March 2, 2015 | LetsRun.com

2015 USA Indoors Results Post-Race Video Interviews *Race Videos

Updated Cas Loxsom The Bridesmaid No More – He Breaks American 600m Record To Win His First USA Title Cas Loxsom got his first national title in grand style, breaking the American record, and coming within shouting distance of the WR.

LRC Robby Andrews & Lauren Wallace Claim First National Titles In Thrilling 1,000s Wallace had a look of disbelief when she won. Andrews looked like he expected to win as he beat two ex-teammates, Kyle Merber and Michael Rutt. Is he back? MB: Lewis Johnson: “Maybe Robby Andrews is Back!”

RRW Race Results Weekly Sunday Recap: Rowbury Completes The Double Coverage of all the distance events.

Day 1

LRC A Confident Shannon Rowbury Wins 2015 USATF Indoor Mile Title To Stay Undefeated Vs. US Competition In 2015 Rowbury won the US mile title over a fast-closing Katie Mackey to stay undefeated vs. US competition in 2015. Rowbury will go for the 2-mile double tomorrow.

LRC Mother Alysia Montano, Ajee Wilson Advance With Ease In Women’s 600; Charlene Lipsey Leads 1,000 Qualifiers, Alexa Efraimson Advances Reaction and interviews from Montano, Efraimson, Wilson, and Lipsey after they all advanced to their finals.
*Athlete Quotes Alysia Montano: “I could not wait for this environment to do something when I am not holding an eight-pound baby in the process.”
*RRW: Shannon Rowbury Takes Mile Title

Conference Champs (See Friday Results Below)

Big East: *Full Results *Emily Sisson Breaks Collegiate Indoor 5,000 Record With 15:12.22 She took down Kim Smith‘s previous mark of 15:14.18. *Discuss
*Villanova Women Win 14th Big East Indoor Title Georgetown’s Samantha Nadel won the 3,000 in 9:05.
*Villanova Men Take 2nd Straight Big East Indoor Title
MPSF: *Results *Men Of Oregon Win MPSF Champs Washington got wins from Aaron Nelson (5,000 – 13:53.80) and Izaic Yorks (mile – 3:57.81).
*MB: MPSF 3000: 10 guys under 7:56!!! Oregon’s Jeramy Elkaim won in 7:48.48.
*Oregon Men Run NCAA-Leading 9:27.02 DMR The team of Edward Cheserek, Marcus Chambers, Johnny Gregorek and Eric Jenkins ran the 5th-fastest in NCAA history.
*USC Women Win MPSF Stanford won the women’s DMR in 11:02.98.
Ivy League: Princeton Men Win Heps *Full Results
*Harvard Women Three-Peat At Ivy League Champs *Full Results Dartmouth’s Dana Giordano won the mile in 4:36.
Big 10: Results *Ohio State Women Get Big 10 Crown *Results Leah O’Connor wins mile (4:32.29).
*Nebraska Men Win First Big 10 Indoor Title Penn State’s Robby Creese won the mile over teammate Brannon Kidder. Mason Ferlic took the 5,000 in 13:58.77, just beating Malachy Schrobilgen (13:58.82) and Matt McClintock (13:59.92).
Big 12: Results *Longhorn Men & Women Sweep Big 12 Edward Kemboi took the 800 (1:48.68).
SEC: Results *Arkansas Women Win Dominant SEC Crown Dominique Scott (4:32.49 – mile).
*Gator Men Win SEC Championship Winners included Kemoy Campbell (5K – 13:44), Ryan Schnulle (800 – 1:48.25).
ACC: Results *ACC Championship Returns To Clemson Colleen Quigley took the mile (4:36.23), Molly Seidel the 3,000 (9:10), Florida State the DMR (11:09).
*Virginia Tech Men Claim Their 3rd ACC Indoor Title *Results Virginia Tech’s Thomas Curtin ran 7:52.92 to beat Martin Hehir (7:53.15) in the 3,000.
Houston Men Dramatically Win AAC Champs As It Comes Down To The 4 X 400 They won the meet by 1 point over Tulsa. *Results
UConn Women Win American Athletic Conference *Results
New Mexico Sweeps Mountain West Titles 2nd Straight Year *Full Results

NCAA Conference Champs: Friday Action

Big 10: Results Michigan State got wins in the 3,000 (Rachele Schulist – 9:01) and the DMR, where they ran 10:57 to beat Michigan (11:02). Penn State got wins from Robby Creese (3,000) and the DMR, which ran 9:40.62 to beat Indiana (9:41.68).
Big 12: Results Baylor’s Rachel Johnson won the 5,000 as OSU men (9:37.31) and women (11:16.86) won the DMRs. For the men Oklahoma was a close 2nd (9:38.65).
SEC: Results In the men’s 3,000, Kemoy Campbell won in 8:00.27 over Arkansas teammate Stanley Kebenei (8:02.64). Arkansas’ Dominque Scott won the women’s race (9:17).
ACC: Results Syracuse’s Martin Hehir (13:57) and Notre Dame’s Molly Seidel (15:55) won the 5Ks.

GB Pro News

Elite Brits Talks About Winter Training; Some Go To Warm Kenya While Others Deal With The Snow Just Like The Rest Of Us Hannah England (Kenya) and Jenny Meadows (South Africa) talk about getting homesick being away from home for the winter. It’s hard to feel bad for them when Jo Pavey is wearing two layers and jogging a 2-minute stretch of road over and over because it’s the only thing without snow.
That Was A Fast Turnaround: After Deciding Last Minute To Compete At Euro Indoors, GB’s Olympic LJ Champ Greg Rutherford Withdraws He’s far from the only athlete skipping the meet, but did he have to change his mind twice in the span of 3 days the week before it starts?

Seb Coe Makes His Case For IAAF Presidency Over 5 Days *All Days

Day 5: LRC Coe On The 2-Hour Marathon: “It’s a tall order but it’s certainly within the scope of a man.”

*Day 4: LRC Coe On Marketing The Sport: One Size Doesn’t Fit All Coe advocates moving money from Monaco to the member federations who will know what works best locally. “We have to put the member federations in the best possible position to deliver the sport in the way they know there is a local interest. …We’ve got to find the key drivers of growth for the sport and we’ve got to be able deliver that sport in a much more flexible way.”
*Day 3: LRC Seb Coe’s Growth Plans: “We’ve got a sport, I think we’ve got to create a movement.”
*Day 2: LRC Seb Coe On Trust/Doping
*Day 1: LRC Intro And Summary “I take great exception to people from outside our sport trying to redesign our sport because they don’t fundamentally understand the nature, the history and the philosophy of it.”

Our Internal Squabble, Aired Publicly

LRC The LetsRun.com Civil War: Is Mo Farah The Greatest Of All Time? With 5 world titles and now a world record, there is no doubt that Mo Farah is currently the king of the track, but is he up for GOAT? The LRC team got into a heated argument about this topic. One even argued Farah isn’t as good as Sileshi Sihine.
*MB: With 5 world titles and a WR, is Mo Farah the GOAT (Greatest of all-time)? We say yes…(and hell no)

Sainsbury’s Birmingham GP Results Race Video

LRC Mo Farah Gets His First World Record, Runs 8:03.40 2-Mile The critics can shut up for quite some time now. Farah went 3:59 for his 2nd mile to get the WR.
*Farah: Vernon Row Got Me Going

Rest Of The Meet

LRC 2015 Birmingham Recap: Matthew Centrowitz & Shannon Rowbury See Winning Streaks Come To An End Some Americans did find success, however, as Ben Blankenship and Jordan Hasay PRed and Erik Sowinski almost did.
*Katarina Johnson-Thompson Sets British LJ Record With 6.93m; Jenny Meadows Wins 800 In 2:01 Greg Rutherford won the LJ in an indoor PR and WLing 8.17m.
*Full Meet Recaps: Athletics Weekly & IAAF

More USA Indoors Photos
Interviews *Race Videos

Updated Centro Wins His First Indoor Crown In Impressive Fashion Matt Centrowitz won his first indoor title impressively as Ben Blankenship was the runner-up for the second day in a row.

LRC Shannon Rowbury Completes The Double; Alysia Montaño Is Officially Back; Ajee Wilson Falls Hard A fall marred the women’s 600. Shannon Rowbury needed no help in the women’s 2-mile.

*Boston Globe: Collegiate Record Holder Demi Payne Surprises Pole Vaulting Field Payne won with 4.55m as Jenn Suhr no-heighted after pulling out with an injury.
*IAAF Recap Non-distance highlights: Michelle Carter‘s world lead in the SP (19.45m), Tianna Bartoletta (7.08) and Marvin Bracy (6.55) in the 60m.
*Final Day Athlete Quotes Lauren Wallace on winning the 1,000: “The coolest part was running through the tape. I’ve never been able to do that before. The tape was really, really cool.”

More USA Indoors Photos
Interviews *Race Videos

LRC Ryan Hill Runs 25.77 Last 200 To Win His First “Real” National Title In 2-Mile Ryan Hill went 25.77 the final lap to win his first “real” national title over Ben Blankenship and Evan Jager.

LRC Men’s 600 And 1,000 Favorites Roll On – Post Race Reaction And Who Is Thomas Scott? Plus 600 American record holder Cas Loxsom tells us whether he fears a 400 man or 800 man most in the final.

LRC All Our Day 1 Video Interviews 21 athletes in all. *All USATF Race Videos
*IAAF Recap Non-distance highlights: Jeremy Taiwo broke the MR in the heptathlon winning with 6273 points. Manteo Mitchell and Natasha Hastings won the 300s, Sam Kendricks the PV, Will Claye (LJ), Christian Cantwell (SP).

Saturday Photo Gallery

More Track Action

What Is It About 400 Hurdlers And The 800? Czech Republic’s World Champion Zuzana Hejnova Runs 2:03.60 In Her First 800 In 3 Years It was a PR by over 4 seconds (this article incorrectly says 8) and she will now be racing it at Euro Indoor Champs this week.
Usain Bolt Opens His 2015 Season With A Loss In The 4 X 100 Bolt’s team included Commonwealth champ Kemar Bailey-Cole and world 200m silver medalist Warren Weir, but they lost to a team from the UTech, 38.23 to 38.29. It was Bolt’s first 4 x 100 loss since 2007. *Race Video *Discuss
*Bolt After Prelims: “For me this was a good run. … I am looking forward to the finals.”
*Bolt Says He Wants To Surpass What Did In Bejing 2008 At Worlds This Year
Grant Fisher Solos 4:04.46 To Win 1,600m At Michigan States
MileSplit Weekend HS Coverage

Previous Pro Track News

Earlier In The Week: Ryan Whiting Breaks New Zealand All-Comers Record In The Shot Put He threw 21.03m, beating NZ’s world indoor bronze medalist Tom Walsh.
*Race Video Of Nick Willis’ 5,000 Victory Over Zane Robertson At Auckland Track Challenge
Katarina Johnson-Thompson Going For Olympic Champ Jessica Ennis’ UK Pentathlon Record At European Champs Next Week

The Olympic$

Approved Changes To Tokyo 2020 Venues Will Save $1 Billion Apparently largely due to IOC president Thomas Bach and his Agenda 2020 reforms.
Olympic Betting Is Back In Nevada
Is Hosting The Olympics Worth It? IOC Reveal Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics Made $53 Million Profit

Doping Updates

Qatari 1,500 Runner And Former WJ Champ Hamza Driouch Gets 2-Year Drug Ban People were saying Driouch would be the next great miler when he ran 3:50 as a 17-year-old. Saudi Arabia 5,000 runner Hussain Jamaan Alhamdah also got a 2-year ban. Both were caught with the biological passport. *Discuss
Depressing Numbers: New Dutch Study Estimates Doping In Elite Sport Is Likely Between 14 To 39 Percent This is way less than the number of athletes actually testing positive, which is about 1%.

Elite Distance News

March 15: Past Champions Sally Kipyego And Caroline Rotich, Along With Top Americans Molly Huddle And Desiree Linden, Headline Women’s Field For NYC Half Marathon The deep field also includes Joyce Chepkirui, Buzunesh Deba and Annie Bersagel.
Great Podcast Interview: 2:14 Marathoner Nate Jenkins (7th At The 2007 Olympic Trials) Making A Comeback From 7 Years Of Injuries To Race At The Boston Marathon Jenkins: “Six weeks ago I was thinking that to run in the 2:15 range would be on that course really phenomenal. Right now I feel like 2:13 is definitely possible. … Yeah, I’m starting to get some big eyes.”
*Some Good Insights Into Jenkins’ Comeback/Training In His Blog
*MB: Nate Jenkins returns to Marathon
You’ve Been Reading, But Have You Been Watching? Video Highlight Reel From The Top Track And Field Action So Far In 2015 Includes the recent WRs by Mo Farah, Genzebe Dibaba and Florence Kiplagat, as well as Jenny Simpson‘s AR.
Good Read: Spikes Talks To Zane Robertson About His Transformation From The 17-Year-Old Who Left New Zealand For Kenya To The Sub-60 Minute Half Runner He Is Now “It [winning bronze at Commonwealth Games] meant all of the hardship had finally paid off. It is something I’ve been aiming for the whole of my life.”
Visit From Pope Francis Will Push Rock ‘N’ Roll Philadelphia Marathon Back To Saturday, October 31st The race is normally on the third Sunday in September and is often used by a tune-up for elites racing Chicago or NYC.

The World Marathon Majors Are Underway – 2015 Tokyo In The Books *Results

Chumba running away from everyone but Negesse

LRC Tokyo 2015: Negesse And Dibaba Get First Major Wins, Stephen Kiprotich = Hero In 2nd, Japanese Twitter Erupts, Lauren Kleppin Risks It All Ethiopians Endeshaw Negesse and Birhane Dibaba got the major marathon season underway with their first major wins as Stephen Kiprotich showed the Olympic spirit in second, Tariku Bekele bombed in his debut, Japanese twitter went nuts over the marathon, and Lauren Kleppin took a shot at greatness but bombed. *IAAF Recap

Genzebe Dibaba Does It Again Full XL Galan Results WR Race Video

LRC Genzebe Dibaba Smashes Indoor 5,000 WR By Over 5 Seconds With 14:18.86 In Stockholm Dibaba now holds indoor WRs at 1,500, 3,000, 2 miles and 5,000 thanks to a stupendous performance, during which she hit 2 miles faster than Jenny Simpson‘s AR. *Video
*MB: Genzebe Dibaba Smashes 5000 WR – Runs 14:18.86!!
*IAAF Recap Sifan Hassan and Homiyu Tesfaye ran world-leading 1,500 times of 4:00.46 and 3:34:13; Qatar’s Musaeb Balla ran a WL 1:45.13 and Qatari teen Abadalleleh Haroun ran 45.13; plus a 6.99 WL in the LJ.

IAAF Recap Of Russian Champs: Anzhelika Sidorova Clears World-Leading 4.76m Yelena Korobkina won the 3,000m (8:50.39) and 5,000 (15:47.09) but the times were modest in most events (2:02 in w800).

A Boring Tuesday Got A Little More Interesting Thanks To Twitter

LRC Andy Vernon Calls Out Mo Farah On Twitter: “I would just rather watch a race than the Mo Show.”

Sunday Road Racing

Sammy Kitwara Gets His Fifth Title At World’s Best 10K In Puerto Rico He ran 28:51 in hot/humid conditions to win over a competitive field. John Mgangui was a close 2nd (28:52) with Stephen Sambu 3rd (28:56); Ben True 6th (29:19). Ethiopia’s Belaynesh Oljira (31:57) won the women’s race by 1 second over Cynthia Limo. Betsy Saina was 3rd (32:07); Vivian Cheruiyot back in 8th (33:23). *Full Results
Kenya’s Samuel Ndungu Runs 2:09:08 To Regain Lake Biwa Marathon Title 3 Years After He First Won There were still 40 runners in the lead pack when they went through 20K in 1:01:12 (2:09:07 marathon pace), but Ndungu won by over 2 minutes. 2:04 man Bazu Worku was back in 7th (2:13:32).
*Bizarre: Pacemakers Did A Terrible Job As The Pace Was All Over The Place And One Almost Took The Leaders The Wrong Way Apparently the elites kept passing the pacers and telling them to speed up. One pacer helped Ndungu out, though, by loaning him his watch before dropping out.
Kenyan Robert Chemosin Runs World Leading 59:37 To Win Rome Osita Half Marathon In A Close Race With Simon Cheprot (59:39) Geoffrey Kusuru was 3rd in a Ugandan NR (59:43). Ethiopia’s Amane Beriso took the women’s race in 1:08:43.
Tadashi Isshiki Wins Japan National University Half Marathon Champs In 1:02:11 There was only a 5-second spread between the top 4 and the top 27 broke 1:03. 159th place was 1:04:59; 265th place 1:05:59.
MB: Danny Mercado Sighting – OT Marathon Qualifier

Random Stuff

The Telegraph Asks Who Was The Most Stylish Sportsman Of All Time? Usain Bolt, Michael Johnson and former GB world champ hurdler Colin Jackson were on the list.
Ah, To Be Young And Naive: Nigerian 15-Year-Old Eying Usain Bolt’s 100m WR He is quoted as saying the record is 9.88 seconds, so someone might need to break it to him that he’ll need another 3 tenths on top of that.
Former World XC Champ Lornah Kiplagat Launches Sports Apparel Line

Asking The Questions That Need Answering

LRC Why Was Drug Cheat Hamza Driouch Training (With Mo Farah) In Ethiopia? Who Supplied The 17-Year-Old Doper? Social media photos of Mo Farah training with now drug cheat Hamza Driouch of Qatar have the British press asking, “What is Farah doing training with a drug cheat in Ethiopia?” Our more immediate focus is, “What the hell is drug cheat Driouch doing training period?”
*MB: Mo Farah training with Driouch after his suspension started (but before it was announced)

Update: British Athletics Responds: Say They Relied On Jama Aden To “Facilitate” Farah’s Trip Aden provided Driouch as an athlete to train with Farah. Aden says he didn’t know about his ban.
*Mo Farah In Twitter Pic With Gamze Bulut And Taoufik Makhloufi

More Doping

Another Russian Walker Suspended For Doping This time, it was 18-year-old Evgeny Pantyushin, who is another one of Viktor Chegin‘s athletes (Chegin has had at least 17 athletes get banned). She gets a 9-month ban backdated from October for a steroid.
Following Visit, WADA President Craig Reedie Praises Improvements Jamaica Has Made To Their Anti-Doping Program “They have now created a model that others can replicate.”

Big Administrative News

A Big Win For Athletes: IOC To Scrap Rule 40, Which Prevented Athletes From Doing Advertising With Non-Olympic Sponsors During Olympics The IOC under new leadership is starting to get it. If this rule wasn’t changed, we were going to encourage major athletes like Usain Bolt to violate it. Nick Symmonds and Sanya Richards-Ross were two athletes who spoke out against rule 40 at the last Olympics. For more on that, click here.

Asafa Powell’s Management To Sue Supplement Company Epiphany D1 For $8 Million For His Positive Drug Test Powell’s manager, Paul Doyle, also criticized the IAAF for not stepping in and acting quicker.

Thursday/Mid-Week Action

Auckland: Nick Willis Powers Away Over Final 600m For Convincing Win Over Zane Robertson In New Zealand The bookies (yes, you could bet on the race) in New Zealand had Zane as the favorite, but he’s had a slight injury. Andrew Wheating 1:48.40 over Ryan Gregson 1:49.21 in 800. Discuss Willis, Roberston here.

Malmo, Sweden: American Sharika Nelvis Runs World Leader In Hurdles, Barshim Ends Indoors Unbeaten, 38-Year-Old Kim Collins Still Unbeaten, So Is Lavillenie

Previous – Metz, France: Bernard Lagat Runs 7:37.92 – New Masters WR He took down some big names – Paul Kipsiele Koech, Nixon Chepseba, Bethwel Birgen. *Metz, France Results

We Span The Globe So You Don’t Have To #InterestingNews

USA: Desi Linden Has Trained In Florida, Kenya And Michigan, Doing A 12 Miler In -35 Wind Chill Weather In Preparation For Boston
ASICS America Goes Over $1 Billion In Sales For First Time Congrats to Asics.
USATF Foundation Awards $374,000 In Grants to 45 Athletes Among the athletes getting $7,000 are Alysia Montano, Morgan Uceny and Chanelle Price. Maggie Vessey and others are getting $4,000. Of the $374,000, $170,000 was announced separately yesterday for throwers.
Japan: Imperial Crown Prince Of Japan Runs Outside For First Time In 7 Years, Clocks 27:20 5k Article claims he ran about 5k in 27:20, which would be a really good time for a 55-year-old. Who knows? Maybe he is a LRC reader. Japanese article with photo here. 7 years ago, he reportedly ran under 5 min/km.
Preview Of Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon – Final Japanese Worlds Qualifying Men’s Race
Britain: 2016 World Half Marathon Champs In Cardiff, Wales Will Not Pay Mo Farah An Appearance Fee Good for them. World Championships should not pay appearance fees. The race is a mass participation race and pre-registration is now open.
Kenya: Only In Kenya: First Lady Margaret Kenyatta Training In Iten In Advance Of First Lady Half Marathon She’s run with Abel Kirui, Mary Keitany, Wilson Kipsang and Edna Kiplagat, among others. Maybe she realizes she has to start training after running over 7 hours in London last year.
Australia: USATF Isn’t the Only Dysfunctional One: Sports Commission Slams “Poor Governance” Of Athletics Australia They recommend only 60% funding for next year.
Worldwide: Classic Photos From The History Of World Cross-Country Champs

A Step In The Right Direction: USATF Acts Quickly And Reinstates Sisu Club XC Nats Video Last week, USATF got their video taken down off YouTube, saying it was copyright infringement. Max Siegel put out a statement recognizing clubs should be encouraged (not prevented) from promoting the sport.

Spice Up Your Winter – Photo Of The Year Contest

LRC The Story Behind The Alaskan Flip-Off: The 2013 LRC Photo Of The Year

LRC What’s Your 2014 Running Photo Of The Year? Have you taken a photo or seen a photo that could be the running photo of the year (2014 until now)*. Submit or tweet your entries to us. Winner and/or person who tells us of winner wins $100.