The Education Of Drew Hunter

LRCMeet The Elementary School PE Teacher Who Is The Mastermind Behind America's Greatest Prep Distance Runner

Speedy Mid-Week Action In Dusseldorf *Full Results

Five World-Leading Marks Set In Dusseldorf: Augustine Choge Runs 7:39.23 To Beat Stacked Field In 3,000 Choge won over Caleb Ndiku (2nd – 7:39.82), Yenew Alamriew (3rd) as well as many other top African stars. Elijah Manangoi won the 1,500 (3:39.77) as Adam Kszczot ran 1:46.00 to win the 800 over Pierre-Ambroise Bosse and Eric Sowinski. Habitam Alemu won the women’s 800 (2:01.99). *Meet Videos

Doping News

• Good Read: Athletics Illustrated Talks To Dick Pound, Who Reacts Angrily When It’s Suggested That He Was “Coerced” Between The 1st And 2nd Doping Reports Some great quotes from Pound who defends the conclusions put forward in the second WADA report. Pound: “The real issue seems to be that I failed to participate in a lynching. I don’t do lynchings.”
  *LRC Archives: Analysis And Reaction To WADA Report Part 2: Dick Pound’s Puzzling Endorsement Of Seb Coe, Looking For Heroes And Where Was The “Wow Factor”?
• Interesting Blog Post By Retired GB Distance Runner Mara Yamauchi: “How do you spot signs of doping?” Her list is pretty good, but nowhere near as thorough as the one LRCers came up with two years ago.
• Don’t Count Your Chickens Dopers: Russia Targeting Having 450 Athletes At 2016 Games That number will be a lot smaller if Russia’s track and field ban isn’t lifted before Rio.

Olympic News

• Italian Parliament Reject Calls To Stage Referendum On Rome’s 2024 Olympic Bid
• Health Officials Downplay Risks For Zika Virus During Rio 2016 The WHO have declared it an international health emergency, but Rio officials say that it’ll be their winter during the Games, so the risk will be less.
• IOC President Thomas Bach Talks About Preventative Measures Being Taken Against The Zika Virus

LetsVault.com

• Jenn Suhr Says Her Three Attempts At 5.07m (A Height No Woman Has Cleared Indoors Or Out) “Didn’t Feel That High” Suhr talks about her recent WR, why she likes to jump in low key meets and hopefully going for 5.07m next weekend in Boston.
• Jenn Suhr’s Husband And Coach Bashes The US Olympic Trials Qualifying System Rick Suhr argues that the Trials “just allows our best athletes to trip up.” We love the Trials and so do all the fans and most of the athletes. But if you’re the best in the World in your event, then of course you’d rather get a free pass to the Olympics.
• Even Though It Was A Low-Key Meet, Jenn Suhr Says Her Record Is Definitely Legit “There were a lot of people measuring that bar, a lot of different angles, a lot of measuring sticks. They were all 5.03.”
• IAAF First Impressions Interview With Greece’s World Pole Vault Bronze Medalist Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou At 29 years old she, still drives the car that she bought on her 18th birthday.

Father Time Stays Undefeated

LRC Teg Retires: We Remember The Six Greatest Moments In His Career & Show Some Awesome Old School Video While Tegenkamp may not have been the best of his generation, he helped usher American distance running into a new stratosphere and he’s the only American in US history ranked in the top 100 of the both the 1,500 and marathon. We rank his six most impressive accomplishments.

Abdi Abdirahman Scratches From Olympic Marathon Trials And Loses His Chance To Become First American Distance Runner To Make 5 Olympic Teams Abdi still might run a spring marathon and is even talking about the 10K on the track. “Everything good comes to an end but this isn’t the end.”
*MB: Abdi Scratches From Olympic Trials

2016 Camel City Elite Full Results *Post-Race Videos

LRC Drew Hunter Breaks Gerry Lindgren’s 1964 American HS Record, Matt Centrowitz, Garrett Heath And Shannon Rowbury Keep Rolling Gerry Lindgren‘s American indoor high school record had stood since 1964 and is finally gone thanks to Drew Hunter running 7:59.33 in a race won by the hot Garrett Heath. Matt Centrowitz won the mile and dabbed for Carolina fans as Shannon Rowbury got another win at the Camel City Elite meet. Updated with post-race videos.

Previous Flash Drew Hunter Breaks American High School Indoor (And Outdoor) 3,000 Meter Record With 7:59:33 
*Pre-Race: LRC Drew Hunter’s Coach Reveals Hunter Only Took Three Days Off After Foot Locker And That “If He Runs Successfully, Then He’ll Probably Break The [HS 3k] Record”

Pre-Meet LRC Nike Oregon Project Stars Matthew Centrowitz & Shannon Rowbury Reflect On Their 2015 Seasons & Look Ahead To 2016; Plus A Nick Symmonds Update

Sprints And Jumps

• Usain Bolt’s Aunt Ticked Off That Promises To Build A Statue Of Her Nephew Haven’t Been Followed Through On Everyone has that one crazy aunt.
• She Must Have Been Inspired By Jenn Suhr: Finland’s Wilma Murto Breaks World Junior Pole Vault Record With 4.71m Also competing in Germany were Mutaz Essa Barshim (set a HJ World lead at 2.34m) and Raphael Holzdeppe (won the PV with 5.71m).
• After Opening Her Season With 1.95 HJ, Blanka Vlasic Announces She Won’t Do World Indoors She said she was jumping through a ton of injury pain from the first jump on.
• Sally Pearson Abandons Plans To Run World Indoors After Suffering An Injury Setback She’s completely healed from last year’s broken wrist, but is having Achilles issues.
• Adam Gemili Beats James Dasolu At Welsh Championships 60m Gemili won the race in 6.59 seconds in his first race back from injury.
• AW Weekly Round-Up: UK’s Seren Bundy-Davies Runs 400 WL Of 51.60

Friday Pro/NCAA Action: Kim Conley And Allie O Scorch 5,000m; Fast DMRs At Penn State *All NCAA Results

•  Kim Conley Runs 15:09 At UW Classic As Allie Ostrander Finishes Runner-Up In 15:21 Conley narrowly misses her 15:08 outdoor PR while Ostrander’s time would put her 7th on the all-time NCAA list if counting oversized tracks. *Full Results
  *Boise State Article
• UW Runs Second-Fastest DMR In School History With 11:04.14
• Penn State And Stanford Men Run The 4th- And 5th-Fastest DMR Times In NCAA History Brannon Kidder and Sean McGorty both split 3:55 (for 1,600) on the anchor, but Kidder got PSU the win in 9:27.20 to Stanford’s 9:27.27.
• Oregon DMRs Win At Razorback Invy Edward Cheserek ran a 3:55.70 anchor leg to get them 9:30.95. The UO women’s DMR ran 11:03.61.
• Stanford Article: Stanford Women Take DMR In 10:54.58 They just beat out Georgetown (10:54.77). *Full Meet Results
• USTFCCCA Friday Recap Kendell Williams was on pace, but missed her own collegiate pentathlon record.
• Mary Cain Runs Season-Opening 9:23 3k At The Armory Bad news – the time is 21 seconds slower than what she opened up in 3 years ago. Good news – she lapped the field.

Portland High Performance Meet #3
*Results

• TrackTown HP#3: Brenda Martinez Impresses And Galen Rupp Works On His Speed Martinez had the most impressive result of the night with a 4:32 mile victory while Rupp took a break from marathon training to win the 3,000 in 7:57.
• Ken Goe Would Like To See The Momentum Generated By The House Of Track Series In Portland Continue Next Year He says the meet has drawn a younger crowd than what you usually see at Hayward Field.
• Oregonian Article: Rupp And Salazar Say The 3K Was Just About Getting A Time For US Indoors And Salazar Just Wanted Him To Break 8 Minutes Brenda Martinez talked to Treniere Moser pre-race about helping to make it fast, but Moser was treating it as a workout, doubling back from the 800.
• Official MB Thread: TrackTown HP Meet #3 – Galen Rupp Running 3000m Tonight

Rupp Certified: Galen Rupp To Race The 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials

It’s Official: Galen Rupp To Run 2016 US Olympic Marathon Trials As Well As World Indoors Turns out all the speculation (see here, here and here) was true as Rupp will be lining up on the streets of LA next month to make his highly anticipated marathon debut while shooting for an Olympic berth. Or maybe it wasn’t all speculation as a source told Rojo this was the case back in December as shown here.

• 15-Minute Video Interview With Rupp Rupp talks about the decision, his training and his plans to run both US and World Indoors after the marathon trials.
• MB: BREAKING: Rupp Running USATF Marathon Trials (For REAL)
• Toni Reavis: “I think he’s the best marathoner in America right now.” We tend to agree.

Collegiate Action / News *All Collegiate Results

• USTFCCCA’s Weekend Preview – Penn State Men’s 800 Is Loaded NCAA 1k record holder Brannon Kidder will race Dylan Capwell, Clayton Murphy, Ryan Manahan and Craig Engels at Penn State. *MB: Penn State men’s 800 is LOADED with Brannon Kidder, Dylan Capwell, Clayton Murphy, Ryan Manahan, and Craig Engels
• NFLer Jeff Demps Is Running 60, Paul Chelimo Running The Mile At This Weekend’s House Of Track Meet
• Oregon’s Devon Allen Will Make Track Return This Weekend
• Three Malone Sisters Will All Be Able To Race Together For 1st Time This Spring After Shannon Transferred In From UVA
• Former Pittsburgh, Hampton And Delaware State Coach Has Died At Age 72
• In Its Storied History, A Regular Season Arkansas Track Meet Has Never Been Televised Until Now This weekend’s meet will be on the SEC Network.

Field Event News

• Track And Field News Takes A Look At The Great Start Jenn Suhr Is Having So Far In 2016 Her husband/coach is very upbeat: “Jenn is capable of jumping what no one else is capable of jumping. The potential is there, and as soon as Jenn realizes, ‘Hey, I can jump that much higher,  then it’s going to happen.”
• Jessica Ennis-Hill Turned 30 On Thursday And Admits The Age Makes Her “A Bit Sad” “It’s more a case of ‘oh my God I’m 30.’ I know it’s just a number but it just seems really old and really different.”
• Valerie Adams Plans On Competing At NZ Nationals In March To Get Ready For World Indoors She hasn’t competed since pulling out just before Worlds in Beijing.

News From Overseas

• Eugene And USATF, Are You Reading This? Brilliant Idea “Club Members, Coaches, Volunteers And (Athletics) Supporters” Will Get 1st Crack At 2017 World Tickets We think USATF members and volunteers should get the first crack at all USATF events.
• The Internet Is Making Ity Possible For adidas To Cut Ties With Sports Bodies Like IAAF “Under former boss Horst Dassler, adidas practically invented the idea of long-term deals with sporting federations like FIFA and the Olympics to get its logo onto the field. It is now focusing more on contracts with the highest-profile players, clubs and national teams and less on federations” as their individual athletes can interact directly with fans on the Internet.
• Geoffrey Kamworor And Bedan Karoki To Clash On Sunday At Discovery Kenya Cross-Country At Eldoret Golf Club
• Q&A British HJ National Record Holder Isobel Pooley Article includes a standard training week for Pooley, who got hurt right before Worlds last year.

Obligatory Daily Doping/Corruption Section

• Doha’s Bid For The 2017 And 2019 World Championships Under Investigation The IAAF Ethics Commission is investigating claims that Qatar officials were paying off IAAF voting members with “brown envelopes”.
• UK Vs Drug Cheats Round 2: UKA Wants To Ban British Athletes Caught Doping From Ever Representing At The Olympics You might remember this law was challenged and defeated in the courts before London 2012. Now their loophole is making athletes sign a contract if they want to represent GB.
• Video: Three Way Interview With Paula Radcliffe And The UK MP Who Unintentionally Outed Her As The British Athlete Who Had Suspicious Blood Values The exchange gets a bit awkward as MP Jesse Norman refuses to apologize. Skip to 4:30 for a laugh.
  *Don’t Have 15 Minutes To Watch? Read The Highlights Here Radcliffe alleges that the parliamentary meeting was “a set-up” to purposely out her.
• Some More On Russia’s Former Euro Silver Medalist Irina Maracheva, Who Got A 2-Year Ban Maracheva and her coach claim the biological passport anomalies are due to a childhood head injury combined with altitude training. Priceless.
  *AP Article: Lynsey Sharp: “Remember that time I was the only clean athlete on the podium?”
• Russian Coach Lyudmila Fedoriva Gets 4-Year Doping Ban She coaches her daughter, 2008 4 x 100 Olympic champ Alexandra Fedoriva. Distance runners Alyona Kudashkina and Maria Nikolayeva also got 4-year bans.

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