For most of the automatic timing era, the United States owned the men’s 4×100 world record. We set it in Mexico City in 1968, and apart from an 11-month stretch in 1990–91 when France held it, we had a stranglehold on it until 2008. That’s when Jamaica took it at the Beijing Games, then lowered it again in Daegu and London. The record has been away from home for 18 years. It’s time to bring it back. It’s Execution, Not Speed The issue has never been a lack of foot speed. The problem has been a lack of execution, much of it the result of “politics.” I don’t mean presidential…

When Machinery Replaces Judgment in Track and Field I believe that track and field is becoming too dependent on “machinery” when it comes to officiating the sport. Pressure-sensitive blocks. Lasers detecting fouls in the horizontal jumps. Sensors that claim to know a sprinter’s intent before a human eye can even register movement. Somewhere along the line we decided that if the naked eye doesn’t see it, the machine still might – and the machine wins. That, to me, is not officiating. That is looking for reasons to be punitive. If the naked eye doesn’t see you move, it’s not a false start in my book. If you didn’t leave a…

Nairobi just made history. If the United States wants to lead this sport instead of merely dominating its medal count, USATF needs to stop borrowing stadiums and start building one. In September, World Athletics awarded the 2029 World Championships to Nairobi, Kenya — beating out bids from London, Munich, and Rome and sending the sport’s flagship event to Africa for the first time in its history. President Sebastian Coe called it a “compelling and emotional bid,” and he’s right to. Kenya is second only to the United States on the all-time World Championships medal table, and this is a well-earned, overdue moment for the continent that produces so much of…

World Athletics has announced that Nairobi, Kenya, will host the 2029 World Athletics Championships — the first time in the sport’s history that its flagship outdoor event will be held on African soil. The decision came from the World Athletics Council, which also awarded the 2031 championships to Munich, setting a rotation that carries the sport’s biggest meet through Asia, Africa, and Europe over three consecutive editions. It is hard to overstate what this corrects. Since the championships began in Helsinki in 1983, the event has traveled through Europe, Asia, and North America without once setting foot on the continent that has done more than any other to define distance…

–The inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship proved that track and field can create a high-paying, high-profile season finale capable of attracting enormous attention. The $10 million purse, $150,000 individual prizes, and concentration of elite talent represented a meaningful commercial step forward. But the event also exposed a troubling contradiction. World Athletics wants to modernize the sport, yet it did so by creating a selective showcase that excluded several major disciplines, competed for calendar space with other promoters, and used the word “championship” for what was essentially an invitation-based event. A Matter of Nomenclature: Championship v Invitational   Words matter in global sport. World Athletics has elected to brand this competition…

As we get closer to the end of the track season, everyone is talking about the “Ultimate Championship.” I’d commented on X that it isn’t really a championship simply because it has the word “championship” in the name. The response I got was: if World Athletics calls it a championship, it’s a championship. Fair enough — that’s . not an argument you settle in 280 characters. So here’s the longer version. My Position The World Athletics Ultimate Championship may be an outstanding event, but I don’t view it as a championship in the traditional sense. It’s a highly selective, limited-field global invitational: a made-for-television season finale built around elite athletes,…

On Monday August 17 2026, USATF announced that once again the Olympic Trials will be held in Eugene Oregon. Yes, they know how to host the Trials. They should since no other venue has hosted the Trials since Sacramento in 2004. Eugene has hosted the last five U.S. Olympic Trials — 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024 – and will now host 2028. That’s two straight decades of practice. I hope you know what you’re doing by now. Eugene also has an outstanding facility. Arguably the best in the country. As Europe continues to demonstrate however, there are other vital requirements for hosting major global meets, of which our Olympic…