September 28, 2019 | LetsRun.com

BMW Berlin Marathon

LRC The GOAT is Back: Kenenisa Bekele Runs Stunning 2:01:41 at BMW Berlin Marathon What a run by Bekele who just missed the world record by 2 seconds. American Sara Hall ran 2:22:16 to become the 6th fastest American of all-time and Matt Llano had a 4 year pr.

Pre-Race Article On How A Training Trip To The Netherlands “Provided The Long-Awaited Reboot” To Kenenisa Bekele’s Career Bekele spent two months in the Netherlands were he could get regular medical treatment to stay healthy, had a nutritionist prepare all his meals to lose weight, and had time to train away from his busy life as a businessman and family man to focus on training.

More Doha Coverage

Jamaica Observer: Tajay Gayle Wins Historic World Long Jump Gold With National Record 8.69m It was the #10 all-time best mark and the farthest jump in a decade.
Athletics Weekly: “Strong And Beautiful DeAnna Price Wins Hammer Gold With 77.54m Price broke into tears of joy after becoming the first American woman to win a world outdoor throws title.
Reuters: Yellow Hair And Hot Time Have Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce In Spotlight Fraser-Pryce ran the fastest ever time in a heat of the women’s 100m with 10.80 on Saturday.
The Telegraph: Christian Coleman Proves Himself As Fastest Man On Planet – But He Is Hardly A Champion To Cherish
IAAF: Five Things To Watch Out For On Sunday In Doha Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce vs Elaine Thompson and Dina Asher-Smith in the 100m plus Noah Lyles in the 200m highlights sprint action.
Blow To Ireland As Mark English (800m) And Thomas Barr (400H) Fail To Make Finals
USATF: Double Gold And A New WR On Four Medal Night For Team USA The WR came from USA’s mixed 4x400m relay (3:12.42).
The Telegraph: In The Post-Usain Bolt Era, There Is No Quick Fix In Sport’s Restless Search For Its Next Transcendent Figure Oliver Brown writes that “This notion of Bolt as the last line of defense against hte sanctity of athletics no longer applies.”

More Day 1 And General Worlds Coverage

Guinea-Bissaui’s Braima Suncar Dabo Helps Aruba’s Jonathan Butsby Across The Finish Line During Men’s 5,000m Heats The two were wild card entries from countries that had no Worlds qualifiers and received a huge ovation as they crossed the line in a little over 18 minutes (Butsby was DQed for receiving assistance).
Reuters: Christian Coleman Off To Hot Start As Marathoners Set To Sizzle Coleman had the fastest time in the first round of the 100m with 9.98 seconds.
Cathal Dennehy On Having Worlds In Doha: “This event is one of the last vestiges of [Lamine] Diack’s dire reign, which can feel as hard to shake as a Sunday hangover.”
BBC: Team Ingebrigsten – Not Your Average Norwegian Family
IAAF Inside Athletics Podcast – World Champs Preview Includes interview with South African sprinter Akani Simbine, Jamaican TJer Shanieka Ricketts, Aussie HJer Brandon Starc and Japan HJer Naoto Tobe.

News From The IAAF

Chinese Multinational Conglomerate Wanda Group Signs Ten Year Title Sponsor Deal With The Diamond League Th deal includes “the future organisation of an annual Diamond League meeting in China.”
Ximena Restrepo Elected As First Female IAAF Vice President Restrepo won 1992 Olympic 400m bronze competing for Colombia.
Asics Extends Partnership With IAAF Until 2029

Sprint / Field News

Kevin Young Doesn’t Want To See His 400 Hurdles World Record Go Down In Doha “I want to own the record as long as I can because it makes me relevant. After someone breaks it, I go from world record holder to simply hurdles fan.”
Sad News: US Discus Olympian Jarred Rome Dies At 42 Rome was back in his hometown in Washington for induction into the county sports hall of fame earlier in the week.
*MB: Jarred Rome, USA National Champion, Olympian passes away
BBC: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Talks About Motherhood, Hair And Medals After a year of motherhood, Fraser-Pryce says, “My son is exhausting but it’s something I wouldn’t trade for anything else because he’s actually made me better at what I do …”
Will The 27-Year-Old 400 Hurdles Record Go Down In Doha? The WR is 46.78 and Karsten Warholm (46.92), Rai Benjamin (46.98) and Abderrahman Samba (46.98) all have PRs under 47 seconds.
Grant Holloway Is Honorary “Mr. Two-Bits” At Gator Football Game It was Holloway’s job to get the crowd hyped before the game (includes video).

2019 World Champs Schedule, Entries & Results TV & Streaming Prediction Contest LRC Previews: M100 M800 MSteeple M5k W800 WSteeple W10k WMarathon *IAAF Previews

LRC Worlds Day 3 : Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is the GOAT, A Record 12th Gold For Felix, Lyles Doesn’t Rule Out Sub-19 – 2019 It was mom’s night in Doha as SAFP showed she’s the GOAT and Allyson Felix added another gold to her haul.Christian Taylor turned back Will Claye again and Anzhelika Sidorova won a great pole vault over Sandi Morris.

LRC U-S-A! U-S-A! A Star-Spangled Men’s 800-Meter Final Is Set in Doha as 3 Americans Make Final Donavan Brazier cruised, Clayton Murphy made it in on time and in the final heat Bryce Hoppel who was running XC races a year ago auto qualified.

LRC Post-Race Interviews
MB: Official 2019 Doha Worlds Day 3 Discussion Thread
MB: 800 Nation Baby!!! “Look for the sweep” – Team USA with 3 in the 800 Final

Day 2 In Doha

LRC Not A Typo: Sifan Hassan Wins 10,000 World Title With A 3:59 Final 1,500 The women’s 10,000 may have just been broken by the remarkable Sifan Hassan.
*MB: Sifan MF Hassan just closed the 10k with a 3:59.09 1500!!! 4:17.15 last 1600!!
*MB: Hassan could have paced Jenny Simpson to a 1500m SB at the end of that 10k

LRC Christian Coleman Is The New King Of The 100 Meters – And All That Comes With It After Usain Bolt‘s retirement, Coleman had to wait two years to officially take over as the king of track and field’s marquee event, but after a dominant victory tonight in 9.76, he is officially the fastest man in the world. *Video

LRC World Champ Christian Coleman Responds to Michael Johnson’s Comments: “I Don’t Necessarily Care What He Has to Say”

LRC 2019 Women’s 800 Semis: Ajee’ Wilson, Raevyn Rogers and Ce’Aira Brown All Advance To Potentially Historic Final An American woman has never won an 800-meter gold medal in the 37-year history of the IAAF World Athletics Championships. That’s likely to change in two days’ time.

LRC Men’s 800 Prelims: Nijel Amos Is A DNS As All 4 Americans Advance Once the action got underway, all of the top seeds advanced with all of the top 14 seeds advancing to tomorrow’s semifinals. All four Americans made it safely through as well.
*MB: NIJEL AMOS IS OUT OF WC

Video: Deanna Price Wins Hammer Gold

Day 1 In Doha

LRC Ruth Chepngetich’s Marathon Hot Streak Continues: 3rd-Fastest Marathoner In History Wins World Title In Brutally Hot Conditions You can’t always tell the story of a marathon by looking at the results, but in this one, you could. A woman who ran 2:17 earlier this year ran 2:32 today and still won by over a minute. 28 of the 68 starters (41%) dropped out of the race. These were truly miserable conditions to run a marathon but that didn’t stop Ruth Chepngetich from winning yet again.
*MB: Test of Will in Brutal Marathon Conditions-Perfect for a 40 something mother & full time nurse from Jersey Congrats to 41-year-old Roberta Groner, who was 6th.
*MB: “Feels like temp: 109F” for WC Women’s marathon start

LRC Jakob Ingebrigtsen, DQed And Then Reinstated In 5,000 The 19-year-old Norwegian phenom and betting favorite for gold is out after stepping inside the rail for at least 3 steps.
*MB: Jakob Ingebrigtsen DQ’d, then reinstated in men’s 5K at Worlds

Doping/Cheating Related Worlds Coverage

Michael Johnson Defends And Criticizes Christian Coleman Johnson thinks that USADA screwed up, but says Coleman did too and this “disqualifies him from ever being the face of the sport.”
Jamaica’s Briana Williams Has Been “Reprimanded But Without A Period Of Eligibility” After Doping Hearing Williams tested positive for a banned diuretic, but the hearing found that she had “no significant fault or negligence” and “had no intentions to cheat.” Still, she was withdrawn from the Jamaican team, although the reason why is unclear since she was initially named to the squad.
AIU To Have Wide-Ranging Bet Monitoring During Worlds They will identify betting patterns and any betting anomalies in order to prevent or identify any market manipulation.
Athletics Integrity Unit Announces Robust Program And Policy Updates For Doha World Champs One major policy change is to transfer samples collected from athletes of the host nation to a lab abroad to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

More Worlds Coverage

The Ingebrigsten’s Father Has A Book Out Called “How To Raise A World Champion” Article has some interesting insights like how Henrik and Filip were first national cross-country skiing champions and switched to running because skiing was too easy.
Kenyan 5,000m Runners Michael Kibet And Daniel Simiyu Won’t Be Allowed To Race In Doha The two failed to meet the AIU rule that athletes must have three out-of-competition tests and one out-of-competition test to be eligible for Worlds.
BBC Video: GB Sprinter Zharnel Hughes Explains Why He Is Becoming A Pilot And How Usain Bolt’s Helped His Sprinting Career He says it’s something flying is something he’d like to do professionally after his track career is done.
Olympic Channel Video: Ajee Wilson Explains Why The 800 Is So Hard Wilson says the last 300m really drags on and “it feels like you’re sprinting forever.”
GB Heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson In A Confident Mood Ahead Of Worlds Will she she finally come through after disappointing performances at previous world champs and Olympics?

Before You Get Obsessed With Worlds, Take A Look At Our Weekly Recap

LRC WTW: Some Guy You’ve Never Heard Of Was On Pace To Break The 2-Hour Marathon But Came Up Short, NAU > Stanford The sub-2 hour marathon will have to wait a little longer. NAU looks primed to keep on dominating.

Our Annual Top 10 NCAA XC Countdown

Terre Haute – Men – MB: Hand them their 4th straight title right now? NAU holds out two runners, stlll DESTROYS Stanford in Terre Haute The final score wasn’t close, 31 to 51, but Stanford’s 5-man average was only 10 seconds back. *Arizona Daily Sun Recap
*Women: #5 Arkansas Edges #8 Stanford 49 To 54 #3 Washington had 66 and #4 Michigan 75.

Boston: MB: They’re back baby. #13 Syracuse DESTROYS #3 Washington and #21 Arkansas in Boston

LRC 2019 NCAA Men’s XC Preview: #5 Washington Through #1 Northern Arizona Who is going to win NCAAs? One of these five teams.
*MB: And your 2019 NCAA men’s xc team champion will be …

LRC 2019 NCAA Women’s XC Preview: #5 NC State Through #1 New Mexico #2 Colorado certainly has a chance to repeat but it’s an odd year and that means UNM is the team to beat.

Previous: LRC 2019 NCAA Men’s XC Season Preview: Men’s Teams #10 Oklahoma State Through #6 Notre Dame We begin our 2019 NCAA XC countdown by unveiling the back half of the LRC top 10, which includes some big names – #10 Okla. State, #9 Portland, #8 Colorado, #7 Oregon, #6 Notre Dame.

LRC 2019 NCAA Women’s XC Preview: #10 Michigan State Through #6 Washington In between those two we have #9 Oregon, #8 Michigan and #7 Stanford.
*MB: My gooodness. When did the NCAA start letting teams take pre-season altitude trips?

NAU Frosh Drew Bosley, Who Was Twice Top 10 At Foot Locker, Admits He Never Even Ran 7 Days A Week In HS

Day 1 Distance Prelim Recaps

LRC With One Shoe, Paul Chelimo Makes 5K Final, Calls Out LetsRun Doubters Chelimo looked very good despite only having one shoe the final mile.
*MB: Paul Chelimo calls out LetsRun: “LetsRun you never believe in me. Today I showed you. Wait for the final and you will see. “

LRC Women’s Steeple Prelims: Everything Goes According To Form As Coburn And Frerichs Cruise Through Courtney Frerichs enjoyed the easiest 9:18 of her career and Emma Coburn raved about the Doha setup, “The air conditioning works … I was very, very impressed with it. I think it’s gonna lead to some fast races. The track felt good, the crowd was loud. So it was a really good experience.”

LRC Women’s 800 Prelims: Ajee And Raevyn Cruise But 3 Of Top 6 Seeds Go Home Devastated, Including Hanna Green The women’s 800 heats were full of surprises but Ajee Wilson and Raevyn Rogers looked supreme.

Athlete Videos (More Here)

LRC Worlds Previews

LRC The Casual Track Fan’s Guide To The 2019 World Track And Field Championships: 6 Story Lines To Follow At Worlds Are you someone who used to be really into track and field but no longer is or maybe the kind of person who doesn’t pay attention to athletics until the World Champs? Then this is the preview for you. If you are a casual sports fan, we imagine you’ll like it as well.

LRC Who Are The Most Popular (And Least Popular) Favorites For Worlds? Here Are The Running Warehouse Prediction Contest Vote Totals Noah Lyles (99.1%) and Ajee Wilson (95.%) lead the way while Grant Holloway (37.2%) and Katerina Stefanidi (32.2%) are the least popular.

LRC Men’s Steeplechase Preview: Will Kenya’s 31-Year Streak Of Dominance Come To An End? There have been few constants in the world since 1988 other than the fact that ever global track championship, a Kenyan-born man has won the men’s steeplechase title. 23 in a row. That streak could very well end in Doha.
LRC Men’s 800 Preview: Donavan Brazier Chases America’s First Gold Since Dave Wottle In 1972 Can Donavan Brazier end America’s 47-year gold medal drought in the men’s 800?
LRC Women’s 10K Preview: Sifan Hassan Chases First World Outdoor Title Under Alberto Salazar‘s tutelage, Hassan has put together a year for the ages in 2019; can she end it with a gold medal at Worlds against Hellen Obiri?
LRC Men’s 5K Preview: With No Clear Favorite, Could Jakob Ingebrigtsen Earn Europe’s First Men’s 5K Medal In 20 Years? Due to USATF’s foolish policy, a 12:58 American won’t be in this race. And a lot of the guys who could have won this race – Mo Farah, Joshua Cheptegei, Yomif Kejelcha – aren’t running it. Who will step up in their absence? Might it be Canada’s Mo Ahmed?
LRC Women’s Steeple Preview: USA & Kenya Duke It Out In A Grudge Match Two years ago, Americans Emma Coburn and Courtney Frerichs shocked the world in London. Now the Kenyans, led by WR holder Beatrice Chepkoech, are out for revenge.