Today In The World Of Controversy

• Good News For Dathan Ritzenhein:WADA Issues Statement On NOP L-Carnitine Usage – Doping Rules NOT Broken With 2011 AdviceThe Sunday Timeshad previously implied that Ritz might have inadvertently broken doping rules. *Denver Post Article
• Bad News For Journalism: LRC PAC-12 Network, World’s Biggest Track Fan Fall For LetsRun.com April Fool’s Day Hoax
• Bad News For Asian Women: Indian Sprinter Dutee Chand Cleared To Compete At Asian Champs While Awaiting The Verdict In Her Gender Controversy Case With CAS Like Caster Semenya, Chand has hyperandrogenism and her body naturally produces testosterone above guidelines set by the IAAF.
• AP: Ugandan Athletics Federation Investigating Moses Kipsiro’s Claim That Coach Peter Wemali Made Death Threats Against Him Shouldn’t the police be investigating?
• Kenyan Article Says Kipsiro Took His Overseas Allowances For World XC And Then Stepped Off Team Bus And Disappeared This article also says he received a death threat from a woman.

• Let's Hear It: Which Was Your Favorite April Fools Article

• So I'm assuming Cheserek and Jenkins skipping NCAAs is April Fool's joke?

• Mo Aman April fools joke

• USATF banning the mile: April fools or not?

• Is it bad that the April fools joke on the homepage actually sounds like a good Idea to me?

• This Is The Best LRC April Fools Page Ever

Doping News

• Ken Goe Gets Quotes From Alberto Salazar On The Nike Oregon Project’s Use Of L-Carnitine Salazar did confirm Steve Magness tested the supplement first. “A few of my athletes tried it but found no benefit so they no longer use it. … was done so within WADA guidelines. … My assistant coach volunteered to test it first to determine if further use was worthwhile.”
• Russian Olympic Racewalker Elena Lashmanova Will Likely Have Her 2-Year Ban Extended And Miss Olympics After Claims She Competed During Her Suspension
  *From The Archives:Canadian Proves That 2012 Russian Olympic Champ Competed While Banned!Evan Dunfee has done an amazing job showing you how the Russians have doctored photos to make it look like Lashmanova’s race took place in 2012, not 2014.
• UK’s National Anti-Doping Panel Appoints Charles Flint As New President

Post-World XC *Results

• With The World XC And World Half Titles, Geoffrey Kamworor’s Focus Turns To The World 10,000 Title Kamworor is actually very inexperienced on the track, only having run two 10,000s. His first/PR was 27:06 from 4 years ago when he was 18.
• Ugandan Coaches Say The Absence Of Moses Kipsiro Affected The Team There is even a rumor that the athletes put up a “half-spirited display to show solidarity with Kipsiro.”
• Uganda Daily Monitor: “Senior Women End Years Of Agony With Team Bronze” In The Ugandan women have only participated in four of the 42 World XCs.
• Steve Cram Thinks “Future Bright For GB Women’s Distance Running” They would have done pretty well at World XC if they had bothered to bring 2 more women.

30th Carlsbad In The Books *Results*LRCPhoto Gallery

LRCGenzebe Dibaba (14:48) And Lawi Lalang (13:32) Take Home Titles At 2015 Carlsbad 5,000

LRCCorrection See Below: Sunday Times Says Alberto Salazar's Group May Have Inadvertently Broken Anti-Doping Rules With L-Carnitine Injections

• Australian Champs:Jeff Riseley Becomes First Man In 24 Years To Win The 800/1,500 Double
  *Sally Pearson Ignores Injury Scare To Win Her 7th 100H National Title She ran 12.59 to beat Michelle Jenneke (12.82). *Full Results
• Jamaica “Champs”: Michael O’Hara Impresses With Four Titles In The 100, 200, 110H And Anchoring Calabar’s 4 X 100 Another big highlight was 17-year-old Akeem Bloomfield breaking a NJR from 1995 with 44.93 in the 400. In the 110H, O’Hara beat World Youth champ Jaheel Hyde. Hyde won the 400H in a national junior record of 49.01. *Results Calibar boys and Edwin Allen girls won the meet.

Non-World XC Distance News

• Recommended Read: Hey, LetsRunners, How Would You Like To Truly Be Part Of The “1 Percent”:In 30-Year History, Only 1% Of Competitors Have Finished The Barkley Marathons An absolute must read about the 100-mile ultra-marathon in Tennessee which includes 65,000 feet of climbing (more than twice Mt. Everest) and a $1.60 entry fee … although RD Gary Cantrell says, “You pay for this with a chunk of your soul.”
• Jack Of All Trades:Max King Shares His Tips For Running Well At Track, Road, Trail/XC, Ultra And Mountain Racing At one point or another, King has put out incredible performances on each surface.

Doping And Other Negative Stuff

• 40-Year-Old Kenyan Living In The US Gets 3-Year Doping Ban For Steroids And EPOJoseph Mutinda tested positive twice, once after winning last year’s Austin Marathon in 2:14:17.
• IAAF Vice Presidential Candidate Ahmad al Kamali Under Investigation By Ethics Commission For Allegedly Giving 40 Rolex Watches To Delegates As Part Of His Campaign Everyone is talking about Seb Coe and Sergey Bubka. Maybe Kamali just wanted to be noticed?
  *Kamali Denies Allegations
• Kenyan Standard Digital: “How Athletics Kenya Duped Chinese Firm Li-Ning Into Signing Six-Year Contract” AK signed a contract, but went back on it and instead got a 10-year deal with Nike. Papa Massata Diack says he could have sued AK and Isaiah Kiplagat for millions.
• Former Estonian 1,500 National Champ Nikolai Vedehin Suspended For Doping He tested positive for a banned stimulant in an out-of-competition test while in Kenya.
• So Much For “Turning Over A New Leaf”: Russia Will See IAAF In Court Over Recent Bans The IAAF is appealing RUSADA’s selective drug bans which let athletes keep World/Olympic medals.
• WADA Head David Howman Says It’s “Almost Too Late” For Lance Armstrong To Reduce Ban Armstrong recently met with USADA head Travis Tygart about reducing his lifetime ban.

Gatlin And Nike Making Waves

• Justin Gatlin Lands New Controversial Sponsorship Deal With Nike Gatlin was sponsored by Nike in the past before his second drug ban in 2006, but since returning in 2010 he’s been with Chinese firm Xtep.
• Sorry, Paula, But Where Have You Been? Paula Radcliffe Criticizes Nike For Giving Justin Gatlin Sponsorship Deal She tweeted: “I don’t believe it truly reflects the core values of the Nike that I am proud to represent …” Is she talking about the same company? The Nike we know defended Lance Armstrong until the very end.
• MB: Nike Won’t Sign Tyson Gay, But He’ll Still Get Paid To Run In Nike Gear Gay’s contract is with his coach, John Smith. So technically Nike isn’t paying Tyson Gay … at least directly.
• British Athletes Speak Out Against Nike For Sponsoring Justin Gatlin Sprinter Darren Campbell: “If young kids look at the spikes he is wearing and say they want them then how can a parent explain why they are not comfortable buying those shoes?” Unfortunately we’re pretty sure he gave that way more thought than 99% of parents.

Drug (Russian) News

• Thank You:IAAF Appeals Six Recent Russian Drug Ban Decisions The IAAF disagrees with the “selective disqualification of results applied by RUSADA.” Athletes received bans that conveniently let them keep championship medals.
  *IAAF Release The athletes are 5 race walkers and Olympic steeple champ steepler Yuliya Zaripova
• Great New Tool For Race Directors:Road Race Management Unveils Online List Of Convicted Drug Cheats An online searchable list of all convicted drug cheats. If an athlete is on this list, RDs should think twice about having them at their event.
  *See The List Here We just bookmarked this page. RDs, you should too.
• New Russian Head Coach, 2004 Olympic 800 Champ Yuriy Borzakovsky, Says Russia Has Turned Over A New Leaf “The guys now understand that the past should stay in the past. Now we have a new team and everyone in it is clean.”

Drug / Trial News

• Despicable:Drug Cheat Vadim Devyatovsky Was Actually Elected President Of Belarus Athletic Federation As He Faces A Lifetime Ban From The Sport The former Olympic hammer thrower tested positive at the 2000 Olympics, the 2008 Olympics (had ban overturned) and then in a re-test of 2005 World Champs samples. IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said, “We were not impressed to see he had been elected as president.” Devyatovsky’s lifetime ban case will be decided by CAS.
• Indian Sprinter Dutee Chand Starts Her Appeal Against “Gender Test” Ban Chand failed a gender test last year and was kept off the Indian team for Commonwealth Games when she refused medical treatment that would make her eligible.
  *Read More About Chand In The LRC Archives
• Terrorism Expert Says Boston Bomber’s Note Left In Boat Uses Jihadi Themes

The Search For A Better Running Shoe

LRCThe Most Popular Running Shoe On LetsRun.com Is … Not Made Anymore … The Nike Pegasus+ 30Thousands of you filled out our detailed running shoe survey in the fall and more of you ran in the Nike Pegasus+30 than any other shoe. Only problem is all of you need to find a new shoe, help us out below:

LRCThe Improved LRC Running Shoe Survey Is Back – Three Minutes To A Better Running ShoeThe running shoe buying process sucks and we want to improve it with data. We took your reviews from the fall, made a running shoe beta site, and have improved our survey to ask you what shoe your previously ran in. We now need more reviews from you on the latest shoes.