Eliud Kipchoge on his marathon bucket list, shoe technology debate

By Nick ZaccardiNov 1, 2019, 4:38 PM EDT

NEW YORK — Eliud Kipchoge is in Manhattan for New York City Marathon weekend. He is not running the race, three weeks after becoming the first person to break two hours in a marathon (in a non-record-eligible setting), but for the second time in three years, he is here to watch training partner Geoffrey Kamworor.

Kipchoge sat down with OlympicTalk to discuss marathon-related topics. Interview lightly edited and condensed for clarity:

OlympicTalk: What perspective have you found in the three weeks since the 1:59?

Kipchoge: I realized that the whole human community was lacking something within them. I’ve been receiving good messages of inspiration. Many people in the world are saying that I inspired them in a human way, that they’ve pushed their limits in their fields of work. Many people realized that they can be more happy when they venture into sport or when they get out of their house and run. Many people, from the farmers, lawyers, teachers, everybody is eager to get out of the house in the morning and do something better. Being a game-changer in the whole world, just to change the life of a human family. I’ve realized that together we have won.

OlympicTalk: Your motto for the 1:59 event was “No human is limited.” Is there an athlete in a sport other than track and field who you look at as somebody who also portrays that?

Kipchoge: Chris Froome is actually a good example. Grew up in Kenya, lived in Kenya for 14 years. You don’t expect someone who grew up in Kenya to come and win the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia.

OlympicTalk: You said after the London Marathon that you would like to run all six World Marathon Majors before you retire. Is that still your goal, and do you have a schedule in mind for when to run Boston and New York?

Kipchoge: That’s what is in my bucket list. I wish in the future that I will do that.

OlympicTalk: What about next year? Have you thought about your schedule and how the Olympics might come into play?

Kipchoge: Not really. For now, I am concentrating purely on my recovery.

OlympicTalk: But would a second Olympic gold medal be on your bucket list?

Kipchoge: It’s on my bucket list, yes.

OlympicTalk: What do you think about the decision to move the Olympic marathon from Tokyo to Sapporo?

Kipchoge: I can’t comment on that because I am still active. Those who can comment on that are those in the administration. All in all, I respect what the administration of the IOC and the Japanese are doing.

OlympicTalk: If you could only have one of these accomplishments, which would you take: 1:59, world record or Olympic gold medal?

Kipchoge: The 1:59. Because it’s a noble gesture. It’s history. And I trust and believe that it will go all through to more than three billion people.

OlympicTalk: When you were here in 2017 and you watched Geoffrey win, what was that experience like for you to be a spectator in Central Park?

Kipchoge: I was really nervous when I was watching him running. But, all in all, I was happy to receive him after crossing the line being the winner. The first thing [I said] was many congratulations for winning.

OlympicTalk: The IAAF formed a committee to determine whether or not to put more regulations on shoes before the end of this year. What would you tell the committee?

Kipchoge: I respect technology. I respect innovation. I respect the law of man. We are growing in the world. And the world is moving, and you can’t stop. We are moving with the world, and the world is changing. I expect the committee will be respecting the change in the world, the innovation, the technology.

OlympicTalk: When you ran in Vienna in the new Vaporfly version, could you feel the difference from your previous version?

Kipchoge: I’ve been using different shoes. For my 14 marathons, I’ve used 11 new pairs. It’s my fitness that I consider fast. My mental fitness. My physical fitness. The beauty of the shoe is the recovery.

OlympicTalk: If you were running in your shoes from 2014 or 2015 in Vienna, do you think you still would have broken two hours?

Kipchoge: I may or I may not. We cannot put ourselves in the last 10 years.

OlympicTalk: In 2012, you missed the Olympic team on the track. The next year, you moved to marathon running. If you had made that Olympic team on the track, would you still have moved to the marathon?

Kipchoge: Absolutely, I would have made the transition. It was a plan with my management and my coach. I spent 10 good years in track, which I can say was really successful and I enjoyed running track for 10 years. Even if I would have made the team to London, I would have made the transition, no worries.

OlympicTalk: When will you make a decision on if you will run a spring marathon, and which one?

Kipchoge: Absolutely, yes, [I will run a marathon in the spring]. I will make the decision in December on which one.

MORE: Tokyo governor to IOC: Keep Olympic marathon in Tokyo

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Mikaela Shiffrin finishes World Cup with one more win, two more records and a revelation

By OlympicTalkMar 21, 2023, 12:00 PM EDT

Mikaela Shiffrin finished a season defined by records with two more.

Shiffrin won the World Cup Finals giant slalom on the final day of the campaign, breaking her ties for the most career women’s giant slalom wins and most career podiums across all women’s World Cup races.

Shiffrin earned her record-extending 88th career World Cup victory, prevailing by six hundredths over Thea Louise Stjernesund of Norway combining times from two runs in Andorra on Sunday.

An encore of Shiffrin’s record-breaking 87th World Cup win airs on NBC next Sunday from 12-1 p.m. ET.

ALPINE SKIING WORLD CUP: Full Results

She won her 21st career GS, breaking her tie for the most all-time on the women’s World Cup with Vreni Schneider, a Swiss star of the 1980s and ’90s.

She made her 138th career World Cup podium across all events, breaking her tie for the most all-time on the women’s World Cup with Lindsey Vonn. Shiffrin earned her 138th podium in her 249th start, meaning she has finished in the top three in 55 percent of her World Cup races dating to her debut at age 15 in 2011.

Earlier this season, Shiffrin passed Vonn and then Ingemar Stenmark, a Swede of the 1970s and ’80s, for the most career Alpine skiing World Cup victories. She won 14 times from November through March, her second-best season after her record 17-win campaign of 2018-19.

In those years in between, Shiffrin endured the most difficult times of her life, was supplanted as the world’s top slalom skier and questioned her skiing like never before.

On Saturday afternoon, Shiffrin was asked what made the difference this fall and winter. There were multiple factors. She detailed one important one.

“I had a lot of problems with my memory,” she said in a press conference. “Not this season, so much, but last season and the season before that. I couldn’t remember courses. And when I was kind of going through this, I couldn’t keep mental energy for the second runs.”

Pre-race course inspection and the ability to retain that knowledge for a minute-long run over an hour later is integral to success in ski racing. Shiffrin is so meticulous and methodical in her training, historically prioritizing it over racing in her junior days, that inspection would seem to fit into her all-world preparation.

She didn’t understand how she lost that ability until she began working with a new sports psychologist last summer.

“That was a little bit like less focus on sports psychology and more focus on, like, psychology psychology and a little bit more grief counseling style,” she said. “Explaining what was actually going on in my brain, like chemical changes in the brain because of trauma. Not just grief, but actually the traumatic experience itself of knowing what happened to my dad, seeing him in the hospital, touching him after he was dead. Those are things that you can’t get out of your head. It had an impact. Clearly, it still does.”

Shiffrin had a “weird a-ha moment” after her first course inspection this season in November in Finland.

“I didn’t take that long to inspect, and I remembered the whole course,” she said. “Oh my gosh, I was like coming out of a cloud that I had been in for over two years.”

What followed was a win, of course, and a season that approached Shiffrin’s unrivaled 2018-19. Fourteen wins in 31 World Cup starts, her busiest season ever, and bagging the season titles in the overall, slalom and GS in runaways.

“After last season, I didn’t feel like I could get to a level with my skiing again where it was actually contending for the slalom globe,” she said. “And GS, I actually had a little bit more hope for, but then at the beginning of the season, I kind of counted myself out.

“I feel like my highest level of skiing has been higher than the previous couple of seasons, maybe higher than my whole career. My average level of skiing has been also higher than previous seasons, and my lowest level of skiing has also been higher.”

There are other reasons for the revival of dominance, though Shiffrin was also the world’s best skier last season (Olympics aside). She went out of her way on Saturday afternoon to credit her head coach of seven years, Mike Day, who left the team during the world championships after he was told he would not be retained for next season.

“He is as much a part of the success this entire season as he’s ever been,” said Shiffrin, who parted with Day to bring aboard Karin Harjo, the first woman to be her head coach as a pro.

Shiffrin’s greatest success this season began around the time she watched a a mid-December chairlift interview between retired Liechtenstein skier Tina Weirather and Italian Sofia Goggia, the world’s top downhiller. Goggia spoke about her disdain for mediocrity.

“Ever since then, pretty much every time I put on my skis, I’m like, ‘OK, don’t be mediocre today,’” Shiffrin said in January.

During the highest highs of this season, Shiffrin felt like she did in 2018-19.

“It is mind-boggling to me to be in a position again where I got to feel that kind of momentum through a season because after that [2018-19] season, I was like, this is never going to happen again, and my best days of my career are really behind me, which it was kind of sad to feel that at this point four years ago,” said Shiffrin, who turned 28 years old last week. “This season, if anything, it just proved that, take 17 wins [from 2018-19] aside or the records or all those things, it’s still possible to feel that kind of momentum.”

After one last victory Sunday, Shiffrin sat in the winner’s chair with another crystal globe and took questions from an interviewer. It was her boyfriend, Norwegian Alpine skier Aleksander Aamodt Kilde.

“Excited to come back and do it again next year,” she replied to one question.

“Yeah,” he wittily replied. “You will.”

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Russia ban runs through Olympic gymnastics team qualifying deadline

By Nick ZaccardiMar 21, 2023, 11:06 AM EDT

Getty

Russia’s ban from international sport extended long enough that, as rules stand, its gymnasts cannot qualify to defend Olympic men’s and women’s team titles at the 2024 Paris Games, even if they are reinstated to compete elsewhere before the Games start.

Should the ban be lifted in time, they can still qualify for the Paris Games to compete in individual events.

Gymnasts from Russia, and other European nations not already qualified, need to compete at next month’s European Championships to stay on the path toward Olympic qualification in the men’s and women’s team events.

Earlier this month, the European Gymnastics Federation was asked by what date must bans on Russian athletes be lifted for them to be eligible to compete at the European Championships.

“According to our rules, changes can be made until the draw,” the federation’s head of media wrote in a March 8 email.

The draw for the European Championships was held Tuesday. Russian gymnasts, who are still banned from international competition for the war in Ukraine, were not included in the draw.

The 2024 Olympic team event fields will be filled by the top finishers at this fall’s world championships, plus the medalists from last year’s worlds. Teams can only qualify for worlds via continental championships, such as the European Championships, or the previous year’s world championships.

The International Gymnastics Federation, whose Olympic qualifying rules were published by the IOC last April, was asked if there is any other way that gymnasts from Russia could qualify for the Olympic team events. It responded by forwarding a March 3 press release that stated that Russia and Belarus gymnasts remain banned “until further notice.”

Russia’s gymnastics federation has not responded to a Monday morning request for comment.

Last December, the IOC said it planned to explore a possibility that Russian and Belarusian athletes could enter Asian competitions if and when they are reinstated. There have been no further updates on that front. The Asian Gymnastics Championships are in June.

In Tokyo, Russian women, competing as the Russian Olympic Committee rather than Russia due to the nation’s doping violations, won the team title over the heavily favored U.S. after Simone Biles withdrew after her opening vault with the twisties. It marked the first Olympic women’s team title for Russian gymnasts since the Soviet Union broke up.

At last year’s worlds, the U.S. won the women’s team title in the absence of the banned Russians.

Russian men won the Tokyo Olympic team title by 103 thousandths of a point over Japan, their first gold in the event since the 1996 Atlanta Games.

China won last year’s world men’s team title over Japan and Great Britain.

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