October 10, 2017 | LetsRun.com

Post 2017 BOA Chicago Marathon

LRC Editorial Galen Rupp – The Perfect Marathon Champion For America In The Year 2017 As we try to process what Galen Rupp‘s historic victory means, the number one word that comes to mind is this – polarizing. Just as our country is currently totally polarized by the holder of the Oval Office, Rupp’s victory is polarizing within the US running community.

Kenyan Journalist Says That Although He “Cringed” When Galen Rupp Won Chicago, He Thinks It’s Good For The Sport Elias Makori writes that it will motivate Kenyans to “not rest on their laurels” and is probably a little too hopeful when he thinks it will “most certainly help rekindle American interest” in the sport.
Chicago Running Form Analysis: Is Form The Key For Galen Rupp And Jordan Hasay? Running form expert Jae Gruenke says Rupp has made some key changes since Rio and Boston that helped him win in Chicago.
Post-Chicago Stat Blitz From Ken Nakamuta Tirunesh Dibaba‘s top 3 performance average is 2:19:01, third behind Paula Radcliffe‘s 2:16:48 and Mary Keitany‘s 2:18:19.
Runner’s World Shares Some Human Interest Stories From Chicago Read about an 81-year-old that still works 70-hours a week and was making his marathon debut and another guy who has ran every single Chicago Marathon.

2017 BOA Chicago Marathon *Tracking, Results

LRC Final American Galen Rupp Wins 2017 Chicago Marathon – 1st American-Born Winner In 35 Years The Cubs ended a 108-year losing streak last year. Rupp has broken a 35-year losing streak with 5 straight sub-4:40 miles.

LRC Alberto Salazar Addresses Leaked USADA Interim Report That Said It Was “Highly Likely” His Group Broke Anti-Doping Rules: “I Know That We Haven’t Broken Any Rules” Salazar didn’t answer why a leaked interim USADA report said it was “highly likely” his group had broken anti-doping rules. “You know what? I’m not gonna get into that. You would have to ask them what it is that they saw that they think that.” Plus commentary from Nick Willis and Stephanie Bruce.

LRC Final Tirunesh Dibaba Wins The First Marathon Of Her Career In Chicago In 2:18:31 As Jordan Hasay Runs The #2 Time In US History (2:20:57) Dibaba did what we expected her to do – run fast and win – while Jordan Hasay was amazing yet again.

MB: Centro runs Chicago? Centro’s “marathon debut” ended with a DNF after 25K, having gone through the half in 1:18:36 (6-minute pace).
Hasay And Rupp Were Blessed By A Catholic Priest Before The Race Salazar said they have been doing daily mass with Fr. Patrick Conroy, the chaplain of the US House of Representatives, whom they flew out for the race.
Salazar On Hasay Vs. Rupp: “I told Galen, ‘I’m glad you won, but if you have to say performer of the day for the Oregon Project, I got to give it to Jordan.'”
Brianne Theisen-Eaton Breaks 4:00 In Her Marathon Debut In Chicago Theisen-Eaton ran 3:55:08 and tweeted out, “[email protected]#k. I’m out. Never again.”
*Register-Guard: The Eatons Are Moving To San Francisco
Chicago Tribune: Galen Rupp Leads Strong Showing For American Runners At Chicago Marathon
Runner’s World’s Favorite Social Media Posts From Chicago
RRW: Rupp, Dibaba Dominate At Bank Of America Chicago Marathon
IAAF Recap

Non-Chicago News Of Note

NY Times: You Need To Keep Exercising As It Increases # Of Neurons In Your Brain And May Help Prevent Dementia
Want To Make $7,000? All You Have To Do Is Run 2:21:48 Or 2:42:30 At Armory’s Indoor Marathon In March Prize money has been increased for a world record.
Who Will Be The 2017 European Male And Female Athletes Of The Year? Mariya Lasitskene (RUS), Ekaterini Stefanidi (GRE), Nafissatou Thiam (BEL), Anita Wlodarczyk (POL), Ramil Guliyev (TUR), Kevin Mayer (FRA), and Johannes Vetter (GER) are your finalists.
Commonwealth Games 2022 Bidding Deadline Extended As Their Only Bid (Birmingham) Was “Not Fully Compliant”
AK Finds That 4 Teenage Girls Were Being Sexually Molested At A Training Camp “This was not a camp because where on Earth do you have young girls aged between 14 and 16 years being inappropriately massaged by a shameless adult who has bad intentions, pretending to be an athletic coach.”
Court Of Arbitration For Sport (CAS) Dismisses Appeal Of Russian High Jumper Anna Chicherova Against Decision To Strip Her Of The 2008 Bronze Sadly, she still is an Olympic champ.
WADA Lifts Partial Suspension Of UCLA Laboratory’s Accreditation
Ruth Jebet, Yomif Kejelcha And Michael Jordan Racing In 4-Mile Road Race In The Netherlands On Sunday – Watch It Live At 8 AM ET

LetsRun Investigation Pays Off – US 10 Mile Champs Gave Women Only 6:10 – Not 6:18 – Head Start

MB: LetsRun does it again!! US 10 Miler admits mistake we uncovered – Gives Sara Hall $10,000 Sara Hall is pleased and thanks LetsRun.com for our “detective work.”

Sprint Stuff

The Charlotte Observer: From Olympic Sprinter To … NASCAR? How Outsider Ato Boldon Is Diversifying Racing They brought him in hoping to attract more minority viewers and Boldon says to his surprise he’s really enjoying the sport.
Wayde Van Niekerk Will Skip The 400 At The 2018 Commonwealth Games To Focus On The 100/200
From Last Weekend: Justin Gatlin Wins The Mano E Mano 100m Street Race In Rio With A Modest 10.52 *Video
IAAF Profile On Shock World 400m Gold Medalist Phyllis Francis Francis says she didn’t know what place she finished until she looked to the stands and saw her friends screaming. “I knew the medal was gold because they were jumping up and down and I thought, ‘Oh, this must be really serious right now!'”
In-Depth Analysis Of The Men’s World 100m Final A team of 40 scientists used 25 high speed cameras and 15 HD camcorders were used to analyze every aspect of the race. Here are some preliminary findings.
Wayde Van Niekerk Documentary To Be Released February Next Year
Former Olympic Decathlon Champ Bryan Clay And Former 100m WR Holder Leroy Burrell Among USATF Hall Of Fame Class Of 2017

From The UK

Seb Coe Suggests Radical Overhaul Of The Sport With Possible Ideas Like Indian Premier League-Style Auctions, City Franchises, Drafts, And Pop-Up 200m Tracks “l’m not ruling, frankly, anything out now. … These are the things that are on the table and I, frankly, don’t want to remove them until we’ve had, really, at times, possibly uncomfortable set of conversations.” *The Guardian Article
GB Long Jumper Greg Rutherford Has Sights Set On Further Success Before Retirement Rutherford wants to become the first to win three straight European LJ titles and would like to go for a third Olympic medal at Tokyo 2020.
GB’s Former 400m Olympic Champ Christine Ohuruogu Stays Silent On Retirement Claims Ohuruogu didn’t seem upset not to run on the 4 x 400 at Worlds and has just started a two-year law degree program.
Birmingham The Only Bidder For 2022 Commonwealth Games
*Birmingham 2022 CWG Bid Won’t Stop London’s Plans To Hold The European Championships In the Same Year
IAAF: Preparations “On Track For An Amazing” IAAF World Indoor Championships At Birmingham 2018 The IAAF made a visit to inspect Birmingham last week.
*IAAF: 1st Official 2018 World Indoors Bulletin Now Available The info guide has info on schedule, tickets, entry standards, the venue and more.
UK Sport Unveils Ambitious Plans To Bring More Major Sporting Events To Great Britain London 2012, London 2017, Birmingham 2018, Birmingham 2022 … seems to be working.

LetsJump.com

Sandi Morris Was On Lockdown For 5 Hours During Las Vegas Shooting Morris was at a performance by the Blue Man Group across the street from the shooting and said, “This is probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced in my life, if not the scariest.”
Olympic, World And European Pole Vault Champ Katerina Stefanidi Says She’s Focused On World Indoor Gold In 2018 It won’t be an off year for Stefanidi as she says, “It’s crazy to say but it is the only gold medal I don’t have now so it is a big goal.”
Rundown Of The Ten 2017 IAAF World Athlete Of The Year Men’s Nominees Apparently it was the year for jumpers as Sam Kendricks (PV), Mutaz Essa Barshim (HJ) and Luvo Manyonga (LJ) were all undefeated on the year.
Rundown Of The Ten 2017 IAAF World Athlete Of The Year Women’s Nominees Adding to the list of undefeated jumpers was Russian HJer Maria Lasitskene. Hammer thrower Anita Wlodarczyk was also undefeated for the 3rd straight year.

Kenenisa Bekele Responds To Jos Hermens

Kenenisa Bekele at 2017 BMW Berlin Marathon LRC Kenenisa Bekele “Dismayed” By Jos Hermens’ Comments About His Professionalism After Berlin Marathon, Vows To Break World Record Bekele is confident that the best is yet to come for him at the 26.2-mile distance. “I definitely will break it before my retirement. For all the skeptics, I will show them with my hard work,” Bekele said, waving his hands with confidence. “I want to seize my future. And I don’t want anyone to get into my way of proving myself.”

Previous: LRC Jos Hermens: Kenenisa Bekele Must Become More “Professional” If He Is To Realize Marathon Potential

More From The Weekend

Kenya’s Daniel Salel (64:31) Earns BAA Half-Marathon Three-Peat While Joan Chelimo (70:31) Dominates The Women’s Race Salel won over Japan’s Suguru Osako (64:42) while Abdi Abdirahman was 5th (65:11) and Dathan Ritzenhein 8th (66:25).
Tokai University Outruns Defending Champ Aoyama Gakuin to Win First Izumo Ekiden Title in Ten Years Cornell alum Ben Rainero had the second-fastest time on the anchor stage to bring the Ivy League Select Team from 12th to 10th. Brett Larner called it “one of the best individual performances in the Ivy League’s history at Izumo.”
Kenyan’s Festus Talam Runs 2:06:13 To Just Outkick His Compatriot Felix Kiptoo Kirwa At The Eindhoven Marathon (translated) Both men were timed at 2:06:13, but Talam just got the win. Eunice Jeptoo (2:26:13) dominated the women’s race by over 10-minutes. *Results
Nozomi Tanaka Leads Five High Schoolers Under Nine Minutes in Japan National Sports Festival Junior Women’s 3000 m Tanaka won in 8:54.27 as the top-3 all came in within .72 of each other.
UTEP’s Jonah Koech And UMass Amherst’s Heather MacLean Are NCAA Athletes Of The Week Koech won the New Mexico State-UTEP dual meet while MacLean took the win at the New England Championships.
Kurashiki and Osaka Kunei Joshi Win Season-Opening High School Ekidens

Non-Chicago Action *NCAA XC Results

Haron Lagat (49:23) And Susan Tanui (56:50) Win Army 10 Miler Lagat beat out a good field which included Olympians Shadrack Kipchirchir and Leonard Korir in 4th and 5th. *Results
Collins Chebii (58:28) And Gebayanesh Ayele (1:06:02) Win Paris 20K Chebii beat Josphat Kiprono Menjo by 6 seconds as Ayele won by 14.
Video Interview With Canadian 2:10 Marathoner Reid Coolsaet From Before The Victoria Half Marathon Coolsaet ended up 3rd (67:27) in a race won by Geoff Martinson (64:28). *Results
The Oregonian: 2:23 And 2:50 Wins The Portland Marathon *Results
Austria’s Andrea Mayr And Norway’s Johan Bugge Win Smarna Gora Mountain Running Race In Slovenia

Chicago Discussion

News From The Pacific

Cool Gesture: Tom Walsh’s Coach Gave His Coaching Gold Medal To Walsh’s 1st Coach, Who Was A Volunteer
Japanese Ekiden Season Kicks Off On Monday With Izumo Ekiden Tokai is the favorite as their top six averages 13:43/28:52/62:42. The Ivy League team averages 14:00/30:01.
Wow: IOC Is Asking Tokyo 2020 To Cut Its Budget By $1 Billion Maybe all of the negative press is finally knocking common sense into them.

Random But Interesting

Should You Race As Wonder Woman? Top Halloween Costumes For 2017 … And How To Run In Them Camille Herron (marathon WR holder dressed as Spiderman) and Michael Wardian (Elvis costume WR) share their advice.
Running For Office … Literally: Ithaca Congressional Candidate To Kick Off Campaign With 450-Mile Run Over 30 Days Former DIII All-American at Ithaca, Ian Golden, is running across his NY district to “better understand the voters and the issues they view most important.”
Can Your Bib Number Affect Your Performance? Apparently in the triathlon, it can have some indirect consequences.
Athletics Illustrated: Effects On Sport Performance, Weight Loss And Health Of A Ketogenic Lifestyle The high-fat, low-carb, controversial diet is supported by Lore of Running author Dr. Tim Noakes.

Week That Was

LRCWTW: Phoebe Wright Gets Married, Suddenly Becoming World Class At 31, And Something Doesn't Add Up At US 10-Mile Champs?

Thanks to Phoebe Wright we've got a new activity for runners at their weddings, plus a look at the NCAA XC picture, and a possible mix-up at the 10 miler dominated by Scott Simmons WCAP athletes.

Previous Chicago News / Discussion

Abel Kirui Moved His Training Base This Year Just To Learn From Eliud Kipchoge Kirui says he “used to go home [to my wife and family] in the middle of the week” but now he stays at camp with Kipchoge until Saturday.
Abel Kirui Says He’s Learned From And Motivated By Eliud Kipchoge’s Berlin Win “When the Ethiopian [in Berlin] tried to do something strange, Kipchoge became patient and I think I will also do that if something of the sort happens in Chicago.”
Competitor: Could This Be A Year That An American Wins Chicago?
HOKA NAZ Elite Documentary (Part 1) A nice in-depth inside look at the training of the Flagstaff group which includes Aaron Braun, Kellyn Taylor, Matt Llano and Ben and Stephanie Bruce.
Abel Kirui Aiming To Win Again In Chicago Kirui says he’s been doing the same program as Kipchoge before he won in Berlin.
Joan Benoit Samuelson Out of Chicago with Injury

Pre-Race MB Buzz

Olympic News / Corruption Updates

Brazilian Olympic Committee President Carlos Nuzman Arrested In Rio Bribery Investigation Nuzman was caught amending his taxes to add $600,000 in income and investigators found a key for a safe in Switzerland containing gold (his net worth had increased 457% since he became the BOA president).
*NY Times: French Bank Linked To Olympic Bribery Scandal
*InsideTheGames: Rio 2016 Bid Chiefs Met With Bbusinessman At Heart Of Vote-Buying Sacndal Three Weeks Before IOC Vote
Paris Mayor Eyes Most Successful Gay Games In 2018 If you’re curious (we were), there are no qualifying standards to compete at the Gay Games and anyone (regardless of sexual orientation) can enter.
IOC Targeting Tokyo 2020 Athletes’ Village As Potential Cost Cutting Measure Maybe Tokyo has some wiggle room, but it didn’t sound like Rio could have cut another dime on their athlete village.
USA Today: Some Olympic Hopefuls Seek Balance In Speaking Out, Representing Country Olympic rules prohibit political statements so you probably won’t see anyone at the Winter Olympics kneeling on top of the podium.
The Telegraph: “New Book Reveals Olympic Park Damaged East London’s Craft Industry” An expert has estimated that 887 jobs were lost and 31 per cent of the businesses that had to move were forced to close.
Tokyo 2020 Finds High Bacteria Levels At Open-Water Swim Venue Tests showed E. Coli up to 20 times the accepted limit.

NCAA Updates

Updated Men’s National Coaching Poll: NAU Stays #1, BYU Moves To #2 Syracuse remains ranked 3rd while Stanford moved from 2nd to 4th.
Women’s Week 4 National XC Rankings: No Changes To The Top 9 Colorado, Oregon and New Mexico remain 1-3.
Southern Utah Men Reach Historic High With #6 National Rank Winning the Notre Dame Invy bumped them up 7 places from 13th.
Ashton Eaton And Brianne Theisen-Eaton Inducted Into Oregon Sports Hall Of Fame
Two-Time Olympic 400H Champ Angelo Taylor To Be In Georgia Sports Hall Of Fame

Pre-Race Coverage

LRC Last Minute Drama In Chicago: Kenyan Emmanuel Bett Enters Marathon At Last Minute – Is He There To Ensure An Honest Pace For Galen Rupp? Kenya’s Emmanuel Bett – who shares the same agent as Rupp – has been entered in the race.

LRC U.S. Fans, Rejoice! Americans Galen Rupp & Jordan Hasay Both Say Their Chicago Marathon Buildups Were Their Best Ever
*MB: Will Jordan Hasay ever run faster than her 2:23:00 debut in Boston? Yes or no.

More Chicago News

Galen Rupp Addresses Drug Allegations, Talks At Length About About Salazar And Clean Sport “I feel like people have stopped believing in their fellow man, fellow woman, and it’s sad. Part of the cool thing about sports is seeing someone do something incredible and wanting to do that someday. Call me naive, but that’s the power of sports.”
Jordan Hasay: “I’d say on paper, I’m definitely fitter than Boston.” Hasay says she actually did some workouts with Rupp, tempoing the beginning of his long run or doing 400s during his mile repeats.
Q&A With Abel Kirui On His Humble Beginnings As The Son Of A Poor, Single-Mother Farmer Kirui says that some days they ate dinner “only by the mercies of God.”
Galen Rupp And Jordan Hasay Look To End The Longest US Victory Drought In Chicago Marathon History The last American winner was Deena Kastor in 2005. Rupp says he’d “love for it to be a 2:05 or 2:06 race.”
RRW: Sixteen Years Ago This Week, Catherine Ndereba Was First Woman To Run Sub-2:19 A nice look back at Ndereba’s 2001 run which was paced by LRC co-founder Robert Johnson.
Video: Course Tips From Three Chicago Marathon Legends Running Chicago? Get some free advice from Paula Radcliffe, Khalid Khannouchi and Catherine Ndereba. who all set WRs here.
Short Audio Clip: Jordan Hasay Talks About The Marathon Hasay said whenever she was frustrated with her track performances, her parents would say, “Well, one day the marathon … just keep going until that.”

Doping / Corruption News

WADA Removes Alcohol From 2018 List Of Prohibited Substances We’re sure that Ivan Ukhov will be thrilled. PS: We’re kidding … alcohol will probably still be banned in competition; they’ll just use breathalyzers.
“Icarus” Film Director Says The IOC Is In Doping Denial Bryan Fogel says that WADA is “crippled by its mandate with no ability to take action” and that the IOC “would like nothing more than to sweep this under the carpet.”
Not Suspicious At All: 16 Gold Bars Deposited In Arrested Rio 2016 Olympic Chief Carlos Nuzman’s Swiss Safe
*InsideTheGames Article $155,000 cash was found at his residence in five different currencies. Gold bars, huge amounts of cash in different currencies.
Slovakia Finds Olympic Race Walk Champ Matej Tóth Not Guilty Of Doping Slovakia accepted his excuses for variations in his biological passport, but the decision is not final as the IAAF and WADA have to agree.
Athletics Kenya Sets November 2nd As “Doping Awareness Day” AK official Jack Tuwei said, “The problem is not the athletes, the problem is the athletes’ support personnel.” We would disagree and say the problem is both.
Russian Weightlifting Coach Complains Decicion To Ban Them (Along Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Ukraine, China And Moldova) With For A Year For Doping “Utterly Unjust” We agree. Four years to life would be better.
Tokyo 2020 Sign Agreement With Japan Anti-Doping Agency For Drug Testing At Olympics Fun fact: The last Olympics where there was no drug testing was the Tokyo 1964 Games.

Notable Distance News

Cam Levins Making His Half Marathon Debut At The Toronto Waterfront Marathon On October 22nd Levins says he’s going to run with the marathon pace group at 63 minutes. He also talks about how he’s back to doing high mileage with his former college coach Eric Houle, has done a lot of training with Ryan Vail, and comments briefly on the coaching at NOP.
Former European Indoor 800 Champ Jenny Meadows Is Shocked That Since “Retiring” She Can Make More Money As A Rabbit Than She Could Competing Meadows also said it’s “damn hard” to stay in good enough shape to pace races which may deter her from doing it again for the 2018 season.
Video: Jakob Ingebrigtsen Needs To Be Helped To The Finish Line After Collapsing In Norway Mountain Race The sub-4 teenager finished 30th in what reportedly is “the world’s steepest race.”
NY Post: Pro Marathoner Runner’s Penis Exposed During Final Sprint To The Finish Slovakian Jozef Urban seemed unaware of his exposed parts as he finished the Kosice Peach Marathon in 10th place (2:21). *Viral Video (NSFW)
*MB: Runner’s Ding Dong Is Exposed During Marathon
IAAF: Teen Prodigy Ajee Wilson Comes Of Age With World Bronze Medal Wilson’s coach Derek Thompson had a ton of praise for his star athlete and says how easy going and easy to coach Wilson is.