Rupp Running Boston!

LRC Analysis LetsRun.com Breaks Down Galen Rupp’s Boston Marathon Debut – Will He (And Should He) Be The Favorite? How Well Suited Is He For The Course? + Conspiracy Theories Galore An American-born man hasn’t won the Boston marathon since 1983. That very well may change in 2017. In this LetsRun.com debate, the LRC staff goes back and forth about Rupp’s Boston debut. They start by debating if Rupp is the favorite but before it’s all over the venture into the conspiracy theory front: Is it possible that the Nike sub-2 attempt was created to water down Boston to ensure Rupp’s victory?
*MB: Galen Rupp to run Boston Marathon. He will need volunteers to hand him new hats throughout the race.
*MB: Calling it now, Rupp wins Boston 2017 2:07:04, prove me wrong.

Galen Rupp And Entire US Olympic Marathon Team Minus Amy Cragg Running 2017 Boston Marathon – Plus Jordan Hasay’s Debut Galen Rupp is running his first big city major marathon and it’s not inconceivable he will be the favorite to WIN the 2017 Boston Marathon (international field hasn’t been announced) as Meb runs his final Boston and Shalane Flanagan and Desi Linden go for Boston glory with Jordan Hasay making her debut.

Miler News

• Now That’s A Fan: College Runner Delivers On Promise To Tattoo Matt Centrowitz’s Face On His Body If He Won A Medal In Rio York College’s Cameron Sorter got a Rio celebration pic of Centro on his shoulder blade and recently got a chance to hang out and go for a run with Centro himself.
• Recommended Read: Asbel Kiprop Gives Some Insights On His Training And Talks Olympic Disappointment Kiprop said the result in Rio would have been different if his teammate Elijah Manangoi had been in the race as he is a “team player” and helps Kiprop by setting a fast pace.
• RR #2: Q&A Catching Up With Leo Manzano As He Talks About His Career, His Training And Fatherhood Manzano says his 4-year-old son already loves running and had to hold him back because he ran 3 miles and wanted to keep going.
• Want To Be Coached By Nick Willis? Willis And His Wife Are Running An Online Coaching Program For The Mile The idea is to help non-elites train for something that isn’t jogging the local 5K or trying to finish a marathon. Willis says, “The mile can be something you run as fast as you can … Running doesn’t just have to be jogging along.”
• Video: What’s The Race Day Process Like For An Elite Miler? Follow Aussie miler Jordan Gusman as he warms up and psychs himself up to try to run the second sub-4 mile of his career.

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?
• Jamaica 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

More Distance News

• Opinion Piece By Athletics Illustrated’s Chris Kelsall: “The Death Of International Cross-Country” Kelsall argues that the rise of “plastic Europeans” (Africans essentially being paid to represent countries like Turkey) is going to lead to a “harsh death” for World XC. Includes commentary from Paula Radcliffe, Sally Kipyego and Sonia O’Sullivan.
• Mo Farah Misses Again As Andy Murray Becomes First 3-Time Winner Of The BBC Spoty Award Triathlete Alistair Brownlee was 2nd, an equestrian show jumper 3rd, and Mo Farah only finished 4th.
• Former Boston Police Head Says “Patriots Day” Gets It Right Former Police Commissioner, Ed Davis, who helped lead the investigation, said, “it was a cathartic experience” for him. The movie opens Wednesday in NYC, Boston and LA and January 13th nationwide.

More Doping News

• BAAA Will Try To Recover $175,000 From Rita Jeptoo She will have to pay back the money if she wants to be eligible again at the end of her ban in 2018. However, if she chooses to retire, it will be hard for races to recover that prize money.
• Jamaica Defends Decision To Not Back Seb Coe’s Proposed Changes To The IAAF Constitution The Jamaican federation raises some legitimate concerns with the major overhaul of the IAAF constitution. For example, the removal of age restrictions for officials and having committees appointed rather than elected.
  *Jamaica Gleaner Article The JAA feels it wasn’t right for a very small group to make all the changes without any discussion or approval of individual amendments.
• More Controversy Over Jamaica’s Abstain Vote For New IAAF Reforms Apparently JAAA president and general secretary Garth Gayle acted on their own without discussing the vote with the JAAA congress. Ironic given their argument above.
• Six Moroccan Athletes And One Former Brit Are Among The 19 Doping Cases Recently Announced By The IAAF Among those sanctioned are former World Youth steeple medalist Abdellah Dacha, 3:36 /27:46 man Othmane El Goumri and former GB sprinter (now with Ghana) Tim Abeyie.
• US Pole Vaulter Nick Mossberg Gets 4-Year Doping Ban For HGH Mossberg, the 6th placer at 2015 USAs, was caught buying HGH over the internet.

Assorted US Distance News

• Good Read: IAAF Profile On Clayton Murphy: “The distance travelled by Clayton Murphy between the first and second of David Rudisha’s Olympic 800m gold medals is hard to comprehend.” Go step-by-step through Murphy’s pig-farmer-to-Olympic-hero story. Despite the huge changes, Murphy says he’s still “been able to come back and just be a normal college guy … a bronze medal didn’t change a whole lot for me.”
• Good Read: 77-Year-Old Doyle Carpenter Wins Two-Day Ultramarathon, Running 149 Miles In 48 Hours Lapping a couple (who probably didn’t know he was the leader) on the looped course, he heard them whisper, “I bet he was a great runner when he was young.” Carpenter response as he went on by: “I still am.”
• Gabriele Grunewald, Abbey D’Agostino And Alexi Pappas Among SPIKES’ Personalities Of The Year A lot of non-Americans on their 2016 highlights list as well, including Ed Whitlock and outer space marathoner Tim Peake.
• Boston Bombing Movie “Patriots Day” Premiers On The Hollywood Red Carpet Boston Marathon race director Dave McGillivray said, “I think they did it in a respectful and credible way.”
• Olympian And TV Commentator Carrie Tollefson To Be Inducted into Villanova Hall Of Fame Tollefson was a 5-time NCAA champion and 12-time All-American during her career.
• USOC Initiate “Operation Gold” To Increase Financial Rewards For Major Medal Winners Money for medal winners at the Winter Olympics is going up 50% and 25% at World Championships. An Olympic gold medal will net you $37,500 from the USOC.

Still In Need Of A Christmas Gift Or Book For The Holidays? Here Are Two Fine Choices

LRC Book Review: “Collision Course” By Jason Henderson – A Terrific Summary Of The Events Before, During And After One Of The Most Memorable Races Of All Time Henderson, a lifelong track nerd and the editor of Athletics Weekly, traces the paths of American favorite Mary Decker and teen phenom Zola Budd of South Africa (who wound up competing for Great Britain) to the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, where they tangled in the 3,000-meter final, resulting in Decker’s famous fall.

LRC Book Review: Pat Butcher Travels To The Czech Republic For “Quicksilver: The Mercurial Emil Zátopek”; How Does It Compare To The Other Zátopek Biographies? And the verdict is in … which of the three biographies of Emil Zatopek – the man RW called the greatest of all-time – is the best?

NCAA News

• Amherst College Has Former State Supreme Judicial Court Judge Investigating XC Team Over “Racist, Misogynist And Homophobic” Emails Apparently one of the article authors was on the XC team for two years.
  *MB: Amherst Cross Country Team Suspended Following Email Chain
• Southern Illinois Senior And Olympic Trials HJ Runner-Up Kyle Landon Wants To Win His First National Title In 2017 And Make It To London Worlds Landon was “devastated” in 2016 when he finished runner-up at both NCAAs, the OT and missed Rio because he didn’t have the standard.
• Class Of 2016 Inducted Into USTFCCCA Hall Of Fame The six new coaches were Terry Franson, Pat Healy, Mike Holloway, Bob Kitchens, Marty Stern and Bubba Thornton.

Renato Canova Shares The Secrets He’s Learned From Africa – LRC Q &A

LRC Canova Q&A, Part I: Why The Kenyans Struggled In Rio, Learn The Name Of The 2020 Olympic 5,000 Champ, And Why Isn’t China Better At Running? The famed coach reveals why he thinks Geoffrey Kamworor, Caleb Ndiku and Bedan Karoki struggled at the Olympics and how Kenya couldn’t even put one man in the 5k final. He also discusses Asbel Kiprop‘s tactical struggles, tells you who will be the 2020 Olympic 5,000 champ, and what he learned from his stint as a coach in the Chinese federation. Did you know that in 2014, not one Chinese man broke 14:00 for 5k or 29:30 for 10k?

LRC Canova Q&A, Part II: Is A Sub-2:00 Marathon Possible? Who Wins A Potential Kipchoge-Bekele Showdown? & How U.S. Stars Centro, Rupp & Jager Compare To The Africans In Part II, Canova praises Matthew Centrowitz, compares Evan Jager to Saif Saaeed Shaheen, tells you how good Galen Rupp can be in the marathon, shares what he learned from working with Kenenisa Bekele and gives his thoughts on Yannis Pitsiladis and the Sub 2Hr Project.

Random But Interesting

• Speed Golf And Then Some: New Zealand Marathoner Sets World Record By Playing 237 Holes Of Golf In 12 Hours (link fixed) Armed only with a 6 iron, Brad Luiten ran almost 100K while completing just over 13 rounds of golf.
  *PGA.com Article With 237 holes in 12 hours, it only took Luiten 3 minutes per hole.
• An XC Version Of Paris’ “Love Lock” Bridge? Tree At Terre Haute XC Course Serves As “Monument” To Ended Cross-Country Careers The 12-year-old tradition sees Indiana high schoolers and collegiates competing at NCAAs, throwing their used trainers into the sycamore trees. So many in fact that several trees have fallen down due to the weight.
• Vintage Pair Of Nike Shoes Sell For $11,200 To A Collector From Malaysia Bruce Mortenson sold the 44-year-old pair of “Nike Moon Shoes” that he used when he competed at the 1972 Olympic Marathon Trials.
• Last Month A Legally Blind 96-Year-Old Broke His 5K Age Group WR By Almost 2 Minutes Bob McAdam “ran” 48:19 (at 5,000 ft. elevation) in a Turkey Trot in Colorado.

Foot Locker CC And USATF Club Nats *Club Nats Results *FL Results *FL Video Replay *Boys Preview *Girls Preview

Foot Locker: LRC 2016 Foot Locker Recap: Reed Brown (15:01) & Claudia Lane (17:04) Use Big Kicks To Win A Pair Of Thrilling Races Lane’s win was exciting but not a surprise, but there was a big upset on the boys side as 4:04 miler Reed Brown, who was only 4th in the TX state meet, got the win.

Club Nats: USATF Recap: Sam Chelanga And Colleen Quigley Win Quigley won over Sarah Pagano, whose 2nd place finish helped the BAA win the team title. American Distance Project took the men’s team race with Chelanga and Stanley Kebenei going 1-2. OT qualifier Kevin Castille dominated the men’s masters race. *Results
*MB: Official 2016 USATF Club Nat Live Discussion Thread
*USATF Junior Olympics Recap

European XC Champs *Results

Results: Turkey Dominates As Kenyan-Born Turks Go 1-2 In Men’s And Women’s Races Aris Kaya and Polat Kemboi Arıkan went 1-2 on the men’s side and Yasemin Can and Meryem Akda in the women’s.
*MB: Fair or Foul? Sonia O’Sullivan slams the fact that two Kenyan born Turks go 1-2 at 2016 Euro Cross

• Athletics Weekly Recap Of Senior Races: Team Euro Cross Gold For GB’s Senior Men As Callum Hawkins Leads Way With Individual Bronze *BBC
  *Ireland’s Fionnuala McCormack Is Denied European Medal As Two Turkish-Born Athletes Go 1-2 In Women’s Race – Sonia O’Sullivan Slams IAAF Rules Afterwards
• Athletics Weekly Recap Of Jr. And U-23 Races: Konstanze Klosterhalfen And Jakob Ingebrigtsen Dominate U-20 Races As Team GB Women Win Two Golds New Mexico’s Alice Wright, who was 19th at NCAAs, won U-23 bronze just ahead of San Francisco’s Charlotte Taylor.
• European Athletics Recap of U23 Women: Poland’s Sofia Ennaoui Wins Gold
• European Athletics Recap of Boys U-20 Race: Oh Brother! It’s Gold For Ingebrigsten We’re not the only one that think the 16-year-old Jakob Ingebrigsten is a HUGE talent: MB: Jakob Ingebrigtsen wins European cross country.
• European Athletics Recap of Girls U-20 Race:  W Jr: Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen Is Just Second Girl Ever To Defend Her Crown
• IAAF Recap Of European XC

USATF 2016

LRC Everything You Need To Know From The 2016 USATF Convention Wejo attended his first USATF convention that saw the coronation of Vin Lananna and reports everything you need to know.