This archive report was first published on 23 May 2020.
With traditional competitions on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, athletics has turned to innovative and unusual ways to keep the sport alive.
As the Olympics and European Championships have been postponed, and traditional meetings are not scheduled until the Diamond League in Monaco on August 14, creative initiatives have been popping up to allow competition to continue.
One such example is the Ultimate Garden Challenge, where three of the world's leading pole vaulters – Armand 'Mondo' Duplantis, Renaud Lavillenie, and Sam Kendricks – competed while staying at home on May 3.
Watched by an estimated 1 million people worldwide, Duplantis, jumping in his back garden in Louisiana, and Lavillenie, in Clermont-Ferrand, both cleared a bar set at 5 meters 36 times in 30 minutes, while Kendricks, in Mississippi, managed 26.
"It's already huge even to be able to do exhibitions again," Lavillenie said, adding that he felt "a little bit of adrenaline" with this ersatz competition.
Similar events have been planned, including 'Flight Night' in Dusseldorf, Germany, where four German pole vaulters will compete at a drive-in cinema on June 12, and six micro-meetings in the Czech Republic, starting in Kladno on June 1.
Meanwhile, the Oslo Diamond League event on June 11 has been renamed "the Impossible Games" and will feature Duplantis, Norwegian Sondre Guttormsen, and Lavillenie, who will vault in his French garden.
Double 400m hurdles world champion Karsten Warholm will attempt to break the world 300m hurdles mark, and Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdal will try to set a 3,000m record with her pace set by lights embedded in the side of the track.
Monaco is also hoping to run a normal event, with organiser Remy Charpentier saying, "We hope to stay with a traditional meeting, we still have three months left."
Former decathlete Alain Blondel sees the crisis as an athletics laboratory "to build the athletics of 2030," saying, "These innovations aren’t imitation athletics, you shouldn’t see it as a classic competition, it’s closer to a TV show based on an athletic performance."
