IAAF Provisionally Suspends Isaiah Kiplagat, David Okeyo And Joseph Kinyua Of Athletics Kenya Pending Completion Of Investigation 
*Previous: Seb Coe Suggests David Okeyo And Isaiah Kiplagat Could Be Sanctioned By The IAAF Ethics Commission After Allegedly Misusing Funds From A Sponsorship Deal With Nike

Paula Tries To Fully Clear Her Name

Mail On Sunday Has More Details On Paula’s Blood Values + Reveals She’s Offered £1m To Take An MRI Lie Detector Test The Mail on Sunday has 3 articles on Paula after meeting with her in Monaco. In the first, they have more details on her high off-scores and other blood tests around them. In the 2nd, they reveal she has offered to put up £1m for an MRI lie detector test to prove her innocence. In the 3rd, (QOD) Paula talks about the personal toil.
Discuss: MB: Paula in Sunday Mail

Sunday’s IAAF/Radcliffe/Russian/Kenya News

• Interesting: Colorado Professor Says IAAF Argued In 2011 That Pre-2009 Samples Were Still Scientifically Valid And Says He Has A Way To Figure Out If They Are Valid Or Not
• Sebastian Coe Admits He’s Never Watched German ARD Documentary On IAAF Cover-Up He also says that no time frame has been agreed upon for Russia’s athletics return.
• Ian Herbert: “Sebastian Coe’s complex ride with Nike makes him ideally placed to grill them. If only …”
• Paula Radcliffe Was In Paris When Terrorist Attacks Happened And Says It Made Her Think, “We could not be here tomorrow and I don’t want the last thing people remember about me to be that I was linked to drugs.”

2024 News

51.3% Of Hamburg Residents Vote “No” To Hosting 2024 Olympics

• Abrahamson: Hamburg vote makes plain Olympic brand crisis Abrahamson criticizes IOC head Thomas Bach for not campaigning at home. “Bach has been like the congressman who is always in DC but never at home, listening to and engaging with his constituents.”
• Boston.com: “Hamburg Pulls A Boston” *BBC

Not Your Everyday Boring Reads

• Good Read: RIP Norman Harris: Man Who Trained With And Wrote Books About Lydiard And Who May Have Coined The Word “Jogger” Has Died
• 1962 European 5,000 Champ Bruce Tulloh Reveals What He’s Learned During His 70 Years As A Runner “Running should be fun. Have you watched a dog running on the beach? Running, like singing or dancing, is a way of expressing our joy in being alive. Of course you may not feel the same way about this when you come home from work in the winter and it’s dark and cold, but that’s where other kinds of motivation come in. … Running hard is satisfying and running very hard is very satisfying.”
• Former Longhorn Track Runner Hamza Deyaf, Who Missed 2008 And 2012 Olympics As He Was Focused On Building Two Multi-Million Dollar Companies, Wants To Compete In 2016 He’s got a 400H PR of 50.21. Is that good enough for the Lebanese team?
• Rosamunde Carey Elected First Female President Or Bahamas T&F
• Futsum Zienasellassie On Patrick Tiernan: “He raced like a man.” The NAU star, who red-shirted this fall, also said this about Cheserek: “I’m not going to say he’s unbeatable, but he’s on a different level. We’re at the college level, let’s just put it that way. He’s at the professional level.”

Japanese National 10,000 Record Goes Down As Kota Murayama Runs 27:29.69 In An Electrifying Race For Glory On a track lined with screaming fans, Murayama just beat out Tetsuya Yoroizaka by .05 seconds as both were under the old 27:35 mark. Kenya’s William Malel won the race in 27:22. *IAAF
*MB: Two Japanese guys shatter Japanese 10,000 record and 27:30 barrier. Photo finish w pic 

Admin News

• Guardian Columnist Rips Apart Today’s Sporting Admins: “It’s Time Either To Clean Up Sport Or Put The Teletubbies In Charge” Marina Hyde laments that they can’t get “within 50 miles of competence,” accuses them of competing in “an Olympics of uselessness” and implies they are all fat and need Viagra.
• Mexico Warned BY IOC They Could Be Suspended From Rio 2016 For Government Interference In The Mexican Olympic Committee A top Mexican official claimed money is not being channeled to athletes and that there are too many “rich Federation directors and poor athletes.”
• UK Sport Given A 29% Increase In Government Funding UK Anti-Doping also had it’s budget increased (by 7%) after there had been fears that anti-doping and sport funding would be cut.
• Paula Radcliffe, Ezekiel Kemboi And Ashton Eaton Among The Six New Additions To The IAAF Athletes’ Commission

Seb Coe / Russia News

• Sebastian Coe Finally Agrees To End His Six-Figure-A-Year Brand Ambassador Gig With Nike Coe said he still believes there was no conflict of interest, but didn’t need the “distraction” and “noise” as he tries to “steady the ship” at the IAAF.
  *MB: Seb Coe ends his paid relationship with Nike
• All-Russian Athletics Federation Accepts Full Suspension From IAAF Over Doping Scandal They had the right to appeal against the IAAF suspension, but that would have delayed the whole process even more and killed their chances of being reinstated for Rio 2016.
• Independent: “Lord Coe: ‘Mr. President’ Offers Good Grounds To Laugh In His Face” Columnist rips Coe for failing to admit to the obvious conflict of interest with his Nike deal and for his tendency to belittle journalists.
• DailyMail: “Arrogant Lord Coe Fails To Grasp What Damage He Is Doing … He Just Doesn’t Get It”
• Toni Minichiello, Coach Of Jessica Ennis, Thinks Reign Of Seb Coe Has Already Been Tainted By Nike Relationship “This is getting really messy and my advice would be for him to just walk away from it. Immaterial of what he does now I think it will always taint his presidency. There will always be that black mark.”

Distance News: Learn From The Pros

• Q&A: Desi Linden Shares A Lot Of Good Training Insights Talking About Her Prep For The Olympic Trials Linden says she’s been preparing for the 2016 Trials since she had her major injury back in 2012. She’d love to win in LA as she’s actually never won a marathon.
• Next Weekend: Kara Goucher Racing The RnR San Antonio Half As A Tune-Up For The Olympic Trials
• Kyle Merber Gives Out “Some Terrible Advice”: You Should Get Injured Merber says he comes back fresh and stronger after his injuries.
• Paula Rafcliffe’s Words Of Wisdom Radcliffe says she learned to run her easy runs easy when she started using her husband (Gary Lough) as her training partner.

Doping News Outside Russia / The IAAF

• Ukraine’s Three-Time Osaka Marathon Champion Tetyana Shmyrko Gets 4-Year Drug Ban All her results going back to August 2011 will be annulled. That includes all three Osaka titles, her 5th place at the London Olympics and her Ukrainian NR of 2:22:09.
• Greece’s Retired Triple Jump Olympic Medalist Piyi Devetzi May Lose Medals Over Positive Re-Tested Sample From 2007 Devetzi won bronze at the 2007 World Champs and also has Olympic medals from 2004 and 2008. She retired in 2009 after the IAAF banned her for 2 years for refusing to take a drug test.
• Now You Can Dope Right Out In The Open For $65: Clinics Now Providing Voluntary Infusions To Runners To Aid Recovery Some of them are even showing up at road races, but any non-medical IV is banned by the WADA code.
  *MB Archived Discussion: Lynsey Sharp gets silver after vomiting and IV drip, interesting anti-doping angle
• WADA “Satisfied” With Marta Dominguez’s Three-Year Ban And Expunged Results From 2009 To 2013 We’re glad justice finally prevailed, but would have liked to have seen such a notorious doper out of the sport a long time ago.
• Ukrainian Mid-D Runner Oleksandr Shelest Gets 4-Year Ban He has PRs of 1:48 and 3:43.

George Barber, Father Of Pole Vault World Champ Shawn Barber, Banned From Coaching For Sex Offense Athletics Canada discovered he served a prison sentence in 2007 for having sex with a 17-year-old student athlete.
*MB: PV Gold Medalist Barber’s dad/coach suspended for sex offence

One Of The Sport’s First Convicted Dopers Dies Tragically Young At Age 59

Sweden’s Greatest-Ever Sprinter Linda Haglund – One Of The First Athletes Ever Banned For Doping – Dies Suddenly At Age 59 (Translated) Fourth in the 100m at the 1980 Olympics, her 7.13 60m best still is Sweden’s record some 37 years later. Her bust in 1981 was a game changer.

• Haglund Died Of Cancer On Saturday – Three Weeks After Her Husband Also Died Of Cancer – But Had No Idea She Had It Until Monday
• European Athletics Mourns Passing Of Linda Haglund

• A Look At The Irish Teams That Will Compete At European XC Champs
• Q&A With 400 Hurdler Eilidh Child, Who Is Ready To Put Disappointing 2015 Behind Her And Focus On Medal In Rio

Former Sub-4 High Schoolers Who Are Now Triathletes

• MB: Lukas Verzbicas Sighting: Finishes 11th At Pacific Association XC Championships 10K Verzbicas ran 32:24 as Darius Terry won the race in 31:18; AJ Acosta was 4th (31:29).
• Results: Alan Webb Finishes 9th In NW Regional XC Championships In Portland MB discussion here.

Other Distance News

• Profile On Frequent National Age-Group Winner, Joe Sheeran, Who At 57 Years Old Runs 4 Times A Day Training For Masters Championships Sheeran had PRs of 14:10, 28:55 and 2:15 in his prime, but took 21 years off of running because of injury. Now in his 50s, he’s run 16:05, 32:55 and 2:46.
• CNN Video Tribute To Recently Passed Mid-Distance Legend Mal Whitfield The two time 800m champion (in 1948 and 1952 while serving in the military) had a pretty amazing life.
• UK Steepler Eilish McColgan Wants More Support For Injured Athletes She’s coming back from ankle surgery and lost her funding. “When people need the support most, that’s when the majority of people are cut.”
• Random: Runner Creates “Movember” Themed GPS Sketch With His Running Route David Miller ran 15 miles to draw a mustached face with his run.

A LetsRun First: DIII Recap And Men’s And Women’s Photo Gallery

LRC: Ian LaMere Dominates, Wisconsin Eau Claire Hangs On & Abrah Masterson Surprises While Williams Cruises Photo galleries below.

A Legend Passes And We Barely Knew Anything About Him

Frank Litsky Of NY Times Remembers Mal Whitfield: One Of America’s Greatest 800m Runners – 2 Time Olympic Champ AND A Tuskegee Airman Whitfield’s life (2 Olympic golds 1948 and 1952 while serving in the military, being a Tuskegee Airman in a segregated military, and spreading track and field throughout the globe) was pretty amazing. Plus, after he retired from track, he advised a ton of athletes, including Kip Keino of Kenya and Mamo Wolde. He died this week at 91. *LA Times Obit
On The Boards: Mal Whitfield – USA 800m Legend – RIP