European Indoor Champs In Prague *Distance Results: *Sun. *Sat. *Fri. *All Results

• Final Day Distance Results: Chris O’Hare Beats Out Germany’s Homiyu Tesfaye For 1,500 Bronze Czech Republic’s Jakub Houlsa thrilled the home crowd with a surprise win in the 1,500 over Turkey’s Tanui Ozbilen. Sifan Hassan (4:09) won the women’s race while Poland’s Marcin Lewandowski and Switzerland’s Selina Buchel won the 800s.
• IAAF Recap: Russia Tops The Medal Tables With 6 Gold Medals As Belgium’s 4 X 400 Sets A European Record The Belgium 4 x 400 (which included the three Borlee brothers) ran 3:02.87 to beat Poland by .10. In the women’s 60m, the Netherlands’ Dafne Schippers won, tying WL of 7.05. Behind her, Brit Diana Asher-Smith got silver in 7.08, tying the UK NR and setting a world age-19 best. Russia’s Ilya Shkurenev won the hepathlon while Russia also got wins in the women’s TJ, men’s PV and HJ.
• UK’s World Indoor Champ Richard Kilty Wins 60m Gold To Prove He’s Not A “One-Hit Wonder” His GB teammate Chijindu Ujah was DQed for a false start. *BBC Recap *AW
• Czech Republic’s Jakub Holusa Thrilled To Win 1,500 Gold On Home Soil “I still cannot believe I found the energy. … This is the top moment of my whole career.”
• The Favorite Coming In, GB’s Jenny Meadows Pulled Out Of Euro 800 Final With Illness It’s worth noting this is after she got in to the final through a UK protest/Russian DQ.
• Ireland’s Mark English On Getting 800 Silver: “I don’t know where it came from but I just had this big well of energy over the last 150 meters.” “Ireland’s a small country and we’re not going to produce the same amount of athletes as Britain, so there’s always going to be expectations on anyone with a chance of a medal.” *2nd Article
• Chris O’Hare Got Spiked Bad At The Start Of Euro 1,500 Final He also said he wasn’t the weekend highlight in his family as his younger brother got 2nd at the Scottish School’s XC Champs after losing a shoe in the first mile.
• Reuters: Russia Leap From Scandal To Top Of European Medal Table Russia had six golds, twice as many as any other country.
• From Saturday: Lee Emanuel Exorcises Demons To Get Euro Silver In 3,000 “The 2012 trials were a real low point and I remember being on the track and wanting to cry but I had people who supported me and believed in me.”
• Photos From 2015 European Indoor Champs

Lance Armstrong, Doping And The UCI

• Year-Long Investigative Report Says UCI Colluded With Lance Armstrong To Hide His Doping Turning a blind eye doesn’t even begin to describe it as apparently at one point Armstrong’s lawyer was allowed by UCI officials to secretly write and edit the “report” of an earlier investigation into Armstrong’s doping.
• Spark-Notes Version From USA Today
• Good Piece With More Links From The Guardian
• List Of Main Recommendations To UCI From Doping Report
• USA Today: Cycling Leaders Slammed For Letting Doping, Armstrong Win

European Indoor Saturday Coverage

• Sat. Distance Action: MB: Lee Emanuel Gets 3,000m Silver And A WR Attempt In The Men’s 1,500 Heats!!! Turkey’s Ali Kaya dominated the 3,000, leading gun to tape and breaking Mo Farah‘s MR with 7:38.42. Russia’s Yelena Korobkina won the women’s race (8:47), and the big names got through in the 800s semis. But maybe the biggest excitement came in the form of two extremely non-tactical men’s 1,500 heats.
• The Huge Favorite Coming In, GB’s Jenny Meadows Runs A Disappointing 2:02.40 For 4th In Her Heat She only made the final after the UK protested and a Russian was DQed for a lane violation. Meadows said she has had a cold.
• Lee Emanuel: “It’s nice to come here and show people I can actually run. It’s a big step … I finally feel like I can belong now.”
• IAAF: Renaud Lavillenie Dominates PV With MR 6.04m To Win His 4th Straight Title He had it won with only 2 jumps, but continued on to break his own MR. Pavel Maslak thrilled the home crowd by defending his title in the 400 with a MR 45.33. Russia’s Mariya Kuchina won the HJ (1.97m) in a sudden death jump-off.
• Katarina Johnson-Thompson Thinks UK Heptathlon Rivalry Between Her, Jessica Ennis And Morgan Lake Could Help The Sport “I heard BBC switched off the tennis to go to the athletics, which is insane.”
• The Netherlands’ Dafne Schippers Could Be The Favorite In The 60m After Setting A New PR Of 7.07 To Clock The Fastest Time In The Heats
• Ireland’s John Travers Sets A PR To Make 1,500 Final
• UK’s Richard Kilty, CJ Ujah And Diana Asher-Smith All Through The First Round In The 60m
• Johnson-Thompson Says She’s “Still In Awe” Of Jessica Ennis Even After Breaking Her Record “She’s one of the people who inspired me to be an heptathlete.”

LRC Editorial #weareusatf #dotherightthing

LRC"The System Didn't Work" - USATF Board Should Respect Its Members And Nominate Bob Hersh To IAAF Council

Runner Of The Month

LRCThe Nate Houle Story: "Trying to live life while you've still got it."

Doping Updates

• Turkey’s 2-Time 100H Euro Champ Nevin Yanit Has Her 2-Year Doping Ban Increased To 3 Years After IAAF Appeal To CAS Turkey gave her 2 years, but the IAAF wanted 4 due to “multiple positive findings” with her biological passport showing she took multiple steroids and blood doped.
• Not What You Want To Hear: Jamaica Cuts Anti-Doping Budget By $121,000 The Jamaican sports minister revealed that they “spent a great deal on educating” athletes. We would have preferred they spent money on more testing. News Flash: Most athletes who get caught doping did it on purpose.
• Moroccan Distance Runner Ahmed Baday Banned For Doping His results have been annulled back to March 26, 2010.
• Athletics Canada Puts Support Behind Lifetime Bans
• Welsh 800 Runner Gareth Warburton Will Return From Drug Ban With 800 Race In Wales

Distance News

• Very Impressive Iowa State’s Edward Kemboi Won The 800 And 1k 20 Minutes Apart At Big 12s He’s a big fan of “The Time Is Now.”
• Meet The Japanese World Record Mother/Daughter Marathon Combo Of Sairi Maeda And Junko Maeda In Nagoya, they ran 5:22:10, thanks to a Japanese collegiate record of  2:26:46 and a 2:55:24 by mom.
• Caleb Ndiku Says He Has No Plans To Run World Indoors This Year That’s good as there is no World Indoors.
• Jim Spivey Gives Advice To Young Milers – Do 6-10 X 100 Every Day But After The Long Run

US News Of Note

• Recommended Read: Hartford Runner Chaz Davis Returns To Competition After Going Blind In College Davis was a small school individual state champ in HS before he went blind in college.
  *Hartford-Courant: Legally Blind, Hawks Runner Chaz Davis Keeps Competing
• Boston Bombing Trial Starts With Tsarnaev Attorney Admitting He Did It – “It Was Him” They are trying to say his brother heavily influenced him to do it.
• Nick Symmonds’ Words Of Wisdom On How To Stay Calm: “It’s just running. It’s not family, not curing cancer, not feeding the world, it’s running around in circles.”
• Guess What Color 2016 World Indoor Championships Track Will Be? Orange for Oregon State would be incorrect.
• Q&A With New Saucony Pro Brian Shrader About Why He Went Pro *As predicted on the MBoard in January, he’s signed with Saucony. *MB: Shrader goes pro! 
• Boston Mayor Strongly Defends 2024 Olympic Bid Amid Criticism
• Leo Manzano Has Degree In Portuguese – Hopes It Comes In Handy In 2016
• Kansas Relays Will Feature A Collegiate Quadrangular In 2015 Trying to generate fan interest, Kansas will battle KState, Purdue and Colorado State in a meet within a meet.
  *MB: DOWN GOES KU RELAYS.

2015 Age Cheat African Jr. Champs 

• African Junior Champs Start Thursday – Team Kenya Seeks Golden Start
• “Cash Strapped” Team Nigeria Had To Get A Private Loan For Plane Tickets The federation only came up with $25,000 of the $100,000 it promised for the trip.

Emma Coburn, Read This: Milcah Chemos’ Hamstring “Snapped” At CGs, But After Surgery In October, She’s Ready To Begin Training And Hopes To Defend Her World Title

UK Euro Indoor Section

• GB’s Jenny Meadows Comes Into Euro Indoor Champs As The Favorite In The 800 She’s the 2011 Euro champ, but hopes to win it for real this time as she had to get that medal years after the fact due to a Russian drug ban. She’s the only sub-2:00 woman this year.
• A Look Back At Seb Coe’s 800 Victory At The 1977 European Indoor Championships (includes video) It was a breakthrough performance for him at the time as he won in a championship/UK record of 1:46.54.
• Good Read: UK Multi-Event Athlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson Talks About Competing At London 2012 When She Was 19 And How She Broke Her Mom’s Heart When She Quit Ballet For Sports She’s the favorite in the pentathlon.
• British 19-Year-Old Dina Asher-Smith A Favorite To Medal In The 60m At Euro Indoors This Week She’s tied at 5th fastest in the world this year with 7.11 seconds.
• Sprint Hurdler Lawrence Clarke Will Captain GB Team For Euro Indoor Champs

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

LRC Remembering LRCer Van Townsend The running world lost one of its bright lights this week with the death of Van Townsend.
*MB: RIP Van Townsend: Share Your Respects Here