Monday Would Have Been Steve Prefontaine‘s 65th Birthday – Happy Retirement, Pre

• Recommended Read: Extensive Compilation Of Quotes, Interviews And Stories From And About Steve Prefontaine In Honor Of What Would Have Been His 65th Birthday Gary Cohen has put together a nice piece of work that sharing the highlights from Pre’s life and career. Includes the classic stories/quotes we know, but plenty of less known, more obscure ones as well. Quotes from Linda Prefontaine, Gerry Lindgren, Frank Shorter, Jim Ryun and more.
• MB: Interesting Steve Prefontaine Quote On Running The Steeple And Marathon One he had plans to do; the other not so much.
• SI Cover Story On Pre From 1970: “The Freshman And The Great Guru” The “guru,” of course, referring to Bill Bowerman.
• But It’s On The Poster!?! MileSplit Asks If Pre’s “Suicide Pace” Quote Is Fake Based on their research, it sounds like it is.
• LRC Steve Prefontaine Archives

Still Nothing Confirmed To Report In Adidas-IAAF Story

• Irish Independent Claims Nike Is “Poised” To Replace Adidas As IAAF Sponsor And Says Adidas Pullout Won’t Hurt The IAAF Financially The IAAF sold its marketing rights to Japan-based agency Dentsu who sold them to adidas.
• The Telegraph Says Seb Coe Is “Locked In Crisis Talks” With Adidas To Try And Save The $30 Million Deal
• The Guardian: “Other Sponsors Standing By IAAF Despite Adidas Pullout” Canon and Dentsu both said they have no plans to terminate their contracts early.
• IAAF Statement: “We are in close contact with all our sponsors and partners as we embark on our reform process.” Adidas statement: “Adidas has a clear anti-doping policy in place. … we are in close contact with the IAAF to learn more about their reform process.”

Latest Russian Doping Scandal Fallout

• BBC Scoop: Adidas To End IAAF Sponsorship 4 Years Early Over Doping Scandal, Costing The IAAF More Than $30 Million Neither adidas nor the IAAF have confirmed, but a BBC source says that adidas considers the doping scandal a breach of its agreement. The original 11-year contract was signed in 2008.
• The Telegraph: Could The IAAF Be Attempting To “Woo Nike As A Replacement”? We already know that Nike has no issue with sponsoring dopers.
• MB: Adidas to terminate IAAF sponsorship deal four years early
• Russian Olympic Committee Bans Four Russian Athletes For Doping Among the four was former European 800 silver medalist Irina Maracheva.

This Weekend’s Track Action *All Collegiate Results

• RRW: Kim Conley Wins New Balance Games Mile With A 4:27.88 World Lead Conley defended her title from last year in a close race with Kate Grace (4:28.30) and Stephanie Garcia (4:28.97).
  *The Armory Moved To A “Skeleton Schedule” Due To Weather Most HS races were cancelled.
• Iceland’s Anita Hinriksdóttir Runs 2:02.47 To Win The Reykjavik International Games 800 For 5th Consecutive Year That’s a pretty impressive streak when you consider she just turned 20 last week.
• Patrick Corona Runs Air Force’s First Ever Sub-4 Mile With 3:59.77* *Except he didn’t break 4. An altitude-converted 4:09.19 isn’t a sub-4 minute mile. End of story.
• UTEP’s Jonah Koech Runs NCAA-Leading/Altitude-Converted 3:59.92 In Albuquerque His actual time was 4:05.26, but Albuquerque is at 5,000ft.
• Germany’s Raphael Holzdeppe Defeats Renaud Lavillenie And Shawn Barber In France Pole Vault Clash Holzdeppe cleared 5.84m while Lavillenie and Barber were only 4th and 5th. Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas set a South American indoor TJ record at 14.69m.
• Trayvon Bromell And Former NCAA Champ Kendra Harrison Set World Leads At Rod McCravy Memorial Bromell ran 6.54 for 60m while Harrison ran 7.83 in the 60H. *Full Results
• Kansas State’s Akela Jones Comes Up Just Shy Of The Collegiate Pentathlon Record As She Scores 4,643 Points The record is held by Kendell Williams at 4678.
• Nick Willis Wins Windy NZ 3,000 Title In 8:00 Let’s hope the winds weren’t actually 60 mph like Willis predicted.

Power 5 Conference Clash Meet: SEC Vs. All *Team Results *Overall Results

• SEC Men Come Out On Top In Power 5 Conference Clash; Power 4 Women Beat SEC Women By 1 Point
• LSU’s Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake Runs World-Leading 20.57 In The 200
• Tennessee’s Felicia Brown Runs School Record And World-Leading Time With 22.88 In The 200m
• Texas Men Break School 4 X 400 Record As Women Lead “Power 4” Team Scoring

Pre-Weekend News

• World Indoor Track Has Been Sold To University Of Iowa
• Nick Symmonds Says He Won’t Compete At The USATF Or World Indoors
• Jesse Squire Ranks The Greatest Track Athletes In MAC History Dave Wottle and Bob Schul top the list if you don’t count double gold medalist Hayes Jones.
• Recommended Read: Free Coaching Advice Super Coach Dan Pfaff Gives You His 20 Barriers To Championship Performances Pfaff is a genius. Trust us.

US Marathon Trials News

• Runner’s World Has 15 “Experts” Vote On Who Will Make The 2016 US Olympic Marathon Team Not sure why they didn’t ask us to participate since we do this full-time for a living. The results? 1. Meb. 2. Ritz and 3. Puskedra. 1. Flanagan. 2. Linden and 3. A tie between Goucher/Hastings. Galen Rupp has more 1st place votes than just about anyone, however.
  *MB: Looks like Rupp is preparing to run marathon trials 
• Catching Up With Cancer Survivor And #5 Olympic Marathon Trials Qualifier Serena Burla

Other News Of Note

• Runner’s World Examines What Happens Next In Run Gum’s Lawsuit Against USOC
• Famed Kenya Defense Forces XC Champs Are Cancelled As They Mourn Loss Of Soldiers Killed In Somalia
• Usain Bolt Has Sprained Ankle And Hasn’t been Training For 2 Weeks But Isn’t Worried

News From Outside The US

• Italian Prime Minister Says Rome Is Leading Candidate For 2024 Olympics – Cites Fact It’s Supported By 77% Of Italians We bet they will be held in LA.
• Adam Gemili Determined To Make Up For Lost Time He’ll race indoors for the 1st time since 2012 on January 31st at the Welsh Senior Open Championships.
• Seven Things You Need To Know About New Junior PV World Record Holder Eliza McCartney
• Germany’s Ariane Friedrich Is Back Competing For 1st Time Since 2013 The 2009 bronze medalist in the HJ had a baby and then missed last year with an Achilles injury.
• Ticket Prices For Jamaica’s Boys And Girls Champs Have Gone Way Up – Some Seats Are 50% More Than Before Season tickets have gone up between 16.6% and 18.74% while Saturday’s general admission is up 50% but still only $12.

Nick Symmonds Lawyers Up For Athletes’ Rights

Nick Symmonds’ Run Gum Files Anti-Trust Suit Against USATF/USOC The lawsuit is about the idiotic rules preventing non-equipment manufacturers from being on athletes’ uniforms at the Olympic Trials (they can do so at US champs, just not the Trials). So Nike and adidas can have a logo on uniforms but Run Gum can’t. While they are at it, they should amend the lawsuit and go after the advertising restrictions put in place during the Olympic Games under Rule 50. *More From Run Gum, Including Copy Of Lawsuit *Symmonds Talks About Lawsuit (video)

US Mid-D News

• Recommended Read: Phoebe Wright Writes Her Running Autobiography – From Walk-On To NCAA Champ To Struggling Pro To Olympic Hopeful A very good and funny read from Wright’s blog (optional audio).
  *MB: Phoebe Wright’s New Blog. What Do You Think Of Her?
• Solid Distance Action On Tap For Friday: House Of Track HP Meet In Portland – Eric Jenkins And Cam Levins In 3,000; Laura Roesler, Geena Gall, Sheila Reid In 800 Andrew Wheating is in the 800 (also listed in mile) vs. Tyler Mulder while the mile has Trevor Dunbar, Hassan Mead and Will Geoghegan. *Full Start Lists
• Oregon Mid-D Women Reinforce High Expectations In Season Opener Besides Raevyn Rogers‘ 600m time, there were a number of performances that show UO will be dependent on mid-d for points at NCAAs.

Donavan Brazier Talked To The Media On Tuesday

LRC His 1:45.93 Opener Is Just The Tip Of The Iceberg For 800 Phenom Donavan Brazier Jonathan Gault spoke with the 18-year-old phenom today and learned two surprising things. 1) He ran a 1:14 600 in practice in November. 2) He says he’s definitely not doing the US Olympic Trials. Story includes race video.
*MB:  Check this out, Donavan Brazier ran a 1:14.98 600 in November!!!
*MB: America’s newest star has arrived!! True frosh Donavan Brazier runs 1:45.93 in first-ever collegiate 800!!

24 Days Until The Trials

• After Running 61:29 In Houston, Luke Puskedra Says He “Actually Wanted To Go Faster” “I wouldn’t consider it an all out effort. Believe it or not, I wanted to actually run a faster time.”
• Dathan Ritzenhein Has To Be Creative To Train For The Trials In Harsh Michigan Winter Weather To get acclimated to the LA heat he’ll eventually start spending time in the sauna and running on the indoor track in a bunch of layers.
• Ryan Vail Talks About His Training Ahead Of The OT He does a lot of solo running so on long runs he listens to podcasts for the first hour and right now is on a “Joe Rogan binge.”
• 5 Questions With Kara Goucher If she could have one song stuck in her head for 26.2, it’d be “Good to Be Alive” by Andy Grammar and she shares that she was bitten by a dog on a run last week.
• Luke Puskedra And Sara Hall Happy To Set PRs In Their Olympic Trials Tune-Ups In Houston Hall: “Ryan has been overseeing my training and telling me I was ready for a fast one.”
• Olympic Marathon Trials Video Preview