• South American Athletics Championships 2017 (Asuncion)

IAAF last week established a new system qualifying system for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with the ridiculously high standards and ranking system that will be used to select athletes for the next Olympic and possibly next World championships. What are the positives and which countries will benefit the most from the new IAAF qualification system?

Norway's Sondre Moen, the European Marathon record holder (2:05:48), made a return to road racing after recovering from tendon tear in the groin at the Gdynia Half Marathon in Poland. Moen took a very comfortable win in 1:01:17 which is a new course record. Poland's Krystian Zalewski in his debut took second place in 1:02:36.

Kenyan Thomas Kiplagat Rono of Kenya and Desi Jisa Mokonin of Bahrain took convincing victories at the Seoul Marathon, an IAAF Gold Label road race, on Sunday.  Kiplagat led four men under the 2:07 mark, clocking 2:06:00 to win his third career marathon. Mokonin , who was seventh at the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships Valencia 2018, was even more dominant, winning by 25 seconds in 2:23:45.

Zharnel Hughes was the men’s 100m dash winner at the GC Foster Classics on Saturday (16 March). Hughes, running against a negative 1.3m/s headwind, stopped the clock in 10.20 seconds. UWI’s Emmanuel Archibald, the heat 10 winner, was second overall.  Asafa Powell won heat 2 in 10.35 (-1.1m/s wind) for 3rd overall.