March 24, 2018 | LetsRun.com

2018 World Half Champs Results TV & Streaming Women’s Preview Men’s Preview

LRC Geoffrey Kamworor Splits 13:01 5k – Yes 13:01 – At End of Race To Win 3rd Straight World Half Marathon Title In a performance that will be remembered for years to come, Geoffrey Kamworor got his hat trick. What a sick performance.
*RRW Recap with Quotes From Kamworor: “I can say I was really prepared for this race and I had no pressure.”

LRC Netsanet Gudeta Kebede of Ethiopia Sets Women’s Only World Record of 66:11 at 2018 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships Ethiopia won both team and individual gold.
*RRW Recap with Post-race quotes from Gudeta and Jepkosgei

World Half Messageboard Talk

Full Coverage in our 2018 IAAF World Half Champs Special Section

Usain Bolt Had His Soccer Tryout

Usain Bolt Pleases 1,400-Strong Crowd That Showed Up To Watch His Dortmund Soccer Tryout In Germany Bolt apparently made a couple of errors, but made up for it with a “terrific header into the corner of the net.”
Usain Bolt Says Soccer Tryout (With A Team Also Sponsored By Puma) Isn’t Just A Publicity Stunt: “I really want to try and make it professionally, to play at a high level.” Bolt gave himself a “seven out of ten” for his tryout and admitted he has to work on some things, including his fitness. He’d like the team to sign him, but “wouldn’t want to play in a lesser league” for their reserve team.

Bolt’s Soccer Dream Becomes Reality?

Usain Bolt Has His Soccer Tryout With German Club Dortmund On Friday It’s been debatable if Bolt was serious about this, but if he’s flying to Germany he must be, right? The tryout will be open to the public.
Instagram Video: Watch Usain Bolt Swap Track For Soccer As He Prepares For Charity Soccer Game Against Mo Farah We’re not going to lie, we’d like to have seen less of him stretching/drinking Gatorade and more of him actually playing soccer. He does score a goal, though.

Non-Distance News

Christian Coleman Thinks He Can Become The Second-Fastest Man Of All Time This Year Coleman says he wants to get Tyson Gay‘s 9.69 American record, but admits Usain Bolt‘s 9.58 is out of reach.
Christian Coleman Confirms He’ll Return To London For The Anniversary Games On July 21-22
IAAF Inside Athletics: Ato Boldon Video Interview With Venezuela’s World Triple Jump Champion Yulimar Rojas
Renaud Lavillenie And Sam Kendricks Lead Stacked Pole Vault Field For Pre Classic In May Also Olympic champ Thiago Braz and Mondo Duplantis.
Loaded Men’s Javelin Field Announced For Pre Classic With German Duo World Champ Johannes Vetter And Olympic Champ Thomas Rohler

2020 Olympic Trials News

Judge Orders Mt. SAC To Halt Stadium Work, Potentially Putting The 2020 Olympic Trials At Risk The college and the city of Walnut are in a legal battle over whether the stadium reconstruction is complying with regulations protecting water quality. Mt. SAC is also dealing with a civil suit which is arguing the cost of the stadium shouldn’t be covered by public funds.
*Ken Goe’s Take And Comparison To Hayward’s Issues

Older Trials News We Missed
Atlanta Track Club Surprised USATF Selection Committee By Bringing In Meb To Endorse Their Bid For The 2020 Marathon Trials Meb likes the Olympic tradition of Atlanta, saying he still has a T-shirt a teammate brought him back from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and will be working with the ATC in the future. USATF will decide in April between Atlanta, Austin, Chattanooga and Orlando.

Women’s Distance News

Caster Semenya Fails In Attempt To Break Zola Budd’s South African 1500 Record Semenya ran 4:02.50, just .70 off of Budd’s 4:01.80. Former NCAA champ Dominique Scott-Efurd was a distant second in 4:08.6. In the sprints, Luxolo Adams won the men’s 200 (20.01) and Carina Horn the women’s 100 (11.12).
Laura Muir’s Coach Says She’s A Victim Of Having To Face “Some Of The Best Distance Runners Of All-Time” He also said that “in a matter of weeks” she could go out and break the British 10,000 record if that’s what she wanted.
Reddit AMA With Olympic Triathlon Champ And Now Marathoner Gwen Jorgensen “Marathon training’s biggest hurdle has been staying injury free. There are more days I wake up and limp than days I wake up and feel good.”
RW: “Why US Women Marathoners Are Having A Moment” Four of the 10 fastest Americans have ran their PBs in the last 14-months. Comparatively, American men only have one new name on the top-10 list in the past five+ years.
Queen Elizabeth II Named Official Starter Of The 2018 London Marathon
Laura Muir Excited At The Prospect Of Winning More Medals At A Home Championships At Next Year’s Euro Indoor Champs In Glasgow

More Upcoming Distance Action

Sunday: Elite Fields Set For The 2018 Carlsbad 5,000 The women’s race has GB’s Emelia Gorecka (15:07 PR) and the men are led by Swedish 1,500 NR holder Kalle Berglund and Denmark 7-time national champ Nick Jensen.
Sunday: Course Record Holders Victor Kipchirchir (59:31 PR) And Pauline Njeru (68:20 PR) Return To The Warsaw Half Marathon
June: Emma Coburn Commits To The Oslo Diamond League Meet So too was a local steeple star in Norway’s Karoline Grovdal, who ran her first steeple in six years in 2017 and set a 20-second PR with 9:13.

Week That Was

LRCWayde Van Who? Clarence Munyai Runs 19.69, Scott Fauble Interviews Himself, Americans Dominate NYC Half, And A Last Hurrah For Caster Semenya?

Clarence Munyai and Caster Semenya put on a show at the S. African Champs, the Americans did well at NYC Half, and a look back at some splits from World Indoors.

African Distance News

Can He Still Be Relevant? Marathon World Record Holder Dennis Kimetto Will Line Up For The Vienna City Marathon On April 22 Kimetto hasn’t finished a marathon since London 2016, where he was 9th in 2:11:44, but says he wants to break the Vienna CR of 2:05:41.
Reuters Headline Says Dennis Kimetto “Snubs London For Vienna” More likely London didn’t want to pay a big appearance fee to someone who DNFs most of his races since 2015.
Bedan Karoki Now Focused On Preparing For The London Marathon After Withdrawing From The World Half Champs With A Hamstring Injury
After Winning African XC Champs, Celliphine Chespol Targets A Commonwealth Games Title The world junior steeple champ wants to win a senior title to go along with it.
Joyciline Jepkosgei’s 64:52 World Half Marathon Record Ratified By The IAAF

Previous World Half News

Good Read: The Honor Of Representing His Nation Motivates Ethiopia’s Jemal Yimer As He Prepares For The World Half Champs Yimer ran the fastest debut ever at RAK last month with 59:00. Even still, the World 10,000 5th placer says his future is on the track: “I am a man of the track. I feel like the track is where I breathe better. I can train there the whole day.”
IAAF Men’s Preview
IAAF Women’s Preview
Lornah Kiplagat Reflects On Her World Half Marathon Champs Hat Trick Between 2006 And 2008 “To win gold three times in a row at my favorite distance, I couldn’t ask for more and I’m honored to be part of history.”
Course And Scoring Details For The World Half Marathon Championships Each country can run 5 athletes with the top 3 scoring.
World Half Champs Statistics Handbook Available For Download Includes facts and figures including past individual and team medalists, stats on the youngest and oldest participants, national records and more.

Can Blake Fill Bolt’s Golden Shoes?

Usain Bolt Will Travel To The 2018 Commonwealth Games As A Spectator Yohan Blake revealed Bolt’s planned visit as he arrived yesterday in Brisbane, Australia on Sunday. Blake says that Botl told him before he left, “When I come to Australia, if you don’t win there is going to be problems.”

Russian Doping Updates

WADA Says Russia Ignored Four Requests To Inspect Moscow’s Anti-Doping Lab WADA president Craig Reedie says Russia still needs to acknowledge its state-sponsored doping and allow the Moscow lab to be inspected.
Russian Sports Minister Claims Pyeongchang 2018 Doping Cases Are “Senseless” Pavel Kolobkov said he is “outraged” about the two Russians who failed drug tests at the Winter Games and that hr has “no explanation of how it could have happened at all.”
BBC: Craig Reedie Says Russian Participation At Major Events Still In Doubt

Pre World Half News

RRW At Age 43, Bernard Lagat Is Thrilled To Be Representing The USA Once Again At A World Championships Plus Lagat talks about whether he can break Haile Gebrselassie‘s 61:09 world masters record.

LRC Jordan Hasay Has Withdrawn From The 2018 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships – Will She Run The 2018 Boston Marathon? Additionally, Kenya has two big scratches of their own. Neither the US or Kenya entered any alternates before the entry deadline and as a result both countries and will only have three competitors in the women’s team race where three score.
*MB: Confirmed: Jordan Hasay has withdrawn from the 2018 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships – Will she run Boston?

Switzerland’s Julien Wanders Expected To Challenge For What Could Be A Rare European Medal At The World Half Champs
RRW: Spectacular Course Awaits World Half Marathon Athletes Interestingly, the race doesn’t start in the AM, but instead at 5PM local time.
$245,000 In Prize Money Up For Grabs At World Half Champs $30,000 to the men’s and women’s winner. $15,000 to the winning teams.
Charlotte Purdue Named GB World Half Team Captain
Local Organizing Committee Donates Extra $50,000 To The IAAF Athletics Integrity Unit To Test Athletes Competing At World Half Champs
Country-By-Country Broadcast Info For World Half Champs *These Countries Can Watch A Free Live Stream On The IAAF’s YouTube Channel Not available with a US IP address.

Problems In Kenya

Russian Athletes Suspect Fraud After “Fake IAAF Officers” Took Doping Samples In Kenya The Russians became suspicious as the “officers” showed their ID cards on a phone. Were these good samaritans just trying to make sure the Russians were clean?
Recommended Read: Kenya Standard Digital: “Athletes Race From Rags To Riches And Back To Rags” Kenyans use running to escape poverty and gain a fortune, but with no education on how to manage their wealth, many can end up right back where they started.
Athletics Kenya Cracking Down On Officials Accused Of Molesting Female Athletes They’ve changed the management of training camps, now having them run by schools rather than individuals.