This Weekend’s Other Action *NCAA Results

• Kaela Edwards broke the collegiate record in the 1k last night with a 2:40.79
• Lake Braddock with Kate Murphy (4:38) on anchor breaks HS DMR record with 11:34.54
• HS Phenom Tyrese Cooper continues to roll – 16 yr old runs 33.03 NR in 300! Kid ran 45.23 as frosh He’s old for his grade and so his 45.23 should be considered a sophomore year time.
• Which Indoor Collegiate Records Could Fall In 2017? The w 800 and 5k and m mile, 3k and 5k are all listed.
• Daily Relay: This Weekend’s Best Matchups
• Paul Merca’s event by event UW Indoor Preview
• 2017 UW Preview Heat Sheets Grace Ping, Sifan Hassan, Kate Grace, Kim Conley, Eric Jenkins, Centro, etc
  *MB: Centrowitz 3k Saturday: predictions?
• Joan Benoit Samuelson is going for the mile, 10K and half-marathon triple this weekend in Bermuda Bermuda is a special place for her as it’s the site of her first-ever marathon. After winning a 10k in 1979, she planned on running the half-marathon as a training run but there was no one to pick her up so she finished and realized she could handle 26.2.
• Neely Spence Gracey is opening her 2017 at Sunday’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Half Marathon Her dad’s advice, “I’ve told her not to define your career based on whether you make the Olympics. It’s so hit and miss.”
• Remember me? Hannah Cunliffe is pumped to start 2017 season after ending 2016 with hamstring injury Fans need to remember that Cunliffe, not Olympians Deajah Stevens or Ariana Washington, was the one who won the 100 and 200 at Pac 12s last year and was the top NCAA sprinter in the land until injured.
• Oregon’s Track Season starts This Weekend – A Looks At Their Stars For 2017
• Steeple WR Holder Ruth Jebet headlines Sunday’s Seville XC Meet

Next Weekend Do you want to say you raced Kenenisa Bekele? You can still enter the Dubai Marathon Entries are up since his announcement. “It’s not often that athletes get to share the stage with one of the greatest sportsmen of all time. There are few long distance runners with a pedigree like Kenenisa so it’s quite an honour to say you’ve competed on the same track beside the best in the business.”

RIP Friends and former teammates remember Maribel Sanchez Souther, 41, for her vivacious spirit “She could be very fierce and competitive when she had to be, but she also knew how to be light, very funny, and have a good time with the ordinary things. She thought that whatever had to be done, we might as well make it fun.”

Ridiculous News From Russia

• Russian Parliamentary group is investigating whether doping by Moscow Laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov was really the result of a foreign “criminal” group
• Russian wants to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Saint Petersburg, Kazan or Sochi

Other Links That Make The Cut

• Runner’s World podcast on how humans started to run so they could hunt
• CBC: Would soccer accept Caster Semenya? The CBC doubts they would as after Semenya’s gold in 2009 soccer put in tests to “ensure the correct gender of all players by actively investigating any perceived deviation in secondary sex characteristics.”
• “Come back, Ashton” – Jamaican columnist wants Ashton Eaton to come back to track as a 400 hurdler

Previous Links Of Note

• TrackTown Summer Series Will Expand From 1 To 3 Meets This Year – One In Oregon, One In SF, One In NYC The series will start at a location TBD in the SF Bay Area (June 29th), then it’s off Mt. Hood Community College (July 2nd) as Hayward Field will be under renovation, and then to Randall’s Island (July 6).
• Good Reads Pat Butcher Talks To The Extraordinary Ed Whitlock – Part I & Part II Whitlock, the first man to break break 3 hours in his 70s, isn’t afraid to take time off. He’s taken more than a year off continuously in the last decade to get healthy.
• Great Edinburgh XCountry Crushed Man United In TV Ratings A million people watched the XC races last week on the BBC.
• South African 5k Record Holder Elroy Gelant Is Being Sent By South African Athletics To A Month-Long Training Camp In Kenya The 30-year-old had only broken 13:20 twice in his life before last year but he did it 3 times in 2016 and lowered his PR from 13:15 to a NR of 13:04.88.
• A Bit Harsh? New Book Out In Japan, “Why Does Japanese Marathoning Suck Now?”
• Paul Tergat Helps Pull In Another $48,000 In Sponsorship For Next Week’s SOYA (Sports Personality Of The Year Awards) In Kenya Paul has put on some weight since retirement.

Administrative / Doping News

• An Analysis Of The Legal Decision Dismissing The Penn Track Athletes’ Lawsuit Demanding They Be Paid Minimum Wage One judge did wonder if it would be the same result if he was dealing with a high revenue sport. What does revenue have to do with whether someone is working or not?
  *MB: Wow!!! Penn track and field athletes sue claiming they are entitled to minimum wage – Court disagrees 
• Three Chinese Olympic Gold Medalists In Weightlifting From Beijing 2008 Get DQed In Retest Of Samples – China Will Now Be Banned From Weightlifting
• Nadia Ostapchuk Stripped Of 2008 Shot Put Bronze Why anyone thought a Belarusian shot putter was clean to begin with is beyond us.
• Athletics Kenya Will Hold An Anti-Doping Seminar In Eldoret Next Week For 108 Elite Athletes

Previous Non-Distance News

• Omar McLeod Reflects On His “Astonishing Year” It was pretty much perfect. First he won World Indoors. Then he became the 1st man to go sub-10 and sub-13. Then he won Olympic gold.
• USOC And LA 2024 Say They Aren’t Interested In 2028 Games – Just 2024
• Tom Walsh Isn’t Worried About Losing Kiwi Title To Jacko Gill Walsh,who had his 1st day of work in 2017 at a construction site on Wednesday, is getting ready to face Gil, Ryan Crouser and Ryan Whiting at the Big Shot event in Christchurch on Feb. 19,
• If You Are Only A “Weekend Warrior” And Exercise 1-2 Times A Week, You’ll Likely Live Just As Long As Those Who Do It 5 Times A Week
• Keni Harrison Offers You Tips On Hurdling, Texting And Dating

Doping News

• UK Athletics Launches New “Clean Athletics” Brand To Reinforce Doping-Free Competition
• UK Athletics Chairman Thinks Change Is Happening Too Slowly And Says There Is Still “Much To Do” To deter Drug Cheats
• We Like This Idea UK Athletics Wants All Anti-Doping Agencies To Be Re-Named – Clean Sport UK, Clean Sports US, Clean Sport Kenya, Etc.
• Russia’s Anti-Doping Agency Is Going To Issue A Report With Its Own Assessment Of McLaren Part 2
• What A Joke Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Says The Country Is “Among The Cleanest In The World”
• Toni Reavis Wonders Why Dopers Aren’t Criminally Prosecuted We agree – they commit fraud and steal tens of thousands.
• WADA Accepts Additional Contribution Of EUR 150,000 From The Government Of France

News From Europe / Kenya

• Sofia Ennaoui And Jakob Ingebrigtsen Are Named Euro Athletes Of The Month Both won races at Euro XC.
• Sir Mo Farah Didn’t Win BBC Sports Personality Of The Year But He May Win AOY In The BAME (Black, Asian And Minority Ethnic) Community
• Olympic Steeple Champ Conseslus Kipruto Will Run Antrim XC On Saturday
• Thomas Longosiwa Wants To Do World XC
• Olympic LJ Silver Medalist Luvo Manyonga Will Compete In 1st Indoor Meet In Karlsruhe On Feb. 4 If you aren’t familiar with his battle with heroin addiction, you need to read this.

North American News

• Paul Gains: Is Canadian Track And Field Too Dependent On U.S. Coaching? Since they are having an unprecedented run of success and their biggest stars all went to the NCAA (De Grasse, Drouin), we say not.
• American Paralympic Sprinter Born With No Legs, Blake Leeper, Wants To Compete In The Regular Olympics

The King Really Appears To Be Back

Dubai Women’s Field Partially Released: Shure Demis (2:20:59 PR) And Meselech Melkamu (2:21:01) Lead 2017 Dubai Women’s Field

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 

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.”