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This week’s newsletter was compiled by David Melly and Paul Snyder

Final, Final Thoughts After the London DL 💎

With the London edition of the Diamond League circuit now in our rearview mirror, we hit pause on the glitzy invitational portion of the 2024 track season. For the next few weeks, nothing matters in athletics besides the Olympics.

But until the Diamond League circuit starts back up later in August, we’ll fill our days poring over results from London and trying to divine what they might mean for those same athletes when they make it across the Chunnel in a few weeks.

Gabby Thomas Hates Losing 200s

Something we – this newsletter, sports fans, people in general, etc. – don’t do enough is appreciate what we have until it’s gone. And in the case of Gabby Thomas, what we have is an athlete absolutely perfectly suited to their event. Sure, she can pop off a respectable or even world class time in the 100m or 400m. But to watch her over 200m is a near transcendent track and field experience.

Even after a frankly crappy start in London, she was able to summon the will and the legs over the final 50m and run down Dina Asher-Smith and Julien Alfred, the latter of whom ran a season’s best that put her in third on the year’s 200m top list. Thomas’s time – 21.82 – established a new meet record, which is incredible, because we cannot stress enough how crappy her start was. (Seriously. Watch the replay. Even knowing she’ll win, you won’t believe Thomas will win until she somehow does.)

The only thing that gives us more confidence than the world leader having a great race in their final tune-up… is her having a sort of bad one but still managing to beat some really fantastic athletes. We’re all in on Thomas at this point.

Men’s 100m Is A True Toss-Up

On the morning of the men’s 100m final in Paris, inside of Chris Chavez’s cluttered hotel room there will hang a large sheet of cardboard with a spinning arrow crudely affixed to it, serving as the team’s highly-sophisticated modeling technology for whether Kishane Thompson or Noah Lyles is the favorite.

Coming into this past weekend, even oddsmakers outside of Jamaica were beginning to favor Thompson. After winning his country’s Trials in commanding fashion in 9.77, Thompson traveled to Hungary and posted a very easy-looking 9.91 into a -0.6m/s headwind. He has been “on one,” to put things simply.

Right now, however, the arrow is pointed straight into the air, not leaning so much as a centimeter in the direction of either man. A true toss-up, after Lyles stormed to victory in a PB in London – 9.81 into a -0.3m/s headwind – we were forced to reign in our Thompson enthusiasm. 

This is going to be a phenomenal race, any way you slice it. We can’t wait to overreact to how each man looks as they navigate the rounds, and probably fail to properly pay attention to any number of very viable spoiler candidates.

The Men’s 400m Looks Like a 2-3 Person Race

Two weeks ago it was Quincy Hall who broke the 44-second barrier at a Diamond League meet to rocket to the top of the world list for 2024. This past weekend it was Matthew Hudson-Smith’s turn. In front of the home crowd, MHS put about a quarter of a second on the field to set a new world lead time of 43.74.

That means there are now two men who have dipped under 44 this season. The next closest is Canadian Christopher Morales-Williams, who looks to now be feeling the fatigue of a long NCAA indoor and outdoor campaign. This isn’t to say Hall and Hudson-Smith are a lock for the top two podium spots in Paris – Olympic champ Steven Gardiner hasn’t run nearly as fast, but he also hasn’t lost a race all year. But it’s looking like it will take either a significant leap from one of the other men in the field, a falter from one of our two favorites, or some combination of the two for things to get truly shaken up.

The Men’s Shot Is Gonna Be Fun, Perhaps Unpredictable(?!)

Don’t get us wrong. Leonardo Fabbri has been having a phenomenal season. We just didn’t expect him to come out and trounce the three Americans, especially when Joe Kovacs owns the longest toss in the world this year, Ryan Crouser looked to be rounding back into top form at the U.S. Trials after an injury plagued buildup, and Payton Otterdahl had been one of the most consistent men in the ring all season.

But here we are. The Italian heaved it 22.52m in the fifth round to leapfrog past all three Americans. Each Yank only mustered three legal throws, and though Crouser didn’t foul in the sixth round, he didn’t manage to match Fabbri, let alone his own chuck from the preceding round.

Does this make Fabbri the favorite heading into Paris? We’re not ready to go there just yet. He had a strong showing, to be clear. Kovacs and Crouser also had what we assume to be off day – Crouser, in particular, logged his shortest performance in over a year. Given that the Oregonian has won the last three straight global championships, he’s probably still the favorite, but Fabbri’s threat will certainly add an element of intrigue to what could’ve been a fairly predictable event.

The UK’s 800m Stars Make a Statement

In front of a packed home stadium that can only be described as “going berserk,” Keely Hodgkinson (1:54.61), Jemma Reekie (1:55.61), and Georgia Bell (1:56.28) went 1-2-3 in commanding fashion. What a result. The top-three finishers from London also yielded the three fastest times run in the world this year.

Hodgkinson was already a podium – if not gold medal – favorite. Reekie is always a factor on the international stage, but this feels like a performance that announces she’s reached a new level. And Bell isn’t even racing the 800m in Paris! She’s on the 1500m squad, and now has to feel mighty confident about her chances in a kicker’s race. The third member of the UK’s 800m contingent is Phoebe Gill, who took Reekie down at the British Trials. Say what you will about the transitive property, but we’re inclined to believe Gill’s as likely a medalist as Reekie.

Non-Brits who’ve run in the 1:56-57 range this year, like Mary Moraa, Natoya Goule-Toppin, Rénelle Lamote, and Nia Akins, all should have a thing or two to say about this new presumed pecking order. A sweep is far from likely, but multiple medals – one of them gold – appears to be possible, maybe even likely.

The Lap Count’s Top 10 Athletes of the 21st Century 🫡

When ESPN came out with its list of the 100 best athletes of the 21st century, the track community came together in a rare display of unity to denounce the list as having way too many basketball players and about 97 too few track and field stars.

While we disagree with the rankings in solidarity with our readers, the Lap Count is a big believer in making meaningless lists to stir up controversy and generate clicks. In making these subjective rankings based on an arbitrary weighting of impossible-to-compare accomplishments, we primarily considered three things: 1. Did the athlete win a lot when it counted? 2. Was the athlete a world-beater over a long period of time? And 3. Did the athlete go faster/further/higher than everyone else in the world?

So without further ado, here are the TLC top 10 athletes of the 21st century. And yes, they’re all from track and field.

10. Faith Kipyegon

Olympics: 🥇🥇 ; Worlds: 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥈🥈; Outdoor WRs: 1500m & mile (both current) 

The state of women’s middle-distance and distance running right now is – in a dumb word - bonkers. We’re seeing athletes casually trot past once impenetrable barriers, like sub-29 minutes for 10,000m and sub 3:50 for 1500m. A sub-14 5000m feels like an inevitability. And it’s not just one dominant athlete popping these once unthinkable times. There’s historic global depth across these events! And yet, no matter how loaded the 1500m or 5000m field, more often than not, it’s going to be Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon running away with it. 

With two world records, two Olympic titles, and (as of 2023), the ability to win at both 1500m or 5000m against some of the best runners in history, Kipyegon has been pretty much unbeatable on the middle-distance circuit for the better part of the last decade. If she picks up Olympic golds three and four in a couple weeks, as she is favored to do, she’ll likely rise a lot higher in the rankings the next time we get around to it.

9. Sifan Hassan

Olympics: 🥇🥇🥉; Worlds: 🥇🥇🥈🥉🥉🥉; Outdoor WRs: mile (2019-2023), 10,000m (2021)

In a sport that is almost defined by its top athletes’ rigid and risk-averse approach to setting out a racing schedule, Dutch jill-of-all-trades Sifan Hassan shines as a wildcard outlier. Rather than take the safe approach and race one, or hell, even two events at the 2020 Olympics, Hassan opted for the triple. She ran three 1500m races, two rounds of the 5000m, and a 10,000m. And somehow walked away with three medals. Since then, she won the 2023 London Marathon in her debut at the distance, despite having to stop several times to stretch out her calves. Later that year, she hit the streets of Chicago and in her victorious performance there, ran the second fastest marathon of all-time: a staggering 2:13:44.

Hassan is not unbeatable over a certain distance in the way Kipyegon has been, but she’s been a gold medal contender – or winner – at distances ranging from 1500m to the marathon. In a sport that rewards specialization, she’s currently on the all-time top-10 list of the 1500m, mile, 5000m, 10,000m, and marathon – and as the world record holder in the one-hour run, it’s likely that the only reason why she isn’t higher up on the half marathon list is because she hasn’t gotten around to it yet.

8. Christian Taylor

Olympics: 🥇🥇; Worlds: 🥇🥇🥇🥇

Perhaps its recency bias and early-onset nostalgia for the just-retired triple jumper, but we wanted to be sure Christian Taylor gets the respect he deserves from this newsletter. From 2011 to 2019, Taylor was inarguably the greatest triple jumper in the world, winning six of the seven global finals during that time. Taylor is also the king of clutch, globally-speaking: he only has two U.S. titles, but six World/Olympic titles.

Taylor never got the world record he so craved, his 18.21m American record sticking him at #2 on the all-time list behind Brit Jonathan Edwards. He gave it a scare quite a few times: Only eight men in history have jumped 18 meters, and Taylor has done it four times. An Achilles injury may have prematurely shortened his career, as he was never the same jumper in the 2020s that he was in the 2010s, but his achievements in that decade alone earn him a spot on this list.

7. Tirunesh Dibaba

Olympics: 🥇🥇🥇🥉🥉🥉; Worlds: 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥈; Outdoor WRs: 5000m (2012-2020)

Younger readers may remember the name Genzebe Dibaba, but they may not even realize that Genzebe’s older sister Tirunesh Dibaba was one of the greatest distance runners the 2000s decade has ever seen – and that’s including her compatriot Kenenisa Bekele. Bekele arguably deserves to be on this list as well, but his fellow Ethiopian has more Olympic medals over a longer period (2004 to 2016), with similar credentials across other championships (Tirunesh has 5 World track titles, 5 World XC titles) and a 14:11.15 5000m world record that was five seconds clear of the rest of the world for over a decade.

Dibaba did not have a long and successful marathon career, but she did finish on the podium in four World Majors, including a win in Chicago in 2017, and when she ran her PB of 2:17:56, it was at the time the third fastest women’s marathon in history behind two of the event’s all-time greats (Paula Radcliffe and Mary Keitany). Dibaba’s first World medal on the track came in 2003 and her last came in 2017,  longevity that is rare, if unprecedented, in middle-distance running.

6. Mondo Duplantis

Olympics: 🥇; Worlds: 🥇🥇🥈; Outdoor WRs: pole vault (2020-current)

World record aside, Mondo Duplantis is on this list because he’s about as close to a sure thing as you get in not just track and field, but any sport. When he hoists his pole up and tears down the runway, it’s nearly a foregone conclusion that when the dust settles, he’ll have cleared a higher bar than any other man in the stadium. In fact, since 2020, he’s only failed to win four contests out of the 85 he contested (indoors and outdoors, including separate day prelims).

But we do have to talk about his world record… er… records. Duplantis became the world record holder in 2020 when he vaulted 6.17m in Poland. Since then, he’s raised his own bar seven more times, to where it currently stands, 6.24m. That’s the kind of multi-year heater only one other male pole vaulter has ever found himself on: the great Sergey Bubka, who, aside from Duplantis, is the sole man with a viable claim to the GOAT status in this event.

5. Ryan Crouser

Olympics: 🥇🥇; Worlds: 🥇🥇🥈; Outdoor WRs: shot put (2021-current)

One inarguable sign of greatness is having a whole technique named after you. The originator of the “Crouser slide” has certainly gotten a lot of use out of his invention, to the tune of two Olympic titles, two World titles outdoors, and a World Indoor title. Only one man in history has thrown the shot put over 23.30m; Crouser has done it four times. He personally owns 50% of the all-time top-10 list in the event, and since he started breaking the world record, he’s improved it by 44 centimeters.

Crouser’s performance in Budapest last year wasn’t his longest, but it was perhaps his most impressive. Battling blood clots in his left leg, he still managed to win his third straight global title in historic fashion: a 23.51m championship record and #2 all time throw (behind himself, of course). Once again, the 31-year-old has faced some health-related setbacks this season, but if he picks up a third straight Olympic gold in Paris, it’ll be hard to deny that he deserves a spot on any all-time athletes list, regardless of sport.

4. Yulimar Rojas

Olympics: 🥇🥈; Worlds: 🥇🥇🥇🥇; Outdoor WRs: triple jump (2021-current)

Now, I know what you’re thinking: that list of medals is a lot shorter than some of the other athletes ranked lower on this list. But you can’t medal multiple times at one championship in the triple jump! And what Rojas can – and has – done is make an absolute mockery of our previous standards for excellence in her specialty event, in addition to winning 5 straight global titles outdoors, 3 straight indoors, and 3 straight Diamond League finals.

Here’s what the all-time list currently look like in the women’s triple jump: Rojas #1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 12, 14. Rojas’s 15.74m world record is thirty-four centimeters clear of the next name on the list. While an untimely injury means the Olympic champ won’t have the chance to defend her medal, the way she has truly redefined the event since 2017 means that there will be a 6-foot-4 shadow looming over the competition even in her absence.

3. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

Olympics: 🥇🥇🥇🥈🥈🥈🥈🥉; Worlds: 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥈🥈🥈🥈🥈🥉

One thing ESPN did get get right was including the unstoppable “Pocket Rocket” on their little list. It’s hard to say that SAFP has been truly dominant over the 100 meters in the way Bolt was during his height, but her perseverance and championship mettle more than make up for picking up the occasional L. And going four for five in global 100-meter titles from 2008 to 2015 is an incredibly strong string of performances in perhaps the most competitive distance in the sport.

What about Allyson Felix, you might ask? Well the Fraser-Pryce of America is certainly worthy of a spot on this list, but in the interest of spreading the love (and deliberately stirring up controversy), we’ve nixed her in favor of SAFP’s individual accomplishments. Eight of SAFP’s 13 global outdoor titles come from individual events, compared with only five of Felix’s 21. Fraser-Pryce is #3 on the all-time 100m list at 10.60, and she’s clocked nine of the 21 sub-10.7s ever run. The next most is Elaine Thompson-Herah at four, and world record holder Florence Griffith-Joyner only has three. And not to mention that SAFP, at 37, will be competing in her fifth Olympic games this year, so all these stats are subject to improvement.

2. Eliud Kipchoge

Olympics: 🥇🥇🥈🥉; Worlds: 🥇🥈; Outdoor WRs: marathon (2018-2023)

Chris Chavez succinctly summed up the absurdity of Kipchoge’s omission from the other list in this tweet, but it goes without saying that the greatest marathoner to ever do it deserves his kudos. Casual sports fans may not realize just how insane it is to be unbeatable in the marathon, of all distances. Being able to finish on the podium in two marathon majors a year is an impressive accomplishment; winning every marathon you start from 2014 to 2019 is just simply unheard of. The closest accomplishment from another sport is Michael Jordan’s championship run in the 1990s. Maybe in the 21st century we have to start using the phrase “The Eliud Kipchoge of ____” as shorthand for unparalleled dominance.

If Kipchoge manages to win a third straight marathon gold in Paris, it’ll be icing on the cake for the event’s GOAT. But even if he doesn’t, it’s hard to say it would even be more than a blip on a legacy that began in 2003 when the 17-year-old outkicked the greatest middle-distance runner of the previous decade (Hicham El Guerrouj) and the greatest distance runner of that decade (Kenenisa Bekele) to win World gold at 5000m. And the rest was history.

1. Usain Bolt

Olympics: 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇; Worlds: 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥈🥈🥉; Outdoor WRs: 100m (2009-current), 200m (2009-current), 4x100m (2012-current)

What is there to say about Usain Bolt that hasn’t been said? It would be repetitive to list off his credentials, but he does check off all three categories of our ranking criteria: world record holder 3x over, triple-double Olympic champion, and damn near unbeatable for most of a decade. We tried hard to not rank him #1 just to be irritating, but the facts just simply didn’t work in our favor. So enjoy one more accolade on your already hefty-pile, Usain. I’m sure this one means the most of them all.

In Partnership With TrainingPeaks

Years of running professionally led Dr. Anne Shadle, former NCAA 1500 champ and 2008 Olympic Trials competitor, to research what sets apart the world’s top performers from the pack: deliberate mental training. Find out how the pros master their mental game on the TrainingPeaks blog.

The Sky Is The Limit For Quincy Wilson ☁️

At last week’s Holloway Pro Classic in Gainesville, Florida, a number of interesting results were posted. Liberia’s Emmanuel Matadi clocked a 9.91 ahead of countryman Joe Fahnbulleh. Athing Mu returned to the track after her devastating fall in the Trials. Nigerian Favour Ofili notched wins in both the 100m and 200m. Olympic Trials breakout star Grace Stark took down a loaded 100m hurdles field, going 12.58 into a -1.7 headwind. 

Yet you probably wouldn’t know any of that unless you scoured the results page looking for it. That’s because Quincy Wilson got everyone’s attention by once again running really, really fast. The 16-year-old won the 400m in 44.20. That’s a new American high school record, a new U18 world record, and is the second fastest time ever posted by a U20 athlete.

Barring any bizarre, last-minute racing by the men ahead of him on the descending order list, Wilson will saunter onto the track in Paris having run the 8th fastest 400m in the world this year. And he’s only in the relay pool! (Fellow pool member Vernon Norwood’s 44.10 slots him in a three-way tie for fourth.) 

These are the sorts of credentials that earn you a spot on the roster for the 4 x 400m final, and not just the prelim or mixed gender 4 x 400m. That statement alone is nuts – particularly given the historic strength and depth of Team USA in this event.

But what makes it truly nuts is that he just keeps getting better. Wilson has raced a lot more often this year than most of his professional competition, and it would be totally understandable that a season that began in the first half of January might result in some physical or mental fatigue for even a more experienced runner. Large improvement curves aren’t unexpected from high school phenoms getting older and jumping up to the next level, but still: Wilson entered the year with a 45.87 PB and ran 45.7, 45.2, 44.6, 44.5, and now 44.20 after successfully navigating three rounds of a senior U.S. championship.

A tremendous amount of praise is owed to Wilson, who has handled the spotlight admirably and seemed truly unflappable as he steps onto larger and larger stages. But we also need to give a huge round of applause to his coach, Joe Lee. The only thing potentially harder than being a generationally talented teen phenom athlete is having to coach one. And from the outside looking in, it appears Lee and Wilson have targeted this moment – a truly audacious thing to aim for at 16! – all along. It’s still early in Wilson’s story, but it sure looks like he and his coach are putting on a masterclass in how to develop a prodigy.

Rapid Fire Highlights 🔥

– Two-time Olympic champion, four-time World champion, and number eight on our top-10 list from earlier in this newsletter, Christian Taylor, has officially retired from the sport of track and field. 

– After qualifying for the Olympics in the 200m, Brittany Brown has announced she’s no longer representing Adidas, and has signed with Nike. 

– At the Sound Running Sunset Tour, a number of top American distance and middle distance stars posted solid results: Katelyn Tuohy won the 5000m in 15:07.12; Whittni Morgan (4:02.59) took the 1500m over Karissa Schweizer (4:02.79) and Nikki Hiltz (4:04.27, about an hour after winning the 800m in 1:59.42);

– Chris Leer, author of Running with the Buffaloes, is collaborating with sports journalist Andrew Greif and former Newbury Park High School coach Sean Brosnan on a new book. Redefining Fast: How Newbury Park Became The Greatest High School Team In History, will presumably be about how Newbury Park became the greatest high school team in history.

– At Kingsport, Tennessee’s Crazy 8s, which doubled as the USATF 8K championship (yes, that’s a thing), Rachel Smith (25:40) took down a solid field by almost 20 seconds, and Ahmed Muhumed (22:26) edged out Isai Rodriguez by one second for the win. Altitude-based, Paris-bound Olympians ought to derive a sense of confidence from these two Flagstaffers’ ability to perform in humidity.

– Sports Illustrated released its traditional Olympic medal projection for all sports, and while it’s mostly just an impressive display of successful clickbait, it still makes for fun reading (and online arguing).

– Soon-to-be three-time Olympian Patrick Tiernan spent some time with the CITIUS MAG cameras to talk about his transition to marathon as he gears up to represent Australia over 26.2 miles in Paris.

Follow Along With Olympic Action

Is one newsletter a week not enough to get your Olympic fix? Over on the CITIUS MAG newsletter, we’ll be sending out event previews over the next week to get you pumped up for Paris 2024, and then during the track and field action (August 2-12), we’ll be sending out daily newsletters with recaps, previews, photos, interviews, and fun tidbits along the way, all brought to you by ASICS. Subscribe here for free!