• Sprinter among 53 added to an 85-strong track and field team
• Olympian Rohan Browning headlines men’s sprint team

Five long years after debuting at the world championships as a raw relay runner, sprint star Ella Connolly will take on many of the world’s fastest women at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

Now 21 and in the form of her life, Connolly will tackle the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay. The Queenslander was among 53 athletes added on Tuesday to an 85-strong track and field team for the Games beginning in Birmingham in late July.

• Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake triumphs in men’s 200m
• Daryll Neita adds women’s 200m to 100m title

Max Burgin has borne the burden of being compared to a young Sebastian Coe or Steve Cram ever since he shattered the under-15 world 800 metres record four years ago. But those lofty comparisons did not look misplaced as he led from gun to tape to destroy a high-class field to win his first national title.

The 20-year-old has worked on his strength and conditioning over the winter after missing last year’s Olympics through injury, and it showed as he ran the finish out of Daniel Rowden and Elliot Giles to win in 1:44.54. It was a heck of a performance, especially in such blustery conditions, but it took so much out of him he was sick by the medal podium.

• Olympic champion says she will celebrate with cheeseburger
• Sha’Carri Richardson qualifies for 200m final after 100m exit

Olympic champion Sydney McLaughlin broke her own world record in the 400m hurdles at the US track and field championships on Saturday.

McLaughlin flashed a broad smile when her time was announced, then gave a thumbs-up. She crossed the finish line at Hayward Field in 51.41 seconds, breaking her own record of 51.46sec set last year at the Tokyo Olympics, where she won gold.

• Asher-Smith has no answer to Neita’s time of 10.8sec
• Azu runs 9.90sec but wind speed prevents national record

On a blustery day in Manchester, the established pecking order of British sprinting was blown spectacularly off kilter - with shocks in both the women’s and men’s 100m finals of the national trials.

Dina Asher-Smith has dominated British female sprinting for nearly a decade. But she had no answer as Daryll Neita glided home in a wind-powered 10.8 sec. Asher-Smith made her usual lightning start, but Neita stayed with her and powered away to win by half a metre and 0.03 sec from her rival.

• Team won 4x100m silver in Tokyo before failed tests
• Dina Asher-Smith through to 100m semis in Manchester

Zharnel Hughes says he has forgiven CJ Ujah for failing a drugs test that cost Team GB an Olympic 4x100m silver medal, because “sometimes these things happen”.

Hughes is looking for redemption himself this year after false starting in the Olympic 100m semi-finals. But after running a smooth 10.18 sec in the first round of the opening day of the British trials in Manchester, Hughes was in magnanimous mood when asked about Ujah.

• Sprinter had recent success as comeback from ban continued
• Fred Kerley posts impressive 9.83sec in men’s 100m

Sha’Carri Richardson appeared to have both her speed and swagger back for the US track and field championships but she had a disappointing result on Thursday night in her signature event.

Despite a few promising races heading into the national championships, Richardson failed to advance out of the first round of the 100m. She finished fifth in her heat and did not speak to reporters after the race.

Sprinter accepts his lifestyle was holding his huge talent back but now he eyes the world championships and British 100m record

When Reece Prescod turned up at the UK Athletics trials last year, he was 8kg overweight after bingeing on fast food and cake from Deliveroo while enjoying epic eight-hour Call of Duty sessions deep into the night. Despite the 26-year-old’s highly unorthodox preparations, he still made the Tokyo Olympics, only to false start in the 100m semi-finals. There was also a gnawing sense that Britain’s most talented male sprinter was letting his extraordinary talent seep away.

A year on, Prescod is a changed man. As he heads to Manchester again for the UK trials for next month’s world championships in Eugene, Oregon he has sold his PlayStation 5, swapped fast food for cooking at home with Prep Kitchen, and worked hard to turn belly flab into lean muscle.

This is just the beginning, as others sports review their eligibility criteria based on contested science: much may have to be settled in court

A new policy barring most trans women from elite swimming has sent shockwaves through sport this week. Within a day, the International Rugby League announced that it would be barring trans women from international competition, and football’s governing body, Fifa, stated that it would be also be reviewing its gender eligibility regulations.

Those who support the inclusion of trans athletes are in despair, and those who say they should be excluded are jubilant. But as a discrimination barrister, I know these policies don’t appear in a vacuum. Are they compliant with UK law? And could they be vulnerable to legal challenge? Both questions are key – especially when considering whether other sports will follow suit.

Robin Moira White is a discrimination barrister at Old Square Chambers, London, and joint author of A Practical Guide to Transgender Law

• Katarina Johnson-Thompson set to defend heptathlon title
• Young 800m sensation Max Burgin also set for Birmingham

Dina Asher-Smith and Katarina Johnson-Thompson have been named in a stronger-than-expected England athletics squad for the Commonwealth Games, which includes all the big stars as well as young sensations such as the 800m runner Max Burgin.

Asher-Smith, the world 200m champion, has particularly delighted organisers by confirming that she will race in the women’s 100m and 4x100m, which sets up a potential showdown with the Olympic champion, Elaine Thompson-Herah, and the world champion, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

• World Athletics president suggests sport may follow swimming
• Coe says ‘biology trumps gender’ and policies will reflect this

The World Athletics president, Sebastian Coe, has hailed swimming’s decision to ban transgender women from elite female competition as in “the best interests of its sport” – and hinted that track and field could soon follow suit.

Lord Coe was in Budapest on Sunday as swimming’s governing body, Fina, voted to bar trans athletes who have experienced any part of male puberty from cisgender women’s events. Within 24 hours he announced that the World Athletics council would also be reviewing its transgender and DSD (differences in sex development) athletes policies at the end of the year.

• Former Olympic champion says she ‘needed to do this now’
• Holmes feared she would be court martialed while in army

Dame Kelly Holmes has announced that she is gay, saying she “needed to do this now”.

Speaking during Pride month, the two-time gold medal winning Olympic champion said she realised she was gay at the age of 17 after kissing a fellow female soldier, and that her family and friends have known since 1997. “I needed to do this now, for me,” she told the Sunday Mirror. “It was my decision. I’m nervous about saying it. I feel like I’m going to explode with excitement. Sometimes I cry with relief. The moment this comes out, I’m essentially getting rid of that fear.”

• Bol broke the 800-metre Australian record for the third time in Paris
• The brilliant Perth-based half-miler ran 44.00 at Diamond League race

Peter Bol has lowered the Australian 800 metres for the third time and thought for a moment he’d earned a perfect early birthday present for his coach at the Paris Diamond League meeting.

The brilliant half-miler was outpaced for victory on Saturday night by an inspired but controversial finish from home favourite Benjamin Robert, with Bol’s handsome consolation being a new Oceanian landmark of one minute 44.00 seconds for the two-lap event.

The 2012 Games were over budget while existing stadiums like Crystal Palace have been allowed to become dilapidated relics

This summer marks the 10th anniversary of the London 2012 Olympic Games. It is customary here to suggest that decade has simply flown by, that the years have passed in a blink. In reality this already feels like an event from a different timeline altogether.

It’s not the actual Games, which will remain a wonderful thing, tenderly guarded. It’s more the staging. Looking back there is something jarring about the uniformly joyful and empowered response to the opening ceremony, with its ragbag of nostalgia and self-mythologising. Kenneth Branagh pretending to be Brunel. Musical Youth playing croquet. Roger Moore inside a phone box surfing dial-up internet porn. Fiona Bruce and Dizzee Rascal reciting the shipping forecast on top of a giant cheddar cheese.

• Former sprinter dropped as part of UK Athletics restructure
• Coach Stephen Maguire expected to become technical director

The UK Athletics Olympic head coach, Christian Malcolm, has expressed his deep disappointment after his role was scrapped in a restructure following the team’s poor performance at the Tokyo 2020 Games.

A new role of technical director – “with extensive coaching knowledge” – is being introduced, with the former British sprint head coach Stephen Maguire expected to be named shortly.

• UK Athletics has reportedly been offered £15m to cut ties
• Coe: ‘We have to maintain a world-class presence in London’

Sebastian Coe has warned that it would be “bizarre” for London to be without a world-class track and field venue amid reports that UK Athletics has been offered £15m to cut ties with the 2012 Olympic Stadium.

In a notable intervention, Lord Coe also hinted that if UKA terminated its 50-year agreement with what is now known as the London Stadium, currently home to West Ham, it could make it harder for Britain to stage the World Athletics Championships in the future.

• Olympian had successful track career before turning to football
• Philadelphia signed 27-year-old this NFL off-season

Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Devon Allen posted the third-fastest 110m hurdles time in history on Sunday, winning in 12.84 seconds at the New York City Grand Prix.

Allen, who recently signed with the Eagles after a successful track career, easily defeated Olympic silver medalist Grant Holloway, who finished in 13.06 seconds.

• Briton will compete in either the 100m or 200m in Birmingham
• Race could be ‘event of the championships’, says Asher-Smith

Dina Asher-Smith has handed the Commonwealth Games a major boost by confirming she will race the 100m or 200m as well as the 4x100m relay this summer – a decision that sets up a potential mouthwatering showdown against the Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah.

With the world 100m champion, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, double Olympic 400m champion, Shaunae Miller-Uibo, and Tokyo 100m bronze medallist, Shericka Jackson, also expected to travel to Birmingham, one excited Commonwealth Games insider told the Guardian that the “race of the championships” was on the cards.

British Olympic medal-winning athlete on how a system skewed against black sportswomen left her feeling alone in the face of sexual assault and racism

“If I said I wasn’t nervous I’d be lying,” Anyika Onuora suggests with a little smile in the front room of her mother’s house in Liverpool. We have known each other since I first interviewed Onuora in April 2017 and in the intervening years she has confidentially told me everything she is now about to share with the world. Onuora is an amusing and intelligent woman, full to the brim with life and laughter, but her story as a black female athlete is framed by haunting racism and sexual assault.

Her important and powerful new book, My Hidden Race, was published on Thursday. This is Onuora’s first interview about subjects we have discussed privately for so long and, suddenly, everything seems very real.

• Third worst heptathlon points total recorded in Austria
• Britain’s Holly Mills finishes ahead of Liverpudlian

Moments after Katarina Johnson-Thompson crossed the finish line here in Götzis after posting the third lowest heptathlon score of her glittering career, a shard of light broke through the darkened clouds and lashing rain. It rather matched her mood.

For while the bald facts of her performance – 6,174 points, more than 800 below her personal best – appeared deeply troubling for her chances of defending her world title in July, the 29-year-old athlete struck a defiant and optimistic note.

• At end of day one of Hypomeeting she sits ninth
• First heptathlon for Briton since calf tear in Tokyo

Katarina Johnson-Thompson suffered a painful reality check in her first heptathlon since tearing her calf at last year’s Olympics. She ended day one of the prestigious Hypomeeting with her knee badly bruised and her ambitions of defending her world title in July seriously blunted.

After four of the seven events, Johnson-Thompson sits in ninth place with 3,695 points – 245 off the lead held by the young Pole Adrianna Sulek, but broadly in line with her own expectations as she seeks to return to peak form.