Allen Johnson of USA wins 110m hurdles gold

Allen Johnson takes gold in 110 hurdles

World record-holders Joshua Cheptegei, Mondo Duplantis and Brigid Kosgei are among the nominees for the Laureus World Sports Awards.
Due to the continuing global pandemic, this year the Laureus Awards will not be presented at an open ceremony. Instead, the winners will be announced in May as part of a virtual awards event.
The awards will reflect a unique year of sport when athletes used their platforms to instil hope, influence change in society and prove that sport can change the world for the better. While celebrating the highest sporting achievements, this year&rsquo;s Laureus Awards will also honour those whose actions in 2020 transcended the track, court or field of play.
Cheptegei set three world records in 2020. The Ugandan distance runner clocked 12:51 for 5km on the roads in February last year, then went on to break the world 5000m record on the track with 12:35.36 in Monaco before running a world record of 26:11.00 for 10,000m in Valencia two months later.
&ldquo;I am very honoured to be nominated for the Laureus World Sports Awards,&rdquo; said Cheptegei. &ldquo;It fills me with pride that my performances are being appreciated, not just within athletics but within the wider sports world. It is a great privilege to be nominated among sports personalities whom I respect, both for their performances and how they inspire people around the world.&rdquo;
Duplantis was undefeated for the whole of 2020. The Swedish pole vaulter set a world record of 6.17m in Torun in February, then added another centimetre to the mark one week later in Glasgow. Later in the year, he cleared 6.15m in Rome &ndash; the highest outdoor vault in history.
&ldquo;Mondo has a great pedigree, and we&rsquo;ve been hearing about him since he was 16 or 17,&rdquo; said multiple Olympic champion Michael Johnson, a Laureus Academy Member. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s just an amazing athlete, world record-holder already and he&rsquo;s so young. He reminds me a lot of my fellow Academy Member Sergey Bubka who was so dominant during his entire career. I feel Duplantis has the same potential to dominate.&rdquo;
Other nominees for the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year Award include Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton, Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal, NBA super star LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers and football player Robert Lewandowski.
Kosgei raced just three times in 2020, but the Kenyan distance runner won the highest-quality marathon of the year. The 27-year-old successfully defended her London Marathon title in 2:18:58, winning by more than three minutes.
&ldquo;Brigid is very consistent,&rdquo; Johnson said of Kosgei. &ldquo;Everyone knows her accomplishments. It was very challenging to go out last year and produce big performances.&rdquo;
The other nominees for the Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year Award are tennis player Naomi Osaka, Dutch road cyclist Anna van der Breggen, Italian skier Federica Brignone, French footballer Wendie Renard and basketball player Breanna Stewart.
Nominees for the other awards can be found on the <a href="https://www.laureus.com/world-sports-awards/2021?nominees=viewall" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Laureus website</a>.
As well as recognising the most memorable sporting performances to have taken place in 2020, despite the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, this year there will be additional special Laureus Awards acknowledging the wider impact on society made by athletes.
The awards will tell the inspirational stories of people who have worked tirelessly to combat the pandemic, and will highlight the advocacy of sportsmen and sportswomen who have used their positions of influence to make a powerful impact on issues and conflicts which transcend sport.

World record-holders Joshua Cheptegei, Mondo Duplantis and Brigid Kosgei are among the nominees for the Laureus World Sports Awards.

Cheptegei, Duplantis and Kosgei nominated for Laureus World Sports Awards

Blanka Vlasic, a two-time world high jump champion and the second-highest jumper of all-time, announced her retirement on Friday.
Vlasic, the world champion outdoors in 2007 and 2009 and indoors in 2008 and 2010, had been struggling with injuries for much of the past decade, but still managed to take world silver in 2015 and Olympic bronze in 2016. She hasn&rsquo;t competed since the Rio final but was hoping that a fifth Olympic appearance in Tokyo later this year might be possible. Finally, at 37, Croatia&rsquo;s finest athletics star decided it wouldn&rsquo;t come to pass.
&ldquo;Ever since Rio, I have been trying to overcome injury, a full four years of hope that I will stand in front of the bar and challenge myself once again,&rdquo; Vlasic said, in an open letter released this morning.
&ldquo;Before I won bronze in Rio many people told me to give up as I have already done a lot in the sport. But if I had listened to them, I would not have won another Olympic medal, a medal that has a special meaning to me because I won it literally with one healthy leg. That competition took everything out of me, even what I didn't know I had.&rdquo;
Since then, she said, &ldquo;the years that followed brought an unending circle of innumerable rehabilitation treatments, hope, and then disappointment. Yet, although it would be evident at first glance to an outside observer that it was time to dedicate myself to new life challenges, the decision had to be mine.&rdquo; 
<h2>A rising star at 16</h2>
 Vlasic was still a teenager when she first attracted the world's attention, making her Olympic debut in Sydney in 2000 and then taking the world U20 title three weeks later, both before her 17th birthday. She made her first senior World Championships appearance in 2001, successfully defended her world U20 title in 2002 and topped 2.00m for the first time before a sold-out home crowd in Zagreb in 2003.
By 2006 she became a major force in the event.&nbsp;
She won the first of two successive world outdoor titles in Osaka in 2007, improving to 2.07m that year. Olympic silver followed in Beijing and another world title in 2009 before she improved to 2.08m, again before a raucous home crowd in Zagreb, a leap that elevated Vlasic to No2 on the all-time world list. She's remained there since. Vlasic pieced together a 34-meeting unbeaten streak between 23 June 2007 and 22 July 2008, and eventually topped two metres a staggering 165 times in 106 competitions.
One of her brightest personal moments came at the 2010 Continental Cup, hosted by her hometown of Split on Croatia&rsquo;s Adriatic coast. The poster girl for the event, Vlasic drew more a crowd of more than 30,000 to the second day of competition, won the event with a first attempt clearance at 2.05m before ending the afternoon with three tries at a would-be 2.10m world record. Her first and third attempts were well off the mark but her second was a solid effort. She also won the European title that summer and was named World Athlete of the Year.
She took silver at the 2011 World Championships but injury sidelined her for the entire 2012 season. She bounced back to take another world silver in 2015 before capping her career in Rio the following year.
During her prime, there was no bigger sporting star in Croatia. For two years running, Vlasic managed to attract a crowd of more than 12,000 to Split's Spaladium arena for an annual women&rsquo;s high jump competition, in both cases the largest indoor athletics gatherings in Europe in those respective seasons.
&ldquo;Every athlete will understand me - parting is not easy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;We leave behind great emotions, conquered peaks, victories over ourselves, and magnificent moments that cannot be described in words. But it all remains a part of us - a part we carry into the future.&rdquo;
While she&rsquo;s hanging up her competition spikes, Vlasic said she has no plans of fading away.
&ldquo;I will always stay in the sport,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;With my experience and knowledge, I want to permanently and actively contribute to the further development of world athletics and sports in general.&rdquo;
Bob Ramsak for World Athletics&nbsp;

Blanka Vlasic, a two-time world high jump champion and the second-highest jumper of all-time, announced her retirement on Friday.

Vlasic, two-time world high jump champion, announces retirement

Eliud Kipchoge will make his final marathon appearance prior to his Olympic title defence at the NN Mission Marathon in Hamburg on 11 April.
The one-off marathon, organised jointly by his management firm Global Sports Communication, the NN Running Team and the Hamburg Marathon, carries the tagline &lsquo;The fastest way to Tokyo&rsquo; and is an effort to provide another much-needed competitive opportunity for athletes to not only run a fast race in the lead-in to the rescheduled Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, but in many cases to help them achieve the qualification standard.
The race, which will take place around a looped 10.5-kilometre city centre course, is expected to attract about 100 invited elite athletes.
Kipchoge, the world record-holder, will of course attract the bulk of the attention. His appearance will come after a disappointing eighth place finish at the London Marathon last October where he clocked 2:06:49.
The Kenyan kicked off his marathon career in 2013 with victory in the Hamburg Marathon, and said he's delighted to return to compete in the northern German.
"In Hamburg, I am going back to the genesis of my marathon career," he said. "I hope to inspire many people around the world by running a beautiful race in the streets of this beautiful city."
Kipchoge, 36, has gone on to win 11 of his 13 races over the classic distance and has produced two of the three fastest performances of all-time, topped by his 2:01:39 world record at the 2018 Berlin Marathon.
One year later, Kipchoge became the first athlete to break the two-hour barrier in the event, when he clocked 1:59:40 at an exhibition event in Vienna.
In Tokyo, Kipchoge will aim to become just the third man to win back-to-back Olympic marathon titles.
Organisers for World Athletics

Eliud Kipchoge will make his final marathon appearance prior to his Olympic title defence at the NN Mission Marathon in Hamburg on 11 April.

News07 Aug 1997

Cheptegei, Duplantis and Kosgei nominated for Laureus World Sports Awards

Vlasic, two-time world high jump champion, announces retirement

Kipchoge's final pre-Tokyo marathon outing set for Hamburg