March 9, 2018 | LetsRun.com

The 2018 NCAA Indoor Championships Schedule, Results TV Info Full Entries For All Events Prediction Contest – Check Scores / Change Entries *Entries: By Team | By Conference

LRC Post Race Interviews LRC Live Day 1 Discussion Thread

LRC DMRs: VaTech’s “Three Musketeers” Gamble And Win; Oregon Women Edge Stanford For First Title In Program History The DMRs were track and field at its very best: VTech going all-in, a walk-on freshman anchor for Notre Dame, the Stanford women losing by .03 this year after losing by .02 last year.

LRC After A Disastrous 4:20.30 Split On The DMR, Josh Kerr Vows Something “Exciting” In The Mile Final On Saturday In an exclusive post-race chat with LRC, Kerr vowed to do something special on Saturday, “I was watching even the World Championships indoors, being [won] in 3:58 (for 1500m), that’s not an exciting race to watch and we’re going to try and make it exciting tomorrow.”

LRC Favorites Justyn Knight And Karissa Schweizer Win 2018 NCAA Indoor 5,000 Crowns Justyn Knight easily had the best kick in the men’s race whereas Karissa Schweizer won her race in a totally different manner – by leading every single lap and then throwing down a 4:38.33 final 1,600!
*MB: Karissa Schwezer 4:38 last 1600!!! Oh my goodness.

LRC 800 Prelims: Wow – Michael Saruni Only Qualifies On Time As Women’s Co-#1 Seed Goes Home Early Saruni did not look good and Agnes Abu was last in hear heat.
*Pre-Race: Saruni Said He Didn’t Want To Sit And Kick And Yet That’s Exactly What He Did “I don’t want to sit back and kick anymore. I want to go right to the front.”

LRC Mile Prelims Go According To Form, Kerr Cruises, Rhianwedd Price-Weimer Talks Struggles, Dani Jones Talks Running Mile And then the Oregon Ducks were prevented from talking to the media.
*MB: Virginia Tech has 3 men through to the NCAA Mile Final

Georgia Women have incredible 1st day, led by 1-2-3 finish in long jump They have a 20-point lead on Florida with 33 points.
Texas A&M’s Will Williams Wins Wild Men’s Long Jump With 6th Jump PR Of 26-10 1/2 The top 3 all set PRs, including Florida’s Grant Holloway (26-8¼) in 2nd and Texas Tech’s Charles Brown (26-7¾) in a key event in terms of the team title. *Holloway Vid *Williams vid
Kansas’ Hussain Al Hizam wins men’s pole vault in Saudi Arabian record of 18-6.5 ft. (5.65m) He came in only seeded 7th.
Day 1 Full Recaps: *IAAF *NCAA
Harvard Sprinter Gabby Thomas, who tied for the #1 time in 200 on Friday with Lynna Irby at 22.66, had A life-changing aummer abroad trip to Senegal last year

Message Board Talk

LRC Want To Know Who Is Going To Win? NCAA Indoor Individual Event And Team Predictions: Heavy Favorites In Nearly All Track Races, Tight Team Battle On Men’s Side Georgia the big favorite on the women’s side. Texas Tech favored on men’s according to LRC nation.

$200,018 Running Wareouse NCAA Indoors Prediction Contest Check Scores and Change Picks Here

Full Coverage In Our 2018 NCAA Indoor Championship Special Section

Outside NCAA Coverage

Good Read: Michael Saruni Looks To Follow Former Teammate Emmanuel Korir With 800m Crown To Make It Back-To-Back Wins For UTEP UTEP coach Paul Ereng also thinks Saruni can break the 1:44.84 indoor collegiate record which Ereng set himself back in 1989.
Highlights From The NCAA Indoor Press Conference Quotes from Josh Kerr, Sydney McLaughlin, Karissa Schweizer and the top coaches.
Sydney McLaughlin Wants To Help Kentucky Win Their First Team Title After running the #2 all-time collegiate 400 to win SEC Champs (50.52), she has a real shot at the record, but says she’s focused on scoring points for the team.

Weekend Road Action: Huddle Vs. Hasay Over 15k

Saturday: Molly Huddle Vs. Jordan Hasay Highlights USATF 15K Champs Hosted By The Gate River Run The women’s race also has Molly Seidel, Emily Infeld and interestingly, Olympic triathlete and Ben True‘s wife, Sarah True. The men’s race has Leonard Korir, Jared Ward, Sam Chelanga and Ryan Vail.
Sunday: Galen Rupp Running The Roma-Ostia Half Marathon; Shooting For A PB And The American Record Rupp will face Stephen Chebogut (2:06:57 in Paris last year), Justus Kangogo (59:31 in Rome last year), Emmanuel Kipsang (60:14), Dino Sefir (2:04:50 from 2012) and 2015 World marathon bronze medalist Solomon Mutai. The women’s field is led by Rebecca Chesir (68:21) and Amane Beriso Shankule (68:43).
*MB: Rupp racing half marathon this weekend in Rome! What will he run?
Sunday: Jonah Chesum Returns To Defend His Title At The Barcelona Marathon Last year, Chesum was a pacer who stayed in the race to win in 2:08:57. He faces two-time London winner Tsegaye Kebede and a couple of other sub-2:09 Ethiopians. Ethiopia’s Worknesh Alemu (2:30:04) and Italy’s Fatna Maraoui (2:30:50) lead the women’s race.
Sunday: JRN Preview: Japan’s Marathon Season Wraps Up At The Nagoya Women’s Marathon Kenya’s 2:20:21 woman Lucy Kabuu and Valary Jemeli (2:20:53) top the entry list which includes a bunch of Japanese women in the mid 2:20s.

Euro $$$ News

Upcoming On The Roads

March 24: 10 Strong British Team Named For World Half Champs Gemma Steel and Charlotte Purdue lead the women’s squad.
*Spain Names Team For World Half Champs
April 8: Kenya’s Gilbert Kirwa (2:06:14) And Germany’s (Formerly Kenya’s) Defending Champ Fate Tola (2:25:14) Lead Fields For The Hannover Marathon Kirwa will face Cheshari Jacob (2:07:46) and Poland’s Henryk Szost (2:07:39).
April 22: Nancy Kiprop Will Return To Defend Her Title At The Vienna City Marathon The field will have four women who have gone under 2:25.

Russian Drug News

IAAF Extends Russian Ban, Warns Neutral Athletes Could Lose Permission To Compete “If Progress Is Not Made” Russia could even be expelled from the IAAF as they still haven’t met multiple conditions such as a plan “that shows an adequate amount of testing” and fixing legal issues which prevent coaches from being provisionally banned.
Kudos: Netflix Sports Film “Icarus” Wins Oscar For Best Documentary The documentary by Bryan Fogel is on the Russian doping scandal and focuses on whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov.
InsideTheGames Article With Quotes From Rune Andersen And Seb Coe RUSADA also hasn’t identified athletes who provided samples that showed up positive in the Moscow Law system data.
Vladimir Putin Thanked The Russian Ice Hockey Players For Singing The Russian National Anthem After Their 2018 Winter Olympic Gold The anthem was supposed to be banned as they were there as “neutrals.” Do you think the IOC took any action? No, they reinstated Russia.
The Russian Olympic Ban Was Lifted By IOC Immediately Following The 2018 Winter Games A short mostly inconsequential “ban” that let’s the IOC pretend they are doing something.
German Lawyer Representing Banned Russians Claims 2018 Olympic Medalists Do Not Have A “Complete Triumph” With The Absence Of Some Leading Russians He has a point, having to beat out Russian dopers is something of a rite of passage for Winter Olympic medalists.

Collegiate News

University Of Nevada-Las Vegas Women’s Track Team Has Their Vans Robbed During A Road Trip In New Mexico Despite having all their belongings and equipment stolen, the team still won the Mountain West Championships, their first indoor title since 1993.
MB: Former high school sub 4 miler Michael Slagowski won an NAIA national championship today! Slagowski anchored the Eastern Oregon DMR to a win by .01 and finished 2nd in the mile in 4:10. *Results
Oregon Ducks Go To NCAA Indoors With Lowered Expectations The men’s team ranked 16th, the women’s team is 7th. Robert Johnson says he thinks if the women are “perfect” they could score 40 points and that might win the meet.
UConn Men Win IC4A Team Crown It was a close meet as they only beat Liberty by 4.67 points. *Results
Liberty Women Win Their First-Ever ECAC Title *Results
USTFCCCA Takes A Look At The Biggest One-Meet Scorers At An NCAA Indoor Championships Edward Cheserek holds the men’s record with 28 points in a single meet (2017) and also has the career scoring record with 91 points. Former Texas athlete Carlette Guidry has the overall meet record with 30.5 points from 1988.
Pre-Championship Men’s NCAA Rankings: Texas Tech Remains #1 Georgia moved up from 5th to 2nd and Florida down from 2nd to 3rd.
No Changes To The Top 5 Women’s Rankings Ahead Of NCAA Champs As Georgia, Arkansas And Kentucky Remain 1-3
NCAA DI Regional Award Winners For 2018 Indoor Season

Distance News

Bummer: Nick Willis Ruled Out Of Commonwealth Games After Failing To Recover From Recent Stress Reaction In His Fibula He says his leg hasn’t even healed enough to start training again.
IAAF London Big Half Recap On expectations for the London Marathon Mo Farah said, “I think that’s the priority, personal best for sure but also the British record if possible and then from where we’ll see.”
How Much Tax Will Japan’s 2:06:11 Man Yuta Shitara Have To Pay On His 100 Million Yen National Record Bonus? After taxes, Shitara’s 1 million yen ($946,000) gets reduced down to 72,637,500 yen (~$687,000).

Nike Embarrassment After £10 Million “Nothing Beats A Londoner” Ad Campaign Hit By Legal Challenges And Immediately Cancelled They ads with Mo Farah were using LDNR as an abbreviation for London, which is a problem as its a trademarked sunglasses brand. Ironically, the guy who owns the trademark used to work at Nike and launched their sunglasses line.

High School: New Balance Nationals Indoors Live Streaming Schedule Results Entries

Chad Johnson (14:42) And Jacqueline Gaughan (16:19) Win 5ks
Storylines At 2018 New Balance Indoor Nationals
Live Streaming For New Balance Nationals Broadcasts start Friday AM, 8:15AM ET Saturday, 8:30AM ET Sunday.
DyeStat Previews: *Sprints *Jumps *Throws
From Last Weekend: Lanae-Tava Thomas Highlighted The NY State Meet Winning The 55, 300 And LJ Katelyn Tuohy topped distance action by winning the 1500 in 4:23.38 to lower her own sophomore class record.
Also This Weekend: Youth Compete For National Titles At USATF Hershey Youth Indoor Champs On Staten Island, NY

More Pro Distance Stuff

Recommended Read: Outside Profile: “Jordan Hasay Will Outrun You. While Smiling.”
The Independent: Return Of Land Bonuses Driving Ethiopian Athletics Success, Not Drugs, Says World Indoor Champ Yomif Kejelcha
IAAF: World 5,000 Champ Hellen Obiri Explains Her Love Of Running
Brit Dewi Griffiths To Miss Commonwealth Games Due To Injury Griffiths was supposed to race the 5k and 10k for Wales.

Other Random Marathon+ News

A New Documentary Will Follow One Ultra Runner’s Failed Journey Trying To Complete The Notoriously Brutal Barkley Marathons In the more than 30-year history of the race, only 15 have ever finished it.
Boston Marathon Race Director Dave McGillivray Has Put Out A Children’s Book Called “Dream Big” The book actually follows McGillivray’s own inspiring story.
Boston Marathon Women’s Pioneer Kathrine Switzer To Run London Marathon

IAAF Admin News

IAAF Agree To New Stricter Rules For Transfer Of Allegiances And Give An Update On The Hyperandrogenism Issue To transfer countries will now require a three-year waiting period, a 20-year-old age limit and can only be done once. On hyperandrogenism, the IAAF hopes their new rules (only affecting events 400m to the mile) will take effect on November 1, 2018.
*Athletics Weekly Article/Analysis On IAAF Council Meeting The IAAF also set a global calendar for championship events.
What the D**Q Happened At The World Indoors?
IAAF Adopting A New World Ranking System Like They Use In Tennis Or Golf Ratings will be averaged out based on an athlete’s weighted best five performances over the last 12 months and will affect qualification for championship events.
Slovenian High Jump Record Holder Rozle Prezelj Named Seb Coe’s Advisor Prezelj has just finished his term as head of the IAAF Athletes’ Commission.
Canada Former Race Walker Iñaki Gomez Elected Chair OF IAAF Athletes’ Commission Valerie Adams was named the vice-chair.

Much, Much More On The Late Roger Bannister

The Guardian: How Roger Bannister And Australian John Landy Raced To Break The Four-Minute Mile An interesting look at the rivalry and Landy explains how he didn’t want his sub-4 to be a paced effort like Bannister, he wanted to run it himself.
Did A Sheffield Paint Factory Worker Ken Wood Beat Bannister To The First Sub-4 By 29 Days? Wood claimed he ran 3:59.2 in a training session at Sheffield University, but “never really mentioned it to anybody.” Wood did eventually run sub-4 in an official race and went to the 1956 Olympics. *Discuss
The Guardian: Roger Bannister, A Gentleman Who Almost Didn’t’ Run Race That Defined Him Bannister famously almost called off the effort due to bad weather, but his coach convinced him: “If you pass it up today you may never forgive yourself for the rest of your life.”
Sp!ked.com Takes A Look At Some Controversy Surrounding Bannister’s Sub-4 Bannister was criticized for having pacers and this author claims that the record would have been broken earlier if it wasn’t for the rules of amateurism.
Bring Back The Mile’s “Tribute To A Titan”
Sir Roger Bannister – A Life In Pictures
*Bannister Video Obituary
*Video Of Bannister’s Sub-4
Some Of America’s Greatest Milers Share How They Will Remember Roger Bannister Jim Ryun, Alan Webb and others pay their respects to the late Bannister.
MB: LetsRun.com Visitors Pay Their Respects to Roger Bannister
David Epstein: “Magical Mile Was Just One of Sir Roger Bannister’s Myriad Accomplishments” Bannister would call up Epstein the last few years and talk to him.
Olympic Legend Steve Ovett Wonders When The First Woman’s Sub-4 Will Happen Probably the same day a man runs 3:30.
NY Times Obituary on Roger Bannister
BBC: Lord Coe and Steve Cram hail ‘inspirational’ athlete after his death
Bannister Quote On The Final 200m: “I drove on, impelled by a combination of fear and pride.”

Ritz And Emily Sisson Speak

LRC A Reinvigorated Dathan Ritzenhein Talks NYC Half, Hansons-Brooks, L-Carnitine, And His Upcoming Return To The Marathon When asked if the supplementation practices of the NOP is one of the reasons why he left, Ritz replied in part. “I guess we all do things over the course of time that you can look back on and say, ‘I wish I had done this or I wish I had done that differently,’ but I’ve always tried to compete with as much as honor and dignity as I can and I’ll continue to do that.” Plus Emily Sisson talks about when she’ll make her 26.2 debut.
*MB: Ritz Talks NYC Half, Hansons-Brooks, L-Carnitine, And His Upcoming Return To The Marathon in Boston.

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 1,500: “The whole time I was thinking: don’t get DQed,” 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 X 400 Leads Team USA To 18-Medal Haul
European Athletes Won 11 Gold Medals At World Indoors

NCAA Previews

LRC 3K/5K Preview: Justyn Knight & Grant Fisher Renew Rivalry; Can Karissa Schweizer Avenge NCAA XC Defeat To Ednah Kurgat? We can’t wait for the 5ks/3ks at NCAAs as a pair of NCAA champs will clash on both the men’s and women’s side.
*MB: 2018 NCAA 3k/5k Talk: Who wins Fisher or Knight in the 3k? Kurgat or Schweizer in the 5k & 3k?

LRC Mile Preview: Josh Kerr Favored To Repeat As Elle Purrier Tries To End Her NCAA Title Drought Josh Kerr is so good we might pick him to beat Edward Cheserek if they were racing again this year even though Cheserek ran 3:49 in the mile this winter.
*MB: 2018 NCAA mile: If Edward Cheserek were racing Kerr this year, who would you pick? Will Elle Purrier win NCAA title #1?

LRC 800 Preview: Sammy Watson Is Primed To Break Through; Can Isaiah Harris – Or Anyone Else – Hang With Michael Saruni? Raevyn Rogers, one of the all-time greats, is gone but an even bigger talent may already be on the scene to replace her in Texas A&M true frosh Sammy Watson.
*MB: 2018 NCAA indoor 800 – Who wins M. Saruni or I. Harris? Will freshman phenom Sammy Watson take over for Raevyn Rogers?

Some More Russian Doping Stuff

Maybe More Russians Need To Do This: Russian High Jump World Champ Maria Lasitskene Criticizes Russian Athletics Federation For Not Meeting IAAF Compliance Criteria “First of all, I am surprised at the reaction of our Federation … I was nothing but bewildered.”
USA Today: IOC’s Decision On Russia Shows Its Stance On Doping Is A Farce
Reuters: Russia Was Barred From Flying Its Own Flag At The Winter Games Closing Ceremony After Two Of Its Athletes Failed Drug Tests It’s ridiculous the possibility was on the table at all.
InsideTheGames: IOC Decision To Lift Ban On Russia After Pyeongchang 2018 Provokes Widespread Anger

Sprints And Throws

Justin Gatlin Gets Sluggish Start To Season Finishing 4th In South African 150m Race SA’s former World 200 bronze medalist Anaso Jobodwana won the race in 15.08 seconds while Gatlin was 15.23.
Amazing Bonus At This Summer’s Paavo Nurmi Games: Throw Better Than The Finnish Javelin Record (93.09m) And Win An Island A throw that far will win you one of the Turku Archipelago’s 20,000 islands. How much is that worth? Well, we found one on sale for $424,000.
Jamaica’s Olympic And World 110H Champ Omar McLeod Will Miss Commonwealth Games After He Apparently “Did Not Make Himself Available” For Selection He also missed World Indoors due to visa issues.
Discus World Champ Sandra Perkovic Opens Season With World Leading 69.13m
Sprinter Richard Kilty And Shot Putter Sophie McKinna Added To Team England Commonwealth Games Team After Two Others Pull Out With Injury
Epic Shot Put Battle Between Olympic Champ Ryan Crouser And World Champ Tom Walsh Announced For Pre Classic

Japanese Marathon News

WTF? Former Japan World Championships Marathoner Yumiko Hara Arrested For Shoplifting Candy 36-year-old Hara stole a bag of candy and two other items with a total value of $3.60 from a grocery store. This wasn’t a first offense as she was previously sentenced to a year in prison for shoplifting makeup and food.
CitiusMag Q&A With Japan Running News’ Brett Larner On Why Japan Is Better Than The US At The Marathon
All-Time Japanese #4 Man Hiroto Inoue To Run Hot And Humid Asian Games Marathon In August Other top Japanese men passed on the team selection, but Inoue wants to prepare for the hot weather expected for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Japan Announces Team For World Half Marathon Championships The men’s team includes NOP’s Suguru Osako and 60:57 man Kenta Murayama while the women are lead by Miyuki Uehara (69:13).

Mo Farah Airport Drama

Mo Farah Claims He Was Racially Harassed At Munich Airport Farah filmed the altercation with a German law enforcement officer and posted it on Instagram with the caption, “Sad to see racial harassment in this day and age. 2018 … !!!! #airport #germany.”
*MB: Mo Farah claims in instagram live video he was racially harassed at airport
German Police Respond That The Officer Did Nothing Wrong A spokesperson says that Farah was upset by the security check performed on him at the airport and refused to leave the area and was filming in a sensitive area where recording isn’t permitted.

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.

Top Admin News

IAAF CEO Olivier Gers Resigns After Less Than 18 Months On The Job In his statement, Gers said, “While I’m sorry to be leaving, the pre-existing commercial framework makes it difficult for me to apply my talents and fully leverage the assets of the IAAF in the way I would like … I have resigned so the IAAF can pursue a different commercial strategy for the sport.” *IAAF Release
USATF Activist Becca Gillespy Peter Has A Five Part Series Of Posts Titled “The Undermining of USATF” Peter criticizes the Board for shooting USATF in the foot as she writes, “Why would any sponsor want to get involved with USATF now? Does this organization seem like a good investment?” *Part 4 *Part 3 *Part 2 *Part 1