Week That Was

LRC Why NCAA Regionals Should Not Be Cancelled, Jakob Ingebrigtsen Becomes The Youngest To Break 4:00* and Team USA Wins Its First Title at Bolder Boulder* We look at some crazy fast times at Regionals, plus the big American win and payday at Bolder Boulder.

Non-African Distance News

• Laura Thweatt Withdraws From US World Marathon Squad With Injury
• Recommended Read: IAAF Profile On The Youngest Sub-4 Miler Ever, Jakob Ingebrigsten Considering Ingebrigsten and his two older brothers are all elite milers, you may be shocked to know neither of their parents have any background in athletics. But that didn’t stop their dad from learning everything he could so he could coach them.
  *MB:The Ingebrigtsen brothers all run Sub 4 at Pre – Have 3 Brothers ever run Sub 4 on the same day?
• Good Read:The Telegraph:Laura Muir Goes The Extra Mile In Bid For London Glory Muir is known for being a work horse as she says, “I can’t remember the last time I could physically stand at the end of a session. I pretty much run as hard as I can every time.”

Doping News: Farah Splitting From Salazar?

• Source Says That Mo Farah Will Distance Himself From Alberto Salazar After 2017 Worlds Farah will reportedly work with British Athletics coaches as he transitions to the marathon.
• Good:Yelena Isinbayeva Resigns From Her Post As RUSADA Chair – Sort OfThis was one of WADA’s requirements for RUSADA to be reinstated as Dick Pound said appointing her was like giving WADA the middle finger. We’ll see how WADA responds as she’ll “remain a member of RUSADA’s supervisory council despite her resignation as chairwoman.”
• 16-Year-Old Indian Javelin Thrower Rohit Yadav Tests Positive For Steroids Yadav won silver at the Asian Youth Championships.
• Ukraine’s Former World Indoor 800m Silver Medalist Natalia Lupu Gets 8-Year Drug Ban For A Second Doping Offense Why not a lifetime ban for a second offense? Also, while it was announced by USADA in 2014, the IAAF confirmed an 8-year ban for Jon Drummond.
  *AP:The IAAF Announce Six Russian/Ukrainian Drug Bans
• IAAF Doping Review Body Rejected 28 Russian Applications To Compete As Neutrals 27 more cases are still under review.

Shhh … The Pros Have Revealed A Few Secrets

LRC Asbel Kiprop Tries The Steeple, Andrew Wheating & Clayton Murphy Are Training Buddies – What We Learned From Being In Eugene For The 2017 Pre Classic There are some things that can only be learned from being on the ground at a meet. Get the inside scoop from the 2017 Pre Classic, including learning what changes Emma Coburn is making in 2017 now that she’s being coached by Joe Bosshard and not Mark Wetmore/Heather Burroughs.

Upcoming Distance Action

• June 28:Olympic Champ Conseslus Kipruto Will Headline Steeple Field At Ostrava Golden Spike Meet
• July 4:American 10K Record Holder Shalane Flanagan To Return To The Roads At The 2017 AJC Peachtree Road Race This will be Flanagan’s first race since she finished 6th in the Rio marathon.
• July 9: Mo Farah Confirmed For Anniversary Games 3,000m At The London Olympic Stadium

More Distance News That Makes The Cut

• Celliphine Chespol Had No Idea She Broke 9 Until After The Race – Says She Now Wants The WR It’s also revealed that she has the same coach as Ruth Jebet.
• David Rudisha Calls His 2015 World Gold – Not 2012 WR And Gold – The Most Satisfying Moment Of His Career Coming back from injury and proving the critics wrong is always nice.
• 40-Year-Old Philo Saunders Set To Challenge Bernard Lagat’s 1,500 40+ WR Of 3:41.87 In June Pretty impressive if he does it as his PR is 3:41.22 and dates to 2005. He’s also hoping to break 4:00 in the mile for the 1st time in his life.
• Kenyan Runners Are Accused Of Being Rude While Training – The Pros Say The Taxi Drivers And Pedestrians Are To Blame Some runners have been accused of slapping people who refuse to get out of the way.
• Q&A With Cecilia Barowski, Whose Collegiate PR Dated To 2014 But Has Gone From 2:02.14 To 2:00.90 In Her First Year As A Pro With HOKA NJNYTC
• Boston Red Sox To Hold Marathon Inside Fenway Park It will take 112 laps and you have to raise at least $5,000 for charity as it’s being limited to 50 runners.
• A Look At The Georgia HS XC Team That Has Won 3 Straight XC State Titles Thanks To Its Diverse Team Makeup This years’ team had runners from Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.

Maybe Everyone Should Train For The Multi

• Spikes Takes A Look At Individual Event Stars Who Have Done Multis Over The Years From Barbora Spotakova to Nia Ali and Renaud Lavillenie.
• European Hurdles Champ Cindy Roleder Credits Her Improvement To The Fact She Decided To Train For The Heptathlon She points out that Dafne Schippers best year came after she was training for the multi.

NOP Updates

• Where Has Cam Levins Been?Get An Update On Cam Levins, Who Says “Things Aren’t Over For Me” As He Makes His Way Back From Last Summer’s Foot Surgery Levins says Worlds are a possibility, but he doesn’t know how his fitness will progress. What sounds more certain though is a marathon debut this fall.
• Recommended Read:Gary Cohen Does Extensive Interview With Matt Centrowitz Sr. Centrowitz goes into great detail about his own running career, his coaching at American University and his Olympic champion son.
• The Washington Post:Matt Centrowitz Sr. Says Decision To Step Down As American University Coach To Help Coach His Son Has “Nothing To Do” With Alberto Salazar Allegations Centrowitz said he’s retiring from college coaching to focus on promoting his autobiography and help coach his son “when Alberto can’t be in two places.”
• The Japan Times:“Tokyo 2020 Games “Too Far” For Mo Farah” This is Farah’s last year on the track before he heads to the roads, but he says he doubts he’ll be running the marathon in 2020.
• Sports Illustrated:What Are The Legal Implications Of The Leaked USADA Report? Could Salazar sue USADA? Could Salazar be on the hook for criminal charges (drug trafficking, racketeering) as well as doping violations?

43rd Hypo Meeting *Results

• Olympic Champion Nafissatou Thiam Shoots To Third On The World All-Time List With 7,013-Point Heptathlon Victory At Gotzis Hypo Meeting In “one of the greatest heptathlon competitions of all time,” Germany’s Carolin Schäfer (6,836 points) and Latvia’s Laura Ikauniece-Admidina (6,815 points) also broke the 6,800 barrier. GB’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson set a new 6,691-point PR, but only finished 4th. Canada’s Damian Warner won the decathlon with 8,591 points.
• The Telegraph:Katarina Johnson-Thompson Makes Unwanted History With High Score In Gotzis Johnson-Thompson’s score would actually have been good enough to medal at every Olympic Games, but was only 4th here.
• The Guardian:Katarina Johnson-Thompson The Best Fourth Place Score In Heptathlon History
• Day 1:GB’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson Leads Over Olympic Champ Nafissatou Thiam After Day 1 Of Hypo Meeting Heptathlon Defending winner Damian Warner leads the decathlon.
• The Guardian:“Katarina Johnson-Thompson soars to lead prestigious Götzis Hypomeeting.”
• The Telegraph:“Katarina Johnson-Thompson Feeling On Top Of The World As Her PBs Fall”
• The Guardian:Katarina Johnson-Thompson Trying To “Fall In Love” With The Sport Again In Gotzis
  *Johnson-Thompson Missed Her Flight To Gotzis Hypo Meet She still made it to the meet, but says it was “drama.”

More Pre Classic Coverage

• IAAF:Christian Taylor Sails To Diamond League Triple Jump Record Of 18.11 Taylor had an epic battle with Will Claye (18.05m) to jump an American soil record and the 4th longest jump of all-time.
• Register-Guard:“Mo Farah goes out a winner in the 5,000 at the Prefontaine Classic.” Farah: “This track adds a lot of pressure on me, there’s a lot of people doubting me, ‘Mo’s getting old.’ There was lots of talk, a lot of youngsters coming through talking a lot. I let my running do my talking. That’s what I’m good at.”
• IAAF:Tori Bowie Blasts To 200m Win She beat a super-deep field including Elaine Thompson, Dafne Schippers and Allyson Felix.
• Jenny Simpson Was “Really Embarassed” With Her Pefromance At Pre She finished 8th (and the third American) in the 1,500.
• The Oregonian:“Teen Armand Duplantis Didn’t Win The Pre Classic, But He’s Earned His Competitors’ Respect” Duplantis revealed that he has a signed poster of Renaud Lavillenie on his bedroom wall, but joked that maybe he should take it down now that they are competitors.
• Ken Goe’s Saturday Recap:“Mo Farah Says Goodbye To Hayward Field And The Pre Classic With Another Victory”
• Register-Guard:“Devon Allen looks fully recovered from knee injury with third-place finish”

Industry / Admin News

• A Year After Being Laid Off, Rock ‘N’ Roll Series Co-Founder Tracy Sundlun Is Still Fighting For Severance Pay The Competitor Group faces a lawsuit as they owe Sundlun over $160,000. CGI claims that Sundlun made “disparaging” statements about the company in a Times of San Diego story about his firing which violated his separation agreement.
• Vin Lananna Says The Sport Needs New Sponsors (Besides Shoe Companies) And A New Way Of Event Presentation Lananna says that even though he’s not a fan of TV shows like “American Idol” and “The Voice,” he watches them because they are popular and he looks at it “as a model for track and field.”
• New Race Sign-Up Service Suspends Registrations While Facing Industry Criticism Racepass is a service that tries to simplify the race registration process by allowing you to pay for multiple registrations at once, but some races have complained.
• USA Today:Skyrocketing Costs Put Future Olympics At Risk Given the declined interest in hosting it’s no wonder the IOC wants to lock in two cities at once for the next two Olympic cycles.
• InsideTheGames:Total Cost Of Rio 2016 Games To Be Revealed On June 14th The Rio 2016 organizers still owe $28 million in outstanding payments and one source says the total cost is likely to exceed $12 billion.
• Need A Job?IAAF Is Looking For A “Director Of Development” For Their Monaco Office

Week That Was

LRC WTW: Yohan Blake Is BACK, A College Woman Runs 14:51, Why The 2020 Trials Shouldn’t Be In Eugene, Joanie Turns 60 & MorePlus we point out a high school meet in Georgia produced more World Championship qualifiers than the USATF Distance Classic and praise an American who won an international marathon last week.

Is King Ches The GOAT? / Is Steeple Hurdle Technique Overrated?

LRC Is Edward Cheserek The GOAT Of NCAA Distance Running? Why The Answer Isn’t That SimpleKing Ches certainly had an amazing career but Gerry Lindgren only lost once at NCAA championships, Henry Rono set a world record in four different events in one season, and Suleiman Nyambui won just as many NCAA individual titles but also secured an Olympic medal and had better PRs at the 1,500, mile, 5,000 and 10,000.
*MB: Is Edward Cheserek the GOAT for NCAA distance runners? 

• UO Coach Robert Johnson Likens Edward Cheserek To A Race Horse That’ll “Ride Itself To Death” If You Let It “Most athletes have that, ‘I want to go, I want to go, I want to go’ mentality. It’s up to the older and the wiser to make good and sound decisions for them.”
• Ken Goe:“An Appreciation Of Ducks’ Star Edward Cheserek And What’s Next”

LRC How Much Do The World’s Top Steeplechasers Practice Hurdle Form? For 2008 Olympic Champ Brimin Kipruto, The Answer Is “Never” Everyone prepares for the steeplechase in their own way, from the Olympic champion who claims he never practices hurdling to Evan Jager, who works on his hurdle form every week. LetsRun.com consulted the experts to explore the differences between the top Kenyan and American steeplers and the importance of hurdle form.
*MB: How important is hurdling form to being great at the steeplechase? We asked the experts.
*MB: Kiprop runs steeple 1 week before pre classic