Non-LRC Year-End Rankings And Looks Back

• Wayde Van Niekerk Named Track And Field News Athlete Of The Year  Mo Farah #2, Usain Bolt #3.
• Hammer Thrower Anita Włodarczyk Named Track And Field News Female Athlete Of The Year And we bet 95% of track and field fans couldn’t name her. Almaz Ayana 2nd, Elaine Thompson 3rd.
• TFN‘s #1 Rankers For Every Single Male Event
• TFN‘s #1 Rankers For Every Single Female Event
• Ashton Eaton Is TFN’s US AOY Evan Jager and Matthew Centrowitz tie for #5.
• Keni Harrison Is TFN’s Female US AOY Emma Coburn is the only distance runner in the top 10 at #8.
• Interesting Read Alfons Juck Looks Back And Looks Forward He looks back and sees how his 10 questions for 2016 ended up. And then poses 10 questions for 2017. He also shares his top 10 moments from 2016.
• Wayde Van Niekerk And Anita Włodarczyk Had The Best Single Performances Of The Year According To All-athletics.com
• All-athletics.com: Usain Bolt And Elaine Thompson Are The All-athletics.com AOY
• The Rio Olympics Was The Highest Quality Track Meet In History According To All-athletics.com
• Jeff Benjamin’s Top Ten Moments Of 2016

Two Interviews We Liked

• Great Read Pat Butcher Talks To The Extraordinary Ed Whitlock Whitlock ran his first marathon in 3:09 in his 40s. In his 70s, he’d break 3 hours. Check out Butcher’s Emil Zatopek biography here.
• Interesting Q&A With Scott Newman, Former Athletics New Zealand Head And Agent For Eliza McCartney And Tom Walsh NZ won 4 Olympic track medals while Australia won just two.

Administrative News

• Man In Charge Of 2017 World Champs, Niels de Vos, Says London 2017 Is Vital To Reboot The Sport
  *Niels de Vos Thinks London 2017 Will Be Better Than Rio 2016 – At Least For Those From The UK People can watch the action live and there will be no other sports to distract the fans.
• IOC Refuses To Lift Kuwait Olympic Ban
• Peru May Lose 2019 Pan Am Games As They One Again Fail To Make $3.3 Million Rights Fee Payment

LetsRun.com’s World And US Rankings

*Men’s Marathon: Eliud Kipchoge Caps A Historic Year As World #1 As Breakout Marathon Star Galen Rupp Leads The Americans
*Women’s Marathon: London/Olympic Champ Jemima Sumgong Tops The List; Shalane Flanagan Top American
*Men’s 3,000/5,000: Mo Farah Is #1 Again; Paul Chelimo Tops U.S. List After Shock Silver In Rio
*Women’s 3,000/5,000: Almaz Ayana Is World #1; Shannon Rowbury Or Molly Huddle For U.S. #1?
*Men’s Steeple: Men’s Steeple: Conseslus Kipruto Ascends To #1 After A Year To Remember; Evan Jager (#2) Leads Americans Again
*Women’s Steeple: Ruth Jebet Leads The Way; Olympic Medallist Emma Coburn Tops U.S. List For Third Straight Year
*Men’s 1,500: Olympic Champion Matthew Centrowitz Is Our World #1
*Women’s 1,500: Faith Kipyegon Unseats Genzebe Dibaba As World #1; Jenny Simpson Back On Top Of U.S. Rankings
*Women’s 800: Caster Semenya Is the Clear World #1; Kate Grace Finishes A Shocking Year As U.S. #1
*Men’s 800 David Rudisha Is On Top For 2nd Year In A Row; Olympic Bronze Medalist Clayton Murphy Leads The Americans

IAAF End-Of-Year Reviews: *Jumps *Throws *Multis *Hurdles *Relays *Racewalks  *Mid-d *Long Distance *Road & XC

Athletics Weekly‘s Rankings: Top 3 International Rankings For All Women’s Events You can see their top 10 rankings by purchasing a digital copy of their bumper 112-page end-of-year stats special.

• AW’s Top 3 Rankings For All Men’s Events
• AW’s Top 3 UK Men’s Rankings For 2016
• AW’s Top 3 UK Women’s Rankings For 2016

The Latest On The Anti-Doping Front

• Awesome Development Ethiopia Is Going To Try To Hand Out Lifetime Bans To Drug Cheats
• NYT Affirms The Accuracy Of Russian Doping Story – “All quotes in our story are accurate.”
• Professor: Sports Federations Will Face Obstacles In Sanctioning Individual Russian Athletes “I think what will be a problem is individual cases with individuals pleading I was forced to do it or I didn’t know how it was done,” said Dionne Koller, director of the Center for Sport and the Law at the University of Baltimore.
• Lance Armstrong Says His #1 Goal For 2017 Is To Rejoin The Cancer-Fighting Community As A Difference Maker

2016 Is Almost Over – 2017 Will Be Here Before You Know It

• US Distance Stars Share Their New Year’s Resolutions From do more yoga (Huddle/Linden) to write a handwritten note every month (Centro), RW has you covered.
• British Athletics Stars Share Their New Year’s Resolutions
• Runner’s World‘s 10 Most-Read Stories Of 2016 Game of Thrones fans, RW’s article on Margaery Tyrell‘s 3:51 showing at the London Marathon cracks the list.
• Gabriele Grunewald Is Meg Bellino’s 2016 Human Of The Year For Her Cancer Fight
• BBTM The Best Mile/1,500 Moments Of 2016 From Drew Hunter and Genzebe Dibaba‘s exploits indoors to Matthew Centrowitz‘s gold outdoors, it was quite a year.
• Might A Legendary HS Record Fall In 2017? After Massive Indoor Heave, Jordan Geist Admits Michael Carter’s Legendary Outdoor Record From 1979 is “… sitting in the back of my mind.”

Week That Was

LRC WTW: Europe’s Teen Phenoms Appear To Be The Real Deal And Buzunesh Deba Breaks The Boston Marathon Course Record We look at foreign transplants, junior phenoms and note it’s been 975 days since an American went sub-2:10 in the marathon. We also discussed the ailing Miruts Yifter, the 1980 Olympic 5k/10k champ, who passed away on Thursday.