End-Of-The-Year News

• Usain Bolt Ranked The 32nd Highest Paid Athlete Of 2016 He’s said to earn $32.5 million yearly.
  *Full Forbes List No other track athletes besides Bolt. Soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo is ranked #1 at $80 million.
• Alistair Brownlee Thinks Mo Farah’s Sports Personality Of The Year Snub Could Be Because “Some People Don’t See Him As British” Farah received just over a fifth of the votes that tennis player Andy Murray did. But does that say something about Farah’s popularity or about track and field’s?
• Jamaican Gleaner Writer Makes Argument For Elaine Thompson As Performer Of The Year Over Usain Bolt This writer argues that while Bolt’s wins were expected, Thompson’s double gold in the 100/200 (she also won silver in the 4 x 100) were much more hard-fought victories.
• Japan 4 X 100 That Won Surprise Olympic Silver Named Japanese AOY
• Olympic Discus Champ Sandra Perkovic Named Croatian Sportswoman Of The Year
• IAAF Starting Its End-Of-Year-Reviews: *Racewalks

Sub-2 Updates

• WSJ: adidas Spokespeople Say They Are Also Working On Their Own Sub-2 Hour Project (search the article via Google News to avoid the paywall) Reportedly, the project has been in development for at least two years and has yielded a shoe prototype.
• Recommended Read: Toni Reavis Analyzes The Recent Sub-2 Hour Marathon Hype, Likening It To The NBA’s Slam Dunk Competition Or MLB’s Home Run Derby Reavis also comments on the lack of emphasis on competition, comparing the current sub-2 hour projects to when Wes Santee, John Landy and Roger Bannister were all independently chasing the sub-4 mile.

International Weekend Action

• Olympic 5,000 Silver Medalist Hellen Obiri Wins Deep Kenyan XC Race Over Olympic 1,500 Champ Faith Kipyegon Kipyegon’s sister Beatrice Mutai was 3rd and World Half champ Gladys Cherono 4th. Rio 5,000m Olympian Charles Muneria won the men’s race.
• Cornelius Kangogo Runs 28:19 To Earn His Third Title At The Houilles 10K In France In the women’s race, Worlds 5,000 4th placer Viola Kibiwot broke the CR by 14 seconds to win in 31:14.
• IAAF XC Round-Up: Ireland’s Fionnuala McCormack And Euro U23 Champ Isaac Kimeli Win IRIS Cross Cup In Brussels Elsewhere in Spain, victories went to Ethiopia’s Etenesh Diro and Bahrain’s Aweke Ayalew.
• MB: Aussie Jordan Gusman Runs Gets Unusual Mile/10K Double Victory At Meet In Australia He ran 4:00 in the mile to beat out Villanova alum Jordan Williamsz and came back 45 minutes later to win the 10K in 29:06. *Results
• Edna Jepkosgei (2:40:44) Defends Her Title At The Safaricom Kisumu Marathon In Kenya Elkana Yego (2:17:30) won the men’s race.

US Results: Syndey McLaughlin / Beer Mile

And She Jumps Too: Olympic High Schooler Sydney McLaughlin Gets #11 All-Time Indoor Mark In The Long Jump With 6.28m

Beer Mile: World Record Holder Corey Bellemore Dominates FloTrack Beer Mile Bellemore ran 4:49 to beat the former WR holder Lewis Kent by 10 seconds. US’s Grace Morgan initially finished first for the women in a 6:07 WR, but was DQed for having too much liquid left in her bottles, giving Caitlin Batten (6:29) the win.

• MB: Beer Mile – Canada Crushes the USA
  
• MB: Fan of the beer mile? Yes or no?
  
• Outside Magazine: Meet The Agent Who Turns Beer Milers Into Pro Runners Canadian agent Kris Mychasiw saw an opportunity in the beer mile and through clever marketing ploys (like getting one beer miler on the Ellen DeGeneres Show) was able to negotiate a contract with Brooks and adidas.
• Brooks Made The First Pair Of Beer Mile Racing Flats The outsole is “formulated for premium wet-dry traction and skid resistance.”

The Bowerman Award

Former Arkansas Star Jarrion Lawson Wins The Men’s Bowerman Award Lawson had an extremely impressive 2016, competing in four events at NCAAs (winning three of them), finishing runner-up at USAs in the LJ and 4th at the Olympic Games.

Courtney Okolo Wins Women’s Bowerman Award The former Texas star won four NCAA titles last year and set the NCAA 400m record, becoming the first collegiate woman in history to go sub-50 as she ran 49.71. The low point of her season unfortunately came at the Olympic Trials, where she ran very sub-par and missed making Rio.

• Okolo: “It’s a big deal. People who win this award are the best ever. It means a lot to me and I’m really honored to have received it.”
• Arkansas Staff/Fans Send Jarrion Lawson Congratulatory Video Message
• Edward Cheserek Remains A 3-Time Bowerman Award Finalist He’ll have one more chance to win it when they award the 2017 version for this year’s season.
• Register-Guard: “Different Year, Same Results For Edward Cheserek”

Emma Coburn Talks About Her Surprising Coaching Change

LRC Q&A Emma Coburn Discusses Her Big 2016 Season, Leaving Mark Wetmore & Heather Burroughs, & the Future Of The Women’s Steeple Coburn had an incredible and hectic 2016 – she set two American records, won an Olympic bronze medal and got engaged to longtime boyfriend (and now coach) Joe Bosshard. After the dream year, she surprisingly announced she was splitting from coaches Mark Wetmore and Heather Burroughs. LRC caught up with her on Wednesday to talk about all of that as well as the biggest thing she’s learned from training with Jenny Simpson.

Doping News: Athlete Power

• Good Read: Opinion Column: “Ending Doping Is In The Hands Of The Athletes” The athletes can force change, but for it to work the best athletes need to be in on it.
• Interesting: The Track & Field Athletes Association’s “5 Things Everyone Should Know About Doping” Some good info explaining how athletes beat the testing system through methods like micro-dosing.
• Better Late Than Never, We Guess: Sochi Stripped Of International Bobsled And Skeleton World Championships It’s sad that it took athletes from multiple nations threatening to boycott for sport leaders to move the championship elsewhere.
• Russia Considering Demanding Compensation For Stripped Bobsled/Skeleton World Championships Sure thing, right after Russia compensates all the clean athletes who’ve had thousands of dollars in prize money stolen by Russian dopers.
• IOC Athletes’ Commission Applauds Decision To Strip Russia Of Worlds
• Königssee, Germany Being Considered To Replace Sochi, Russia As 2017 Worlds Host
• MB: Fancy Bears Accuse US And Canada Of “Pretending To Fight For Clean Sport” In Order To “Further Their Political Interests” Fancy Bears have released multiple email communications and claim that US and Canadian officials “conspired against the IOC.”

The Running Community Reacts To Nike’s Sub-2 Hour Plans *LRC Sub-2 Hour Archives

• The Telegraph‘s Ben Bloom: “Nike’s Bid To Break The 2-Hour Marathon Next Spring Is Little More Than A Gimmick, But We Can Still Enjoy It” Bloom compares this attempt to when Justin Gatlin ran 100m in 9.45 with a huge industrial-sized fan at his back for a “silly” Japanese TV show. We actually made this same comparison ourselves on the weekly LRC conference call.
• Ross Tucker Chimes In On Nike’s Breaking2 Tucker gives his thoughts on the overall project and also hypothesizes how they might attempt to break 2 hours using shoes with springs and downhills.
• Mario Fraioli Rips Nike’s Sub-2 Attempt: “Remember when the marathon was a race and not a carefully contrived science experiment?”
• David Epstein On Twitter: “I’d like to announce my own sub-2 project; race starts at the peak of Mt. Lemmon and ends at sea level. Bring it, Nike.”
• CapitalFM: Kipchoge “Not Afraid” Of Racing Bekele

While Some Are Time Trialing A Farce This Spring, These Men And Women Will Run A Real Race In Boston

Six Former Boston Marathon Champions Will Head The 2017 Boston Marathon Elite Field Lemi Berhanu Hayle and Atsede Baysa return to defend their 2016 titles and are joined by Meb Keflezighi, Wesley Korir, Caroline Rotich and Buzunesh Deba. *Discuss

Starting The New Year Off Right At Great Edinburgh XC

• January 7th: Mo Farah Vs. Garret Heath Rematch Officially On For Great Edinburgh XC Heath has won the past three years in Edinburgh, getting upset victories over Farah, Asbel Kiprop and Kenenisa Bekele.
• Mo Farah And Callum Hawkins Selected To GB’s Team For Great Edinburgh XC The GB women’s team is lead by Gemma Steel and Steph Twell.
• European Squad For Edinburgh Features Turkish European XC Champ Aras Kaya And Runner-Up Polat Kemboi Arikan Yasemin Can leads the women’s squad along with Ireland’s Fionnuala McCormack.

Shameful Act

2003 World 400m Champion And Mexican Senator Ana Guevera Badly Beaten In Road Rage Incident She needed surgery from being beaten by four men after an accident involving her Harley Davidson motorcycle and a car. During the attack they insulted her for being a woman riding a motorcycle. *Discuss

(Mostly Russian) Doping News

• Yelena Isinbayeva Calls For IAAF To Reinstate The Russian Athletic Federation Claiming “We Have Done Everything They Asked” Well, if that was true, then the IAAF task force would have re-admitted them. Isinbayeva also revealed that she hasn’t spoken to Seb Coe since he became the IAAF president.
• IAAF May Reanalyze Russian Doping Samples From 2014 World Indoors In Poland The McLaren report showed that eight athletes were allowed to compete after giving a suspicious sample the week before.
• Buzunesh Deba Formally Named The 2014 Boston Marathon Champion After Rita Jeptoo Was Stripped Of Her Title Deba is now also the CR holder at 2:19:59 with Jeptoo’s time stricken from the record books.
• Kara Goucher After McLaren Report: “It’s sort of like Pandora’s box … we’re just seeing just how bad it is and it kind of feels like it just needs to hit rock bottom and we just need to start all over.”
• The World Olympians Association Backs Call For Return Of Osaka Rule The rule bans any athlete caught doping from the next Olympics, even if their ban is already over.
• Latvia Skeleton Team To Boycott 2017 Bobsled & Skeleton World Championships In Sochi, Russia

Foot Locker Talk

• MB: Official 2016 Foot Locker Live Discussion Thread
  
• MB: WHAT JUST HAPPENED: REED MF BROWN!!!
  
• MB: Grace Ping should’ve run Footlocker.
• MB: Seth Hirsh can only run a 59 second 400?!
• MB: Claudia Lane Footlocker champ
  
• MB: New Balance doing a great job sponsoring Footlocker
• MB: Footlocker and NXN should merge

Russia Is Exposed As A TOTAL Fraud

McLaren II Is Released – More Than 1,000 Russian Athletes Benefited From The Biggest Doping Scandal In History On Friday morning, Richard McLaren released his 2nd report on Russian doping and it’s as bad as one could possibly imagine. He provides 1,166 pieces of evidence exposing the elaborate state-sponsored doping scheme (which you can search yourself) that reached its peak at 2014 Sochi. Seemingly every Russian athlete in Sochi was involved as 100% of the of the 100 samples they’ve looked at were tampered with.
*Full McLaren Report – Part II (PDF)
*Full McLaren Press Conference
*WADA Statement *IAAF Statement
*Search For Yourself The Evidentiary Disclosure Package (EDP) Website You can search through more than 1,000 documents yourself.
*MB: The McLaren Report Part 2 Will Come Out On Friday (Dec 9) – What To Expect?

• Telegraph: Calls Rise for Russia To Be Banned From the Olympics and Stripped of 2018 World Cup
• NY Times: Here Are The Key Findings
• Washington Post: World Anti-Doping Agency Report Details Scope Of Massive Russian Scheme *BBC
• IOC To Re-Analyse All 254 Stored Russian Urine Samples From Sochi
• McLaren Report: Salt, Coffee Used To Change Failed Russian Samples

The World Reacts To The McLaren Report

• IOC Says Report Reveals “… a fundamental attack on the integrity of the Olympic Games and on sport in general.” They also pledge to re-test all Russian drug samples from the 2012 and 2014 Games.
• Trump To The Russians’ Rescue? Russian MP Hopes “Our Beloved Mr. Trump” Will End Doping Investigation Russian Ministry Issues Denial: “The sport ministry with all conviction can declare the absence of government programmes to support doping in sport. The sport ministry is continuing the battle with doping from a position of zero tolerance.”
• Russian Luge President Calls Report “Nothing But Rubbish” “The McLaren Report published today is not confirmed by anything again. Where are the facts? You can say this is nothing but rubbish.” We suggest she learn how to use a computer so she can search the 1,166 pieces of evidence herself. Correction: We incorrectly initially attributed to the quote to Isinbayeva.
• Telegraph: Vitaly Mutko Is Russia’s Teflon Sports Minister, But Even He May Struggle To Survive The Latest Doping Scandal
• Yuliya Stepanova – Russian Whistleblower – Gives Rare Interview To BBC: “I don’t consider myself a traitor.” We agree. She’s a hero.
• Dmitri Shlyakhtin Is Re-Elected As President Of The All-Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF) Isinbayeva was the favorite to get the job until she was named to head RUSADA and had to withdraw her candidacy.