IOC will use Paris 2024 to promote wellness among athletes after concerns raised over mental health in sport When it comes to sporting success stories anyone would be hard pressed to find elite athletes more impressive than Simone Biles, Bryony Page and Holly Bradshaw. But while the trio are great competitors and multiple medal winners, they are also notable for their openness about the mental health of athletes. In summer 2021 Biles withdrew from the women’s gymnastics team final at the Tokyo Olympics saying she had lost her air sense and admitted she “was still scared to do gymnastics” month ..read more

Sebastian Coe’s description of the doctor’s record-breaking run in 1954 underlines its enduring significance 70 years later Perhaps it takes one sporting giant to truly appreciate the towering performance of another. Exactly 70 years ago today, Sir Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, a target that existed purely in the realms of the fantastical until, on that blustery Oxford day in 1954, he subverted the possible. How good was it? Well, when I asked Sebastian Coe to put it into a wider context last week, he replied: “On every metric, I think it is argua ..read more

Women’s 4x100m squad book automatic spot at Paris Olympics Australia’s fastest woman anchors team at World Relays meet A relay squad anchored by Australia’s fastest woman Torrie Lewis has smashed the national 4x100m record for the second time this year to claim an automatic spot at the Paris Olympics. Racing at the World Relays meet in the Bahamas, Ebony Lane, Bree Masters, Ella Connolly and Lewis clocked 42.83 seconds to finish second in their heat behind Germany. It was the fifth fastest overall time, with the top two in each heat advancing to the final and guaranteeing their places for th ..read more

Athletics Kenya is worried about how the climate might shape the future of its country, let alone its sport. And it is not alone The drive from the tiny Eldoret airport to the town of Iten in the south-west corner of Kenya takes about an hour. It’s a winding unlit road with few road signs: you need to know where you’re going to get there. The town’s population isn’t known – there hasn’t been a census in more than a decade – but the local ­municipal authority estimates it around 56,000, up from 40,024 in 2009. Roughly 35% live below the poverty line. And yet, a sign on the only paved road ..read more

Billed as a rival to the Olympic Games, the Enhanced Games – set to take place in 2025 – is a sporting event with a difference: athletes will be allowed to dope. Ian Sample talks to chief sports writer Barney Ronay about where the idea came from and how it’s being sold as an anti-establishment underdog, and to Dr Peter Angell about what these usually banned substances are, and what they could do to athletes’ bodies This episode was first played on The Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast. Clips: Talk TV, News Nation, Inside with Brett Hawke, ESPN ..read more

As well as new women’s-only record, race delivered largest ever number of participants and new charity fundraising high The London Marathon’s organisers have hailed another “glorious day” on the streets of the UK capital after a series of records – including the women’s-only world record – were broken. More than 50,000 finishers were forecast to have crossed the line by late on Sunday, another record, while the race director, Hugh Brasher, predicted that the race would raise more money for charity than any single-day event in history ..read more

Yorkshireman’s training affected by cousin’s car crash and coma Kenya’s Alexander Mutiso Munyao wins men’s race in 2:04:01 As Emile Cairess entered the final 200 metres of the London Marathon, the wall of sound from spectators was suddenly interrupted by an excited bark from the PA. “And there’s our third placed finisher coming into view!” Which, as the quiet man of British athletics later admitted, came as rather a nice surprise. But it was all the 26-year-old deserved for a performance of soul and substance, particularly in the final two miles, where he weaved past tired legs to leap from ..read more

Lewis surges to shock 200-metre triumph at Diamond League Teen star defeats world champion in lead-up to 2024 Olympics Australia’s fastest woman Torrie Lewis has made another stunning sprint breakthrough in the run-up to the Olympics by beating the world 100 metres champ and powering to a stunning 200m triumph at the season’s opening Diamond League meeting in China. On a night in Xiamen when Armand Duplantis was setting another world pole vault record of 6.24 metres, Australia’s own soaring star led the undercard with her brilliant half-lap victory over two American stars ..read more

Armand Duplantis broke his own pole vault world record at the Diamond League in Xiamen, China, clearing 6.24m. Duplantis bettered his previous mark of 6.23m set at the Eugene Diamond League finale in September, clearing the bar with ease before leaping up off the sponge mat below and racing off in celebration at his first outdoor event of the year. It is the eighth time that Duplantis has broken the world record, and the 24-year-old was the only man to clear six metres at the Egret Stadium. Footage courtesy of BBC Sport ..read more

Field is fastest ever, says race director Brasher Men’s race features greatest distance runner Bekele There are so many history-makers and record breakers in Sunday’sLondon marathon that the race director, Hugh Brasher, reckons the women’s race will be even harder to win than the Olympics. Hyperbole? Perhaps, given that the Paris route is brutally hilly and will be staged in the raging heat of summer. But Brasher also has a point, given the extraordinary quality that will be on display ..read more