Sport Can Be Cruel – runblogrun

This is the first piece by Stuart Weir on the actual Tokyo World Champs, which began on September 13. Stuart wrote ten previews of Tokyo 2025.

Sport can be cruel

We all know that sport can bring massive highs. But sport can also be cruel. And on the first day of the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo it was cruel to two of the nicest people in the sport.

In 2023 in Istanbul, Jazmin Sawyers joined the exclusive 7 meter club in women’s long jump and was ready to move to the next level. Injury then deprived her off the entire 2024 season. She kept herself busy while rehabbing. I remember chatting to her at the European Championships in Rome where she was doing media work. Jazmin returned to action this year and has jumped well with a best of 6.89.  Come the World Champs qualifying and she can only manage 6.54, the second worst of her ten competitions this year.

Looking completely devastated afterwards she said “ I’m gutted. That’s one of my worst competitions of the year. So many people put in so much hard work to get me here. And I just wish I could have made that work mean a little more. It’s great to have made it back to the team but I’m never really here just to make teams. I’ve got bigger goals than that. And I didn’t do enough. It’s hard because you look at it, and I feel as though leading into this, I had done everything. But I’ve got to go back, spend the winter and do more. I don’t feel like I’ve given everything to the sport that I can. And to me, there was no excuse for that”.

Laura  Muir has had a challenging year including a change of coach and an injury early season.  In 2025 she has only run six times compared to 14 last year. Yet when she ran 3:57.63 in a cautious manner in Brussels last month, including a fast finishing lap it looked like she was back towards her best. She told me after that race: “I am really, really happy. I was just very conscious not going off too hard as I’ve not had a race like that since the Olympic final.  I’ve been away from the competition at this level for a year”.

In Tokyo in the prelim Faith Kipyegon lead and Laura took up a position to track her, just half a meter behind. She seemed fully in control of her…