November 24, 2018 Homepage Archive

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Archived Homepage For November 24, 2018

Quote Of The Day

“I have a big obsession this year – I won’t miss training sessions, said Asher-Smith. If anything clashes with training I say: ‘Sorry I can’t go.’ I get invited to do nice things because I run fast. But how do I run fast? By training. … The Americans and Jamaicans will be there at the world championships next year, so the pressure of competition is making me work hard and train hard.”

– GB’s triple European sprint champion Dina Asher-Smith talking about how she won’t let her rise in media attention get in the way of her training.

African Distance Updates

IAAF Profile:“Now Back To Full Health, Joshua Cheptegei Excited To See What 2019 Brings” Cheptegei’s achievements over the last several years (which include his recent 15k world best and double gold at the Commonwealth Games), are even more impressive considering all the injury issues he’s dealt with.
World 800m Bronze Medalist Kipyegon Bett Gets 4-Year Doping Ban Bett was actually caught on two offences as he tested positive for EPO, but had already been serving a provisional suspension for evading a doping test.
*MB:Kenyan EPO doper Kipyegon Bett (800m) hit with 4-year ban from Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU)
December 9: Half Marathon WR Holder Joyciline Jepkosgei Is Making Her Marathon Debut In Honolulu 9th She said they had the option to make her debut at Valencia last month, but wanted to run a smaller race with no pressure so she didn’t get discouraged if it’s a poor result.
*Good Read:Joyciline Jepkosgei Talks About Making Her Marathon Debut And How She Would Have Pursued Pro Running If It Wasn’t For Her Then Boyfriend, Now Husband, Nicholas Koech “I lost interest and started some business instead to hustle. … [My husband] asked me why I had stopped running and encouraged me to train and enter local races in 2011.”
David Rudisha Hoping For A Comeback Year In 2019 After Recovering From Two Years Of Injuries
The Guardian: Former Aussie Pro Matt Fox Shares Some Insights From His Month Stay In Eliud Kipchoge’s Village Fox was impressed by how flexible Kipchoge’s training group was about training. They had a plan, but it they weren’t “anal about sticking to it” if changes needed to be made.
Coming Off His NYC Marathon Disappointment, Geoffrey Kamworor Focused On Defending His World XC Title

More News Of Note

Doha WC Broadcast Is Expected To Be Innovative The midnight marathon is interesting a lot of people. Also graphics will play “a far more integral part of the coverage and the overall storytelling of the Championships and the athletes.”
Cathal Dennehy Writes About His Experience Running The Same 10k That Wejo Ran Last Week In Ethiopia In case you missed Weldon’s race report, read it here.
RunBlogRun’s Larry Eder credits former NCAA xc champ Tim Hacker and Sean Hartnett with saving his life
Night Of The 10,000m PBs In The UK Has Become A Real Celebration Of Our Sport, Says Its Race Director “All those years you used to run and you used to be a bit embarrassed that you were a middle-distance or long-distance runner because it wasn’t really that cool – I think it always has been cool but it’s how the event can present how cool it is. I think that’s what I’m proud of,” said Ben Pochee.
Turkish Top-Tier Soccer Club Sivasspor Has Contacted Olympic Sprint Champion Usain Bolt Over A Potential Deal For The Second Half Of The Season
DyeStat.com: 10 Girls Story Lines To Follow At CIF Cross-Country State Championships 2018 The Great Oak girls are looking for a 7th-straight title.
DyeStat.com: 10 Boys Story Lines To Follow At CIF Cross-Country State Championships 2018 The biggest is Great Oaks is looking for a 5th-straight state title.

Distance News

New Memorial To Be Unveiled On Sunday To Honor The 6 Iowa State XC Team Members Who Were Kiilled Returning From NCAAs In 1985 A plane crash took the lives of 3 athletes, 2 coaches, 1 manager and a pilot from the runner-up team.
*MB: History lesson: The last time NCAAs were held in Wisconsin, 6 members of the Iowa State team didn’t make it home alive
Gesa Krause, 2015 Worlds Medalist In Steeple, Knows She’s Got To Get A Lot Faster If She’s Ever Going To Medal Again The 26-year-old, who has a 9:11 PR, knows that tactics only get you so far. “I think you have to be clever in a championship race, of course, but you have to be fast in order to be at the forefront.”
Meet The Guy Who Trash Talks Jared Ward In Practice But Hasn’t Even Made The Olympic Trials Yet Micah Adams is hoping to make the Trials at CIM in December.
Japanese Weekend Preview: Suguro Osako Is Running A 10,000 It’s his 1st race since his 2:05:50 in Chicago.*Predict His Time/Discuss
From #1 (Colorado) To #350 (S. Carolina St), The Coaches Association Ranks Every Single Women’s NCAA XC Team
From #1 (NAU) To #318 (Coppin St), The Coaches Association Ranks Every Single Men’s NCAA XC Team

Asian Distance News

114 Men Break 65 Minutes At Insanely Deep Ageo City Half Marathon In Japan Vincent Laimoi won a hard-fought battle in 61:19 to beat out Ken Nakayama (61:32) while the the top 55 broke 64 minutes, the top 114 broke 65 and 249th place was 66:59.
Volunteers Trying To Pass Chinese Runner He Yinli The National Flag Cost Her The Win At The Suzhou Taihu International Marathon One failed exchange and one awkward, disrupted her pace and breathing and she lost the final battle with Ethiopia’s Ayantu Abera Demissie. Read more and see the full video in our Week That Was.
Japan Running News Weekend Roundup: Ritsumeikan University Wins Tango University Ekiden
December 16: Yuki Kawauchi Leads Field For Hofu Marathon

Olympic News – No One Wants The Winter Games

Bottom Of The Barrel Excuse:Thomas Bach Blames Lack Of Winter Olympic Host Cities On Climate Change
USA Today:“IOC Running Out Of Cities That Will Throw Its Parties”Nancy Armour calls this issue “payback for the IOC’s decades of greed and deceit.”
*Reno-Tahoe Declines IOC Invitation To Bid To Host A Future Winter Olympics
*56% Of Calgary Voters Say “No” To 2026 Olympics Bid
InsideTheGames:Tokyo 2020 Sports Director Reveals How AI And Robotics Could Play A Major Role At The Olympics Some examples of new technology included a security guard AI robot, facial recognition software and power assist suits for volunteers who lift weights all day at the weightlifting events.
Thomas Bach Still Hoping To Further The Esports Discussion At Olympic Summit Meeting In December This article outlines the many problems with trying to include esports in the Olympics, including the fact that there is no physical element to it.

IAAF Athlete Of The Year

IAAF Names Men’s Athlete Of The Year FinalistsEliud Kipchoge and his 2:01:39 will be hard to beat, but Christian Coleman, decathlon WR setter Kevin Mayer, Armand Duplantis and 400 hurdler Abderrahman Samba will try.
Finalists Announced For IAAF Female Athlete Of The Year List has steeplechase WR holder Beatrice Chepkoech, GB sprinter Dina Asher-Smith, TJer Caterine Ibarguen, Bahamas sprinter Shaunae Miler-Uibo and heptathlon Olympic champ Nafissatou Thiam.

Sunday International Results

MB: Joshua Cheptegei Just Broke The 15k WR In 41:04 With A 2:27 Last Km!The Ugandan, Cheptegei, first turned heads by leading World XC in Uganda and then staggering to the finish. He then pushed Mo Farah in the 10,000 at the 2017 Worlds and settled for second and we speculated he was primed to succeed Farah. *IAAF Recap
Ethiopia’s Yebrgual Melese (2:20:37) And Abdiwak Tura (2:09:20) Make It Achieve An Ethiopian Double At The Shanghai Marathon It was a super-tight finish in the men’s race as Tsegaye Mekonnen finished second with the same time and Dickson Tuwei was only 1 second off in third.
*MB:After 3 consecutive DNFs, former WR holder Dennis Kimetto has finished his first marathon since April 2016. Guess his time.
Taye Girma (60:52) And Parendis Lekapana (70:46) Win Boulogne-Billancourt Christian Grangier Half Marathon In France
Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo And Kenya’s Gloria Kite Win Soria, Spain XC Race

Non-Distance

Candace Hill Talks To Writers About Her Struggles In Recent Years And Admits Gaining 15 Pounds Certainly Didn’t Help The 10.98 performer hasn’t PRed in over 3 years and only ran 11.43 this year.
Armand Duplantis’ World U20 Pole Vault Records Ratified By The IAAF Duplantis broke his own record three times on the same day this summer, ultimately clearing 6.05m.

British News

Dina Asher-Smith And Zharnel Hughes Named British AOY By British Writers
The Telegraph:Dina Asher-Smith Is Still Coming To Terms With Her Mainstream Fame She says she can still ride the London “Tube” (subway) fine, but she’s been hounded with tons of interviews and media appearances in the off-season.
Dina Asher-Smith Says She Won’t Let Media Attention Get In The Way Of Her Training “If anything clashes with training I say: ‘Sorry I can’t go.’ I get invited to do nice things because I run fast. But how do I run fast? By training.”
Eilish McColgan Isn’t Sure if Scotland Should Compete Independently At European Champs, Separate From GBR “Warm weather training camps, altitude camps abroad. I don’t know if Scottish Athletics would have the resources or the funding in order to be able to support things like that.”
GB Endurance Runners To Get Nearly $450,000 (£350,000) In Support From London Marathon Organisers
“Protecting The Competition Environment Through Hyper-Elitism – A Look At The BA High Performance Strategy”

Week That Was

LRC Another Look At NCAA XC, Joshua Cheptegei Sets World Record On A Course Named “Seven Hills,” 2 Great Finishes In China This week had it all across the globe. The NCAA XC champs lived up to the hype in the snow in Madison, Joshua Cheptegei delivered in the Netherlands, and there were 2 great finishes in China.

Track News

Shelby Houlihan, Noah Lyles Named USATF Athletes Of The Year – Win Jackie Joyner-Kersee Award And Jesse Owens Awards
Andre De Grasse Says He’s Healthy: “I’ve recovered from my hamstring injury I’m 100 percent now.” But because of mono and two hamstring pulls, he hasn’t broken 10.00 since Rio.
Healthy Again, Alonso Edwards Is Still Dreaming Big “I know I have what it takes to run 19.5-19.6. … I also want to become the first South American athlete to break the 10-second barrier and I know it is only a matter of time,” says the 28-year-old, who won 2009 WC silver at age 19. His 19.81 PR dates from 2009 but he did run 19.90 this year.
NCAA Indoor Track & Field Will Be Starting Soon: TFN Rates Georgia’s Incoming Class As #1 Oregon doesn’t even crack the top 10.
TFN Ranks Penn State As #1 For Women’s Incoming Classes

African Distance News

Ethiopia’s Selemon Barega Reflects On Winning The 2018 DL 5,000m Final In Brussels To Move To #4 All-Time With 12:43.02 “Running 12:43 has changed everything for me and my goal is now to one day break the world record.”
Cynthia Jerop (2:39:16) And Jackson Kemboi (2:20:27) Win Kaas Marathon In Kenya Former half marathon WR holder Peres Jepchirchir made her marathon debut in 3rd (2:46:15) in her comeback from pregnancy.
Peres Jepchirchir Wants To Reclaim Her World Half Marathon Record Jepchirchir only held the record for a month at 65:06 before Joyciline Jepkosgei broke it.
Olympic Steeplechase Champ Conseslus Kipruto Wants To Run World XC On the steeplechase, Kipruto says that he wants to try to challenge the WR in 2019 or at least break the 8-minute barrier (his PR is 8:00.12).
Did The IAAF “Snub” Caster Semenya In Their Female Athlete Of The Year Award? That’s the headline from South Africa anyway.

Doping News

GB Sprinter Nigel Levine Gets 4-Year Doping Ban Levine was one of the sprinters hoping to make ea comeback after getting in a motorcycle crash.
*Reuters Article Levine claims that he took a contaminated supplement, but UK Anti-Doping noted that on his doping control form Levine answered “none” for that question.
WADA President Craig Reedie Says He’s Confident Russia Will Meet The End-Of-The-Year Deadline To Hand Over Data From The Moscow Lab Reedie said, “I find it very hard to believe that the guarantees made to us by the Russian authorities – that they won’t deliver.” Right, because Russia has an excellent track record of cooperating.
IAAF Says Russian Athletics Federation Will Have To Pay Out $2.76 Million
UK Government Report Claims That Russian Military Intelligence Service Is Behind The Fancy Bear Hacks
Seven Russians Get 4-Year Doping Bans Included four track athletes.
The Guardian:“Let Us Simplify This For Sir Craig Reedie: WADA Is not Doing Its Job”
WADA Bans Stockholm Lab From Carrying Out A Specific Test For Six Months WADA says it’s to “ensure continued high quality sample analysis.”
WADA Declares Nigeria Non-Compliant, Revokes Bogotá Lab Accreditation
WADA Forming Expert Group To Work At Moscow Lab Russia has been told they need to allow access by December 31st or their ban will be reimposed.

More NCAA News

Denver Post’s Women’s NCAA Recap The last time Colorado won both the individual and team title was 2000. Jones post-race said, “That whole last stretch – I just felt four years flashing by. It took my breath away. I’ll never forget it.”
Denver Post‘s Men’s NCAA Recap On beating their #8 ranking with a 4th place finish, CU’s #3 man Ryan Forsyth said, “We knew what the ranking was. We didn’t believe it was accurate.”
Track And Field News:Morgan McDonald And The Bader Tradition Post-race, McDonald said, “It is crazy to think back to my 16-year-old self and see such long-time goals come to fruition.”
T&F News:Dani Jones And The Colorado Mindset Jones said despite being from Arizona, she was happy with the cold/snowy conditions as she’s been in Colorado for 3 years.
USTFCCCA:True Team Efforts Led Colorado, NAU, North Central And WashU To D1/D3 National Titles
MileSplit: NCAA DI Champs By The NumbersGrant Fisher‘s 2nd place finish gave Stanford an unfortunate stat. They now have five runner-up finishes without getting an individual champion.
This Weekend Made 8 Straight Top 20 Finishes For The Arkansas Women
RRW:Dani Jones, Morgan McDonald Sprint to NCAA Cross-Country Titles
List Of All D1 XC All-Americans
Field Announced For NCAA D2 XC Champs
*Division II Regional Weekend Recap
List Of D3 All-Americans

Manchester Road Race *Top Results

RRW The King Is Back! Edward Cheserek Destroys Paul Chelimo, Breaks Manchester Course Record On the women’s side, Celliphine Chespol won over Buze Diriba and Emily Sisson. *Hartford Courant Article
*Discuss

Silicon Valley Turkey Trot: MB: Emily Lipari (16:00) And Sam Parsons (13:47) Win Silicon Valley Turkey Trok 5k As she comes back from childbirth, Shannon Rowbury ran 16:44 145 days after giving birth, reminding us how amazing Gwen Jorgensen‘s 15:15 was (178 days after giving birth).

Interesting Read RW: How The Turkey Trot Became The Most Popular Race In America It all started with an 8k in Buffalo in 1896 that had 6 entrants and 4 finishers.

LetsRun.com (Finally) Goes To Ethiopia

The Final Day In Ethiopia:Kenenisa Bekele’s Bar & Training “Camp” With A Guy Who Beat Gebrselassie At Worlds

Day 3 LRC Day 3 In Ethiopia: Hagos Gebrhiwet Wins, Haile G Dances, And … No Porta-Potties? LRC spent Day 3 at the Great Ethiopian Run, which saw wins for Hagos Gebrhiwet (28:54) & Foten Tesfaye (33:43). Our distinguished author even managed to run the race himself and went to Haile G‘s house afterwards.
*MB: Day #3 in Ethiopia: I broke bread with Haile G, watched him dance, and watched the Dallas Cowboys soar to 5-5 ask me anything

Day 2: MB: Day #2 in Ethiopia: I went to a kids race in Ethiopia…they give out finishers medals… ask me anything

Day 1 LRC LetsRun.com Goes To Ethiopia, Day 1: Arrival In Addis Ababa, Meeting Haile G, & A Run-In With The Ethiopian Military
*MB: LetsRun.com Is Making Its First Trip to Ethiopia. … What Should We Know and What Do You Want to Hear!?!!

MB: New Provisional IAAF World Rankings Are Up These are provisional rankings with the official ones coming in January. In the future they will be used to qualify athletes for Worlds, but won’t be used in 2019.

Sprint Stuff

Usain Bolt Says He’ll Decide By The End Of The Month Whether Or Not He’ll Continue To Pursue Soccer “I’ve got a lot of offers from a lot of other clubs out there. We’ll make a decision before the end of November if I’m going to go to another club or call it actually quits.”
Recommended Read:GB Sprinter Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake Gives Some Insight Into The Mental Side Of Being A Pro And The Mind Games He Used To Subject Himself To “It got to the point that strange superstitions took over: I can’t wear these boxers anymore, I have to wear the ones I used when I was running well, I have to go back to using that toothpaste, not this one. It was crazy.”
Natasha Hastings Writes About Working To Help Young Girls Stay In Sports Longer “The drop-out rate in sports among teenage girls is scary. Especially because there are studies that show that girls who are involved in sports are less likely to become pregnant, they are less likely to become obese …”
Jumps: Indiana Triple Jumper Arpinder Singh Tells How His Father Mortgaged The Family Land To Fund Singh’s Athletics Dreams Then when Singh won bronze at the 2014 Commonwealth Games he was able to pay off his father’s investment.

GB Distance News

Athletics Weekly:Mo Farah Not Shying Away From Racing Eliud Kipchoge Farah is all for facing Kipchoge at the London Marathon and says, “I I feel like I can beat him at some point. I don’t know when it will be yet.”
*Mo Farah Still Not Ruling Down A Return To The 10,000 For 2019 Worlds Or Even Tokyo 2020
Scottish Athletics Is Considering Breaking Away From Great Britain At European Events They already do this at the Commonwealth Games, but at everything else compete for GB.
GB’s Olympic 5,000 6th Placer Andrew Butchart Targeting European Indoor Gold In March After Recovering From Broken Foot “There’s not many people that can challenge me at 3,000m indoors, in Europe anyway. So a medal should be pretty comfortable, but the win is what I want and what I will be going for.”
Seb Coe Hails Laura Muir’s “Mental Strength” After 2018 Glory Coe was full of praise for Muir, whom the IAAF ranked the top 1,500 woman in the world this year for winning Euro gold and the Diamond League final.

News From The British Media

Mo Farah To Run The 2019 London Marathon Farah won in Chicago, but a win in London would be at another level.
Michael Johnson Says He’s Nearly “Back To Normal” After Suffering A Stroke In September Two days after his stroke, Johnson couldn’t walk and it took the former WR holder 15 minutes to cover 200m.
*BBC Article “I told my wife I was confident of making a full recovery and not only will I do that, I will do it faster than anybody else has done before.”
GB’s Steph Twell Says She Was Inspired To Make Her Marathon Debut By Callum Hawkins And Aly Dixon Hawkins has had a lot of success since stepping up with a 2:10:17 PR and finishing 9th at the Olympics, 4th at Worlds.
British Masters XC Champs Recap

2018 NCAA XC D1 Results D3 Results

Men LRC Morgan McDonald Gets His Storybook Ending As NAU Men 3-Peat At 2018 NCAA XC Champs McDonald redshirted last year to do what he did today: win the 2018 NCAA title on his home course. NAU became the first team to three-peat since Arkansas from 1998-2000.

Women LRC MAGS-NIFICENT: Dani Jones Leads Colorado Women To Dominant Win At 2018 NCAA Cross-Country Championships The Colorado women hadn’t been on top of the winner’s circle at the NCAA XC champs in 14 years but their drought was broken in style on Saturday as they won both the team and individual titles.

NCAA XC On The Boards

D3: Paige Lawler Wins And Leads #2 Wash U To 1-Point Win Over #1 Johns Hopkins, 98 To 99
*Dhruvil Patel Wins And Leads North Central To Title

LetsRun.com Founders Named as Two of “The 50 Most Influential People in Running”