Twenty years ago, in the mountains of Tigray, a young shepherd boy herded cattle for his family. The rugged terrain was this boy’s comfortable place, his first home. On April 27, that same young boy from rural Ethiopia will stand on the start line of the Hamburg Marathon. The life of Haftu Strintzos has traversed an incredible path from those long days in the mountains to being on the cusp of debuting over the most hallowed of distances.  No longer a boy, Haftu has now cemented himself as one of the rising stars in Australian distance running after clocking 60:36 at the Marugame Half Marathon earlier this year. This hasn’t happened overnight, there’s been toil and heartbreak over the years, but also the love of community, an Olympic dream, and a declaration for Hamburg:

“I just want to go for it, go with the front guys, and see how long I can stick it out for.”

Haftu has requested a 63-minute pace group through halfway in Hamburg, a pace that if maintained would threaten the Australian record of 2:06:22 set by Andy Buchanan in Valencia last year.

This is his story. 

~ 

The type of resilience demanded by the Marathon has likely lived within Haftu since his very first steps. As is custom in the farming regions of northern Ethiopia, much of his childhood was spent in high altitude mountains looking after animals. The days were long, but for him this was all he knew. 

“I was out in the mountains the whole day looking after cattle,” he says. “I ran around a lot, got used to the terrain. The childhood things you get used to. It was my comfortable state.” 

In 2007, aged 8, Haftu met Maria Strintzos, an Australian aid worker and founder of the Hawzien Orphan Project assisting children in the Tigray region. After three decades volunteering around the world, she decided to take one more life changing step and become Haftu’s mum. After living for a year together in Addis Ababa, they moved to Maria’s childhood home of Melbourne. On the brink of his teenage years, Haftu suddenly found himself immersed in a world nothing like the one he knew before. Through all the challenges, it was running that fatefully helped make him feel more at home. 

“When I got to Australia, running was a reminder of home. Running was a way of connecting to my childhood self. It was something that was familiar amongst all the unfamiliar things,” he reflects. “It was a way for me to connect with the people around me.”

Haftu rose through the junior ranks in Victoria representing Glenhuntly Athletic Club and Haileybury College. An array of state titles ensued before he fell 0.61-seconds shy of a 5000m berth at the 2018 World Under-20 Championships. He then took his running to college in the United States where he raced for Villanova University under the tutelage of Irish three-time World Indoor 1500m champion Marcus O’Sullivan and assistant coach Matthew Valeriani. 

“College was challenging,” Haftu reflects. “I grew up a lot through the program. I got to find out what worked and what didn’t”.

Despite finding some success, particularly in cross-country where he placed 9th in the NCAA in 2021, his results often ebbed and flowed in a pattern perhaps symptomatic of the personal turmoil he experienced during those years. 

On 3 November 2020, as the world was distracted by the United States Presidential Election and an unrelenting global pandemic, civil war broke out in Haftu’s homeland of Tigray. Over the next three years, an estimated half-a-million civilians lost their lives in the horrific conflict that left entire communities displaced, including many members of Haftu’s family.

“Looking back, it feels like a very bad dream,” he says. “I’ve got siblings and extended family in Tigray. That was a very, very difficult time for me. For two years, I had no idea if my family was alive or not.”

In between his training and studies, Haftu attempted to find back channels to communicate with his family. Late at night, he would trawl the internet for information, but as allegations of ethnic cleansing grew stronger, desperation did too. Although he didn’t know if his family was safe, he raised funds in the hope that he could eventually send it their way. Once his Villanova teammates realised the burden he carried with him every day, they too rallied around him and his family. 

Even now, despite an official truce agreement, tensions in the region still flare up at times, and it remains a constant in Haftu’s life.

“Stuff like that, when your mind is not in it with running, and it’s always in the back of your mind, it was very difficult,” he says. “It definitely did influence my mental state and even the simplest tasks would become extremely hard. I had to put a lot of things aside when that was happening. But there’s no pause on anything in life.”

“I definitely didn’t think about quitting. I just thought of this as another big challenge. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel,” he continues. “Running became an outlet for me. It helped me get my mind off things and to be present in the moment. I just kept trying to do the best that I could.”

More recently, Haftu has rocketed into the upper echelons of Australian distance running. The first glimpse of this came at the 2024 World Cross Country in Serbia where he placed 22nd as the first Australian across the line. However, it was his 60:36 Half Marathon in Marugame that truly caught the eye, catapulting him to third on the Australian all-time list. 

For some, this result came as a shock. In the build up, Haftu had flown under the radar, but he knew that he was capable of something special that day. 

“I knew that sub-61 was on the cards. [Marugame] was an opportunity not to be missed.”

When asked about comparisons to Australian marathon record holder Andy Buchanan and Australian half-marathon record holder Brett Robinson, two runners that had captured the running community’s attention in the lead up to Marugame, Haftu is quite assured. 

“Let the results speak for themselves, “he quips. “My preference is to just get my work done in silence. I just want to focus on doing what I love doing and the process of getting better.”

This mindset speaks to Haftu’s calmness. It’s perhaps why he’s struggled sometimes with the chaos of the track. For some time now, the roads have beckoned. 

“I’ve known for a long time that I’m more comfortable with the longer distances. It’s like a meditative state, I’m calmer when I’m out there,” he says. “You’ve got to have grit too. It’s something you build over the years. After going through tough times, I feel like I understand that. Again and again, if you love the sport and you love what you’re doing, you find a way back. It’s in our nature to bounce back and try again.”

As eyes now turn to Hamburg, Haftu has begun working with Team Tempo coach Adam Didyk and has officially signed on with ASICS, a partnership that has already paid dividends. As the big day approaches, the exuberant young runner has his sights locked on lofty goals. Although Haftu’s request for a pace-group to split halfway in 63-minutes awaits confirmation by race organisers, it demonstrates his ambition, and the mindset demanded of the modern-day marathoner. As the world record nudges two-hours, the definition of conservatism has shifted. Times that were once revered don’t cut it anymore and Haftu knows that. To be one of the greats, he must live by the sword and die by the sword if necessary, and that’s the plan in Hamburg. 

“I just want to go with it, take the big risk. It could either come off good or terribly, I know. But I just want to go for it, go with the front guys, and see how long I can stick it out for,” he says. “I think Adam is a bit more cautious and we’ll aim for a pace I know I can maintain. I’m just excited to see where I stand and give it a go.”

Whether Haftu can pull off the dream debut or not, he’s all in on the marathon and Australian running has a new star on the rise. 

Runner’s Tribe – About the Author:

Jaryd Clifford is a Paralympic medalist and world champion in middle- and long-distance running. Diagnosed with a vision impairment as a child, he has represented Australia on the world stage, winning medals at the Tokyo Paralympics and World Championships. Jaryd is also a highly accomplished writer, using his voice to advocate for inclusion and share powerful stories from the world of sport.

The post Haftu appeared first on Runner's Tribe.

In 1998, a young runner from New South Wales lay shattered on the Olympic Park track in Melbourne. His name was Martin Dent, and moments earlier he had come to a grinding halt, his panic-stricken face awash with realisation. It was the Australian junior steeplechase final, and while leading the race, he had forgotten to hurdle the all-important water jump. His race was over, and there was nothing he could do. It was his fault, and he knew it. Rising slightly from the track, he began to pummel his fist into the ground, his frustration released in a brief, yet unforgettable tirade. It was this fierce passion that would one day take him to the Olympic Games, and make him one of the toughest runners in Australian history.

On a cold Canberra night, I sit across from Martin Dent in the old games room at the Australian Institute of Sport. His words are humble, his voice a comforting interlude to the silence that has shrouded the institute in the years since his retirement from professional running in 2014. It is nearly six years since his farewell marathon, but as we teeter on the edge of a golden era in Australian marathon running, there are valuable lessons to learn from a man that braved more than a decade at the elite level. It all began more than 20 years ago, even before the fabled meltdown of 1998.

Not many runners – especially male runners – can boast two appearances at world junior level, but Dent is one of them. It highlighted a junior career like none other. “I was a pretty rigid person,” he recalls. “If I had a training plan, I’d just go out and do it. It was what you had to do: go hard and race hard.”

There are two stories from his youth that epitomise this mantra.

Firstly, as an under-16 competing at interclub, Dent ran an 800m personal best of 1:58. Then, 90-minutes later, he broke the NSW state record for 3000m, running 8:38 – the time would stand for nearly a decade, eventually broken by teenage prodigy Ryan Gregson. Such a feat seemed to defy common sense, even sanity.

The second story takes place in post-Apartheid South Africa, where Dent was thrust prematurely into the senior team environment. As one of only two juniors on the 1996 world cross-country team, which boasted the likes of Steve Moneghetti, Lee Troop, and Shaun Creighton, there was no other option than to grow up fast. This transformation was accelerated further by incidents including when fellow junior Mark Thompson ran straight into a barbed wire fence on a training run in the days preceding the race, an accident that required Dent to “check if there was any blood spurting out.”. It was these experiences that ignited the fearlessness that would define his career.

Aged 18, and determined to emulate the achievements of his 1996 teammates, Dent moved to Canberra to train under the tutelage of esteemed coach, Dick Telford. Although he was determined to run himself into the ground, even he could not always be prepared for the famously brutal Telford training regimen.

“Sometimes you’d turn up to a long run, and Dick would decide that it was going to be pretty hard – almost a race,” Dent says. “You’d argue with him: I don’t want to do this, what about the other boys that haven’t even turned up? But he wasn’t interested in excuses like that. He’d just say: toughen up and get on with it.”

Having missed out on the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 despite having run a qualifier in the steeplechase, Dent turned his attention to the marathon – his dream distance. In his debut race at the Fukuoka Marathon in 2002, he suffered dramatically, recording a seven-minute positive split to run 2:20:04. Even he acknowledges that his first experience was a painful one: “I was pretty messed up. I just laid on the stretcher for ages.”

In the modern era, a runner reeling from a failed marathon attempt is likely to seek out help from any number of non-running practices, such as strength and conditioning, physiotherapy, or sports psychology. However, even though these are scientifically supported methods, Dent does not believe they are imperative to success.

“I know people talk about one-percenters, but I call them the point-one-percenters, and I think they’re worth even less than that. I didn’t really do any of it. I just ran heaps. I did 10,000 crunches an hour when I was running because my abs flex with each step, so I just ran as much as I could,’ he says. “I was too lazy to do anything else. If you’ve got time, then, maybe, it’s good. But you don’t have to do injury prevention if you don’t get injured – that’s one theory.”

Over the ensuing years, Dent notched an array of impressive performances, including a 2:15:12 marathon in Canberra, and a fourth-place in the steeplechase at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006. Nevertheless, he decided to part ways with Telford, opting instead to go it alone. Within a year he had recruited a small tight knit squad that included current Paralympic Games coach Philo Saunders, and 15-year-old future Olympic 5000m finalist Brett Robinson.

During this period, Dent developed an unwritten rulebook that, for many squads in Canberra, remains intact to this day. Arguably, the most popular rule stated that when there was an allocated start time for training, the squad would only wait for Olympic and world champions, which led to the famous quote: “If Deek was training with us today, we’d wait…but he’s not.”

The other rule was more like a formula. It dictated who was allowed to ‘win’ the final rep in training. For someone to be eligible for such an honour, they had to have led at least half their share. For example, in a 16x400m session with four runners, the natural share is four reps each. Therefore, if a runner had led two reps, they were entitled to race the final rep. When one particular runner, in his first session with the group, broke this coveted rule, Dent ran the culprit off the track, giving him an earful that witnesses would never forget.

Despite the ferocity, it was Dent’s intense demand for hard work and honesty that inspired those around him. It may also be the reason for the vehement frustration directed at Athletics Australia selectors on his behalf, particularly during the 2008 Olympic cycle.

In 2007, attempting to qualify for the world championships in the steeplechase, Dent recorded a time of 8:24.56 – six one-hundredths of a second under the qualifying time. However, on a trip to Kenya for the world cross-country championships later in the year, he was informed that this performance would not be enough to qualify. “They told me I had to run it twice,” he says. The untimely decree left little opportunity for a counterpunch. He would have to wait one more year.

And yet, somehow, 2008 offered only more agony. Firstly, having run an A-qualifier in the steeplechase, Dent realised that, although he had recorded it during the IAAF period, it was not during the Athletics Australia period, due to their failure to align. Ignoring this misfortune, he went on to record a slew of B-qualifying times, before winning the Olympic trials race – something that would secure automatic qualification
today – beating Youcef Abdi, who would eventually place sixth at the Olympic Games later in the year. Still, none of this was enough for Olympic selection. A further four years of gruelling training awaited.

“I was frustrated,” Dent recalls bitterly. “I remember having a conversation with some of the selectors, and they said: You need to run the time again, and you don’t have a finishing kick. They weren’t even interested. I lost a lot of sleep over that.”

This disappointment fuelled the years that followed. A 21 st in the marathon at the 2009 world championships would forever remain Dent’s highest position at a senior global competition. He would also place sixth over the marathon distance at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Nevertheless, on a training camp at Falls Creek in 2011, Dent suffered a setback that threatened to derail his final Olympic opportunity. Alongside Mark Tucker, the pair had decided to run – rather than drive – out to the traditional ‘Quarters’ session along the Bogong High Plains Road. Almost immediately, Tucker was felled by a stress fracture in his foot. Conversely, Dent fought on, trained well, and did not feel his punishment until the following day: a sore back, later diagnosed as a severe sacral stress fracture. For those that knew him, there was little surprise that, at least initially, he tried to run through the pain. “I can’t remember any other time where I had to stop on a run. It was
that painful,” he says. “I couldn’t even pick up the kids.”

Frustration and selection anxiety settled into their familiar routine upon Dent’s return to racing one year later. Needing a sub-2:12 marathon to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games, he ran 2:12:23 at the Fukuoka Marathon to ensure his hopes remained in limbo – it would remain the fastest time of his career. However, this time, luck was on his side. Finally, the selectors had found it within themselves to give him a chance. Deep down, he knew that this had been his last gasp at Olympic qualification.

“I was ecstatic,” he says. “I don’t think I could have done what Scotty (Westcott) did and push through to 2016. I’d been doing hard training for 20 years, ever since I was 13. It was taking its toll.”

And, although this culmination in his career might imply contentment, such complacency does not sit well with Dent. In fact, his 28 th place at the 2012 Olympic Games evokes a conflict of emotions. “I was so proud – but I’m also still a bit pissed. I should have got another three places in the final straight.”

Although this intensity burns on, Dent was aware when his time at the top had come to an end. It was during the 2014 Commonwealth Games – halfway through the marathon, to be exact. The drive had ebbed, and his willingness to hurt had evaporated on the slippery streets of Scotland.

“Some guy came up to me with two kilometres to go and said: ‘your mate (Michael Shelley) just won’. Like, oh, that’s awesome, but it also meant that he had already crossed the finish line. It was pretty frustrating,” he recalls. “I don’t think I was prepared to put in the training anymore: twice a day, every day.”

Fast forward to now, and it feels as if something is changing in the marathon community. For those of us born in the years after Deek, Mona, and Clayton, having three male runners – Brett Robinson, Jack Rayner, and Liam Adams – all under 2:12 seems like something to celebrate. However, Dent is less naïve, and perhaps, less sentimental. He knows from personal experience that there is always a desire for faster
times. There is always desperation for more.

“Australian marathon running is pretty strong right now. It’s going to take 2:11:36 or faster to make the Olympic Games. It hasn’t been this strong for a while,” he says. “I bet those guys can go quicker. In fact, I bet that they might have been a little disappointed, knowing them. And Liam, well he would have done anything to run six-seconds faster.”

As the interview approaches its conclusion, I probe for some final advice.  Once more, Martin Dent’s words are wise, applicable to every runner:  “Try to enjoy the successes. When you have a win, no matter what, enjoy it.”

And, lastly: “The more you run, the better!”

The post Martin Dent: Ferocity, Hard Work & Honesty appeared first on Runner's Tribe.

RT EXCLUSIVE: Jordan Gusman

Why Malta?

Written by Jaryd Clifford (c) Runner’s Tribe

The rumours are true: Australian 5000m champion Jordan Gusman is no longer eligible to represent Australia. A few days ago, he received notice of his successful transfer to Malta, relinquishing his automatic qualifying spot on the Australian team for the 2019 IAAF World Championships in Doha, Qatar. The process has been long, frustrating, and at times, heartbreaking. This is the story…

Earlier this year, Jordan Gusman stepped wide down the back straight, passing Stewart McSweyn to win an unlikely national title over 5000m. Little did we know that this was a farewell run, his last as an Australian on home soil. His grandpa, Frank, was battling cancer and time was running out on a childhood promise that remained unfulfilled. It was a promise to run in the Maltese singlet.

“As a kid, we grew up across the street from my grandpa, and I spent heaps of time at his place after school. He was always interested in my sport and always made me really proud to be Maltese,” Gusman tells me. “I always had it in the back of my mind. I always told my grandpa that I would run for Malta one day.”

Originally, however, there was no urgency. The plan was to transfer during the twilight of Gusman’s career, around the time he would take up marathon running. Alas, life does not usually align itself with such things, in this case delivering a cruel punch to the gut. 

“A few years ago, he (Frank) really started to get sick,” he continues. “He was in and out of hospital fighting cancer, so I decided that I wanted to run for Malta. I wanted to do it to make him and my family proud.”

With precious time ebbing away, Gusman launched proceedings by requesting release from Athletics Australia in April. Respecting his wishes, they obliged. However, he struck a snag with the IAAF, who were naturally suspicious of athletes that might be targeting minnow nations such as Malta for exclusively selfish purposes. Over the following months, an independent panel conducted an investigation into the case, combing over every detail of his history both on and off the track. 

Generally, athletes with dual citizenships can freely choose the country they wish to represent. Once they have chosen, however, there is little opportunity to turn back. For Gusman, this rule was proving to be an agonising complication. The only time he had represented Australia was at the 2012 Oceania Junior Athletics Championships in Cairns, where he won the 800m. Although the race held little sentimental value, nearly forgotten with time – it was enough to serve as a frustrating blockade to any chances of a smooth transition.

While bureaucracy trod its painstaking path, Frank’s condition was deteriorating. Gusman’s desperation was mounting, and he made the controversial decision to run for Malta at the 2019 Games of the Small States of Europe in Montenegro – a competition outside the jurisdiction of the IAAF. Although they were far from pleased, Gusman has no regrets, winning gold in the 5000m and 10,000m, making him the first person to do so in Maltese history. He had kept his promise.

Two months later, Frank passed away, mere weeks before Gusman received notification of the official transfer. It was heartbreaking timing, but the red and white of the Maltese singlet meant more now than ever before.

“His last few years of life were not too good, and he was ready to go,” Gusman says. “I was just thankful I was able to run for Malta, for him and my Dad. Just for him to see me run for Malta and run in the colours of Malta was very special to him and meant a lot to me as well.”

There will still be people that remain unconvinced that this is the only reason for Gusman’s switch of allegiance. And while making his grandpa proud is most definitely the primary motivation, he does not shy away from addressing the alternatives. 

Most notably, Malta rarely qualifies a single athlete to any major championships. This grants them access to a wild card slot at their discretion. Gusman emphasises that he will never opt to take this option, instead preferring to qualify by right only. 

“I was so prepared to hear that from everyone: that I was taking a soft option. That’s why I thought I’d struggle to get the transfer because, essentially, it’s easier to qualify for Malta than Australia, as if that was my way of getting to a championship or something,” he says. “I told Athletics Malta that I don’t want to go to a championship unless I qualify myself. Obviously, it’s harder in Australia with the depth at the moment, but if I run the qualifier, then I think I deserve to be there. I qualified for the Australian team for Doha anyway, so I don’t think it really matters.”

Another noteworthy aspect of the transfer was that Gusman believes it facilitated the first and only meaningful correspondence between himself and Athletics Australia for his entire career. At the age of 22, he placed second behind Australian record holder Ryan Gregson in the 1500m at the 2016 Olympic trials. From that year onwards, his progression was undeniable, recording season-best times of 3:38.58, 3:37.97, and 3:37.52 over three consecutive years. Despite his youth, and the promise that it held, he says no one offered any support.

“A little bit of the reason [for the transfer] is that Athletics Australia never seemed to support me. I never really spoke to anyone from Athletics Australia until this year. There was never any support,” he says. “I was rejected for NASS. I was rejected for ACTAS. It seemed like they never really wanted to invest any time or effort into me, so I was a little bit disappointed.”

One of the reasons Athletics Australia may have been reluctant in this regard was the misfortune that routinely devastated Gusman at national championships in the years following his early success. In 2017, he fell, and in 2018 sickness forced him to withdraw from the race at halfway. The frustration of those races and the thought of the opportunities missed, still gnaw at him to this day.

“For both of those races I was in really good shape. I still haven’t beaten Ryan Gregson on the track, and that’s something I’d love to do,” he says. “It’s nothing against him. It’s obviously just out of respect for the guy and how good he is. Being the Australian record holder, beating him on the track would have been something pretty amazing to do. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it now with my shift in focus to the 5000m. But I think one of those races was my best opportunity and unfortunately it just didn’t happen.”

Throughout this period in his career, Gusman trained under the tutelage of Dick Telford. Despite exceeding expectations on Australian soil, his international races were underwhelming, and he began to wonder whether the program was working in his favour. After mulling it over for some time, he followed his girlfriend to Melbourne in search of a fresh start. He considered an array of options, including Melbourne Track Club, but decided that none of them suited him. Eventually, he settled for an American based group called Tinman Elite, coached by Tom Schwartz.  

“I just wanted to find somewhere that would suit me and make me happy,” Gusman explains. “Being happy is one of the most important parts of this sport. Sometimes it is such a tough and unforgiving sport, so if you’re not happy with what you’re doing, then there’s not much point in it.”

The decision was justified the moment Gusman won his maiden national title over 5000m in February. At long last he could call himself the Australian champion, taking the scalp of arguably Australia’s best distance runner, Stewart McSweyn, in the process. Ignoring the fact that he now runs for Malta, Australia will forever be the country of his birth, and he will cherish that moment for as long as he lives.

“It wasn’t in the event I’d been trying at in the past three of four years, but I always knew I was capable of winning a national title. To finally do it – and at that stage when I knew it was essentially my last opportunity – was truly special,” he recalls. “A lot of people believed I could beat Gregson in some of those years (1500m finals) when maybe he wasn’t quite in his Australian record shape. But no one believed I could beat McSweyn. The way I did it, sitting on him for 4.8km, probably pissed a few people off, including him. But I don’t think he thought I’d be as good as I was. Obviously, he’s still 15 seconds quicker than me, but it was good to get his scalp.”

But what makes the national title all the more impressive is the fact that one week earlier, attempting to dodge a schoolkid who had walked out in front of him, Gusman had taken a heavy tumble. Two weeks later, following the race, his doctor told him that he had fractured two of his ribs.

After sitting on the sidelines for three weeks, he set his sights on Payton Jordan, one of the premier meets on the American calendar. Alongside new training partners Drew Hunter and Sam Parsons, he clocked 13:21.35 to secure his spot for the 5000m on the Australian team. Fast-forward three months and he had informed Athletics Australia that he no longer required them to hold his spot. 

Even without the move to Malta, Gusman would not have been able to compete at the world championships later this year. A string of injuries directly relating to the fractures to his ribcage have hampered his training for the majority of the season. Despite this, the experience of travelling as a professional runner with Tinman Elite is something he does not regret.

“A few days ago, I was doing my first semi-workout back at Princes Park, and a kid was walking across the path on their way home from school. He looked at me and yelled out: ‘Hey Tinman’. There are kids in Australia that know the group now,” he says. “Some races we would go to, there would be 50 kids waiting outside the gates for us to cool down, all wearing Tinman shirts, some with posters with my head on a goose (his nickname). It’s shit like that you can’t get anywhere else. Experiencing that all over the world is crazy. I always like to inspire younger kids and take time to talk to them, because when I was growing up guys like Jeremy Roff would talk to me and that inspired me so much. So, if I can do that for one kid, then it’s worthwhile. It is a really special feeling.”

The past twelve months have taken an emotional and physical toll on Gusman, but it has opened his eyes to what is possible over the next few years. With the Olympic Games looming, he is dreaming big. To him, anything is possible

“I just want to represent Malta, Tinman, my family, and everyone that supports me as best as I can. That’s always going to be the main goal: to do the best I can and push myself to the limit,” he says. “Obviously, the dream is to medal at the Olympics, but maybe that’s out of my reach right now – but I guess you never know.”

Although this is a loss for the Australian running community, it will completely rewrite the history books of Maltese running. Nothing is stopping Jordan Gusman from becoming a household name in Malta – a hero that may inspire generations of future runners. We will have to wait and find out. All we can do for now is wish him the best. 

Current Maltese National Record

800m: Xandru Grech 1:52.54 (1995)

1500m: Xandru Grech 3:50.18 (1995)

3000m: Kevin Zammit 8:23.26 (1999)

3000m Steeplechase: Mark Herrera 9:31.78 (2015)

5000m: Frederick Baldacchino 14:34.50 (1994)

10,000m: Frederick Baldacchino 30:29.23 (1995)

Half Marathon: Charlton Debono 1:09:11 (2017)

Marathon: Jonathan Balzan 2:26:29 (2008)

End of article.

Video: Jordan Gusman & The Albie Thomas Mile

Runner’s Tribe captured the race day process of elite runner, Jordan Gusman, as he attempts to run his second sub 4-minute mile, at the Albie Thomas Mile, NSW, Australia. Date: December 10th 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgHsszdTnjs

The post RT EXCLUSIVE: Jordan Gusman – Why Malta? appeared first on Runner's Tribe.

Everyone knows David Rudisha, but only some people know James Turner. This is a loss for the Australian running community. Let me tell you why.

At the 2016 Paralympic Games, twenty-year-old James Turner dominated the T36 800m, a race for athletes with cerebral palsy. He led from gun to tape, leaving his rivals for dead in one of the gutsiest performances I have ever witnessed. In my opinion, it is one of the greatest races in Australian history. But have you seen it?

If you do watch it, take particular notice of the moments after Turner crosses the finish line. Exhausted, he collapses to the ground, his body contorting. In front of the world, he is experiencing a psychogenic stress reaction, something which occurs when the body has suffered an immense physiological or emotional strain. In the year prior, he had failed to finish a single race without incurring this reaction, and yet even with the knowledge of this inevitable pain, he was not afraid. In fact, he relished it. His time of 2:02.39 shattered the world record by three-seconds, earning him the gold medal.

View this post on Instagram

What was the most challenging aspect of working towards my dream? Good question, the answer is long and requires context. I grew up with a twin sister, Hayley. She was better than me at everything except having confidence. I hate to admit it, but I was jealous. I was supremely envious of Hayley for being superior to me in everything I did, with what seemed like little effort. So, I promised myself when I was 5 that I would one day be the best in the world at something, I would have one thing where I was the one on top, and then I wouldn’t feel so useless. How could anyone who is the best in the world feel useless? As I grew up I realised that my dream would probably never come true, not for someone like me but the promise I made kept me going. Seemingly out of the blue I was handed the opportunity to fulfill my promise that I made all those years ago, the promise that stopped me from giving up, and I did it. All that, that was the easy part. The promise was my purpose to live, it gave me hope that I would one day be “truely happy” and now it was gone. The time between Rio and the London world championships was probably the hardest time in my life. I felt useless and unhappy, and how can someone who’s the best in the world feel useless and unhappy? I lost all hope. I developed unhealthy and self destructive habits. I almost didn’t get through it. I now promise myself that I’ll always have a new dream, and that it’ll be one I have no right to achieve. That way, I’ll always have a reason to keep going. TLDR: Finding a new dream was the hardest aspect of working towards my dream #keepchasingthedream #WorkingForWorlds2019 #TrekToTokyo #NeverGiveUp

A post shared by James Turner (@jimmy_t36) on May 20, 2019 at 4:44am PDT

The courage he displayed that night was extraordinary. With his body still under attack from the violent spasms that threatened to overwhelm him, Turner was forced into a wheelchair. Only moments later, still on shaky legs, he rose to accept the flag and the adulation of an inspired stadium. I will never forget that race, and neither will anyone that understands its true place in history. 

In future, why not remember him alongside Ralph Doubell? One is an Olympic champion, the other a Paralympic champion. Both in the 800m, and both in world record times. If you do not agree, or you are simply interested, let me tell you the story of the Paralympic Games.

***

Human history is infamously cruel. For centuries, the world has suffered through the evil consequences of intolerance. People with disabilities have historically endured universal discrimination, often provoked by a fear of difference, or the dissemination of false information, the kind that creates devastating stigmas. Having a disability was a mark of humiliation, a reason to recoil, and a symbol of inferiority. For many, however, this is no longer the case. The progress epitomised by the Paralympic Games is proof of the hope that lives within society. It all began with one man and one simple idea.

In the early twentieth century, there was an entrenched belief that disability carried a life sentence of despair and immobilisation. It took the second world war and a Jewish Holocaust survivor to spark change. For far too long, people with disabilities were hidden away from mainstream society, often in hospitals or at home, some rarely moving from the safety of their beds. Especially for those people that had acquired their disability in the midst of life, this existence incited a despondency like none other. This was all until Dr Ludwig Guttmann’s revolutionary idea: physical activity as a cure for adversity.

It all began in the hospital grounds of Stoke Mandeville in England. As a result of the mass injuries inflicted on soldiers and civilians during the war, the British government requested the establishment of a spinal injuries centre. Guttmann took charge in 1944 and quickly introduced sport as a rehabilitation treatment. He believed that sport could raise hope, alleviate despair, and help deal with trauma. Most importantly, he believed that it could rebuild self-esteem and give patients a renewed sense of purpose. He did not believe in giving up or surrendering to pessimism. One of his most famous quotes says it all: “Did you think you would make plans and your life would follow you, obediently?” Guttmann was a realist. He knew that the world kept spinning, no matter the circumstances. The world did not wait for the wounded, and he told them not to let themselves get left behind. 

Over time, sport as rehabilitation evolved into something more competitive. Eventually, on the same day as the opening ceremony of the 1948 London Olympic Games, Guttmann organised an archery competition for 16 men and women. He named it the Stoke Mandeville Games. It would only take 12 years for it to become the Paralympic Games when 400 athletes from 23 nations competed in Rome for the first gold medals in 1960.

One of the common misconceptions surrounding the Paralympic Games relates to its etymology or the origin of its name. Often people associate ‘para’ with the medical condition paraplegia, but this is not correct. Instead, this part of the word is derived from the Greek preposition that translates to ‘beside’ or ‘alongside’. It represents the idea that the Paralympic Games are parallel to the Olympic Games, existing side-by-side. This was made official in 1988 when the Seoul Olympic and Paralympic Games were held in the same city, conducted as part of an agreement between the two international governing bodies. This has never changed.

At the advent of the twenty-first century, the Paralympic Games were thrown into the public spotlight. Commercial interest was growing, and international broadcasters were beginning to realise the power of the movement. In London 2012, tickets sold out within moments, and ballots were necessary to ensure everyone got the chance to witness their Paralympic heroes, now dubbed ‘superhumans’ by British television. During those Games, record crowds and over a billion people worldwide took time out of their lives to watch elite athletes with disabilities compete for glory. This was proof of how the world has changed since the pre-war days. It showed that having a disability did not have to be a barrier. In fact, for some, they now felt as though they could embrace it as a part of themselves, something unique, and something to be proud of. It is one of the greatest legacies of the Paralympic Games.

As fans of Australian running, why should you care?

In 2020, the Tokyo Paralympic Games will likely be the strongest performance by the Australian distance team in history. On the ambulant squad, at this stage, there will be three runners:

Michael Roeger (T46, Arm Amputee): 2019 Marathon world champion & 2016 Paralympic bronze medallist in the 1500m. He also holds the world record for 1500m (3:45), 5000m (14:06), 10,000m (29:24), Half-Marathon (64:17) & the Marathon (2:22:51).

Deon Kenzie (T38, Cerebral Palsy): 2017 1500m world champion & 2016 Paralympic silver medallist. He is the former world record holder in the 1500m (4:00).

Jaryd Clifford (T12/13, Visual Impairment): 2017 world bronze medallist in the 1500m. World record holder in the 1500m (3:45).

All three of us will be going for gold in Tokyo: Roeger in the marathon, Kenzie in the 1500m, and myself in the 1500m and 5000m. Alongside us will be the wheelchair squad, including 2018 London Marathon champion and the reigning 5000m world champion Madison de Rozario.

For those that have never tuned into the Paralympic Games, you might assume winning gold is a walk in the park. This could not be further from the truth. Let me give you some context.

In the T46 1500m, Michael Roeger has been the world record holder since 2014 but has never won gold. In 2017, Daniel Emong from Uganda won the world title. Before him, the event was dominated by Algerian Samir Nouioua who won gold at the 2016 Paralympic Games, and three world championships in a row between 2011 and 2015. At the Paralympic Games in 2012, Kenyan Abraham Tarbei defended his title in an African top-five. The last non-African winner of the event won gold in 2000. 

In the T13 1500m and 5000m – my classification – the story is similar. The current champion is Algerian Abdellatif Baka, who famously won the 2016 Paralympic final in a faster time than the tactical Olympic final held a few weeks earlier. In both events, runners from Algeria, Kenya, Tunisia, and recently Ethiopia have dominated the medals, with the last non-African born winner dating back to 1996. In 2016, six of the top eight in the 1500m hailed from Africa. 

This is important to highlight as it shows that the African dominance at the Olympic Games is mirrored in the Paralympic Games. It is rare for this supremacy to face a serious challenge. That is why, as fans of Australian running, we should not take this golden era for granted. We are a nation on the rise, and with the community behind us, we hope that Tokyo will be where we make our mark.  

Today, there is one year to go until the 2020 Paralympic Games. Follow us on our journey, as we prepare to take on the world in Tokyo.

Australian Paralympic Gold Medallists in Middle/Long Distance Events

AMBULANT

Robert Biancucci (Cerebral Palsy): 800m in 1988.

David Evans (Arm-Amputee): 1500m in 1996.

Paul Mitchell (Intellectual): 1500m in 2000.

James Turner (Cerebral Palsy): 800m in 2016.

Turner has had to shift his attention to shorter distances after his 800m (the longest event in his classification) was taken off the Paralympic program. In 2020, his focus will be on the 400m.

WHEELCHAIR

Jan Randles: Marathon in 1984.

Alan Duffy: Marathon in 1984.

Peter Trotter: 5000m in 1984.

Fabian Blattman: 1500m in 1996.

Louise Sauvage: 800m in 1996; 1500m in 1996 & 2000; 5000m in 1996 & 2000.

Greg Smith: 800m in 2000; 1500m in 2000; 5000m in 2000.

Kurt Fearnley: 5000m in 2004; Marathon in 2004 & 2008.

Richard Colman: 800m in 2004 & 2012.

Fun Fact: Cross Country was held at the 1988 Paralympic Games. Results list Ross Whyte (Cerebral Palsy) as Australia’s only finisher, completing the 5km course in 8th position. 

The post Why the running community should get behind the Paralympic Games appeared first on Runner's Tribe.

Six seconds in the marathon is nothing, but for Liam Adams, it was everything. For a fleeting moment after crossing the finish line of the Gold Coast Marathon, frustration erupted. “Fuck. That was weak as piss. You stuffed that up,” he yelled. Stumbling forward, he reached out, as if begging to understand his failure. It was the fastest marathon of his career, but it was not fast enough, at least not in his mind. His time of 2:11:36 fell infinitesimally short of the Olympic qualifier. He could see it, but not touch it. Now, in the aftermath of that race, the moment still haunts him. But rather than wallow in defeat, he is using it as fuel for the future. The dream is not over. Not at all. 

For many, his reaction that day might come as a surprise. His time was still 76-seconds faster than his previous best, moving him into the top-20 on the Australian all-time list. It was also the fastest marathon by an Australian on home soil since Pat Carrol ran 2:11:21 to win the 1997 edition of the race. However, for Adams, the disappointment ran deeper than the agony of falling short. Instead, it was rooted in the story of his career, and the nagging feeling that he could run much faster. 

Liam Adams is the perennial underdog of Australian running, always with something to prove and more to give. His career is littered with misfortune and injustice but defined by the euphoric moments of success. The stories he tells are as crazy as the feats he has attempted. He is a revolutionised figure, a hero for the working-class runner. So, as Tokyo looms, who is the man behind the tradie singlet? 

This is his story.

Liam Adams: The People’s Champion – By Jaryd Clifford

From the beginning, one thing was clear: Liam Adams was born to run marathons. I don’t say this to be a romantic, it is simply the truth. Not necessarily because they were made for each other, but more due to it being his only option, at least as far as the Olympics were concerned. 

“I don’t know if that’s an insult or not, being told you’re too slow for any other distance,” he said. “But I eventually bought into the idea.”

Even as a junior, it was clear that the marathon would one day become his forte. “The fact was that when I pushed up a distance each year, as I got older, I would get better the further we ran. It confirmed to me that I’d most likely end up being a marathon runner.” 

Eventually, Adams conceded that if he wanted a future in the upper echelons of the running world, he would have to embrace the 42.195km distance. Nevertheless, there was no urgency. Rather than diving straight into the deep end, he decided to apply himself to the rigours of gaining strength and experience, most notably in cross-country. 

Throughout this pre-marathon period in his career, Adams notched up six world cross-country singlets (he would make it eight in 2017), with his best result of 23rd coming in 2013, seven months before his marathon debut. Only the year before, he had also placed 23rd, but this time in the world half-marathon, a mere three months after stepping up to the distance. It was this decade of patience that would prove pivotal in laying the foundations for his successful transition to the marathon. 

“I probably would have liked to have done a marathon at an earlier age, but my coach (Ken Hall) wanted me to do it at a more traditional age,” he said. “My training age was probably the key in finally deciding to step up to the marathon.”

After biding his time, even foregoing the temptation of attempting to qualify for the 2012 London Olympic Games in the marathon, Adams finally pencilled in the 2013 Melbourne Marathon for his anticipated debut. 

“I guess I was pretty nervous about doing my first marathon,” he said. “You hear all these stories about hitting the wall, and how tough the marathon is, so you don’t know how you’re supposed to feel. It’s all unknown territory.”

Racing against a highly competitive field that included Japanese ‘citizen runner’ Yuki Kawauchi, Adams fought off the pain that threatened to overwhelm him in the latter stages of the race to finish sixth in 2:14:09. The time was also enough to secure his spot on the Commonwealth Games team. 

“It’s kind of a weird feeling because you’ve always been told that the last half is going to be brutal. That’s when the marathon starts,” he said. “At 30km, I started feeling it. It was absolutely tough, brutal over the last little bit. After that, I was hooked.”

In a sport filled with crazy people, Adams would be the first to admit that he is one of the craziest. Only a fellow runner could understand his masochistic attraction to the marathon. Ever since that first taste, he has relished the fight that it demands from him. In 2018, he even entered two marathons in less than a month, winning in Melbourne before placing second in Kobe, Japan. 

“I don’t really want to talk about how tough the marathon is because I don’t want to discourage people that want to try one,” he said with a chuckle, before continuing anyway. “With the marathon, all your systems are shutting down. You’re just battling. You can’t concentrate, your legs can hardly keep going, you’re getting blisters, you’re getting chafe, just everything seems to be going wrong. You don’t experience that type of pain in any other distance. In the marathon, it just gets worse and worse. It’s the ultimate challenge and that’s why you love it.” 

The 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, taught him another crucial lesson. Swept up in the excitement of his first championship race, Adams fought toe-to-toe with the Kenyans and Ugandans at the front of the pack, a decision which cost him valuable energy. 

“What was happening was the Africans were throwing in fast surges, then slowing down like in a fartlek,” he remembered. “It was just wasted energy, just suicidal what they were doing. It’s just not a smart way of racing.”

After some time, Adams realised that his much more experienced compatriots – Olympians Michael Shelly and Martin Dent – were nowhere to be seen. Rather than responding to the random surges at the front, they had wisely decided to run a consistent pace in the hope that the leaders would crack under pressure. The plan worked perfectly, with Shelley eventually running through the field to win the gold medal in emphatic fashion. For Adams, it was the opposite, as his body paid the price for his early enthusiasm, fading in the final kilometres. Nevertheless, his time of 2:13:49 was good enough for seventh, and it would remain his personal best for four agonising years.

Having established himself as one of the premier marathon runners in the country, Adams turned his attention to qualifying for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. The plan was straightforward: qualify at the Chicago Marathon in 2015, and simply hope that no one would run faster. As for what actually happened? Arguably, nothing more could have gone wrong.

It all started at Yarra Flats in Melbourne, only weeks before his race in Chicago. 

“I came around a corner, and my inside leg slid out from underneath me. I twinged my hammy. I went from running a nice pace to being really concerned about my hamstring,” he said. “I knew I’d done something to it. I knew I’d pulled it a little.”

Despite this, Adams soon forgot the injury, believing that he was over the issue. However, upon arriving in Chicago, his ego got the better of him. 

“I still did some dumb things before the race,” he said. 

Seeking confidence in his fitness, he embarked on a two-mile wind-sprints session around Lake Michigan – completed in nine minutes – only three days out from the race, potentially aggravating his leg. 

“There was no need to be doing that, trying to prove to myself that I was fit. It was pretty stupid.”

Regardless, the plan remained the same. On a windy day, Adams ran past the halfway mark on pace for a time of 2:11. Alas, the fairy tale did not last long. 

“I felt comfortable and relaxed, and then my hamstring randomly grabbed. It was something I’d never felt before,” he said. “But it was just one step, and then it was fine.” 

He tried to shrug it off, praying that the feeling would not return. It was a fanciful thought. 

“One kilometre later I felt it again, and then another time. I just started bleeding time after that,” he said. “I stopped twice to stretch it out, but I kept running. The race director was driving next to me, waiting for me to pull out. But I had to finish and get that qualifier.”

In a display of courage, Adams completed the marathon in 2:16:29. The time was still an Olympic qualifier, but he knew it would not be enough to make the Australian team. Two weeks later he had already been knocked out of the top three spots. His plan had to change, but so did his life. 

Receiving little support from Athletics Australia under the National Athlete Support Structure (NASS), Adams needed to find a way to support himself outside of the sport. 

“I kind of felt I was never going to get the support. I had reached the qualifying standards for NASS support a few years in a row, but every time I applied, I was told it was selectors discretion, better luck next time,” he said. “Then they would improve the standard, and I’d achieve it the next year, but it was selectors discretion. So, I was like, why do I bother sending in the application?”

Faced with the reality of no financial support, he decided to commence an electrical apprenticeship. 

“I kind of knew I wasn’t going to get the support from Athletics Australia, so I started thinking about my future,” he said. “The reality is I could have gotten to the end of my running career and had absolutely nothing, and maybe or maybe not achieved what I wanted to achieve, but still being so far behind in life that I’d be starting from square one. Most Australians can’t make a living off running, so I had to start thinking about my future. I had to start thinking about my life.”

Working between 43 and 45 hours a week, and sometimes more, Adams is lucky to clock five hours of sleep each night. 

“I wake up feeling like a zombie, and I get up knowing that I’m going to struggle, but I get on with it,” he said. “I drive home knowing all I want is to get home and sleep instead of doing my run, and sometimes sleep wins. Some days it feels like it’s hindering my preparation, and other times I feel like I’m being soft for not going for that run.”

Although this lifestyle does not seem conducive to elite marathon running, Adams maintains that he made the right decision. 

“I thought I could chase my dream and do work on the side,” he said. “With running, you can get into some black holes, some places you don’t want to be mentally. I thought that doing this would be good. A good balance so that I wasn’t putting all my eggs in the one basket, and putting that kind of pressure on myself.”

However, there is one question that will linger forever. With the right support, and the freedom to be a truly professional and elite athlete, how fast could Liam Adams run a marathon? Sadly, we may never know. But way back in 2016, he did not plan on letting that get in his way. It is an attitude that remains with him to this day.

Following the frustration of Chicago, Adams set his sights on the Lake Biwa Marathon in Japan. During the race, he found himself at the front of the pack, suckered into the Japanese way of running. Through halfway on sub-2:10 pace, everything seemed to be falling into place. Sadly, that did not last long. 

“I leaned over to get my drink, and I felt my hamstring go. Not the same one as Chicago, but the other one,” he said. 

Calamity had struck again, and he started to lose precious time. At 35km, it was useless to continue, the damage was irreparable. With nothing left to give, he made the heartbreaking decision to pull out of the race. 

“I realised I wasn’t going to improve my time, so I made a tactical decision,” he said. “It was hard because it was the first time I’d ever pulled out of a race. I’d always thought if you pull out of a race, what stops you from doing it again? I didn’t want to create the issue that when things got tough, I had the option to throw in the towel. But if I wanted to make the team, I had to consider doing another marathon.”

With only four weeks until the end of the qualification period, the main problem was finding a marathon that would accept his late entry. After stalling their reply, the London Marathon frustratingly rejected Adams’ request without a genuine reason. Finally, it was childhood coach Gregor Gojrzewski that offered a miraculous proposal. He was a personal friend of the race director for the Warsaw Marathon in Poland, and could discreetly get him into the race. Suddenly, it felt as though fate had shifted. 

Determined to ensure that he would execute this marathon perfectly, Adams brought friend and osteopath Steve Dinneen to the race. Although this helped his hamstring issues, it could do nothing for the chronic blisters threatening to end his Olympic dream. One blister, in particular, had ripped off several layers of skin from the bottom of his foot. This made running excruciating, and him desperate for a solution. 

“Every step. Even walking around, I could feel it. How was I going to do a marathon with this? So, I searched online for methylated spirits, but I couldn’t find anything, nothing to toughen up the skin” he said. “So, I bought this cheap Polish vodka and poured it into a bucket. I soaked my foot in that three or four times a day, before the race. After a while, I could jog again.”

This miracle allowed Adams to at least start the race, but nothing was assured once everything was underway. Held on the last day of the qualification period, he had meant for his entry to remain secret, but this did not last long. “I was still a bit nervous. I was going to keep quiet, but it got out that I was having a final crack,” he said. “I went into the race really unsure of how I was going to go, but I thought if I ran 2:15:00, then that would be enough to get me on the team.”

Early in the race, it became clear that the race would be a war of attrition. The pack Adams had planned to work with was refusing to cooperate, and he was faced with the premature choice of whether or not to go on a solo attack. 

“I thought that if I wanted to qualify, I was going to have to run this solo,” he said. “So, I just went for it and pushed hard.”

As he approached the line, he could hardly believe his eyes. A perfectly measured effort had delivered him an impeccable performance. His time of 2:14:58 well and truly propelled him back into Olympic contention. 

“I knew that was going to be enough to get me on the team,” he said. “I was just like thank god something didn’t go wrong this time. I got through it unscathed, and I was over the moon. But as soon as that finished, I went straight to a computer to watch the London Marathon.”

As he watched the race from his hotel room, Adams, exhausted from his own efforts that morning, began to realise the enormity of the moment. As the race in London petered out, with no challenge to his newly recorded time, he knew he had done enough. His dream of running in the Olympic Games was coming true. 

“It was absolutely amazing. I guess it was something I’d dreamt of since I was a kid,” he said. “I’d worked toward this long-term goal and trained as hard as I could, and for everything to go wrong like it did, I thought I was cursed. So, for it to actually happen was incredible, just an amazing feeling.”

Running in Rio at the Olympic Games will remain with Adams for the rest of his life. His 31st place meant that he was the best Australian in the race, but not even this was enough to escape his severe self-criticism. 

“When you go into the biggest race of your life, representing Australia at the highest level possible, you dream that you’re going to have the best race that you will ever have,” he said. “But it definitely didn’t pan out the way I wanted it too. I was pretty disappointed with how slow I was running at the end and not being able to execute my plan.”

Imbued with the confidence that comes with being an Olympian, regardless of the result, Adams set out the next year to rewrite his personal best, which at the time was unbefitting of someone his calibre. On the famously fast Berlin Marathon course, he ran superbly to clock 2:12:52, a 57 second personal best. However, not even this performance was enough for an acknowledgement from his major sponsor, Adidas. 

“I ran a good time, so I thanked my sponsor for the shoes they gave me. I didn’t hear from them. I sent them a bunch of emails over the next few months but didn’t hear from them. Then I sent an email to the head of sports marketing, and they didn’t respond either,” he said. “What’s going on here? Have I been dropped and I don’t even know? I was just thinking that surely, they would tell me. After another few months, it was getting close to the Commonwealth Games, so I sent a final email thanking them, but again I got no response.”

For the sake of fairness, Adams admits that maybe the emails got lost along the way. He had heard about potential budget cuts but assumed if it affected him, he would be the first to know. Either way, whether it was an innocent mistake or an act of general incompetence, it rendered him without support. Conceding that his chances of further sponsorship were minimal, he decided that in his next race he would don the iconic tradie singlet. 

“I decided I would stop wearing brands. I decided to black out any logos, as well as white out my shoes, or use black spray paint. Then I decided to wear the tradie singlet,” he said. “I’m a bit different to all the other runners I’m running against. They’re professionals, and I’m not. I soon started getting all these messages, some saying they were inspired. They saw me as a weekend warrior taking it up to the professionals and the Kenyans and beating them. I don’t really care that I’m not sponsored now. If I can inspire people a little bit, I’ll just continue what I’m doing.”

Now shouldering the expectations of all working runners around the country, Adams fronted up at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in fine form. Infamously, under the scorching sun, the race developed into a battle of survival. The toll was immense. 

“It was an absolutely brutal day. I blew up hard, and there was carnage all around me. I noticed the kids on the side of the road were actually running faster than me. I wanted to hang my head in shame and hide,” he said. “I made some bad choices in that race, and it cost me dearly.”

Notwithstanding the disappointment he felt in the aftermath of the race, Adams still managed to scrape into fifth position by the finish line. Nevertheless, he was determined to rectify the situation, and his way of doing that was to train even harder. 

There are two runs, in particular, that gained much attention on social media during this period. The first was a 50km long run, completed in 2:58:49 (3:35/km), a time only five minutes slower than Mark Tucker’s Australian record. 

“Working full time, it’s hard to get all the mileage in during the week, so I decided to run 50km,” Adams said. “But I didn’t want to be out there for a ridiculous amount of time because I’d done a complete food depletion. So, I went out fast and felt really good, and I just kept getting quicker and quicker. That was a little bit of a shock. I wasn’t meant to be running that quick.”

The second story is the most extraordinary: a 34km fartlek, with an equal distance of effort and float, run at an average pace of 3:08/km. If Adams had run another eight kilometres at that pace, he would have completed the marathon distance in 2:12:13, a time which if run in an official race would be a personal best. This is an astonishing statistic considering that the effort was far from being evenly paced, and lacked the adrenaline of a race day situation. 

“I thought maybe I should post it on social media to show how weak my personal best was over the marathon,” he said. During that run, I was still able to talk. I got to the end and just thought, holy shit, maybe I could have finished the marathon as a session? And I think I could have. I definitely think I still had another 8km of fartlek left in me.”

It is performances like these that raise the important question: how fast can Liam Adams run? His answer to that question is filled with confidence. 

“I always thought I’d be going for sub-2:10,” he said. “I don’t know where my ceiling is, but I think I’m definitely capable of running under 2:10.”

He holds a similar perspective on the recent meteoric rise of men’s marathon running in Australia, as it attempts to mirror the prodigious depth on the female side. 

“I feel that it has improved since Athletics Australia realised that sending full teams to major championships would encourage athletes to step up to the marathon. They’ve always had a strict policy that never really encouraged anyone to move up,” he said. “So, when they changed it, more guys decided to give it a go. I think this year we are seeing something special. What those guys (Brett Robinson and Jack Rayner) did in London was super exciting. Hopefully, soon, we start making some big leaps. I hope I’m running during that time.”

For now, he is only six seconds shy of the 2020 Olympic qualifier. With the knowledge that he will be required to run much faster if he wants to assure his place on the team, Adams is now preparing to take on the Berlin Marathon, scheduled for late September. If he is to fulfil his potential, it must be in this race. His Olympic dream depends on it. 

“Every time you put your runners on, you think about Tokyo. I’m definitely thinking about the Olympic Games every day,” he said. “I know that if I knuckle down and train harder, then I am well and truly capable of making the team.”

The next twelve months will decide the three men that will don the green and gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. Arguably, it will be one of Australia’s strongest marathon teams this century. The question is: will there be a spot for the people’s champion, Liam Adams?

LIAM ADAMS: His Six Craziest Marathon Sessions

Leading into the Gold Coast Marathon 2019

5km, 4km, 3km, 2km, 1km, 800m, 600m, 400m, 200m (with equal float recovery).

14:21 (16:56) 11:37 (13:31) 8:40 (10:07) 5:50 (6:49) 2:54 (3:22) 2:19 (2:42) 1:45 (2:08) 1:04 (1:21) 31 (42). TOTAL – 34km in 1:46:48 (3:08/km).

Leading into the Gold Coast Marathon 2019

3x6km on the track (with 1km jog recovery). “Practiced taking drinks in recoveries.”

17:38 (4:32) 17:37 (4:38) 17:27. TOTAL – 20km in 61:54 (3:05/km).

Leading into the Melbourne Marathon 2018

Double Mona Fartlek – 13.36km (3:00/km)

Kilometre Splits: 2:54, 3:01, 2:54, 3:06, 2:59, 3:01, 2:57, 3:00, 3:01, 3:02, 2:58, 3:03, 2:58.

Between Melbourne Marathon 2018 and Kobe Marathon 2018

24km progressive run in 1:17:31 (3:14/km). “Tripped over a dog at 23km.”

Kilometre Splits: 3:17, 3:17, 3:18, 3:24, 3:17, 3:17, 3:18, 3:20, 3:12, 3:13, 3:15, 3:13, 3:13, 3:14, 3:13, 3:13, 3:09, 3:08, 3:09, 3:11, 3:08, 3:01, 3:11, 3:07.

Pacing Mitch Brown leading into the Berlin Marathon 2018

7km, 6km, 5km, 4km, 3km, 2km, 1km (with 1km jog recovery).

22:37 (3:45) 19:14 (3:50) 16:05 (3:51) 12:38 (3:46) 9:19 (3:48) 6:08 (3:55) 2:53.      TOTAL – 34km in 1:52:01 (3:18/km).

Leading into the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games

4x6km (with 4 minutes recovery).

17:54, 17:57, 17:52, 17:51.

LIAM ADAMS: MARATHON CAREER

2013 Melbourne Marathon: 2:14:09 (6th)

2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games: 2:13:49 (7th)

2015 Chicago Marathon: 2:16:29 (11th)

2016 Lake Biwa Marathon: DNF 

2016 Warsaw Marathon: 2:14:58 (5th)

2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games: 2:16:12 (31st)

2017 Berlin Marathon: 2:12:52 (9th)

2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games: 2:21:08 (5th)

2018 Melbourne Marathon: 2:15:13 (1st)

2018 Kobe Marathon: 2:14:38 (2nd)

2019 Gold Coast Marathon: 2:11:36 (6th)

2019 Berlin Marathon: ?

The post Liam Adams: The People’s Champion  appeared first on Runner's Tribe.

As Michael Roeger’s body ground to a halt along the Embankment in London earlier this year, the crowd hushed, their breaths held in unison as they bore witness to the dramatic cruelty of the marathon. Mercilessly, it seemed, the historic distance was only moments away from claiming yet another victim. “I was in strife,” Roeger recalled. “It felt like there was a sniper in the crowd shooting at my body. It all got too much. I had to stop.” At this point, only two kilometres from the famous finish down The Mall, Roeger was five minutes clear of his rivals in the arm-amputee (T46) world championship marathon. Glory, literally, awaited around the corner, but his body had surrendered, the pain intolerable, only his mind willing him forward. “Everything I had sacrificed and worked for my entire life was to get to that finish line. I was willing to crawl to reach that line.”

At the age of thirty-one, Roeger had already cemented himself as the greatest Australian Paralympic distance runner in history. In 2018, the three-time Paralympian broke four world records – 1500m, 5000m, 10,000m, and the marathon – a feat which would usually ensure immortality in the running world. However, his career, plagued by injury and misfortune, had refused him the most precious title: world champion. “When you’re the world record holder, the next thing is to win a world title. But that didn’t come easy to me,” he said. “It can be a heart-wrenching sport. All I wanted to do was win a bloody gold medal.” 

As he hobbled along the road that ran parallel to the River Thames, Roeger thought back to those times where he had fallen agonisingly short of his dream. At the Paralympic Games in 2012, a gastrointestinal bleed prevented him from finishing his race, instead, rendering him bedridden in hospital. In 2015, running on a heel-bone stress fracture, he could only manage bronze at the world championships. In 2017, struggling to run on a destructive peroneal nerve injury, he urinated blood, one of many symptoms that forced him to withdraw from those championships altogether. “He has put a lot of pressure on himself in the past. He wants that gold medal, he wants that perfect performance, and he wants to please people,” his coach Philo Saunders said. “I think sometimes he puts too much pressure on himself, and it’s like he’s almost run himself dry by the time the race comes.”

Despite all of these failures, there were none more devastating than that which occurred on the biggest stage of all: the 1500m at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. “I thought it was my time. I was fit, I was fast, and I was ready to go,” Roeger said. But, alas, it was as if he suffered from an inextricable curse. Bronze was nothing to be ashamed of, but he had never dreamt of playing second fiddle. “You give up so many things. You train so hard for this one chance every four years, and then you cross the line, and you’re shattered. I see photos of my face after I crossed the line and they’re hard to look at. It still is a tough pill to swallow.”

RUNNER’S TRIBE PAYS OUR WRITERS & FILM MAKERS TO CREATE EXCITING & ENTERTAINING CONTENT. HELP SUPPORT THESE PROFESSIONALS AND JOIN RT PREMIUM NOW.

TO VIEW THIS CONTENT PLEASE SIGN-UP TO RUNNER'S TRIBE'S MEMBERS ONLY PREMIUM CONTENT. WE HAVE SOURCED THE WORLD'S TOP WRITERS AND FILM MAKERS TO DELIVER ANY ATHLETE, COACH, PARENT OR FAN THE ULTIMATE PORTAL FOR ATHLETICS EDUCATION, ENJOYMENT AND INSPIRATION.

Monthly Plan (Worldwide)

$9.95 AUD Monthly ($6.59 USD)

Sign Up

Yearly Plan (Worldwide) - BEST VALUE

$89.95 AUD Yearly ($59.56 USD)

Sign Up

Weekly Plan (Worldwide)

$2.95 AUD

Sign Up

The post Michael Roeger: Australia’s Marathon World Champion appeared first on Runner's Tribe.

By Jaryd Clifford

James Hansen, the sixty-ninth Australian to run a mile in under four-minutes, waited in the wings. He covered every move, stalking the leaders with flawless precision. It is easy to spot him amidst the fray, built for the brawl, his arms swinging like a barrage of punches. Hansen, now aged twenty-five, has run in six Australian 1500m finals, never medalling. This race, the 2018 Commonwealth Games trials, would be the most agonising. For a fleeting moment, with only fifty metres left to run, he hit the front. Besieged by the nation’s best milers, he dared to dream of winning. It was not to be. In the final strides, it all unravelled, swamped on the line in an unforgivable falter. For the second time in his career, he would finish fourth, only five one-hundredths-of-a-second shy of the medal he so desperately wanted to win.

Notwithstanding the sheer disappointment that came crashing down around him, Hansen acknowledged that his presence in the race was remarkable. Although he is now quietly spoken, a man who carefully chooses his words, his wit intact, his selflessness a crucial part of his existence, this was not always the case. Once nicknamed the ‘Launnie Loose Cannon’, Hansen lived a life of wild partying. He was notorious for his drunken exploits, his indifference for the preservation of his life symbolic of a young adult spiralling out of control. It was only after finding himself on the doorstep of a church in Sydney–desperate for help following an incident at the Tomorrowland Festival in Belgium–that he revolutionised his life. In his opinion, it is the only reason he is still here to tell this story. Make of it what you will, but as I listened to his words, I found it impossible to rid myself of the goosebumps that crept across my skin. “If I heard my own story, I probably wouldn’t believe it,” he said.

Raised in a Christian family, Hansen rebelled against the perceived restrictions of faith. Struggling for purpose, he found solace in alcohol. Even before the age of eighteen, he derived his identity from being the most drunk on a night out. “It was almost a competitive nature of how we could outdo each other. It was about how we could be the loosest person out there,” he said. “And that accolade was bigger than anything. It was more impressive to me than my running.”

Videos posted to Facebook show a young Hansen jumping off roofs and riding in out-of-control shopping trolleys. They depict a personality that is nearly impossible to attribute to the man who now openly reflects on those moments with an air of incredulity. Even after being king hit at the age of nineteen, an incident that made the front page of The Examiner in Tasmania and resulted in prison time for the perpetrator, he never wavered in his determination to continue his weekend antics. Looking back, these moments are the scariest. “I was in a bad place mentally,” he said. “There were a lot of times where I could have thrown my running career away.”

RUNNER’S TRIBE PAYS OUR WRITERS & FILM MAKERS TO CREATE EXCITING & ENTERTAINING CONTENT. HELP SUPPORT THESE PROFESSIONALS AND JOIN RT PREMIUM NOW.

TO VIEW THIS CONTENT PLEASE SIGN-UP TO RUNNER'S TRIBE'S MEMBERS ONLY PREMIUM CONTENT. WE HAVE SOURCED THE WORLD'S TOP WRITERS AND FILM MAKERS TO DELIVER ANY ATHLETE, COACH, PARENT OR FAN THE ULTIMATE PORTAL FOR ATHLETICS EDUCATION, ENJOYMENT AND INSPIRATION.

Monthly Plan (Worldwide)

$9.95 AUD Monthly ($6.59 USD)

Sign Up

Yearly Plan (Worldwide) - BEST VALUE

$89.95 AUD Yearly ($59.56 USD)

Sign Up

Weekly Plan (Worldwide)

$2.95 AUD

Sign Up

The post The Miracle of James Hansen appeared first on Runner's Tribe.

Throughout the day, coaches shared their wisdom on running technique, the mechanics of acceleration and deceleration, as well as a myriad of skills covering all athletics disciplines. Most importantly, the rising stars of Leonora also learnt how to handle the pressure of racing on the big stage. The Golden Gift.

“The big thing out of this is to make the kids feel confident with the Golden Gift. A lot of the time the biggest barrier for getting the local kids involved is not being familiar with traditional athletics,” he said. “A lot of them are naturally very talented, but they’re not used to going through the process of racing. The biggest thing is helping them feel comfortable with that scenario.”

Held annually since 2012, the clinic has welcomed an honour roll of international superstars, including Olympic legends Steve Moneghetti and Rueben Kosgei. Having now taken over the reins, Baugh – working in collaboration with local coaches– is looking to use running as a way of making a difference in the community.

“The biggest satisfaction for me is seeing the kids get some confidence and some more self-belief,” he said. “There is a strong correlation between physical activity and lifetime confidence, education, and health. The research suggests that running is going to help the kids get off to a healthier start in life.”

In its relatively short history, the clinics have already fostered success. At the age of five, local star Kiara Reddingius witnessed her first gift. Those memories remain with her. Over the years, the skills she developed became innate, and today she is one of Australia’s best Heptathletes. Her story reads like a fairy-tale. But one that speaks a truth to what is possible.

“Her story shows that anything is possible,” Baugh said. “The kids definitely have the talent. It’s all about giving them the opportunities that they deserve.”

With a rapid growth in engagement with the clinics, the perception of possibility continues to shift. For Baugh, and all involved, the dream is that one day Leonora will get its very own little athletics club.

“They’re great kids. They have the ability to push themselves and the ability to engage in the class. It’s our job to deliver a service that meets their needs and engages them to feel confident,” he said. “One day I’d love to see a little athletics club in town.”

If this step was ever taken, who knows what might unfold. Spurred on by the stories of their idols, the kids will be given the opportunity to dream. One day there will be another Kiara Reddingius. Maybe one day there might even be another Cathy Freeman.

The weekend has only just begun…

The post Leonora School Clinics: Teaching Talent appeared first on Runner's Tribe.

Headlining the men’s field is Stewart McSweyn. After placing fifth in the Commonwealth Games, the King Island athlete rose to stardom by running the second quickest 5000m in Australian history, clocking 13:05.23. With his sights set on running in the Olympic final in 2020, the Golden Gift presents him with an opportunity to fine-tune his craft.

“Winning Leonora would mean a lot. It would be a great lead-in for the European track season,” he said. “It’s a huge community event, so to be able to put in a big performance for the people of Leonora would make it a pretty special moment.”

The local hopes will rest on the shoulders of rising-star Matt Ramsden. Regarded as one of the toughest runners on the racing, he is determined to bring the title back home to Western Australia.

“Being a West Aussie, any win I get at home is good for me because I’m both setting an example for other WA runners and defending the state from Easterners stealing our victories,” he said.

The favourite in the women’s field is Commonwealth Games finalist Georgia Griffith. Her impeccable form continued in Shanghai last week, where she recorded a world championship qualifying time over 1500m. Now, with her sights set on pursuing her dreams overseas, victory in Leonora means more than merely winning.

“I’ve heard really amazing things about Leonora, and the prize money is a bonus. If I were to place, the prize money would make a huge difference with being able to train and race overseas this year,” she said. “Having a little pressure lifted off financially would potentially save me from having to busk my way around Europe, which is a worry because I don’t have any particularly good performing tricks.”

The national mile champion, Whitney Sharpe, will also be looking to take victory down the main street of town. Her relatively surprising victory instilled a powerful self-belief that she hopes will serve her well on race day.

“I will be going in with confidence because if the Australian mile taught me anything, it was to believe in yourself and trust your ability,” she said. “But having said that, I know from last year that all the turns at Leonora make it a super difficult and tactical race.”

The fields also contain 2018 Commonwealth Games representatives Keely Small and James Nipperess, Paralympians Michael Roeger and Jaryd Clifford, as well as Australian 1500m/mile medallists such as Rory Hunter, Bernadette Williams and Rose Davies.

The mile races will run down the main street of Leonora on June 1-2. This year’s major races will be live streamed on the Leonora Golden Gift Facebook page.

Written by Jaryd Clifford – Leonora Golden Gift

For more information visit: http://www.leonoragoldengift.com

The post The 2019 Leonora Golden Gift – Elite Field Preview appeared first on Runner's Tribe.

However, after moving to the other side of the country to pursue her athletic dreams, the gift has grown to symbolise something more than winning. For Reddingius, Leonora has never felt more like home. When she returns in June to defend her title the entire town will be on her side.

“It is home. It will always be home,” she says. “Every time I come home the whole community supports me. The people have known me since I was little. I think the Golden Gift reminds everybody that we are a community and that we need to stick together.”

After years of toiling in the big smokes of Perth and Melbourne – far away from home – Reddingius is now a force to be reckoned with on the track. Three national heptathlon medals and four Australian university titles make her one of the best all-round athletes in the country.

This is exemplified further by her success on the lucrative pro-running circuit. A famous win in the historic Adelaide Bay Sheffield kickstarted a spree of victories, most notably in Bunbury and Ballarat.

“Pro-running has probably been my favourite part of my athletic career because [the] reward is in improvement,” she says. “If you can improve on where you once were then theoretically you should be in a good place to win… I love that.”

This thirst for progress has been evident ever since she parted ways with Leonora to attend high school in Kalgoorlie. As the years passed by, she secured all kinds of jobs, including as a geologist’s assistant in the mines, and riding horse for early morning trackwork. It was clear that she was tougher than most.

However, at the age of 22, she found her passion for athletics. After meeting coach Matt Barber, she was inspired to commence training. Within weeks she quit riding horses – and the 4:30am alarm – to focus on her new sport.

“My aim was just to do it for a year, do a few competitions, and see if I liked it – mainly to keep fit,” she says. “He (Matt Barber) kind of just looked at me and said ‘you should be a heptathlete’. I didn’t really know what a heptathlete was until later on when I remembered that Kylie Wheeler was a heptathlete.”

As an 11-year-old, Reddingius had watched Wheeler – one of the Leonora Golden Gifts first patrons – compete in the town. She even remembers listening to her at the school, something which would turn out to be a powerful moment. She believes that this program of interaction between athletes and school kids is the most powerful part of the weekend’s festivities.

“When I was a kid, I definitely enjoyed watching the athletes compete. When I was little, I always used to look at athletes and how good they were and what they were doing, and I always thought they were a different type of people. They weren’t just people, they were athletes,” Reddingius says. “But when they come back and they compete. When they visit the school, and you can ask them questions, you start to realise that they are just people too. They’re just people that work really hard and are really passionate. They deal with all these normal people stuff, but they’re following something that they really love and are passionate about. There’s nothing more important than that.”

After narrowly missing selection for the Commonwealth Games, her focus has now shifted to a drive for constant improvement.

“I’ve never been one to be like ‘I want to make the Olympics’. I mean you always want that, but when I started, I never realised I might be capable of doing that,” she says. “My goal is to improve, and I’m happy enough with that. I just want to keep getting better.”

Now working as a teacher, she knows how influential the Golden Gift can be. Returning every year, it is clear that it is one of the highlights of her season.

“It is very special to me. It has a very special atmosphere, and I think it’s just a good time to catch up with everyone.”

Having now cemented herself as one the all-time greats of the Leonora Golden Gift, there is one important question: what would you say to a kid growing up in Leonora today? Her reply is simple but symbolic of her own journey.

“Work hard at what you’re passionate about. Nothing’s every easy, but you’ll continue to surprise yourself if you work really hard for the things you want.”

Article by Jaryd Clifford (c)

Event information: http://www.leonoragoldengift.com/

The post Kiara Reddingius a hometown hero: A column by Jaryd Clifford appeared first on Runner's Tribe.