Sprinters descend on The Bahamas for two days of competition where Olympic qualification is at stake More than 800 athletes from 52 nations have descended on Nassau in The Bahamas for this weekend’s World Athletics Relays with Olympic selection at stake. “From paradise to Paris,” the organisers have dubbed it. Speaking at the pre-event press conference and in temperatures close to 30C, World Athletics president Seb Coe says the concept of the event was discussed at his first council meeting with the global governing body in 2003. It took, he says, more than a decade to get the first event over ..read more

Founder of Prague International Marathon Carlo Capalbo opens up about meeting in 1995 that changed everything This weekend’s Prague International Marathon will be the 29th edition of the event and, courtesy of organisers RunCzech, has become one of Europe’s fastest-growing road races. It was founded back in 1995 by Carlo Capalbo, alongside 1988 Olympic men’s marathon champion Gelindo Bordin and quadruple Olympic gold medallist Emil Zátopek. Zátopek, nicknamed the “Czech Locomotive”, is one of the country’s greatest ever athletes. He is best known for being the only person in history to claim t ..read more

Italian international Ossama Meslek leads the attack on the four-minute barrier at the Bannister Miles on Monday with world bests guaranteed in ‘steeplechase mile’ races Fans of the mile will be able to feast upon more than four hours of races on Monday afternoon at Iffley Road in Oxford with runners in the final event at 6pm hoping to emulate Roger Bannister by breaking the four-minute barrier exactly 70 years after his famous feat. Ossama Meslek, the British-based Italian international who runs for Leeds City AC, is among the favourites courtesy of his one mile best of 3:55.39, whereas the 2 ..read more

Clara Evans, Jake Smith and Innes FitzGerald are among the entries for Sunday’s big race in South Wales Jake Smith, Dewi Griffiths and Kadar Omar will head the men’s fields at the Cardiff 5km Race For Victory on Sunday May 5, whereas Clara Evans, Jenny Nesbitt and Innes FitzGerald top the women’s start lists, writes Alex Donald. The ever popular community event held in the leafy Whitchurch suburb of the Welsh capital incorporates the 2024 Welsh 5km Championships and will host teams from the Midlands, North, South and South West of England, along with a team from North Wales and one representin ..read more

On the eve of the Bannister Miles event, one of Sir Roger Bannister’s children proudly talks about the great man’s legacy With the Bannister Miles event set to unfold on Monday, what would Sir Roger Bannister himself think of the modern athletics scene with its advances in technology together with the fact British men – Josh Kerr and Jake Wightman – have won the last two world 1500m titles? There are surely few people better to ask than Thurstan Bannister – one of Sir Roger’s four children and part of the organising team for the Bannister Miles meeting. “I think my father would be very pleased ..read more

Former 800m star explains her working partnership with husband Trevor Painter and how the couple have turned their lives upside down to guide some of Britain’s top talent A short while before retiring as one of the world’s leading 800m runners, Jenny Meadows turned to her husband and coach Trevor Painter and uttered words that now prompt her to laugh at their sheer foolishness. “Imagine,” she said, “when I’m done we can just wake up on a Saturday morning and be normal people.” It is the end of an exhausting week. The previous weekend, Meadows and Painter indulged in an unforgettable voyage to ..read more

It’s 20 years since Jo Mersh landed the global medal she had dreamed of. It arrived after years of struggles and would prove to be her one and only major honour “I’m sorry, I haven’t thought about that for so long,” says the woman on the screen, dabbing her teary eyes as her voice cracks with the emotion of a two-decade-old memory. Even to Jo Fenn, her athletics heyday seems a lifetime time ago. For a start, she now goes by a different name, Mersh, after reverting to her maiden surname. She also lives more than 11,000 miles away in New Zealand and is a mother to two children. Unsurprisingly, h ..read more

We speak to an athlete who is intent on finishing his track career with a flourish before moving on to the roads As Fiona O’Keeffe raced to an historic victory and fastest ever marathon debut by an American woman (2:22:10), Rowe and his team-mates were watching with interest from their base in Albuquerque. “It was awesome,” he says. “You never quite know how an athlete will react to the last three or four miles, but she killed it.” Rowe enjoyed his own standout performances during the winter. He opened his season with 7:38.35 for 3000m in Boston on January 26. It was the sixth-fastest British ..read more

AW promotion In each edition of the summer Olympics, Great Britain yields a sizeable amount of its medals from the major track events and this year that will likely continue. The nation boasts several frontrunners who are expected to achieve medal finishes and plenty more with an outside chance of earning a place on the podium in Paris. Here we will look at Team GB’s track stars that have the highest chances of contributing to the nation’s medal tally in the women’s events in France. Laura Muir Laura Muir contributed to Britain’s 64-medal haul at Tokyo 2020, earning silver in the wom ..read more

The double Olympic marathon champion will have the chance to make history in Paris Eliud Kipchoge has the opportunity to become the first marathon runner in history to win three Olympic gold medals, after being picked for the team by Athletics Kenya and the National Olympics Committee of Kenya. The 39-year-old Kenyan, who became Olympic marathon champion at both Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, is currently tied on two golds with Abebe Bikila (1960 & 1964) and Waldemar Cierpinski (1976 & 1980). No athlete has ever claimed three Olympic titles over 26.2 miles and Kipchoge now has the chance to ..read more