Club Nats Are Saturday As Well *Entries, Schedule, Streaming, Results

Race Preview: Alan Webb, Nick Symmonds, Gabe Grunewald, Katie Mackey, Laura Thweatt Are All Racing 2015 USATF Club Cross-Country Championships
*MB: Public Service Announcement for Everyone Going to Club XC Nationals: Don’t Miss the After Party Presented by Strava 

SPAR European XC Champs Are Sunday *Schedule & Free Streaming Info *Entries

• Preview Of Sr. Races *Preview Of U-23 Races *Preview Of Jr. Races
  
• Amazing Amount Of Stats From Ken Nakamura
  
• British Women Going For 16th Straight Euro XC Medal

Galen Rupp Told Larry Eder Last Weekend He Had Not Really Spoken To Alberto About Next Season Yet

Kudos To USATF For Acting Quickly

LRCUSATF Acts Swiftly And Relaxes Standards For 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials To 2:19 For Men And 2:45 For Women To Match Olympic Standards

Previous73 Americans Pick Up Olympic Standards As IAAF Eases Standards In 17 Events; Should USATF Change The Marathon Trials Standard Accordingly?

Good (Although Depressing) Read: Toni Reavis Gives A State Of The Sport Summary To End 2015 Reavis says, “… we find a sport existing, barely, on life-support, reeling from the toxic shock of massive corruption” and drug scandals. He calls on athletes to take ownership and unite into a “player’s union.”

Seb Coe, Doping, Eugene 2021

• Seb Coe Insists Eugene 2021 Vote Was Fair And Honest Here he defends the process, however, previously he was reported admitting that the bid process “wasn’t correct.”
• Sweden’s Bjorn Erikkson Claims Lack Of Bid Process Was “Bad Ethics At Least” And “In The Worst Of Cases Maybe Also Criminal”
• Seb Coe Says He Will Double IAAF Anti-Doping Budget Also said, “countries that are serial offenders will be sanctioned, athletes will be penalised financially.”
• Independent: What Seb Coe Said And What He Didn’t Say … Does His Defence Add Up? An analysis of some of Coe’s recent statements on doping, scandal and corruption.
• IOC Wants A New Independent Global Anti Doping Body By 2018 Winter Games WADA director general David Howman explains why putting that place in such a short amount of time would be very difficult and cost a lot of money.
• IOC To Start Audits For Sports Body Over Olympic Money They want to make sure the billions of dollars of cash given for the development of sport is being used appropriately.
• Seb Coe Says The IAAF Scandal Isn’t Bigger Than Fifa’s … not that it’s anything to be proud of.
  *IOC President Thomas Bach Says IAAF And FIFA Scandals Not The Same

More This Weekend

• Dallas Marathon Announces Elite Duo Relay Pairings Many of the elites will “tempo” rather than race, but if everyone ran all-out, our money would be on Sam Chelanga and Molly Huddle.
• RRW: Canada’s Nicole Sifuentes Gets Marathon Experience In Honolulu As A Pacer
• RRW: Olympian Zhang Yingying Helps Foster Bond Between Honolulu Marathon & China The 2:22 woman hopes to be the first Chinese runner to win the race.
• Preview Of Sunday’s Euro Championships Under-23 Race

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”

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