Four of LetsRun’s Favorites Remember Roger Bannister

• David Epstein: Magical Mile Was Just One of Sir Roger Bannister’s Myriad Accomplishments Epstein returns to his former employer Sports Illustrated to write about Sir Roger.
• Malcolm Gladwell: The Ordinary Greatness of Roger Bannister The New Yorker piece uses a recent thread on our world-famous message board to explain to non-runners how common 4-minute miles are nowadays.
• Frank Litsky: Roger Bannister, First Athlete to Break the 4-Minute Mile, Dies at 88 The NY Times obit has a great quote from Seb Coe.

Want More on Bannister? Watch Bannister: Everest on the Track The film was produced by LRC friend and athlete agent Tom Ratcliffe.

More From World Indoors

• Laura Muir Says She Won’t Speak To Genzebe Dibaba Ever Since Jama Aden’s Arrest In Spain Linked Her To EPO Muir’s coach said he thinks Sifan Hassan feels the same way and that she was “expressing her contempt” on the medal stand. *The Telegraph article
  *MB: Muir calls out Genzebe Dibaba
  *MB: Check out what Sifan Hassan thought of her bronze medal in the 1500…. (Video)
• Alan Abrahamson: “A Wave Of DQs: Why Does Track And Field Insist On Such Self-Inflicted Buzzkill?” “So dumb. So unnecessary. So counter-productive. In the NBA Finals, the refs let them play. Same for the NFL … in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, you basically would have to commit a felony to get called for a penalty.”
• Spain’s Oscar Husillos Found Out He Went From 400m Gold To DQed During A TV Interview The interview is in Spanish, but you can see his demeanor change dramatically at the 1:07 mark when he finds out.
• Cathal Dennehy: “No one watching World Indoor Championships through a green-tinted lens could have considered it a success for the Irish.”
• AP: Laura Muir Goes From The Podium To The Abattoir This Week An abattoir is a slaughterhouse.
• GB’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson Says Pentathlon Gold Gives Her Confidence To Take On The World’s Best “I knew it was mental in the fact that sometimes in my training I was a lot better than I was in competition. And still to this day it’s the case.”
• Past Bowerman Award Winners Shined At World Indoors Bowerman winners got two golds in Christian Coleman and Courtney Okolo.
• Runner’s World: In an Event Marred by DQs, Team USA Finds a Few Silver Linings Craig Engels on his thoughts during the 1500: “The whole time I was thinking: don’t get DQ’d,” Engels said. “Everyone was trying to be safe.”
• Team USA Superlatives At World Indoors There was only one American record, but Team USA set four championship records.
• USATF: Meet Record by Women’s 4×400 Leads Team USA To 18-Medal Haul
• European Athletes Won 11 Gold Medals At World Indoors

RIP To The Original Sub-4 Miler

• RIP: Running Legend Roger Bannister Dies At Age 88 The first man to break the mythical 4-minute barrier in the mile has died peacefully in his sleep. Pay your respects here.
• Athletics Weekly Tribute To Roger Bannister Bannister was famous for more than his sub-4 as he also was a distinguished neurologist and he considered his medical achievements superior to his sporting success.
• BBC: Sir Roger Bannister: First Man To Run A Mile In Under Four Minutes Dies At 88
• AP: Roger Bannister’s “Life In Quotes” “It stood there as something that was waiting to be done, and I was in the right place at the right time and was ready to do it. My attitude was that it can be done, and it will be done soon, and I’d rather it were done here.”
• IAAF Tribute To Bannister With Quotes From Seb Coe

More World Indoors Outside Coverage

• Athletics Weekly: Sandi Morris Breaks “Silver Streak” With World Indoor Gold Morris broke the “silver Sandi” streak as well as Katerina Stefanidi‘s 19 meet winning streak.
• The Guardian: Katarina Johnson-Thompson Believes World Indoors Gold Will Banish Demons
  *The Independent: Johnson-Thompson Now Wants A Golden Hat Trick In 2018 She has one gold down with Euro Champs and Commonwealth Games to go.
• Sally Pearson Not Making 60H Final Tops Disappointing Meet For Australians Ryan Gregson (1,500) and Michelle Jenneke (60H) also failed to make it out of the rounds.
• FloTrack Asks If The British Officials Are Playing Favorites At World Indoors They compare a video of Chelimo’s DQ to one of Mo Farah at Worlds last year where he wasn’t DQed.

Day 2 Action

LRC Day 2 PM Recap: There Was A Huge Upset In An Incredible Long Jump Competition, KJT Wins Pentathlon Gold On Home Soil, And Murielle Ahoure Leads Ivory Coast To 1-2 Finish In 60 The Brits got a much wanted gold, but the biggest story of the night was the incredible men’s long jump which was won by a 19-year-old from Cuba, Juan Miguel Echevarria, who snapped Luvo Manyonga‘s win streak thanks to the longest leap in 8 years.
*IAAF: Juan Miguel Echevarria Is The Youngest Field Event Gold Medalist In World Indoor History
*Women’s Shot: Anita Márton Wins Her And Hungary’s 1st World Indoor Gold
*“A Glorious Night For The Ivorians In Birmingham”

LRC Women’s 1,500 Semis: Dibaba, Hassan, Muir Set For 3,000 Rematch As Americans Quigley, Houlihan Make Final If you enjoyed the 3k final, then you’re going to love the 1,500 final as all the major players are back plus the world’s #1 steepler in Beatrice Chepkoech.

LRC Colleen Quigley Criticizes World Indoor Meet Management, Cites  “Brutal” Officiating, Says “They’ve Forgotten That It’s All About the Athletes” Quigley says the athletes haven’t even been allowed to get used to steeper than normal turns or do strides before their races.

LRC Men’s 800 Semifinals: Donavan Brazier Goes Home, Drew Windle PRs And Advances Recap, analysis, post-race video.
*MB: Donavan Brazier goes home devastated – Brazier is out of the world championships Brazier bombed in the 2nd semi but said he had nothing to run for as he knew he’d be DQed for stepping on the line on the first turn. He was right – he got the DQ.

LRC Q&A With The World’s Fastest Man Christian Coleman

• Heavy Favorite Kevin Mayer In Command After A Strong First Day Of Heptathlon
• Getting Eliminated In 400 Semi Is A Huge Accomplishment If You Are From Ireland Phil Healy was the 1st Irish sprinter to get out of the 1st round since 2010.

Friday’s Morning Session

LRC Editorial After Ridiculous DQs At The 2018 IAAF World Champs: The IAAF Rule Book Needs To Be Modernized & The Visa Issue Is A Disgrace If you were hoping to see the stars compete in the finals at the World Indoor Champs, you are out of luck. Six big stars, including Paul Chelimo, won’t be in there either because of ridiculous DQs or the inability to get a visa and that’s a disgrace. Can’t some bureaucrat flex some muscle and get the Olympic champion Omar McLeod into Britain within 24 hours?

LRC Morning Session Recap: Paul Chelimo Is DQed In 3,000, As Is World Leader Bralon Taplin (& His Entire Heat!) In The 400 History was made at the 2018 World Indoors as we saw something we’ve never seen before – an entire heat DQed!
*MB: PAUL CHELIMO GOES HOME DEVASTATED – DQed IN 3K AT WORLDS –

LRC Kenyan 800 Star Emmanuel Korir OUT Of World Indoors Due To Visa Issues According to his agent Karen Locke, the IT system has shut down in the U.K. consulate in New York.
*Update: 1,500 favorite Ayanleh Souleiman is out as well with a visa issue.
*MB: Men’s 800: Anyone think with Korir out that Brazier’s chances for gold just went way up but so did his odds for no medal? While his #1 rival is out, Brazier now has no one to help him set the pace and he’s a heavy favorite.

Non LRC Worlds Articles We Enjoyed

• Recommended Read ESPN: Fantastic Profile Of Christian Coleman Prior To 2018 World Indoors We loved this piece and particularly this anecdote – Christian Coleman’s dad realized he was going to be a great athlete when Christian got scared and ran away from a vacuum cleaner at age 2.
• Chris O’Hare Raves About Terrence Mahon Before World Indoors “ I think that kind of is a testament to Terrence’s coaching ability because all three of us are entirely different athletes in the way that we race, train and live. So it’s a testament to Terrence’s versatility as a coach, I think.”
• Outside Mag: How Katie Mackey Made Her First Worlds Team After Going 0-For-13 A little psychological advice from Dan Pfaff helped her out greatly. Not mentioned is the fact that Shannon Rowbury‘s pregnancy certainly didn’t hurt.

Our Weekly Recap – Did You Know There Was A $266,650 1st Prize Handed Out Last Week?

WTW Some Dude You’ve Never Heard Of Won $266,650 In A Half Marathon In Saudi Arabia, Incredible Japanese Men’s Marathoning, Another WR For Kyle Merber, Freshmen Sydney McLaughlin And Lynna Irby Put On A Show At SECs Our weekly recap spans the spectrum, from the Japanese showing the American men how to run the marathon, to another WR for Kyle Merber, to freshman Sydney McLaughlin running a world-leading 50.52 400m and possibly not having as good a weekend as another freshman – Lynna Irby of Georgia.
Discuss: What collegiate athletes had their dreams become reality this past weekend?