Mind Over Matter
– 41-year-old Kenyan marathoner Kenneth Mungara. Mungara was a barber to many famous marathoners until his early 30s when he decided to start running as he figured he could beat them. He ran his first marathon at 33, ran 2:07 at age 37, and this weekend won $50,000 by winning the Singapore marathon as a master.
- Dick Pound suggests Triple Jump get axed from the Olympics - Seb Coe says no way (also defends race-walk)
- UNCW track - Another College Program Bites The Dust
- Maggie Vessey dumps Ray Flynn - gets two new agents - Wasserman Media Group and Hawi Keflezighi
- Even freaking MONGOLIA has a better marathoner than does the US
- 16-year old runs 13:58 in Japan!!! What's the US age 16 record?
Shocking Mid-Day News
MB: The Guardian Briefly Reported That Lamine Diack’s Son Asked For $5 Million Bribe For 2017 Worlds – Article Now Is Taken Down The UK’s The Guardian briefly published an explosive bombshell of an allegation yesterday. The article has been “temporarily” taken down but a sports portal has it up here.
*Top Briton With Suspicious Blood Values Covered Up By IAAF? The IAAF says no. “One cannot draw any conclusion on whether or not an athlete has doped on the basis of one single blood value.”
*MB: A top British athlete has escaped a doping inquiry
News From The USA
- Recommended Read Great Article On Dave Wottle’s College Days At Bowling Green By The Best Man At Wottle’s Wedding The author thinks Wottle, the 1972 Olympic 800 champ, might really have been a miler and recalls him doing 3 x 2 miles (5 min. rest) in 9:35, 8:55 (est.), 8:29.
- 2014 USATF Club XC Championships Are Saturday At Lehigh And Record 1,800 People Will Compete
- RTimes Q&A With Molly Huddle After Her Amazing Year Huddle wants to try longer reps – something Kim Smith used to do – like 3 x 3k – for the 1st time next year as it’s a weak point.
- Track Star, Fashion Icon Maggie Vessey Gets Two New Agents
*MB: Maggie Vessey dumps Ray Flynn – gets two new agents – Wasserman Media Group and Hawi Keflezighi
Sprint News
- Super 50-Year-Old – Butch Reynolds Training For M50 World Record Amazingly, the former WR holder at 43.29 weighs the same as when he competed.
- Usain Bolt Is In Miami For Ribbon Cutting At Hublot Boutique, Calls Dwayne Wade A “Cool Dude” For those of you without money, Hublot is a watch company. Bolt was sporting some sweet gold Pumas.
2014 NXN Was Saturday *Results *HS Forum
LRC Unbelievable: Fayetteville-Manlius Sweeps Boys’ & Girls’ Titles At NXN High School Team Nationals The F-M girls were upset last year to snap their streak of seven straight NXN titles but they’re back on top in 2014 and had some company on the podium; the F-M boys, runners up in 2004 and 2010, broke through to win their first NXN title. Individually, Tanner Anderson (15:11) and Allie Ostrander (17:19) got the wins.
*DyeStat: FM Breaks In New Course With Historic Sweep
*Coach Bill Aris Post-Race Video Interview
*MileSplit: Tanner Anderson’s Individual Sacrifice (Not Racing FL) Rewards Him Well In addition to the individual win, his team got 3rd.
High School Talk On The Message Board:
*FM SWEEPS NXN BOYS & GIRLS!
*Petition to let Tanner Anderson Race Footlocker
*Wayzata in 9th at 4k, finishes 2nd?! And only ranked 24th in Dyestat??!!
*BEST COMPROMISE between Footlocker and NXN
*Meanwhile in Wisconsin, the Hacker legacy lives on
*Footlocker West Results
Second German Documentary On Russian Doping Aired *Full English Transcript Of 1st Documentary
- Second ARD Documentary Alleges Involvement From The Top Of The IAAF (Translated)Lamine Diack‘s son, Papa Massata Diack, is mentioned, but the translation isn’t clear. New documentary includes video secretly taken by Russian 800 runner Yulia Stepanova, where she is given advanced notice before an out of competition test and left her alone in the bathroom by the tester to take it.
- IAAF Reaction Statement On Second German TV Documentary They say they are investigating the allegations made in both documentaries.
- UK Independent Calls LetsRun Message Boards An “Obscure Forum” Apparently when you google “Seb Coe” and “Drugs,” this message board thread is the first or second hit.
- Paula Radcliffe Wants Olympic Bans For Countries Like Russia That Have Too Many Doping Positives
- Could Russian Doping Scandal Get Caster Semenya 2012 Olympic 800 Gold?
- Thomas Bach Promises “Zero Tolerance” If Allegations Are True
- Sergey Bubka Is Shocked And Embarrassed By Russian Doping Allegations
- Full English Transcript Of First German Documentary On Russian Doping
News From Europe
Seb Coe Says Russia Could Be Banned From International Competition If Doping Allegations Are Proven Coe’s got a good point.
*IAAF Head Lamine Diack‘s Son Papa Massata Says He’s Not Involved In Covering Up Doping, But Admits He Has Dealings With Head Of The Company Involved In Cover-Up
*Sergey Bubka “Deeply Shocked” By Russian Doping Claims He shouldn’t be. “Doping” and “Russia” go together like “wedding” and “cake.”
*Sebastian Coe Wants Independent Drug Testing Body
Non-Doping News:
- Olympic TV Channel Secures Unanimous Approval By IOC Committee Members Former sprint great Frankie Fredericks expressed concerns that the $100 million annual costs would take away from money that would go to athletes.
- 40-Year-Old Jo Pavey Is “Sentimentalist’s Candidate” To Receive BBC Sports Personality Of The Year Award
- European XC Champs Are This Weekend In Bulgaria And Bulgaria’s Mitko Tsenov Has Great Chance For Gold In U-23 The 21-year-old 8:20 steepler got silver last year. Amazingly, Bulgaria only has full teams in the junior races.
- Spikes Mag Tells You Why Renaud Lavillenie Was Deserving Of IAAF World Athlete Of The Year Award
- Irish Walking Star Rob Heffernan Finally Figures Out What Caused Him To Drop Out Of Euros Mesh from a previous hernia surgery was cutting into his nerves. “I felt a cloud lift off me straight away.”
Weekend Road / XC Action
- Patrick Makau Is Back – Wins Fukuoka In 2:08:22
It wasn’t easy but the former world record holder got the win after Mongolia’s Bat-Ochir made him earn it. Bat-Ochir was third in 2:08:50, a Mongolian record. *IAAF*MB Thread - Kenya’s Jacob Chemtai (2:11:56) And Belarus’ Volha Mazuronak (2:27:33) Win CIM*Results
- Both Marathon WR Holders Run Montferland Run 15K As Eritrea’s Miskel Tewelde (43:27) And Ethiopia’s Askale Merachi (50:44) Get The Wins Kimetto had a very low-key comeback in his first race since Berlin, finishing 13th (47:00). Radcliffe was 5th in the women’s race in 52:48 (5:39 pace).
- IAAF Weekend XC Roundup: World XC Champ Emily Chebet Only 5th In Kenyan XC Race Won By World Junior 1,500 Bronze Medalist Sheila Chepngetich Chepngetich also beat World Junior XC champ Faith Kipyegon as Philip Langat won the men’s race. In a separate AK/KCB Cross Country Series race in Kenya, Titus Mbishei and former WJ XC champ Viola Kibiwot got the wins.
- Janet Cherobon Bawcom (1:13:30) And Augustus Maiyo (1:04:35) Win Rock ‘N’ Roll San Antonio HalfMarathon
More Post-USATF Annual Meeting News
Lauren Fleshman Blogs About Her Experience At The USATF Annual Meeting Fleshman is outspoken as ever as she discusses her frustration that athletes have no voice in the way USATF is run. And even when they do, that voice is ignored.- Andrew Bumbalough’s Reinstatement Gets Press In WSJ
- RunBlogRun’s Elliott Denman Analyzes USATF Annual Meeting, Part 1 As far as finances go, there is a lot to be happy about as USATF almost doubled its annual revenue in 2014 (going from $19 million to $35 million).
- USATF activist Becca Gillespy Peter (Of PoleVaultPower.com) Shares How Much It Costs To Have A Voice At USATF With registration and travel, she had to spend over $1,000 to attend, so was especially angry when the USATF board ignored her vote (and the vote of 389 others).
DII XC Champs *Results: Men*Women*Highlights Video
- Adams State Men Win Third Consecutive DII NCAA XC Title Adams State was led by Tabor Stevens‘ individual win. *Full Race Replay
- Grand Valley State Women 3-Peat At DII NCAA XC Champs GV’s Kendra Folley won individually. *Full Race Replay
- USTFCCCA Recap/Analysis
- MB: D2 nationals…..race length shortened due to horrible course conditions
Three Interesting Reads
Unreal:Winner Of Singagore Marathon And $50,000 Was A 41-Year-Old Kenyan Who Only Started Running In Mid-30s He was a barber to many runners up until then. “I looked at those little guys, and thought, I can beat them.”- Japanese federation is despondent no Japanese runner than 2:09:06 at Fukuoka They probably should pick up a copy of Sports Gene as 2;09:06 isn’t too bad – it’s a time only 5 American born runners have EVER eclipsed.
*MB: Japanese fed. is despondent no one ran faster than 2:09:06 at Fukuoka – Has Sports Gene been translated into Japanese? - Good Profile Of Zhang Guowei: His Idol Is China’s High Jump Legend Zhu Jianhua, But He’s Llearned It’s Best Not To Imitate Him The 23-year-old 2.34m jumper saw his improvement stagnate when he tried to imitate the form of his idol. “I took it for granted that if I copied the way he jumped then I could jump as high as he did. In 2009, I started to literally imitate Zhu. I imitated the way he approached, took off and crossed the bar.”
Other Pro News
- Q&A With Alan Webb About His Transition To The Triathlon
Webb finds it funny to compare how carefully he used to tie his shoes before races to how fast he tries to do it now during triathlon “transitions.” - David Rudisha Puts His Support Behind Seb Coe For IAAF President
- Scotland Athletics Federation Wants To Send Their Own Separate (From The UK) Teams To Some Events Like Euro XC Champs If they’ll actually send a team to World XC Champs (unlike the UK), then we say let them.
- Race Videos And Interviews From 2014 Canadian Cross-Country Championships
Russian Doping Updates
- Russian Athletics Federation Considering Legal Action Over German Doping Documentary Whenever someone accuses you of something: Step 1 – Deny. Step 2 – Threaten to sue.
- Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) Launches Investigation Into German TV Documentary Claims
- Former WADA President Dick Pound Blasts IAAF “If the allegations are proved with sufficient certainly, the IAAF, WADA and IOC could say the Russians are non-compliant and that they’re suspended from all competitions until they clean up. What I don’t know is if there are sufficient balls within these organisations to make that happen.”
- UK’s Dai Greene Not Surprised About Russian Doping Allegations He says many athletes already suspected the Russians since they often don’t race at all on the circuit and then just turn up at major championships.
- UK Anti-Doping Chief Andy Parkinson Says “Clean Athletes Shouldn’t Lose Heart”
LetsRun.com Founders Named as Two of “The 50 Most Influential People in Running”
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