Lap 113: In partnership with On

What happens when you mix the world's fastest athletes and a festival atmosphere? On Track Nights.

Part music festival, part track meet, Track Fest is kicking off the new global event series from On with a bang on the legendary Mt. Sac course in Los Angeles.

Lighting up the track with some of the world's fastest athletes and surrounding it with food trucks and beer tents, Track Fest is redefining racing events. Experience an unmissable atmosphere as you enjoy the 800m, 1500m, steeplechase, 5000m and 10,000m events, as well as a community event for LA's local run clubs.

And as if all that wasn't enough, to top it off, there will be a headline performance from musical superstar KYLE to bring the house down.

Don't miss it. Be there at Mt Sac, May 6, 2023.

Get your ticket at ontracknights.com

Make it global sport 🇧🇼

Letsile Tebogo of Botswana stormed to a 200m victory in 19.87 at the Gaborone Continental Tour this past weekend, and the crowd went absolutely berserk. That’s the expected reaction! The 19-year-old phenom took down a star-studded field including the defending Olympic champ on his home turf.

But the response was similar for Ferdinand Omanyala’s 100m in 9.78 (+2.3). And Kayla White, who held off Sha’Carri in the 200m in 22.38. And also the huge 400m by 20-year-old Muzala Samukonga of 43.91, to set the Zambian national record.

Trevor Bassitt won the 400mH in 48.43 and noted “the crowd was absolutely electric, truly an honor to put on a show for those incredible fans.”

What I’m hearing is Africa needs more pro-level track meets.

On the men’s side, African nations currently have the world leader in the 100m, 200m, 300m, 400m, 800m, 1000m, and 1500m – all by different people. And that’s ignoring the continent’s traditional strength: its distance runners – 8-of-9 medals were won by an African at the 2022 World Championships.

And yet, there is only one Diamond League meet in all of Africa, and that’s Rabat. Do you know what’s closer to Rabat than Gaborone? New York by almost one thousand miles.

Now I understand that athletes don’t want to travel four thousand miles to get from race to race, and therefore it makes sense for a big chunk of the regular season to take place in a much smaller geographic region like Europe. (Also, European track meets are great! Their fans are super knowledgeable, engaged, and I don’t want to assume, but most people in Monaco probably at least know someone with a yacht.)

But last year’s World Championships had more total hours watched by the people of Nigeria than the United States. That’s remarkable considering that Lagos is eight hours ahead of Eugene. You know no sleep was had the night Tobi Amusan set the 100mH World Record.

With a population of just over 200K people, there was a palpable energy in Gaborone that a New York Diamond League sans Bolt never had. As the sport looks to grow, maybe developing an emerging market where there is already enthusiasm is the best route to plant the seeds. Africa has the talent and the fanbase, it just needs more opportunities to host the world.

Sent that thing into orbit 🥏

Despite being one of the original Olympic events, ever since the athletes stopped competing naked, the discus throw hasn’t always gotten the love it deserves. I am not suggesting we return to a whirling ring of nudity, but it is a discipline that goes unappreciated by the general public. Maybe it’s because so few of us have ever stepped into the circle to try and launch one ourselves? On television, it looks so fluid and natural that it seems easy, even though it definitely isn’t – well, except maybe if you’re Mykolas Alekna.

There are not many global medalists walking around NCAA campuses, and yet the Cal sophomore has a fancy silver medal hanging from his dorm room wall. (This might be a sensitive subject, but there is also a silver medal from NCAAs – likely not as prominently displayed.) It’s almost unfathomable, but Alekna earned that global hardware for himself (and Lithuania) when he was just 19 years old.

This past weekend, Alekna crushed the collegiate record by throwing 71.00m – the 18th farthest launch in history – at the Big Meet. But there is still a way to go until he gets the family record. His father, Virgilijus, sits at number two, which pairs nicely with his two Olympics golds. But back when Virgilijus was 19, his discus was landing a full ten yards behind what Mykolas is throwing now.

Is throwing far a result of nature or nurture? While Mykolas grew up surrounded by the discus with his father competing well into his elementary school years, he was never coached by his old man. But maybe their dinner table conversations were a bit different than my own. If the Crousers are any indication, we know that it probably doesn’t hurt to come from a big throws family (hashtag #BigThrowsFamily?).

No matter what I do, it feels like there’s no chance any of my kin will ever enter a ring of any kind and walk out of it alive. But regardless of the event, the consistent thread across elite athletes with elite parents is that you don’t have to force things – talent can be absorbed through osmosis.

Should we care about dual meets? ⚔️

Immediately after winning the Penn Relays Distance Medley Relay, the Stanford women doubled back with a race to the airport. The next day they’d be competing at the Big Meet, a dual against their Golden State rival Cal Berkeley. With my east coast bias, it’s hard to imagine a non-championship event with more history, held in greater esteem than the Penn Relays. But my imagination isn’t based on facts.

In 1893, two years before the relay carnival (and before the cheesesteak was invented!), the first meeting between Stanford and Cal took place. Since then, Cal holds the series advantage 74-52-2 for the men, but the Cardinal women are up 29-14.

Spectators used to flock in droves to watch this dual meet, and yet today the stands are empty. Is it because back before Silicon Valley created too many things to do on our phones there was no other entertainment option besides attending a track meet? Or maybe Silicon Valley has inflated housing prices so much that the only remaining track fans in the Bay Area are the four or five Facebook product managers who happened to run in college?

Every time there’s a conversation about how to popularize track and field there’s the suggestion to lean into the team aspect. It worked in the past, right? But this isn’t the Olympics. There are over 7 billion people on Earth, all of whom have a country to root for, but there aren’t even eight thousand current Stanford undergraduates.

There is a reason that no two universities are actively creating new dual meets today. Back when horse and carriage was the primary mode of transportation these things made a lot more sense. But today, nothing screams, ‘MY COACH IS MAKING ME DO THIS!” like a 58.9 first 400m of an 800 (that was won in 1:53).

Does track always have to be scored as a team sport? There’s nothing wrong with accepting that outside of relays it’s an individual endeavor. Ask me who won any NCAA team title ever and watch my face go blank. Okay, that’s not true… I remember when Raevyn Rogers anchored Oregon to the win in the 4×400. But aside from that! If you are not affiliated with one of the schools in the hunt, then it seems inconsequential.

This constant push of team scores mattering most just creates another storyline that needs oxygen. As if there is not already an overwhelming amount to unpack in every single heat. Remember when German Fernandez was winning NCAAs his freshman year in the 1500, but the camera and commentators kept focusing on Jordan McNamara, who needed to get a single point? This feels pretty consistent with the point that I try to make week in and week out, that the sport needs to be easier to follow. It’s a challenge enough convincing anyone to care about even a single person or event, let alone forty.

I had this all typed out, and then I was made aware of the USC vs. UCLA dual meet, and it sort of won me back for a moment. UCLA’s second leg pulled no punches, making a grand gesture with a big pass with 100m to go – except there was still half the race left. And as USC’s anchor ran down the home stretch celebrating and taunting, the entire team crowded the track and chased him down to lift their hero up in celebration. It was fun, and there was emotion!

But then the officials disqualified both teams for unsportsmanlike conduct. That’s 100% of the participants, DQ’d! No one is happy about this. Rules in track tend to exist on a spectrum and discerning when to call “foul” is an important part of the job.

DQs aside I still won’t likely be tuning in to watch any dual meets next year.

Being a part of the team is the defining aspect of the student-athlete experience and for a lot of NCAA runners who won’t have the opportunity to earn a national title or an All-American certificate, this is their chance to contribute to something bigger than themselves.

And while team scoring might not matter to those of us on the outside, it means something to those in uniform. Dual meets should be the one place where leaning into rivalries should not only be allowed but encouraged – but what else is the point of them?

Who is our Primetime?

Deion Sanders is changing college football. I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, and the discussion turned to the impact the former NFL All-Star was having on the Colorado Buffaloes. The spring opener for a 1-11 team sold out a 45,000 person stadium and was shown on ESPN. Season tickets have sold out. Merchandise sales are up 700%. And the team’s gained over 1M new followers on social media.

Only 20 of the 83 scholarship players from last year remain, though they are somewhat controversially being replaced with top recruits and transfers who are moving to Boulder to play for Sanders and to be part of the hype.

I was hypothesizing about if this could work in cross country. Every half-decent runner who has never actually coached a team thinks that if you gave them 12.6 scholarships and four years that they could get any moderately competitive academic institution onto the podium at NCAAs.

Could this work? Who is most likely to pull it off? Let me know who you think could!

In partnership with OLIPOP

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Are we going to have a jump-off? 🔜

I am well aware of the irony – err, hypocrisy – of arguing against dual meets and head-to-head competitions in the same newsletter. But they’re different! Two professionals talking smack and then stepping into the arena to face off against one another is the definition of competition, and it is the easiest storyline to follow.

Tara Davis thinks she can jump farther than Quanesha Burks. That’s it. That’s the plot! Every day on playgrounds across the country there are similar disputes, except those kids tend to have fewer Instagram followers and are not ranked number one and two in the world, so no one cares. (Okay, they aren’t actually WA-certifiably ranked there, but they do have the top two jumps this year outdoor season.) Davis leads the lifetime matchup, 5-4.

These two do not like each other. I wish I had insight as to why, but what we do know is that Tara had to use her husband’s Instagram account (her own was apparently blocked by Burks) to issue a challenge saying, “anywhere, anytime! I’ll pay for your flight.” This came in response to Burks saying she doesn’t need the “hype” – clearly in reference to Tara’s quite extensive social media following.

Regardless of the beef’s origin, the pair faced off against each other this past weekend at LSU. It was Tara’s first competition since serving a one-month suspension for marijuana, an innocuous offense that no one really cares about, minus the technical stripping of an indoor national title.

Tara won the battle in Baton Rouge, jumping 7.05m, but with a substantial 5.9 m/s tailwind. Obviously having the breath of God propelling you forward helps, however, a gust of that level can really complicate the step measurement so a legal jump at all in those conditions is actually quite impressive. Burks finished in second with a legal 6.95m (+1.6) jump – that’s the legitimate top mark of the season, and she let it be known.

After the feud blew up on social media, our good friends at Trials of Miles in partnership with Rae’s Take made sure that the stage could be set for a showdown at Track Night NYC, May 19th at Icahn Stadium. The meet will be streamed for free by CITIUS MAG. There is a confirmed $10,000 prize purse. Tara has officially committed. The wheels are in motion!

There is no discipline that would benefit more from head-to-head competition than the jumps. Firstly, no one currently pays close attention to the long jump. And that’s not because we don’t want to. It just doesn’t get much TV time. But stand next to a runway and there are few events in track and field where there is more shit talk being exchanged in the middle of a competition. And while the track events have storylines that develop before and after a race, with six attempts in the long jump, the storyline builds incrementally as the smack talk flies and pecking order becomes clear.

If it comes together, then it will undoubtedly be a great spectacle to witness in person. The drama is not contrived. It is high stakes because it is personal. I have this original idea that I just came up with: track and field should do a Drive To Survive-type series! This would make a good pilot episode.

The Penn Villanova Relays 🥇

It’s hard to ever truly call Villanova an underdog at the Penn Relays, but they certainly were not the favorites. The day before the Wildcats crossed the tape to win their 21st men’s 4 x mile title – yes, 21! – there was a difficult loss to process.

Liam Murphy was handed the baton in first in Friday’s DMR, hoping to anchor his squad to a 26th – yes, 26! – wheel in that event. With 200m to go things looked promising. He moved to the front and created a gap, but suddenly the finish was more distant than he banked on. Wisconsin swooped in as Adam Spencer found one more gear.

(Spoiler alert: It was a good weekend for Irish distance coaches as Marcus O’Sullivan, Mick Byrne, and Ray Treacy could have built a tricycle together.)

So what do you do when your anchor gets devastated on Friday? You let him learn from his mistakes on Saturday. (This happened to me my senior year after a disastrous DMR. The next day I ran a much better 4 x mile anchor but still finished second to my future roommate Donn Cabral. It was retroactively comforting to see him finish 8th at the Olympics that summer.)

The race had a collegiate record, sub-16 minute, and even world record potential. There’s a reason why Washington opted to tap four American milers for the task. As the leading third legs came through at 12:03, it was all right there. But then something predictable happened. After all, records can fall, but Penn Relays wheels are forever. They jogged.

With one lap to go, the announcer called it “slow, lazy running” which is a hilarious description of tactical racing, yet there were 10 teams in contention. And this time Liam waited and waited until he got it.

After the race, I spoke with Marcus O’Sullivan and asked him if he ever lobbies to have schools ensure that Penn is always on their meet schedule. He made a great point: most teams show up when they have special talents, but Villanova is always there.

It’s a shame that there is no distance-oriented relay at the outdoor NCAA outdoor championships. The DMR is always one of the most exciting races indoors, and it seems like there’d be a desire for that consistency in the outdoor season. That or another mixed-gender relay…

Don’t follow dopers’ leads, you dope!

Have you ever seen an athlete’s training log and thought, ‘How the hell do they do that?’ Well, sometimes… it’s drugs.

Renowned sprint coach John Coghlan made a great point in a recent profile in the Irish Independent about a less commonly acknowledged side-effect of PED use in the sport: the proliferation of questionable training methods. The benefits of most banned substances are not that they automatically make you faster, but that they allow you to train way harder than your body would otherwise be able to handle.

Do you know how the day after a speed session it might take three days to get your legs back under you? Now imagine if 24 hours was enough to be ready again. With that newfound recovery ability, athletes can work out twice as often.

Now suppose you learn that a training partner or competitor is doing unimaginable things in practice. How can you expect to beat them on race day if you’re working half as hard? In striving to match those efforts without artificial assistance then the majority of us will simply burn out or be injured.

This is why you have to focus on yourself and your own progress. I do think it is helpful to be vaguely aware of what is required to reach the top level, but ultimately if you’re continuing to only one-up yourself then the improvements will follow.

This extends to age and experience as well. Back in my youth, I recall racing and beating some older milers on the circuit and feeling quite good about myself. And then a few days later, when we met up to do a workout, I got my ass handed right back to me. Generally, a younger runner can recover faster than his older counterparts — you remember being in high school, right? But an older, more experienced runner can go for so much longer, thanks to those stacked years of work. It’s like making love.

Quickie: My 8 storylines from On Track Nights

1. Underrated 800m Champions — Ask your garden variety track geek “who won the 2021 NCAA Indoor or the 2019 World Championships 800m?” and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone with an answer. Despite their accolades, Aaliyah Miller and Nakaayi Halimah don’t receive the attention they deserve. Is it time to fix that?

2. Yared does speed work — The OAC guys really made a point at the Penn Relays that they’re in base training right now. Nuguse’s 1:48.2 personal best from 2019 is long overdue for an update, and anything in the 1:46 mid-range for an outdoor opener would be a fantastic indicator of things to come.

3. Welcome back, GDBS — We haven’t seen much from Gabriela DeBues-Stafford since leaving Bowerman. In fact, it’s been a year since she last laced up her spikes. (All we know is she doesn’t have to live in Eugene!) This will be not only a rust-buster, but a chance to make a real statement in the 1500.

4. What can you do in a 1500? — Abdi Nur and Woody Kincaid have thrived in the longer distances the past few years, but can they run 57s? They have 3:36 and 3:37 personal bests, respectively, but I want to see if they get dragged along by the specialists or try to run away from them.

5. New threat — We know that Courtney Wayment can run a good steeplechase, and is looking to shore up her position as a Team USA lock alongside Coburn and Frerichs. But could Krissy Gear be a dark horse this year? A 9:38 from 2021 doesn’t scream contender, however, a win at the BAA Mile and new 800m and mile PBs indicates her fitness has leveled up.

6. Is this the team? — Hilary Bor, Bernard Keter, and Anthony Rotich will get a chance to make all other US steeple hopefuls nervous. And while he’s not American, I’m of course interested to see if Geordie Beamish can rip another page out of the textbook as he attempts to transition to the steeplechase.

7. New collegiate record — The 5000m is WIDE open this weekend with a ton of good pros in there like Josette Andrew, Melissa Courtney-Bryant, Emily Infeld, Elly Hennes, Annie Rodenfels, Whittni Orton, and more. But only one lady has a shot at taking down Jenny Simpson’s NCAA record of 15:07, and that’s Katelyn Tuohy.

8. Can he steal another 2K? — I boldly predicted that Josh Kerr would win the Millrose 3000m, proving that if you make a dozen predictions a week, every now and then you’ll look like a genius. But a 5000m… that’s far! Cooper Teare is probably who most fans will expect to win, because he’s so damn charming and handsome. But do not sleep on fellow hunk, Athanas Kioko. He just ran 3:36 to win the 1500m at Wake Forest, and he stayed in to run 27:23 after pacing The TEN.

Rapid Fire Highlights 🔥

• Issam Asinga backed up his wind-aided 100m record last week with a new high school 200m record of 19.97 (+1.3). Technically Erriyon Knighton was still in high school last year when he ran 19.49 but he’d already turned professional.

• Italian shot putter and fan favorite Nick Ponzio cryptically announced that the Drake Relays would be the last of his career as he is being forced to retire. “This isn’t my decision, nor is it what I want to do, but it is beyond my control.” No further details have been made available, but the group chat has some conspiracy theories.

• North Carolina’s Rocky Hansen ran 3:59.56 to become the 18th US high schooler to run a sub-four-minute mile. He won the race, which deserves credit, and he also went out in 56 as only a high schooler would!

• Raymond Magut was victorious in the men’s race at the Broad Street 10 miler in 45:13 and Cynthia Limo held me off at the tape to set a new course record of 50:54. (Your humble newsletter writer had a good race, finishing in 50:56 on 26:00 - 24:56 5-mile splits. Currently, I do not hate running.)

• Atlanta Track Club’s Sadi Henderson shared a wild tale of how toxic mold in her living space impacted her health.

• Gabby Thomas ran 49.68 in Texas this weekend for a significant two-second personal best in the 400m. That’s the second fastest time in the world this season, too… is this an event worth considering more seriously? If she is willing to run the 200m heats the morning of the 400m final, then the double is possible at worlds.

• The Drake Relays was highlighted by Tia Jones running 12.44 in the 100mH (the WR holder was 4th in the race). Nikki Hiltz won the 1500 in 4:09, Isaiah Jewett took the 800 in 1:47.0, and Ryan Crouser threw 22.38m, despite the circle being two inches deep in water.

• Check out the Adidas Adizero Road to Records results. I go back and forth on these exhibition, company-only events. It’s sort of like if you get a record then it works and it’s really cool, but if you miss then it’s like, hmmm… where was everyone else? From a brand perspective, it’s really great to have all of your athletes in one place and to make them feel appreciated and part of the mission. In theory, it’s a quality strategy to have your ambassadors hyped about the company.

• One of the highlights of the Penn Relays was a remarkable 45.06 split by Bullis High School freshman Quincy Wilson. I also enjoyed watching steeplechaser Geordie Beamish go 3:57 with a 53 second last lap to win the pro mile, and Josette Andrews setting a new meet record winning the 1500 in 4:04. And Philly favorites Ajee Wilson and Devon Allen both took home victories, which the crowds loved.

• Mark Zuckerberg, the guy who inspired the hit movie The Social Network ran a 5k in 19:34… It was probably a virtual race. Ha!

What to Watch 📺

Doha Diamond League - Friday, 5pm ET - NBC Peacock

Atlanta City Games - Saturday, 6pm ET - Adidas YouTube

On Track Fest - Saturday, 8pm ET — Tracklandia

Thanks so much to On for supporting this week’s newsletter! The CITIUS MAG team will be at Mt. Sac covering all the races with a LIVE preview show on Friday, and an on-broadcast episode of After The Final Lap. See you there!