Backstraight Boys (& Girl) Athletics Chat

Send us Fan Mail 'What's the plan for this one, Claire?' 'I'll do a quick intro, and then how about we just talk about the Olympics for an hour?' And there you have it: a non-stop romp through just a sliver of a truly magical Games. From Karsten to Rojas, and back again via Tamber(in)i and some stellar British performances. We laughed, gasped, and cried our way throug...

Send us Fan Mail Athletics in Tokyo is just hours away, and - if we thought we were excited before Roger Black joined us to discuss it all - we had another thought coming. The three-time Olympic medallist has left us like kids at Christmas: he really was the perfect guest for this one. Stacked middle distance fields, infinite and bonkers scheduling permutations, and those 400 metre hurdle races......

Send us Fan Mail When British Athletics offer you accreditation for Olympic trials, you drop everything, and so Claire and Bayo headed up to Manchester for a blockbuster Sunday of runs, jumps, and throws. They caught up with Adam, with Beth, with all three women's 800-metre medalists, with the ever-wonderful Elliot Giles, the prodigious Oliver Dustin, the gravity-defying duo of Jaz and Morgan...

Send us Fan Mail US trials start today, so we hopped on Instagram Live with the reigning Olympic Champion, the goat, and the birthday boy, Christian 'friend of the pod' Taylor: the future president of World Athletics (/the world). Here's - and, brace yourselves, it's entirely unedited - our preview of what should prove a humdinger of a championship. On paper, the US trials are...

Send us Fan Mail We're never short on opinions at Backstraight Towers, but this week includes some particularly impassioned discussions: why on Earth are World Athletics persevering with the ghastly 'top three' jump competition format? does the European Team Champs have any relevance or merit as a meet these days? and what have we all made of sprinting sensation, Sha'Carri Rich...

Send us Fan Mail We're back in the same room! We've got amazing new recording equipment! Katie Snowden's run 4:02! The women's 100 metres at Gateshead is going to be incredible! 'Sarah' actually exists!  There's so much to be excited about this week, as the gang meet up - in the actual flesh - to look at recent standout performances by athletes all over the world...

Send us Fan Mail The World Relays were a funny old meet, but - as per - we were just thrilled to have athletics to watch, and used it as an opportunity to *finally* welcome along Martyn 'relay' Rooney: one of the country's most adored, decorated, and long-limbed stars. Why didn't British Athletics send a 4 x 100 squad? How much can be learned at events like this? What on earth...

Send us Fan Mail British javelin throwing is not in a good place right now. The days of Fatima, Tessa, Steve, and Goldie feel long gone, and it's not entirely clear why that is. Lack of coaching or competition? Poor talent identification? Other sports poaching promising youngsters? Lacklustre marketing of the event?  We had plenty of ideas at Backstraight HQ, and you lovely lot sent us plenty...

Send us Fan Mail Tom Bedford made it happen. Tim Hutchings will be on the mic. Tom Bosworth will be doing all that he can to finish... second? Intriguing. This one came together very last minute, but we couldn't not look ahead to the first Team GB Olympic trials event - taking place on the morning of March 26th at Kew Gardens, and available to watch on BBC iPlayer, BBC Red Button, and the Bri...

Send us Fan Mail The second fastest of all time, and - if we're going by performances - the third, ninth, and tenth, too. Norway's all-conquering Viking horn-adorned superstar, Karsten Warholm, only took up the 400-metre hurdles a few years ago, but has come to dominate one of the highest quality events in the sport, and in real style.  A huge presence on the start line, a rocket out of...

Send us Fan Mail You could be forgiven for thinking that this is the second instalment of our women's middle distance special -  70% of this episode is either us waxing lyrical about the tactical excellence of the British contingent in these events, or Jody's interview with the brilliant Holly Archer - but we do discuss other bits: promise! From Hannah England and Richard Kilty's an...

Send us Fan Mail We say it so often, we might as well replace that part where Jody and Bayo forget their social media handles at the end  of each episode with this refrain, but: the British middle distance trials are going to be something else. Olympic qualifying standards are casually scattered up and down the domestic rankings, and we are truly spoilt for choice when it comes to world-class athl...

Send us Fan Mail There's regular athletics back on our screens, which is heaven (cheerless cheerleaders in Lievin aside). With Euros just around the corner, we take a deep - far deeper than planned, as per - dive into the performances we've enjoyed so far. From the absurdly talented Grant Holloway, to the fact that Laura Muir ran 3:59 and was beaten by six seconds. From the contrasting s...

Send us Fan Mail Earlier this year, UKA announced that they were going to consult clubs, athletes, and competition organisers about cross country race distances. A host of GB runners, including three-time World Champion over the cross - Paula Radcliffe - penned a response, arguing against equal distances for men and women. As could only have been expected, Twitter immediately became the sort of ro...

Send us Fan Mail 2021 is upon us. Covid’s still here. Winter training is well underway. The calendar is teeming (but for how long, we don’t know). And - most excitingly - Backstraight is back. In their first pod of the new year, Jody, Bayo, and Claire are joined by Olympic medallist and broadcasting superstar Kath Merry, to discuss everything 2021: the events we can expect to happen and are most e...

Send us Fan Mail 2020: the year that we witnessed garden-staged pole vault AMRAPs and a London Marathon consisting of 19 laps of St James' Park. A season that brought us world records, empty stadia, and Noah Lyles running a devastating 180 metres (in every sense of the word). Months of waiting for Karsten Warholm to scorch his way to history, and a few seconds of explosive perfection as Johan...

Send us Fan Mail One left with a national record, one left not a dry eye across the land, but both Harrys were stars of the show at last weekend's British Championships. Alongside the now world-leading Aimee Pratt, the prodigious Lucy-Jane Matthews, the wonderful trio of women's 100m medallists, and - you know what? It'd take too long to list; the event was just gorgeous, which is r...

Send us Fan Mail Safe to say we all had *big* Friday nights... from our sofas... drowning in world record attempts, huge performances, and that ubiquitous green-and-blue Nike race kit. That's right: athletics - proper athletics - is back, and Monaco. Went. Off. Joshua Cheptegei broke Bekele's 5,000m WR, Baby Ingebrigsten has his first European Record, and Faith Kipyegon ran the second-fa...

Send us Fan Mail 'One Dream, One Team, One Chance', reads the tagline of Regan Hall's 2012 masterpiece, 'Fast Girls'. Those of us at Backstraight HQ suggest the following might be more accurate: 'a plethora of inaccuracies, 91 minutes of madness, one seriously feel-good movie'.  It is brilliant and bonkers and almost as full of drama as it is famous athletics fac...

Send us Fan Mail Athletics is creeping back - from the Showdown in Otown to the Inspiration Games. In the former, Noah Lyles beat Justin Gatlin over 100 metres. In the latter, Noah Lyles beat no one over 185 metres. The world's gone mad. Bowerman TC continue to tear things up across the pond, Allyson Felix is looking *quick*, and we still can't bring ourselves to get excited by 100 yard...

Send us Fan Mail Sprint queens, step aside (for one week only, please; we still adore you): the jump queens are in town, and it's been a total hoot. When we say 'in town', we mean on a Zoom call with us, for a lockdown special featuring two of our favourite Team GB athletes - the wonderful Morgan Lake and Jazmin Sawyers. Not only are these two international medallists, articulate po...

Send us Fan Mail It would be remiss to talk about anything else right now, so - here it is - a Backstraight episode with neither bells nor whistles: just a discussion of this essential global movement away from racism and towards equality.  To help us sift through this weighty, complex topic, we're joined by two incredibly knowledgeable former athletes: Chris Lambert - whose impassioned, arti...

Send us Fan Mail WHAT a cliff-hanger that was. Aren't we wicked? But - great news - Bayo is back, and so is Denise, and we're ready to pick up where we left off: approaching the 2000 Olympic Games. Just in case you don't know how Denise got on in Sydney (although the episode title does contain a slight spoiler in that regard), we won't ruin the surprise here, but her recounting...

Send us Fan Mail From Wolverhampton to the top of the podium in Sydney - via a handful of Commonwealth titles and records, a pair of World silvers, a couple of take-off leg changes, and the opportunity to compete against some of the greatest multi-eventers to have ever donned a pair of spikes - Denise Lewis has some cracking stories to tell. So many, in fact, that she spoke with Bayo for two hours...

Send us Fan Mail We say this with love - enormous amounts of it - but Christian Taylor is a serious over-achiever.  Double and reigning Olympic Champion, four-time and reigning World Champion, seven-time and reigning Diamond League Champion, and the second best triple jumper of all time. He's also a 45.07 quarter miler, has a gold medal from the World Relay Championships, and is using his pla...