It Just Got Easier To Make The Olympics

LRC73 Americans Pick Up Olympic Standards As IAAF Eases Standards In 17 Events; Should USATF Change The Marathon Trials Standard Accordingly?

Might Galen Rupp Run The Marathon Trials?

LRC Galen Rupp Is Running A Half Marathon This Sunday; Will He Do The Olympic Marathon Trials? Is Galen Rupp serious about doing the Olympic Marathon Trials this time? Does he possibly have a better shot at Olympic gold in the marathon than in 10,000?
*MB: Galen Rupp Running Half Marathon in Portland This Weekend; Will He Run Marathon Trials?

Eugene 2021 / Portland 2016 News

• French Authorities Investigating IAAF’s Eugene 2021 World Championships Decision No official bid process, Lamine Diack bribes and Seb Coe‘s Nike connection make them suspicious.
  
• Vin Lananna Stands By Eugene 2021 Bid “We are 100 percent confident that there was nothing outside of what are the norms for an IAAF bid.”
• Register-Guard: TrackTown USA Celebrates 100 Days Until World Indoors Amid Latest Inquiry Into How Eugene Earned 2021 Worlds
• A Look Back At USA’s “Rich History Of Hosting IAAF Championships” Apparently the US is one of only five countries to have hosted IAAF championships across all four main surfaces – outdoor, indoor, road and XC.
• Jenn Suhr Reportedly Not Competing At US Or World Indoor Champs This Year

Doping-Related Stuff

• Good On Them: Zurich Diamond League Meet Launching “Fair Play” Program To Help Support The Anti-Doping Movement They will honor Russian whistleblowers Yulia Stepanova and Vitaly Stepanov as “Fair Play Ambassadors” and have a week of anti-doping discussions and events.
• Yelena Isinbayeva Will Be Allowed To Stand For IOC Athletes’ Commission At Rio 2016 Even If Russia Is Still Banned She is one of 24 candidates standing for four places who will be voted on by the athletes in Rio.
• Video Interview With Betsy Andreu: “Doping Problems In Track Even Worse Than They Were In Cycling”
• Seven Countries Interested In Hosting 2016 IAAF Events That Were Taken Away From Russia Winners will be announced January 7th.
• Runners Encouraged To Wear “I Run Clean” Message On Bibs At Euro XC Champs The athletes will have the choice between the “I Run Clean” bib and a neutral one.

IOC News

• IOC Vice President Admits That Brazil Economic Crisis Will Inevitably Affect Olympic Games Brazil is dealing with a major recession, impeachment proceedings against their president and a massive corruption scandal.
• Mexico Appears To Be Safe After IOC Warned They Could Be Suspended The IOC doesn’t want governments controlling national Olympic committees, but in this instance some involvement was necessary to fight corruption.
• Hamburg Withdrawal From 2024 Olympic Bid Race No Major Concern For IOC The IOC say the withdrawal was for “external reasons,” but critics think it’s another sign that the Games cost too much to host.

Doping News

• German Journalist Hajo Seppelt Thinks Seb Coe Should Apologize Or “He’s Not The Right Man To Lead The IAAF” “He’s not able to say sorry that I made a mistake. He speaks and acts like he’s untouchable but he’s not.”
• An Internal Audit Clears Lausanne Anti-Doping Lab Of Fault In Destroying Samples After Dick Pound Alleged They Broke WADA Rules In other news, Oscar Pistorius has cleared himself of murder.
• Yelena Isinbayeva Calls IAAF’s Blanket Ban On Russian Athletes “Unjust, Groundless And Dishonest” She might want to be careful that her words don’t come back to bite her as she’s said she wants to get involved with the governing of sport with the IAAF or IOC after retiring.
• Good Read: Irish Times: “Public Proves Ineffectual Army In Doping Fight” Writer laments that there wasn’t more of a reaction when all-time great Sonia O’Sullivan revealed she had lost her emotional attachment to the sport in her later career due to doping.
• Veronica Campbell-Brown Says She Doesn’t Trust The Anti-Doping System In 2013 she was provisionally banned, but cleared by CAS, which reported proper testing procedures weren’t carried out by the JADCO.
• Thomas Bach Says The Worst “Side Effect” Of Doping Is That Clean Athletes Have “The Finger Of Suspicion Pointing At Them”

Sprint Stuff

• Yet-To-Be-Built Bridge In Her Hometown Will Be Named After Dafne Schippers Schippers was chosen in a public vote out of 10 options.
• Final Nominees For Kenyan Athlete Of The Year Announced The list of 12 men and women isn’t all distance runners as it includes world champions Julius Yego (javelin) and Nicholas Bett (400H).
• Usain Bolt And Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Lead List Of Candidates For Jamaican AOY

Olympic News

• Los Angeles 2024 Chairman Hails 81% Local Support For Olympics As “Certainly Compelling” LA is definitely winning in the local support category among bidding cities.
• Tokyo 2020 Logo Competition Attracts Near 15,000 Entries
• Opinion Piece: “Why We Should Really Be Concerned About The Visual Identity For The Tokyo Olympics”

Doping And Sterility: Kenyan News Article Scaring Athletes Away From Doping “Be warned. Substances that sportspeople abuse to enhance their performance can tamper with performance on the home front …”

Sunday Morning *Results With Recap, Videos

LRCKara Goucher Wins Rock 'N' Roll Half Over Flanagan And Cragg, But The Real Winner Will Be Determined At The Trials

Cross-Country News

• Former World Junior XC Champ Pauline Korikwiang (14:41 PR) Is On Comeback Trail After Giving Birth – Wins XC Meet In Kenya
• Final Entires For Next Week’s European Cross Champs *Event Website

Other News Of Note

• Shelayna Oskan-Clarke Talks About Her Amazing 2015 – From 2:01 To 5th At Worlds And 1:58
• British Columnist Rips Linford Christie For Having Huge Ego And Being Christian?
• Wesley Korir Is Thrilled Athletics Kenya’s Bosses Have Been Suspended “Our sport needs a lot of cleaning, our sport needs a lot of new blood and restructuring to make sure we deal with the problems we are facing.”
• Roger Federer Wants Better Anti-Doping Program In Tennis And New Head Agrees “I think when you have news like you do, the IAAF and Russia, it raises alarms – as it should – and it makes us look at everything we do.”

Doping & USATF Convention

The 1st Of The 2005 Positives Announced? Maria Mutola To Get Another Medal As 2005 800 Bronze Medalist Tatyana Andrianova Gets Banned Is this the first of 28 yet to be banned athletes from Worlds 2005 and 2007?

USATF Awards: USATF has the Jesse Owens awards at night and a whole different set of breakfast awards. Plus: Former NYRR CEO Allan Steinfeld Wins USATF Robert Giegengack Award For Volunteerism  The best news out of the convention essentially is no major negative news so far.

Pro Distance News: Ritz Is Injured

• Dathan Ritzenhein Adjusting His Marathon Training As He Deals With Hip Injury Leading Up To The Olympic Trials He has bursitis in his hip and is doing about half his mileage on the Alter-G.
• Florence Kiplagat Focused On Breaking Her Own Half Marathon WR Rather Than The Olympics She wants to get under 65 minutes and until she knows she’s on the Kenyan Olympic squad isn’t going to change her training for a race she might not run.
• Past Individual Champion Alemayehu Bezabeh Will Lead Spanish Team For Euro XC Champs Next Weekend

Seb Coe Grilled For Three Hours By UK Culture, Media And Sport Select Committee

• Seb Coe Grilled With Three Hours Of Questions Over Doping Scandal Coe was asked the same questions and, for the most part, gave the same answers he’s been giving.
• The Telegraph: “More Questions Than Answers From A Master Politician … Evasive Responses Left The Committee Barely Any The Wiser” Apparently at one point Hajo Seppelt burst out with “Liar” and “Not true” in reaction to Coe’s words.
• Guardian’s Sean Ingle: “Coe: From “King Of World After London 2012″ To Waffling Apologist For IAAF”
• Coe Admits To Concerns Over Doha’s Right To Host 2019 World Champs Coe avoided answering whether he was going to launch an investigation or not.

NCAA Photos Galore *D1 Men’s Race (514 Photos) *D1 Women’s Race (486 Photos) *D1 Banquet *D1 Post-Race *DIII Men (257 Photos) *DIII Women (185 Photos)