Championship Bidding News: USA Favorites For 2024?

• NY Times Article On Eugene’s Bid For 2019 World Champs And The Popularity Of Track In The United States Some are dreaming that Eugene winning the bid for 2019 Worlds could go a long way in increasing the popularity of track in the US.
• USA May Be The Very Early 2024 Olympic Bid Favorite Potential US bid cities are Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco or Washington D.C..
• After Hosting Commonwealth Games This Year, Glasgow Bidding For 2019 European Indoor Championships

The New York City Marathon Is Next Weekend

• At 41 Years Old, Deena Kastor Looking To Run NYC Faster Than She Did In Her Debut 13 Years Ago In 2001, Kastor ran 2:26:58 and is shooting for 2:25 this year. If she can do that, she’ll break Colleen de Reuck‘s 2:28:40 US master’s record.
• Stephan Shay Racing NYC To Honor His Brother, Ryan, Who Died During The 2008 Olympic Marathon Trials Shay is hoping to break his 2:16:48 PR and will use his brother’s memory as motivation as he passes the spot where Ryan collapsed back in 2007.
• 5 Questions With Kara Goucher, Who Says She Has A “Conservative Goal” To Run 2:28 In NYC This will be her first marathon in a year and a half as she was out with stress fractures. It will be her first time at NYC since she made her debut in 2008.
• ESPNW: How Kara Goucher Finds Time For Family, Marathon Training And Herself Goucher shares her advice for fellow moms who still want to exercise.

• Half A Million $$$ On The Line: Former WR Holder Wilson Kipsang Will Need To Cross The Line First In NYC To Win The Overall World Marathon Majors Series Right now Kipsang is 3rd in the standings behind Dennis Kimetto and Tsegaye Kebede.

• IAAF Profile On German Steeplechaser And Cancer Survivor Antje Moldner-Schmidt She was diagnosed with lymph node cancer in 2010, but had an amazing comeback as by 2012 was back to winning national titles and this year won European Champs.  
• DyeStat Video Interview With Alexa Efraimson Catching Up With Her About The Start Of Her Pro Career Her next races will be a XC race on November 1st and then the San Jose Turkey Trot.
• London Marathon To Stage 2015 IPC Athletics Marathon World Champs This is 6 months ahead of the IPC World Champs in Doha in October.

Marathon News: Frankfurt Is Sunday

• 2:04:32 Man Tsegaye Mekonnen Leads Field Of Ten Sub-2:09 Men For Sunday’s Frankfurt Marathon His top competition will be Vincent Kipruto (2:05:13). CR holder Meselech Melkamu (2:21:01) leads women’s field as she faces Aberu Kebede (2:20:30) and Sharon Cherop (2:22:28).
  *2011 World Bronze Medalist And Two-Time Boston Winner Sharon Cherop Was A Late Entry To Frankfurt
• Caroline Wozniacki Credits Marathon Training For Tennis Endurance As She Defeats Maria Sharapova In 3-Hour, 15-Minute Match “I just feel like right now with all the training and running I’ve been doing …”
• Marathon WR Holders Dennis Kimetto And Paula Radcliffe Will Race Montferland Run 15K On December 7th
• Australia’s Commonwealth Games Marathon Champ Michael Shelley Gives His Advice On “How To Win A Marathon”
• Yokohama International Women’s Marathon To Be Discontinued After This Year’s Race The race is being stopped due to financial difficulties and also likely the starting up for a mass-participation race, the Yokohama Marathon.

• Oscar Pistorius Spends His First Night In Jail He was placed in a single cell in the hospital wing where 8 other disabled inmates are held away form the regular prison population.
• SA Sports Minister: “For me, that [Pistorius’s conviction and sentence] was the end of the road of his journey … I do not think Oscar will be able to come back in terms of athletics.”
• Reeva Steenkamp’s Parents Say They Don’t Want “Revenge” On Oscar Pistorius Or For Him To Be Harmed, They Just Wanted A “Fair Punishment”

• Group Of Runners In South Carolina Hear Screams And Find Woman Who Had Been Missing For 4 Days She was found trapped in a ravine and had to be pulled out by rescue workers. Her parents say that someone put her there and “left her to die.”
• Academic Advisers At UNC Get Caught Encouraging Athletes To Take “Sham Classes” As GPA Boosters Apparently this went on over an 18-year period. One of the classes would let students write one 10-page paper in place of ever having to go to class or contribute to discussions.
• Flocasts Using Its Recent $8 Million In Funding To Expand Into Other Sports They might move into volleyball or lacrosse.

Nick Symmonds’ Book Is Out

LRCBook Review: Life Outside The Oval Office, By Nick Symmonds

• Track Wins 3 Out Of 12 Awards At The Golden Podium Awards The competition highlights the best sports video sequences of the year. One of the awards was won by a video of the US’s 4 x 100 baton exchange at World Relay Champs. The three videos are here, here and here.
• IAAF Inside Athletics: Ato Boldon Interviews US’s 2004 Olympic 100H Champ Joanna Hayes
• Spikes Mag Gives A Quick Rundown Of The 6 AOY Finalists Dennis Kimetto, Mutaz Essa Barshim and Renaud Lavillenie for the men. Genzebe Dibaba, Valerie Adams and Dafne Schippers for the women.
• Special Seminar In Italy Planned To Mark 50th Anniversary Of Valeriy Brumel’s 1964 Olympic HJ Victory The title of the seminar translates to, “The Straddle: the beauty of a style which was an art before it became a sport.”
• Athletics Canada Announces New Identity And New Bilingual Logo The logo is pretty cool.

RIP Czech 1968 Olympic HJ Champ Miloslava Rezkova-Hubnerov
*IAAF Obit

 This Weekend’s Road Action

• 21-Year-Old Abraham Cheroben Wins Valencia Half In World-Leading 58:48 Cheroben moves to 5th fastest in history but wasn’t satisfied as he thought warmer-than-ideal conditions kept him from the WR. “I’m convinced I can break the 58-minute barrier.” Kenneth Kipkemoi was second in 59:01. Doper Matthew Kisorio pushed the pace and ran 59:50. 2-time World XC winner Emily Chebet won the women’s race in a course record of 1:08:01. No info on Patrick Makau.
• Bernard Kipyego (2:06:22) And Ethiopia’s Betelhem Moges (2:28:35) Claim Victory In Amsterdam Three time defending champ Wilson Chebet was a DNF after 30k, two-time world champ Abel Kirui was 5th in 2:09. The women’s race went out in 1:12:40 but came home slower. Burundi’s Diane Nukuri Johnson got a new national record of 2:29:35 for third. *The Standard
• Laban Korir (2:08:15) & Mulu Seboka (2:23:14) Win 2014 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon (updated with article) Korir has a 2:06:05 PR.; it was the third win on the year for Seboka. Canadian Eric Gillis PRed at 2:11:22.
  *MB Thread
• Beijing Marathon Runners Don Masks To Cope With Hazardous Smog The US Embassy said the conditions were “hazardous” but the race went on.
  *Girmay Birhanu Gebru Of Ethiopia Wins Beijing In 2:10:42 Without Mask He has a 2:05:49 PR. Fatuma Sado won the women’s race in 2:30:03.
  *Video: Is Beijing The World’s Unhealthiest Marathon? As runners cross the finish line, you can see they were visibly affected by the smog.
  *IAAF Recap
  *MB Joker: Galen Rupp to make marathon debut in Beijing in 2015

• Kenyans Joel Kimutai (61:39), Polline Wanjiku (70:48) Get Upset Wins At Bupa Great North Birmingham Run 26:51 man Emmanuel Bett only ran 62:33 and Linet Masai only 71:45 in her 13.1 debut.
  *IAAF Recap
• Future Star? 3:39 1,500 Runner Kota Murayama Front-Runs And Gets Fastest-Ever Japanese Win (58:26) At Yosenkai 20k – The World’s Deepest 20k

International Stuff

• Amantle Montsho Seeing Psychologist For Counseling To Deal With Positive Drug Test Montsho has asked for a hearing and the Botswana Athletics Association hopes her case will be done in the next two months.
• Ireland’s Fionnuala Britton Prepping For Euro XC Champs And Hoping To Regain The Title She Lost Last Year When She Was 4th Her attitude about World XC was disappointing as she said, “I’d like to do the world cross-country but it’s in China. It’s not like just going over to Poland.” Does she know where 2015 Outdoor Champs are?
• UK 41-Year-Old Jo Pavey Targeting Her Fifth Olympic Games In Rio 2016 Pavey had thought about retiring after this year, but then she medaled at Commonwealth Games and Euro Champs and that changed her mind.
• Chaos At Indian Marathon As Leaders Miss Turn And Take Bus To The Finish Line The top 3 were taken off course by the lead vehicle and ran 4K in the wrong direction. Apparently they borrowed money from spectators for the bus, but we don’t know why the lead car couldn’t take them.

NCAA XC Action *Pre-Nats Results *Wisconsin Results *All NCAA Results

LRC #1 Colorado Men Crush #2 Oregon, #4 Georgetown Upsets #1 Michigan Women (Results) Edward Cheserek and Rachel Johnson were your individual winners. Colorado had 6 in the top 14.
*Official Pre-Nats Discussion Thread

LRC Instant Analysis Of Men’s Race At 2014 adidas Wisconsin: Syracuse Puts On A Clinic And Arrives On The National Stage Chris Fox‘s harriers showed the nation how pack running is done as they had five finishers within 14 seconds, all in the top 24, as they dominated the 18 other ranked teams and got the win. *Official 2014 adidas Wisconsin Discussion Thread

Journalism At Its Finest – A Highly Recommended Read: 

If You Read One Thing Today, Let It Be This: For Former AR Holder And World #1, Tyke Peacock, It’s Been A Long Road Back From Drug Addiction And Prison Peacock was the AR holder in 1983 in the HJ and on top of the world. A year later, he reveals that he purposely bombed out of the OTrials as he knew he wouldn’t pass the drug test. Prison soon was on the horizon but a judge gave him lenience 4 years ago and he’s been sober ever since.

Stuff Worth Reading

• MB: Alan Webb’s switch to the triathlon gets featured in the NY Times
  *MB: Alan Webb AND Lukas Verzbicus in last World cup in korea this weekend
• Finally Having Fun: Brent Vaughn Finds New Perspective As A Pro Who Works Construction And Raises A Family Versus Just Running
• ESPN Takes A Look At Bob Schul’s Gold – 50 Years After The Fact – And His Amazing 1964 Track Season Schul is still the only American to ever win Olympic 5,000 gold.
• American Mile Legend Steve Scott Being Treated For Prostate Cancer Scott, the former AR holder in the mile, broke four 137 times in his career.
  *Steve Scott’s Cancer Gets Article In LA Times
• Q&A With Amy Hastings After Her 5th-Place Showing In Chicago She says she actually had some better workouts before NYC last year when she bombed 2:42 versus the 2:27 she ran in Chicago.
• Interesting Q&A With Japanese Running News’ Brett Larner About His Website And Role In The Running World
• Cemetery Holding Road Races On Grounds To Attract New Clients
• Eugene Register-Guard Takes A Look At Nick Symmonds’ Life Outside The Oval Office

Kenyans Making News

• Cool Stuff: 5-Time World XC And 1988 Seoul Olympic 5,000m Champion John Ngugi Has Been Coaching HSers In Britain For The Past Week
• Ezra Sang, Caroline Kilel Win Masai Mara Half Marathon In Kenya
• Another Kenyan – Edwin Rutto – Is Starring At St. Benedicts HS In NJ (Same School As Cheserek) Rutto is already a sub-16 performer at Holmdel.

Random

• Exercise May Lower Depression Risk By 19 Percent
• Alan Abrahamson Thinks Surfing Should Be Part – A Big Part – Of Summer Olympics

Oscar P Sentencing

• Prosecutor Nel Demands 10 Years Jail For Pistorius – Sentencing Will Come Tuesday
• Columnist Is Irate Some Want Us To Pity Poor Oscar Pistorius, Who Has Had His CV Ruined

News From The UK

• American Rana Reider’s “Sacking” As British Coach Is Crazy, Says Martyn Rooney UK Athletics denies that the man who guided the Brits to unprecedented sprint success this year was sacked – says he’ll still freelance for them.
• Stephen Maguire To Lead Sprint Relay Program In UK Starting Jan. 1
• Steve Cram Looks On As His Daughter Josie Gets 4th Out Of 333 At Start Fitness North East Harrier League XC Meet

Week That Was

LRC All Hail Emily Sisson, Quenton Cassidy, Kenenisa Bekele, Eliud Kipchoge And Rita Jeptoo, Find Us Some Steroids, Bad Marathon Coverage, And Proof That Road Races Are Too Expensive We break down Chicago 2014 for you some more and refuse to go negative about Kenenisa Bekele. We also try to highlight some action that was overshadowed by Chicago last week – including a great run by Emily Sisson and wins by Quenton Cassidy and Josh McDougal. Then we wonder if we should get on steroids, complain about the price of road races (in Kenya) and tell you how Japanese running is being overrun by Kenyans and Ethiopians.