Now anyone outside of Canada could probably make a case that this post should be called "Go Kenya Go", but lost in the dominance that was Kenya at the World Cross Country Run Championships was the unreal result by Canada's running superstar Simon Bairu.
Simon Bairu first made headlines in January when he soundly beat America's golden boy Ryan Hall at the Phoenix Half-Marathon. But arguably he had a better result at Sunday's World Senior Mens Cross Country race, where he finished 13th overall. 13th may not sound great, but it is the best result by a Canadian in the Senior Mens race ever. Plus he was only 17 seconds from 5th place. And he was the first non-African runner in the race (and the top American was only 36th) in a field of over 130 runners. Bairu was born in Saudi Arabia but moved to Canada when he was 4 and grew up in Regina. So I don't think we should discount that he didn't finish Top 10. An absolutely amazing result for Bairu as he continues to prepare for his marathon debut this fall. He is easily my favorite Canadian runner right now and will continue to keep you posted on his progress!
By the way, Canada did send full teams of 6 runners in both Junior races (Bairu was our only Senior runner). Congrats to Mohammed Ahmed (27th in the junior mens race) and Chelsea Graham (who went to McNally High in Edmonton and finished 34th in the junior womens race). Congrats to all our runners who represented the maple leaf so proudly.
Ok, a quick note on the Kenyan dominance. For the first time ever, Kenya won every race at the weekend championships(both individual and team classifications at all 4 races). And they won the senior men's race for the first time since 1999. But even those two stats couldn't sum up how good they were. In the junior men race, Kenya finished 1-2-3-4 (and all 6 runners finished in Top 11). In the junior women's race, it also went 1-2-3-4 and all 6 runners in the Top 9. Senior women - 1-2-5-6 and all 6 finished in Top 14. Only in the senior mens race was it not a total dominance and they still finished 1-4-7-8-9 and their last runner finished 19th and will probably be forced to run for another country in the future. Just kidding.
Check out these pictures to witness the dominance...
A very nice surprise this weekend as Edmonton's own Tara Whitten has turned into the biggest female star at the UCI World Track Cycling Championships. She has won not one but two gold medals (in the omnium and the points race) to become a dual World Champion!
Whitten's huge weekend started on Saturday in the Omnium, the event that I reported on last year when she won a silver medal at the 2009 Worlds. The omnium is a fairly new event in track cycling, and I expected that her success from last year would be tough to replicate this year. The omnium is comprised of 5 events: a 200m flying start, a scratch race, a 2k individual pursuit, a points race, and a 500m time trial. I had to look up what a scratch race is - it's a 5k race where you just do as many laps as you can against the rest of the field. At least I think that's what it is. Maybe track cycling could make their events simpler to understand...anyhow, Whitten finished 2nd, 9th, 3rd, 6th, and 3rd in the five events to win the overall gold medal in a very busy day.
She recovered well overnight as on Sunday, she won the points race (a race where riders go around a bunch of times and get points every few laps for their position in the field - again, these events are fairly difficult to understand without watching them) to become the only individual double gold medalist during the World Championships. Her two gold medals also pushed Canada into 5th overall in the final medal table - and we won as many gold medals as the USA did. A very impressive weekend for sure!
A little background on Tara Whitten - she took up cycling in 2008 (hmmm, she's had a pretty good first two years in the sport) after giving up cross country skiing. Unlike many of the men's track stars who are road racers as well as track racers, it appears Whitten doesn't participate in road racing. She shares a lot of background with Lori-Ann Muenzer - she's from Edmonton, she's only a track racer, but unlike Muenzer (an Olympic champion who won 4 medals but no golds at Worlds), Whitten gets to wear the rainbow jersey for the next year! She's obviously Canada's greatest cycling champion right now, and hopefully she can get a track cycling a little more publicity in the upcoming months and years. Congrats Tara.
Since I've already exhausted all things running, swimming, and triathlon (read below for those posts), this one is all Pro Cycling...with Lance, Canadian cyclists, and Cavendish finally starting to look like Cav of 2009...
I always like to lead off with World Records or World Championships, and the big news yesterday came out of the World Track Championships, where 20-year old Taylor Phinney defended his world championship in the individual pursuit. Yep, 20 years old, 2-time world champion! How cool is that? A little background on individual pursuit...2 cyclists start on opposite sides of track, and go all out for 4000m trying to catch the other guy (at least try to do the 16 laps before the other guy finishes his 16 laps). It's a marquee event in track cycling, and Phinney is the superstar. Previous winners of the individual pursuit include Chris Boardman (who was a epic time trialist/prologue rider on the road) and Bradley Wiggins (who has now transitioned to being a Grand Tour contender). What will the future hold for Taylor Phinney? Will he become a time trial specialist like Fabian Cancellara? A one-day classics rider? Only time will tell...here's the highlight video of this week's individual pursuit final.
Continuing with updates...last weekend's first spring classic was Milan-San Remo. Although expected to potential be another shot at glory for Mark Cavendish, the Columbia star continued his slow start to 2010 when he fell back after a wheel change, then a crash on a late descent, before getting dropped for good on the last crucial uphill. Regardless, the race did result in a classic finish, as Oscar Freire continued his magnificent habit of winning big races with his third victory in Milan-San Remo, edging out Tom Boonen at the finish line. Freire has now won 3 world titles, 3 Milan-San Remo's, 4 Tour stages, and a Green Jersey at the Tour. It's a very impressive career...
Cyclingnews.com had a great gallery of pictures from this 298 km race, and with the bad weather and tough course - the pictures are superb. Here's a couple and click here for the entire selection...
The decisive hill (the Cipressa) during Milan-San Remo occurs just before the finish, and is described as one of the most dangerous downhills in pro cycling. Juan Antonio Flecha wore a helmet cam during a training ride of the descent, and you can see how steep, twisty and narrow this road really is. Great video!
I talked about how disappointing the season so far has been for Mark Cavendish. He finally won a race in 2010 when he won stage 2 of the Tour of Catalunya after winning 24 races in 2009. He has his share of bad luck in 2010, with dental problems and crashes aplenty, but cycling needs the brash and over-confident Cav to get back to his sprinting best. Can he still dominate like he did last year?
The other noteworthy part of the Tour of Catalunya is the great riding of Ryder Hesjedal from Canada. He's currently tied for 5th overall after 4 stages, and a large reason is his ever-improving time trialing. His Garmin team provided video footage of his stage 1 effort, so i've added it below. Go Canada!
The week ahead - the big news this weekend is the Criterium Internationale, a 2-day, 3-stage race which will be held in Corsica this year. It has a long mountainous stage on Saturday followed by a mid-length stage
on Sunday morning and then a short time trial on Sunday afternoon. It is especially noteworthy this year since it marks the first time that one Lance Armstrong and one Alberto Contador go head-to-head. Except when they were teammates. Other big names who could challenge Armstrong and Contador include Cadel Evans, Mauricio Soler, Samuel Sanchez, and Alexander Vinokourov. It should be a great preview of the Tour!Regardless, it seems as though this race is more important to Contador than to Lance (he almost never tries to win spring races as he revs up for July). But if Contador takes off during the mountain finish, will Lance try to go with him?
Europe is hopping this weekend, with a pair of Belgian classics happening on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday features Tom Boonen and Fillipo Pozzato going head to head in the Prijs Vlaanderen and then Sunday will have Edvard Boasson Hagen trying to defend his title in Ghent-Wevelgem against Cancellara among others. Here's hoping for some good races...Canada is well represented with Michael Barry, Svein Tuft, and Dominique Rollin racing the bigger race on Sunday. Rollin continues to generate good results (with the exception of a DNF at Milan-San Remo) and media attention, including another interview with velonews.com . Can Dominique end up on a podium this weekend?
This week we'll mix things up and break down all news separately...I figure all the sports require some undivided attention of their own...
Leading off...a new World Record! I talked last week about Zersenay Tadese asking for pacesetters for a world record attempt in the half-marathon during last weekend's race in Lisbon. He went out so fast that his pacesetters only lasted 9k, but he broke through 10k in 27:53, then sped up for next 10k and broke the 20k barrier in 55:21 (that makes 27:28 for his second 10k, 25 seconds faster than with his pacesetters in the first 10k!) before closing out the race in 58:23, good enough for a 10 second improvement on Sammy Wanjiru's 3 year old world record. A ten second improvement is a huge accomplishment, and vaults Tadese into the discussion of best-runner-on-the-planet. He will actually get a chance to further his legacy when he races against Wanjiru and an elite field at the London Marathon in late April.
Last weekend's other big half-marathon was in New York, where Haile Gebrselassie was expected to showcase his immense skills on the streets of New York. Lately, Geb has either thrilled his fans with epic performances with world record/near-record results or he has disappointed with less-than-stellar results. Unfortunately, New York fell into the lesser category, as Geb just stopped around 15k after falling off the pace of race leader Peter Kamais. Geb resumed running after a minute or so, but later dropped out again, later claiming that asthma was the reason. Kamais ended up running 59:53 to win the race. But the big story was Geb and his "excuse" for dropping out. That list is getting longer, as he has now blamed poor results in the last few years on excuses such as "missing a water station", "slippery cobbles", "too cold", "too hot", "too windy", "too polluted", "didn't sleep well", etc. It's quite a list - but since he almost always run to try and set some sort of World Record, anything but a record might disappoint him and his fans. But he does need to be careful to not always sound like he's complaining...
This weekend ahead has a race of different type: the World Cross-Country Championships. Now, American and Canadian fans probably won't get too much to cheer about, since Kenya and Ethiopia dominate the event so thoroughly that the top 12 places might all be from those 2 East African nations. It is actually such a problem that the IAAF has now decided to hold the event every 2 year (instead of annually) and some people think their domination is "killing the sport". Regardless, the event does highlight up-and-coming runners, and the future of marathoning might be in the race. A 19-year-old Kenyan, Paul Tanui, is among the favorites in the men's race while the women's race could come down to Linet Masai (Kenya) versus Tirunesh Dibaba (Ethiopia). Canada is well-represented in both junior races (6 male and female runners) but only brought one senior runner. Good thing for us it's Simon Bairu, who's won 6 Canadian XC titles, and is prepping for his marathon debut in 2010. Can he finish in the Top 20?
Good news - I have a few more running stories to get to - but with this weekend's recap and lots of big marathons in April, we'll have plenty of time to get to them...
This one will be quick, but considering we have zero actual swimming-related stories so far in 2010, I thought it was be an interesting update.
The 15-minute barrier used to be the litmus test for the 1500m freestyle. Only the very best freestylers in the world could approach such a time. However, during the "LZR" era, when the polyurethane suits came into favour (they only launched in February 2008), the 15 minute barrier became irrelevant. 15 swimmers broke the barrier in 2008; another 13 in 2009. But with the ban of "speedsuits" in 2010, swimmers are finding it difficult to even get close to the 15 minute mark. So far in 2010, the best time is 15:17 by the French swimmer Sebastien Rouault. Good news for Canadian swimmers since Ryan Cochrane is ranked third so far in 2010, with a time of 15:19. It's a slow year for swimmers (no Olympics, no World Championships) so it will be interesting what happens as we go through 2010 - although the Aussies, Canadians, and the rest of the Commonwealth will compete in October in the Commonwealth Games.
Remarkably, even with the speedsuits, swimmers didn't get close to the world record of 14:34 set way back in 2001 by the legendary Grant Hackett. It is the oldest world record in swimming today, with every other world record (short-course or long-course, men or women) having been set in 2008-09 with two small exceptions. The men's short course 1500m record is also held by Hackett from 2001, and the women's 1500m freestyle long course was set in 2007 by American Kate Ziegler. Interesting that the speed suits didn't really impact the world records in the longer distance events like they did in every other distance...
Of all the big events that we're talking about this week, the three triathlons this weekend are what get me most excited. Ironman Australia, Oceanside 70.3, and an ITU race in Australia will really start to put triathlon back into the minds of the fans the world over.
Ironman Australia is happening this weekend - and becomes only the 4th Ironman race to reach it's 25th anniversary (Kona, Canada, and New Zealand are the others). It doesn't have a great pro field in 2010, but remains a classic race among the Ironman community. The men's race will feature Australian pro Patrick Vernay going for his 4th victory in a row against a group of mainly Australian pros. The women's race features Rebekkah Keat as the heavy victory with only American Desiree Ficker as a legitimate contender. However, I will be watching to see if Vernay and Keat can have a good day - remember, Ironman Australia is where racers like Chris McCormack and Lisa Bentley learned how to race (and win) over the Ironman distance...
Meanwhile, about 400 miles up the Aussie coast, the ITU season kicks off with a race in Mooloolaba. This race isn't part of the World Championship Series (starts April 11 in Sydney) but is a World Cup race and features a super field. The men's race was supposed to feature Javier Gomez, but a hip injury scratched him at the last minute. So the men's race will probably be a battle between Australians Courtney Atkinson (winner in 2009) and Brad Kahlefeldt (winner in 2007). The women's race will feature an even deeper field, with the Canadian women Kathy Tremblay and Kirsten Sweetland taking on Debbie Tanner (New Zealand), Laura Bennett and Sarah Groff (USA), and Liz Blatchford (Great Britain). It should be a good test for Sweetland, who won this race in 2009 before injuries cost her most of the season. Will this be her year??
Too bad that Simon Whitfield and the men's team will not be competing. Instead, Simon will be hanging out in Victoria, spending time in his man-cave. Here's a fun video of him showing off his new bike on the rollers...
Lastly, in Southern California on Saturday morning , the North American Ironman season kicks off in Oceanside with the Ironman 70.3 race. This race should be a battle, as there are 4 legitimate big names in the male race. Andy Potts (winner of 2007 and 2008) is a late scratch after this week's birth of his daughter Sloane but Matt Reed (winner in 2009) are back, along with fellow American Tim O'Donnell (won 5 70.3 races last year) and two big name Europeans. German Michael Raelert, who surprised the field at the 70.3 World Champs with a world record time (3:34) in Clearwater, will be racing Oceanside for the first time while Rasmus Henning (5th in Kona) from Denmark will make his Oceanside debut as well. The Oceanside course is fairly hilly, so strong riders like Potts and Reed might have the home course advantage. Regardless, it should be great to see who's on form early in 2010. The women's race will probably have less drama, as Mirinda Carfrae (2009 winner plus 2nd in Kona) will be the heavy favorite. Sam McGlone is probably the only real threat to Carfrae, but McGlone is coming off two tough years and it will be interesting to see if she can keep up with Carfrae, who is normally dominant at the 70.3 distance. Slowtwitch likes Reed and Carfrae to win, but I'll take Raelert in a mild upset.
A week off last week due to some very tight Chinese restrictions on blogspot.com, but the rest of the world was very busy competing or getting ready to compete. A lot of the big names have been gearing up for their big races in 2010, so let's get everyone updated.
I've been promising some running news for a while, so we'll lead off with some Canadian news. The IAAF World Indoor Championships were held in Doha, Qatar last weekend, and our two most famous Canadian track athletes (Perdita Felicien and Priscilla Lopes-Schliep) both made the 60m womens hurdles final. You can watch the final here - if you don't want the lead up, the race starts at the 3:20 mark...
Despite getting blown away by the very cute Lolo Jones (who was leading the Olympic final until hitting a hurdle late), the Canadians finished 2nd (Perdita) and 3rd (Priscilla). Nice work ladies! Canada also finished a surprising 4th in the men's shot put when Dylan Armstrong threw the shot a National Record length and only missed the podium by 2 inches. Hopefully the three of them and some other Canadian talent can stick around the top of the game thru the London Olympics in 29 short months...
This weekend is a big weekend in half marathoning. Haile Gebrselassie is racing the NYC Half Marathon on Sunday, and while he probably won't break his 27th world record this weekend, the field has several sub 1:00 marathoners and Haile will probably run pretty well Sunday. It's rare for Geb to run in North America so this might be a treat for running fans. As Geb approaches his 20th year in competition (he's 36), it will be interesting to see what he's got left in the tank...
The World's Fastest Man is getting rolling in 2010 too...he has already ran a 43.58 400m relay split in a race in Jamaica in February (it would have placed him 5th all time in the 400m charts, but relay splits are unofficial) but apparently won't be trying to break the 400m World Record of 43.18 of Michael Johnson until 2012. He will be attempting to break the rarely-run 300m World Record (also by Michael Johnson) at a race in the Czech Republic in May. His payday: a cool $300,000 for showing up. And $300,000 if he breaks the record. $600,000 for 30 seconds of work!!!
Cycling - Milan-San Remo is tomorrow! This epic 298km one-day classic was won by Mark Cavendish in just an absolutely stunning fashion last year, and set up his great 2009 season where he passed Heinrich Haussler in the last couple meters. Just an incredible finish after 7 hours of racing! The overhead view from 0:45 to 0:55 is the best!
This year's race is shaping up to a showcase of many of the biggest names in cycling. Tom Boonen, Fabian Cancellara, Edvard Boasson Hagen, Mark Cavendish, and a slew of top Italians (Petacchi, Bennati, and Pozzato) are among the favorites. Unfortunately, Lance had to drop out due to a bout of gastroenteritis, but the race should be a classic anyhow. Canadians are well represented, with Michael Barry (Team Sky) and Dominique Rollin (Cervelo) waving the Maple Leaf. Go guys!
Most of the Grand Tour are skipping Milan-San Remo after racing Paris -Nice last week. This race had a stacked field, full of Spanish stars and big names like the Schlecks, Leipheimer, and Kreuziger. But in the end, as expected, no one could match the climbing prowess of Alberto Contador. The race was determined in stage 4, where Contador just rode away from the peloton on a steep finishing 3k stretch. Only Alejandro Valverde could finish within 10 seconds of Contador, and the final GC had Contador with an 11 second win over Valverde. Luis-Leon Sanchez was third, while Roman Kreuziger and Sammy Sanchez finished 4-5. Let's face it - in any race with big hills, Contador is the man to beat. Look out Lance...
Triathlon news - this year's first big race was not an Ironman - not even a half - but was a unique 3k, 200k, 20k format held in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Instead of Kona or Clearwater spots, the race was for big money - $230,000 in combined prize money for males and females. And it worked - as the race attracted an unreal field of global competitors. From Faris Al-Sultan, Rasmus Henning, Philip Graves and Eneko Llanos on the men's side to Cat Morrison, Rebekah Keat, Tereza Macel, Virginia Beratasegui, Yvonne Van Vlerken, Sam McGlone and the Brits Julie Dibens and Leanda Cave on the women's side, the race had more stars than any race outside Kona. The conditions made the race fairly tough, but the big names did rise to the top as Eneko Llanos outran Dirk Bockel (who was 7th at Kona last year) to win the men's side while Julie Dibens (who just wins everything lately) beat her countrywoman Cave by 4 minutes.
Two things out of this race: Julie Dibens is amazing and could be a real rival for Chrissie Wellington this year. But more importantly, hopefully races like Abu Dhabi stick around and thrive, as their prize purse helps attract great pro fields, which in turn is great for the fans.
Funny video of the week - although it might appear to be a good idea - riding your bike on a treadmill is not a good idea...
Whoa - we have gone from zero noteworthy races to so many I can't keep track...it's great to be back in race season!
Lots of bike news - last weekend had two cycling one-day semi-classics in Belgium. The Omloop Het Nieuwsblad went Saturday, and Team Sky continued their great start as a new team (although they do have a epic budget backing them) with Juan Antonio Flecha pulling away with 15k to go to win over a loaded field. Heinrich Haussler (Team Cervelo) beat Tyler Farrar (Garmin) for second place. Flecha joins Edvald Boasson Hagen as Team Sky members with big wins already in 2010, and their Grand Tour guys like Bradley Wiggins are still just getting into shape...Team Sky couldn't replicate their success the next day during the brutal conditions (organizers cut the course by 20k during the race!) at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne despite getting another rider into the decisive break. This time it was Ian Stannard who represented Team Sky, but he was nipped at the finish line by Bobbie Traksel of Team Vacansoleil. Vacansoleil is a Dutch team that is now the home of the Feillu brothers (Romain and Brice - who have both each won Tour de France stages in the past couple of years riding for AgriTubel) and is starting to become a relevant cycling team. Congrats to them. Cervelo's Dominique Rollin, who was aiming for a top finish at this race, did finish 5th overall. A solid result but still not the breakthough podium finish in Europe all of his Canadian fans are hoping for!
Lance is currently racing during the 5-day Vuelta a Murcia in Spain. Bradley Wiggins is also racing here, which is merely a warmup race for some of the bigger races coming up in March and April. However, the rest of the main cycling peloton is gearing up for next week's Paris-Nice race. Starting Sunday, this race is 8 days long and goes from Paris south to Nice. It is nicknamed "The Race to the Sun" and this year is the 68th edition and promises to be a great 2010 kickoff event. It features a great number of Spanish riders, including Alberto Contador, Sammy Sanchez, Luis Leon Sanchez, Alejandro Valverde, Czech star Roman Kreuziger, Frank Schleck, the Americans Levi Leipheimer and Christian Vande Velde, along with Canadians Svein Tuft, Christian Meier and Dominique Rollin. It should be a great race to follow next week...
Speaking of Dominique Rollin and Team Cervelo TestTeam (Thor Hushovd and Carlos Sastre are the main stars on this team) - Cervelo has used the team to help develop a new bike model called the Project California. It is an uber-lightweight frame (only 700 g!) that will cost the bargain price of only $9600 US. Thats just for the frame. Yikes. Regardless, it is great to see a Canadian cycling company using their partnerships to develop new products...check out the video below...
On to triathlon...last week was the first Ironman race of 2009 - in bloody hot Malaysia. Although it was nice to see great results from Marino Van Hoenacker and Belinda Granger in winning the race, controversy occured post-race when the new WTC rules for pros left many of the Top 10 pros without a payday. Under 2010 rules, only those athletes that finish within 8 percent of the winner's time qualify for prize money. Because of the great races by Van Hoenacker and Granger, only 4 men and 2 women qualified for prize money (normally prize money went 5 deep). So 4 pros who deserved money went home empty-handed. And to top it off, the WTC didn't re-distribute their money to the qualified athletes. There was such an uproar over this that the WTC had to change their rules this week - so now the athletes who qualify for prize money will share the entire prize pool. There are similar new rules for pros to qualify for Kona spots (need to finish within 5% of winners time). It's getting harder to be a pro triathlete...
Today - actually currently going on right this second - is Ironman New Zealand. This race has been owned by New Zealand stars for a long time, with Cam Brown winning eight in a row in Taupo and Jo Lawn won 6 years in a row before losing to countrywoman Gina Crawford in 2009. This year, Terrenzo Bozzone (another Kiwi) will mount a serious challenge to Brown, while Lawn and Crawford figure to battle it out in the women's race. Good luck Kiwis!!
Two quick reads that end off this week - a new tri magazine is on the horizon. Coming in July, the new magazine will be called Lava, and is being developed by Ironman Corporation and the WTC to compete with Competitor Group's Triathlon Magazine and Inside Triathlon. It should be great to see a magazine that focuses on Ironman racing. And with a heavy-hitting group of ex-Triathlete Magazine editors and publishers, it should have ever shot of success....
Last triathlon note of the week - a nice preview of Canada's rising star Magali Tisseyre appeared this week. And along with continuing to race 70.3 races, it reveals that Magali is likely to make the jump to Ironman racing in 2010 (potentially Lake Placid in July). Can a Canadian Top 3 of Tereza Macel, Sam McGlone, and Magali take over Kona like Heather Fuhr, Lori Bowden, and Lisa Bentley did a decade ago?
I'll get to the running news du jour in a later post. As for the next swimming update, only 875 days until swimming becomes relevant again (London Olympics). The chances of a swimming world record being set without a speedskin is very low...but at least Michael Phelps made some Olympic headlines by hanging out with a Canadian hero...
