What to watch in Olympic sports this long weekend

This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports' daily email newsletter. Stay up to speed on what's happening in sports by subscribing here.

First off, a quick heads-up: there will be no Buzzer tomorrow or next week. The reason for the hiatus is I'll be running the Chicago Marathon this weekend, then taking a few days off (while no doubt dealing with assorted aches and pains). The newsletter will be back in your inbox on Monday, Oct. 16.

If you're not familiar, Chicago is one of the six World Marathon Majors, along with Boston, New York City, London, Berlin and Tokyo. Chicago organizers say there will be more than 47,000 runners and well over a million spectators at the 45th edition of the race, which will celebrate its millionth finisher at some point on Sunday.

The elite athletes set to take on the downtown course include Kenya's Kelvin Kiptum, who ran the second-fastest marathon of all time this past April in London. Kiptum missed Eliud Kipchoge's world record of 2:01:09 by just 16 seconds, and there's a feeling that it'll soon belong to him. Kiptum is only 23 (very young for a marathoner) and he made his marathon debut just 10 months ago.

The top women competing Sunday include Sifan Hassan, the incredibly versatile Ethiopian-born Dutchwoman who in 2021 won Olympic track gold medals in the 5,000m and 10,000m while adding a bronze in the 1,500m. Hassan tried the marathon for the first time this year in London — and promptly won the major, despite stopping several times to stretch a sore hip. Her competition will include Kenya's Ruth Chepngetich, who's gunning for her third consecutive Chicago title after running a 2:14:18 last year — the third-fastest women's marathon of all time.

I expect to cross the