It's not a participation race.
• 1:08:38
  And then so you will have fewer athletes.
• 1:08:43
  That's totally fine. The 10K is going to be held
• 1:08:49
  different day presumably. Could it be the pre classic if
• 1:08:52
  they move it back up to May? Right now it's been the last 2-3
• 1:08:56
  years. It's been first week, July, 4th
• 1:08:59
  weekend, decathlon, heptathlon, also different place.
• 1:09:04
  We saw this back in 2022 and I thought it was a great idea.
• 1:09:10
  We ended up having a very strong team and you give them the extra
• 1:09:14
  rest so that they're able to be ready for for the Olympics.
• 1:09:17
  But yeah, I mean, you'll have three weeks, I think between the
• 1:09:23
  end of the trials and the start of the Olympic Games, which has
• 1:09:26
  been about that the last couple times.
• 1:09:30
  But what was your reaction? Not.
• 1:09:32
  Not a total surprise, all things considered.
• 1:09:35
  Yeah, I mean, obviously a championship going to Eugene is
• 1:09:37
  not surprising at all. OK, so we.
• 1:09:40
  Were getting flak for the for like the breaking news thing on
• 1:09:43
  the graphics. It's news and it just came out.
• 1:09:45
  I don't think they're. Yeah, they weren't giving you
• 1:09:47
  flak. There is general commentary that
• 1:09:51
  is just not surprising. It's just news, normal news.
• 1:09:58
  Championships headed to Eugene, which I am pro Olympic trials
• 1:10:03
  always being in Eugene. I want to.
• 1:10:05
  I feel like I've vocalized the fact that we go to Eugene too
• 1:10:09
  often like many others. But I do think the trials should
• 1:10:12
  always be there. We just need to not burn
• 1:10:15
  everyone out in between. All that to say is love the six
• 1:10:18
  day format. Anyone who has a job or family
• 1:10:23
  or any other responsibility in the entire world outside of
• 1:10:26
  track and field would be very happy to know that it's four
• 1:10:30
  days shorter and now it's like tenable to just go as a fan and
• 1:10:34
  just see the whole thing. It's a weird Thursday to Tuesday
• 1:10:38
  though. Yeah, but it's the.
• 1:10:41
  Summer. You've never heard of Summer
• 1:10:43
  Tuesdays? Every office in America has it.
• 1:10:48
  But yeah, I like when there was two days in the middle, it used
• 1:10:51
  to be like, you have to choose, do I want to go to the first
• 1:10:53
  half or do I want to go to the second-half?
• 1:10:55
  Do I want to go support my kid in the prelim or just kind of
• 1:10:58
  hope that they make it to the final?
• 1:11:00
  And now it's just like, yeah, you just go for a week and you
• 1:11:03
  can see it all. I do like that the 10K is
• 1:11:07
  separate. I think that's a great move for
• 1:11:11
  a few reasons. 1 is like, why not boost the profile of another
• 1:11:14
  event while simultaneously giving athletes an opportunity
• 1:11:19
  to focus on perhaps more than one event?
• 1:11:24
  So, you know, you no longer have to worry about choosing between
• 1:11:27
  a 5K10K or whether it's now that you don't have two rounds of the
• 1:11:33
  5K doing a 15105K double S is a little bit more tenable.
• 1:11:37
  Like you can be a if you don't make it to the 10K, maybe in
• 1:11:41
  that next month or two, you're like, hey, let's try the
• 1:11:44
  steeplechase. If you don't make the marathon
• 1:11:48
  trials two months later, you turn around, you're in the 10K,
• 1:11:51
  that doesn't work, turn around, run the 5K, turn around, that
• 1:11:54
  doesn't work, you retire. Like we've got options.
• 1:11:59
  Just keep going down until you need a job.
• 1:12:02
  Wow, that's and that's crazy coming from the king of moving
• 1:12:05
  up. Yeah.
• 1:12:06
  No, we move down now you go back up and start over.
• 1:12:14
  I like it. I I see no problems with this.
• 1:12:17
  I'd be curious to know how field adventures feel about prelims
• 1:12:21
  and finals. Or like if you had to choose
• 1:12:24
  between prelims or an extra throw in the final, which would
• 1:12:29
  you take? Sounds like a policy or
• 1:12:32
  something like that. It's there, yeah.
• 1:12:35
  Yeah, I mean, again, not a shocker.
• 1:12:37
  We're going back to to Eugene. I think the the thing was there
• 1:12:42
  was a small subsect of people holding out hope that it that
• 1:12:48
  there would be a little bit of a dress rehearsal at the Colosseum
• 1:12:53
  before. But the problem is, you know, in
• 1:12:57
  Athens, the track really wasn't ready up until like a couple
• 1:13:01
  days before the opening ceremonies like these big event
• 1:13:06
  planning and execution in the building, the build outs, like
• 1:13:09
  they're always up against crazy timelines.
• 1:13:12
  And so it's just not feasible that the track will be inside
• 1:13:17
  the Memorial Coliseum for this. LA did not bid for the trials at
• 1:13:22
  all, which means that Mount SAC. I could see them still kind of
• 1:13:26
  harboring some feelings after kind of being given the 20, the
• 1:13:31
  original 2020 trials and then snatched away and then those
• 1:13:35
  were given to Eugene kind of wild because like they have that
• 1:13:38
  facility that seats 30,000 people or something like that.
• 1:13:42
  And it's never really been used to that capacity.
• 1:13:46
  So it's yeah, there I guess the historically also in 96 in
• 1:13:55
  Atlanta, they used the Olympic Stadium before they went to the
• 1:13:59
  for the trials before the games. Same thing in 86, but this time
• 1:14:03
  around the stadium's just not gonna be ready.
• 1:14:07
  So hey, it is what it is. The athletes will still run
• 1:14:12
  really fast, the stakes are still super high and it'll be an
• 1:14:18
  exciting, we'll forget all about just sort of the the fact that
• 1:14:21
  we didn't end up elsewhere when we end up in Eugene in July of
• 1:14:28
  2028, it'll be here before we know it, so.
• 1:14:31
  Yeah, I'm, I'm excited. Like save your anger and
• 1:14:35
  frustration till a week before the Olympic Games and they go,
• 1:14:38
  actually the track's not ready. We're gonna just do the track
• 1:14:41
  events in Eugene. I don't think the odds of that
• 1:14:45
  happening. Did you see these ticket prices
• 1:14:47
  like the get in ticket price right now for like this next
• 1:14:50
  latest wave is like 1600 bucks for like the cheapest seat track
• 1:14:54
  hot ticket item for the LA games.
• 1:14:57
  We need the We were talking about like the 9 + 1 of If you
• 1:15:02
  want face value tickets, I need to see you at 9 track meets
• 1:15:05
  before the Olympics. And volunteer and volunteer at
• 1:15:09
  1:00. You have to volunteer to rate
• 1:15:12
  the pit at 1 middle school dual meet and then attend 9 track
• 1:15:16
  meets of any level and then we'll let you spend $1600 to get
• 1:15:21
  it. And that's.
• 1:15:25
  Kyle, remember the tracks are rules, so at this point you've
• 1:15:30
  created a 9 + 1 program for Olympic tickets and you are
• 1:15:35
  removing people from the track after they get lapped in the
• 1:15:38
  10K. Oh, I have way worse ideas.
• 1:15:43
  This is like the Bill Simmons podcast where he just, they have
• 1:15:46
  like half baked ideas. Yeah.
• 1:15:48
  It's like, yeah, the entire concept is you just throw things
• 1:15:51
  out there. What are you going to say next?
• 1:15:52
  Keely Hodgkins is going to be the Prime Minister of Great
• 1:15:56
  Britain in the future. Yeah, check out In the Laugh
• 1:16:01
  Count tomorrow my response to most recent Bill Simmons
• 1:16:04
  podcast. Did you read this yet?
• 1:16:07
  I haven't read the draft yet, but your reference, you know.
• 1:16:10
  The concept. The fact that they ranked the
• 1:16:12
  parent the best sports for parents.
• 1:16:17
  Yeah, yeah, for your kids to do. Yeah, I, I listened to that
• 1:16:21
  episode and we were texting with you, me, Megan Marant, and she
• 1:16:28
  was just like, yeah. I mean, they're every reason
• 1:16:31
  they've given for what a sport is so good.
• 1:16:34
  They're totally missing that. Like cross country has that.
• 1:16:36
  Yeah. So.
• 1:16:38
  It's so my. Response.
• 1:16:39
  Ranked, he ranks cross country 15th, Which it's like compared
• 1:16:46
  to what was some really high ones like hockey was higher.
• 1:16:50
  Yeah, baseball, soccer. And again, this is about the
• 1:16:53
  parent experience, the idea of it being like affordable, not
• 1:16:57
  offending your life, fun to go, do not too much travel, all
• 1:17:00
  these things. It was like cross country checks
• 1:17:03
  every single box, so yeah. All right, well, people can read
• 1:17:09
  that in the lab count tomorrow and we've got Diamond League
• 1:17:12
  action resuming this weekend. second-half of the season
• 1:17:16
  getting underway. Excited for it all.
• 1:17:18
  Be sure to follow along on CITIUS MAG for everything,
• 1:17:21
  Instagram, Twitter, We'll give you all the updates and the
• 1:17:24
  interviews. Preet's actually going to
• 1:17:26
  Celestia this weekend, so we'll have some on the ground coverage
• 1:17:29
  there as well. He crushed it up in Birmingham.
• 1:17:33
  Like the interviews? Oh man.
• 1:17:36
  All of them performed, and so that's great to see.
• 1:17:39
  So thanks everyone for following along with everything throughout
• 1:17:43
  the weekend. And here are Preet Majithia's
• 1:17:47
  overall thoughts from the European Championships, and
• 1:17:51
  we'll see you next week. I just thought I'd give a few of
• 1:17:55
  my takeaways from being there in person at the European Athletic
• 1:18:00
  Championships. Just an amazing seven days of
• 1:18:05
  action and the last few days the stands were full after all the
• 1:18:11
  worries about ticket sales in the first couple of days.
• 1:18:15
  Great atmosphere, particularly Irish fans were incredibly loud
• 1:18:20
  and incredibly numerous and obviously they had a lot of
• 1:18:23
  metal success so that made it a lot of fun.
• 1:18:25
  Felt a bit like an NCAA meet at the end where effectively the
• 1:18:30
  the medal table was decided by the final men's 4x4 between
• 1:18:36
  Italy and GB, and Italy took the gold in that 4x4 to actually
• 1:18:41
  also come top in the medal table.
• 1:18:45
  So that was a pretty cool end to things.
• 1:18:49
  Just in terms of a few performances.
• 1:18:52
  I want to shout out, I mean, Amy Hunt for gold medals, fabulous.
• 1:18:59
  You know, you have to go and come and deliver a championship.
• 1:19:02
  So it's never easy to do, even if she was probably the favorite
• 1:19:08
  to take those medals alongside the relay medals as well.
• 1:19:14
  And then you know Dina Asher Smith also shout to her for
• 1:19:19
  being most medalled athlete in European Championship history. 8
• 1:19:24
  golds, 2 silvers and one bronze after winning the 2 relay golds
• 1:19:28
  and and the 200 bronze at these championships.
• 1:19:34
  Then there were a few competitions and performances I
• 1:19:39
  want to shout out. Alyssa Vineyo, my favorite
• 1:19:41
  Finnish marathoner, won the marathon by nearly 5 full
• 1:19:47
  minutes in 2/22/26. Just incredible performance.
• 1:19:56
  And then on the men's side, my favorite performance really was
• 1:20:00
  Jean Marco Tamberi. I mean coming in with a 223
• 1:20:04
  seasons, best in the men's high jump and putting on a show as
• 1:20:10
  only Jean Marco Tamberi can do, jumping 232 and then getting the
• 1:20:16
  whole crowd singing Happy Birthday.
• 1:20:19
  To his daughter who just turned 1 on that very same day,
• 1:20:24
  Absolutely Fabulous from him. I think the other amazing
• 1:20:31
  performances really that were there were Christian Che in the
• 1:20:37
  discus. 7251 championship record.
• 1:20:41
  Furthest ever throw at a championships, further than any
• 1:20:44
  throw ever at a world or an Olympics.
• 1:20:48
  So that was really, really impressive from him.
• 1:20:52
  Bent Halash 8425 for a world lead in the men's hammer, which
• 1:20:57
  makes the Budapest World Ultimates very exciting because
• 1:21:00
  the loudest noise I've ever heard in my life in a stadium is
• 1:21:05
  when Bent Halash threw over 8 meters at the 2023 Budapest
• 1:21:10
  World Championships. And then I also wanted to give a
• 1:21:16
  shout to Andy Diaz Hernandez of Italy in 1815 in the men's
• 1:21:25
  triple jump. And they weren't on the bouncy
• 1:21:27
  runway that they had in Rome a couple of years ago.
• 1:21:32
  So that was brilliant, too. But yeah, obviously a lot of
• 1:21:37
  great races. The distance race is really
• 1:21:39
  delivered. Stefan Nielsen, I think I just
• 1:21:41
  want to give a shout out to him as well.
• 1:21:43
  He I was just so happy him and Marina Budduck, who got the
• 1:21:48
  silver, just go and watch the interviews on on this, my
• 1:21:52
  YouTube channel with with those guys because just sheer joy.
• 1:21:57
  And I think Stefan Nielsen's definitely someone to watch for
• 1:21:59
  the future. He's been slightly in the shadow
• 1:22:02
  of his training partner Neil's Laros.
• 1:22:04
  But, you know, he's he's an incredible talent himself as
• 1:22:08
  well. So yeah, just a few of of my
• 1:22:13
  thoughts. You know, there was also a bit
• 1:22:15
  of kind of a downer at the end, like the Saturday night.
• 1:22:20
  There was a bit of drama. There was a police presence.
• 1:22:23
  People can get off out of the venue for a couple of hours.
• 1:22:29
  So that was probably the only slight downer there.
• 1:22:34
  Some of the athletes had to wait a couple of hours in the media.
• 1:22:36
  I was safely ensconced in the pub next door.
• 1:22:39
  So I was personally fine. But I did feel for everyone out
• 1:22:42
  there who was absolutely freezing their butts off because
• 1:22:44
  it was absolutely freezing. But yeah, I mean, I think we've
• 1:22:50
  got so much to look forward to. So I'm excited to now head to
• 1:22:53
  Lausanne, Celestia, Zurich. We've got those amazing 800
• 1:22:58
  meter rematches and plenty of other great action come.
• 1:23:05
  All right, that's a wrap on today's episode.
• 1:23:07
  Thanks for listening, for the time, the curiosity, and for
• 1:23:10
  making this show part of your routine or your run.
• 1:23:13
  A big thanks to our producer Jasmine Fair and to everyone
• 1:23:16
  behind the scenes who helps make the CITIUS MAG Podcast happen.
• 1:23:19
  If you enjoyed today's episode, a quick five star review on
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  Apple Podcast or Spotify helps people find this show and we
• 1:23:25
  read every single one. You can find
• 1:23:27
  muchmoretrackandfieldcoverage@sidiousmag.com and you can follow along across
• 1:23:31
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• 1:23:33
  We'll see you next time. Thanks again for listening.