Official 2017 Birrell 10k Dicussion Thread - Women's Sub-30 WR attempt

Who is this Nordstad kid that just PR'd big-time? Awesome run.

Wow, I'm almost as impressed by the three ladies who ran low-mid 30 minute 10Ks right behind her. Jeez.

2:10.07 and 13:20 this year. After some serious trouble with a toe, he is better than ever. According to Norwegian newspapers, he has gotten advice from

Canova. I see a 2:08 in the near future.

EPOpian wrote:

If it's too good to be true it almost always is. What kind of out of competition testing do they have in Kenya again? yeah

Yes but the race directors are as much to blame for the problem as the athletes are. There have been so many positive tests coming out of Kenya the last few years with only a very rudimentary testing system in place. Ethiopia has no sort of testing system which is even worse. Yet race directors in Europe and the rest of the developed world keep on inviting athletes from Kenya and Ethiopia to their races, award them prize and appearance money and probably don't even ask them to pay a race entry fee like the rest of the runners do.

Clearly many race directors have almost no interest in encouraging a sport where all the competitors have to abide by the rules of the competition. The race directors should be fined and fined very heavily for continuing to invite athletes from nations where there is an established doping problem (i.e. Kenya, Ethiopia, Russia et al) with no efforts made to remove the problem. Race directors are effectively using roads built with tax payer's money as a venue for organized crime to take place and local or national governments need to step in and take measures stop this practice.

5th place finisher in london 10000m and 4th at world xc gets destroyed by 40+ seconds; forget about the track, top level is on the road!

A world road 10K champ would be nice to see.

Your post is a total nonsense.

The top athletes in the women field in Prague had from 3 to 5 OOC tests in Kenya, including blood, for the simple reason that already were the best in the World (Jepkosgei WR of 10k, 15k, 20k and HM, and Viola Jepchumba, currently officially Bahreini, second all time in 10k and 15k). For that reason, after the previous WR, Joyceline was tested by AKADA several times, under clear and personal RECOMMANDATION (you must read under ORDER) of IAAF.

Put in your mind that now the test in Kenya from AKADA are frequent for all the best in the World.

This is not something regarding the men winning in Ostrava, because, among the top 3, only Mathew Kimeli was tested OOC, and this happened after he was the runner up in Ostrava behind Mo Farah.

Athletes running 27'50" in Kenya (or 61' in HM) can win competitions abroad, but nobody can pretend they have OOC tests at home, BECAUSE ARE NOT AMONG THEN TOP 20 IN THE COUNTRY, and there is no Country in the world using money for testing OOC some athlete who is out of the best 10, in the Country, in any event.

So, if somebody is doped (it's possible), we can discover this only in the antidoping control after the race, LIKE FOR ANY OTHER ATHLETE IN THE WORLD, and is absolutely NOT FAIR to discriminate clean athletes only because somebody else of the same Country could be doped.

I want also point out that a number of about 50 positives in 5-6 years represent a very small percentage of the Kenyan running all over the World, who are more than 1,000, and several times win competitions, also of small level, because the values of the other competitors is very low (and not because they are strong).

It's time to finish to speak about Kenya, when who speaks doesn't know anything about the Country, the athletic activity, the social situation, the problem local people have to face about sicknesses and injuries, the traditional culture.

First step is to learn something about what you are speaking about, and clearly in LR I don't see many people who want to learn, I see only a lot of people with the presumption to know already everything, without any real inofrmation.

Thank you Renato. I am heartily sick of the immediate accusations of doping whenever an outstanding athlete performs magnificently on the roads or the track. Ever since Almaz Ayana broke the world record in Rio, its been a trend for everybody to yell "doper" if an East African athlete turns in a great performance. What saddens me even more is former world class distance runners such as Liz Mccolgan who use Twitter and Facebook to fan the flames regarding doping accusations, notably towards Almaz and now Jepkosgei.

This is totally irresponsible and totally undermines the performances without any evidence of wrongdoing by the athletes concerned.

Its plain to see that athletes like Ayana are superior to their competitors. Instead of shooting down these amazing runners, why not consider ourselves lucky to witness first hand some of the most outstanding female distance runners in history, who are revolutionizing how to run 10k events.

Renato

someone just pointed out the top 3 Kenyans thrashed the ethiopian Yimer by 40+s

now, Yimer ran 26'56 to finish 5th in london

that was off crap 5k opener of ~ 13'35, so he ran ~ 13'35/13'21 !!! there

that was probably a 26'45 - 26'47.5 run at even pace

he's had over 1 month to recover from that & obviously class of field on PBs & wanted to win

if a ~ 26'45 - 26'47.5'er gets thrashed by 40s+ by 3 unknown Kenyans who i don't know have even bothered to run track, what shape are those 3 Kenyans in for a track 10k ???

also, how much of this prague race was run on cobblestones which are obviously worst possible surface to run on ?

apologies, Bernie Kimeli has 1 listed 10k of note : a 28'09 in ostrava this year which mo won in 27'10+

Rhonex doesn't seem to have a track 10k under 28'30 ( depends if name is correct )

Mathew Kimeli if name is correct, is guy who ran 2nd to mo in ostrava in 27'14 just 4 days days after finishing 6th in nairobi trials !!!

he is some decent class but nowhere near making Kenyan team for london

still, question still stands : Renato, what track shape are these guys in ?

I think you mean 'ADAK' not "AKADA", Coach Renato. But excellent post, nonetheless.

Ikaika Sports works with and for Benard, Mathew, Rhonex and Joyciline, among others.

Benard, in his international debut, recorded victory in Paderborn 10K this April in 27:18 - solo effort in cold and wet conditions and after 2:56 opening km. Video is available on the YouTube and here on LR's forum. Previously, Benard after around two years of training did run one of the fastest 5000m times in Eldoret after which he was recruited by Kenyan Wildlife Services and has undergone 6 month military training and this year's results were product of over 15 months of training. After his back to back victories in Paderborn and Wurzburg, Benard completed one 10,000m race in Kenya, then rested a bit and pacing in Ostrava was used to gauge where he was in terms of shape and confidence levels. Benard is coached by Dan Ngetich.

Benard's preparation was not perfect, he was called up to his Kenya Wildlife Services post several times in preceding months. Mathew was very sick for around 4 days less than 2 weeks before the race. Rhonex and Joyciline prepared for the race without any major issues.

In recent weeks, Benard, Mathew and Rhonex have completed 4-5 sessions together and will continue to train together 2-3 times per month. They genuinely like each other and enjoy the challenge of training together.

Mathew and Rhonex are coached by Brother Colm and Ian Kiprono from St. Patrick's. Rhonex sees Mathew as a leader / role model. If you search for Rhonex Kipruto on twitter (and have all results displayed in chronological order), you will note his performances in Kenya this year and, while these performances were strong, nobody from outside training environment could anticipate his ability.

I am on record with Pat Butcher to whom I have disclosed before the race that Rhonex could win the race and Pat did mention that during race commentary.

Rhonex will not be racing anymore this season, as during month of October he has school exams (high school) and after he is done with exams he will start to prepare for local cross country races.

We believe that gents were in 26:50 - 26:55 shape and if they were 10-12 years older we would be crying river of tears, wondering if a chance to run WR would ever come again. We lost 5-6 seconds for the first kilometer and we lost another 10 seconds later during the race. Plan was 2:40 to 2:42 per kilometer and plan was to compete from the moment pacemakers are dropped and gents did this, without fear and without hesitation providing so much entrainment to crowds and enjoying themselves under pressure of shape and expectation and this is the quality three of them are most proud of.

Renato Canova wrote:

Your post is a total nonsense...

Renato, do yourself a favor and sod off.

No one with a shred of brains or conscience listens to what you say anymore, and really, only fool were seduced by your bafflegab in the first place.

Whenever there is talk of EPO use in Kenyans, you do one of two things: Explain why it doesn't work in Africans, or explain that only bad bad dirty Africans whom you yourself have nothing to do with use EPO. See this issue there? No? Well some of us do.

The idea of rigorous testing at road races like these is a joke - as you know. Even as Kenyan after Kenyan tests positive, you refuse to fade into the shadows of 'coaching' where you belong. You cannot help yourself when people start rightly mocking marks like this 'unaided' 14:33/15:10 from a reticent athlete who conveniently shows up just to break records on asphalt; you have to jump in and try to run interference for pro-doping forces.

Your legacy will be gobshite.

D. wrote:

We believe that gents were in 26:50 - 26:55 shape and if they were 10-12 years older we would be crying river of tears, wondering if a chance to run WR would ever come again. We lost 5-6 seconds for the first kilometer and we lost another 10 seconds later during the race

this does not tally with thrashing yimer by 40+s, who clearly was in 26'45 - 24'47.5 in london

27'10 - ( 5 to 6s & another 10s ) = ~ 26'55

superficially this looks correct as iaaf report has Bernie stating :

“I’m really pleased with my time," the winner said. "The pacemakers were running a bit too slow, so I decided to take things into my own hands and set my own pace"

so, reasonable to conclude that at even pace it was a ~ 26'55 on that road

no we come to question of the road

no vid is up of this year's run but i have watched whole vid of '15 run of a woman runner & i assume it is same course as now :

it is a terrible course with lots of cobblestones, brick-roads & running on tram tracks

this without question cost at least 10s compared to a smooth concrete surface for all 10k

so, its more like on an ideal road surface & even pace, we get

~ 26'45

& that may not be generous

convert that to the absolute "perfect" conditions of a 400m track with no undulations & no wind...

it also means yimer has faded badly from london shape

worth noting that this Rhonex kid is 18y ole !!!

Based on all training data we have, gents were in 26:50 - 26:55 shape for Prague 10K as is - course surface taken into the account.

I can't comment on athletes we don't work with, as I simply don't know their shape, circumstances, health, motivation, etc.

Benard's statement reflects reality and is in line with what I am saying - when first pacemaker Robert Mwei dropped around 4km mark, second pacemaker Abel Kipchumba was not really able to pull them and if you watch the race, it is clear that mostly Benard did push the pace between 4km mark and past 5km mark.

We are still waiting for DVDs of the race (decoding was needed before video gets to DVD) and full race video will be online, if not online already.

Race video -

https://youtu.be/rdqUD_e-Dls

If I find version with commentary in English, I will share it.

Renato Canova wrote:

So, if somebody is doped (it's possible), we can discover this only in the antidoping control after the race, LIKE FOR ANY OTHER ATHLETE IN THE WORLD, and is absolutely NOT FAIR to discriminate clean athletes only because somebody else of the same Country could be doped.

I want also point out that a number of about 50 positives in 5-6 years represent a very small percentage of the Kenyan running all over the World, who are more than 1,000, and several times win competitions, also of small level, because the values of the other competitors is very low (and not because they are strong).

With all due respect - your post is marketing. I have highlighted the important points from it above - even with the possibility that any other athlete in the world can be doping no less than 50 positive tests have come out of Kenya over the last few years. Ask yourself: how many positive tests have come out from distance runners from countries such as the US (with a much bigger population) or the UK (with a slighly larger population)? Russia has been banned from international competition yet race directors have turned a blnd eye to countries like Kenya or Ethiopia. This shows that race directors do not care about the problem. Testing someone immediately after a competition is not at all sufficient to determine whether they have been doping.

Personally I don't blame only the athletes for doping, I look at the system coaches, agents and race directors because they are all part of the problem.

I don't say there is no doping in Kenya. I say that the percentage of doped is very low, and the percentage of TOP athletes doped is still more low.

I can't accept the mediatic campaign against Kenyan runners, with somebody speaking of cancelling Kenya from the big championships, or not to accept Kenyan athletes in competition, because somebody is doped-

If you have this idea, you need to cancel all US sprinters from every competition. I give you some data :

US ATHLETES UNDER 10.00 in 100m banned for doped :

1- Tyson Gay (2nd all time) 9.69 2 years ban

2- Justyn Gatlin (5th) 9.74 4 years

3- Mike Rodgers (14th) 9.85 9 months

4- Shawn Crawford (25th) 9.88 2 years

5- Dennis Mitchell (34th) 9.91

6- Tim Montgomery (43rd) 9.92 2 years

7- Ivory Williams (51st) 9.93 3 months

8- Bernard Williams (61st) 9.94 derubricated in Public Warning

9- John Capel (67th) 9.95 2 years

10- Trell Kimmons (67th) 9.95 2 years

11- Wallace Spearmon (78th) 9.96 3 months

12- Mickey Grimes (110th) 9.99 2 years

13- Mark Jelks (110th) 9.99 2 years

The total number of US sprinters running 9.99 or better is 52, so we have 13 doped in the first 52 all time (percentage : 25%).

Does Somebody now suppose that US sprinters must be banned from every competition ?

Now, I want to give you the number of Kenyan athletes in top 100 all-time in middle distance events banned for doping :

800m (40 athletes at the limit of 1:43.81) : NOBODY

1500m (37 athletes at the limit of 3:31.94) :

Benjamin Kipkirui (24th) 3:30.67 3 months

5000m (45 athletes at the limit of 13:00.41) :

Mathew Kisorio (71st) 12:57.83 2 years

10000m (54 athletes at the limit of 27:12.37) :

again Mathew Kisorio (41st) 26:54.25 2 years

HM (68 athletes at the limit of 59:43) :

again Mathew Kisorio (5th) 58:46 2 years

Marathon (66 athletes at the limit of 2:06:22) :

Wilson Erupe (38th) 2:05:13 2 years

3000 steeple (53 athletes including who changed citizenship at the limit of 8:11.80 : NOBODY

800m W (4 athletes at the limit of 1:57.39) : NOBODY

1500m W (6 athletes at the limit of 3:59.90) : NOBODY

5000m W (36 athletes at the limit of 14:47.20) :

Emily Chebet (97th) 4 years 14:46.89

10000m W (23 athletes at the limit of 31:07.88) :

again Emily Chebet (54th) 30:47.02 4 years

HM W (46 athletes at the limit of 68:07) :

Susan Chepkemei (7th) 65:44 1 year

Rita Jeptoo (18th) 66:27 4 years

Jemima Sumgong (22nd) 66:43 4 years

Pauline Njeri (81st) 67:55 1 year

Emily Chebet (85th) 68:01 4 years

Pamela Chepchumba (97th) 68:06 2 years

Filomena Chepchirchir (97th) 68:06 6 months

Marathon W (26 athletes at the limit of 2:23:20) :

Rita Jeptoo (5th) 2:18:57 4 years

Jemima Sumgong (27th) 2:20:41 4 years

Susan Chepkemei (46th) 2:21:46 1 year

Filomena Chepchirchir (86th) 2:23:00 6 months

3000 steeple W (22 athletes including Ruth Jebet at the limit of 9:28.84) :

NOBODY

How it's possible to see, there is some problem for the long distance on the road regarding women. I already explained the problem comes from the husbands who want to be the coaches (this is the case of Emily Chebet and Jemima Sumgong, for instance), but the fact some of them had a very short ban explains that, in many cases, the substances were in some medicine taken for cough or some other disease.

If you compare the Kenyan situation, at top level, with the American situation of sprinters, do you think correct asking for banning Kenya, while US sprinters can have any kind of excuse and are forgiven not only according the rules, but also in the mind of who writes in LR ?

You need to ponder, my friend, before accusing, and need to know numbers, not to use your belly.

Calculo Ventolin, you can't analyze the shape of the athletes starting from the idea that the "official" fastest in the race was in shape. Yimer was totally out of shape, and was not able to stay with Sondre Moen after 6 km-

This race has a first part a little bit faster, because a little bit downhill and with better surface, while the second part id harder, because is a little bit uphill (start and finish are in the same place, so there is not difference in the level of altitude between the tue points) and there are some cobblestone.

However, Always in Prague was possible running fast, so the course is not bad.

Another thing is to finish thinking road is slower than track. The interpretation of road races is normally very much more aggressive than what happens on track, and the mind is more free. I'm sure Joyceline is not able to repeat the same time on track, while on the road, in my opinion, can run under 29:30 in the future. And, about women, don't forget the most part of road races are mixed, so they can have pacers that are not allowed on track.

I've the personal opinion that Wang Junxia in 1993, with some male pacer, could already run near 29', such as Ayana in the shape of Rio.

The fact is that, on track, the opportunity to have a fast race in 10000m practically doesn't exist, and in the specific case of women nobody tried to attack the WR of Wang Junxia for 23 years, making in the mind of the most part of people the idea this was a "super record" with nobody able to better it. Instead, was not a very big record, and Tirunesh Dibaba and Meseret Defar could better it in their best moment, if stimulated to try.

The real top record is the one of 3000m : 8'06" is really something Amazing, and I don't see at the moment anybody able to run faster.

i can't believe a guy who was in 26'45 - 26'47.5 shape just a few weeks earlier coud end up so bad so soon after

appearance money is likely to have been trivial, so only rewards wouda been for prize money

if he didn't think his shape was good enough to win it was totally pointless turning up !?

i believe she ran a lot beside pacer not behind, so little drafting

also i disagree track shoud be slower

it is perfect surface with 0 undulations

i don't know why the free--spirited track running of Henry Rono, Sigei, Ngugi, Chelimo, Kirui, has disappeared in last decade+ ?!

it also was shocking that a guy like Komon who set an incredible 26'44 in utrecht in '10 coudn't muster any sort of track career with a derisory 26'55pb when he shouda been looking at 26'20/26'30 in his 26'44WR shape

what was situation with Komon in '10/'11 ?

perhaps you can work on these guys' mental side as that seems to be only problem ?

likes of tulu/wami/adere looked in 29'40/29'45 shape in '00/'03

it is very good, but genzebe in '15 shouda been able to go sub-8'10 & Obiri is certainly capable of 8'12.5/8'15