Say it ain’t so: Kenenisa Bekele pulls out Tokyo with a stress fracture

PSD Bank Meeting In Dusseldorf Today *Live Stream @ 12:15PM On February 20th

LRC Jakob Ingebrigtsen Takes Down WR Holder Samuel Tefera to Win Battle of Teenage Stars in Dusseldorf 1500 The double European champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen upset the newly minted WR holder Samuel Tefera, plus he took the scalp of his big brother, Filip Ingebrigtsen.
*MB Jakob Ingebrigsten takes down WR holder Samuel Tefera (and his big brother) in battle of teenage stars in Dusseldorf 1500 The 18-year old beat the 19-year old

LRC Race Preview: WR Holder Samuel Tefera Vs. ALL THREE TWO Ingebrigtsens At 1,500 In Dusseldorf
*Update: Henrik has pulled out as he needs more time to get ready for Euros

More Distance Stuff

• Eliud Kipchoge Wins Laureus Exceptional Achievement Award This award is actually a “discretionary award” that has only been handed out three times previously in the history of the event (one of them was to Michael Phelps). Kipchoge was also a finalist for the World Sportsman of the Year award, which went to tennis champion Novak Djokovic.
• Noah Droddy (28:32) And Kellyn Taylor (32:13) Come Away With The Wins At The Pacific Pursuit 10k Taylor beat out her NAZ Elite teammate Stephanie Bruce (32:15) in what was set up as an early season opportunity for athletes to hit USATF qualifying standards. *Discuss
• Podcast: Carrie Tollefson Catches Up With Emily Infeld Discussing Her Recent Injury And Surgery

Post-Weekend NCAA News

• No Changes To The Top Seven Men’s Teams As Texas Tech, Texas A&M And Florida Top Updated NCAA Rankings
• Arkansas And Southern California Top Updated Women’s NCAA Rankings As Oregon Moves Up To 3rd
• Event-By-Event Top-10 Marks From The Collegiate Weekend There were some fast mile times at the UW Last Chance Meet where seven men went sub-4, led by Arizona’s Carlos Villarreal, who won in 3:57.27 over Oregon’s Charlie Hunter (3:57.74) and James West (3:57.75). UW’s Katie Rainsberger had the fastest collegiate mile with 4:35.15 for 4th place as China’s Xu Shuangashuang won the race in 4:33.53 over Eleanor Fulton (4:33.91).
  *Arizona Article *Full UW Results
• BYU Men And Colorado Women Are 2018 Scholar XC Teams Of The Year
• Wisconsin’s Morgan McDonald And Oregon’s Jessica Hull Are 2018’s DI Scholar XC Athletes Of The Year

Road / XC Results: Two WRs Go Down In Monaco

• Ethiopians Ayana Tsedat (2:06:36) And Guteni Shone (2:24:29) Win Seville Marathon The men’s race was super tight as Tsedat beat Belay Asefa by 3 seconds with the next three places all finishing within the next 10 seconds. Fourth place went to rabbit Okubai Tsegay, who stayed in the race to set an Eritrean national record of 2:06:46.
• Julien Wanders And Sifan Hassan Both Break World Records At Herculis 5k In Monaco Wanders ran 13:29 to just sneak inside the old record by one second while Sondre Moen finished 8 seconds back. Hassan ran 14:44, beating the previous record of 14:48 and dominating the race by 45 seconds.
  *Note: The fastest road 5ks ever run are actually by Sammy Kipketer (12:59.5 at Carlsbad 5,000 in 2000) and Joyciline Jepkosgei (14:32 for the first half of her 10k WR in 2017), but the IAAF only started recognizing the 5k road record in 2017.
• Kenya’s Barnabas Kiptum (2:09:20) And Belarus’ Volha Mazuronak (2:26:13) Break Course Records To Win Hong Kong Marathon
• Kenyan Ezekiel Cheboitibin Breaks 38-Year-Old Course Record At Ome 30k In Japan Japan’s Kaori Yoshida won the women’s race.
• Team USA Sweeps The Senior Titles At NACAC XC Champs Team USA’s Abbabiya Simbassa and Breanna Sieracki got the individual wins, but in the junior races the Canadians dominated.

News From The IAAF

• Interesting Look Back On The Origin Of Cross-Country Running Which Started As A School “Hunt Club” In 1819 Random fact: Charles Darwin actually attended this school as a child.
• Stanford Officially Selected As Site Of 2019 Prefontaine Classic With the construction on Hayward Field, the meet had to be moved for this year’s Pre Classic. There were reports of this last month, but it wasn’t official.
• World First Biomechanics Research On Indoor Track Released In Birmingham The IAAF released analysis from performances of 161 athletes across 13 events.
• Olympic And World Pole Vault Champ Katerina Stefanidi Says Biomechanics Reports Provide Useful Coaching Insights Something really interesting Stefanidi said was that she usually knows “the second she takes off” whether she’ll make the bar or not.
• Doha 2019 Unveil Mascot For World Champs It’s a falcon named Falah.
• CAS Dismisses Karim Ibrahim’s Appeal Against IAAF Decision To Remove Him From IAAF Council CAS found that “there was nothing unfair about the process” and that Ibrahim had “failed to meet his disclosure obligations.”

Kemoy Campbell News

• Kemoy Campbell Issues Statement Full Of Gratitude And Posts Video Of Him Walking. Says he was little dizzy. Sorry ladies, he’s taken.
• Outside Publishes Article On “Crisis Of Runners’ Healthcare” As independent contractors, most runners don’t get health insurance from their sponsors as it can cost more than $20k for a family in the US.

Caster Semenya Controversy Back In The News

IAAF Insists It Accepts Caster Semenya’s “Legal Sex Without Question” Despite Report Lawyers Will Argue She Is “Biological Male” The the IAAF has clarified its position in a statement, saying that it “is not classifying any DSD [differences of sexual development] athlete as male.” They just want athletes like Semenya to lower their testosterone levels so they aren’t at male levels.
*BBC Article *Full IAAF Statement

$mart Or Foolish?

MB: Sammy Watson Turns Pro Watson accomplished it all as an amateur – winning a World Youth, World Junior and NCAA title but this is a risky sign for any shoe company as she was slower at 18 than 17 and just ran 2:06 in her first 800 as a 19-year-old.

Today’s Dose Of Random

• MB: 40 y/o Anthony Famiglietti runs a 3:59 mile with his dog Fam shared a video on his YouTube page. If you haven’t seen this type of thing before you should check it out. The dog is on a bungee which actually helps pull the runner faster.
• MB: MarathonInvestigation.com Got SHUT DOWN! The site’s founder posted on Facebook that he was fighting a “DMCA take down notice” and that his web host took his site down. He says he is in the process of switching servers.
• MSN News: Running Club Chases Down Theft Suspect In Philadelphia The Annenberg (Lunchtime) Running Group aided police in chasing down a thief who had swiped a laptop computer and cellphone from a University of Pennsylvania building.