LetsRun.com: The Home of Distance Running and Track and Field

Jarrion Lawson Cleared

Jarrion Lawson Cleared To Compete By CAS Lawson said he ate tainted beef and CAS apparently has agreed with him. Seems like a win for due process. *Discuss
Previous: A Life On Pause: Jarrion Lawson’s Career Hangs In The Balance As He Fights His Four-Year Doping Ban – And The Global Anti-Doping System

Our Post Trials Podcast

LRC Olympic Marathon Trials Mania Recap Podcast + Tokyo & The Shoes Get the lowdown on everything at the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta including the party scene.

Mid-D News

Caster Semenya Says That She’s Going To Compete At The Tokyo Olympics, Even If Not In The 400, 800 Or 1,500 “I’m going to surprise you … and you”e going to like the surprise.”
*MB: What event/sport will Caster Semenya be competing in at Tokyo 2020?
David Rudisha To Make Decision On Olympics In May Rudisha hasn’t raced since 2017 and said he put on a lot of weight which he has to lose (up to 196 pounds from the 165 when he set his WR).
Indian Mid-Distance Runner Prachi Choudhary Suspended After Failing Drug Test

Assorted Non-Distance News

Good Read: Track And Field News: 10 Questions With Usain Bolt Bolt answers questions about his favorite race, why he never broke the WR again, soccer, the NFL, will he ever run a marathon and the Nike shoe controversy.
Mondo Duplantis To Feature In New Documentary That Is Three Years In The Making The documentary has actually followed Duplantis for the last three years and includes many interesting insights like Duplantis arguing with his father about having to go to college for one year (you already know who won that argument). *Website/Trailer
European Athletics Takes A “Closer Look At Mondo Duplantis’ Incredible Indoor Season” Duplantis broke the pole vault WR twice and cleared the 6.00m barrier in all five of his competitions (he’s only the second pole vaulter in history to do that since Sergey Bubka did in 1991).
BBC Video: Dina Asher-Smith Has A Barbie Modeled After Her She said she was “taken aback by the likeness.”
Miltiadis Tentoglou Jumps European Leading 8.26m To Win LJ At The Greek Indoor Champs
The Telegraph: Jessica Ennis-Hill Vs. Katarina Johnson-Thompson: Who Is Stronger In The Heptathlon? Johnson-Thompson has the slightly better PR (6981 to 6955), but Ennis-Hill won more titles and was more consistent.

Admin/Olympic News

NBC Sports Announce Olympic Advertising Record For Tokyo 2020 After Breaking $1.2 Billion Barrier 90% of the available ad space for Tokyo 2020 has been sold with 5 months to go to the games (which is more than the total that was sold for the entirety of Rio 2016).
RIP Former USATF President Bill Roe Roe served as president for two terms from 2000-2008. *Discuss
The Telegraph: Tokyo Olympics 2020 Medal Table: How Does It Work, Which Country Usually Wins And What Are Britain’s Hopes? Interesting note: the US has topped the medal table in 17 out of the 27 Olympics they’ve competed at.
Logo Revealed For The World Athletics U20 Championships In Nairobi
Toyota Announced As Exclusive Presenting Sponsor Of The Penn Relays
Tokyo 2020 Release First Moving Pictograms To Represent Each Olympic Sport
Need A Job? World Athletics Hiring An eLearning Manager For Its Monaco HQ
Postcard Lottery For Tokyo 2020 Tickets Opens In Japan

Some Recent International Results

Brazil’s Johnatas de Oliveira And Canada’s Genevive Lalonde Win Pan Am XC Cup Hosted In Langford, Canada USA’s Anthony Rotich and Carrie Verdon were the runner-ups. USA won the overall team competition. *Athletics Illustrated Recap *Results
Australian High Jumper Eleanor Patterson Breaks 31-Year-Old National Record With 1.99m In New Zealand
World Athletics Round-Up: World Champion Anzhelika Sidorova Sets PV World Lead With 4.95m At The Pole Vault Festival In Moscow (Equal #3 On The World Indoor All-Time List)
Karsten Warholm Wins His Season Opener 400m With A European-Leading 45.97 At The Karsten Warholm International Yes, apparently there is a meet in Norway named after him.
Belgium’s Nafissatou Thiam Breaks LJ National Record With 6.79m At The French Indoor Championships She actually broke the record with all three of her jumps, though she was still short of her 6.86m outdoor PR.
Filip Mihaljevic Throws His Third Croatian Indoor Record Of The Month With 21.84m To Win At The Serbian Open Indoor Meeting
Miltiadis Tentoglou Jumps European Leading 8.26m To Win LJ At The Greek Indoor Champs

US Olympic Marathon Trials Tracking & Results Post-Race Videos

LRC Galen Rupp Is Golden As Unsponsored Jake Riley And 43-Year-Old Abdi Abdirahman Make Olympic Marathon Team Rupp won it handily in 2:09:20 while there was a 3-way battle for the last two spots with Riley taking 2nd (2:10:02), and Abdi 3rd (2:10:03). Leonard Korir finished the dreaded 4th in 2:10:06.

LRC In A Wildly Unpredictable Race, Aliphine Tuliamuk, Molly Seidel, & Sally Kipyego Earn Olympic Marathon Spots updated Tuliamuk and Seidel make their first Olympics (Seidel in her marathon debut) and Kipyego makes her first US team. Des Linden tried to reel in Kipyego, but came up short in 4th (2:29:03).

LRC Unsponsored Jake Riley Makes All The Right Moves To Earn Olympic Berth In Atlanta Jake Riley was a big surprise at the Trials.

LRC Live Marathon Trials Thread

More Olympic Trials Coverage

RRW: Winds Whipping, Galen Rupp And Aliphine Tulimuk Win Dramatic USA Marathon Trials
Ken Goe: “Relieved And Happy, Galen Rupp Relives His Victory At The Olympic Marathon Trials” Rupp said with the wind, some of the hills felt like “you could have been just as fast walking up them.” He also talks about consoling Jordan Hasay post-race.
NY Times: This Was Molly Seidel’s First Marathon. Her Next Will Be At The Olympics Seidel actually gave her sister (who is also her roommate) in the crowd a high five at mile 7.
*Daily Mail: Coffee Shop Worker Molly Seidel Runs First-Ever Marathon, Qualifies For Olympic Team
NY Times: At Olympic Marathon Trials, the Agony Of Fourth Place Des Linden: “I still thought I had a chance. I wasn’t going to give up until I finished. Well, when she finished. Then I gave up.”
NBC Sports OT Recap Jacob Riley: “You’re seeing somebody live their happiest moment of their entire life, so it’s pretty special right now.” *NY Times *USATF *World Athletics
Cool Pre-Race NY Times Article: “Why Are American Women Running Faster Than Ever? We Asked Them – Hundreds Of Them” The NY Times reached out to about two-thirds of the 450+ qualifiers. Includes graph, pics and quotes.

More Marathon Trials Coverage

Q&A With Galen Rupp Ahead Of The Trials Rupp talks about coming back from injury, getting older, how much mileage he does on the underwater treadmill and what’s been different training under Mike Smith.
RRW: Seven-Hundred Strong, Atlanta Is The People’s Trials
ESPN: Family First, But Olympics Next For U.S. Marathon Hopeful Jared Ward? Ward, his wife and four kids all spent the night in the same hotel room before the NYC Marathon (where Ward was 6th in a 2:10:45 PR).
Des Linden: “I’m not going to the Trials to have a good experience and have some fun. I’m going there to make a team.”
Sara Hall Ahead Of The Trials: “I don’t think I could have trained any harder.”
Abdi Abdirahman Doesn’t Think Age Will Be A Factor In Atlanta He says it’s the best buildup he’s ever had.
Marathon Rookie Emily Sisson Is Prepared For Anything At The Marathon Trials This is only her second marathon so Sisson said she’s still trying to figure out what works best for her.
Podcast Interview With Sam Chelanga Talking About Coming Out Of Retirement
Podcast Interview With Atlanta Track Club Director Of Marketing And Communication Jay Holder Holder talks about what type of person will win on the Olympic Marathon Trials course and what it’s like preparing to host the OT.
Reuters: Nike Shoe Debate Rages As Runners Weigh Advantages At US Marathon Trials
Chris Chavez’s Marathon Trials Preview/Predictions

Assorted Distance News

Podcast Interview With Elle Purrier Carrie Tollefson talks about Purrier about setting the indoor mile American record, growing up on a farm, Tokyo 2020 and “her love story.”
Brigid Kosgei’s 2:14:04 Marathon WR Ratified By World Athletics It’s officially the WR, but Paula Radcliffe‘s 2:15:25 will always be the pre-Vaporfly mark. World Athletics also ratified the University of Houston’s 3:01.51 world indoor 4 x 400m record.
A Missed Result: Recent Japan Half Marathon Record Setter Hitomi Niiy Wins Auckland 5,000m In 15:07.02; Nick Willis Takes Close 1,500m In 3:41.7 Willis beat out compatriot Rorey Hunter by .04. Tom Walsh won the shot with 21.66m as Canada’s Sarah Mitton threw more than a half meter PR (18.84m) to get a surprise win over Valerie Adams (18.73m).
World Athletics Podcast Interview With 1983 World 1,500m Champ Steve Cram The former mile WR holder looks back on his mid-d battles with Seb Coe and talks about his transition from athlete to broadcaster.
Japan Announces Team For The 2020 World Half-Marathon Championships The team is led by #2 Japan all-time Taku Fujimoto (60:06) and Japanese marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura. *Japan Running News Article
Kristina Schou Madsen Becomes First Woman To Win World Marathon Challenge She ran an average of 3:25:57 for seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.

More Shoes / Trials

Rojo Speaks It’s Official: Nike’s Vaporfly Shoe Technology And World Athletics’ Shoe Rules Have Ruined The Marathon (At Least Temporarily) The Olympic Trials and the first 3 super-elite marathons of 2020 show one thing: shoes really matter and they are creating an uneven playing field in the sport.

LRC Book Review

LRC Book Review: “Sporting Gender” Offers Much-Needed History And Context On A Challenging Topic Written by medical physicist Joanna Harper, the book is part scientific explainer, part history lesson, part personal story and attacks a tricky subject from multiple angles.

Long-D News

Targeting His Fourth Straight Title Geoffrey Kamworor Leads Kenyan Squad For World Half Champs 2018 bronze medalist Pauline Kamulu heads the women’s team.
Kenenisa Bekele On Mo Farah’s 10,000m Chances In Tokyo: “He has a very big chance to win, he’s strong enough to win and, unlike most people, he knows how to do it.”
Chris Thompson And Lily Partridge Lead GB World Half Teams

NCAA Champs Are Next Weekend

List Of Qualifiers Announced For The 2020 NCAA DI Indoor Championships NCAAs start next Friday in Albuquerque.
LSU Men Take Over The #1 Spot In Post-Conference Champs NCAA Rankings Oregon moved up three spots to #2, NAU down to #3 and Texas stayed #4.
LSU Women Remain Ranked #1 Post Conference Championships Southern California moved up to #2, Texas A&M up to #3 and Georgia down to 4th.
The Bowerman: 2020 Men’s Pre-NCAA Indoor Watch List NAU’s Tyler Day and Texas A&M’s Devin Dixon are the two lone distance runners on the list.
Bowerman Women’s Watch List Updated Distance runners have six of the ten spots on the list with Penn’s Nia Akins, Arkansas Katie Izzo, Colorado’s Dani Jones, New Mexico’s Weini Kelati, Wisconsin’s Alicia Monson and BYU’s Whittni Orton.
Iowa State’s Edwin Kurgat And LSU’s Tonea Marshall Are NCAA Athletes Of The Week Kurgat scored 26 points at Big 12 champs (winning the 5k/3 and third in the mile) while Marshall won the SEC 60H title in an world U20 record of 7.91.
Event-By-Event Top-10 NCAA Marks From Last Week

Coronavirus Updates

Japan’s Olympic Minister Says The Tokyo Games Could Be Delayed Until The End Of The Year He said that Japan’s contract calls for the Games to be held within 2020, a statement that is “open to interpretation.”
*IOC Has A Meeting This Week Where They Will Discuss Making “Final Decisions” About Tokyo 2020
*The Telegraph: Sports Finds Itself At The Mercy Of A Microbe As Coronavirus Threatens Tokyo Olympics And Euro 2020
Olympic Marathon City Sapporo Declares State Of Emergency Over Coronavirus State of emergency measures will remain in place until March 19th. More than 900 cases of the disease have been reported in Japan.
London Marathon Organizers Say They Will “Continue To Monitor The Situation” With Coronavirus Race director Hugh Brasher said, “The Government’s current advice is that all mass events should still go ahead.” *2nd Article
MB: Paris half marathon was CANCELLED the day before it was scheduled to be run due to coronavirus Is London next?

Tokyo Marathon And London Half *Tokyo TV And Streaming Info

Ethiopia’s Birhanu Legese Retains Tokyo Marathon Crown In 2:04:15 As Israel’s Lonah Chemtai Salpeter Smashes Course Record With 2:17:45 The men’s side was super-deep with 17 men running under 2:08 with Belgium’s Bashir Abdi (2:04:49) and Ethiopia’s Sisay Lemma (2:04:51) taking second and third. On the women’s side, the top 5 were under 2:22 with Birhane Dibaba second in 2:18:35.
*MB: Tokyo Official Discussion Thread

Japan Running News Tokyo Recap The Japanese depth here was crazy with Suguruo Osako holding on to his Olympic spot by breaking his own NR in 4th with 2:05:29 while another eight Japanese men ran between 2:06:45 and 2:07:45.
*MB: Suguru Osako runs 2:05:29 National Record, Non-African-Born Record

London Big Half:

Kenenisa Bekele Breaks Mo Farah’s Course Record With 60:22 At The Big Half In London GB’s Lily Partridge won the women’s race in 70:50.
*MB: Bekele runs 1:00:22 at Vitality Big Half!
*MB: Bekele had on Next Percents today in the 1/2 marathon and lots of runners opted for the Next Percents yesterday

Trials On The Forums

Our Final HOKA ONE ONE Trials Athlete Of The Day (Sponsored By HOKA ONE ONE)

LRC Kellyn Taylor: After Finishing 4th In 2016, Can #4 Seed Kellyn Taylor Earn Career-Defining Olympic Spot? On the one hand, Kellyn Taylor says her “life is not and will never be all about running.” On the other hand, she says if you are a pro runner, you need to be an Olympian as it’s a career-defining accomplishment.

LRC HOKA NAZ Elite Pros Podcast Before The Trials: Can One Of Them Make The Team!? Hear from Kellyn Taylor, Stephanie Bruce, Aliphine Tuliamuk (3 of the top 10 seeds on the women’s side) and Scott Fauble (#3 seed for men), Sid Vaughn and Scott Smith (2:11 marathon).

HOKA ONE ONE Takes On The Marathon Trials (Sponsored By HOKA ONE ONE) – Meet The Full-Time HOKA Pros

LRC Scott Fauble: Does HOKA’s Fastest American Pro Get To The Top of American Distance Running At the Trials? Scott Fauble is arguable America’s best male long distance runner who hasn’t been on an Olympic team. Can he change that?

Coronavirus Cancels World Half Champs And Two More Big City Marathons

World Half Marathon Championships Postponed Due To Coronavirus They were set to be held in Gdynia, Poland on March 29th, but have been postponed until October 17th.
Paris Marathon Postponed Due To Coronavirus Outbreak In France The race was set for April 5th, but has been postponed until October 18th. France has had 423 cases of coronavirus with seven deaths. *Discuss
Rome Marathon Cancelled Due To Coronavirus The race was scheduled for March 29. Italy has had 3,200 cases and 148 deaths. *Discuss
Thomas Bach Reassures Athletes The IOC Will Addresses Challenges Posed By Coronavirus Even if the Games themselves go on, many qualifying events have been cancelled.
MB: Will you train through the corona virus?
MB: Why are there so many people here who claim the coronavirus isn’t an issue?

The Diamond League Starts Next Month

April 17: Joe Kovacs And Ryan Crouser Announced For Doha DL
June 6-7: Seven Members Of The 22-Meter Club Set For Pre Classic Shot Put Includes Ryan Crouser, Joe Kovacs and Tom Walsh.
July 4-5: Mondo Duplantis Confirmed For London Diamond League PV

Coronavirus Dominating The Headlines

LA Marathon To Go Ahead As Planned This Weekend Despite Coronavirus Fears
NY Times: How the Coronavirus Has Disrupted Sports Events A look at the postponements and cancellations in Asia and elsewhere.
USA Today: Coronavirus Already Creating Chaos For Tokyo Games
USATF Addresses Conovirus Concerns
NCAA Forms Coronavirus Advisory Panel At this point, NCAA championships are to go on as planned.
European Athletics Task Force To Monitor Coronavirus Outbreak

Doping News

World Steeplechase Champion Ruth Jebet Gets 4-Year Ban After Being Found Guilty Of EPO Doping She was originally suspended back in February 2018 when she failed an out-of-competition test.
AIU Head Brett Clothier Says “There Will Be [Doping] Cases Before The Olympics That Will Shock People” (article behind paywall) The AIU has made great strides in the fight against anti-doping in the three years since it was formed 3 years ago. They have double the funding the old IAAF anti-doping department had, they are completely independent and they take an intelligence-based approach to testing. Rather than doing a bunch of randomly timed tests on random athletes, they target certain athletes at specific times for specific substances.
An Interesting Non-Doping Ban: Panamanian Sprinter Virjilio Griggs Gets 4-Year Ban For Falsifying Results In Attempt To Gain Entry To The 2017 World Championships Griggs admitted to sending a document with forged results which took a meet from Texas and replaced the date/venue and the second place finisher to make it look like he ran 10.11 in the 100m.
Ukraine’s Two-Time European 800m Champ Nataliya Krol Suspended After Failing Drug Test

Mo Farah Follow-Ups

Mo Farah Explains Why He Changed His Story When Talking To USADA About L-Carnitine Farah says he forgot he had taken it and corrected the record right when Barry Fudge reminded him.
UK Officials Had Concerns About Alberto Salazar’s Use Of Medications With Mo Farah As Early As 2011 A senior UKA doctor remarked at the time: “Wonder how much other medical stuff [Salazar] may drive and not keep us informed.” Emails from the time also said UK athletes based in the US were asking UKA doctors about thyroid medication for “performance gains” because “the Americans” were taking it.
Mo Farah Says Constant Doping Questions Surrounding Him Are “Depressing” “It’s not fair on my kids and my family. … Mentally and physically it’s had an effect on me. It has made me question if I’m a bad person. Is it against me? Is it because of my colour? It makes you question everything and that’s annoying and damaging. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, but I’ve always done the right thing.”
*MB: Mo says that people constantly asking about his doping is making him depressed.

Conference Champs Weekend *USTFCCCA Conference Champs Central

SEC: *Results *Meet Home *SEC Network
Arkansas Men And Women Sweep SEC Indoor Titles Highlights included Tennessee’s Carey McLeod winning the LJ with 8.19m (17th on the all-time NCAA list) and Texas A&M’s Tyra Gittens scoring 4391 points in the heptathlon (23rd all-time). *Day 1 Recap

ACC: *Results *Meet Home *ESPN Broadcast
FSU Men, Virginia Tech Women Claim ACC Indoor Titles Notre Dame’s Yared Nuguse highlighted the meet, running 3:55.62 to win the men’s mile by almost 7 seconds. VA Tech’s Sarah Edward won the women’s race in 4:37.11 and Peter Seufer won the 5k/3k double. *Friday Recap

MPSF: *Results *Meet Home *FloTrack Broadcast
BYU Men Beat Out Arizona By 4 Points To Take MPSF Title
Oregon Women Win Handily At MPSF Champs Stanford went 1-3 and 5th in the women’s mile lead by Ella Donaghu‘s 4:34.85.
Ken Goe: The Oregon Ducks Aren’t Invested In The MPSF Indoor Champs Based on the fact that they sent their top mid-d guys to BU instead.

Big 12: *Results *Meet Home *ESPN Broadcast
Iowa State Men, Texas Women Win Big 12 Indoor Champs Iowa State beat Texas Tech by 10 points while Texas dominated by almost 50. Iowa State went 1-4 and 7th in the men’s 5,000m lead by Edwin Kurgat (14:01.15) and Thomas Pollard (14:01.97). The two also went 1-2 in the 3,000m. *Day 1 Recap

Big Ten: *Results *Meet Home *FloTrack Broadcast
Indiana Men Win Big Ten Conference Champs
Ohio State Women Defend Indoor Big Ten Title They beat out Minnesota by 5 points.

Ivy (HEPS): *Results *Meet Home *ESPN Broadcast
Princeton Men And Penn Women Repeat As Ivy League Indoor Champions
MB: Sam Ellis (Princeton) pinches runner in chest to keep him from passing
Harvard Men, Cornell Women Lead After Day 1 At The Heps Both sides are close with the Harvard men just one point ahead of Penn and Princeton and Cornell women up 1.5 points ahead of Princeton.

Transgender Runner June Eastwood Wins Conference Mile Title In 4:50.28 Eastwood won the race by 3.5 seconds.
USTFCCCA Conference Champs Weekend Recap
Conference-By-Conference Team Rankings

Fast Times At BU *Results

LRC BU Last Chance Friday Results: Shadrack Kipchirchir Runs 13:08, Fast Mile/1,500s And Mary Cain’s Comeback Continues There was more fast action in Boston on Friday night highlighted by a deep men’s 5,000m where the top 6 ran under 13:14. Two UO men ran 3:55 in the mile, Cain improved to 9:07 and Kate Grace moved to #3 on the US indoor 1,000m all-time list.

LRC Karissa Schweizer Outkicks Shelby Houlihan To Crush American 3,000m Record In Boston Schweizer, Houlihan and Colleen Quigley all broke the previous American record. Vanessa Fraser – yes, Vanessa Fraser – became the 2nd-fastest American ever indoors at 5k, and Josh Thompson got the Olympic standard.