Worlds Women’s Previews

LRC W 800 Preview: Ajee Wilson Looks To Make It Two Victories In A Row For American Women Chanelle Price shocked the world with her gold medal two years ago in Sopot. Can Wilson come through as the favorite on home soil in Portland?

LRC W 3,000 Preview: Genzebe Dibaba Vs. Meseret Defar In A Clash Of The Titans; Shannon Rowbury Leads American Hopes Defar has won this race four times but has run just one track race since 2013; Dibaba is the defending champ/world record holder. We can’t wait for this one.

LRC W 1,500 Preview: Brenda Martinez Aims To Prevent An Ethiopian-Born Sweep Sifan Hassan and Dawit Seyaum, who went 3-4 at Worlds last year, are the favorites, but Martinez has been in good form this year and has a real shot at a medal.

More World Indoors Coverage

• Recommended Read: Boris Berian – From Flipping Burgers To National Champion In Less Than Two Years Before he ran 1:43 at the adidas GP last year, he had dropped out of college, was sleeping on friends’ couches, and working at McDonald’s.
• Portland Is A Special Place For Meseret Defar As It Is Where She Gave Birth To Her Daughter 2 Years Ago Defar says she picked up some injuries on the comeback from pregnancy because her weight was about 15lbs higher than her usual. Normally she’s only 95lbs.
• RRW: Racing On Home Turf, American Ryan Hill Ready For World Indoor 3,000m “I think we’re in great shape. I think I’m in a lot better shape than Jerry even thinks I’m in. I think I’m a little past the seven or eight [out of ten] he wants.”
• Alberto Salazar Says Matt Centrowitz And Shannon Rowbury Will Be Peaking For Worlds Indoors Salazar explains why he wants NOP runners to do an all-out peak twice a year rather than train through indoors with just one peak in outdoors.
• Ken Goe: “The World Indoor Championships Open Thursday, But Will Anyone Notice?” World Indoors is up against the opening round of March Madness, so probably not.

Celebrity Running News

The Week That Was

WTWWTW: Nationals Galore, D2 > D1?, NCAA > USATF?, Super-Fast Collegiate Sprinting And Super-High Women's Vaulting, And Meet The Unknown 58:44 Half Marathoner

Catching Up With Ben True

LRCAfter Stellar 2015, Ben True Turns His Sights To Bigger Things In 2016

News From The UK

• UK Olympic 5K/10K Runner Julia Bleasdale Switches Allegiance To Germany Bleasdale had dual citizenship through her parents.
• The Independent: “The Last Thing Athletics Needs Is A Lecture From Carl Lewis” UK Writer calls Lewis out for making hypocritical statements as someone with past doping positives.
  *MB: Two AMAZING articles on Carl Lewis – Carl Lewis thinks Coe should (temporarily) step down and says current state of lj is “pathetic”
• Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson Quits London 2017 Over “Tokenistic” Role She is the fourth member of the organizing board to step down.
• From Last Week: Seb Coe Accused Of Giving “Untrue” Evidence To Parliament Did Coe avoid telling the truth about the IAAF blocking a study that found 45% of track athletes may be on drugs?
  *MB: Seb Coe accused of perjury in front of Parliament regarding IAAF doping scandal

LRCIAAF Announces Entries For 2016 World Indoor Championships

• IAAF Event-By-Event World Indoor Previews
• SPIKES: USA Champs Was A Great Dress Rehearsal For World Indoors “It was a dress rehearsal that had us salivating at the thought of the long weekend in store.”
• Ireland 800 Runner Mark English Will Miss Worlds With A Twisted Ankle
• Roster Of 58 For US Squad

NCAA Photo Galleries (1,659 Photos!) *Day 1 Gallery *Day 2 Gallery

USA Indoor Photo Gallery

2016 NCAAs *Results *LRC Video Interviews

LRC NCAA 3,000s: Molly Seidel And Edward Cheserek Remain Utterly Dominant The 2015 NCAA XC champions have added the indoor 5k and 3k crowns to their CVs with ease.

LRC NCAA 800 Finals: Favorites Deliver As Clayton Murphy Has To Fight For It; Raevyn Rogers Was Totally Unbeatable The people that we thought would win at the start of the day did, but in contrasting fashion.

LRC Mile Finals: Henry Wynne Wins By Controlling It From the Front; Kaela Edwards’ Patience Pays Off Virginia’s Henry Wynne and Oklahoma State’s Kaela Edwards got their first NCAA titles.

• Live From Birmingham: New On 1 Page: NCAA Post-Race Video Interviews Meet TCU’s Ronnie Baker – the fastest man in the world.
• Live Discussion Thread
• Ducks Sweep Team Titles
• What A Race! Men Turn In A Historic 60-Meter NCAA Final

2016 USAs Day 1 *LRC Video Interviews

LRC M3k: Ryan Hill Stamps Himself As A Medal Contender & Paul Chelimo Kicks His Way Onto Team USA In A Classic Race Bowerman Track Club tried to rabbit the race to set it up for Hill and Evan Jager but ultimately only Hill was able to take advantage as he claimed his second straight U.S. title in a meet-record 7:38.60. Chelimo was the surprise runner-up while Galen Rupp was eighth 27 days after winning the Olympic Marathon Trials.

LRC W3K: Shannon Rowbury Puts Away Field With Ease Over The Final 400 and Turns Focus To Medaling At Worlds Shannon Rowbury dispatched the field with ease the final 400 and now turns her attention to a medal at Worlds. Abbey D’Agostino will join her on Team USA after a strong second-place showing.
LRC 800 Prelims: Favorites Advance, Though Not Without Drama Laura Roesler and Ajee Wilson both faced some trouble in their prelims but ultimately advanced to Saturday’s final unscathed. Boris Berian and Erik Sowinski had an easier time of it on the men’s side.

LRC USA Post-Race Video Interviews *Race Videos

• USATF On The Boards: Official 2016 USATF Indoor Track And Field Champs Live Discussion Thread
• HILL TAKES THE 3K
• congrats to Bernard Lagat on a new WR
• Paul Chelimo (Surprise 2nd in 3k)

The Latest Doping Headlines

• Well Said: Andy Murray On Maria Sharapova: “Taking a drug you don’t necessarily need because it’s legal is wrong.” Murray went as far as to call out his own sponsor for extending Sharapova’s contract and to complain that he hasn’t been drug tested enough this year.
• Seb Coe Reveals That Adidas Has Given The IAAF “Until The End Of The Year” To Sort Out Doping Crisis What does that even mean?
• Ethiopia And Morocco Set To Be Investigated By IAAF Over Doping Problems The high levels of doping in the two countries was cause for concern at the first day of the IAAF council meeting yesterday.
• Top Brazilian Sprinter Ana Claudia Lemos Will Miss Rio After Failed Drug Test
• World Boxing Champion Carl Frampton Thinks Maria Sharapova Should Be Banned For Life
• Russian World Junior Biathlete Champ Becomes Latest To Test Positive For Meldonium

Russian-Related Doping Headlines

• Maria Sharapova Tests Positive For Meldonium, The Same Drug Which Caught Abeba Aregawi She admitted to taking the drug since 2006, saying she didn’t know it was banned and had it prescribed by a doctor. The fallout has been quick as Nike already “suspended its relationship” with her, but her lawyer is hoping that she won’t get any sanction.
  *MB: Sharapova busted for meldonium
  *MB: What do we know about meldonium (drug Aregawi was busted for)?
• UKA Chairman Ed Warner Says Seb Coe Will “Face Ridicule” If He Lifts Russian Ban Before Rio He wants the IAAF to rule Russia out of the Games this week and “end the uncertainty.”
• WADA “Dismayed” By Latest Doping Allegations Against Russia In New ARD Report WADA president Craig Reedie: “At a time when trust in sport is wafer-thin these troubling assertions will do little to reinforce confidence in the Russian anti-doping system.”
• Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko Says Russia Is “Doing Everything Possible” And Will Investigate Latest Report Elsewhere, he’s quoted dismissing the ARD report as a political attack.
• IAAF Task Force Investigating Latest Allegations
  *IAAF Task Force Will Address IAAF Council On Friday

Nick Willis Opens Up On Porn

Nick Willis Talks About Porn Addiction & Being Porn Free For 2.5 Years and How It’s Helped His Marriage Nick’s post on Facebook is getting a lot of press.
*Editorial: “It takes guts to do what he has done – not just in being public about it, but in facing his own fragility.”
*Discuss 

Big Doping News

• Swedish Paper Says Jos Hermens’ Group May Have Made Up Stuff About Ukrainian Doctor Being Found In Ethiopia – In Reality, Paper Says Hermens Was Employing A Doctor Who Thinks EPO Should Be Legal 
• Fascinating Read: What Is Meldonium/Mildronate – The Drug Aregawi Was Busted For? The Latvian-manufactured heart drug that was only banned starting January 1 has already resulted in two huge positives. A LetsRun.com reader explains what the drug – which isn’t approved in the US – is and does.
• 3 More Ethiopians Bite The Dust And Are Suspended – 1 Appears To Be 2:09 Marathoner Sintayehu Mergia In December, he went from 2:12 to 2:09 in the marathon at age 30.