News From Kenya

• Vivian Cheruiyot Happy With Her Comeback Race From Pregnancy And Is Looking Forward To Earning A Spot For World XC Champs
• Commonwealth/African Javelin Champ Julius Yego Calls On Athletics Kenya To Hire Foreign Coaches For Youth Kenyan Field Event Athletes Yego: “I was denied an opportunity to compete for Kenya at the World Juniors despite qualifying for the reason I was not a medal prospect. It would have been the end of my career but I worked hard to prove myself and I succeeded.”
• Paul Tergat Calls On Kenyan Government To Investigate Doping In Kenya And Harshly Punish Transgressors

• British Q&A With Kate Avery About Her NCAA Win And Trying To Make UK Team For Worlds This Summer
• Jo Pavey And Greg Rutherford Named Athletes Of The Year By British Athletics Writers’ Association
• Euro Bronze Medalist And 800 NR Holder Mark English Named Ireland’s Athlete Of The Year

Distance Updates: Sign Of The Apocalypse? Mo Farah Running XC

• Mo Farah Making Return To Cross-Country Racing For First Time In 4 Years At Great Edinburgh XC Race On January 10th
  
• Caster Semenya Talks About Her Coaching Change To Jean Verster And Says She Hopes To Be Race Ready By February Or March Semenya says that her former coach, Maria Mutola, told her she wouldn’t have time to coach Semenya because she was busy with other business.
• Sara Hall To Run Dallas Half Marathon On December 14th
• Meb Keflezighi And Ryan Hall Will Lead Relay Teams For Dallas Mavericks And Texas Rangers At Dallas Marathon Meb and Hall will run the first leg of the relay, Meb for the Mavericks and Hall for the Rangers.
• RRW: Honolulu Marathon Boasts Best-Ever Elite Fields With Six Sub-2:08 Men Gilbert Chepkwony defends his title against 2:04:48 man Yamane Adhane. Commonwealth Games 10,000 champ Joyce Chepkirui is the favorite for the women despite bombing in her debut with 2:35.
• Max King’s 100K World Championship Victory Was Also A US Record 6:27:43 (6:14 pace for the 62+ mile race).
• Vote For Jo Pavey In BBC Sports Personality Of The Year Award Poll
• CBA Wins NJ Meet Of Champions Red Bank Catholic won the girl’s race.

WADA Pledges To “Work Closely” With National Anti-Doping Organizations On Implementation Of New Anti-Doping Code This was in after the Netherlands saying they’d have to cut the number of tests to afford the new advanced ones. WADA responded that the smarter testing meant they needed less testing.

Boston Marathon Bomber’s Lawyers Denied Access To Prosecutor Info Ahead Of Trial Which Starts In January Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty and his defense is trying to argue that he was coerced by his older brother, who was killed after the Boston bombing.

And You Thought The 2016 Olympic Mascots Were Weird: 2015 European Games Reveals Gaselle And Pomegranate As Official Mascots

More From The Weekend

• Japan Scores First International Chiba Ekiden Win In Five Years In Anchor Stage Battle Against Kenya Kenyan doper Matthew Kisorio ran a stage record 27:42 10K to make up a minute deficit on Japan, but Japan won on the anchor leg. USA finished 6th with a team that included Christo Landry and Princeton alum Liz Costello, who ran the fastest time of the day for her stage. *IAAF Stage-By-Stage Recap
• Former World 10,000 Bronze Medalist Wude Ayalew (34:04) And 2:07 Marathoner Azmeraw Bekele (30:12) Win Great Ethiopian Run 10K In Addis Ababa UK’s Olympic triathlon champion Alastair Brownlee also ran, finishing in around 40 minutes.
• Dan Vassallo Has His “Dream Come True” By Winning The Philadelphia Marathon In 2:17:27 To Qualify For The US Olympic Marathon Trials Leonora Petrina won the women’s race with a 2:39:59 debut. Kiprono Kurgat (1:03:58) and Etaferahu Temesgen (1:12:49) won the half.
• Japan Weekend Road Roundup: Yuki Kawauchi Wins Fukuchiyama Marathon In 2:12:59 At Sanyo Ladies Road Race Half Marathon, Japan’s Asami Furuse beat UK’s Charlotte Purdue (2nd) and US’s Mattie Suver (4th).
• The Netherlands’ European 1,500 Champ Sifan Hassan Wins Tilburg XC Race In Her Season Opener
• 10,000m Collegiate Time Trial Meet In Japan Had 16 Men’s Heats And One Women’s In the fastest men’s heat Hiroto Inoue ran 28:19.28 to win over Takuya Fujikawa (28:20.31).
• Ritsumeikan Tears Down Rivals Kyoto Sangyo And Kwansei Gakuin To Win Kansai Region University Men’s Ekiden Championships

• USA Today: Rio’s Olympic Mascots Are A Wacky, Yellow Cat And A Weird Blob
  *Rio 2016 Olympic Mascot Is “A Combination Of Cat, Monkey And Bird”
• Sub-2:03 Is Official: Dennis Kimetto’s 2:02:57 Marathon WR Ratified By The IAAF So, too, was Emmanuel Mutai‘s 30K record.
• Jo Pavey On Shortlist Of 10 For 2014 BBC Sports Personality Of The Year Award *Full List Of Nominees
• Oscar Pistorius’ Birthday Visit Bent The Jail Rules His brother and sister visited him for almost 2 hours for his 28th birthday on Saturday.

2014 NCAA XC Champs *Women’s Results

RRW  Kate Avery, Michigan State Run Away With NCAA Titles There was no doubt about it. Michigan State was the best team and Kate Avery of Iona the best runner at the 2014 NCAAs. Recap with results.

LRC 8 Thoughts On The Women’s NCAA XC Championships: Michigan State And Walt Drenth Get It Done We give Walt Drenth, Michigan State and Kate Avery the praise they deserve, plus talk Sarah Disanza, Emma Bates, Providence, and freshmen.

Photos: Men’s Race *Women’s Race *All-Americans

Miss The Race?: Full Video Replay Of Women’s Race

LRC Women’s Video: MSU’s Walt Drenth, Leah O’Connor And Team Celebration, Iowa State Coach Andrea Grove-McDonough, ASU’s Shelby Houlihan

NCAA Women On The Boards: How did Michigan State beat the women’s race and beat teams like Georgetown, Oregon, Colorado, Stanford, etc.?!?! link fixed
*Kate Avery: NCAA Champ And Sally’s Record

International Weekend Results

• Ridiculously Deep Race In Delhi: WR Holder Florence Kiplagat Runs 70:04 To Win Delhi Half Marathon As Top Six Places Separated By 6 Seconds Kiplagat held off world half champ Gladys Cherono by 1 second. The men’s race was stacked as well as the top 9 all broke the one hour mark. Ethiopia’s Guye Adola ran 59:06 to beat world half champ Geoffrey Kipsang (Kamworor). 11 seconds separated the top 5 spots.
• IAAF Weekend XC Roundup: 3-Time World Champ Vivian Cheruiyot Returns From Pregnancy With 4th Place Finish In Kenya XC Race Alice Aprot Nawowuna, the sister of former World XC champ Joseph Ebuya won as did Joseph Kitur. In Spain, World 5,000 silver medalist Mercy Cherono and Uganda’s Timothy Toroitich won. World XC champ Japhet Korir was over a minute back from Toroitich in 6th.
• Matt Llano 65:00, Ryan Hall 66:13, Abdi 68:08 In Costa Rica Half Marathon Sara Hall won the women’s race.
• Fionnuala Britton Wins Her 5th Irish Inter-Counties Cross-Country Championship Paul Pollock won the men’s race.

• Q&A: Alabama Man Wins Krispy Kreme Challenge Race For The Second Time Two miles out, 12 doughnuts, 2 miles back. Eric Charette has the course record at 28:53.
• Australian Olympic Discus Finalist Lisa Marie Vizaniari Wins WIBA Heavyweight Boxing Title She won the 1990 Commonwealth Games and was 8th at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.

Award Night In Monaco: AOY Announced

• France’s Renaud Lavillenie And New Zealand’s Valerie Adams Crowned IAAF World Athletes Of The Year Lavillenie broke Sergey Bubka‘s long standing pole vault WR while Adams continued her unbeaten streak to 56.
  *LRC Archives: *Lavillenie *Adams
• A Look Back At Renaud Lavillenie’s And Valerie Adams’ Award Winning Year It was the first time a male PVer or female thrower won the award.
• President Lamine Diack’s World Athletics Gala Farewell Speech “Athletics will remain the heart and soul of the Olympic Games.”
• Renaud Lavillenie Wants 2015 World Title As That Is The Only Major Title He Hasn’t Won
• USATF Hall Of Famer Dr. Evie Dennis, Coaching Legend Tom Tellez Honored By IAAF

Doping News: Great Quotes From Travis Tygart

• Recommended Read: Profile And Interview With USADA Head Travis Tygart, The Man Who Brought Down Lance Armstrong Tygart gives a really good explanation for why anti-doping is so important and talks about how he’s been able to retain his love for sport despite having to deal with the dirty side of it.
• RW: Can Races Get Prize Money Back After Winners Fail Drug Tests? Looking at the case of Liliya Shobukhova, who won over $1 million from WMM races, hypothetically she has to pay it back, but  recovering money in an overseas jurisdiction is very difficult.
• Improvements To New Anti-Doping Code May Lead To Cuts In The Number Of Tests In The Netherlands And Other Countries More advanced testing is more expensive, which means they can afford to do less of them.

The Distance Pros In Monaco Speak

• Genzebe Dibaba Is Going For The 5,000 World Indoor Record And 5,000 World Title In 2015 Genzebe’s sister Anna translated for her and they both spoke on the Dibaba sister running legacy.
• Interesting Stuff: Nijel Amos Says The Commonwealth Games 800 Final, Which He Won Over David Rudisha, Was The Hardest Race Of His Life Apparently Amos was coached to an 800 Olympic silver by a geography teacher and he is a musician going by the name of “DJ Zorro” on YouTube. He has a single coming out with his band, “Black Brothers.”
• Hicham El Guerrouj Says The Only Athlete He Can See Breaking His 1,500 WR Is Asbel Kiprop El Guerrouj is a bit critical of Kiprop’s racing, though, saying he tries to do too much and needs to prioritize – winning titles or breaking records.
• Dennis Kimetto Talks About How Poverty Inspired Him To Become A Runner Once a poor farmer, now he’s won more than $100,000 in a single race for his WR in Berlin. Looking ahead, Kimetto thinks the sub-2 hour marathon is possible.

• Valerie Adams Calls For Lifetime Bans For First Time Drug Cheats: “Once a cheater, always a cheater.” Adams was hurt by dopers in two Olympics as a doper made the SP final over her in 2004 and then doper Nadzeya Ostapchuk initially got gold over her in 2012.
• UK Anti-Doping Appoints New Interim CEO Following Resignation

Doping News

• Wesley Korir Explains Why He Wants To Criminalize Doping In Kenya
• Travis Tygart Gives Talk In Ireland, Defending Giving Reduced Bans For Cooperation Tygart offered Lance Armstrong six months but he wouldn’t come clean.
  *MB: USADA head Travis Travis Tygart admits that athletes have to be “dumb” to get caught with a positive test 

News From The UK

• Recommend Read Great Article On What Lynsey Sharp Had To Overcome This Year To Win Commonwealth Silver Trivia fact – her father won a 4 x 100 medal the last time CGs were held in Scotland.
• British 5,500-Point Heptathlete Karla Drew Wins $78,376 (£50,000) On £5 Football Bet She correctly picked 10 soccer games in a row.
• Because Of Back Injury, Paralympian Jonnie Peacock Only Ran 10.97 This Year After Running 10.84 Last Year

International News

• Head Of Russian Racewalking Center, Viktor Kolesnikov, Banned For Four Years After Investigation Into Systematic Doping Russian anti-doping found him in possession of banned substances. At least 17 of his athletes failed drug tests.
• One We Missed: US HJ Champ Inika Mcpherson Is Dating Top Nigerian 400 Sprinter Regina George
• Angelina Jolie Gets Emotional At Premier Of “Unbroken” In Sydney, Australia
• Oscar Pistorius’ Lawyers File Papers Asking Judge To Reject Prosecutors’ Attempts To Appeal Decision