April 15, 2017 Homepage Archive

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Archived Homepage For April 15, 2017

Quote Of The Day

“Having the 2016 Olympics off the table, we’re not looking towards 2020. Not saying that it’s not in the cards, but this is the end-all, be-all. I want to focus on this. And I haven’t felt that sense of urgency about racing since I was trying to make it as a pro. … If they run 2:19, there’s not much I can do. But it’s not Dubai, it’s not London, it’s not Berlin. There are no pacers. 2:19, I think there’s only one 2:19 on this course, ever. Usually a 2:22-2:24 type performance wins this race and I can do that and I can do that here. So there’s no reason to think I can’t be in it.”

– Desi Linden talking about going for the win at the 2017 Boston Marathon.

2017 Boston Marathon Is Monday

BAA 5k: LRC Ben True (13:20) Breaks His Own American Record, Molly Huddles Gets Another Sub 15 But is Outkicked by Buze Diriba (14:54) True has mixed up his approach this year and Huddle is going for the AR at Pre.
Discuss: While you were sleeping: Ben True just broke the American 5k record

BAA Mile: LRC 2017 BAA Mile: Michigan Alums Nick Willis (4:13) & Nicole Sifuentes (4:33) Prevail Soratos and McGee were your runner ups.

The Inside Scoop From Friday’s Press Event

LRC Desi Linden Is All-In (And Wasn’t Surprised by Sumgong’s Positive Test), Alberto Salazar Says Jordan Hasay Is More Prepared For The Marathon Than Anyone He’s Seen Since He Set The WR & More From the Elite Women in BostonDesi Linden says she’ll be devastated if she doesn’t win on Monday while Jordan Hasay revealed that Alberto Salazar has a TON of faith in her.

LRC A Smiling Galen Rupp Says He’s Been Pain-Free Since the Prague Half Marathon — “It’s Just Been Such a Weight Lifted Off My Shoulders”An American born man hasn’t won Boston since 1983. That definitely could change on Monday as today Galen Rupp was practically giddy when talking about the status of his foot injury.

LRC Meb Keflezighi Discusses His Rough Buildup Ahead of His Final Boston Marathon, Plus More From the Elite Men At Friday’s Press ConferenceGet the inside scoop from Friday’s press conference. What racer did famed coach Renato Canova call a “big talent?” What does Wesley Korir think of Jemima Sumgong being busted and can Luke P rebound from his disaster in Chicago?

RRW If Emmanuel Mutai Finishes The Boston Marathon On Monday, He’ll Be The First Person To Have Run All 8 MajorsMutai, who has won nearly $1.5 million in prize money during his career, is basically guaranteed to be a winner as long as he finished on Monday, but the 2:03:13 man also thinks he can actually win the race, “I’m looking forward to winning.”

Jumps And Throws

New Zealand’s Olympic Shot Put Bronze Medalist Tom Walsh Shares His Tips For Sport And Life Walsh says he likes to play golf while traveling on the athletics circuit and he and his coach have a rule that they don’t talk track on the golf course.
Italy’s World Indoor HJ Champ Gianmarco Tamberi Is “Back On The Road To The Big Time” After Heartbreaking Injury Kept Him From Rio Tamberi says he spent a week in bed crying when he missed Rio and is already counting down the days until Tokyo 2020.
World Junior Record holder Mondo Duplantis Will Compete In Pre Classic Pole Vault
GB Indoor Record Holder Lorraine Ugen Hopes To Continue The Resurgence Of The Women’s Long Jump In The UKShara Proctor won GB’s first World LJ medal in 2015 with a NR and Ugen knows it’ll take another record jump replicate that in 2017.
IAAF Profile On GB’s Olympic Bronze Medalist Hammer Thrower Sophie Hitchon Hitchon talks about how she bounced back from a bad rut in 2014-2015 to win a medal in 2016.

Other Assorted News

Good Read:Samford University Assistant Coach And Sub-4 Miler Pat McGregor Going For A Streak Of Sub-5:00 Miles 105 Days In A Row He’s trying to break the record that was actually set by his high school coach Devon Hind in 1979.
Props, But Sad That It’s Come To This: Beijing Marathon To Use Facial Recognition In Cheating Crackdown Race organizers are doing this in reaction to many instances of runners hiring “ringers” to run in their place with their bib.
3000m World Record Holder Daniel Komen Charged With Fraud And Forgery He is accused of trying to defrauding someone of a card, but he denies the charges claiming he’s being framed by political enemies.
*MB:Daniel Komen finally busted!
UK Drunk Driver Jailed For 6-Years For Killing Two Teenage Runners Last Fall The driver, a British soldier, pleaded guilty and admitted to driving drunk and speeding.
IAAF To Keep 50K Race Walk On Program For Tokyo 2020 Games Plans to replace it and the 20K with a half-marathon for men and women were opposed by the IAAF Council after a campaign from the world’s leading race walkers.

More Drug News: Russia Crash And Burn

Seb Coe Has Harsh Words For Russia As IAAF Task Force Is “Disappointed With Lack Of Progress” Russia hoped to be reinstated by the end of 2017, but with major officials like Vitaly Mutko and Yelena Isinbayeva criticizing whistleblowers like 1,500m runner Andrey Dmitriev, that is unlikely to happen.
Head Of IAAF Task Force Warns Appointment Of Yelena Isinbayeva As Chair Of RUSADA Could Delay Reinstatement It sends a pretty terrible message considering how much Isinbayeva has bashed Russian whistleblowers. Also, both Isinbayeva or head Russian coach Yuriy Borzakovskiy have failed to sign a pledge for clean sport.
Know When To Quit:Maria Sharapova Criticizes Tennis Federation For Not Doing More To Inform Her That Meldonium Was Added To The WADA Banned List Sharapova should just feel lucky she got away with taking a PED for years before it was added to the banned list.
Andrew Pipe Given Role On IAAF Athletics Integrity Unit After Resigning From Swimming Federation Doping Board He resigned his swimming post in protest of the handling of the Russian Olympic team in wake of the McLaren report.
Doha Labratory Reinstated By WADA Five Months After It Was Suspended

Previous Boston News

Good Read:Jordan Hasay Shares Some Thoughts Before Her Marathon Debut Hasay says her favorite marathon workout is a 20-mile long run and her least favorite is a 800/300 workout at faster than race pace which always feel “absolutely horrible.”
DyeStat Q&A:Catching Up With Boston-Bound Jared Ward Ward says he isn’t in quite as good shape as when he got 6th in Rio, but says his long runs “have been as good as they have ever been.”
Q&A With Longtime Boston Marathon RD Dave McGillivray As He Prepares To Run His 30th “Solothon” Every year long after the race is over, McGillivray runs the Boston course alone in the dark. He says he won’t run the regular race again until he retires from directing.
Runner’s World Lists Their “12 Most Important Boston Marathons” A look back at some of the more significant moments in Boston history.
Details From FBI Interview With Deceased Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev Revealed The FBI interviewed Tsarnaev in 2011 two years before the Boston bombing, but said they saw no evidence of terrorism.
Boston Marathon Weather Forecast Calling For Temps Starting In The Low 50s With Partial Sunshine

International Sprints, Jumps And Throws

Wayde Van Niekerk Wants To Go After Usain Bolt’s 100m And 200m World Records Van Niekerk is the first man in history to run 100m in under 10 seconds, 200m in under 20 seconds and 400m in under 44 seconds, but his 9.98 and 19.94 PRs are a long way from Bolt’s 9.58 and 19.19. *Discuss
June 11:World 200m Champ Dafne Schippers Announced For FBK Games She’ll be going for her third straight win there as she set the meet records in the 100 and 200 the last two years.
The Sydney Morning Herald Takes A Look Back At Sally Pearson’s Golden Moment At The 2014 Commonwealth Games One of the biggest obstacles Pearson had to overcome was the conflict with the polarizing Australian head coach Eric Hollinsworth.
Austria’s European Indoor Pentathlon Silver Medalist Ivona Dadic Talks About Her Big Breakthrough This Season Dadic set a slew of PRs this indoor season which culminated with her silver medal and a national pentathlon record.
IAAF Inside Athletics Video: Ato Boldon Interviews Jamaica’s Olympic 110H Champ Omar McLeod
Decathlon Legend Daley Thompson Has Faith Katarina Johnson Thompson Can Be “One Of The Stars Of London 2017”

Women’s Sports Takes Another Hit:Transgender Girl Competeting Against High School Girls In Connecticut As a freshman running without blocks, she is already running times that could win the state championships.
*MB: Trans runner competes against girls

Boston Marathon Previews

LRCWhy Galen Rupp Will (& Won’t) Win The 2017 Boston Marathon An American-born male hasn’t won in Boston since 1983. A healthy Galen Rupp would have a great shot at changing that. The question is – is he healthy enough to win on Monday?

Full Men’s Preview:LRCLemi Berhanu Hayle Goes For The Repeat Against A Field That Contains 5 Sub-2:05 Guys We break down the elite men’s field that will challenge US Olympians Galen Rupp, Jared Ward and Meb Keflezighi in Boston on Monday.

American Men’s Preview: LRCOlympians Galen Rupp, Meb Keflezighi, Jared Ward & Abdi Abdirahman Headline A Stacked American Field

American Women’s Preview: LRCCan Desi Linden End The U.S. Major Drought? How Will Jordan Hasay Fare In Her Debut? The LRC staff is divided on who is America’s biggest hope on Monday – Hasay or Linden.
*MB:Debate: Who will be the top American woman at the 2017 Boston Marathon – Jordan Hasay or Desi Linden?

Full Women’s Preview: LRCKenyan Stud Gladys Cherono Leads A Field That Includes Former Boston Champs Atsede Baysa, Caroline Rotich & Buzunesh DebaGladys Cherono is one of women’s running’s biggest talents and appears to be the woman to beat but Edna Kiplagat and Atsede Baysa have 500,000 reasons ($$$) to pull off the upset.

LRC Six Years After Seeing The First Atomic Bomb Detonate In Hiroshima, Shigeki Tanaka Became The First Japanese To Win The Boston Marathon And soon the Japanese were a marathoning power. Read all about it.

Outside Coverage

Sports Illustrated: Desi Linden Looks To End 32-Year US Drought At Boston “I feel like I said I’d like to win in 2011 and no one really cared. In 2015, I said it again. No one really cared. I’ll keep saying it whether people are paying attention or not.”
RW Profile:Blake Russel Has Youth On Her Side For The Boston Marathon
AP:Boston To Mark 4th Anniversary Of Marathon Bombing On the eve of the anniversary, volunteers planted thousands of daffodils along the marathon course in solidarity.

Weekend Track Action *All NCAA Results

Bryan Clay Invite: Josh Kerr Blasts 3:35.99 To Beat A Great Field At Bryan Clay InvitationalKerr won handily over Craig Engles (3:37.75) and Ryan Hill (3:37.95).
*Edward Cheserek Pulled Out “Because Of His Coach’s Decision”
Results Other distance wins went to Michigan’s Claire Borchers in the steeple (10:02), Michigan’s Gina Sereno (15:49) and Southern Utah’s Kasey Knevelbaard (13:50) in the 5Ks.
Dafne Schippers Opens Her Season With 100m (10.95) And 200m (22.29) World LeadslChristian Taylor opened his season with 17.26m win.
*MB:BOOM! Dafne Shippers just crushed the 100 & 200!!

Mt. Sac Relays: Cooper Teare Just Misses Sub-4 Again With 4:00.16 At Mt. SAC Relays He dominated the high school race by 10-seconds.
Mt. SAC ResultsAmanda Eccelston took the women’s 1500 in 4:12.86 over Oregon’s Katie Rainsberger (4:13.25), David Torrence won the men’s 1500 (3:43), Anthony Rotich the steeple in 8:39.96, while Western State’s Alicja Konieczek won the women’s in 9:51 over Jamie Cheever (9:53). 5000m victories went to Yui Fukuda (15:23) and Tulsa’s Marc Scott (13:37.45).
UO Freshman Katie Rainsberger Runs 7th Fastest 1500 In School History With 4:13.25

The CARFITA Games Kick Off Today In Curacao

Looking Ahead

Sunday:Ethiopia’s Fantu Eticha (2:26:14) And Kenya’s Mariam Wangari (2:27:53) The Favorites At The Nagano Marathon In Japan Kenya’s Henry Sugut (2:06:58 from 2012) and Uganda’s Moses Kibet (61:37 Half) lead the men’s field.
NBC Sports Will Provide Live Streaming Coverage For 25 Events Through 2017 Including Diamond League, World Champs And Major Marathons
July 1:Paris Diamond League Meet Moving To The Stade Charléty At The Heart Of Paris French Rio medailists Renaud Lavillenie, Christophe Lemaitre, Kevin Mayer, Dimitri Bascou are all competing.

The World Relays Are Next Weekend

Twelve Olympic Medalists On US World Relay Squad The men and women’s 4×800 pools include Clayton Murphy, Cas Loxsom, Charles Jock, Laura Roesler and Chanelle Price.
Double Olympic Champ Elaine Thompson, Yohan Blake And Asafa Powell Head Jamaican World Relay Team
Mid-D Stars Adam Kszczot And Marcin Lewandowski Lead Polish Squad For World Relays
Germany Announces Team Of 27 For World Relays
Win Some Adidas Gear From The IAAF Through Their “Strike A Relay Pose” Contest

Week That Was

LRC WTW: Jemima Sumgong Tests Positive, Donavan Brazier Runs 1:44, Sub-9 Madness At Arcadia And More Get up to speed on the last week in running.

Drug News

Good Read: Kara Goucher Blogs About How She Now Has Conflicting Feelings About Her 2007 World Medal Since Being Upgraded To The Silver “Now 10 years later, it’s tough to find out that the greatest accomplishment of my running career was even greater. And I’ll never be able to rewind time and reap the benefit of that.”
IAAF Clears Seven More Russians To Compete As Neutral Athletes The group includes world champions Sergey Shubenkov (110H) and Mariya Kuchina (HJ).
Ukraine Apologize To WADA And IAAF Over Embarrassing Amnesty Claim For Drug Cheats A statement on their website promised athletes admitting to using drugs would avoid punishment which is against IAAF and WADA rules.
IPC “Satisfied” After Swiss Federal Tribunal Rejects Russia’s Appeal Against Their Paralympic Ban The Russian Paralympic Committee now also has to pay $22,000 in court fees to the Swiss court and IPC.

Upcoming Road Racing

Former NYC Marathon Champ Stanley Biwott Pulls Out Of London Marathon With A Hamstring Injury
April 22:“Baywatch” The Movie To Host A Slow And Sexy “Marathon” The winner of the “Baywatch Slow Motion Marathon” (which is actually .2K) will be the “slowest and sexiest person” to cross the finish line.
April 23:Course Records Under Threat At Vienna City Marathon As Fields Are Led By Eliud Kiptanui (2:05:21) And Meseret Mengistu (2:23:26)
May 7:2:11 Man Nick Arciniaga Leads Field For The DICK’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon Arciniaga will be up against Craig Leon (2:13:52) while Ben Bruce (62:28) leads the half marathon field.
May 27:Geoffrey Mutai Returning To Race At Ottawa 10K For The Fourth Time In Six Years Mutai has struggled with multiple injuries the last several years, but says, “I am not yet done with running.”
July 2:Kenya’s Kenneth Mungara And Japan’s Yuki Kawauchi Returning For Another Epic Battle At The Gold Coast Marathon Last year Mungara just barely beat out Kawauchi by a single second.

Get Excited For The Diamond League And World Relays

May 27:Pre Classic Women’s 800 Is Loaded As Caster Semenya Leads A Field With All The Top 7 From Rio Plus Ajee Wilson And Former World Champ Eunice Sum
April 22:Andre De Grasse Leads Team Canada World Relays Squad
*IAAF Looks At 5 Highlights From Past World Relays
May 5:Solid Distance Action Set For Doha DL With Asbel Kiprop In The 1,500 Vs. Silas Kiplagat And World Silver Medalist Elijah Manangoi Olympic steeple champ Conseslus Kipruto is in the 3,000 against Paul Chelimo and World Indoor champ Yomif Kejelcha while the women’s 100H has WR holder Keni Harrison and Olympic 1-2 Brianna Rollins and Nia Ali.
May 13:Shanghai DL Pole Vault Is Stacked As It Has The Olympic Champ Thiago Braz, The WR Holder Renaud Lavillenie And Two World Champs Shawn Barber And R aphael Holzdeppe

Centro Sr.’s Book Gets Some Publicity

Matt Centro’s Sr Gets Q&A In Washington Post About His Biography And His Son’s Olympic 1,500m Gold

LRC Exclusive LetsRun.com Exclusive: Read Chapter Two Of Matt Centrowitz’s New Book “Like Father, Like Son” LetsRun.com doesn’t beat around the bush. Neither does Matt Centrowitz. He’s so confident you’ll like his book, he’s letting you read a whole chapter for free. Purchase the book now and come back at the end of February and participate in the first ever LetsRun.com Virtual Book Club.

LRC Review Legendary Athlete, Father And Coach Matt Centrowitz Just Published An Autobiography – We Suggest You Read It

Russia “Puzzled” By Seb Coe’s Lack Of Progress Claims As Doper Tatyana Lebedeva Slams IAAF For Yelena Isinbayeva Criticism We’d say the fact that she has dopers defending her is another big strike against Isinbayeva’s appointment as chair of RUSADA.

Sprint Stuff

Good News For Wayde Van Niekerk As IAAF Approve Schedule Change To Allow For The 200/400 Double
Sports Scientist Ross Tucker Has Some Advice For Wayde Van Niekerk Tucker thinks Van Niekerk should focus on the 200/400 and forget about the 100: “You can be good at all three … but you’re not going to be world-class at all three. … [the 100] is never going to be an Olympic medal for him. The 200m and 400m both will.”
Dafne Schippers Wants To Defend Her World 200m Title In 2017, But Will Be Putting Just As Much Emphasis On The 100m She wants to get her 10.81 PB under 10.80.
GB Sprinter Nigel Levine “Not Angry Anymore” After Motorcycle Crash “I’ve got to deal with now. I’m still smiling and getting on with life. I’m just happy just to be alive and mobile, still got all my limbs and have a great team.”
1984 Olympic 400m Silver Medallist Chandra Cheeseborough-Guice Picks Her All-Star Women’s 4×400 Team No recent stars made her list, but there are two Americans.

Previous Boston Coverage

Recommended Read:Runner’s World:How Did Abdi Abdirahman And Diane Nukuri, The Fastest Couple At The Boston Marathon, End Up Together? It took some persistence from Abdi to get Nukuri to go out with him. “She turned me down for like almost a year, so I was chasing her,” he said.
5 Thoughts From Meb Keflezighi Before His Final Boston Marathon Keflezighi has an A, B and C goal for Boston Monday: “My goal is to hopefully win it, but if not then top three, and if not top three then top 10. And if not that, then hopefully finish.”
Good Read:Ben Beach Eyeing Record 50th Straight Boston Marathon Finish Beach was 18 when he ran his first Boston in 1968 and has a best finish of 2:27:26 from 1981. He is just one of 81 people to have a streak of 25 Bostons or more.
Matt Damon-Narrated Boston Marathon Documentary Premieres Saturday In Boston
Boston Marathon Retires Bib Number 261 In Honor Of Women’s Pioneer Kathrine Switzer Switzer is running again this year on the 50th anniversary of her historic run.

Olympic / Political News

InsideTheGames Opinion Piece:Bid Race Between Paris And LA 2024 Turns Sour Both bids are touting their own strengths while subtly (or not subtly) pointing out the other’s weaknesses.
Carl Lewis Stars In LA 2024 “Legends Of LA” Video Lewis won four gold medals (100, 200, 4×100, LJ) when LA last hosted in 1984.
Former Rio Mayor Linked To Rio 2016 Corruption Allegations He’s accused of taking bribes from a construction company for contracts for the Games.
*Five Members Of Rio State Accounts Court Arrested In Investigation Into Construction Projects Corruption
London Tops Online Poll On Which City Should Host The 2022 Commonwealth Games Several UK and Australian cities have shown interest since Durban, South Africa was stripped of the event.
Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates Admits To Swearing At Australian Sports CHariman At Nitro Athletics Event In Melbourne They exchanged some words as Coates called John Wylie a liar and Wylie called Coates a “c***.”
Paris 2024 Vow To Support Gender Equality In Sport

Two Great Athletes Are Retiring; Another Is Just Getting Going

29-Year-Old US 800 Star And Expectant Mother Molly Ludlow Announces Her Retirement From Track And Field Ludlow had an impressive career which included 1:57.68 PR (#7 all-time US) and two heartbreaking 4th place finishes at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Trials.
*MB:Molly Ludlow to retire!
33-Year-Old Bershawn “Batman” Jackson Announces His Pending Retirement Following The 2017 Season The former Olympic bronze medalist and four-time World champ will kick off his last season at the Drake Relays on April 29th.
MB:NAU Alum And 6-Time All-American Futsum Zienasellassie Joins NAZ Elite

Tracktown Summer Series Is Back For Year #2

LRC TrackTown Summer Series 2.0 To Have Allyson Felix, Bernard Lagat, Nick Symmonds And Sanya Richards-Ross As GMs, Plus Why Nick Symmonds’ Final Season May Be A Short One An improved TrackTown Summer Series is back for year #2. We give you the details, plus the news that Nick Symmonds’ career may not make it into July.

Will Roger Bannister Have To Share His Anniversary With Eliud Kipchoge?

Nike Sub-2 Hour Attempt Set For The First Weekend Of May The attempt will go down at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza F1 track in Italy on either May 6, 7, or 8 depending on weather. The date is very appropriate as May 6th is the 63rd anniversary of Roger Bannister‘s first sub-4 minute mile.

Gender News

Recommended Read:Runner’s World:Who Was That Guy Who Attacked Kathrine Switzer During The Boston Marathon 50 Years Ago? An interesting/odd fact: RD Jock Semple actually had no problem with Bobbi Gibb, the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon, running in the race because she did it unofficially as a bandit. He chased Switzer to try and take away her bib number.
Caitlyn Jenner Reveals She Has Undergone Gender Reassignment Surgery She says in her book, “I just want to have all the right parts. I am also tired of tucking the damn thing in all the time.” *Discuss
Eye For An Eye? Des Moines Women’s Half Marathon Charging Men 23% Higher Registration Fee The race website says it is “to reflect the current wage inequality between men and women.”
*MB: Iowa Half-Marathon charges men 23% more than women