November 17, 2015 | LetsRun.com

NCAAs Are Saturday

Colorado on top of the podium has become a familiar sight

Good Read: As Colorado Prepares To Go For A Third Consecutive National Title, Mark Wetmore Explains The Decision To Race Ben Saarel After getting sick early in the season, Saarel hadn’t raced in a Colorado uniform all year until Regionals and Wetmore thought about redshirting him.
Temple’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Champ Blanca Fernandez Is The First Woman In School History To Qualify For NCAAs She was the only one on her team to finish in the top 140.
Colorado Tops Men’s Pre-NCAA DI Championships National Coaches’ Poll Syracuse is ranked 2nd and Stanford 3rd.
New Mexico No Longer Unanimous #1 In Women’s National Poll After Colorado beat them at the Mountain Regional by one point, they got two votes, although New Mexico held out a couple of runners in that race.

Latest From The Russian Doping Scandal

Shameful: Despite Ban, Russian Marathoner Competes And Wins At Kanazawa Marathon In Japan Victor Ugarov was one of two Russians who competed as he won the race in 2:17:19. One of them even wore a Russian national uniform.
IAAF Release: IAAF Names Inspection Team To Assess The Russian Athletics Federation The five-member team is lead by Norwegian international anti-doping expert Rune Andersen.
Russian Stars Write Letter To IAAF And Seb Coe Asking To “Not Kill Their Dream” By Banning Them From The Olympics Yelena Isinbayeva, World 110H champ Serguei Shubenkov and Olympic HJ champ Anna Chicherova lead a press conference.
Yelena Isinbayeva Says She Might Stand For President Of The Russian Athletics Federation After Rio 2016 A new president will be chosen for a 6-month position and then elections will take place after Rio.
Washington Post: Molly Huddle Calls For Lifetime Bans For Dopers Huddle: “I think everyone agrees with that, and I’m not sure what the holdup is there.”
Swim Coaches Call For Rio Boycott If Russia Returns From Ban
Jessica Ennis-Hill Feels Sport Is “Definitely In A Dark Place” After Russian Doping Scandal Her coach Toni Minichiello isn’t for the Russian Olympic ban, despite the fact a Russian doper cost Ennis gold at 2011 Worlds.

Jumps And Throws

IAAF Personal Bests Q&A With World And Olympic TJ Champ Christian Taylor Taylor says his greatest rival is Will Claye, that he regrets not finishing his college degree and that he struggles to get enough sleep, often only sleeping 5 to 6 hours a night.
RIP: Oldest Surviving Olympian Dies At The Age Of 103 China’s Guo Jie competed in the discus at the 1936 Olympics.
AW Athlete Insight: UK High Jumper Allan Smith After jumping 2.29m to win the British indoor title this year, Smith knows he needs to go higher to move up in the overall world ranks.

Other Action Over The Weekend

Kenya’s John Mwangangi Crushes Spain’s All-Comers Record In Marathon By 1:01, Wins Valencia In 2:06:13 Doper Matthew Kisorio was also under the old record in second in 2:06:33.
*Full Results USA’s Chris Zablocki was 16th in 2:15:39.
Ethiopia’s Atsede Baysa Wins The Inaugural Saitama International Marathon In 2:25:44 It was the first win for Baysa since her 2:22:03 PR and win at 2012 Chicago. Two-time World 5,000 silver medalist Sylvia Kibet fell off early.
World’s Longest Half Marathon: Bangkok Half Extended To Almost 17 Miles As Organizers Send Runners The Wrong Way People were not happy.
Imane Merga Wins Opening IAAF Cross-Country Permit In Portugal For 5th Straight Year Belaynesh Oljira repeated on the women’s side.
Komazawa University Runners Go 1-2 At Ageo City Half Marathon It’s Japan’s major fall half marathon and the winning time was 62:48. Yuki Kawauchi ran 63:11.

Former British Olympic Discus Thrower Lawrence Okoye Signs With His Third NFL Team (The Jets) – This Time As An Offensive Lineman He’s been cut several times as a defensive lineman. Trust us – he’ll eventually be a starter in the league.

LRC Flo Groberg Gets The Medal Of Honor And President Obama Talks Running President Obama said it wonderfully: “… he had an incredible gift – he could run. Fast.”

NCAA Track News

LetsRun.com Investigates

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

UVA and Mr. Maric still are refusing to provide proof that his initial ban was the result of an "unintentional" act as they claim.
*MB: UVA Coach Serving Doping Suspension

Book Review – The Animal Keepers Is Certainly A Keeper

LRC Book Review"The Animal Keepers" By Donn Behnke - A Terrific Tale Of What It Means To Be A Team

We highly recommend this book - hell, we call it "a triumph" - by Chris Solinsky's high school coach, Donn Behnke. Purchase here. 5 out 5 stars.

NCAAs Are Here – Win Cool Stuff

LRC $200,015 LRC Running Warehouse NCAA XC Prediction Contest It is time for you to tell us who will come out on top at the NCAA XC championships this Saturday in Kentucky. Thanks to our friends at Running Warehouse, you can win some nice Running Warehouse and Mizuno prizes.

Kenyan Doping / Scandal Updates

Dick Pound Says That It Is “Pretty Clear That There Is A Lot Of PEDs Being Used In Kenya” He said it should worry every athlete competing in distance events.
AK Denies Doping Cover-Up; Claims Whistleblower Is A Rogue Coach A lot of crazy accusations on both sides. AK also issued an apology to Wilson Kipsang for publishing that he missed an out-of-competition test last year.
Mystery Over Eight Unidentified Adverse Analytical Findings From September’s All-Africa Games The anti-doping program at the Games was a mess with workers even staging a strike. The positive tests include three track athletes.
The Guardian: “Clouds Gather As Kenya Fears Sunshine Days Are Over For Its Athletics”
Kip Keino Wants Lifetime Bans For All Kenyan Drug Cheats
AK Vice President David Okeyo Denies Embezzlement Charges

More Weekend Road Action

Road Results: Joshua Cheptegei Wins Scholten Awater Zevenheuvelenloop 15K In 42:39 As 12:48 Man Yenew Alamirew Is 3rd (43:09) Elijah Kemboi Chelimo (2:11:17) and Amane Gobena (2:31:58) were the winners at the Istanbul Marathon.
Scotland’s Andrew Lemoncello Wins Las Vegas Marathon In 2:21:47 In Cold, Windy Conditions Jeffrey Eggleston won the half in 64:40.
Botched Bangkok Half Marathon Offers T-Shirt Apology For Sending Runners 4 Miles Too Far The T-shirt will say, “Finisher of 27.6km.”
Next Sunday: World Record Holders Zersenay Tadese And Florence Kiplagat Head Fields For Next Weekend’s Delhi Half Marathon Tadese will face 10 other men who have gone under the one hour mark, including Atsedu Tsegay (58:47) and Tsegaye Kebede. Kiplagat faces five other sub-1:08 women.

$100,000 .US 12K Champs Were Sunday *Results

LRC Molly Huddle And Sam Chelanga Win .US 12K Championships – Recap, Results And Post-Race Interviews Huddle dominated while Chelanga just held off Tyler Pennel to win by less than a second. Interviews with Chelanga, Pennel, Jared Ward and Molly Huddle. *Washington Post

LRC Molly Huddle Caps Undefeated Season On Roads And Leaves Open The Possibility Of Running Olympic Trials Marathon The chances are not likely as Huddle on the Trials said, “Probably not. I’ll never say never, but probably not.” When asked why she wouldn’t rule it out 100%, she said, “Just because I have taken to the roads pretty well, but I’ll likely delay the marathon debut.”
Discuss: Molly Huddle Leaves Open The Possibility Of Doing The Olympic Marathon Trials
*MB: Official USATF 12k Championship Thread

RRW: Molly Huddle Hopes To Cap Best-Ever Year With Third Straight .US 12-K Title
.US 12K Press Conference Highlights Quotes from Molly Huddle, Sara Hall, Kim Conley, Sam Chelenga, Tyler Pennel.
Race Preview: Molly Huddle And Jared Ward Look For USATF Running Circuit Titles At $100,000 .US National 12K

HS State Meets

MB: FM girls continue to roll – win 10th straight state title as 8th grader Claire Walters (FM) wins individual title
MB: Drew Hunter wins 3rd straight title – by 56 seconds!
*More HS Results

NCAA XC Regionals Are In The Books *Full Results Page

LRC 2015 NCAA Cross-Country Qualifiers Officially Released – List Is Exactly What We Said It Would Be Thank you, Bo Waggoner.

LRC Breaking: 2015 Men’s NCAA Cross-Country Team Qualifiers Southern Utah gets in at #31 as Cornell, UCSB and Eastern Michigan are left at home. Wisconsin‘s streak is also over. Fellow 2014 podium team NAU also is staying home.

LRC Breaking: 2015 Women’s NCAA Cross-Country Team Qualifiers Unofficially, here are your 31 NCAA women’s teams. Updated at 4:32 pm ET with a new set of teams.

LRC Which Unranked Teams Are Going Dancing? Which Ranked Teams Are Staying Home?

RRW: Syracuse, Providence Come Out On Top At NCAA Northeast Regional

Video: Great Lakes Regional Video Coverage Includes interviews with Mason Ferlic, Michael Clevenger and John Mascari.

NCAA Talk On The Message Board:

LRC Interviews:

Other News: Rudisha, Terrorism, Oscar P

Good Profile: David Rudisha Wasn’t Invincible In 2015, But Looking Ahead To Rio 2016 He’s Still The Man To Beat Rudisha says his family motivates him to continue training hard. Speaking about his daughter, he said, “Last time when I went back home I remember the first question she asked was, ‘I saw you running, why did you come second?’ So it was a tough question to answer.”
Marathon In Boulogne, France Cancelled After Paris Terrorist Attacks
Oscar Pistorius Does First Day Of Community Service As Part Of His Parole

Previous .US 12K Champs News

RRW: Believing In Herself, Alexi Pappas Is New Force On American Roads
Diego Estrada Says Making His Marathon Debut At The Trials Is “Not An Ideal Situation” We disagree. Being naive in the marathon can be a great thing.
Good Read: Daily Relay Q&A With Donn Cabral About His Success With The NJ-NY Track Club, His Friendship With Ashley Higginson And More Includes a funny anecdote about why Coach Gags wanted Cabral on the team.
Q&A With New Pro Emma Bates Ahead Of The .US 12K Champs She’s with the BAA High Performance team and has been doing altitude training in Mammoth Lakes.
Q&A With Juliet Bottorff, Who Was 7th Last Year
Q&A With Jen Rhines On being elite as a masters runner, she says, “I believe if you have a big (but attainable) goal that you’re excited about, age isn’t a limiting factor.”

Russia Reveals There Was A Possible Planned Terrorist Attack Before The 2014 Sochi Olympics Apparently, female suicide bombers had planned to smuggle explosives onto an aircraft in hand cream.

RIP: Longtime AP Track Writer Bert Rosenthal Dies At 79 Known for his work ethic, Rosenthal once dictated a story from his bed after he was hospitalized with heart problems during the Sydney Olympics.

A Kenyan Scandal May Be Next – But One Involving Money & Nike

LRC The Sunday Times Reports That Nike/Athletics Kenya Bribery/Theft Allegations Are Now Part Of A Criminal Probe Authorities are taking the ARD/Sunday Times Kenyan allegations seriously as a criminal probe has been launched. *Discuss

IAAF Q&A About Doping/Bribery Scandals One of the questions is about the police investigation of Athletics Kenya.
Kenyan Coach Alleges 3 Marathon Runners Paid Bribes For More Lenient Doping Bans
Brother Colm O’Connell Says If Kenya Doesn’t Want People To Doubt Its Performances In 2016, It Must Make Immediate, Drastic Changes “If Kenya wants to really move into the Olympics with a clear conscience and with global credibility, then … better testing and monitoring of our athletes has to be put in place immediately.”

The Latest In The IAAF/Russian Doping Scandal

The Acting Head Of Russia’s Athletics Federation Said On Sunday The Sport’s World Governing Body Was Punishing Russia To Divert Attention From Its Own Failings
Telegraph: The 10 Biggest Doping Scandals In Sport – Is The Russian Drugs Expose #1? They rank Russia #1, Lance #2 and Ben Johnson #3.
WADA Chief Sir Craig Reedie Says Russia Won’t Be Allowed In 2016 Olympics Unless It Shows It’s “As Clean As The Driven Snow”
Russia Proposed On Sunday That The IOC Let Its Athletes Run Under Olympic Flag During Next 3 Months (And Possibly In Olympics) To Get Around Russia Olympic Ban
Olympic Bronze Medalist Tatyana Arkhipova Was Forced To Withdraw From Sunday’s Saitama International Marathon – 1st Russian Athletes Banned After Russia’s Suspension
Seb Coe Writes Column In Telegraph About Doping Scandal – Urges Engagement, Not Isolation
Might Caster Semenya Be Upgraded To 2011 And 2012 Gold? The IOC and WADA are cracking down on doping but doing nothing about the domination of the 800 that soon will occur if people with hyperandrogenism are continued to be allowed to compete in women’s events without treatment.
The Science Of Sport Gives Its Ideas About The Russian Doping Scandal
Sean Ingle: Do Whistleblowers Need More Protection? Could the lives of whislteblowers like Steve Magness and Yuliya Stepanova be in jeopardy?
Yuki Kawauchi Talks About Russian Doping Scandal – Says Whereabouts System Would Be Improved Drastically If All Athletes Were Forced To Wear GPS Devices
Kiwi Columnist Paul Lewis: Let The Dopers Dope? You’ve Got To Be Kidding
Andy Murray Calls For More Drug Testing In Tennis, Even Suggests Cuts In Prize Money To Pay For It

The Latest Russian Doping Scandal Updates

The IAAF Is Next: A Lot More To Come In Second WADA Independent Commission Report On Corruption Within The IAAF Commission member Richard McLaren said that there could even be calls to suspend the IAAF once the report is released.
Would Really Defeat The Purpose: Could Russian Athletes Compete Under The Olympic Flag If Russia Is Still Banned Come Rio? Apparently Yelena Isinbayeva‘s coach is looking into that option.
Daily Mail: Is There Already A Deal In Place To Ensure Russia’s Return Before Rio? An IAAF insider said if Russia make it to the Olympics “… then it will be because of a huge and genuine turnaround, or forces much bigger than the IAAF.”
IOC President Thomas Bach Confident Russia Will Reform In Time For Rio We’re sure many athletes and fans hopes they are not.
Russian Athletics Federation President Vadim Zelichenok Says IAAF’s Suspension Is “Too Severe”
Russian Suspension Means They Will Be Kept Out Of SPAR European XC Championships In December Russia hasn’t sent a senior team since 2010 anyway.
Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko Says Russia Will Be Compliant In Three Months
Daily Mail: “Lord Coe Must Have Guts To Tackle British Athletics’ Smug Attitude To Doping” Writer accuses Brits of condemning Russians, but sweeping things like Christine Ohuruogu‘s ban for three missed drug tests under the rug.
Yelena Isinbayeva Wrote An Open Letter Asking IAAF Council Not To Impose A Blanket Ban On Russia Thankfully they didn’t listen to her.
GB Captain Martyn Rooney Believes Seb Coe Has Been “Naive” “I want to believe he is the right person for the job. … it is just whether it is the best thing for athletics to have someone who was involved in the IAAF at that period still involved at the turnaround.”

Russia Is Banned *All Russian Doping Scandal News

Breaking: IAAF Provisionally Suspends Russian Athletics Federation; Russian Athletes Banned From All International Competitions 22 of the 24 voting members were in favor of the ban; only one was against. Russia will not be able to host the 2016 World Race Walking Cup or World Junior Championships. To regain membership to the IAAF, the new Russian federation will have to fulfill a list of criteria and pass inspections.
*MB: BREAKING: IAAF Suspends Russian Athletics Federation

LetsRun.com Founders Named as Two of “The 50 Most Influential People in Running”