Track & Field News January 2021 — 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Volume 74, No. 1 January 2021 From The Editor — What? There’s No 2020 World Rankings?! . 4 T&FN’s 2020 Podium Choices . 5 — T&FN’s 2020 World Men’s Track Podiums — . 6 — T&FN’s 2020 World Men’s Field Podiums — . 10 T&FN’S 2020 Men’s MVP — Mondo Duplantis . 15 Mondo Duplantis Figures He Still Has Many Years To Go . 16 — T&FN’s 2020 World Women’s Track Podiums — . 18 — T&FN’s 2020 World Women’s Field Podiums — . 22 T&FN’S 2020 Women’s MVP — Yulimar Rojas . 27 T&FN’s 2020 U .S . MVPs — Ryan Crouser & Shelby Houlihan . 28 Focus On The U .S . Women’s 100 Hurdles Scene . 29 Keni Harrison Looking For Championships Golds . 31 Brianna McNeal Ready To Defend Her Olympic Title . 33 A Comeback for Dawn Harper Nelson Delayed . 34 Sharika Nelvis Keeps On Moving Forward . 35 Christina Clemons Had A Long Road Back . 36 T&FN Interview — Grant Holloway . 37 Track News Digest . 41 Jenna Hutchins Emerges As The Fastest HS 5000 Runner Ever . 43 World Road Digest . 45 U .S . Road Digest . 46 Analysis: The Wavelight Effect . 47 Seb Coe’s Pandemic-Year Analysis . 51 STATUS QUO . 55 ON YOUR MARKS . 56 LAST LAP . 58 LANDMARKS . 61 FOR THE RECORD . 62 CALENDAR . 63 • cover photo of Mondo Duplantis by Jean-Pierre Durand • Track & Field News January 2021 — 3 FROM THE EDITOR Track & Field News The Bible Of The Sport Since 1948 — What? There’s No Founded by Bert & Cordner Nelson E. GARRY HILL — Editor 2020 World Rankings?! JANET VITU — Publisher EDITORIAL STAFF Sieg Lindstrom . Managing Editor Jeff Hollobaugh . Associate Editor IT’S SAD BUT TRUE. As our ’20 coverage ends with this issue, for the first time since the 1946 sea- son you won’t find the definitive World Rankings which have gone such a long way towards defining BUSINESS STAFF who we are . Ed Fox . Publisher Emeritus A 73-year string of Top 10s, kaput! Wallace Dere . Office Manager Hardly the kind of thing I was looking for as a Christmas present. One not only for my selfish self, Teresa Tam . Art Director but also for all you loyal readers . Through the years, our surveys have consistently shown that there’s no issue you like better than the Annual Edition, with its recapping of the year’s goings-on. With that in mind—and safe in the knowledge that even in a year as gutted as 2020 was there WORLD RANKINGS COMPILERS was no shortage of high-end athletes doing amazing things (even without high-tech shoes or pacing Jonathan Berenbom, Richard Hymans, Dave John- lights)—we wanted somehow still to honor those athletes without diminishing the historical value of son, Nejat Kök, R .L . Quercetani (Emeritus) World Rankings places . So, rather than our traditional 10-deeps, in the following pages you’ll discover that we have created SENIOR EDITORS “Podiums” for each of the 44 standard categories . Instead of enumerating the top 10 performers, we Bob Bowman (Walking), Roy Conrad (Special have instead tabbed the best 3 as Gold, Silver & Bronze winners . Projects), Bob Hersh (Eastern), Mike Kennedy As explained in our intro to the Podium winners, “Sure, we could have cobbled together Rankings (HS Girls), Glen McMicken (Lists), Walt Murphy at something less than 10 deep, but the parameters just wouldn’t have been the same ”. (Relays), Jim Rorick (Stats), Jack Shepard (HS Boys) We also explain, “Given the immense difference between the circumstances under which these awards were made compared to the traditional World Rankings, we won’t be listing this year’s people U.S. CORRESPONDENTS in our historical compilations ”. John Auka, Bob Bettwy, Bret Bloomquist, Bill You may find that last to be a harsh judgment, and it’s not one we made easily, but we think doing Buchalter, Tom Casacky, Pete Cava, Gene Cherry, it this way will provide a better view of the history of the sport. We didn’t want to get into the business Keith Conning, Cheryl Davis, Elliott Denman, of handing out “participation trophies,” although in some places we had no choice but to come close . Peter Diamond, Charles Fleishman, John Gillespie, Becca Gillespy-Peter, Rich Gonzalez, Ed Gordon, To give you an idea of just how severely the relevant numbers were impacted, the women’s 400H Ed Grant, George Grenier, Ben Hall, Sean Hartnett, is the poster child for an event where ’20 bore little resemblance to recent reality. Mike Hubbard, Dave Hunter, Tom Jennings, Roger Harken back to ’19 (a year in which U .S . runners were World Ranked 1-2-3-7-10), when the 4 fastest Jennings, Tom Jordan, Kim Koffman, Don Kopriva, runners of the year were all Americans: Dalilah Muhammad 52 1. 6, Sydney McLaughlin 52 .23, Ashley Dan Lilot, Paul Merca, Larry Newman, Lee Nichols, Spencer 53.11, Shamier Little 53.73. Jack Pfeifer, Shawn Price, Harv Rentschler, Kirk None of that quartet ran the event this year, one in which there was a single sub-54 runner (53 7. 9 Reynolds, Michael J . Roth, Brian Russell, Rich Sands, as the world leader) and only 4 cracked 55 . This year’s fastest American ran 58 .83, good for No . 115 (!) Kevin Saylors, Charles Shaffer, Jim Spier, Jesse on the yearly world list . Squire, Don Steffens, Larry Story, Paul Swangard, For a shocking U .S . men’s number, check out the farthest outdoor long jump mark of the year: 25- Carol R . Swenson, Gary Trigueiro, Jules Trigueiro, 6¼ (7 7. 8) . People were jumping that far almost 100 years ago . For another, let us cite the world men’s Steve Vaitones, Howard Willman, David Woods high jump, where the list leader of 7-7¾ (2 .33) was last that low way back in ’83 . The numbers don’t lie . INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS Steven Downes, Matti Hannus, Ian Hodge, Jonas How About The Year’s Best Athletes? Hedman, Mike Hurst, Mirko Jalava, Paul Jenes, You may also note a change in nomenclature for our choices as the year’s top performers. For the first Alfons Juck, A . Lennart Julin, Duncan Mackay, time since ’59 (’74 on the women’s side) there are no superduperstars tabbed as “Athlete Of The Year ”. Peter Matthews, Phil Minshull, K. Ken Nakamu- Instead—just as was foreshadowed in the November/December issue with our tagging of the year’s ra, Bob Ramsak, Sergey Tikhonov, Chris Turner, top high schoolers—you’ll instead find MVPs (Most Valuable Performers). And following the MVP Mel Watman choices, rather than our traditional charting of vote-getters, in order, just a small handful of Honorable Mentions are highlighted . PHOTOGRAPHERS As with the Rankings, this change in nomenclature was part of our effort to keep things in historical Claus Andersen, Errol Anderson, Greg Armstrong, perspective. There simply weren’t enough people of either sex to fill out a Top 10 that could remotely John Burke, Gladys Chai, Rich Clarkson, Giancarlo compare with its predecessors . Colombo, Tony Duffy, Don Gosney, Jeff Jacobsen, Having said that, I’d be totally remiss if I didn’t clarify that Mondo’s year compares favorably with Anthony R . Jones, Kirby Lee, Bill Leung, Jiro Mochizuki, Kevin Morris, David Peterson, Victor any vault season that ever went before it. Indeed, you’ll have to search far and wide to find seasons in Sailer, Mike Scott, Mark Shearman, Kim Spir, any event which compare . Cheryl Treworgy His season alone makes for a perfect present under the tree, but the best part is that in the Olympic year to come we’ll all need bigger trees under which to find more of the great gifts our wonderful Track & Field News was published continually sport never fails to bring us . as a print magazine since its inception in 1948 Stay safe! Mask up! Get vaccinated when your turn in the queue comes up . (This public service through the December 2017 issue . 2018 issues message brought to you by the pre-T&FN gh, who a half-century ago was a Bacteriology & Public (January through December) were produced in Health major ). digital only format . Track & Field News January 2021 — 4 T&FN’s 2020 Podium Choices VICTOR SAILER/PHOTO RUN The Olympic podiums remained empty this year, so we stepped in to fill the void. IF THERE WAS ONE PLACE that track’s icans as part of the Podium, one was appended, in a normal year by far the least-important part biggest stars dreamt of being in the summer of at least in events where a national-class mark of our protocol—took on far more importance 2020, it was on the podium in Tokyo . C19 ruined was put up . than usual . all that of course . Olympic glory and much more Given the immense difference between Our World Rankings/Podium Panel—a went away as the whole track season was largely the circumstances under which these awards wide-ranging bunch representing four different a loss for most . Not just for athletes, but also for were made compared to the traditional World nationalities—likes to maintain a low profile, fans, meet promoters, anybody/anything with Rankings, we won’t be listing this year’s people but credit (blame?) should be given where it is a vested interest in track & field . in our historical compilations . due . The current team is Jonathan Berenbom, Among the casualties: T&FN’s Annual World These awards are based on our traditional Garry Hill, Richard Hymans, Dave Johnson & Rankings, with which we have been entertaining World Rankings criteria, which in order of im- Nejat Kök .