The marketing campaign by parkrunners to “deliver again the stats” reaches crunch level in coming days with a co-ordinated protest on Saturday (April 13) and a face-to-face assembly with parkrun chief govt Russ Jefferys on April 27.
Virtually 25,000 individuals have signed considered one of two on-line petitions calling for course and age class data to be returned to the parkrun web site. This weekend runners are additionally planning to help what’s being known as “The Massive Deliver Again the Stats Saturday”.
Will Hartley, one of many campaigners, says: “The protest is just to run or volunteer at your native parkrun, take a selfie and submit the photograph up on social media, probably in your native parkrun Fb web page in a optimistic technique to present help and encourage parkrun to deliver again the stats.”
T-shirts may be purchased right here however Hartley provides: “Some individuals could wish to put on their very own home-made shirts somewhat than shopping for them, which is cool, others could select to not enter the funnel or not scan their barcode. However the primary factor is we’re displaying some consciousness and reminding parkrun to take our assembly on April 27 critically.”
Hartley and Mary Taylor, the latter being the author of the primary petition, plan to make use of their assembly with Jefferys to voice the considerations of the 1000’s who’ve signed the petitions.
He says: “We would like the quickest 500, age-graded league, sub-17 male, sub-20 feminine, age-category lists, most occasions, most nationwide first finishes and first finishers, and all the remainder of them again for people who simply plain like them and people who obtained a way of accomplishment from them!
“One other essential level that has come up within the final two months,” he provides, “is that folks really feel they don’t have a say in parkrun and the selections simply come prime down, their focus teams and listening to model ambassadors isn’t sufficient, and as a neighborhood organisation parkrun ought to have atypical parkrunners from all over the world represented ultimately in working parkrun and their determination making.”
Why I’m going all Ebenezer in regards to the Hardest Geezer
Kudos to the Hardest Geezer for working the size of Africa and elevating greater than £700,000 for charity within the course of.
But I’m undecided I agree with fellow journalists who’ve gushingly described him as an “endurance athlete” and potential BBC sports activities character of the 12 months winner.
Some have known as his year-long journey one of many biggest ultra-running feats in historical past, which is a declare that will most likely make bona fide extremely legends like Yiannis Kouros, Aleksandr Sorokin and Kilian Jornet squirm, whereas Don Ritchie is little doubt handing over his grave in any respect the fuss.
One YouTuber with lots of of 1000’s of followers even tweeted a photograph of the Hardest Geezer alongside photos of Bobby Moore lifting the World Cup and Neil Armstrong stepping on to the floor of the moon. I’d wish to suppose it was a joke, however I’m not so certain.
Because the story has snowballed throughout the media, I concern individuals have been struck down with “Hardest Geezer fever”. In current days he appears to have featured in just about each media outlet.
Little question a lot of the protection isn’t just because of his spectacular endurance however the reality he has a cool nickname, he seems quirky and placing along with his lengthy pink beard, he marches with a military of keen sponsors – every with their very own PR division – and his ultra-distance run concerned fantastical tales equivalent to being mugged by machete-wielding thieves.
Russ Prepare dinner finishes his Africa run (Getty)
In contrast to your typical introverted, media-shy ultra-runner, the Hardest Geezer additionally is aware of how ship a juicy quote. After stopping briefly because of damage, he stated: “No bone harm so figured the one possibility left was to cease mincing about like a bit of weasel, get the strongest painkillers accessible and zombie stomp street once more.”
Sky Information has adopted the story notably intently, sending their sports activities correspondent Rob Harris out to Tunisia to seize the second the Hardest Geezer completed his trek. The mass of individuals becoming a member of him in his closing strides resembled one thing out of Monty Python’s Lifetime of Brian and three days later they had been nonetheless interviewing him of their studio.
In the meantime anybody daring to level out that just a few ultra-runners have run the size of Africa previously have been dismissed as “killjoys”.
The week earlier than the Hardest Geezer completed his run throughout Africa, the World Cross Nation Championships passed off in Serbia. The historic occasion is famend for being “the hardest race on the planet” with the winners having a good proper to name themselves the world’s greatest all-round endurance runner. But the occasion was woefully ignored by the media.
More and more, the broader media is just desirous about zany and vibrant novelty moments. Wrinkle the duck “working” the New York Metropolis Marathon, for example, most likely acquired extra protection than the precise winners of the race.
The Hardest Geezer then again is good story of journey and endurance. I’d argue it’s simply not an “athletics” story and I think about the numerous Olympians and potential Olympians on the planet would kill for simply 1% of the protection he’s loved in current days.
Usain Bolt (GRC)
4 legs beat two (nearly) each time
Even in retirement, Usain Bolt can’t keep away from competitors. There appear to have been a spate of ‘pc simulation’ races recently with Bolt in comparison with footballer Kylian Mbappe and now a greyhound.
Not surprisingly, the greyhound emerged the winner, too, masking 100m in 5.80 seconds – nearly 4 seconds faster than Bolt.
A couple of years in the past we ran a enjoyable function in AW on an ‘animal Olympics’ which confirmed that even a humble home cat would simply beat the world’s prime sprinters equivalent to Bolt. In reality, many animals can out-run people over brief distances. Over lengthy distances they battle, although, because of their incapability to chill down by sweating.
Given this, whereas Bolt is well the world’s best-known athlete lately, the true superstars are the extremely runners, as they’ll defeat something the animal kingdom throws at them.
Aside from birds, that’s.
World Cross U20 begin (Getty)
World Cross in disaster (but once more)
With skinny crowds and a comparatively uninspiring course in Belgrade final month, the World Cross Nation Championships appears to have taken two steps ahead (with Aarhus 2019 and Bathurst 2023) and one step again.
Jonathan Gault was the one journalist from the written media from North America who made the journey to Belgrade and he’s written an fascinating and in-depth piece on “methods to make the World Cross matter” right here.
In it he explains a good suggestion prompt by his colleague, Robert Johnson, whereby the World Cross turns into a qualification occasion for the ten,000m on the Olympics and World Champs.
In fact this subject has been tackled often in AW over time and as an enormous supporter of the occasion (not for the primary time I used to be the one member of the British written press on the occasion the 12 months) I discovered it notably miserable again in 2013 when Belgrade (coincidentally) was the venue for a world seminar organised by World Athletics (or the IAAF because it was then) to speak about resurrecting the fortunes of the World Cross, however barely something was achieved.
That exact gathering attracted quite a lot of cross nation legends, plus delegates from components of the world just like the Caribbean recognized extra for his or her sprinting than stamina. Various stalwart organisers from the English Cross Nation Affiliation and British Athletics Cross Problem, in the meantime, didn’t even realise it was taking place.
Just like the aforementioned stalwart organisers, I didn’t attend the convention myself however saved an eye fixed on what got here out of it and, other than a big and pretty pointless assessment booklet that got here out some months later, there have been few authentic concepts that had been put into precise motion.
Belgrade 2013 (Mark Shearman)
Options are usually not rocket science. As I wrote some years in the past: “Efforts ought to be made to carry the World Cross in glamorous, big-city venues like New York’s Central Park or London’s Parliament Hill.
“The date ought to change so the assembly doesn’t conflict with the extra profitable spring street races. The course also needs to be robust and difficult somewhat than being a glorified monitor race on grass with just a few token hurdles or man-made mounds.”
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No less than the issue of the date is now being addressed with the 2026 occasion in Tallahassee in mid-January. However there may be additionally an elephant within the room – lack of prize cash.
In comparison with monitor and discipline and the extra profitable street working circuit, cross-country working provides few monetary advantages for its opponents ($30,000 for particular person champions and $20,000 for a successful group). Main distance runners have advised me they might be extra tempted to get caught into the cross-country circuit if there was respectable cash in it.
In every week that noticed the welcome transfer of $50,000 going to Olympic champions in Paris, it might be good to see more money pumped into cross-country working. Solely then may we see extra athletes participating.
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