Road And XC Results *Great Stirling XC

• World Junior 10,000 Champ Rhonex Kipruto And World 5,000 Champ Hellen Obiri Dominate Juan Muguerza XC Race In Spain Kipruto beat out 12:43-man Selemon Barega by 22 seconds while Obiri won by 20 seconds as Uganda’s Commonwealth Games 10,000 champ Stella Chesang was 2nd, steeplechase WR holder Beatrice Chepkoech 3rd and three-time Euro XC champ Yasemin Can 4th.
• Tsehay Gemechu Smashes Ethiopian 10k Record To Win Valencia 10k With 30:15 Victory Her compatriot Chala Ketema Regassa ran 27:23 to win a tight men’s race by 1 second over Uganda’s Stephen Kissa. Further back, Spain’s 1995 world marathon champ Martin Fiz set a world M55 best with 31:36 (27 seconds faster than the previous record).
  
• Despite Wrong Turn, USA’s Hillary Bor Wins Hard-Fought Men’s Great Stirling XC Title With 600m to go, six men were still in contention, but Bor moved up to take the win over Team Europe’s Napoleon Solomon and Adel Mechaal, while USA’s Leonard Korir, Garrett Heath and David Elliott took 4-6 (the top six were separated by 12 seconds). Team Europe won the overall team competition.
  *IAAF Recap
• Germany’s Elena Burkard Helps Team Europe To Great Stirling XC Victory She beat out GB’s Charlotte Arter by 5 seconds. Anne-Marie Blaney was the top American in 11th place.
• Laura Muir Leads Great Britain To Great Stirling XC Relay Win Team Europe was second and the US third in the co-ed relay.
• Race Video (USATF.TV Subscription Required)
  *Great Stirling XC Video Interviews
• DyeStat Great Stirling Recap

NCAA News

• Former Georgia All-American Tara Davis Transfers To Texas Davis will have to sit out the 2019-2020 track season as she wasn’t released by Georgia. It was a bit of a strange process as Davis’ former Georgia coach, tweeted that she was transferring to Texas before it was official and Davis posted a response video saying how that had negatively affected her.
  *MB: Tara Davis transferring from Georgia
• Pre-Season Bowerman Men’s Watchlist Grant Fisher and Morgan McDonald are the two lone distance runners on the ten-person list.
• Men’s Preseason Indoor NCAA Rankings Texas Tech, Florida and Florida State are ranked 1-3.
• Preseason Women’s NCAA Rankings Have Arkansas, Florida State And Texas A&M 1-3

Doping Updates

• Better Late Than Never? Russia Says WADA Team Will Return To Moscow For The Required Data On January 9th On this, USADA head Travis Tygart said, “We are all holding our breath as to how this one will end … whether WADA will be finally given the data on the roughly 9,000 presumptive positive tests results on over 4,000 Russian athletes that hopefully have not been destroyed.”
• Swedish Winter Olympian Claims WADA Compliance Review Committee Has “Weight Of History On Their Shoulders” If Russia actually give up the Moscow lab data on Wednesday like they’re supposed to, we think there is zero chance WADA imposes any new sanctions come their meeting next week.

Weekend Distance Action

• Olympic 5,000m Bronze Medalist Hagos Gebrhiwet Defeats 12:43 Man Selemon Barega By Four Seconds To Win The Campaccio 10k XC Race In Italy Turkey’s three-time Euro XC champ Yasemin Can dominated the women’s 6km race by 16 seconds.
• Laura Muir Gets A Flying Start To 2019 With A 14:52.02 Victory At The GAA Miler Indoor Meet In Glasgow Second place was Gabriela Stafford with a new Canadian national record of 14:57.45.
  *MB: Muir 14:52 Stafford of Canada 14:57 First meet of year.
• Kenya’s Joseph Mwangi Ngare Runs Hong Kong All Comers’ Record To Beat Yuki Kawauchi At The Lok Wah 100 Minutes Half Marathon Ngare ran 65:56 to Kawauchi’s 66:07.
• Kenya’s World U20 5,000m Silver Medalist Stanley Mburu Waithaka And Spain’s Trihas Gebre Win Cross Zornotza XC Race In Spain
• Bahrain’s Albert Rop And Alia Saeed Mohammed Win Arab XC Championships
• From Last Week: Tokai University Wins First-Ever Hakone Ekiden Title Tokai University set a course record to win by over 3 minutes.
  *Stats From The Hakone Ekiden
• Ethiopians Dejene Debela (2:09:26) And Medina Deme Armino (2:27:25) Win Xiamen Marathon Titles In China
• British 10,000m Champ Charlotte Arter Clocks 15:50 Parkrun Record In Cardiff The race series is mostly recreational runners (she came in one second behind the top guy).

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
• Dick Pound Compares Critics Of WADA To A “Lynch Mob” Pound explains that despite Russia missing the December 31st deadline, there still needs to be due process before any action is taken against them.
• WADA Leaders Admit They’re “Navigating Challenging Times” But Claim They Made Several Achievements In 2018
• Head To Key WADA Panel Defends Waiting To Decide On Next Action With Russia British lawyer Jonathan Taylor explained that there needed to be time for a full report explaining the reasons for Russia’s “non-compliance.” But the reason is simple; the deadline was December 31st and they didn’t meet it.
• IOC Athletes’ Commission Joins Slew Of Groups Pushing For Fresh Sanctions On Russia From WADA Hey WADA, if everybody else agrees but you, then you’re the problem.
• IOC Athletes’ Commission Calls 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?

More Looking Back At 2018 And Ahead To 2019

LRC The 2018 LetsRun.com Awards: Meet Our Athletes Of The Year, The Breakout Performers Of The Year, And A Whole Lot More 2018 was quite a year. We do our best to recap it all for you by handing out awards – everything from most improved to race of the year to travesty of the year. Does your favorite runner make the cut?
*MB: The 2018 LetsRun.com Awards are out. Did your favorite runner make the cut? 

• IAAF Analyzes Some Head-To-Head Matchups They Are Most Anticipating In 2019 One constant back-and-forth is the battle between Ryan Crouser and Tom Walsh in the shot put.
• FloTrack’s Top 5 Upsets Of The Year Yuki Kawauchi in Boston tops the list.
• IAAF’s List Of Five Stars Making Comebacks In 2019 Olympic 400m champ Wayde Van Niekerk tops the list. He’s not raced since 2017 Worlds thanks to a charity rugby game and knee injury which required surgery.
• What World Record Might Go Down In 2019? The men’s HJ makes the list for the umpteenth time and the men’s almost 30-year-old shot put record is mentioned as a possibility.
• IAAF’s Eight “Emerging Stars” They Are Watching For In 2019 Sydney McLaughlin and Noah Lyles top their list.
• IAAF 2018 Roads And XC Year In Review There was a record number of women’s sub-2:20s and sub-2:19s. 11 women broke 2:20 (previous record was 6) and 6 women broke 2:19 (previous record was 3).
• GB Athlete New Year’s Resolutions Zharnel Hughes had arguably the best resolution, which is to win World Championships gold.
• European Champions Nataliya Pryshchepa (800) And Maryan Zakalnytskky (Racewalk) Named Ukrainian Athletes Of The Year

LetsRun.com’s 2018 World And US Rankings Are Complete

LRC M Marathon: Eliud Kipchoge (Duh) & Galen Rupp Are World & US #1s The unparalleled Eliud Kipchoge tops the marathon rankings yet again.

LRC David Graham’s 2018 Marathon Rankings And Musings LRC visitor David Graham is back with his annual men’s marathon musings. This year, he comes in at a record 4,823 words.

LRC W Marathon: Vivian Cheruiyot & Des Linden End Year As World & US #1s 2018 was the best year in the history of the women’s marathoning. Coming into the year, only five women in history had ever broken 2:19 but six different women did it 2019.  Plus 11 times a woman broke 2:20 in 2018, the most in history.

Previous LRC’s 2018 Rankings: M3k/5k *W3k/5k *MSteeple *WSteeple *M1,500 *W1,500 *M800 *W800

• Athletics Weekly‘s Top 3 World Rankings For 2018: *Women *Men
  
• Athletics Weekly‘s Top 3 British Rankings For 2018: *Women *Men
• TFN’s World #1s For 2018: *Women *Men
• College Rankings: Sydney McLaughlin & Michael Norman Named Dyestat College Performers Of The Year McLaughlin was the people’s choice, Norman was the editor’s choice.
• HS Rankings: Katelyn Tuohy & Armand Duplantis Named Dyestat High School Performers Of The Year Tuohy was the people’s choice, Duplantis was the editor’s choice.

Floyd Landis Big Talk Part II

LRC Floyd Landis On Life After Cycling, Runners Vs. Cyclists, CBD Products, Running A Business, And Donald Trump Landis shares some of the secrets he’s learned from his crazy life in part 2 of our recap of our talk with him. From a Mennonite upbringing, to crossing the line at the Tour first, to a doping suspension, denial, depression, and now fatherhood and a successful new business, Floyd has seen a lot.

Miss Part I? Part 1: Is There Any Hope For Anti-Doping? Floyd Talks Doping Then, Now And What Can Be Done Landis is one of the most notorious dopers in American sport, and the man who helped bring out the truth about Lance Armstrong. He’s got a lot of interesting things to say.