Mo Farah In The News

• Mo Farah Admits To Lying About His Link To Jama Aden Farah says that when he was asked about it years ago and said Aden was just a fan that asked for a “selfie,” he was lying and in reality he’s “known Jama for many years.” Farah also says he doesn’t regret not leaving Salazar earlier when allegations came out in 2015 as that would have meant uprooting his whole family with little notice.
• Athletics Weekly: Mo Farah Tackles Tough Topics Farah says he’s suffered “financially and emotionally” due to his links with Alberto Salazar. He his coach Gary Lough also say they were “blindsided” by the news when Salazar’s ban was announced.
• Former UK Athletics Chairman Ed Warner Says He Advised Mo Farah To Leave Alberto Salazar In 2015 Warner: “I would have loved Mo to walk away. …I personally tried to persuade him to change coach. …He was adamant he wasn’t going to change his coach.”

Trials Question Of The Day

LRC  Which “Old Guy” — Ritz (37), Abdi (43), or Lagat (45),  Has Best Shot at Marathon Trials? Ritz (37) will be Lagat’s age (45) in LA 2028 which is nuts.
*Yesterday: Trials Question of the Day: Will Jordan Hasay Make the Olympic Team?

• RRW: Just Back From Training In Kenya, Bernard Lagat Eyes Record Sixth Olympic Team
• Large Panel Of Marathon Experts (Which Included LRC’s Jon Gault) Predicts Olympic Trials Top-3 For the men, they chose Jared Ward, Leonard Korir and Galen Rupp. Emily Sisson, Molly Huddle and Sara Hall for the women.
• Interesting: Runner’s World Chooses Their “Best Moments At The Olympic Marathon Trials”
• Carrie Tollefson Interviews Tierney Wolfgram, The Youngest Competitor In The Olympic Marathon Trials Wolfgram ran 2:40:03 as a 15-year-old to qualify.

Will This Current HS Phenom Ever Make The Olympics?

LRC LRC Q&A: NXN Champ Nico Young on His Favorite Race, Toughest Workout, & Why He Chose NAU Nico also shares who his favorite pros are – Galen Rupp and Justyn Knight.

• DyeStat Video Interview

March / April Road Race News

• Chicago Marathon Champ Lawrence Cherono Will Replace Mo Farah At The London Half Marathon On March 1st Farah pulled out with injury, so now Cherono will be the one to go up against Kenenisa Bekele.
• Nagoya Women’s Marathon In Japan Limited To Elite Runners Because Of Coronavirus Fears Like Tokyo, next month’s Nagoya Marathon has cancelled the mass participation race.
• Boston Mayor Marty Walsh Says Coronavirus Should Not Affect The Boston Marathon There has been one case of coronavirus in Boston and Walsh says, “I think we have to be very careful in overreacting to a situation that isn’t there.”
• After Setting 5k WR, Joshua Cheptegei Turns His Attention To His Half Marathon Debut At The World Half Marathon Championships Next Month In Poland

The Jemma Reekie Show

• GB’s Jemma Reekie Gets Her Biggest Scalp Yet As She Beats 800m World Champ Halimah Nakaayi In France Reekie ran 2:00.34 to beat Nakaayi (2:01.96) by over a second and a half.
• Laura Muir: “The faster Jemma’s got, the closer we’ve got.” Despite the fact that Reekie has been beating Muir and breaking her records, Muir says “sorry to disappoint you, but it’s not a big rivalry.”
• Jemma Reekie Dismisses Link Between Her Nike Spikes And Recent Record-Breaking Form “It doesn’t happen overnight and there’s a lot of hard work. … I will just let my legs do the talking.”
• Laura Muir Happy With Her Form Despite Being Outshone By Her Training Partner Jemma Reekie Muir missed a lot of training this winter when she tore her calf and hurt her Achilles.
• The Telegraph: “Jemma Reekie’s Coach Andy Young says 2020 Olympics Is En ‘Exciting Opportunity’ As Her Rapid Rise Continues”
• Jemma Reekie’s Coach Andy Young Thinks Her “Special Kick” Could Take Her To Olympic Glory Reekie has set three British records this month and closed her last lap in 30.1 seconds during her 4:04 win in Glasgow.
• Sean Ingle: “Record-breaking middle-distance duo staying on message in Olympic year”
• The Telegraph: “The incredible rise of Jemma Reekie: How Britain’s overnight middle-distance sensation stepped up to rival Laura Muir”

More Weekend News Of Note

• NAU Soars 9 Spots To Move To #1 In The Latest Men’s NCAA Rankings LSU, Florida, Texas and Oregon are ranked 2-5.
• LSU Jumps Five Spots To Take Over As The New #1 In Women’s Updated NCAA Rankings
• USTFCCCA NCAA Weekend In Review Olivia Gruver finished 3rd in the PV at USAs with 4.70m, the second best in collegiate history.
• US HSer Cruz  Culpepper Just Misses Sub-4 With A 4:00.10 Mile At The Husky Classic Culpepper placed 6th in the race won by Oregon’s James West in 3:57.43.
  *MB: WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT CULPEPPER’S 4:00.1???
• Marlee Starliper Runs US High School #3 All-Time 3,000m With 9:07.14 At BU Valentine Only Katelyn Tuohy and Mary Cain have run faster on a standard 200m track.
• WA Road Round-Up: Kenya’s Victor Chumo (59:58) And Ethiopia’s Ashete Bekere (66:37) Win Barcelona Half Marathon Kenyans Benson Kipruto (62:13) and Lucy Cheruiyot (70:52) won at the Guadalajara Half.
• Grant Holloway And Keni Harrison Both Skip USAs To Run World Leading 60H At Clemson Holloway ran  (just 0.03 off his PR) and Harrison won with 7.80.
• Japanese Olympic Trials Winner Honami Maeda Breaks National 30k Record With 1:38:35 At The Ome 30k The record belonged to 2004 Olympic champion Mizuki Noguchi. Masaya Taguchi won the women’s race in 1:30:45.

More International Weekend Results

• Caster Semenya Runs Her First Race In 8 Months; Breaks National 300m Record With 36.78 At Low Key South African Meet Semenya is barred from racing distances from 400m to the mile, but 300m obviously falls outside that range. Afterwards she said, “Track and field, you will still see my face. That is all I can say for now.”
  *AP Article Semenya previously made it sound like she was going to play soccer and done with track completely.
• Julia Ratcliffe Breaks NZ Hammer Record With 71.39m At The Porritt Classic In NZ Nick Willis won the 1,500m comfortably in 3:46.71 and Valerie Adams continued her comeback with a season’s best 18.81m in the SP.
• Germany’s World LJ Champ Malaika Mihambo Sets World Lead With 7.07m At The ISTAF Berlin Indoor Meet Three-time European bronze medalist Shanice Craft won the discus with a world indoor best of 64.03m. *Full Results
• Nafissatou Thiam Opens Her Season With 60H At Belgian Indoor Champs Thiam finished 4th in 8.34 (the second fastest time of her career). Eline Berings won the race in 8.10.
• British PV Record Holder Holly Bradshaw Wins BUCS Indoor Championships With 4.65m
• Mesud Pezer, Of Bosnia & Herzegovina, Wins Shot Put At Balkan Indoor Champs (20.75m) And Istanbul Athletics Cup (20.90m) Both meets were this weekend in Istanbul.

Day 1 At USAs

LRC Day 1 Recap: Shelby Houlihan, Paul Chelimo Earn Dominant 3K Wins Thanks To Big Last Laps The best distance runners in the US the last three years, Shelby Houlihan and Paul Chelimo were on display. Houlihan led the BTC women to 1-2-3 finish (and 5 of the top 6), and Chelimo led the Scott Simmons group to a 1-2-3 finish as well. Christian Coleman (6.48) looks like he can break the WR in the 60 and the TJ record fell twice (Keturah Orji (14.60m), Tori Franklin (14.64m)).

LRC 800 Prelims: Ajee’ Wilson And Bryce Hoppel Cruise As Athing Mu Struggles; Raevyn Rogers Is A DNS The biggest surprise may have been Kaela Edwards as the former NCAA mile champ showed the form she flashed in 2018 when she broke 2:00.

Not Every US Distance Star Ran USAs
MB: Jenny Simpson runs 14:58 5k She wanted to bang out an Olympic qualifier in the 5000 in case disaster strikes in the 1500.
MB: Bowerman Track Club men and Jerry Schumacher- Skip USAs to run on illegal track in Washington Lopez Lomong (7:45), Evan Jager (7:46), Sean McGorty (7:46).
MB: LRC Day 1 Thread