Week That Was

LRC Week That Was: Women’s 800m Madness, One Runner From Japan Is Better Than All Of American Men Combined In The Marathon The Last 6 Years, Collegiate Milers And More The American 800m women took it to another level this week, and a Japanese runner reminded us the American men’s marathoners have struggled as a whole.

Olympic News

• Recommended Read: NY Times: “Legacy Of Rio Olympics So Far Is Series Of Unkept Promises” Less than 6-months after the Games, many sites have been abandoned despite government promises there would be “no white elephants” left behind.
• Swiss IOC Member And Ski Federation President Doesn’t Think Donald Trump Will Hurt LA 2024’s Bid Chances Gian Franco Kasper: “I don’t let myself be influenced by Mr. Trump. For me it’s about the concept and what the organizers offer.”
• Olympic Discus Champ Christoph Harding Calls For Resignation Of Thomas Bach And Says The Olympics Will “Slowly Die By 2040” Unless Major Changes Are Made Harting is still angry that his countryman Bach didn’t ban all Russian athletes from Rio.
• Olympic Columnist Neil Wilson Asks “Are The Days Of The Olympics Numbered?” Wilson thinks the greater danger to the Olympics is the rising costs and lack of interest in hosting.

Drug News

• Nesta Carter Officially Files His Appeal To CAS Over Jamaica’s Stripped 2008 Olympic 4 X 100 Gold This is Carter’s individual appeal, but the rest of the relay squad could file their own separate appeal.
• Russia To Punish Athletes Who Don’t Return Their Olympic Medals So far only 1 medal out of 23 has been returned and officials say they will kick athletes off the national team if they don’t return them. However, this won’t have a major effect as many are retired or banned from competition.
• Legal PED: New Research Suggests Gargling Mouthwash Can Give A Performance Boost To Endurance Athletes Marathon runners in the study saw a 5% improvement when using during a 7.9-mile time trial.
  *MB: Swishing mouthwash new “performance enhancer” for endurance athletes
• IOC Reiterate Russia Not Guaranteed To Particpate In 2018 Winter Games Despite Receiving Invitation All countries were sent an invite as part of the “one-year to go celebrations,” but Russia’s eligibility won’t be determined until later.
• Two Clean Sport Initiatives Launched At International Forum For Sports Integrity Meeting A lot of talk, but will there be any action?

Sprints And Jumps

• Usain Bolt Wins Record-Equalling Fourth Laureus Sports Award Bolt joins tennis star Roger Federer as the only athletes to have won it 4 times. Gymnast Simone Biles won the women’s award.
• Sanya Richards-Ross Expecting Her First Child
• US’s Olympic Long Jumper 4th Placer Jarrion Lawson Shares His Tips On Sport And Life Lawson talks life on the circuit, cooking, fashion and dating.
• Usain Bolt Talks About His Decision To Retire: “I’ve just done everything I wanted to do in the sport.”
• Renaud Lavillenie Ends His Indoor Season To Let His Hamstring Injury Heal

Doping Updates

• Lance Armstrong Faces $100 Million Lawsuit By The Federal Government After Judge Denies His Request To Have The Case Thrown Out Of Court The US Postal service paid only $32.3 million to sponsor Armstrong’s cycling team, but under the False Claims Act, they can reclaim damages up to three times that. *2nd Article
  *MB: Lance Armstrong handed defeat by federal judge
• Russian Athletics Federation Files Requests With The IAAF For 16 More Athletes To Compete Neutrally That brings the total to 41.
• International Paralympic Committee Says Russian Ban Should Continue The IPC Taskforce working in Russia says officials have not “specifically addressed” or “properly rebutted” the findings of the McLaren report.
• Egyptian Javelin Thrower Ihab Abdelrahman Gets 2-Year Drug Ban It has taken 6 months for his B-sample to officially come back and the case will drag out even longer as he’s appealing to CAS.
• Maybe He’ll Learn Something: Thomas Bach To Open Second Edition Of International Forum For Sports Integrity

Olympians Speak On US Travel Ban

Training Group Updates

• Andrew Wheating Goes Solo, Leaves OTC Elite Wheating still gets advice from Mark Rowland, but thinks he’s better off training on “my time instead of having a regimented every-day schedule.”
• Ken Goe: Some Fan Favorites No Longer Are Part Of OTC Elite Mac Fleet, Jordan McNamara, Tyler Mulder, Aisha Praught, Alexi Pappas and HJer Jesse Williams are all off the roster.
  *MB: Thoughts on Nijel Amos joining OTC?
  *MB: Tom Farrell leaves OTC?
• GB’s Olympic 800 Finalist Lynsey Sharp Writes About How She’s Improved Since Joining Terrence Mahon’s Coaching Group Sharp gives a lot of credit to Mahon for her improvements since 2012 (from not making the Olympic final to finishing 6th in 2016).

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 2009 The LetsRun Phenomenon