December 20, 2014 | LetsRun.com

Two Interesting Reads

Group Launches Campaign To Have Someone Break 2:00 In Marathon Within 5 Years – Ross Tucker Says “No Chance” (link fixed) Greyhounds and horses haven’t gotten faster for 30+ years. We may be waiting for sub-2 in 2114.
How Many Days Have You Run In A Row? Sunday, December 21, 2014 Will Be The Day That 1970 Boston Marathon Champ Ron Hill’s Running Streak Reaches 50 Years “I used to find back streets to run down for my training runs because runners were considered an oddity. People used to shout ‘run, rabbit, run!’ or ‘up, one, two, three, four!’ and we had none of the fancy things that runners have today like GPS watches or heart rate monitors.”

Intersex News

Dutee Chand Will Be Allowed To Compete Domestically In India Until CAS Rules On Her Hyperandrogenism Women’s athletics as we know will be obliterated if intersexed or transgender people are allowed to compete as women.
Athletics Kenya Asked To Have 5 People Take Gender Tests – Claims It Will Cost More Than $33,000 To Do So The tests reportedly cost $6,629 each and they are going to do test on 3 women and 2 men “elevated hormonal levels of opposite gender.”
*MB: Help me out letsrun: Why would Kenya spend $13,000 to test 2 men for possess elevated women’s hormonal levels?

More News From Kenya:

Athletics Kenya Defends Its Anti-Doping Record By Saying They Aren’t As Bad As China Or Russia Isaiah Kiplagat is proud they’ve had way fewer athletes banned than Russia or China. “We are not saying we have no doping issues, in fact we have a big problem. But we have taken appropriate action in accordance with the provision of the rules as provided for by the (IAAF).”
9th Edition Of Toby Tanser’s Shoe4africa Race Is Xmas Eve In Iten

News From South Of The Equator

Australia Sets Qualifying Standards For 2015 Worlds – Should Be Easier To Go Than In Past “Australia can send three female 800 runners to Beijing provided all have run 2:01.00, or faster.” For the men’s 5,000, the mark is 13:23.
2012 Kiwi Olympian Sarah Cowley (Heptathlon) Calls It A Career The 30-year-old was 26th in London. “For over half my life I have dedicated myself to running fast, jumping as high and long as possible and throwing implements as far as possible. It has been an absolute privilege and truly been a blast but it is time for me to move on.”
Val Adams Wins Lonsdale Cup For A Record Fifth Time “The Lonsdale Cup goes to the athlete or team who made the most outstanding contribution to Olympic or Commonwealth sport in the preceding year.”

Previous Doping News

Max Siegel Statement On Drummond *BBC Article
Athletics Kenya Drops The Ball Big Time: Recently-Banned Kenyan Runner Viola Kimetto Furious With AK As They Never Even Told Her She Failed A Drug Test AK completely ignored the notice from the IAAF saying Kimetto was banned and even cleared her for a travel visa to go race a marathon in Zagreb.
Russian Whistleblowers Say They Have More Proof To Support Their Allegations About Doping In Russia One would think this is something an “Independent Ethics Commission” would look into?
The Telegraph Asks What The Worst Federation Of 2014 – Was It The IAAF? They decided that while the IAAF was a strong rival, FIFA was the worst.

The Olympics Are Coming

An Early Look At The Potential US Bids For The 2024 Olympics
One Of The Most Important Things For US Olympic Bid Is A Charismatic Leader Worked out well for London. They had Seb Coe.
Mexico Olympic Committee President Wants To Revive Joint Tijuana-San Diego Olympic Bid For 2024 Agenda 2020 changes would allow such a bid, but USOC is unlikely to go along with it.
IOC President Thomas Bach Welcomes US Decision To Bid
Rio 2016 Convene Task Force To Tackle New “Super Bacteria” Threat To Sailing Venue

Week That Was

LRCKenny B Commits To Dubai, Foot Locker, USATF And European XC Mania, Meb "Dusts" Ryan Hall, And No Love For Stephanie Hightower?

What are the Olympic chances of Grant Fisher and Anna Rohrer? How will Kenenisa Bekele do in his marathon in Dubai next month. Plus Club Nats XC, European XC, Kevin Sullivan moving to the marathon, Stephanie Hightower making the wrong news off the track, and LRC on the BBC.

Another Day, 2 More Drug Positives

Rita Jeptoo’s B Sample Confirms Positive Doping Test Jeptoo was the best marathoner in the world the last two years, winning 4 straight WMM and the $500,000 WMM title. No more. Now she’s a drug cheat.
US High Jump Champ Inika McPherson Gets 21 Months For Testing Positive For Cocaine Metabolite She loses her 2014 USA Championship and the only 2.00m jump of her career. She’s the jumper known for the tattoos and colorful hair. She wasn’t even trying to cheat and got a longer suspension than Tyson Gay, who was trying to cheat.

US News

Spikes’ 20 Most Incredible Pics For Track And Field From 2014 Chanelle Price was stunned when she won gold and a very pregnant Alysia Montano made the list.

HS News

Preview Of Sunday’s National High School Ekiden Championships In Japan The top boys HS team in Japan has a 7-man avg. of 14:08. The top girls team has a 9:13 5-girl avg. for 3k.
*Meet On Live On NHK At 8:05pm ET Saturday Night (10:05am Sun. Japan)
*MB: Truly incredible: Top Japanese HS team has 7 man avg 5k pb of 14:08

Meet Jr. European XC Champ Yemanebernane Crippa Of Italy – The Orphan Born To Run One of 9 orphans adopted from Ethiopia by an Italian couple, his idol is Mo Farah. “The sprint of Mo is magic. It is also about his personality.” He got help in winning gold as Russia’s Aleksandr Novikov sprinted a lap early.

Administrative News Of Note

Oklahoma State Star Sprinter And WR Tyreek Hill Is No Longer Part Of Track Or Football Teams After Arrest For Hitting Pregnant GF Hill, who ran 20.14 for 200 in HS, was starring on the gridiron this fall after getting 5th at NCAAs last year in his first year as an NCAA trackster.
*MB: Ok State star WR and sprinter Tyreek Hill Arrested (and Now Dismissed From Teams) for Hitting His Pregnant Girlfriend
TV Rights For Rio And Sochi Total $4.1 Billion – Up From $3.85 Billion Previous 4 Years
Brazilian Olympic Fever – Brazil Receives Over 240,000 Applications For Volunteers, 60% Of Them From Brazil
Chicago Tribune Hopes Chicago Hosts One Or Two Olympic Events To Save Money

Previous Administrative News

Recommended Read #1: Columnist: IOC’s Consideration Of Dropping 200/10k Is Absurd – Here Are A Few Better Alternatives Modern Pentathlon, Fencing, Equestrian and U-23 soccer are his ideas. We certainly think the 200 – home of two of the greatest Olympians ever in Michael Johnson and Usain Bolt – and 10,000 – home of Haile G, Billy Mills, Lasse Viren – should be locks to remain.
Recommended Read #2: Elliott Denman Slams IOC’s Talk Of Eliminating Track Events At Olympics Memo to the IOC: What other sport had 80,000+ for 9 straight days? Answer: None. JV U-23 soccer should go before the 200. “Every single current event in Olympic track and field/athletics deserves to be given ‘sacrosanct’ status.”
We Know It’s Easy To Hate USATF, But This Is A Guy We Respect
Recommended Read #3: Alan Abrahamson Writes Passionate Defense Of Stephanie Hightower And Max Siegel We respect Abrahamson a great deal. If you are anti-USATF, you owe it to yourself to challenge your viewpoint and read the article. Others have called for Hightower’s resignation.
*MB: Damning indictment of Stephanie Hightower

XC News

Duck, Duck, Mo
MB: January 10th Edinburgh XC Meet Is Stacked with Birech, Kiplagat, Kiprop, Lagat, Longosiwa, Soi And More, But Mo Farah Won’t Be Racing Them (He’ll Be In The Easier Non-International Race)
World Jr. Champs Joshua Cheptegei And Bahrain’s Ruth Jebet, Garrett Heath, Mo Ahmed, Andrea Lalli And Daniele Meucci Are All Running 58th Campaccio International Cross-Country On January 6th
Albert Rop And Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon Get Top Billing At Sunday’s Lotto Cross Cup Meeting In Brussels World Jr. 10k silver medalist Elvis Cheboi is also racing.
99 Days To Go Until 2015 World XC In Guiyang, China 2015!

Sprint Stuff: Don’t Touch Usain Bolt’s 200

Usain Bolt Speaks Out About Talk To Remove Track Events (Possibly The 200) From The Olympics “Normally I’m not a controversial person, but I think that’s just stupid. … try to take events away from the track and field event, it is just ridiculous and I don’t think the IAAF should stand for that at all.”
Recommended Read: US’s World #3 400 Hurdler Georganne Moline Says “Track Changed My Life” Moline had a tough childhood as she lived out of a car with her mom for a while. At Arizona she had a lot of injuries and disappointments before finally getting her big break when she unexpectedly made the Olympic team in 2012.
GB’s Euro 100 Champ James Dasaolu Will Face World Indoor 60m Champ Richard Kilty In Birmingham Indoor GP In February

The Heisman Of Track And Field

University Of Oregon’s Laura Roesler And Texas A&M 400 Runner Deon Lendore Win 2014 Bowerman Award This is track’s version of the Heisman.
*Video Replay Of Awards Presentation

The Latest Doping News

Rita Jeptoo’s B Sample Comes Back Positive, Doping Hearing Set For January
US HJ Champ Inika McPherson Banned For 21 Months For Cocaine Recreational cocaine use shouldn’t result in a 2-year ban.
*MB: USADA suspends McPherson for 21 months for testing positive for cocaine metabolite
Sonia O’Sullivan Gives Rob Heffernan His 2010 European Bronze Medal Due To Russia’s Stanislav Emelyanov’s Ban
70-Minute Half Marathoner Joyce Jemutai Kiplimo Says She Made 12 Trips To Athletics Kenya, Never Got A Hear, But Was Banned For Doping Anyway She says she’s got medical documents to explain her positive test but was treated with contempt.

Previous Doping News

Mo Trafeh at the 2011 London Marathon, which he briefly led.

LRC 6 Thoughts: Mo Trafeh, Liar And Drug Cheat, Gets 4-Year Ban: Who Else Was Doping In Flagstaff? The 8-time USA road champion officially got a 4-year ban from the sport and the arbiter’s report showed he lied to LetsRun.com. We’ve read over the report and have our key thoughts.
On The Boards: Mo Trafeh’s Suspension and Who Else Was Doping in Flagstaff

*Moses Kiptanui Feels Vindicated By Rash Of Doping Positives In Kenya “When I raised the red flag a few years ago, officials condemned me.”
*Boit, Keflezighi, Landry Named USATF Champions After Mo Trafeh Is Banned

LRC USA Olympic Coach Jon Drummond Gets Banned: 4 Big Thoughts, Including Was Tyson Gay On HGH Prior To The Summer Of 2012? We carefully read the 24-page decision in the Jon Drummond case and conclude this story is far from over as the report includes a bombshell on page 5 – Tyson Gay had a bottle labeled HGH which someone had given him before even met Dr. Gibson or moved to Dallas to work with Drummond in May in 2012. Then why did Gay’s suspension only begin in July?
*MB: A bombshell in the Jon Drummond decision? Report says Tyson Gay had a bottle labelled HGH in May of 2012

Bring Back The Mile’s Top 10 Mile Moments From 2014 From Mary Cain just missing the World Jr. record by .01 to Ayanleh Souleiman running a US All-Comers record of 3:47.32.