Non-Distance News

• Torie Bowie Considering Changing Training Base, Coaching And Management After Being Asked To Leave The Olympic Training Center Bowie explains that security watched her pack up her things at the Olympic training center and forced her to leave and she was told by staff she owed $6,000. Bowie also reveals that last year she got in a physical altercation with Olympic champ Shaunae Miller-Uibo when they were training partners in Florida which left her bleeding from the head.
  *MB: CATFIGHT! Tori Bowie and Shaune Miller Got Into Fight Drawing Blood!
  *MB: World 100m champ Tori Bowie denied access to Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, CA over unpaid $6k bill
• Kenya’s Julius Yego Wants To Reclaim His World Javelin Title In 2019 “YouTube Man” Yego won African Champs last year, but says he’s still not back to the level he was at in 2015 and 2016 before he got injured.
• Video Interview With Andre De Grasse Talking About The Future After A Coaching Change De Grasse also talks about being a new dad as he had a daughter last year.
• 2016 Olympic Sprinter Marvin Bracy Trying To Make It As A Football Player Bracey was a high school football star, but quit in college to go pro in track. Since competing in the 100m at Rio 2016, Bracey has gone back to trying to make it in Football, just missing several close tryouts with NFL teams.
• 47.83 By Ashton Allen Highlights Marine Corps Holiday Classic High School Meet

Doping Updates

• WADA’s Athlete Committee And Vice President Join Calls For Immediate Re-Issuing Of RUSADA Ban It’ll be interesting to see how things at WADA change if the current vice president Linda Helleland wins the coming election as she’s often been at odds with WADA’s and Craig Reedie‘s decisions.
  *The Guardian article
• IOC Athletes’ Commission Joins Slew Of Groups Pushing For Fresh Sanctions On Russia From WADA Hey WADA, if it’s everybody else agrees but you, then you’re the problem.
• IOC Athletes’ Commission call for WADA Compliance Review Committee to recommend immediate measures after missed RUSADA deadline
• Is This The Best Use Of USADA’s Resources? 90-Year-Old Cyclist Accepts Public Warning For Failing Drug Test Here’s the thing, he tested positive in his second test in two days. Then there was a hearing and in the end, he just got a warning anyway (for tainted meat). Is this useful?

International Distance News

• Australia’s Former World Record Holder Derek Clayton Predics We’ll See A Sub-2 Hour Marathon In 2030 Clayton held the WR back in 1969 with 2:08:34. Researcher Michael Joyner, who concluded sub-2 is physically possible, agrees that it will be at least that long.
• New Years Drama In Kenya As Police Block Samuel Wanjru Race Sources claim that Athletics Kenya fears an alliance between several groups coordinating the race could “snowball into a mass movement and eventually overwhelm the federation.”
• Toyo Leads Hakone Ekiden Day One In Course Record Time Distance running got off to a record-breaking start in Japan in 2019 as course records were set on 3 of the 5 legs.
• GB 1,500 Man Jake Wightman Will Miss Euro Indoors With Injury

The Latest Results

• Jacob Kiplimo (26:51), Brigid Kosgei (29:54) And Hellen Obiri (29:59) Are Spectacular At Madrid’s NY’s Eve Race The Silvestre Vallecana’s net elevation loss of 55m (180 ft) feet is worth up to 32 seconds so Kiplimo’s mark won’t be a new WR.
  *MB: San Silvester Kiplimo 26:40 B. Kosgei 29:54
• Ethiopians Tamirat Tola (28:12) And Netsanet Gudeta (15:46) Win Boclassic 10k/5k In Bolzano, Italy Tola won over a strong field that included 7:58 steepler Jarius Birech (2nd place), world 5,000m champ Muktar Edris (4th place) and Zane Robertson (5th place).
• Chemtai Salpeter Breaks Course Record To Win The We Run Rome 10k In 31:46 Italy’s Daniele Meucci won the men’s race in 29:05.
• Julien Wanders Breaks His Own European Road 10k Record With 27:25 In France The old record was 27:32. Gete Alemayehu won the women’s race in a 31:12 CR.
• Bedan Karoki Wins 10k In Kenya In 28:22 – Says His #1 Goal For 2019 Is Tokyo Marathon Crown Steepelchasers Emmanuel Bett (28:23) and Amos Kirui (28:52) were second and third. Chepkemoi Mutai (33:34) won the women’s title by a minute.
• Meijo Breaks Mount Fuji Women’s Ekiden Course Record To Win 2018 National University Women’s Invitational Ekiden Championships 5-time defending champ Ritsumeikan was third.

Links That Caught Our Eye On A Slow News Week

• Interesting Read: Mark Cullen On The Importance Of Journalists Establishing A Personal Relationship With Athletes If they know you care about them as people, they are much more likely to talk to you.
• China To Make Doping A Criminal Offense And Warns Athletes Who Test Positive Could Be Sent To Prison
• Madrid’s San Silvestre Women’s Race On December 31st Is LOADED – T Dibaba, Obiri And Brigid Kosgei Teenage sensation Jacob Kiplimo leads the men’s field.
• Jake Wightman Says His Favorite Athletics Moment Of 2018 Wasn’t Medaling At Euros Or CGs But Rather Eliud Kipchoge’s WR
• Jamaica Gleaner: 110m Hurdles Is The New Glamour Event For Jamaica The current Olympic, Commonwealth and World Junior champs are all different people but all are Jamaican.
• Andre De Grasse Has Left Altis And Will Be Trained By Rana Reider, Who Has Now Relocated Back To The US In Florida
• Last February, Jerika Binks Went For A Run In Utah; No One Has Heard From Her Since
• Mary Wittenberg, Former Head Of NYRR, Named President Of Jonathan Vaughters’ Pro Cycling Team – EF Education First Pro Cycling
  *ESPN Q&A With Wittenberg About Why She’s Switching From Running To Cycling
• Laura Muir Reflects On Her Standout 2018 Season And Says Her Favorite Moment Was Winning European 1,500 Gold She chose that over her win in the DL final because she’d never medaled before outdoors.
• Runnerstribe Takes A Look At The Training And Making Of Jakob Ingebrigtsen The story also reveals there is a 5-year-old Ingebrigtsen boy behind them.
• Double Amputee And Former Alcoholic And Cocaine User Blake Leeper Wants To Win An Olympic Medal In 2020 At The Regular Olympics, Not Paralympics Given his 44.41 PR, it’s not a totally crazy idea but we hope he loses his fight as double amputees should not be allowed to compete in the regular Olympics.
• Bill Baillie’s Son Reveals The New Zealand Athletics Legend Died “Peacefully In His Sleep” On Christmas The son says Baillie was doing well up until his final night but in hindsight maybe they should have realized something was amiss when he didn’t finish his glass of wine.

More Year-In-Review Stuff

• DyeStat.com’s Photos Of The Year *Chuck Utash *John Nepolitan *Laura Duffy
• 2018 Year In Review: Athletics Illustrated’s Most Popular Stories Of 2018 The #1 article received 18,491 views.
• Eliud Kipchoge Named World’s 4th-Best Athlete Of 2018 By Xinhua News Agency

Rest In Peace

• Failures In The Law Enforcement System May Have Contributed To The Murder Of Utah College Track Athlete Lauren McCluskey Just days before she was killed she had followed up with Salt Lake City police to ask why they had not pursued her complaints of harassment. University police say they overlooked the criminal history of her harasser.
• AP: Four Men Sentenced In Shooting That Killed Tyson Gay’s Daughter The man who instigated the shooting got 20 years, while another got 5 years and two others 5 years probation.
• Good Read: New Zealand Distance Legend Bill Baillie, 84 Baillie died still holding New Zealand records over 20,000m and one hour, set in 1963.
• Former Jamaican Hurdler Dionne Rose Henley Dies At Age 49 After A Battle With Cancer Henley competed for Jamaica at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics.
  *TrackAlerts.com: “Tributes flow for Jamaican Olympian Dionne Rose-Henley”
• AP: Seattle Pacific Coaching Great Ken Foreman Dies At Age 96 Foreman was the head women’s coach for the 1980 Olympic team that boycotted the Moscow Games.

GB News

• BBC Share Mean Caption On Fail/Fall Video Of Scottish Hammer Thrower Chris Bennett They say, “Bennett recently lost his British Athletics funding and now he’s lost his footing, too …”
• Dina Asher-Smith Wins Double Athletics Weekly Readers’ Choice Awards With Top International And British Female
• British Athletes Share Their Christmas Day Training Plans
• AW: British Rankings Analysis – Men’s Track Events
• AW: British Rankings Analysis – Women’s Track Events
• AW: British Rankings Analysis – Men’s Field Events
• 2018 British Athlete Highlights And Lowlights

USA Distance Q&As

• Carrie Tollefson Does Podcast Interview With Cory McGee McGee and Tollefson talk about their first meeting at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games (where McGee’s dad was working with the FBI).
• MB: Another Great Tom “Tinman” Schwartz Podcast
• Podcast Interview From Last Month With Sara Sellers
• Recommended Read: Lengthy Q&A With 2017 Worlds Team Member Johnny Gregorek This is the companion interview to the one with John Gregorek last month. This time hear from the younger half of this father-son sub-4 pair as Johnny shares a lot of interesting insights from his career.

IAAF/Admin/Hosting News

• IAAF Nationality Review Panel Clears 10 Athletes To Transfer Allegiance Seb Coe: “I’m pleased to see the new system is now working as we intended, allowing athletes with a genuine connection to a new country to represent that country after appropriate checks and balances.”
• Minsk To Host Europe Vs. USA Meet In 2019 The meet is described as a “Ryder Cup-style match” and will included a mixed 4 x 400 relay.
• A Canadian Group Is Bidding To Host The 2023 IAAF World XC Championships (Also The 2020 Pan Am XC Cup)
  *Video Of The Proposed Course In Victoria, British Columbia
• IAAF Doping Review Board Approves Guidance Note For 2019 Neutral Athlete Status Russian athletes who are granted neutral status have to reapply each year.
• Yokohama, Japan Will Be The Host Of The Next IAAF World Relay Championships In May 2019
  *The Bahamas Withdrew From Hosting The Event And Jamaica Passed Due To Lack Of Government Financial Support
• Tokyo 2020 To Install Olympic Cauldron On Waterfront
• Sport England To Fund 200 New Parkrun Events

New LRC Big Chat Podcast Highlights

LRC  The Big Chat With Floyd Landis, Part 1: Is There Any Hope For Anti-Doping? Floyd Talks Doping Then, Now And What Can Be Done We sat down for an hour forty with Floyd Landis, one of the most notorious dopers in American sport, and the man who helped bring out the truth about Lance Armstrong. We’ve got the highlights, plus full audio and a transcript of our chat. Landis thinks it would be pretty easy to dope today and not confident in the anti-doping authorities and says he was busted for a drug he didn’t take at the 2006 Tour de France. If you just want full audio/transcript, click here.