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 1,500m before he even signed his Nike contract. A look at his career. Discuss: ANDREW WHEATING RETIRES
*Favorite Andrew Wheating Moment?

• Good Read: Runner’s World Q&A With Andrew Wheating On His Retirement Asked if he would change anything about his career he said, “No, honestly I wouldn’t. The things that happened in my career happened, and they made me who I am today. I’m thankful for what happened and what didn’t happen and I have no regrets on how it turned out.”
• Register-Guard: Wheating Decides To Hang Up His Running Spikes For Good Wheating’s message to his competitors: “To my competition, I hated every single one of you … for 4 minutes or less. But I loved you just as much when the race was over. … Keep the flame stoked and don’t ever stop believing in your potential. I’ll see ya behind the stands.”
• Ken Goe Article
• Wheating’s Facebook Post Announcement

Another Mid-D Guy Is Also Retiring: Brooks Beasts’ Former NCAA 3rd Placer Shaquille Walker Retires From Track At 24 Years Old Walker said running was interfering with other things in life and he’ll now focus on spending time with his family and pursuing a career as a dentist.
*MB: What? Shaquille Walker would rather be a dentist than an Olympic medallist and Danny Mackey thinks he could have set the AR?

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Olympic News

• Japan Is Converting Their Toilets For The 2020 Games Almost half the toilets at tourist locations are “squatters” rather than sit-on “western” models.
• Survey Finds That 60% OF Russians Believe They Will Achieve Top-Three Finish At 2018 Winter Games Well if they did, they would be “Olympic Athletes from Russia” rather than Russians, so you know, big difference.
• North Korea Accepts South Korea’s Proposal For Talkes About 2018 Winter Games Participation The meeting is set for January 9th at the Peace House in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

More Distance

• NAU Looking Ahead To An NCAA XC Three-Peat While Returning Five Of Their Top Seven From This Year Coach Mike Smith: “Sometimes [a team loses its identity] once they become champions. That’s our real test now. There’s this zen saying: ‘Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.’ The way we got there is what we have to keep doing.”
• World 1,500 Bronze Medalist Filip Ingebrigsten Gives HIs Tips For Sport And Life Ingebrigtsen says he likes retro sneakers from the 1970s and ’80s, driving fast with manual cars and recommends doing some different for dates like going for a hike and cooking a meal on a “gas-powered portable kitchen.”

Sprint Stuff

• 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.

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

LRCNo 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

Sprint Stuff

• Recommended Read:Take A Behind The Scenes Look At GB’s World Gold 4 X 100 SquadNethaneel 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.”