NCAA XC Regionals Are Friday

LRC2015 NCAA Regionals Men's Cross-Country Preview: Who's On Track To Qualify For The Big Dance? What Two 2014 Podium Teams Will Be Left Home?

WADA Report Fallout *Full WADA Report

LRC Detailed Reaction The 12 Most Interesting / Important Things From The WADA Report On Russian Doping Don’t have time to read all 323 pages of the blockbuster report? Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered with the 12 best points.

LRC Quick Reaction It’s Worse Than We Thought: LRC Reacts To WADA Russian Doping Report The 300+ page WADA report is out (full report here, thread here) on a huge doping conspiracy in Russia that first garnered attention via a German ARD documentary late last year. The details are very amusing and depressing.

Video Seb Coe Gets Absolutely Grilled By Channel 4’s Jon Snow Journalism at its finest. If only the US media were this tough on US politicians.

• MB: WSJ: How to fix doping for under $100 million
• IOC President Thomas Bach Expects Russia To Compete At The Rio Olympics “I think also Russia will cooperate to be compliant with Wada.” That’s not what the news coming out of Russia yesterday made it sound like.
• UK Columnist: Should We Be Worried About Thomas Bach’s “Cozy” Relationship With Vladimir Putin?
• Vladimir Putin Cancels Meeting With Sports Leaders To Discuss Doping Scandal The reason given was because heavy rain was restricting flights.
• Lamine Diack Resigns As Honorary IOC Member
• Russia’s Anti-Doping Laboratory Head Grigory Rodchenkov Resigns
• Lamine Diack Resigns As President Of The International Athletics Foundation The foundation is a Monaco-based charity.

UK News

• Julia Bleasdale Blogs About Doing Altitude Training In The Swiss Mountains As She Preps For Rio 2016 Includes a pretty cool drone video of her running through some beautiful scenery.
• WalesOnline: “10 Reasons Mo Farah Should Come To Cardiff To Race The 2016 World Half Marathon Championships”
• UK Athletics Announce Funding List For 2015-2016 Hannah England and Gemma Steel are among those who have been dropped from funding.

Previous Post-WADA Doping Report News

• WADA Provisionally Suspends Moscow Anti-Doping Lab Lab director Grigory Rodchenkov said samples will be sent elsewhere for testing.
• Russia Given Until The End Of The Week By Seb Coe To Respond To WADA Report Coe: “I want an explanation for the allegations that have been made today.”
• Recommended Watch: Channel 4’s Jon Snow Interrogates Seb Coe Over IAAF Corruption – “Were you asleep on the job or corrupt?” Snow grills Coe on how he could’ve been the IAAF vice president without having any clue about the corruption going on with Lamine Diack.
• Recommended Read: Seven Things Track And Field Can Learn From Cycling We really like their list, which includes “it’s worse than it seems” and “off with their heads.”
• Doping Scandal Lead Story In NYTimes & Front Page Of Wall Street Journal
  *MB: How is the Russian doping playing in your local paper? It’s on the front page of WSJ but barely in Balt. Sun. We wonder – can you judge the quality of your paper by how much press this story is getting?
• *MB: WADA Report Live Thread
  *MB: Wejo: Let’s Crowd Source the WADA Report: My Initial 7 Takeaways

Some Non-Doping Distance News

• Kara Goucher After 71:13 Win At Big Sur Half: “This is validation that I can still do this.” She added, “It’s a good place to start; it’s the fastest I’ve started [a marathon training cycle] in years.”
• Daily Relay Q&A With Ashley Higginson She’s considering this her “senior year” as she may retire after the 2016 Olympics to focus on her legal career.
• Greece’s Christoforos Merousis (2:21) And Japan’s Minori Hayakari (2:52) Win Athens Marathon Times were slow because the slashed budget to Greek sports federations meant organizers couldn’t afford to invite any elite athletes.
• Paula Radcliffe Visits School In Beirut School Which Is Educating 400,000 Syrian Refugee Children Radcliffe was in Lebanon as an ambassador for the Beirut Marathon.
• IAAF Cross-Country Permit Series Starts Sunday With The Cross De Atapuerca In Spain
• Yamada Denki And Chiba Prefecture Win Weekend Women’s Ekidens

US Road News

Previous Doping Scandal News: Coe Speaks

• The Sunday Times Alleges That Eight Russian Drug Cheats Who Medaled In 2012 Escaped Bans Thanks To Bribes To The IAAF They were recommended for bans in 2011, but Lamine Diack and ex-anti-doping chief Dr. Gabriel Dolle received payments to cover it up.
  *MB: BBC: “London 2012 medalists suspected cheats” bribing scandal deepens
• The Guardian: “IAAF Braced For Hammer Blow Of Dick Pound Report With Athletics In Crisis” Richard McLaren was part of the report and calls it a “real gamechanger for sport.”
• Seb Coe Calls Lamine Diack’s Alleged Doping Cover-Up “Abhorrent” Coe claims that the system worked since officials were not actually successful in covering up doping.
• IAAF Makes Statement With Responses To The Sunday Times’ And Reuters’ Questions Seb Coe claims that “every athlete found in violation has been charged and sanctioned” and a system of “checks and balances” makes it “impossible” to cover up a doping case.
• The Telegraph Reports Russia Could Face Olympic Ban If Declared “Non-Compliant” With WADA Code They say they have learned that the WADA independent commission will propose action is taken against them when it reports on Monday.
• Coe Admits To “Shock, A Great Deal Of Anger And A Lot Of Sadness” “These are dark days for our sport … this is a long road to redemption.”
• Coe Acknowledges He’ll Be Ripped For Referring To Lamine Diack As A “Spiritual Leader” When He Took Over IAAF Presidency
• Well Said: UK Opinion Piece: “Seb Coe Has 48 Hours To Prove He’s The Man To Save Athletics” “The stench of institutionalised corruption is so nauseating, the sense of betrayal so complete, that the challenge to Sebastian Coe must be uncompromising, and expressed with brutal clarity.”

LetsRun.com Investigates

LRCUVA Has Reassigned Banned Doper Martin Maric To Intramural And Recreational Sports - He Won't Coach Throws At UVA This Year

This Weekend’s Marathons

• Preview Of Sunday’s Shanghai Marathon: Stephen Mokoka Looking For 3-Peat He’ll face a stiff challenge in Tadese Tola and Tokyo champ Endeshaw Negesse.
• Preview Of Sunday’s Beirut Marathon: Elijah Kemboi Hoping To Smash 2:11 CR And Run 2:07 Paula R is in town as an ambassador.
• Preview Of Sunday’s Marathon des Alpes-Maritimes Nice-Cannes – France’s 2nd-Largest Marathon
• Eliud Kipchoge And Mare Dibaba Win 2015 Best Marathon Runner Award By Association Of International Marathons And Distance Races (AIMS) Memo to AIMS: Fukuoka is still next month.

The Latest On The IAAF Doping Scandal

Recommended Read France’s National Financial Prosecutor Talks Exclusively To Associated Press – Reveals Much Of Case Has Already Been Verified They’ve already verified that Lamine Diack pocketed “more than €1m” from the alleged cash-for-silence scheme. His son is at the center of the case but hasn’t been arrested as he didn’t return to France when they thought he would.

• Good News, Track Fans: The Telegraph Says IAAF Doping Cover-Up Is Small Fry In The History Of Sporting Scandals
• Bad News, Track Fans: Daley Thompson Says IAAF Corruption Scandal Is Worse Than The One At FIFA “(Diack) has undermined the very premise that sport is built on.”
• UK Athletics Head Says Seb Coe Is The Man To Lead Athletics Out Of This Horrible Scandal “Seb has all the necessary credentials and I’m convinced had he at any time he been aware of corruption within the organisation he would have blown the whistle as that’s what’s in his DNA.”
• Coe Promises Doping Crackdown – “[I’ll do] everything in my power.” “The crowds have to know that what they are watching is genuine.”
• L’Equipe: IAAF Awards Ceremony Cancelled After Lamine Diack Arrest
• MB:  Russian paper claims IAAF covered up 4 positives for Mo Farah
• MB: Alptekin refused a $500,000 bribe to Diack to cover up her positive test from the 2012 Olympics
• MB: Kip Keino says WADA is ‘seriously considering’ banning Kenya from 2016 Olympics We think the odds of this are 0.
• Meanwhile, More Russians Are Getting Busted: Five More Russian Athletes Suspended For Doping Abuse Included on the list is Maria Konovalova (14:38/30:31/2:22:27), who twice has been top three at the Chicago Marathon.
• Russian Athletics Official Confirms “Zero Tolerance” Doping Policy If true, Russia will go from a world power in track to a nation lucky to win a handful of medals.

LetsRun’s Hero Takes A Stand

Yuki Kawauchi Defies Federation Expectations With Statement Of Intent To Run Own Race In Fukuoka The federation has stupidly said that all men must go out on 2:06:30 pace (a time only 1 Japanese man has ever run). Kawauchi said he’s pumped after finishing 6th in NY, but that he will run his own race and be top 3 in Fukuoka. “If I can make the podium then I know I can compete against the best in the world. If they still don’t put me on the Olympic team for that then there’s nothing I can do about it.”
*LRC Video Showing That Kawauchi Gave It His All To Finish 6th In NYC

Pro Distance News

• Mo Farah To Compete At The Great Edinburgh XC Race On January 9th If he runs, it’ll be the first time he’s run XC since 2011. He was supposed to race last year, but pulled out with illness.
• Fun Read: Phoebe Wright Blogs About What Goes Through The Mind Of An 800 Runner During XC Races “The Start … 800ers do not try to get to the front but accidentally do anyway. This is followed by panic and a ‘HOW THE F DID I GET UP HERE?!'”
  Q&A With Betsy Saina On Joining The Bowerman Track Club After track season she decided to make the switch from the American Distance Project in Colorado Springs.
• Five Takeaways From The Fall Marathon Season For The Olympic Marathon Trials New contenders, interesting debuts and what have the favorites been up to?
• Former NCAA Standouts Natalja Piliusina (Oklahoma State) And Jess Tonn (Stanford) Join Brooks Beasts Track Club Piliusina was the 2013 NCAA 1,500m champ while Tonn was 3rd in the 5,000 at NCAAs last year.

RIP Chariots Of Fire

• Recommended Tribute: Colin Welland, Oscar-Winning Writer Of “Chariots Of Fire,” Dies At 81 The writer of the classic movie about an Olympic sprinter who wouldn’t race on Sunday has died from complications with Alzheimer’s disease.
• RIP Swaziland Athletics President And Former 800 Olympian Themba Makhanya He died after collapsing at work. He was only 45 years old.

Breaking: HUGE Doping News

• MB: Former IAAF President Lamine Diack Accused Of Taking Cash To Cover Up Russian Doping; Is Under Investigation In France Additionally, Habib Cisse, a legal adviser to Diack, is also under investigation while IAAF’s former anti-doping director Gabriel Dolle has been arrested. *IAAF Statement
• IAAF Headquarters In Monaco Raided By French Police In a statement, the IAAF admitted to this and said, they were “fully cooperating with all investigations.”
• Daily Mail: Charges Include Corruption And Money-Laundering Related To Cover-Up For Doper Liliya Shobukhova “This all comes as a result of an IAAF ethics investigation, conducted with the assistance of WADA.”