April 28, 2017 Homepage Archive

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Archived Homepage For April 28, 2017

Quote Of The Day

“They’re essential because ours is a volunteer-driven organization. These volunteers get a cap each year, a couple of box lunches … a cocktail reception Friday evening. That’s about it. Yet they fly in from all over the country at their own expense, put themselves up in hotels at their own expense, sacrifice their own vacations and work hours.”

– Dave Johnson, Penn Relays director, talking about the volunteers who make Penn happen.

MB: Official Penn Relays Live Discussion Thread.

LRC 8 of The NFL’s First 9 Draft Picks Were Track and Field Athletes In High School – How Good Could the First-Round Picks in the 2017 NFL Draft Have Been Had They Stuck With Track & Field?8 of the top 9 picks (88.9%) and at least 19 of the 32 in the first round (59.4%) were also track and field athletes in high school. Did any of them have Olympic potential?
*MB: 8 of the top 9 picks in the 2017 NFL Draft were track and field athletes in HS, how good could they have been?

The 2017 Penn Relays Results / Schedule / Start Lists TV & Streaming (NBCSN Sat. 12:30-3 pm ET)

MB: Official Penn Relays Live Discussion Thread

Villanova women storm to DMR title as Nova’s Siofra Cleirigh Buttner blows things open on 800 leg
16-year old Brogan MacDougall just smoked everyone in the 5000 and won the Penn Relays title in 16:06.75!
Sydney McLaughlin’s historic 50.79 split steals the show on Day 1 of Penn Relays Her heroic run put her team in HS final on Friday with the #2 seed.
Many of the SEC schools are skipping Penn and Drake to go to the inaugural SEC RelaysThe power schools are trying to take over the sport for themselves.
*MB: Pat Henry thinks destroying the Penn and Drake Relays is good for the sport – what say you?
Penn Relays’ unsung heroes sacrifice time, money and credit . . . but they keep coming backThis is definitely a good read. It’s very hard to starters to get to meets as they have to fly with their guns.
Temple grad Travis Mahoney wins Penn Relays steeplechase
Jamaican girls win 5 individual events at Penn Relays and Edwin Allen girls win 3 of those 5
Double Olympic champ Elaine Thompson leads Jamaica team against USA at Penn Relays in 4 x 100

Previous News/Full Coverage On Our Penn Relays Event Page

Reuters Confirms That What’s Been Discussed On The LRC Messageboard For The Last Week and A Half is True

Another “High-Profile” Athlete in Kenya Has Tested Positive On the messageboard, we’ve been telling you for days that a source told us more names are coming from Kenya and Reuters has confirmed this fact.
*MB: 3 hammers about to drop on Kenya

Reads That We Found To Be Interesting

Recommended ReadStudly: Meet the world class 800 runner who has twice been 4th at Worlds and runs 105-110 mpw
Alysia Montano announces she’s pregnant – baby #2 due in November (neat video)
Did you miss the IAAF World Relays over the weekend? Catch up with the highlight videos here
David Rudisha is moving up…. to the 1k in Ostrava on June 28th
Interesting Read Josh Griffiths run at London Marathon reminds historians of Ian Thompson’s virgin run in 1973 Thompson, who was no better than the 90th 5k runner in the UK, ran 2:12 in his debut and then ran 2:09 to win the CG title in 1974.
Laura Muir admits she’d never heard of Joshua Griffiths before Sunday but calls his London Marathon run ‘brilliant’
A look at the career of South Illinois University head coach Kathleen Raske – one of just 22 women who heads both men’s and women’s programs in the US Track is still way ahead of other sports as we know of no women that lead men’s basketball teams.
Good News:European Indoors TV viewership was up 46% this year as compared to 4 years ago
U.K. man dressed as gorilla still hasn’t finished London Marathon as he’s crawling it

More NCAA News

Interesting Read For Oregon Fans:A Look At The UO Record Book, “The Approachable, The Vulnerable, The Invulnerable” The likelihood of a broken record is given a rating from good (Bill McChesney‘s 13:14 5K) to zilch (Ashton Eaton‘s decathlon).
Oregonian’s Ken Goe Not A Fan Of The Latest NCAA Rankings, Which Saw The Oregon Women Drop To 2nd And The Men To 13th Goe: “Assuming Edward Cheserek is healthy, I’ll eat the official NCAA Championships program if they finish outside the Top 10.”
Stanford XC Invite Is Cancelled For 2017 As It Conflicts With A Home Football Game It’s the first time since the meet’s inception in 1974 that the meet won’t be held.

Pre-Penn Relays News

10 College Story Lines To Follow At Penn Relays The women’s 4 x 1,500 looks to be a great showdown between Villanova, Oregon and Stanford.
Penn Relays DMR Preview This writer is disappointed that UTEP isn’t sending a team to mix it up with Oregon, Penn State and Georgetown.
MB: Penn Relays And FloTrack Call Each Other Out On Twitter
*Edward Cheserek Out Of Penn Relays, Will Focus On Running Very Fast In The Payton Jordan 5,000 Next Week Could Cheserek take down Henry Rono‘s official collegiate record?
*UO Coach Robert Johnson Says They Are “Playing Favorites” With Cheserek This Year They’re apparently letting him call the shots on his racing schedule.
Good Read:A Look Back At The Thrilling Battle Between US And Jamaica In The 2007 Penn Relays Boys 4 X 400 The race culminated with future US Olympian Bryshon Nellum anchoring Long Beach Poly HS to the win over the Yohan Blake-anchored St. Jago. Ten years later, it remains the last time a US team won the boys 4 x 400.
USATF Announce Penn Relay Pools Either Cas Loxsom or Donovan Brazier will run the 800 leg of the SMR.
Penn Relays High School Relays Preview

Olympic / Bidding News

IOC President Thomas Bach Admits That “The Good Times Are Over” As Less Cities Want To Bid To Host The Olympics And he is using this as justification for changing the bidding process.
Bach Insists That Avoiding Losing Is Key Reason Behind His Push To Award The 2024 And 2028 Olympics Simultaneously Maybe he’s just afraid no one will want to do it come 2028.
No Duh:IOC President Thomas Bach Not Convinced E-Sports Reflects Olympic Rules And Values If video games ever do make it to the Olympics, they should be added to the winter program. So many of the sports are already a joke, video games won’t be that out of place.
Paris 2024 Olympic Bid Gets A Boost As The City Is Set To Be Awarded 2020 European Championships It’s not official yet, but they are the only bidder.
Tokyo 2020 To Release Mascot Competition Criteria Next Month They can’t do any worse than the London 2012 “walking alien penis creatures.”
LA 2024 Reveal Images Of Proposed Valley Sports Park

USATF 1 Mile Road Champs Results USATF.TV Live Broadcast

MB: Clayton Murphy and Katie Mackey Win USATF Road Miles at Drake 3:59.96 for Murphy, Riley Masters second; Mackey (4:37.00) beat Amanda Eccleston and Shannon Rowbury.
*USATF Race Recap
*Post-Race Video Interviews:*Murphy*Mackey
*Q&A With Grand Blue Mile Race Director And Former Pro Blake Boldon

Get To Know Recent Pole Vault Prodigy Mondo Duplantis

Good Read:NY Times: “At 17, ‘The Tiger Woods Of Pole Vaulting’ Soars Ahead Of His Time” Some interesting insights, including that Duplantis has his own makeshift runway and pit in his backyard and uses a pole designed for vaulters 50 pounds heavier than him, which his father says makes him like “a pea on a plastic spoon that’s shooting across a cafeteria.”
DyeStat:Pole Vault Coaches Weigh In On Mondo Duplantis Coaches everywhere are analyzing videos of Duplantis trying to figure out his secret and former world champion Lawrence Johnson thinks Duplantis still has “a ton of room for improvement.”
He Made The Right Choice:3 Years Ago, Mondo Duplantis Was Debating Whether To Focus On Pole Vaulting Or Baseball Duplantis has been vaulting since he was 5, but says he actually spent a whole summer only playing baseball without vaulting at all.

NCAA Updates

First “Real” Updated Rankings: Texas A&M Surpasses Florida; Texas Tech From 8th To 4th And Oregon Drops From 3rd To 13th The big changes are due to this being the first week where marks from last year aren’t factored into the rankings.
Texas A&M Women Are Ranked #1 As Well As They Jump Up From #8 To Surpass Oregon And Arkansas
NCAA Athletes Of The Week Are Auburn Sprinter Odean Skeen And South Dakota Pole Vaulter Emily Grove Skeen ran an NCAA-leading 9.98 seconds while Grove cleared 4.60m, moving into the NCAA top-10 all-time list.
Event-By-Event Top-10 Marks From The Weekend

The 2017 Drake Relays Presented by Hy-Vee Results / Schedule / Start Lists Elite Starts Lists *TV & Streaming (NBCSN Sat. 3 -5pm ET)

Elite Fields – “Rio Rematches” – set for Drake as Karissa Schweizer is added to W1500
*Full “Rio Rematches” Start Lists
2017 Drake Relays 1,500-meter races are loaded With names like Brenda Martinez, Leo Manzano, Clayton Murphy and Jenny Simpson, you’ll want to be watching. Women’s race is at 9:04 pm ET on Fri and men’s race is at 3:11 pm ET Sat.
Drake’s Reed Fischer wins 5000 in 13:48 and beats 39-year old school record in the process
Oklahoma State sweeps 4 x 1600 relays in 16:18 and 19:07
Sam Kendricks (18-8.25) and Sandi Morris (15-5.75) win Drake Relays pole vaults
The Hostetler sisters, Anna and Marie, are Iowa’s new distance stars as they go 1-2 in the 3000
Ultimate track fan dies and asks that his ashes be put in LJ pit – Drake says no
Which Drake Relays prep records could go down this week?

Previous News/Full Coverage On Our Drake Relays Event Page

Loxsom Confirms He’s No Longer a Beast

LRCCas Loxsom – World’s Fastest Man At 600m – Dismissed from Brooks Beasts, Looking for a Sponsor The mid-d runner, who enjoyed a great indoor season and just won gold at the World Relays, is looking for a new sponsor after being dismissed from the team for violating “team conduct rules on multiple occasions”.
*MB: Cas Loxsom no longer a Beast?

Meet One Of The Investors Behind The Track Town Summer Series

Screenshot 2017-04-26 at 00.35.43 LRC Q&A Why Is NASDAQ Chairman Bob Greifeld Investing Some Of His Millions In Pro Track And Field In The US? The super-successful Greifeld is one of the main backers of the Track Town Summer Series. Is he crazy or will he help make track and field more popular and profitable in America?

African Distance News

Meet Caroline Chepkoech, The Woman Who Answered The Last Minute Call To Pace Mary Keitany To An All-Women’s Record At The London Marathon Chepkoech paced Keitany through halfway even though she had never raced half-marathon before.
London Champ Daniel Wanjiru Says He Won’t Let His New Celebrity Status Go To His Head Wanjiru: “I know it will come with many challenges, but I have come from far and will remain that humble boy from Kanyekine, Kirinyaga.”
2012 Olympic 800m Silver Medalist Nigel Amos Relocating To The US Amos has been nomadic recently, moving his training base from South Africa to Botswana to Kenya and now to the US (apparently a controversial decision among the Botswana federation).
Caster Semenya Racing University Sports South Africa Games As A Last Tune-Up Ahead Of The Diamond League Season

Pre-Drake Relays News

Good Read:The Des Moines Register: “Jenny Simpson Holds Drake Relays Close” Simpson has actually never lost at Drake. She’ll be going for her fifth Relays title in the 1,500 this weekened against a deep American field including Brenda Martinez, Kate Grace and Shelby Houlihan.
First-Year Director And Former Pro Miler Blake Boldon Is Living His Dream; Wants Drake To “Have An Impact On Every Single Iowan’s Life” Boldon: “Track and field is a sport where it’s got a place for everybody. If you’re big and strong you throw, if you run fast, you’re a sprinter, if you jump, you jump and if you can’t do any of those, they put you in distance.”
USATF Preview:Over 70 Olympians Set To Face Off At The Drake Relays
Drake Relays Rio Olympic Rematch Fields These are the events to watch at Drake.

Coaches Of Winning Athletes At 2017 Worlds Will Also Get Medals Now coaches can really live vicariously through their athletes.

Women’s Running Insights

Interesting Read:All-Time Irish Great And Former World 5,000m Champ Sonia O’Sullivan Tells Women Motherhood Is NO Reason To Give Up Sport O’Sullivan talks about her experience coming back from pregnancy to win Olympic silver one year after giving birth and points out that four of the top five women at London were mothers.
Runner’s World:“5 Things Female Runners Should Know About Their Private Parts”
*MB:Females get angry over RW Article

Week That Was

WTW2017 London Was The Fastest Marathon In History, A Mother Of 7 Runs 2:24 In The Marathon, Clayton Murphy Didn’t Run As Slow As People Said He Did, And Might An NCAA Frosh Be The Greatest 400/800 Guy In History? We break down the past week in running that saw the Virgin London Marathon and the World Relays.

The World Marathon Majors Wants To Expand

LRCAbbott World Marathon Majors Looking To Expand – Signs Deal With Chinese Company To Find Races In Asia And Africa
*MB: World Marathon Majors looking to expand – How many is too many? What criteria should they use?

2017 Sunday World Relays *Results

MB: Official 2017 World Relays Live Discussion Thread

LRC Clayton Murphy Anchors US To 4 X 800 Gold And Reaffirms His Status As The Current World #1David Rudisha, are you training hard? Clayton Murphy is in supreme form right now.
*US Men Talk After Race

LRC Sunday Sprint Recap US Women Fall In 4 X 100, Canada And De Grasse Win 4 X 200, Merritt Wins Exciting 4 X 400, Bahamas Brings Down House In Mixed Relays Scroll down for Saturday recap.

AFP Sunday Recap

Breaking Barriers

Pole Vault World Champion Shawn Barber Announces He Is Gay Shawn becomes one of the more prominent male gay athletes in the world.

The 2017 Virgin Money London Marathon LIVED UP TO THE HYPE!!!!! *Tracking And Live Results

MB: Official 2017 London Marathon Live Discussion Thread

OMG LRCMary Keitany Survives Nearly Suicidal First Half And Blitzes A 2:17:01 To Take Down Paula Radcliffe’s Women’s-Only World Record And Win 2017 London Marathon Running history was made as Mary Keitany ran the fastest marathon ever in an women’s-only race and she did so in mind-boggling fashion as she ran the first half more than a minute faster than any woman in history. Tirunesh Dibaba had a historic run as well, putting herself third on the all-time list in 2:17:56. On the American front, Laura Thweatt had a super impressive run, taking almost 3 minutes off her PR to finish sixth in 2:25:38.
*Mary Keitany Won More Than $300,000 Today $55,000 for the win, $100,000 for sub-2:18, $25,000 for the course record and $125,000 for the world record.

What A Battle LRC After An Epic Battle, Daniel Wanjiru Outduels Kenenisa Bekele To Win The 2017 London Marathon A great back-and-forth between Kenya’s Daniel Wanjiru and all-time great Kenenisa Bekele saw Wanjiru win a close race in 2:05:48 as he held off a late charge by Bekele.

Outside Coverage

Club Runner Without Elite Bib, 23-Year-Old Josh Griffiths, Is Top British Finisher In 2:14:49 He was hoping to hit the Commonwealth Games standard of 2:16:00 but now will be going to Worlds. *Video Of Griffiths’ Finish
Brit Finishes 100th Marathon In 100 Days In London
David Weir, Who Hadn’t Won In London Since 2012, Banishes Rio Demons To Win Record 7th London Marathon He revealed post-race he’s been suffering from depression for the last 7 months.

Full Coverage In Our 2017 London Marathon Special Section

Administrative News

Paul Tergat will be the next head of the Kenyan Olympic Committee as Kip Keino fails to get a single sports federation to endorse his re-election bid Tergat took the high road and praised Keino. “I must pay tribute to Kipchoge for leaving an unparalleled mark in sports,” Tergat said.
Dalian Wanda Group – the group in charge of expanding the World Marathon Majors – is controlled by Wang Jianlin, China’s richest man
Qatar sports anti-corruption group lays off 25% of its staff in budget cuts We had no idea the group existed and it has a $26 million budget.

LetsThrow.com: Spectators, Use Caution

Safeguards Under Scrutiny After Student Is Killed By A Hammer Throw While Standing In An Area That Should Have Been Safe The NCAA cage regulations are not up to par with the IAAF’s and might need to be re-evaluated.
*AP Article:Errant Hammer Throw During Warmups Kills Student
*MB:Student Fatally Struck by Hammer at Wheaton College
10 Reasons To Watch The Hammer Throw In 2017 #1 on the list is will we see another WR from Poland’s two-time Olympic champ Anita Wlodarczyk?
IAAF Inside Athletics Video:Ato Boldon Interviews Germany’s Olympic Javelin Champion Thomas Rohler

Upcoming Track / DL Action

May 27: Double Olympic Champ Elaine Thompson Will Face Allyson Felix, Dafne Schippers And Tori Bowie Over 200m At Pre Classic
April 28:Young GB Heptathlon Star Morgan Lake Will Return To Multistars Meet In Florence, Italy In 2014 at 17 years old, Lake became the youngest winner in the long history of the meet.
June 18:German Brothers Robert And Christoph Harting Will Clash With World Leader Daniel Stahl At Stockholm DL Discus
July 1:Three-Event Multi Competition Added To Paris Diamond League Meet; France’s Olympic Silver Medalist Kevin Mayer Will Compete The multi “triathlon” will include the 110H, LJ and javelin.

Looking Ahead: Who Will The US World Marathon Team Be?

Runner’s World Talks To The Top 10 Men And Women On The US Descending Order List To See Who Will Run At 2017 London WorldsJordan Hasay is undecided and after her, Laura Thweatt, Serena Burla and Amy Cragg all want to go. The men’s team will likely be lead by Bobby Curtis.
May 28:Defending Champion Koren Jelela Will Return To The Ottawa Marathon Jelela will face 2015 winner Aberu Mekuria while the men’s race has 2:06-men Seboka Tola and Sisay Jisa.
May 13:Olympic Hurdle Champions Omar McLeod (110H) And Kerron Clement (400H) Face Tough Tests At Shanghai DL McLeod is up against Aries Merritt and silver medalist Orlando Ortega while Clement faces Rio bronze/silver medalists Bonface Mucheru of Kenya and Turkey’s Yasmani Copello.

Good Read:GB Olympic 4 X 400 Bronze Medalist Anyika Onuora Shares How She Nearly Died From Malaria 10 Months Before The Games Anyika says she is “literally had to learn how to walk again” after being hospitalized and receiving emergency care and is “lucky to be alive.”

Next Month: Super-Deep Field Set For Pre Classic Women’s 1,500 With Seven Sub-4:00 Women The field will include Olympic champ Faith Kipyegon, Olympic silver medalist Hellen Obiri, USA’s Jenny Simpson, Shannon Rowbury, Kate Grace and GB record setter Laura Muir.