22 h. ago Sabastian Sawe: the marathon runner on a mission to be drug tested as much as possible | Sean Ingle

This year’s London Marathon winner deserves credit for offering more than enough proof he is clean while setting a new standard for other athletes to followLast week the world’s best marathon runner, Sabastian Sawe, looked me straight in the eye and told me “doping is a cancer”. Then he insisted he was clean. You hear such oaths and affirmations all the time. But, uniquely, Sawe recently backed up those words by asking the Athletics Integrity Unit to test him as much as possible.You see, Sawe believed he could break the world record in Berlin in September. And he also understood that Kenya’s abysmal doping record meant that success would be met with more raised eyebrows than a plastic surgeon’s clinic in Hollywood. So the call went into the AIU. Test me. Repeatedly. Throw everything at it. My sponsors, Adidas, will pick up the bill. Continue reading...

Events

22 h. ago Sabastian Sawe: the marathon star on a mission to be drug tested as much as possible | Sean Ingle

This year’s London Marathon winner deserves credit for offering more than enough proof he is clean while setting a new standard for other athletes to followLast week the world’s best marathon runner, Sabastian Sawe, looked me straight in the eye and told me “doping is a cancer”. Then he insisted he was clean. You hear such oaths and affirmations all the time. But, uniquely, Sawe recently backed up those words by asking the Athletics Integrity Unit to test him as much as possible.You see, Sawe believed he could break the world record in Berlin in September. And he also understood that Kenya’s abysmal doping record meant that success would be met with more raised eyebrows than a plastic surgeon’s clinic in Hollywood. So the call went into the AIU. Test me. Repeatedly. Throw everything at it. My sponsors, Adidas, will pick up the bill. Continue reading...

Events

22 h. ago Since 2018, 145 Kenyan athletes have been banned for doping. Is it time to ban Kenya? | Sean Ingle

Since the Athletics Integrity Unit was set up in 2017 it has sanctioned 427 elite athletes for doping; 145 have been KenyanLast week the world’s best marathon runner, Sabastian Sawe, looked me straight in the eye and told me “doping is a cancer”. Then he insisted he was clean. You hear such oaths and affirmations all the time. But, uniquely, Sawe recently backed up those words by asking the Athletics Integrity Unit to test him as much as possible.You see, Sawe believed he could break the world record in Berlin in September. And he also understood that Kenya’s abysmal doping record meant that success would be met with more raised eyebrows than a plastic surgeon’s clinic in Hollywood. So the call went into the AIU. Test me. Repeatedly. Throw everything at it. My sponsors, Adidas, will pick up the bill. Continue reading...

Events

7 d. ago Athletics intent on joining sport’s Goliaths but knows it has long way to go | Sean Ingle

Jon Ridgeon is overseeing World Athletics’ reach for a younger audience but has to battle it out with football and F1It really is quite the scene. Midnight in Tokyo, Usain Bolt is DJing and the launch party for the World Athletics Ultimate Championships is in full swing. And then the World Athletics chief executive, Jon Ridgeon, walks up to me and says: “I read your recent Guardian column, and I thought it was very unfair.”Imagine Gary Lineker going in two-footed, having never picked up a yellow card in his career. This is the track and field equivalent. Ridgeon, a former world silver medallist over the 110m hurdles, is one of the smartest and most reasonable people in sport. He is saying, in a polite way, that he is really rather annoyed. Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago ‘Your column was very unfair’: what happened when I met World Athletics | Sean Ingle

John Ridgeon believes I was downbeat about state of his sport. CEO may have a point so we thrashed out our differencesIt really is quite the scene. Midnight in Tokyo, Usain Bolt is DJing and the launch party for the World Athletics Ultimate Championships is in full swing. And then the World Athletics chief executive, Jon Ridgeon, walks up to me and says: “I read your recent Guardian column, and I thought it was very unfair.”Imagine Gary Lineker going in two-footed, having never picked up a yellow card in his career. This is the track and field equivalent. Ridgeon, a former world silver medallist over the 110m hurdles, is one of the smartest and most reasonable people in sport. He is saying, in a polite way, that he is really rather annoyed. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Arsenal v Bayern offers a stark reminder of the shift in football’s power balance | Sean Ingle

Ten years ago Arsenal were thrashed by the Bavarian giants – now Mikel Arteta’s men are rated the best side in EuropeNovember 2015. The Allianz Arena, Munich. A decade ago, yet a lifetime away for Arsenal in the Champions League.That night Arsène Wenger’s team were so shredded in a 5-1 defeat by Bayern Munich that my Guardian colleague David Hytner likened them to “the chicken feed from the lower reaches of the Bundesliga that Bayern routinely gobble up”. It was Arsenal’s joint‑worst result in Europe. And to rub it in, Bayern repeated the trick the following season. Twice: 5-1 at home, then 5-1 at the Emirates Stadium. Continue reading...

Sport

3 w. ago ‘A drug that’s very safe and healthy‘: what ultrarunners can teach us about life | Sean Ingle

Caitriona Jennings ran 100 miles in just over 12 hours and wants other women to follow her example – ‘it’s not actually that difficult’Imagine being able to run a marathon in three hours and 17 minutes. That is certainly no mean feat. But now think about trying to sustain that same pace for another nine hours. To most of us, the idea veers somewhere between the fantastical and the insane. Yet that is what Caitriona Jennings, a 45-year-old ultrarunner from Donegal, did this month when breaking the women’s world record for 100 miles.Her time for the Tunnel Hill 100 Mile in Illinois was 12hr 37min 4sec – an average pace of 7min 34sec a mile. Incredibly, until then Jennings had never run more than 60 miles in one go. Having smashed the record, she then jumped on a red-eye economy flight from Chicago that landed in Dublin at 5am. Then she cycled straight to the office, where she works for a company that trades and leases planes to global airlines. Continue reading...

Society