April 17, 2017 Homepage Archive

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Archived Homepage For April 17, 2017

Quote Of The Day

“Any time an American wins here it’s really special, whether it’s Meb or Alberto. That’s what drew me here. If I’m able to win on Monday that would be tremendous. That’s been my goal ever since I signed up for this.”

–Galen Rupp talking to John Powers of the Boston Globe about the Boston Marathon.

2017 Boston Marathon Is Monday Schedule, TV & Streaming (9:32 am ET) Tracking And Live Results

MB: Official 2017 Boston Marathon Live Discussion Thread

Listen Live 9 AM ET Listen To LetsRun.com’s Live Pre-Race Podcast Starting at 9 AM We’ll break down the action and make our official predictions.

Are You Ready For Some Tailwind? LRC A Huge Tailwind Produced Mind Boggling Times At The 2011 Boston Marathon; Will History Repeat Itself Again On Monday?A big tailwind is being forecast for tomorrow’s race. How much will it help the runners?

Race Previews

Full Men’s Preview:LRCLemi Berhanu Hayle Goes For The Repeat Against A Field That Contains 5 Sub-2:05 Guys We break down the elite men’s field that will challenge US Olympians Galen Rupp, Jared Ward and Meb Keflezighi in Boston on Monday.
American Men’s Preview: LRCOlympians Galen Rupp, Meb Keflezighi, Jared Ward & Abdi Abdirahman Headline A Stacked American Field
Galen Rupp Preview: LRC Why Galen Rupp Will (& Won’t) Win The 2017 Boston MarathonAn American-born male hasn’t won in Boston since 1983. A healthy Galen Rupp would have a great shot at changing that. The question is – is he healthy enough to win on Monday?
Full Women’s Preview: LRCKenyan Stud Gladys Cherono Leads A Field That Includes Former Boston Champs Atsede Baysa, Caroline Rotich & Buzunesh DebaGladys Cherono is one of women’s running’s biggest talents and appears to be the woman to beat but Edna Kiplagat and Atsede Baysa have 500,000 reasons ($$$) to pull off the upset.
American Women’s Preview: LRCCan Desi Linden End The U.S. Major Drought? How Will Jordan Hasay Fare In Her Debut? The LRC staff is divided on who is America’s biggest hope on Monday – Hasay or Linden.
*MB:Debate: Who will be the top American woman at the 2017 Boston Marathon – Jordan Hasay or Desi Linden?

Russia “Puzzled” By Seb Coe’s Lack Of Progress Claims As Doper Tatyana Lebedeva Slams IAAF For Yelena Isinbayeva Criticism We’d say the fact that she has dopers defending her is another big strike against Isinbayeva’s appointment as chair of RUSADA.

Looking Ahead

Sunday:Ethiopia’s Fantu Eticha (2:26:14) And Kenya’s Mariam Wangari (2:27:53) The Favorites At The Nagano Marathon In Japan Kenya’s Henry Sugut (2:06:58 from 2012) and Uganda’s Moses Kibet (61:37 Half) lead the men’s field.
NBC Sports Will Provide Live Streaming Coverage For 25 Events Through 2017 Including Diamond League, World Champs And Major Marathons
July 1:Paris Diamond League Meet Moving To The Stade Charléty At The Heart Of Paris French Rio medalists Renaud Lavillenie, Christophe Lemaitre, Kevin Mayer, Dimitri Bascou are all competing.

The World Relays Are Next Weekend

Twelve Olympic Medalists On US World Relay Squad The men and women’s 4×800 pools include Clayton Murphy, Cas Loxsom, Charles Jock, Laura Roesler and Chanelle Price.
Double Olympic Champ Elaine Thompson, Yohan Blake And Asafa Powell Head Jamaican World Relay Team
Mid-D Stars Adam Kszczot And Marcin Lewandowski Lead Polish Squad For World Relays
Germany Announces Team Of 27 For World Relays
Win Some Adidas Gear From The IAAF Through Their “Strike A Relay Pose” Contest

Week That Was

LRC WTW: Jemima Sumgong Tests Positive, Donavan Brazier Runs 1:44, Sub-9 Madness At Arcadia And More Get up to speed on the last week in running.

Drug News

Good Read: Kara Goucher Blogs About How She Now Has Conflicting Feelings About Her 2007 World Medal Since Being Upgraded To The Silver “Now 10 years later, it’s tough to find out that the greatest accomplishment of my running career was even greater. And I’ll never be able to rewind time and reap the benefit of that.”
IAAF Clears Seven More Russians To Compete As Neutral Athletes The group includes world champions Sergey Shubenkov (110H) and Mariya Kuchina (HJ).
Ukraine Apologize To WADA And IAAF Over Embarrassing Amnesty Claim For Drug Cheats A statement on their website promised athletes admitting to using drugs would avoid punishment which is against IAAF and WADA rules.
IPC “Satisfied” After Swiss Federal Tribunal Rejects Russia’s Appeal Against Their Paralympic Ban The Russian Paralympic Committee now also has to pay $22,000 in court fees to the Swiss court and IPC.

Upcoming Road Racing

Former NYC Marathon Champ Stanley Biwott Pulls Out Of London Marathon With A Hamstring Injury
April 22:“Baywatch” The Movie To Host A Slow And Sexy “Marathon” The winner of the “Baywatch Slow Motion Marathon” (which is actually .2K) will be the “slowest and sexiest person” to cross the finish line.
April 23:Course Records Under Threat At Vienna City Marathon As Fields Are Led By Eliud Kiptanui (2:05:21) And Meseret Mengistu (2:23:26)
May 7:2:11 Man Nick Arciniaga Leads Field For The DICK’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon Arciniaga will be up against Craig Leon (2:13:52) while Ben Bruce (62:28) leads the half marathon field.
May 27:Geoffrey Mutai Returning To Race At Ottawa 10K For The Fourth Time In Six Years Mutai has struggled with multiple injuries the last several years, but says, “I am not yet done with running.”
July 2:Kenya’s Kenneth Mungara And Japan’s Yuki Kawauchi Returning For Another Epic Battle At The Gold Coast Marathon Last year Mungara just barely beat out Kawauchi by a single second.

Get Excited For The Diamond League And World Relays

May 27:Pre Classic Women’s 800 Is Loaded As Caster Semenya Leads A Field With All The Top 7 From Rio Plus Ajee Wilson And Former World Champ Eunice Sum
April 22:Andre De Grasse Leads Team Canada World Relays Squad
*IAAF Looks At 5 Highlights From Past World Relays
May 5:Solid Distance Action Set For Doha DL With Asbel Kiprop In The 1,500 Vs. Silas Kiplagat And World Silver Medalist Elijah Manangoi Olympic steeple champ Conseslus Kipruto is in the 3,000 against Paul Chelimo and World Indoor champ Yomif Kejelcha while the women’s 100H has WR holder Keni Harrison and Olympic 1-2 Brianna Rollins and Nia Ali.
May 13:Shanghai DL Pole Vault Is Stacked As It Has The Olympic Champ Thiago Braz, The WR Holder Renaud Lavillenie And Two World Champs Shawn Barber And R aphael Holzdeppe

More Boston Coverage

The Inside Scoop From Friday’s Press Event

LRC Desi Linden Is All-In (And Wasn’t Surprised By Sumgong’s Positive Test), Alberto Salazar Says Jordan Hasay Is More Prepared For The Marathon Than Anyone He’s Seen Since He Set The WR & More From The Elite Women In Boston
LRC A Smiling Galen Rupp Says He’s Been Pain-Free Since The Prague Half Marathon – “It’s Just Been Such A Weight Lifted Off My Shoulders” An American-born man hasn’t won Boston since 1983. That definitely could change on Monday as today Galen Rupp was practically giddy when talking about the status of his foot injury.
LRC Meb Keflezighi Discusses His Rough Buildup Ahead Of His Final Boston Marathon, Plus More From The Elite Men At Friday’s Press Conference Get the inside scoop from Friday’s press conference. What racer did famed coach Renato Canova call a “big talent?”
RRW If Emmanuel Mutai Finishes The Boston Marathon On Monday, He’ll Be The First Person To Have Run All 8 Majors Mutai, who has won nearly $1.5 million in prize money during his career, is basically guaranteed to be a winner as long as he finished on Monday, but the 2:03:13 man also thinks he can actually win the race: “I’m looking forward to winning.”

Outside Coverage

Even after the death of his wife, Jordan Hasay’s dad is in Boston to watch her race He never misses a race is trying to stay strong after the death of his wife in November. The family is “keeping her cause of death private”.
Pretty Funny Random People On The Street Give an Olympian Jared Ward Their Boston Marathon Advice
Oh the irony:Kenyans will be having a Boston Marathon watch party at Tortoise Hotel in Kapsabet
Kenyan press incorrectly says Wesley Korir has withdrawn from Boston, correctly points out a Kenyan man hasn’t won for 4 straight years in Boston Prior to this 0-4 streak, the Kenyan men were dominating in Boston as the longest streak after their first win in 1988 was 2 years.
Athletics Illustrated predicts Galen Rupp will run 2:05:30 in Boston
Brett Larner analyzes what would be a good run for the NOP’s Suguru Osako in Boston Only 1 Japanese man has ever broken 2:10 in Boston.
After Rita Jeptoo’s DQ, Buzenesh Deba is now the 2014 Boston champ and course record holder but she hasn’t been paid as such The BAA like the World Marathon Majors hasn’t paid the new winners their prizes if they’ve already paid out the initial money.
Toni Reavis asks what makes Kenyans so good

Recommended Read Ken Goe Takes A Look At Jordan Hasay’s Marathon Debut- Hasay: “We’re not really focused on winning.”
84-Year-Old Jimmy Green – Who Was The 1st Man Out Of The 1960 And 1964 US Olympic Marathon Teams – Is Still Running Boston At Age 84 He was third in 1960.
Jared Ward Reveals He Had A Lingering Hip Issue In Rio Butt That It’s Finally Gone Away In The Last 6 Weeks
If A US Man And Women Both Finish In The Top 3 In Boston This Year, It Will Only Be The 2nd Time That’s Happened Since 1985 Goucher and Hall were both third in 2009.
Sports Illustrated: Desi Linden Looks To End 32-Year US Drought At Boston “I feel like I said I’d like to win in 2011 and no one really cared. In 2015, I said it again. No one really cared. I’ll keep saying it whether people are paying attention or not.”
RW Profile:41-Year-Old Blake Russell Has Youth On Her Side For The Boston Marathon
AP:Boston To Mark 4th Anniversary Of Marathon Bombing On the eve of the anniversary, volunteers planted thousands of daffodils along the marathon course in solidarity.

Full Coverage In Our 2017 Boston Marathon Special Section

Reads That We Really Enjoyed

Fascinating Q&A With Lisa Rainsberger, The Last American Woman To Win The Boston Marathon And Mom Of Oregon Star Katie Rainsberger Rainsberger only took up running as the US boycotted the 1980 Olympics and so she ended up quitting swimming.
Scott Reid Profiles Mondo Duplantis – And Calls Him The Pele Of Pole Vault A fantastic feature on arguably the sport’s biggest young star. The kid is so good that WR holder Renaud Lavillenie was filming him on his phone when he was 12.
T&F News Q&A: “Donovan Brazier Adapting Well To Being A Pro” Brazier reveals he wanted to run World Relays but despite his recent 1:44 wasn’t selected. He also had some interesting quotes about mileage as he said, “I don’t know, a lot of people ask that and it’s just a weird question. I think it’s an irrelevant question, the mileage someone does.” He added, “I don’t do a 3-mile warmup and a 3-mile cool-down at 8:00 or 9:00-minute pace. My mileage is hard and it hurts.”
Veteran Athletics Journalist Pat Butcher iIs “Mightily Impressed” By How Much Hardball Seb Coe Is Giving To The Russians Butcher has read the IAAF’s most recent report on the Russians and finds it to be amazingly good. Read the full report for yourself here.
Feature On Oregon HS State Pole Vault Champ, Who Put A Javelin Into His Right Eye Socket In A Bizarre Accident At A Meet Last Year

Sprint Stuff

Good News For Wayde Van Niekerk As IAAF Approve Schedule Change To Allow For The 200/400 Double
Sports Scientist Ross Tucker Has Some Advice For Wayde Van Niekerk Tucker thinks Van Niekerk should focus on the 200/400 and forget about the 100: “You can be good at all three … but you’re not going to be world-class at all three. … [the 100] is never going to be an Olympic medal for him. The 200m and 400m both will.”
Dafne Schippers Wants To Defend Her World 200m Title In 2017, But Will Be Putting Just As Much Emphasis On The 100m She wants to get her 10.81 PB under 10.80.
GB Sprinter Nigel Levine “Not Angry Anymore” After Motorcycle Crash “I’ve got to deal with now. I’m still smiling and getting on with life. I’m just happy just to be alive and mobile, still got all my limbs and have a great team.”
1984 Olympic 400m Silver Medalist Chandra Cheeseborough-Guice Picks Her All-Star Women’s 4 X 400 Team No recent stars made her list, but there are two Americans.

Previous Boston Coverage

Recommended Read:Runner’s World:How Did Abdi Abdirahman And Diane Nukuri, The Fastest Couple At The Boston Marathon, End Up Together? It took some persistence from Abdi to get Nukuri to go out with him. “She turned me down for like almost a year, so I was chasing her,” he said.
5 Thoughts From Meb Keflezighi Before His Final Boston Marathon Keflezighi has an A, B and C goal for Boston Monday: “My goal is to hopefully win it, but if not then top three, and if not top three then top 10. And if not that, then hopefully finish.”
Good Read:Ben Beach Eyeing Record 50th Straight Boston Marathon Finish Beach was 18 when he ran his first Boston in 1968 and has a best finish of 2:27:26 from 1981. He is just one of 81 people to have a streak of 25 Bostons or more.
Matt Damon-Narrated Boston Marathon Documentary Premieres Saturday In Boston
Boston Marathon Retires Bib Number 261 In Honor Of Women’s Pioneer Kathrine Switzer Switzer is running again this year on the 50th anniversary of her historic run.

Olympic / Political News

InsideTheGames Opinion Piece:Bid Race Between Paris And LA 2024 Turns Sour Both bids are touting their own strengths while subtly (or not subtly) pointing out the other’s weaknesses.
Carl Lewis Stars In LA 2024 “Legends Of LA” Video Lewis won four gold medals (100, 200, 4×100, LJ) when LA last hosted in 1984.
Former Rio Mayor Linked To Rio 2016 Corruption Allegations He’s accused of taking bribes from a construction company for contracts for the Games.
*Five Members Of Rio State Accounts Court Arrested In Investigation Into Construction Projects Corruption
London Tops Online Poll On Which City Should Host The 2022 Commonwealth Games Several UK and Australian cities have shown interest since Durban, South Africa was stripped of the event.
Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates Admits To Swearing At Australian Sports CHariman At Nitro Athletics Event In Melbourne They exchanged some words as Coates called John Wylie a liar and Wylie called Coates a “c***.”
Paris 2024 Vow To Support Gender Equality In Sport

Two Great Athletes Are Retiring; Another Is Just Getting Going

29-Year-Old US 800 Star And Expectant Mother Molly Ludlow Announces Her Retirement From Track And Field Ludlow had an impressive career which included 1:57.68 PR (#7 all-time US) and two heartbreaking 4th place finishes at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Trials.
*MB:Molly Ludlow to retire!
33-Year-Old Bershawn “Batman” Jackson Announces His Pending Retirement Following The 2017 Season The former Olympic bronze medalist and four-time World champ will kick off his last season at the Drake Relays on April 29th.
MB:NAU Alum And 6-Time All-American Futsum Zienasellassie Joins NAZ Elite

Tracktown Summer Series Is Back For Year #2

LRC TrackTown Summer Series 2.0 To Have Allyson Felix, Bernard Lagat, Nick Symmonds And Sanya Richards-Ross As GMs, Plus Why Nick Symmonds’ Final Season May Be A Short One An improved TrackTown Summer Series is back for year #2. We give you the details, plus the news that Nick Symmonds’ career may not make it into July.

Will Roger Bannister Have To Share His Anniversary With Eliud Kipchoge?

Nike Sub-2 Hour Attempt Set For The First Weekend Of May The attempt will go down at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza F1 track in Italy on either May 6, 7, or 8 depending on weather. The date is very appropriate as May 6th is the 63rd anniversary of Roger Bannister‘s first sub-4 minute mile.

Centro Sr.’s Book Gets Some Publicity

Matt Centro’s Sr Gets Q&A In Washington Post About His Biography And His Son’s Olympic 1,500m Gold

LRC Exclusive LetsRun.com Exclusive: Read Chapter Two Of Matt Centrowitz’s New Book “Like Father, Like Son” LetsRun.com doesn’t beat around the bush. Neither does Matt Centrowitz. He’s so confident you’ll like his book, he’s letting you read a whole chapter for free. Purchase the book now and come back at the end of February and participate in the first ever LetsRun.com Virtual Book Club.

LRC Review Legendary Athlete, Father And Coach Matt Centrowitz Just Published An Autobiography – We Suggest You Read It

Other News

Triple jump star PPP may have defected from CubaPedro Pablo Pichardo was training in Germany but there is zero trace of him.
Eunice Sum wins her 1st race since Rio Olympics – 4:13 1500m
Interview with Australia’s Michael Hillardt: 1985 World Indoor 1500m Champion

News From Europe

Eilish McColgan And Others Talk About What It’s Like To Be A Pro Athlete When Your Parent Was A Really Famous Pro AthleteLiz McColgan somehow won World 10,000 gold in 1991 – just 9 months after giving birth to Eilish.
Britain Forfeits Again – Pulls Out Of Women’s 4 X 100 For 2017 World Relays
Chrissie Wellington, Who Won 4 Ironman World Titles, Is Running This Year’s London Marathon
Pat Butcher Wonders Whatever Happened To Kid Phenoms Zhang Huimin And Budhia Singh And Wonders How Much Running For Young Kids Constitutes Abuse If you know what Huimin or Singh are up to, email us as we wonder too.
We Wish This Was A Joke IAAF Has Proposed That The IOC Add A 4 X 5,000 Mixed-Gender Racewalk For 2020 Olympics Talk about change for change’s sake.

Jumps And Throws

New Zealand’s Olympic Shot Put Bronze Medalist Tom Walsh Shares His Tips For Sport And Life Walsh says he likes to play golf while traveling on the athletics circuit and he and his coach have a rule that they don’t talk track on the golf course.
Italy’s World Indoor HJ Champ Gianmarco Tamberi Is “Back On The Road To The Big Time” After Heartbreaking Injury Kept Him From Rio Tamberi says he spent a week in bed crying when he missed Rio and is already counting down the days until Tokyo 2020.
World Junior Record holder Mondo Duplantis Will Compete In Pre Classic Pole Vault
GB Indoor Record Holder Lorraine Ugen Hopes To Continue The Resurgence Of The Women’s Long Jump In The UKShara Proctor won GB’s first World LJ medal in 2015 with a NR and Ugen knows it’ll take another record jump replicate that in 2017.
IAAF Profile On GB’s Olympic Bronze Medalist Hammer Thrower Sophie Hitchon Hitchon talks about how she bounced back from a bad rut in 2014-2015 to win a medal in 2016.

Other Assorted News

Good Read:Samford University Assistant Coach And Sub-4 Miler Pat McGregor Going For A Streak Of Sub-5:00 Miles 105 Days In A Row He’s trying to break the record that was actually set by his high school coach Devon Hind in 1979.
Props, But Sad That It’s Come To This: Beijing Marathon To Use Facial Recognition In Cheating Crackdown Race organizers are doing this in reaction to many instances of runners hiring “ringers” to run in their place with their bib.
3000m World Record Holder Daniel Komen Charged With Fraud And Forgery He is accused of trying to defrauding someone of a card, but he denies the charges claiming he’s being framed by political enemies.
*MB:Daniel Komen finally busted!
UK Drunk Driver Jailed For 6-Years For Killing Two Teenage Runners Last Fall The driver, a British soldier, pleaded guilty and admitted to driving drunk and speeding.
IAAF To Keep 50K Race Walk On Program For Tokyo 2020 Games Plans to replace it and the 20K with a half-marathon for men and women were opposed by the IAAF Council after a campaign from the world’s leading race walkers.

More Drug News: Russia Crash And Burn

Seb Coe Has Harsh Words For Russia As IAAF Task Force Is “Disappointed With Lack Of Progress” Russia hoped to be reinstated by the end of 2017, but with major officials like Vitaly Mutko and Yelena Isinbayeva criticizing whistleblowers like 1,500m runner Andrey Dmitriev, that is unlikely to happen.
Head Of IAAF Task Force Warns Appointment Of Yelena Isinbayeva As Chair Of RUSADA Could Delay Reinstatement It sends a pretty terrible message considering how much Isinbayeva has bashed Russian whistleblowers. Also, both Isinbayeva or head Russian coach Yuriy Borzakovskiy have failed to sign a pledge for clean sport.
Know When To Quit:Maria Sharapova Criticizes Tennis Federation For Not Doing More To Inform Her That Meldonium Was Added To The WADA Banned List Sharapova should just feel lucky she got away with taking a PED for years before it was added to the banned list.
Andrew Pipe Given Role On IAAF Athletics Integrity Unit After Resigning From Swimming Federation Doping Board He resigned his swimming post in protest of the handling of the Russian Olympic team in wake of the McLaren report.
Doha Labratory Reinstated By WADA Five Months After It Was Suspended

Previous Boston News

Good Read:Jordan Hasay Shares Some Thoughts Before Her Marathon Debut Hasay says her favorite marathon workout is a 20-mile long run and her least favorite is a 800/300 workout at faster than race pace which always feel “absolutely horrible.”
DyeStat Q&A:Catching Up With Boston-Bound Jared Ward Ward says he isn’t in quite as good shape as when he got 6th in Rio, but says his long runs “have been as good as they have ever been.”
Q&A With Longtime Boston Marathon RD Dave McGillivray As He Prepares To Run His 30th “Solothon” Every year long after the race is over, McGillivray runs the Boston course alone in the dark. He says he won’t run the regular race again until he retires from directing.
Runner’s World Lists Their “12 Most Important Boston Marathons” A look back at some of the more significant moments in Boston history.
Details From FBI Interview With Deceased Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev Revealed The FBI interviewed Tsarnaev in 2011 two years before the Boston bombing, but said they saw no evidence of terrorism.
Boston Marathon Weather Forecast Calling For Temps Starting In The Low 50s With Partial Sunshine