August 30, 2014 | LetsRun.com

2014 NCAA Cross-Country – LetsRun.com’s Top 10 Countdown

LRC 2014 Women’s XC Preview: Entirely Home-Grown Michigan Is #1, Michigan State Is #2 This year, the best team in Michigan may very well be the best team in the United States. Michigan State is led by NCAA steeple champ Leah O’Connor and will get a big boost from returners Sara Kroll and Julia Otwell, who redshirted in 2013. Michigan keeps its entire top seven from last year intact. AMAZINGLY all seven are Michigan natives.

Previous: *#4 Arkansas & #3 Georgetown
*#6 Florida State & #5 Butler
*#8 Stanford, #7 Oregon
*#10 Iowa State & #9 Colorado

NCAA XC Has Started

USTFCCCA: 2014 Cross-Country Is Here “In a sport that’s been mostly bleached of any messy subjectivity, cross country remains wonderfully untamed and unknowable. … Cherish the one tiny slice of the running calendar left for Not-Knowing.”
Florida Men And Women Sweep Western Carolina XC Invite
fishduck.com Previews Oregon Men’s And Women’s XC Season They return their top individuals in Edward Cheserek and Annie Leblanc and have Sarah Baxter as an incoming freshman.
Running Times: Five Storylines For The 2014 College Cross-Country Season Can anyone challenge CU men or Cheserek? Who are the favorites on the women’s side?
Coach Khadevis Robinson Excited For LSU XC Season To Start Up
So Is Football: Interview With Oregon NCAA 110H Champ Devon Allen On Football And The Prospects Of A Pro Track Career He also talks about accumulating Twitter followers, his football talent and playing with Oregon in the 2013 NCAA Football video game.

2014 Weltklasse Zürich *Full Results

W 1,500 LRC Jenny Simpson Does It – Wins Diamond League Final And Title By Diving Across The Finish Line Jenny Simpson threw herself across the finish line, just holding off Shannon Rowbury, to win the race and DL crown plus lay claim to the title of “World’s Best 1,500 Runner.”

M 5,000 LRC Caleb Ndiku Wins Race & Diamond League Title; Galen Rupp Hangs On For 3rd Rupp was right with Ndiku with 200 to go and didn’t quite have enough but still hung on for his best 5,000 of the year. Ben True (8th) also ran well and was in contention at the bell.

Amos with the tongue wag at the finish

M 800 LRCNijel Amos Wins Vs. A Loaded Field To Show He’s Best In The World In 2014 Let there be no doubt. Nijel Amos is the best 800m man in the world in 2014. Amos, already the Commonwealth Games champion and the African champion, is now the Diamond League champion after his 1:43.77 win versus a stacked field.

LRC Analysis: MB: Big Drama in Zurich: Official 2014 Wetlklasse Zürich DL Discussion Thread

The Rest Of The Meet

LRC Zurich Full Recap: Hiwot Ayalew Wins DL Title In Women’s Steeple; Seven Americans Win DL Titles Tunisia’s Habiba Ghribi beat Ayalew (2nd) and Emma Coburn (5th) in the race, but Ayalew still won the DL title and the $40,000 prize that goes with it. Americans to win DL titles included Jenny Simpson (1,500), Tianna Bartoletta (LJ), Reese Hoffa (SP), Christian Taylor (TJ), Michael Tinsley (400 hurdles), LaShawn Merritt (400) and Dawn Harper-Nelson (100 hurdles).

Outside Links: GB Women Break 4 X 100m National Record
*IAAF: Thomas Rohler Wins Jav, Christian Taylor TJ, Kemar Bailey-Cole (9.98) Men’s 100
*IAAF: Alonso Edward Wins 200, Cornel Fredericks 400H, VCB Wins w100, Dawn Harper Nelson 100H
*IAAF Field Events: Kuchina Wins wHJ, Reese Hoffa mSP, Tianna Bartoletta wLJ
*Trinidad And Tobago’s Olympic Javelin Champ Keshorn Walcott Breaks His Own NR With 85.77m He was only 2nd, though, as Germany’s Thomas Rohler won with 87.63m.

Former Temple Discus Thrower Claims She Was Bullied, Sexually Groped – Suing For $10 Million The Temple News has written more than 7,000 words on this but for some reason won’t mention the name of the coach who allegedly groped the athlete. Head coach Eric Mobley has been fired.

Philip Hersh: Why Isn’t The IOC Celebrating The 30th Anniversary Of The 1984 LA Games, Which Saved The Modern Olympic Movement

Next Month’s Road Races

Upcoming: Solid 800 Action Set For Sunday In Berlin

Tomorrow: Mohammed Aman Faces Solid 800 Field As The Highlight Of ISTAF Berlin Meet He faces Taoufik Makhloufi, Adam Kszczot and Olympic 800m bronze medalist Timothy Kitum.
Monday: Good Fields Set For USA 20K Champs: Molly Huddle Faces Amy Hastings, Amy Van Alstine, Becky Wade And Adriana Nelson Men’s side has Chriso Landry, Sean Quigley, Diego Estrada, Matt Llano, Fernando Cabada.
Cool Race Sep. 6th: Christine Ohurogu, Lynsey Sharp, Jenny Meadows And Eilidh Child To Race Over 500m At Great North CityGames Two 800 runners vs. 400 and 400H sprinters. Should be interesting.
Yuki Kawauchi Racing Sunday’s City To Surf Marathon In Australia
Two Weeks: Africa Announces Team For IAAF Continental Cup Stacked distance squads including Nijel Amos, Mohammed Aman, Caleb Ndiku, Isiah Koech, Eunice Sum, Hellen Obiri, Genzebe Dibaba, Hiwot Ayalew.
Preview Of Sunday’s Hokkaido Marathon – Masanori Sakai (2:09) And Yuri Kano (2:24) Lead Men’s And Women’s Fields

US Distance News

Sara Hall Postpones Fall Marathon Debut After Her Appendix Bursts She says her training was going very well, but then she had to have emergency surgery and lost too much running time to run her marathon debut this fall.
Matt Elliott Taking Two-Year Leave Of Absence From His Teaching Job To Try To Make 2016 Olympics
Good Profile On Kate Grace, Who’s Made Big Strides The Last Two Years To Be One Of The Top US Mid-D Runners Asked if she had expected to make such big improvements in such a short amount of time she said, “Is it weird to say yes? Or, I think to be an athlete, human?, is to dream big.”
A Look Inside Alexa Efraimson’s Decision To Turn Pro Her coach, Mike Hickey, said he sometimes consults with Alberto Salazar for advice and it’s possible Efraimson could could occasionally join Mary Cain for workouts.
Interesting Q&A With Phoebe Wright About Random Running And Non-Running Stuff She says her most embarrassing running moment is when she peed her pants at NCAAs.
Kim Conley Blogs About Base Training Back At Home In Sacramento

International Distance News

Olympic Cross-Country Skier Kristin Størmer Steira Wins Norwegian Track 10K Championships She said, “It was surprisingly fun. I thought 25 laps around a track would be boring, but it was a good atmosphere.”
Former 800 Olympic Champ Wilfred Bungei Elected Nandi County Athletics Kenya Chairman
Triathlete Pulls, Carries And Pushes His Twin Brother With Cerebral Palsy To Finish Line Of Ironman Steen Mondrup used special equipment to bring his brother Peder through the course in 14 hours, 42 minutes.

Huffington Post: “Big Five Have Changed College Sports Forever” “Goodbye Boise State. Goodbye Butler. Cinderellas are no longer welcome in big-time college sports.”