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LetsRun.com: The Week That Was April 6 - April 12, 2009
By: LetsRun.com
April 14, 2009

To read last week's
LRC Week That Was click Here.
To ready any 2009 LRC Week That Was click Here.

A ton of stuff happens each week in the running world.  Each week we try to make sense of it all, telling you what it meant.

We start off in rapid-fire format this week, so hold on.


If you are a conspiracy theorist thinking Boston is trying to set it up for an American to win this year, then you got what you were looking for last week when four-time Boston Marathon champion Catherine Ndereba revealed that she wanted to run Boston. "I talked with Boston, I wanted to run there, but they said they didn't have space for me."  Very interesting. Last time we checked, there is plenty of "space" in a marathon. There may not be plenty of cash unless you are the FLORA London Marathon.


We don't want to dampen the Boston excitement too much, so let us hype up the race right now. How about Ryan Hall's brief chat with Runnersworld where he revealed his fitness is "in a totally different place" as to where it was prior to Beijing where he still managed a 10th-place finish in 2:12? Hall is running 8-mile tempo runs 22.5 seconds per mile faster than prior to Beijing. If he runs 22.5 seconds faster than he did in Beijing, well then he'll run 9:49 faster. 12 minus nine is 2:03. Now please don't label us as a crazy, ridiculous American PR hype machine as Hall himself used that type of math in the interview. He did it slightly differently as he came up with the 9 minutes faster figure. Hall  tried to figure out how many times 8 miles goes into 26.2 and he rounded and said 3. Since he's running the 8 milers three minutes faster than prior to Beijing, he went on to say, "three times three is nine, nine minus 2:12 is ...well you get the picture."


Interesting to see that Korean Ji Young Jun won the Daegu International Marathon over the weekend in 2:08:30. It was the third 2:08 marathon for the Korean and it raised hopes that he somehow might be able to medal at the World Champs. The most interesting thing about Jee Young Jun is that he is the Korean 5k record holder with a 13:49 PB. That equates to only a 2:14 marathon according to the McMillan calculator. And to think that the Korean national record is 2:07:20.


The sport lost a legend last week when former mile record holder Arne Andersson passed away at the age of 91. The Swede had a rivalry with his compatriot Gunder Hägg and the two were the "Coe & Ovett" of the WWII era as they traded world records in the mile (Anderson ran 4:01.6 in 1944 and Hägg then took it to 4:01.4). Andersson is credited by many for inspiring Roger Bannister to break 4:00 as Bannister was one of 54,000 that crammed into White City to watch the two Swedes battle the Brit Sydney Wooderson, who was restarting his career after having the world record prior to the War.

Andersson apparently was a great man. Sadly, his career was cut short as he was banned for being a professional. Pat Butcher blogged about meeting Andersson a few years ago and we've got to give him Quote of The Week #1 status for the following quote: "There are very few legends whose aura does not diminish in the meeting of them. Arne Andersson was one of those gratifying exceptions."
*More: LRC MB Thread On Andersson Here


Speaking of blogs, American Scott Bauhs blogged about having his first LRC quote of the day prior to running the Carlsbad 5k on April 5th by saying he got about 5 text messages '"letting me know that I'm famous." He had a good attitude about his race, where he finished 10th in 13:56.  "I said (in the QOD) I hope I don't get annihilated on the course at Carlsbad. Well I think annihilated might actually be a good way to put it."  We wonder if the people in charge of the facebook group of people who have been featured in the QOD will let him join.


Asics lost a great man last week when it came out that master craftsman Hitoshi Mimura is retiring after 41 years at the company. The guy who hand made shoes for everyone from Olympic gold medallists Naoko Takahashi and Mizuki Noguchi to Ichiro Suzuki won't totally be out of the shoe business, however, as he's setting up his own shop Mimura Shoes that will be mainly staffed by family members.



Duncan Kibet

While we mentioned last week in the Week That Was as it technically came out on Monday, The Message Board Thread Of The Week has to be the great one on training started by famed Italian coach Renato Canova, which at last check was 8 pages long and included 156 posts: Duncan Kibet and James Kwambai : the role of Claudio Berardelli, and analysis of something new in training. Canova talks about the ideas he and Claudio Beradelli have shared as they train the top Kenyans in the world. But what we'd really like to do (and maybe we should put this on our To Do List as Item #1) is find out what Canova thinks happened to his protege Moses Mosop at World XC. Mosop dominated the Kenyan Trials by 21 seconds but was only 11th at World XC. This week he crushed the field at a XC meet in Sardinia, Italy that traditionally serves as the season-ender as he beat World XC #6 Matthew Kisorio by 32 seconds. What went wrong in Amman? We'd love to hear Canova's take. Maybe he didn't like the course, which Kim Smith described this week as being more like a "mountain race" than true cross country.

Mosop's wife, Florence Kiplagat
, completed a perfect and undefeated XC season in Sardinia with her win there.


Is Chris Devine The Bernie Madoff Of The Running World?
It seems as if for years insiders in the running business have been complaining about Devine Racing, as they were seemingly incompetent. They never seemed to pay the runners on time, paying runners paychecks sometimes as low as $2,500 almost a year late. The thing that always seemed a bit odd was this was a group that had paid $15 million for the LA Marathon. How could someone who had supposedly made millions in radio and paid $15 million for a race not have a few thousand dollars for a runner? Well, it looks like Chris Devine very well may be the Bernie Madoff of the race world. He's been accused of defrauding 78-year-old C. Robert Allen of $70 million dollars.

The allegations in the lawsuit against Devine by the Allen family are really unbelievable. He's accused of buttering up the "mentally and physically frail" multi-millionaire with gifts of $22,000 worth of slippers and a $250,000 car so the guy would hand over his fortune to Devine and his partner Bruce Buzil.

The Salt Lake Tribune deserves credit for uncovering the lawsuit. All we can say is we hope the police get involved as it's hard to imagine that if someone was defrauded of $70 million that criminal acts weren't involved.

In the meantime, we think former Devine employee and asst. Las Vegas Marathon director Tim Kelly said it best, "Chris is not a good man. That is the reason I resigned. The way he runs his business is downright immoral."

More: *Chris Devine Sued In $70 Million Racketeering, Fraud And Embezzlement Lawsuit  *More Details On Some Of Lawsuit Against Chris Devine *Salt Lake City Marathon may not go on because Devine hasn't paid its bill to the cops


Doping News: Lance Gets In Hot Water, East German Coaches/Cheats Apologize 20+ Years Later
The big news on the doping front in the track and field world was that a bunch of East German coaches admitted to doping their athletes back in the day and their apology was swiftly rejected by many of the former victims as being insufficient.

In the world of sports, the big news in the mainstream media was that Lance Armstrong said "there is a very high likelihood" he'll be banned from the Tour de France for his 20-minute absence from testing. To us, the big question is whether the tester gave Lance the okay to take the shower or not, but it's possible we'll never know the truth. To us, however, the bigger news was the nyvolenws.com interview with one of the leading experts in the world on EPO testing, Michael Ashenden. The interview is unbelievably long. It might be the longest interview in history - some 12,933 words plus a table. But we can sum it up with our Quote Of The Week #2: Michael Ashenden on Lance Armstrong: "So there is no doubt in my mind he (Lance Armstrong) took EPO during the '99 Tour."

Ashenden is a long-time critic of Armstrong. For background on that, click here.

 More: *German Steroid Victims Dismiss "Whitewash" Apology From Former East German And Current German Track & Field Coaches Former East Germany Coaches Admit To Doping Athletes *German Athletics Federation Currently Employs The Doping Coaches! *Lance Armstrong Issues Statement Denying He Tried To Avoid Doping Test *Lance Says He May Be Banned


Sprint News:
*Dayron Robles Expected To Return To Competition From Thigh Injury In June
*Usain Bolt's Appearance Fee is A Reported $250,000 To Race - $100,000 To Speak To Kids
*
Walter Dix Opens Season With Fine 10.00 Into Headwind
*Race Video
*
Agent Dispute May Keep Dix Out of Some Meets
The star wants out of a 6-month trial contract.


Recommended Reads:
*
LRC Interviews Oklahoma State Coach Dave Smith
*LRC
Shadrack Kiptoo Biwott Talks About His Brother - The New Kenyan National Record Holder - 2:04:27er Duncan Kibet
*LRC Week That Was April 7
*Jim Hage Interviews The 3 Race Directors of The Marathon Majors in The US
*Meet Duncan Kibet -
The Kenyan not only runs fast but he also entertains off the track, like Usain Bolt.
*Excellent Profile On Usain Bolt
*
Churandy Martina Reflects On Shawn Crawford Giving Him His Silver Medal
*
A Closer Look At World XC Champ Gebremariam And Countrywoman Gelete Dibaba
*Brief Chat With Ryan Hall
*
Update On Jenny Crain's Recovery From Near-Fatal Strike By Auto Driver We saw this link on Runner's World's racing page and had to put it up. It sounds like Crain is progressing through a very, very tough recuperation and perhaps some of our readers want to send her well wishes. Original LRC Thread From August 22, 2007, one day after Jenny was struck by a car and critically injured while training for the 2008 Olympic Trials.


Weekend Results (A Big List Of Results Can Be Found Here)

Army-Navy *Men's Results *Women's Results *Army Men Complete Sweep of Titles for 2008-09 *Navy Women Complete N-Star Sweep With Win
Sun Devil:
ASU Results (Liam Boylan-Pett Over Brandon Bethke In 1,500) *Video
Sea Ray
Results
The meet was interrupted by the horrible storms that blanketed the southeastern US. US Olympian Anthony Famiglietti won the 1,500 in 3:42.77. Bucknell Bison Results (Mt. SAC East) LetsRun.com's Rojo's Cornell squad gets its 2nd and 3rd guys under 29:50 for 10k this year. Scott "Slicko" Anderson sub-4. UCLA Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Results
HS Arcadia Results
*Curtis Beach 7909 HSR Decathlon *LA Times Recap: Michael Woepse Vaults 16'9 Jordan Hasay's bid to be the first 4-time winner of the 3,200 was derailed as she pulled out with a fever. *Throwers Win MVP Awards At Arcadia *Trevor Dunbar 5k - Arcadia - 14:33.96 *Video/Photos
CARIFTA Games: *Day 2: Grenada’s 2009 World Youth Champion Kirani James Run 45.45 To Beat Usain Bolt's Record *Day 1 Recap


Quote Of The Day: Day-By-Day

Monday: 2:04:27 X 2 as Duncan Kibet Wins Thriller in Rotterdam

Tuesday: "I'm really happy, I'm really happy ... I'm happy."
- Duncan Kibet, a new star in the sport, after his stunning 2:04:27 nail biter win in Rotterdam.

Wednesday:"I'm nothing in the family in terms of running. I need to go home and start training harder. I think when I came to America, I became soft. I need a wakeup call."
- 28:28 10ker and 3-time All-American Shadrack Kiptoo Biwott of the Univ. of Oregon speaking in an exclusive LetsRun.com piece where he talks about his brother - the new star of distance running, the new Kenyan NR holder, Mr. 2:04:27 - Duncan Kibet.

Thursday:"[Going into the season] we thought, 'Let's go to the mile. You'll be challenged, you'll be bumped, you'll be pushed, people will try to outkick you.' As it turns out, one [mile] kind of ended up being a time trial, which is what we were trying to avoid. But I guess when you're gonna run 3:55, there's not a lot of guys who are going to race with you."
- An excerpt from an exclusive LetsRun.com interview with Oklahoma State coach Dave Smith on planning German Fernandez's indoor racing schedule. Read the rest of the extensive interview here.

Friday: "Man, when I saw those results, I wanted to do another long run, even though I had run 25 miles the day before ... When you see a 2:07 guy take a couple minutes off his PR, it makes you think about what is possible for you. I think there are a couple of ways to look at guys stepping up their game. Either be inspired by it or give up. I have always chosen to be inspired."
- 2:06 marathoner Ryan Hall on seeing the results from Rotterdam and Paris this weekend in a phenomenally inspiring Brief Chat. This is one of those days when we wish we had the old site so we could put up about 5 of Hall's quotes, as in one, he reveals he's doing 8-mile tempo runs 3 minutes faster (22.5 seconds faster per mile) than prior to Beijing. The John Hancock Financial Boston Marathon (April 20) is only 10 days away.

Saturday: "There ain't going to be no jogging in the final."
- What Walter Dix reportedly told Usain Bolt the day before the 100m final in Beijing. The ironic thing is Bolt went out the next day and jogged the last 10m, running a 9.69. From an interesting article in the Guardian on Bolt and his partying ways.

Sunday: "He partied last year and look at his results, how can you argue? You saw him Saturday night, he arrived at the Quad (a club) at 2am and left at 5am. That's only three hours."
- Norman Peart, Usain Bolt's manager and mentor, on Bolt's partying ways.

Did you miss a 2009 LRC Week That Was? Click here to catch up on the most pressing topics in track and field in our 2009 LRC Week That Was Archives.


 

  

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