January 10, 2017 Homepage Archive

Quote Of The Day

Bedford was asked by MPs whether he found it find it strange that Coe forwarded on his email to Beloff without opening the attachment. “It is fair to say I was very surprised and quite disappointed,” he replied.

The SNP MP John Nicolson suggested to Bedford that given Coe had been brought in to clean up athletics, his lack of curiosity about corruption was “extraordinary.” In his reply Bedford suggested that Coe might have been playing the long game, waiting to see if he could get elected in August 2015 so that he could make significant changes to the IAAF.

“If you look at what has happened subsequently to him being elected to a position of power, there are clear implications that he wants the integrity of our sport brought back and he has made significant steps towards that happening,” he added.

“I think that it might be true that he decided that the best way he could help the sport was to make sure that he got elected as president, because if it didn’t happen then there was no future for the sport.”

– Closing four paragraphs from a Sean Ingle Guardian recap of a hearing today in Parliament where former London Marathon director Dave Bedford testified about how much information he’d given to Seb Coe about the Russian extortion scheme before the German ARD TV report aired.

MB: Coe to face new questions in British parliament

Former London Marathon Director Dave Beford Testifies Before Parliament

Dave Bedford Testifies Before ParliamentBedford said that on several occasions before December 2015, he had told Coe about the Russian extortion scheme involving the IAAF. One MP said Bedford’s testimony undermined what Coe had told them. When Coe testifed to Parliament, he told that he was unaware of the “scale” of the corruption until the German ARD TV report aired. Coe has issued a statement saying he’s got nothing further to say on the matter.
*Independent: Coe Rejects Request To Give More Evidence After Knowledge Of IAAF Extortion Racket Comes Under Question
*MB:Coe to face new questions in British parliament

Other Administrative News

Not An April Fool’s Joke Study: LA Hosting The Olympics Will Create The Equivalent Of 100,000 Full-Time Jobs And Boost US Economy By $18 Billion
Russian Sprinter Maxim Dyldin, Who Won Many Medals In 4 X 400, Banned For 4 Years For Evading Drug Test He promptly announced his retirement from the sport with the following cop-out: “Politics has invaded the sports world and I’m not a politician.”

Catching Up On Japanese News

Aoyama Gakuin University Wins Third-Straight Hakone Ekiden To Complete Triple CrownAoyama Gakuin University became the fourth school in history to win all three university men’s ekidens in a single season and the sixth to win Japan’s most prestigious and popular race three years in a row as it held off rival Waseda University to take the 2017 Hakone Ekiden title.
Runner Nearly Hit By Truck During Hakone Ekiden: “I thought I was gonna die.”
*MB: Japanese runner is nearly crushed by truck in Hakone Ekiden (video)
28% Of All TVs In Japan Were Turned To The 2017 Hakone Ekiden It peaked at 32% at one point in the broadcast.
Yuki Kawauchi Returns From “Extremely Productive” Test Run Of London World Championships Course “I thought it was going to be flat, but there were more slopes and sharp curves than I expected,” said Kawauchi, who also figured out where a Japanese curry shop was and where he can rent a bicycle to get around town.
Four Major Half Marathons Were Held In Japan This Week

2017 Great Edinburgh XC Edinburgh Results Edinburgh Video *Campaccio Results

Saturday: LRC Full Recap: Leonard Korir Outkicks Callum Hawkins In Thrilling Duel As Mo Farah Finishes 46 Seconds Back In 7th The men’s race was super-entertaining as Mo Farah got beaten by a Brit for the first time in 7 years. Laura Muir looked dominant in the 4 x 1k relay. Yasemin Can won the women’s race and the US’s Noah Affolder won the junior race.
*Edinburgh XC Video Highlights *IAAF

Laura Muir’s Coach Knew She Was Something Special From The Very Beginning 4 years ago, he emailed a friend saying he was working with “the next Paula Radcliffe/Kelly Holmes.”
Laura Muir Leads Britain To Great Edinburgh XCountry Relay Victory
Sir Mo Farah Says His Training Hasn’t Been Going Well Recently And He’s Also Been Sick “I’m disappointed but you have to be honest with yourself – during the last couple of weeks training hasn’t gone as well.”

Campaccio Was Friday Hellen Obiri And Muktar Edris Win 60th XC Meet Obiri hammed throughout and showed how she took down Almaz Ayana in Rio. Men’s race was more tactical. *Results
*Post-Race Interviews With Campaccio Stars, Including Hellen ObiriAlberto Stretti talks to the leading Kenyan finishers.

Lots Of Interesting Reads

Recommended Read Craig Masback Writes About How He Went From 4:48 In HS To Being The 2nd Person Ever To Break 4 At Iffley Road The former USATF head nearly quit running after college, but before his career was over, Roger Bannister was critiquing his races, and that running career led to him leading USATF.
The Guys At The Daily Relay Share Their Strongest Memories From 2016 From watching the Olympic marathon trials in a bar to Allyson Felix bombing out of the 200, they’ve got you covered with the highs and lows of the year.
Toni Reavis Suggests We Get Rid Of Track World Records By Switching Back To Imperial Distances Of 100 Yards, 220, 440, 880, One Mile, 3-Mile, And 6-Mile
66-Year-Old Guy Vowed To Run At Least 1 Miles And Drink 1 Different Type Of Beer Every Day In 2016 – He Ended Up With 1,950 Miles And 366 Different Beers His favorite beers? AleWerks Brewing Company’s Jubilee and Berkshire Brewing Company’s Shabadoo Black.
Michigan HS Coach Wayne Roberts – Who Ran The Day After A Heart Attack – Has 36-Year Run Streak Snapped After He’s Struck In Hit & Run Accident

Post Retirement News For The Eatons

Great Read Harry Marra Talks ABout When He 1st Saw And Met Ashton Eaton And What It’s Been Like To Coach Him And Brianne
The Eatons Have Already Picked Up Snowboarding As A Hobby In Their Retirement They also are likely to relocate and live in Canada. *MB: Say it ain’t so – Ashton Eaton likely to live in Canada after retirement

Two-Time Irish Olympian And 1969 NCAA 880 Champ Frank Murphy Dies Due To Parkinson’s He also anchored two DMR teams to victory, won 8 Penn Relays titles and was on 3 NCAA XC championship teams.

GBR News: Laura Muir Started Off 2017 Just Where She Left 2016 – On Fire

Laura Muir Destroys British Indoor 5k Record That Had Stood Since 1992 With A 14:49.12! It was the first sub-15 in British history as it destroyed Liz McColgan-Nuttall‘s 15:03.71 record. *Race Video

The Eatons Retire

LRC The World’s Greatest Athlete, Ashton Eaton, Retires In His Prime; We Pay Tribute With Our 5 Favorite Ashton Eaton Memories The greatest decathlete ever and his wife are both calling it a career at age 28. We pay tribute by sharing our five favorite Ashton Eaton memories.
*Oregonian*CBC *BBC
*MB: Ashton Eaton retires
*MB: World’s greatest athlete retires and 3 hours later there is nothing on front page of ESPN and SI.com

NBC Henry Marra – Coach Of The Eatons – Is Thrilled, Calls It A “Fantastic Decision”

The King Really Appears To Be Back

LRC Kenenisa Bekele Going For Marathon World Record In Dubai In Less Than Two Weeks On January 20th It’s a big surprise Bekele is running Dubai, but it must mean he is fit and thinks he can get the world record. Bekele also said he wants to run Worlds in London.
Discuss: Kenenisa Bekele Going for the World Record in the Marathon…. in Dubai in Less Than 2 Weeks

Is He A Machine Once Again? He’ll Try To Do London 12 Weeks Later:2017 London Marathon Men’s Field Announced – Bekele Is Doing It As Well The field features four who have broken 2:05 and seven who have broken 2:06. LetsRun.com analysis coming later.

LRC London Analysis 4 Thoughts On The 2017 London Marathon Men’s Field: London’s STACKED Once Again, Who’s Left To Face Galen Rupp Boston, Bedan Karoki’s Debut, And Can Kenenisa Bekele’s Body Hold Up? We analyze the 2017 Virgin Money London Marathon men’s field.
*MB: London Marathon 2017 elite field

Track News

Inspiring Read Olympic Pole Vault Champ Ekaterini Stefanidi Talks About How She’s Overcome Her Greatest Challenges From weight gain in her teens that made her borderline bulimic and caused her to quit the sport for nearly a year, to moving to the US without ever having lived here, the Greek shows you can overcome rough patches and still reach the top. Little known fact – she now lives in NE Ohio.
France’s 18-Year-Old Melvin Raffin Leaps 17.04 In TJ To Break Teddy Tamgho’s U-20 RecordRaffin, who won bronze at World Juniors, is now only 10 cm. away from the U-20 record held by East German Volker Mai for the last 32 years.
WR Holder And Olympic Hammer Champ Anita Wlodarczyk Finished #1 For 1st Time In Poland’s Sports Person Of The Year Poll
Oregon’s Track Season starts This Weekend – A Looks At Their Stars For 2017

Administrative News Of Note

Many Men Aren’t Brave Enough To Admit They Made A Mistake Norwegian IOC Member Gerhard Heiberg Now Says He Wished They’d Given Russia A Blanket Ban He voted to allow Russia into the Olympics but now realizes it was a mistake and says they were “naive.”
Kenyan Column: Might David Rudisha Follow In Haile G’s Footsteps And Soon Be The Leader Of Troubled Athletics Kenya?
Australians Are Happy That They Got 11 Athletes Ranked In The Top 10 By TFN For 2016 It’s the most since 2006. In 2012, they only had four.

Worth Reading

Recommended Read Tim Layden: Nick Symmonds And Ashton Eaton Will Both Be Missed Greatly – For Different Reasons In this nearly 2,000-word masterpiece, Layden shows why he’s the best athletics writer out there.
Caster Semenya Has Lavish 2nd Wedding Ceremony With Her Partner Violet Semenya In case you are wondering, Semenya wasn’t wearing the white dress.
*MB: Congratulation to Caster and Violet Semenya

Post-Rio News Of Note

US Intelligence: Russians Hacked DNC In Part Because They Were Pissed WADA Busted Them For Doping
That Didn’t Take Long: Stadium That Hosted 2016 Olympic Opening And Closing Ceremonies Already In Disrepair
After Running The 2012 And 2016 Olympics In The 1,500, Hilary Stellingwerff Is Now Going To Run On The Roads She’s running an 8k this week and a half-marathon next month.
Athletics Weekly Breaks Down The Men’s GBR Track Team Event-By-Event Amazingly they think a country of 64 million won’t have a shot putter at a home World Championships.

Indoor Track

Lousiana HS Junior Mondo Duplantis Records Highest US PV In History At 18-5 The kid is a talent. Last year, he was the first US HSer over 18′ indoors and he was only a sophomore. He vaults internationally for Sweden.
Shawn Barber And Katie Nageotte Win Akron Pole Vault Summit Jenn Suhr injured her back in warmups and didn’t compete. Olympic champ Katerina Stefanidi, who now lives in Ohio, watched from the stands.
Christophe Lemaitre Runs 6.58 WL, Beats Dwain Chambers In Match Race (Video)

The NBIGP Is Fast Approaching

LRC 2017 New Balance Indoor Grand Prix Adds Rio Medallists Paul Chelimo, Hagos Gebrhiwet And Clayton Murphy Plus Donavan Brazier, Candace Hill And Noah Lyles January 28th’s meet – the only US Meet on the IAAF World Indoor Tour – is now officially loaded as the meet already previously announced the participation of Matt Centrowitz, Jenny Simpson, Emma Coburn, Brenda Martinez, Jenn Suhr and Ekaterini Stefanídi. *MB: Wow! Clayton Murphy’s not scared or resting on his laurels. He’ll face Hagos G and Paul Chelimo in the 3k at NBIGP

SPIKES Lists The 5 Match-Ups They Want To See In 2017 They aren’t going to get Wayde van Niekerk vs. Bolt at 200 as Bolt doesn’t want to tarnish his legacy.

World Record News

IAAF Writes Letter In Response To Calls For All World Records To Be Erased They are against the idea. “If the records list is scrapped not only do these clean athletes risk losing their place in history, they face the implication that their records have not been achieved cleanly.”
Interesting Read:Track And Field News Publishes A List Of The Best Track Marks Achieved Since 2000

Upcoming

Edmonton’s TrackTown Classic Drops Out Of National Track League Circuit The $405,000 cost was just too high. The other 4 meets will remain. We had zero idea they spent that much. How about combining two or three meets and have the first Canadian DL meet?
50-Year Old Zola Budd Pieterse Will Run Inaugural Stirling Scottish Marathon On May 21st
World Military Games To Still Be Held In Sochi Next Month
Sandi Morris And Barbara Pierre Will Compete At Germany’s PSD Bank Meeting On Feb. 1 – The 2nd IAAF World Indoor Tour Meet

**Galen Rupp And Feyisa Lelisa Will Be In Houston Next Weekend *Full Elite Fields**

Will Rupp get his 2nd AR? It’s Official: Galen Rupp Plus Fellow Rio Olympic Marathon Medalists Fiyesa Lilesa And Mare Dibaba Will Run Aramco Houston Half Marathon Next Weekend The message board rumors are true.
*Full Houston Fields
*MB: Rupp after Hall’s 13.1 AR

Feyisa Lilesa Gives Interview To BBC And Says He Hopes To Someday Run For Ethiopia Again – Has No Desire To Repesent USA. He only wants to run for Ethiopia after the govt. “is removed and the people get freedom.” *More

2016 Was A Record Year For Us In Terms Of Traffic – Thanks For Visiting

An Inside Look At How LRC Operates How a Ragtag Crew Of Almost Journalists Created Running’s Most Controversial Website Author Charles Bethea embedded himself with us during the US Olympic trials and got a behind-the-scenes look at how we operate. His article in Outside magazine includes some really nice quotes from Tim Layden, “… their best quality is that they don’t give a shit about offending people,” and Nick Willis, “It gave me a ton of inspiration. LetsRun is one of the primary reasons high-quality coaching and training have improved in America.”
*MB: Long Article on Letsrun… in Outside Magazine

Enjoyed The Article Above?Then Check This Article On LRC’s Founding From Marathon And Beyond In 2009The LetsRun Phenomenon

Mid-D And Distance News

Laura Muir’s Coach Reveals She Only Runs 40-50 mpw
*MB: Is Laura Muir the GOAT non-African born talent in history? Coach reveals she only runs 40-50 mpw
Bedan Karoki Says He Will Not Race World XC Champs, Instead He’ll Make His Marathon Debut In London He seems tailor-made for the marathon as he’s run 6 career half marathons, the slowest of which has been a 60:02.
Q&A With New Balance Boston Coach And Former Dartmouth Coach Mark Coogan About The Differences Between College And Pro Running
*MB:Mark Coogan states what I’ve always believed – College runners have it easier than pro runners
An 800 Runner All Distance Runners Can Respect:Australian 800 National Champ Luke Matthews Runs 90 mpwLuke Matthews also says he was more nervous for Ryan Gregson‘s 1,500 final than he was for his own 800 and 1,500 heats.
2017 Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon Will Have $384,000 In Prize MoneyDavid Rudisha will be there as a race ambassador.
*Marathon Is Next Weekend And Levy Matebo And Ayele Abshero Are Racing

Sprints / Field / Jumps News

Florida’s Super Recruit Grant Holloway Crushes It In His First Collegiate Meet He ran the 300 in 32.94 (5th fastest time in college history, 2nd fastest by anyone under 20) and the 60H in 7.63 (NCAA #1).
Ryan Crouser Thinks The WR In The Shot Will Go Down Before 2020 There are a lot of talented young throwers out there to push him. *MB:Incredible stat: Olympic shot put champ Ryan Crouser was a TJ state champ in HS
20-Year-Old British Sprinter Reece Prescod, With 10.04 PR, Wants To Be Known As The “British Bolt” All we can say is, “Good luck.”
Kenya’s Matthew Sawe – The African HJ Champ – Can’t Practice Jumping In Kenya As There Are No HJ Mats In Eldoret The fact that the African champ wasn’t allowed to compete in Rio seems wrong to us.

Jamaican News

Jamaica Needs $40 Million To Renovate Its National Stadium (That’s $5 Billion Jamaican) That’s way cheaper than building a new one ($350 million).
Jamaica’s Champs Will Limit Athletes To Two Individual Events And Two Relays In 2017 To Prevent Burnout And 9th graders are banned from the 3,000 and 5,000.

Other News

Ashton Eaton And Brianne Theisen-Eaton Say They Both Came To Decide To Retire Independently Of Each Other But On The Very Same Day Sounds like a marriage made to last.
SPIKES Lists The 5 Match-Ups They Want To See In 2017 They aren’t going to get Wayde van Niekerk vs. Bolt at 200 as Bolt doesn’t want to tarnish his legacy.
Former French Athletics Head, Paris DL Head And IAAF Treasurer Jean Poczobut Dies At Age 80Seb Coe: “Jean Poczobut dedicated his life to athletics.”

Sprints / Hurdles / Jumps / Throws News

Croatia’s Sara Kolak’s Win In The Javelin Was One Of The Biggest Upsets In Rio – Learn About Her Back Story Here At the Olympics, she PRed by nearly 9 feet. Yes, it’s true. 2.68 meters.
Jamaican Columnist Wonders If Wayde van Niekerk Will Try The 200 / 400 Double At Worlds? And If So, Will The Schedule Be Changed? We’re wondering if Bolt is giving up on the 200 – his supposed favorite event – as he doesn’t want to end his career with a loss to van Niekerk at Worlds?
Jordan Geist Throws 6k Shot (Used For World Juniors) 70 feet, 6 inches – 2nd Farthest In US History
Olympic 400m Hurdles Silver Medalist Boniface Mucheru Wants Gold In 2017 “I usually tend to lose my steps especially on the seventh hurdle and that has cost me a lot.”

Olympic News

Will Eurosport Turn Into The European Olympic Channel? Eurosport CEO Says He’s Hoping To Give Olympic Fans Year-Round Olympic Buzz Now That They Control Olympic Rights In Europe “Go back to how the Olympic Games affects you, it is great that the moment affects people, but also look back in time. I have got a picture on the wall here of Seb Coe winning in Moscow in 1980, but I remember him breaking three world records in 41 days the year before … the whole thing became a longer story, and that is what we want to do with the Olympics.”
Good Read Phil Hersh Hands Out His End-Of-Season Olympic Awards – Usain Bolt, Not Michael Phelps, Is His Male AOY As he has for the last 30 years, Phil Hersh hands out out his end of season Olympic awards. From Neymar to Uchimura to Jorgensen, he’s got you covered.
Another Good Column Toni Reavis Ponders A Few Questions As The Calendar Switches To 2017 Among his questions: “Why when you turn 40 do they call runners Masters? Master? Are they kidding? It’s like they’re mocking you. Believe me, by the time you hit the big 4-0 you’re no master.”