Fernando Cabada Returning To Brad Hudson As His Coach Cabada has been self-coached for the last year and a half, but worked with Hudson in 2012.

Upcoming

• Sunday: Kenya’s Cornelius Kangogo Will Defend His Title At The Corrida Pedestre International de Houilles 10K He faces a competitive field in Olympic 5,000 bronze medalist Thomas Longosiwa, Micah Kogo and Frankfurt Marathon champ Mark Kiptoo. Bahrain’s 9:20 World Junior steeple champ Ruth Jebet leads the women’s field in her first race over 5,000. She faces 1:09 half runner Peris Jepchichir.
• Jan. 25: Ukraine’s Two-Time Osaka Women’s Marathon Winner Tetiana Gamera Will Return This Year To Go For Her Hat-Trick Win She’ll face 2012 winner Risa Shigetomo, 38-year-old Jelena Prokopcuka (won in 2005, 4th in NYC this year) and 2:23 Kenyan Margaret Agai.

Unbroken Came Out In Theaters Yesterday *Discuss

• Variety Calls It A “Well-Mounted But Underwhelming Drama”
• Slate.com: How Accurate Is “Unbroken”?
• ABC News: “‘Unbroken’ is an incredible story. It is not an incredible movie.” “Angelina Jolie has created a good movie based on an incredible story.”
• Rotten Tomato Average rating was 6.1 out of 10.
• ScreenRant “Unbroken is every bit the Oscar-bait movie one would expect, but is elevated by offering viewers several different types of great drama in one tightly woven narrative.”
• The Wrap: “Riveting, But Somewhat Generic”

Doping News

• WADA Takes 3,000 Samples From Russian Athletes This after the claim in the ARD German documentary that up to 99% of Russian athletes may be doping.
• Justin Gatlin Talks About Why Drug Cheat Dennis Mitchell Is His Coach, His Future, And The “Advsersity” In His Past On Mitchell: “I just needed a coach who could kind of understand my plight, my drive and one who believed in me. We’ve just dug into the trenches and gone at it together.”
• Doping Blighted Gains Made By Kenya In Athletics “Clearly, as much as I would want to run away from this topic and talk about the good Christmas and New Year things, doping continues to stick its head out like ‘Ebola’ and there is no any other way out but to face it. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much effort towards curbing the menace.”

Don’t They Know It’s Christmas? Doping And Kenyan Controversy

• Russian Coach Vladimir Kazarin To Sue Over German Documentary’s Doping Allegations Specifically, he’s filing lawsuits against program maker Hajo Seppelt and Russian mid-d runner Yulia Stepanova and her husband Vitaly Stepanov.
• Athletes Angered That Athletics Kenya Made “Irregular” Deductions From Their Prize Money And Bonuses Earned At The IAAF World Relays Reportedly, they took more than $55,000 in athlete money to pay coaches and officials and there is suspicion that some of the money went missing completely.
• Multiple Kenyan Athletes And Officials Demand Athletics Kenya Issue An Apology To Wilson Kipsang For Releasing His Confidential Information About A Missed Out-Of-Competition Test
• Apparently ESPN Has Been Living Under A Rock: “Distance Runners Now Facing Scrutiny: Positive Tests For Big Names Draw Attention To Previously Unchallenged Athletes” This writer seemed to think because distance runners are “scrawny” they are less likely to be doped.
• Mayo Clinic Physician Dr. Michael Joyner (One Of The Authors Of Recent Paula Radcliffe Sub-2:00 Study) Talks To RW About Whether Or Not “All Exceptional Performances Are Suspect” LetsRun’s “Clean or Dirty” polls get mention and the general consensus is that it’s “reasonable and rational to consider all exceptional performances suspect, but it’s also important to remember that some turn out to be real.”

Doping Corner

• Rita Jeptoo’s Drug Hearing Will Be In January To Officially Determine Length Of Her Suspension And Which Marathon Titles She’ll Lose
• From BALCO To Russia, RunnersWorld Looks At Six Key Doping Busts In Running History Includes a “comical screw-up” from 1984 where Finnish distance runner Martii Vainio stopped taking steroids before the World Championships, but tested positive because he was also blood doping and injected blood that had been taken and stored from when he was on steroids.
• Italy’s Former Race Walk Olympic Champ Alex Schwazer Avoids Jail Time With A Plea Bargain In Italy doping is a criminal offense and Schwazer got an 8-month suspended prison sentence and had to pay a $7,350 fine.
• Paul Tergat Calls For End To Infighting In Athletics Kenya Federation There have been calls from many AK officials for long-time president Isaiah Kiplagat to resign after recent doping/financial scandals.
• USATF News And Notes: Chaunte Lowe Named 2014 US HJ Champion After Inika McPherson’s 21-Month Ban For Cocaine Team USA named for Bupa Great Edinburgh XC meet on January 10th.

• Usain Bolt And French Steepler Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad Make Irish Newspaper’s “Anti-Sports Personality Of The Year Award” List Bolt for allegedly calling the Glasgow CGs as “a bit shit” (he denied this report) and Mekhissi-Benabbad for stripping in the last 100 for the European Championships.
• IAAF Lists The Best Of Their 2014 “Work, Rest And Play” Interview Responses Some entertaining answers from a slew of US and international athletes.
• France’s Renaud Lavillenie, Germany’s Robert Harting And Croatia’s Sandra Perkovic Named Sports Personalities Of The Year In Their Respective Countries
• IAAF Starts Their 2014 End Of Year Reviews: Race Walking

Weekend International Results

• One To Watch For World XC? Sheila Chepngetich Keter Remains Undefeated For The Season At Iris Lotto CrossCup In Belgium She won over Commonwealth 1,500 champ Faith Kipyegon and Ireland’s Fionnuala Britton. On the men’s side, Alex Kibet won over Abraham Kapsis Kipyatich and Bahrain’s Albert Rop.
• IAAF Weekend XC Highlights: Uganda’s Timothy Toroitich Wins His 3rd Spanish XC Meet Of The Season Mimi Belete dominated the women’s race by 26 seconds over European 1,500m champion Sifan Hassan.
• Kenyans Julius Chepkwony Rotich (2:14:04) And Alice Jemeli Timbill (2:34:55) Win Taipei Marathon
• Philip Langat And Sela Jepleting Win AK XC Series Race On Saturday Jepleting won over a solid field that included Mercy Cherono and Lucy Kabuu.

UK News: Seb Coe For Mayor?

• London Mayor Boris Johnson Backs Seb Coe As His Successor Coe has previously resisted, but Johnson said, “The athletics thing is a boring, bureaucratic job. Seb will think again. Seb Coe is not out of the running at all for mayor.”
• Telegraph: Katarina Johnson-Thompson Coming Of Age On And Off The Track As She Shakes Off Jessica Ennis’ Shadow Johnson-Thompson just missed truly competing as Ennis has taken time away to have a baby. Who will be on top when she returns?
• Athletics Weekly: Seven Brits Make Top Five In Their Events In 2014 World Merit Rankings Multi-event athlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson leads the way with their only #1 ranking.

• DyeStat Final Boys XC Individual Rankings: Grant Fisher Obvious #1, NXN Champ Tanner Anderson Ranked #2
• Girls Rankings: FL Champ Anna Roherer Ranked #1, NXN Champ Allie Ostrander #3
• MileSplit Weekend Highlights: Marissa Sheva Wins Mile In 4:50.73 As Three Go Sub-5 Minutes

•  Yuki Kawauchi Wins Hofu Marathon In 2:09:46 Hisae Yoshimatsu wins women’s race in 2:3755, breaking her own CR by 2 seconds.
• Sera HS Runs All-Time #4 2:02:39 For Japan National High School Boys Ekiden Title
• Osaka Kunei Girls HS Win First-Ever Japan National High School Ekiden Championships

Intersex News

• Dutee Chand Will Be Allowed To Compete Domestically In India Until CAS Rules On Her Hyperandrogenism Women’s athletics as we know it 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?

• 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.

•  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?