NCAA XC *World Famous Make Your Predictions In the LRC NCAA XC Contest *DII Contest Here

LRC LetsRun.com Previews of the 2009 NCAA Men's XC Meet Stanford or Oklahoma State? Derrick or Chelanga? At the start of the year, it would be preposterous to even ask those two questions as on paper the race is a blowout - OK St. and Chelanga win. THE story of 2009 has been the amazing rise of the loveable, upstart underdogs in Stanford and Derrick (who ever thought Stanford would be described as an upstart underdog?). Can Stanford and Derrick win it? The LRC nation thinks so.
*Back By Popular Demand:
Grote Poll Ranks Top 31 Men's XC Teams

LRC
LetsRun.com Previews The Women's NCAA Meet  Employee #1 was threatened with company downsizing unless he wrote a decent women's preview and we're happy to say he came through with stats, analysis and predictions galore. The best preview you'll read anywhere will give you all you need to know about the favorites - Washington and Jenny Barringer - and their top challengers.

NCAA Profiles, Press Conferences And Interviews:
*Recommended Read
Great Article On Twin Power Between Oregon's Mercado Twins Running Last XC Race Together Monday We know all about twin power here at LetsRun.com. The clutch performance of the unheralded Mercado twins were the reason Oregon won their first team XC title in 30 years in 2007. Vin Lananna made a tough call and decided to run them and they came through big time.
*Press Conference Transcript With Mick Byrne Byrne is the craftiest coach in the NCAA.
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Jenny Barringer Hopes To Achieve Ultimate NCAA Dream Of XC Champ
*Chris Derrick And Elliot Heath Confident In Stanford Paper

*Don't Forget DII, DIII And NAIA: Neely Spence Set For Showdown With 2x Champ Jessica Pixler At Saturday's DII Nationals

First Time Ever: LetsRun.com NCAA Division II Prediction Polls

Recommended Read:
Brief Chat With Oklahoma State Coach Dave Smith Dave Smith talks about his top 5 in detail and you might be surprised to find out who he predicts to be their strongest runner. Also, he downplays his team's chances against Stanford and talks training and recruiting. Chris Derrick, Smith's favorite to win the championships, is USATF athlete of the week.

Translated Dutch Interview With Florida State's Susan Kuijken Indicates She May Be Ready To Test Jenny Barringer Some experts are saying NCAA 1,500m champion and XC runner-up Susan Kuijken is the only runner out there who can challenge Jenny Barringer. Kuijken seems to think she has the speed to do it. The question is can she keep up in the middle of the race?

World Marathon Major Series Champions Wanjiru And Mikitenko Will Run In Melbourne 15k Next Week Wanjiru's getting back to racing less than two months after a cold, windy marathon in Chicago.

Nick Arciniaga Writes About What He Was Feeling In the NYC Marathon Normally we wouldn't put up every blog written by a runner, but we found this one interesting. Arciniaga, former US #1 finisher at Boston and true blue collar Hansons-Brooks runner, beat most of the big US names in New York by not blowing up when the going got tough.

LRC: The Week That Was Last week was an interesting one, as the NCAA cross-country field was set, Tirunesh Dibaba set a world record and one of the top 10 US milers in history announced his retirement to the world on the world-famous LetsRun.com message board. We break it all down for you and tell you who are the biggest surprises and flops in NCAA cross-country, plus we celebrate the 10th birthday of WADA, introduce you to the future of ultra marathoning and read Ryan Hall's and Shannon Rowbury's blogs.

DII XC Champs Preview Jessica Pixler and Neely Spence are set for a great race on the women's side.

Hot Weather Slows Runners In Deep Ageo City Half Marathon Last year, if you ran 73:00, you didn't finish in the top 500 and sub-65:30 was necessary for a top 100 finish in this insanely deep Japanese half marathon. This year, unexpected hot weather took its toll on the runners.

IAAF XC Hopes For Return Of Stars Tirunesh Dibaba And Kenenisa Bekele After Season Missed Due To Injury *IAAF XC Calendar: Season Stretches From Nov - March

USATF Announces Hall Of Fame Nominees Joetta Clark Diggs won seven Millrose Games 800m championships.

Recommended Free Online Documentary: "There are no miracles in sport. You know where there are miracles? In training." - Quote from a documentary on the man behind Hungary's hammer-throwing success: Pál Németh. We found the video thanks to a hammer-throwing LetsRun reader who sent us his review of the film. LetsRun Fan Writes Review Of Rare Film About Hammer Throwing

Scandal Berlino The Bear Is Unveiled The man behind the mascot of the year is 33-year-old actor Oliver Seiffert.

Priscilla Lopes-Schliep And Coach Win Canadian Athlete/Coach Of The Year

Insane: Bill For 2014 Commonwealths In Glasgow Headed Toward$ A Billion
These huge bills can't be sustainable. How about not just having "green" events but making them affordable?

Austrian Drug Cheats Could Face Up To 10-Year Prison Sentences
Harsh punishments are proven to deter crime-doers, right?

Historical Article On Australian Soldier Taken From the Front Line To The Olympic Marathon Start Line

Regional Results *All NCAA Results

2009 NCAA D1 XC Selections Are Announced The screwy NCAA XC selection system didn't produce screwy results, as only 1 nationally ranked team didn't advance (#26 Butler) on the men's side. On the women's side, the 4 lowest-ranked teams (#27 Cal, #28 Arkansas, #29 Tennessee and #30 Iowa) didn't advance. More: *Oregonian Recap Of West Regional *Jordan Hasay & Trevor Dunbar Have Made Their Marks As Freshmen

Ryan Gregson Wins 3k In Australia It was a tactical affair and Gregson blasted the field to win in 8:00 to capture his first open state title. He'll have one more race as a junior before he turns his attention to making the Australian Commonwealth Games team.

Sprint News

Usain Bolt To Have 9.58 SuperParty On December 4/5 & It Looks Like Everyone Is Invited He's already invited Tiger Woods, Emmit Smith, Deion Sanders and Michael Jordan. *Official SuperParty Website
*Dwain Chambers Writes About What It's Like To Compete Against Usain Bolt And Says He Knew Bolt Was Something Special Back In 2006
*Daniel Bailey Says Move To Jamaica & Glen Mills Was Key To His Success

Steph Twell Wins XC Race & Then Looks For Funds To Pay Her Coach Her coach was sacked in a recent UK Athletics restructuring.

Japan Does Well As Asian Games Conclude And a bunch of ex-Kenyans dominated the 10km. *Day 4 Recap *Full Results

Stanford Men Crush West Regional, Going 1, 2, 3 Cardinal scores 1/4 of Oregon's points as Ducks collapse. *Men's Results Oregon loses to Portland. *Women's Results Jordan Hasay 2nd place, UW wins.
*Recap From Oregon Athletics With Athlete, Coach Quotes

Gender

IAAF: No Gold Medal Deal Has Been Made
South Africa/Media: Caster Semenya To Keep Gold Medal
The media is acting like this issue has been resolved, but it is far from over. The gender tests have yet to be finished and will be kept private. All that is resolved There is still doubt as to whether Semenya will keep her gold medal, her world title and prize money. Also to be resolved: 1) whether Semenya will be allowed to compete in the future as a woman and 2) whether the other medallists will be moved up in the standings (you could have two gold medal winners if the IAAF concludes Semenya had an unfair advantage). This is the IAAF saving face and saying Semenya did nothing wrong and does not deserve to be punished. But as one message poster said, "why are they announcing that she will keep it when they don't even have the results of the test? This is outrageous."
On the boards: Caster Semenya Will Keep Gold

Recommended Read Matt Fitzgerald Interviews Kara Goucher On Training Details Kara talks about running easy days easy, trying to hit mileage, writing workouts on the fly and everything training with experienced athlete and writer Matt Fitzgerald. Every article on Kara usually has some sort of agenda, but Fitzgerald actually paints the whole picture, not calling Salazar a science-only or feel-only coach.

LetsRun.com 2009 NYC Marathon Prediction Contest Winners Revealed The contests always bring out the best in LetsRun.com visitors. This one was no different. We had an astrophysicist become a double winner and a former CU Buff, Keenan Robbins, come out on top. Plus, our runner-up tells you who will win NCAAs and what will happen to Alan Webb in 2010. If you didn't do so hot in this prediction contest, you have another chance coming up. Click here to get your predictions in for the LRC Men's and Women's NCAA XC Championship Prediction Contest.

SI Journalist David Epstein Tells Us Why Scientists Are Just Starting To Speak Out On Pistorius Technicalities prevented the research that may ban "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius from able-bodied Olympics from coming out pre-2008.

Wall Street Journal Article On Nutty Obsessive Distance Runners "It's an obsession. No different than gambling, drinking or doing drugs." - Lawyer Eugene DeFronzo.

Drugs

Moroccan Drug Cheat Rashid Ramzi Officially Stripped Of Olympic 1,500m Gold Medal *LRC Boards: Ramzi Out! Asbel Kiprop is officially an Olympic gold medal winner - a nice consolation after a subpar championship season for the young Kenyan. Of course, rehabbing Kiwi Nick Willis gets silver and Frenchman Mehdi Baala gets bronze.
*Show Me The Money - Gulf States Buy Place On World Stage

More Off-The-Track News

South African Track & Field Big Wigs Locked Out Of Offices As Police Are Summoned To Remove Stubborn Senior Leader

International Stallions In The News

EPSOM DERBY "Usain Bolt was Shergar, Sea the Stars, and Nijinsky rolled into one." - Quote from apparent thoroughbred horse handicapper Dwain Chambers, who writes about trying to convince himself he could beat Usain Bolt.

Craig Mottram On His Comeback, His New Coach And His Race Plans The Big Mazungo should make things even more interesting in the men's 5,000m with his return.

Brit Triple Jumper Phillips Idowu Is Euro And British Athlete Of The Year And Says He's Still After Jonathan Edwards Idowu loves to chat it up in the press.

Interviews With Distance Athletes And Coaches

Weekend Road Action

Zevenheuvelenloop 15km
Tirunesh Dibaba Shatters 15km World Record In only the 2nd road race of her life, the double Olympic champ Dibaba ran 46:28 to chop 27 seconds off the old record. Her husband Sileshi Sihine won the men's race for the 3rd time in a sprint over Uganda's Nicholas Kiprono, who set a new national record of 42:14. *LRC MB: Tirunesh Dibaba 46:30 WR In Dutch 15km *Video Highlights Of Race *Pre-Race Press Conference Video

Inaugural Yokohama Women's Marathon

Inga Abitova Wins (2:27:18) As Catherine Ndereba And Constantina Dita Falter Ndereba ran okay and was 3rd in 2:29, but Dita was only 11th in 2:36. The race replaced the old Tokyo Women's marathon and consisted of three 13km loops. Abitova went to the lead at the start of the last loop.

Rock N Roll San Antonio Marathon

Gilbert Koech Wins (2:14) As Kenyans Go 1-5 Russian women took 3 of the top 5. In the half marathon, Josh Cox ran 66:44 as Wesley Keating edged Shadrack Songok in 65:24.

*Tegla Loroupe Peace Race Recap

A Look At The Ridiculous Amounts That Many Of The Gulf States Are Spending On Sports Paying off Kenyans to switch nationalities is nothing compared to what it costs to have Tiger Woods design his first golf course.

Recommended Read: Chris Lukezic On Frustrating 2008 And 2009 And Why He Announced Retirement At Age 25 Chris Lukezic, who ran 3:33 as a 22 y/o, talked with Runner's World's Peter Gambaccini and spelled out why his last couple years of total dedication to running have been frustrating. He also talks about his new business called AirBnB, which sounds like it could be a big thing for travelers.

Recap Of Tegla Loroupe's Courageous Run For Peace In Kenya

Fan Voting Now Open For Bowerman Award - Best NCAA Track & Field Athlete Of 2009 Ashton Eaton, Galen Rupp and German Fernandez are your men's options while Porscha Lucas, Destinee Hooker and Jenny Barringer are the female triumvirate.

News From Literally Around The World *New Slogan? LetsRun.com - Where Your Kid Can Come To Learn Geography

Australia Aussie Ryan Gregson Hopes To Lower His 7:57 3,000m Best Today Coincidence that Gregson and German Fernandez race on the same day? No way.

Jamaica Big-Time Jamaican Sprint Coach Steve Francis Says Jamaica Loves To Take Athletes' Tax Dollars But Doesn't Give Back To The Stars Steve Francis: officially the most popular coach in Jamaica now.