The athlete, 38, talks about winning the Olympics in London, jogging down the Thames, his strict training regime and how often he shaves his head

I don’t have many memories of growing up in Somalia – I was so young. I remember coming to the UK, age eight, going to school – even though I couldn’t speak any English – and suddenly having all these friends to play with.

I owe a lot to my PE teacher, Mr Watkinson. He saw me running around the playground, he watched me run in a figure of eight around the gym. Then he thought: “That kid is good at running.” He encouraged me to join a local running club. We’re still in touch.

• Medical experts claim IOC is focusing on inclusion not science
• Head of World Athletics’ medical department backs statement

The International Olympic Committee’s new transgender framework has come under fire from medical experts who work for multiple sports federations, including World Athletics, World Triathlon and the International Cycling Union, who say it opens the door to unfair competition in female sport.

In a notable intervention, the scientists warn that IOC’s new guidance – which states there is no need for trans women to lower their testosterone to compete against natal women – ignores the science on sex, gender and performance and focuses mostly on inclusion. The new framework, which also applies to athletes with differences of sex development, such as the South African 800m runner Caster Semenya, is due to be rolled out after next month’s Winter Olympics. It comes amid the high-profile cases of the weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, the first open trans women to compete in an Olympics, and the US trans woman Lia Thomas, who recently set a number of collegiate swimming records.

We look at who will be making headlines this year, in both a positive and negative light

Toby Helm

From the Africa Cup of Nations to the Commonwealth Games, all the way through to the Qatar World Cup

The Guardian and Observer sport photographer Tom Jenkins selects his favourite images from the thousands of frames that he shot during 2021 and recalls the stories behind them

Normally the summer Olympics are the pinnacle event for me to cover, but this year was not at all normal and I decided to give Tokyo a miss. Not only did my family not want me going, there were other factors to discourage me, not least the new rules that meant I might have very limited access. So instead my year was dominated by football, the peak being the final of the Euros at Wembley, a game that brought the country to a standstill and became one of the most-watched moments in British television history.

• Jones was part of the 4x110yd team that equalled world record
• ‘Ron will be remembered as one of Wales’s greatest athletes’

The legendary British sprinter Ron Jones, who captained Team GB at the Mexico Olympics in 1968 and was part of the 4x110yd team that equalled the world record in 1963, has died at the age of 87.

After his illustrious track and field career, Jones moved into football, first as the chief executive of QPR in 1976 before becoming managing director at Cardiff and then Portsmouth.

Gianmarco Tamberi and Mutaz Barshim were already friends but their bond was strengthened when they asked for a gold medal each rather than compete in a jump off at Tokyo 2020

There was a moment, two and a half hours into the greatest men’s high jump competition in Olympic history, where no one had the foggiest idea what was going on. A second earlier, the Italian Gianmarco Tamberi and the Qatari Mutaz Barshim had been calmly talking to an official. Now they were high-fiving, leaping into each other’s arms, and pogoing in pure delirium.

Tamberi then collapsed and began rolling around the track with his hands on his face as if he had been possessed, or shot, or possibly both – while Barshim was using his coach’s shoulder to soak up his tears. It turned out that the most joyous and life-affirming moment of the sporting year was unfolding before our eyes. And soon it wasn’t only Tamberi and Barshim overcome by emotion; the rest of us also found ourselves wiping something from our cheeks.

Wyomia Tyus made Olympic history and paved the way for athlete activists, but never became a household name

Only six people in the world have won the 100m dash in back-to-back Olympic Games. The first was Wyomia Tyus in 1964 and 1968. Next was Carl Lewis, then Gail Devers, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Usain Bolt (who won three times in a row), and Elaine Thompson-Herah. To many people, the name Wyomia Tyus is less familiar than the others.

Tyus was not only the first Olympian to win back-to-back gold in its prestige event – she also made history in other ways. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, when Tyus crossed the line first in the 100 meters, she set a world record of 11.08 seconds. And when she ran, she was wearing dark shorts instead of the team-issued white shorts, a gesture to show her support for human rights.

The world of masters athletics, open to competitors aged 35 and often much older, is a place for older sportspeople to break world records well into their golden years

The story of Kathy Bergen’s decorated track and field career began in the pages of AARP magazine, which is another way of saying it didn’t start until after she turned 50. In the years since, Bergen has cemented her status as a legend in the world of masters athletics, which is open to competitors aged 35 and older. She was inducted into the USA Track & Field Masters Hall of Fame in 2008, and was named the top female masters athlete in 2015. Earlier this month at a ceremony in Orlando, Florida, Bergen received her highest honor, as she was named the top masters athlete of the year by USATF.

The accolades are deserved for someone who has broken so many world records that she loses count. “Off the top of my head, I’m thinking 24, 28. I’m not really sure,” Bergen said in a phone interview. (It’s 28, but who’s counting?)

Officials refused Seyfu Jamaal’s asylum claim after he had waited more than three and a half years

A runner from Ethiopia who dreams of representing Team GB is facing deportation back to his home country even though a state of emergency has been declared there.

Seyfu Jamaal, 21, arrived in the UK aged 17 after travelling here in the back of a lorry and claimed asylum. The Home Office accepts he was persecuted and trafficked before he arrived in the UK. But officials refused his asylum claim in May of this year after keeping him waiting for more than three and a half years for a decision, saying it would be safe for him to return home.

The convicted super criminal’s death could lead to a series of revelations with his son dropping hints of other scandals

Champion long jumper. Coach of the Senegal national football team. Mayor of Dakar. Head of global athletics for 16 years. Olympic powerbroker. Fixer. Corruptor. Convicted super criminal. Lamine Diack packed a lot into his extraordinary 88 years, which came to a quiet end on Friday. Yet we are perhaps still nowhere close to knowing all of his felonies – and the friends he helped along the way.

True, what we know is staggering enough. Last year Diack received a four-year sentence from the French courts for masterminding a scheme in which the IAAF, now World Athletics, agreed to cover up secretly 23 cases of Russian doping in exchange for £2.7m in bribes. And while another French investigation into Olympic vote-rigging continues, Diack has already been named by a senior figure in the Rio 2016 team as receiving £1.77m for securing African votes. Yet when I spoke to his son, Papa Massata Diack, last year, he hinted that this might be scratching the surface.

• Diack was convicted of a Russian doping cover-up in 2020
• Senegalese official was head of the IAAF for 16 years

Lamine Diack, the former head of world athletics’ governing body who was convicted of corruption last year, died at home in Senegal on Friday at the age of 88.

Diack led the then International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) from 1999 to 2015, during which he was later found guilty of running a clique that covered up Russian doping in return for millions of dollars in bribes.

• Coach Rana Reider is subject of sexual misconduct investigation
• UK Athletics removes sprinters from world-class programme

Adam Gemili and Laviai Nielsen have been removed from UK Athletics’ world-class programme after opting to stay with their coach Rana Reider, who is the subject of a Safe Sport US investigation after multiple complaints of sexual misconduct were made against him.

It means that both sprinters will no longer receive lottery funding, which can be worth up to £28,000, or medical support from UKA while they remain with Reider in Florida. However, a third British athlete Daryll Neita, who was coached by Reider to the women’s Olympic 100m final, will stay on funding after deciding to leave his Tumbleweed training group.

• UK Athletics’ independent appeal committee finds Lees guilty
• UKA chief praises athletes for courage in coming forward

A coach found guilty of inappropriate behaviour towards athletes in his care has had his licence permanently withdrawn by UK Athletics. John Lees was found guilty on five charges by an independent appeal committee of UKA and admitted two others.

Lees was found guilty of giving a massage to an athlete aged under 18 in 2018 and abusing her repeatedly by touching her breast area and buttocks. The committee also unanimously upheld charges that he made sexualised comments to an athlete while stretching her lower body in late 2013 or early 2014, massaged the same athlete and touched her vagina, caused injury to an athlete by administering a chiropractic adjustment in the autumn of 2016 and provided similar adjustments to other athletes when not qualified to do so between 2009 and 2020.

Like all elite athletes, Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins has a ruthless streak. So, despite setting a 100m world record on Sunday at the Louisiana Senior Games, she still wants to go faster. She recorded a time of 1:02:95, a record for women in the 105+ age category.

'It was wonderful to see so many family members and friends. But I wanted to do it in less than a minute,' the 105-year-old said after the race. She took up sprinting on turning 100. In 2017, she set the 100m world record for women aged over 100 with a time of 39:62.

• ‘I wanted less than a minute’: 105-year-old unsatisfied after 100m world record

• Julia ‘Hurricane’ Hawkins sets record in 105+ category
• Athlete has also excelled in cycling time trials

Like all elite athletes, Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins has a ruthless streak. So, despite setting a 100m world record on Sunday at the Louisiana Senior Games, she still wants to go faster.

“It was wonderful to see so many family members and friends. But I wanted to do it in less than a minute,” the 105 year-old said after the race, where she recorded a time of 1:02:95, a record for women in the 105+ age category. When someone pointed out that 102 is less than her age and asked if that made her feel better, Hawkins answered: “No”.

• Jo Coates earning £226,143 before she resigned last month
• Revelation will upset many in athletics after her tenure

UK Athletics’ controversial chief executive Jo Coates was earning a salary package of £226,143 before she resigned last month, making her one of the highest paid administrators in British Olympic sport, the Guardian can reveal.

The news, which is contained in the UKA accounts for the 2020-21 financial year that will be filed at Companies House later this week, will upset many in the sport given her 19-month reign was characterised by turmoil, infighting and athlete dissatisfaction.

• Coach Rana Reider facing sexual misconduct investigation
• Athletes could lose funding if they do not ‘cease all association’

Two of Britain’s leading sprinters, Adam Gemili and Daryll Neita, are locked in a standoff with UK Athletics after so far staying loyal to their American coach, Rana Reider, who is facing a SafeSport US investigation.

The Guardian revealed last week that Gemili and Neita had been ordered by UKA to “cease all association” with Reider after “multiple complaints of sexual misconduct” were made against him.

• Fellow Kenyan Albert Kori wins men’s race in 2:08:22
• Field cut by 40% due to Covid-19 restrictions

Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir won the 50th running of the New York City Marathon on Sunday in 2:22:39, surviving a thrilling three-way battle before sprinting for the finish line, and fellow Kenyan Albert Korir won the men’s race in 2:08:22.

Jepchirchir is the first athlete to pick up Olympic gold and win the famed race in the same year, with compatriot Viola Cheptoo and Ethiopian Ababel Yeshaneh finishing second and third respectively on Sunday. American Molly Seidel, who took home the bronze from the Tokyo Games, finished fourth. Cheptoo was making her marathon debut and quickly found her brother, Bernard Lagat, who was broadcasting the race on ESPN, after she finished.

Lateral flow tests | Climate songs | Modern pentathlon | Punctuation | Fruit

Your report (2 November) notes the rising hospitalisation rate against the drop in reported Covid cases. Could the drop result from the increased difficulty, since October, in obtaining lateral flow tests? Pharmacies no longer hand them out freely, but need an NHS number and a QR code. It would be too cynical to suggest that this has been put in place to make it look as if Covid infections are on the wane when they could well be increasing.
Nadine Grieve
London

• Tower of Power’s Only So Much Oil in the Ground (1974) has been in my DJ set for years, but Tiny Tim’s The Other Side (1968), with its catchy chorus “The ice caps are melting”, was surely the most prescient, and bizarre, pop music comment on climate catastrophe (Letters, 2 November).
Bryan Biggs
Liverpool