NCAA XC Action Gets Going In Earnest This Weekend *Top 10 NCAA XC Countdown *Live Wisco Results *All NCAA XC Results

LRC 2018 Wisconsin Invite: NAU Men Send Message, Colorado Women Surprise, Wisconsin’s Morgan McDonald & Alicia Monson Sweep Individual Titles The men’s race went according to form as the NAU men DOMINATED and Morgan McDonald was fantastic while the women’s race was full of surprises both in the team and individual race. All together, there were 34 ranked teams at this meet.
*MB: OFFICIAL 2018 NUTTYCOMBE WISCO INVITATIONAL DISCUSSION THREAD

Team LRC Alabama’s Gamble: Can The Crimson Tide Win The NCAA Cross-Country Title With Five Kenyans – And Not Much Else? If Alabama wins it all this year in XC, they will be the first balanced program to win an NCAA men’s XC title in 10 years. Last year, the Crimson Tide quietly won the John McDonnell Program of the Year award, which goes to the school with the best combined finish across cross-country, indoor, and outdoor track & field.

Individual LRC All Grown Up: “This Is A Different Grant Fisher Than We’ve Ever Seen Before” Grant Fisher is entering his senior cross-country season and Stanford coach Chris Miltenberg is worried … for the competition. “I’m maybe worried for everybody else out there because this is a different Grant Fisher than we’ve ever seen before.”

MB Talk:

• MB: Is the NCAA trying to kill off distance-only schools? A recent proposal would originate “xc scholarships” which sounds like a good thing but in reality appears to limit the # of distance scholarships allowed to be offered at any school.
• MB: Who will win the 2018 NCAA XC individual crowns? Will an American man (Grant Fisher?) win for the 1st time in 10 yrs?

More NCAA:

• Updated NCAA Men’s Rankings Have No Changes To The Top 7 NAU, BYU, Portland and Stanford still top the list. *Regional Rankings
• Women’s Top-11 NCAA Rankings Remain Unchanged New Mexico, Colorado, Stanford and Oregon are ranked 1-4. *Regional Rankings
• FloTrack Nuttycombe Invy Preview: NAU Tests Themselves Against Portland And Iowa State
• NCAA Athletes Of The Week Are Amon Kemboi (Campbell University) And Abbey Wheeler (Providence) Kemboi beat Syracuse’s Aidan Tooker to win the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown while Wheeler won the women’s race by 9 seconds.

Olympic News

• Japan Will Not Introduce Daylight Savings Time For the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Organizers considered the idea to setting the clocks back 2 hours to avoid the summer heat for marathon runners, but public opinion was against the proposal.
• Don’t Worry, Video Games Won’t Be Part Of The Olympics Any Time Soon: Only 10% of Sport Industry Leaders Favor Quick Olympic Entry For Esports Most feel it shouldn’t be part of the Olympics because it “does not qualify as a sport.”
• Tokyo 2020 Organizers Experiment With Spraying Water Along Marathon Course To Combat Heat The experiment found that where water had been sprayed, the road surface temperature remained in the 80 to 84˚F range even when the air temperature exceeded 86˚F. Where no water had been sprayed, the surface temperature exceeded 86˚C.
• USOC To Give Paralympic Medalists The Same Financial Award As They Do For Athletes That Win Olympic Medals It might not be PC to say so, but it is many times easier to win a Paralympic medal than an Olympic medal. But then, not all Olympic medals are equally difficult to win either.
• IAAF Tokyo 2020 Qualification Process Released Qualification standards will be released November 1, 2019.

Russian Doping Updates

• Really? This Again? Russian Athletics Federation To Appeal IAAF Suspension At CAS RUSAF claim that the criteria for their reinstatement was identical to RUSADA. They aren’t wrong, the difference is WADA decided to let Russia off the hook with some of the criteria whereas the IAAF isn’t. *BBC Article
• WADA President Craig Reedie Defends Decision To Reinstate RUSADA Reedie’s logic makes no sense. He says this deal with RUSADA will allow access to the Moscow lab samples, but that’s exactly what was on the reinstatement criteria. So they’re essentially accepting an “IOU” from RUSADA rather than the actual payment.
• Craig Reedie: “I have a question for the athletes and that is: ‘What, in practice, is the alternative option?'” Alternative to rolling over and giving Russia a free pass? How about actually making them fulfill all the reinstatement criteria before you reinstate them.
• The Guardian: “How far has the fight against doping really come since the ‘dirtiest race in history?'”

International Road Results: WTF?!?

Guy No One Has Ever Heard Of Runs 2:05 Marathon In Buenos Aires In 68 Degrees And Sun! Saina Kipkemboi ran 2:05:20 to win his debut and the course isn’t flat. He dominated the race, running the last 7+ miles alone and beating Barnabas Kiptum by almost 4 minutes. Kenya’s Vivian Kiplagat Jerono won the women’s race in a CR 2:29:03.
*MB: Saina Kipkemboi 2:05:20 debut! Running alone the last 17km, heat, humidity and hilly circuit in Buenos Aires!

• South Africa’s Stephen Mokoka Wins Cape Town Marathon In A New Course Record Of 2:08:31 Mokoka won a race over a trio of Kenyans who finished between 2:09:02 and 2:09:21 behind him. Namibia’s Helalia Johannes won the women’s race in 2:29:28.
• World Silver Medalist Joshua Cheptegei (45:15) And Isreal’s Lonah (50:45) Win Dam tot Damloop 10 Miler Salpeter beat out Ethiopia’s Dibabe Kuma by just a second and won the gender pursuit race (women started 6:04 ahead of the men).
  *European Athletics: Israel’s Lonah Chemtai Salpeter Shows Her Class In The Dam Tot Damloop

Non-Distance News

• Recommended Read: Jenn Suhr Talks About How She Got Her Start In Pole Vaulting When Her Now Coach And Husband Rick Recruited Her From Basketball Suhr also talks about her early career when Rick had remortgaged his house and she had to work at a gas station making pizzas and cleaning toilets to make ends meet.
• IAAF Inside Athletics: Ato Boldon Video Interview With Russia’s Former World 110H Champ Sergey Shubenkov
• IAAF Inside Athletics: Ato Boldon Video Interview With USA’s World 400m Champ Phyllis Francis
• Germany’s Carolin Schäfer And Arthur Abele Are The Overall Winners Of The IAAF Combined Events Challenge Series They take home $30,000 each.

More Early Season NCAA News

• Susan Ejore Leads Oregon Women To A Dominant Win At The Bill Dellinger Invitational The UO women took the top 7 spots while the men finished second to #3-ranked Portland. Portland’s Reuben Kiprono got the individual win.
  *MB: Oregon Women = Jacked
• Register-Guard: New Women’s Distance Coach Helen Lehman-Winters Relishing Opportunity At Oregon Comparing Oregon to San Francisco (where she coached for 15 years), Lehman-Winters says that there were so many obstacles there to being good that are now removed at UO.
• NAU, BYU, Portland And Stanford Are The Top 4 Ranked Men’s Teams In The Week 2 NCAA Coaches’ Poll *Week 1
  *Men’s Regional Rankings
• New Mexico, Colorado, Stanford And Oregon Women Sit 1-4 In Week 2 NCAA Coaches’ Poll *Week 1
  *Women’s Regional Rankings
• Last Week DI NCAA Athletes Of The Week Were Liberty’s Azaria Kirwa And Louisville’s Dorcas Wasike Kirwa won the Iona Meet Of Champions at Van Cortlandt Park while Wasike won the Commodore Classic hosted by Vanderbilt.
  *Last Week: Indiana Men And Women Swept The Team Titles At Iona Meet Of Champs IU beat out Columbia in a tie-breaker and IU’s Katherine Receveur won the women’s individual race.
  *Previous Athletes Of The Week

Miscellaneous

• The Telegraph’s End-Of-Season Review – Eight Talking Points From 2018 An interesting point they brought up is that we could have seen Caster Semenya‘s last race over the 400 to mile distances depending on how her CAS appeal goes.
• IAAF Installs First Stadium Air Quality Monitor In Monaco Seb Coe: “Air pollution is a silent killer which is affecting the health of athletes, local communities and our environment …”
• North And South Korea Agree To Launch A Joint Bid For The 2032 Olympics The two countries are still technically at war.
• Dates Confirmed For 2018-2019 IAAF XC Permit Meetings The nine-race series begins on November 11th in Spain and ends on February 3rd with the Almond Blossom XC race in Portugal.
• IAAF: More Than 170 Nations Set To Compete At The Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games Next Month
• London Marathon Raises A Record $84.5 Million For Charity It broke the previous world record of $81.7 million from 2017.
• Athletics Weekly: UK Athletics Chief Niels De Vos Steeping Down After 11 Years On The Job De Vos is leaving to set up his own business. *BBC Article
• Another Italian Bid Bites The Dust: Officials Declare Three-Way Italian Bid For 2026 Winter Olympics “Dead”

Week That Was

LRC  Eliud Kipchoge’s World Record By The Numbers, The Greatness Of Gladys Cherono, Sifan Hassan’s 1,500m Days May Be Over Kipchoge’s run wasn’t the only great road action this weekend.

Berlin Marathon Photo Gallery (Click For Many More Photos) Full Berlin Coverage Here