2020! A running THREAD

Wow, what a year in our sport. 2 of the 6 WMM were run. The Olympic Games were postponed to 2021. No Comrades, No Two Oceans, pretty much all the big ones except Cape Town Marathon happened this year. But, there was still some AMAZING feats

On the track, @joshuacheptege1 smashed the 5000m & 10 000m wr's to add to his 5km road record earlier in the year. Letesenbet Gidey smashed the women's 5000m wr. Mondo Duplantis broke the Pole Vault wr on multiple occasions

The @aiu_athletics banned Christian Coleman & Salwa Eid Naser the 400m World Champion, with the latter being cleared by @WorldAthletics and the AIU appealing this at CAS. Coleman has appealed against his. 1500m star Elijah Manangoi was also banned for whereabouts failures in 2020

In the Tokyo and Valencia Marathons, 17 men ran under 2:08 in each! Yes you read that right. 30 ran under 2:10 in Valencia after Tokyo set that wr in March with 28. Japan also had 32 men breaking 2:10 this year in the marathon. 12 of whom ran under 2:08

In February we witnessed a gurelling US Olympic Marathon trials in a hilly & windy Atlanta. Galen Rupp took victory ahead of Jacob Riley & 43 year old Abdi Abdirahman making his 5th Olympic team! In the women's race, Aliphine Tuliamuk won ahead of debuting

Molly Seidel in 2nd & Sally Kipyego making her first US Olympic team after medalling in the 2012 Olympic Games in the 10 000m for Kenya. Sara Hall the 0re race favourite had a bad day in the office but made up for it with a superb 3rd in the London Marathon in October.

South African @gerdarun narrowly missed out on a new South African record in the marathon when she ran 2:26:51 to bag a 7th place finish in rainy London on a new looped course closed off to the public due to covid.

Kenyas @EliudKipchoge did not break the winning time for the first time since 2013 when he finished 8th in a time of 2:06:49. Kipchoge afterwards said that an ear problem that arose during the race affected his balance and vowed to be back

Governing body World Athletics laid out new rules when it came to running shoes. No shoes could be greater than 40mm in midsole thickness and 25mm in midsole thickness for spikes. By now, many athletes were using the Nike Vaporfly regardless of who they were sponsored by

On the topic of shoes, many brands came out with versions of their own super shoes but none matched up to the Vaporfly. Until Adidas donned their super shoe. Enter the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro. 3 World records later, the Adidas answer to the Vaporfly is on point

Kenyan Kibiwott Kandie became the first man to run sub 59:00 for the half marathon 3 times in one year. If that wasn't enough, he this past weekend smashed the WR becoming the first man to go under 58:00 with his 57:32. Taking 3 others with him under that mark! R

Rhonex Kipruto obliterated the 10km World record, wearing the Adidas Takumi Sen 2, a 'normal' racing flat without any carbon plate. His time of 26:24 smashed the previous record. He then debuted at Valencia Half in 57:49, smashing the WR but finishing 3rd on the day

Peres Jepchirchir was a WR holder for the half marathon. Then she fell pregnant and become a mother, her record being broken. She returned this year and broke the WR.... Twice! Add to that, a 2:17:16 marathon win at Valencia this past weekend.

In the Sofia Marathon, a historic 1st happened when both men's winner Youssef Sbaai from Morocco & women's winner Viktoriia Khapilina from Ukraine failed their doping tests for EPO use.

There have been MANY weird & wonderful happenings in 2020 in the athletics world & I wish I could list them all but this thread is getting a bit long! Add to it by listing your 2020 stand outs to it