January 4, 2018 | LetsRun.com

Andrew Wheating Retires

LRC Former Oregon Great Andrew Wheating Retires at Age 30, A Look Back at the Highs and Lows of His Career Tons of glory as a Duck and a 3:30.9 1500m before he even signed his Nike contract. A look at his career. Discuss: ANDREW WHEATING RETIRES
*Favorite Andrew Wheating moment?

Distance News

Recommended Read: NYC 5th Placer Allie Kieffer Blogs About Her Physique/Weight: “My Weight Has Nothing To Do With How Good A Runner I Am” Kieffer says she’s faced comments about being “too big” for a runner her whole career and at one point it pushed her to cut too many calories and get a stress fracture. She says that now, “I feel lucky that I’m no longer so young and impressionable.”
*MB: Allie Kieffer responds to comments about her weight/physique — SELF magazine article
2016 Foot Locker Runner-Up Nevada Mareno Transfers From Stanford To NC State She joins a team that includes sisters Wesley and Ryen Frazier whose father coached Mareno for part of her HS career.
*MB: It’s OFFICIAL! Nevada Mareno transfers to N.C State

Sprint News

Wayde Van Niekerk Successfully Completes One-Month Rehab Program In Qatar Van Niekerk had surgery in October after tearing a knee ligament during a rugby game.
Jamaican Athletes May Face Obstacles Getting US Visas For “Extraordinary Ability” An American immigration lawyer is accusing the the US consulate of rejecting athletes saying they aren’t “extraordinary” enough, even though they don’t have the expertise to make that call.

Starting Off 2018 With A Bang

January 14: Ten Past Champions Headline Super Deep Fields For 2018 Chevron Houston Marathon And Aramco Houston Half Marathon In the women’s half, Molly Huddle and Jordan Hasay take on US soil record holder Mary Wacera (66:29) and Edith Chelimo (65:52). Alex Korio Oloitiptit (58:51) leads a men’s half field with Olympic silver medalist Feyisa Lelisa, Callum Hawkins, Stephen Sambu, Diego Estrada, Sam Chelanga, Luke Puskedra, and Bernard Lagat. In the men’s marathon, defending champ Dominic Ondoro takes on Bazu Worku (2:05:25) while last year’s women’s half winner Veronicah Nyaruai Wanjiru makes her marathon debut against Mamitu Daska (2:21:59).
January 26: Some Great Races Set For Dr. Sander Invitational (Formerly Armory Invy) With Clayton Murphy Vs Robby Andrews In The 800 And Kate Grace And Lauren Johnson In The Mile Craig Engels is in the men’s mile and Ajee Wilson and Charlene Lipsey in the women’s 800. Courtney Okolo leads the springs, Ryan Whiting the throws and NCAA champs Karissa Schweizer and Ariana Washington are also competing.
February 3: Genzebe Dibaba Returns To The Meeting Karlsruhe 1500 To Take On German Mid-D Stars Konstanze Klosterhalfen And Gesa Felicitas Krause Dibaba set the indoor WR at 3:55.17 at this meet four years ago.
February 6: World 1500 Champ Elijah Manangoi And World PV Champ Sam Kendricks Added To Fields For The Dusseldorf Indoor Meet The men’s 800 meanwhile has World silver and bronze medalists Adam Kszczot and Kipyegon Bett.

2017 Is Over

Who Were the Most USADA Drug-Tested Runners of 2017? Galen Rupp topped the list at 16 times while Shalane Flanagan and Ajee Wilson were the most tested females with 12 tests.
Interesting: Toni Reavis – Marathoning 2017 By The Numbers Reavis compares the number of sub-2:10s since 2010 and breaks them down by country. At a glance, besides Eliud Kipchoge‘s 2:00:25, it looks like the marathon has hit a bit of a plateau.
IAAF 2017 End-Of-Year Sprints Review Usain Bolt bombed, Wayde Van Niekerk delivered while Tori Bowie and Dafne Schippers impressed for the women.
2017 Diamond League Review – Part 1 Highlights from Doha through Paris. *Part 2 DL Review Lausanne through Brussels.

The LetsRun.com World And US Rankings Are Here – Who’s #1?

LRC Women’s Steeple: Emma Coburn Is The World Champ, But Beatrice Chepkoech Is World #1 It was a crazy year in the women’s steeple, making the rankings super difficult but we think we got it right and the US women are #4 and #7.
*Discuss: Men’s and Women’s Steeple World and US Rankings: US Women Go 1-2 at Worlds, But American Men Go 3-4 in Rankings, USWomen 4&7

LRC Men’s Steeple Conseslus Kipruto Kicks His Way To World #1; USA’s Evan Jager Is #3 In World, Stanley Kebenei #4 Kipruto is king of the steeple, but 2 Americans in the top 5 is impressive.

LRC Women’s 3/5k: 2017 LRC World & US Rankings, W 3K/5K: Hellen Obiri Reigns Supreme, Shannon Rowbury US #1 Obiri was dominant this year and gets the top spot. *Discuss 3k/5k Rankings Here

LRC Men’s 5,000: M 3K/5K: Muktar Edris Edges Mo Farah For Top Spot, Paul Chelimo #3 Mo Farah‘s loss at Worlds cost him the #1 ranking. *Discuss 5k Rankings Here

Previous LRC Rankings: *M1,500: Manangoi And Centro #1 *W1,500: Faith Kipyegon #1, Jenny Simpson #3 In World *Women’s 800 *Men 800

Distance Q&As

Recommended Read: Extensive Q&A With NCAA XC Champ Justyn Knight Knight talks about winning NCAAs, his favorite competitors, running heroes, how he started running, and future plans.
Carrie Tollefson Does Podcast Q&A With Adam Goucher Goucher talks about the possibility of leading running retreats, stem cell treatment, and life at home with his wife Kara and Colt.
Q&A: Kids Interview Jenny Simpson Asked what most frightens her, Simpson said, “Sometimes when I am warming up, it makes me really nervous because I am thinking about all the people who are watching and cheering for me, and I don’t want to let them down.”
Good Read: Lengthy Interview With Women’s Running Pioneer Joan Lamb Ullyot Ullyot was on the US team for the first International Women’s Marathon in Germany in 1976 where she finished 6th and wrote the first training book for women.

More Year-End Reviews

IAAF 2017 End-Of-Year Sprints Review Usain Bolt bombed, Wayde Van Niekerk delivered while Tori Bowie and Dafne Schippers impressed for the women.
IAAF End-Of-Year Mid-Distance Reviews No one dominated their event like Caster Semenya did the women’s 800.
T&F News Event-By-Event #1 Men’s Rankings Team USA took four #1 rankings from Justin Gatlin, Sam Kendricks, Christian Taylor and Ryan Crouser.
T&F News Event-By-Event #1 Women’s Rankings Keni Harrison, Brittney Reese and Kori Carter were the three Americans to make the list.
Top 10 Olympic Bid Stories Of 2017: Part 1 Because it’s the IOC, most of the stories are negative.
Shaunae Miller-Uibo Is Bahamas Female Athlete Of The Year
World High Jump Silver Medalist Yuliya Levchenko Voted Ukrainian Athlete Of The Year
DyeStat’s Favorite Photos Of 2017
Athletics Weekly Month-By-Month 2017 Highlights
List Of All The European Records That Went Down This Year
A-Z Of European Athletics In 2017 (Part Two)

Road News

Matt Hughes (51:18) Battles -22 Degree Conditions (With The Wind Chill) And Snow-Covered Roads To Win Boxing Day 10 Miler In Canada Two-time national XC champ Ross Proudfoot and Olympic marathoner Reid Coolsaet were 2-3.
*MB: Canadian Steeple Olympian Matt Hughes wins 10-miler (51:18) in “feels like -22C” temps. Whoa.
Sunday: Defending Champ And Three-Time Winner Cornelius Kangogo Going For A Fourth Title At The Corrida Pedestre Internationale de Houilles 10K One of the top contenders will be GB’s 60:00 half marathoner Callum Hawkins. Kenya’s Stacy Ndiwa (31:37) is the favorite in the women’s race.
January 7: Former World Champs 5,000 Bronze Medalist Moses Kipsiro Headlines At The Safi Half Marathon In Morocco Kipsiro faces a slew of contenders, including Ethiopia’s Terefa Debela (60:22 half PR) and Getaneh Molla (60:34 PR). The women’s race is led by Zerfie Limeneh (71:02) and Zinash Debebe (71:04).

RIP Jamaican 1960 Olympic 4 X 400 Bronze Medalist Malcolm Spence, 81

Russian Doping Updates

IOC Accused Of “Cowardice” For Failing To Help Protect Whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov Russia has been pushing for Rodchenkov’s extradition and his lawyer thinks the IOC should step in and tell Russia they must stop.
Vitaly Mutko Steps Down As Head Of Organizing Committee For The 2018 FIFA World Cup Mutko claims he’s taking time away to focus on fighting against his lifetime Olympic ban.
Russia Paralympic Committee Holding A Qualifying Meet With 50 Athletes Despite The Fact That They’re Still Banned From Pyeongchang 2018 A final decision on Russian Paralympians hasn’t been made yet (the IPC is separate from the IOC).
Non-News: Vladimir Putin Does Not Plan To Attend Winter Olympics

2017 World and US Rankings

LRC Men’s Marathon: Eliud Kipchoge Is the World’s Best Marathoner but Geoffrey Kirui is World #1 Kirui won the World Champs and Boston while Kipchoge was his marvelous self with the fastest time of the year and win in Berlin (and Breaking2).
*Discuss: Men’s Marathon World Rankings: Geoffery Kirui is #1, Eliud Kipchoge #2… Galen Rupp #6

Previous LRC Rankings: *WSteeple: Emma Coburn IsWorld Champ, But Beatrice Chepkoech World #1 *MSteeple: Kipruto#1; USA’s Jager #3, Kebenei #4 *M 3K/5K: Muktar Edris Edges Mo Farah, Paul Chelimo #3 *W 3K/5K: Hellen Obi#1, Shannon Rowbury US #1 *M1,500: Manangoi And Centro #1*W1,500: Faith Kipyegon #1, Jenny Simpson #3 In World*Women’s 800 *Men 800

2018 Winter Olympics Start Next Month In South Korea

Line Of Communication Opens Between North And South Korea For The First Time In Two Years This after Kim Jong Un said in his New Year’s Day speech that he hoped North Korea would compete at Pyeongchang 2018.
US Senator Suggests We Should Pull Out Of 2018 Winter Olympics If North Korea Participates
U.S. Skating Officials Brush Aside Talk of Boycotting Olympics US Figure Skating officials welcome North Korea’s precipitation saying, “It would be the safest place in the world.” By that, we take it they assume Kim Jong Un wouldn ‘t bomb his own Olympic athletes.
Neutral Russian Parade Uniforms For Winter Games Approved By IOC Apparently the IOC said the colors couldn’t be “exactly the same” as the Russian flag, so they’re going to be darker. What a harsh punishment.
IOC Asks Russia To Change Color Of Bobsleds Uniforms And Sled To Be More Neutral The IOC detected “Russian national motives” in the proposed design, so the sleds will now be burgundy instead of red.

Upcoming Indoor Action

The Best Of 2017

LRC The 2017 LetsRun.com Awards: Runner And Rookie Of The Year, Upset Of The Year, Doping Excuse Of The Year & More Shalane Flanagan and Galen Rupp are US runners of the year and Joyciline Jepkosgei and Eliud Kipchoge international runners of the year. Did your favorite runner make the cut?
*Discuss: LetsRun.com Year End Awards: Galen Rupp and Shalane Flanagan US Runners of Year, Noah Lyles Rookie of the Year and More …

Olympic / Hosting News

Grigory Rodchenkov’s Lawyer Accuses Thomas Bach Of “Kowtowing To Powerful Russian” And Says He Should Resign As IOC President Jim Walden: “Lest there be any doubt about the political nature of the IOC’s decision making, recall it imposed a multi-year and continuing, complete ban of Kuwait for acts far less serious than Russia’s criminality.”
Japan Overdoes It Again: Tokyo 2020 Olympic Torch Relay To Last 30 Days Longer Than IOC Target The relay will last around 130 days.
Study Reveals That London 2017 Worlds Had A $145 Million Economic Impact
Japanese Prime Minister Threatening To Boycott 2018 Winter Games Over Disagreement With South Korea Over “Comfort Women” Apparently South Korea has demanded that Japan apologize and pay reparations for mistreatment of women forced into sexual slavery during WWII.
South Korea Departs 17 Foreigners In Anti-Terror Move Prior To Pyeongchang 2018
AP: NHL In No Rush To Discuss Future Winter Olympic Plans They aren’t letting their players compete in the 2018 Games, which is the first time since 1994.
US Defense Secretary Claims No Current Plans To Postpone Military Exercises During 2018 Winter Games In South Korea
Pyeongchang 2018 Torch Relay Takes On Christmas Feel As Olympic Year Approaches

Updates From Russia

Vitaly Mutko Files CAS Appeal Against Lifetime Olympic Ban The case is expected to take place in early January.
Russian Ski Association Avoids Suspension; Gets Warning Instead

More End-Of-Year Reviews

IAAF End-Of-Year Long Distance Review The highlight at Worlds for Team USA was Emma Coburn and Courtney Frerichs going 1-2 in the steeple.
Mo Farah’s And 400 Hurdler Karsten Warholm’s Faces Make Guardian’s Best Sports Photos Of 2017
DyeStat Shares Their Top Video Interviews Of The Year
European Athletics’ A-Z Of Euro Performances In 2017
Usain Bolt’s Retirement On The Guardian’s List Of Biggest Sporting Moments In 2017

LetsJump.com

Four-Time World LJ Champ Dwight Phillips Reflects About His Early Career When He “Competed Off Talent Alone” And Wasn’t “Educated” About The Technical Aspects Of His Event Philips says he almost quit the sport in 2001 when he was offered $85,000 a year for a pharmaceutical sales job.
BBC Video Interview: World LJ Champion Luvo Manyonga Talks About Battling His Crystal Meth Addiction And Desire To Break The World Record Manyonga got an 18-month ban in 2012 for his crystal meth use.
World HJ Champ Maria Lasitskene Named Female Russian Athlete Of The Year Undefeated in 2017, Lasitskene won the award over athletes from all Russian sports.
Video: Chaunte Lowe Finally Receives Her 2008 Olympic HJ Bronze Medal Lowe was in tears as she was awarded the medal at a special ceremony earlier this month.

Looking Ahead To Spring

March 7: London Marathon Champ Daniel Wanjiru Will Take On Mo Farah And Callum Hawkins At The Big Half With PRs of 59:20 (Wanjiru), 59:32 (Farah) and 60:00 (Hawkins), it’s setting up to be a great race.
*MB: It’s on!! Daniel Wanjiru will race Mo Farah (and Callum Hawkins) at Big Half in March – 7 weeks before London clash
Eliud Kipchoge Reveals He’ll Focus On The Win And Not The WR At London “To go out purely fighting to break the record is not ideal.”
World Marathon Champ Geoffrey Kirui Is Passing Up Commonwealth Games To Focus On Defending His Title At The Boston Marathon
Northern Ireland Names Team Of 12 For Commonwealth Games The team includes Olympic marathoners Paul Pollock and Kevin Seaward and European 1,500m bronze medalist Ciara Mageean.

Let’s Start 2018 Off With A WR

LRC No Excuses: 1-Degree Temps (-13 C) Don’t Prevent Japan’s Yuki Kawauchi From Breaking World Record For Most Sub-2:20 Marathons Kawauchi, who has 25 career sub-2:12s, now has 76 sub-2:20s, one more than American legend Doug Kurtis.
*Kawauchi Admits He Had Doubts When He Was Struggling Early “When I saw my 5 km split it was the first time in a race I’ve ever thought, ‘Why am I doing this?'”

Jan. 2 Action: Toyo University Leads Defending Champ Aoyama Gakuin By 36 Seconds After Day One Of Hakone Ekiden Very impressive considering their entire senior class is out with injury.

Dec. 31/Jan. 1 Action – It’s Nice To Be Undefeated For 2018

RRW Saucony’s Molly Seidel (21:24) And Skechers’ Reid Buchanan (19:08) Win 2017 NYRR Midnight Run Seidel beat Sarah Pagano by 8 seconds whereas Buchanan dominated and won by 50 seconds over Daniel Winn. *Results
Germany: Konstanze Klosterhalfen Ends 2017 With A 15:34 Road Win/1,500 Finalist Hanna Klein Ends It With 32:28 CR 10k
Australia: Australia’s Next “Superstar” Mid-D Prospect – Matthew Ramsden Wins NY’s Mile
Spain: Kenya’s Erick Kiptanui (27:34) & Ethiopia’s Gelete Burka (30:55) Win Madrid’s 53th San Silvestre Vallecana
Italy: World 5,000m Champ Muktar Edris Wins Third Boclassic In 28:45 Agnes Tirop won the women’s race in a 15:30 to break the 27-year-old course record.
France: Switzerland’s Julien Wanders (28:02) Ends 30 Years Of African Dominance By Winning Houilles 10k Kenya’s Stacey Ndiwa won the women’s race in 31:35.
Japan: Asahi Kasei Defends Its New Year Ekiden Corporate National Title Bedan Karoki was sensational on the 2nd leg as he passed 18 people just four weeks after running Fukuoka.
Ritsumeikan University Wins Fifth-Straight Women’s National University Ekiden At Mt. Fuji This race was held earlier in the week.

Athletic Weekly‘s Rankings Are Out

Athletics Weekly Top 3 Rankings For All Events: International Women *International Men *UK Men *UK Women

More Year-End News

AP: Track And Field Will Have To Face Up To Uncertain Future Without Usain Bolt In 2018
The Guardian‘s Best Sports Photos Of 2017 Mo Farah makes the list.
Heavy Reading: Tianna Bartoletta Reveals That After A 2nd LJ Gold In 2012, She Thought About Killing Herself By Jumping Off A Train Platform Instead, she became homeless and left her 24-year-old elder husband, who allegedly at one point threatened to sue her parents.
Thomas Bach Says A Complete Ban Of Russia From The Olympics Would Be “Unethical” As There Are Some Innocent Athletes
The Top 10 Ugandan Athletes Of 2017

Two Reads We Enjoyed On New Year’s

In HS, He Was Barred From The Champs In Jamaica For Being Academically Ineligible, But Now Damar Robinson Has Two Degrees From Louisville
Timothy Cheruiyot Recalls Winning 2016 Brussels DL – Says It Made Him Realize He Could Beat Anyone In The World “Victory in Brussels made me believe for the first time I could live with the likes of Asbel (Kiprop), Centro and Elijah. From that moment on I knew I could beat anyone.”

Distance News

Kenenisa Bekele Craves The Marathon World Record; Hopes He’ll Be Invited To London Bekele also talked about his place in T&F history and said, “I am rated highest.”
Shalane Flanagan Credits Having A Group To Train With In Keeping Her Going Strong At 36 Years Old “The accountability and camaraderie – after the New York marathon I had to take a week off to recover. But I was chomping to get back into my running because I get to go run with my friends and gossip and chat.”
Catching Up With Retired 1:57 800 Runner Molly Ludlow, Who Recently Gave Birth to Her First Child Ludlow reflects on her career, missing the 2016 Olympic team due to a crazy fall and shares that she has begun nursing school.
January 26: Defending Champions Tamirat Tola And Worknesh Degefa Lead Fields For The Dubai Marathon Tola set a CR last year with 2:04:11 while Degefa debuted to win in 2:22:36.

Sprint Stuff

Recommended Read: Take A Behind The Scenes Look At GB’s World Gold 4 X 100 Squad Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and Danny Talbot talk about the teamwork, practice and emotion that went into the upset win in front of the home crowd in London this summer.
FloridaGators.com: A Long Trip To Catch Up To Gators’ 18-Year-Old Japanese Sprint Sensation Abdul Hakim Sani Brown While most on the Florida campus wouldn’t recognize Sani Brown or his name, people on the streets of Tokyo “would give you a weird look for even asking.”
UK Para Athlete Sophie Kamlish Doesn’t Want To Be Known As “Blade Babe” “I guess it’s not an insult, but I don’t think it would be a total complement either.”

Distance News

Edna Kiplagat Declared World Marathon Majors Winner After Jemima Sumgong’s Doping Ban This is the third time Kiplagat has won the $500,000 WMM title.
Former Olympic Champ Meseret Defar Looking Forward To Making Her Marathon Debut In 2018 Defar hasn’t raced a lot the last few years, but says she wants to “assure my fans I’m in athletics to stay.”
Nick Willis Looking To Double Medal In The 1,500/5,000 At The 2018 Commonwealth Games Only twice in CWG history has someone medaled in both events at the same Games (the first time was Kip Keino in 1970). Willis won 1,500 bronze and was 10th in the 5,000 back in 2014.
Podcast Q&A With Nick Symmonds Symmonds talks about his career, business and 3:00:35 marathon debut.

2017 Comes To An End

Mutaz Barshim Is T&F News Male Athlete Of The Year 11 competitions and 11 victories for Barshim in 2017.
IAAF End-Of-Year XC/Road Racing Review There were a lot of impressive road performances this year, highlighted by two WRs, one at the half marathon (Joyciline Jepkosgei‘s 64:52) and the other Mary Keitany‘s 2:17:01 “women’s only” record.
What Do You Think? Vote For DyeStat’s Performers Of The Year: High School Boys *High School Girls *College *Pro *Relays
17 Brits Make Athletics Weekly’s Event-By-Event Top 10 World Merit Rankings Mo Farah is Britain’s sole top world-ranked athlete as he’s #1 in the 10,000 (but only #2 in the 5,000).
Mary Keitany’s 2:17:01 Is T&F News’s Women’s Performances Of The Year
German Javelin Thrower Johannes Vetter’s #2 All-Time Throw Was T&F News Top Men’s Performance Of 2017

IAAF End-Of-Year Hurdles Review Omar McLeod continued to dominate while WR holder Keni Harrison continued to falter on the biggest stage, finishing 4th at Worlds as Sally Pearson won.
World Discus Champ Sandra Perkovic Named Croatian Sportswoman Of The Year (All Sports)

Post-Christmas Day News

Mo Farah Targeted With Racist Messages After His “Merry Christmas” Instagram Post Farah is a practicing Muslim and received offensive messages for acknowledging Christmas.
Athletics Weekly: What Did British Track And Field Athletes Do On Their Christmas? Most of the distance runners polled said they would put in the usual one to two easy runs they’d normally have on a Monday.
MB: How far did you run on Christmas?

The World’s Biggest XC Fan

LRC Meet Mr. Cross-Country, The Sport’s Biggest Fan Cross-country’s biggest fan, Michael Mahon, resides in Massachusetts, where for the past 33 years he has traveled to over 1,747 career meets, bag of cans in tow. And he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon.
*Michael Mahon – Mr. Cross-Country – Share Your Favorite Story Here