Your Weekly Read / Listen

LRC Week That Was: Meet Joseph Elsakr The Last Marathon Olympic Trials Qualifier and Robert Keter the Most Unlikely World Record Holder Meet the guy who ran over 2:19 and will be at the Trials.

LRC Podcast: Mary Cain’s NOP Allegations, Diamond League Changes, How to Better Moderate / Leah O’Connor’s Messageboard Complaints + More Marathon Trials Talk We discuss at length Mary Cain’s allegations vs Alberto Salazar and her treatment by Nike and the NOP.

The US Olympic Marathon Trials Will Be Here Before You Know It (Feb. 29th)

LRC  The Road to Sapporo: Assessing the Women’s Field at the 2020 US Olympic Marathon Trials From Jordan Hasay (50%) to Stephanie Bruce (5%), we break down the odds for the contenders at the 2020 US Olympic Trials.

LRC  The Road to Sapporo: Where the US Men’s Marathoners Stand 3+ Months Out From the Olympic Trials Jonathan Gault breaks down the Americans’ chances of making the 2020 Olympic marathon team – from Galen Rupp (90%) to Dathan Ritzenhein (5%) and Benard Lagat (5%).

MB: Who are the favorites for the 2020 US Olympic Marathon Trials? We tell you here.

More Athlete Blowback To Diamond League Cuts

• Triple Jump World Record Holder Jonathan Edward Critical Of Diamond League Event Cuts Edwards tweeted, “There are so many things wrong with World Athletics decision re Diamond League events but what Usain Bolt showed athletics is that it’s not about events but personalities and to exclude and alienate one of the sport’s true stars (Christian Taylor) is beyond comprehension.”
• GB Distance Runner Andy Butchart Considering Boycotting The DL After IAAF Cut The 5000m “I will try to not run as many Diamond Leagues and boycott and do other things. Because the IAAF right now is just a bit iffy.”
• Tianna Bartoletta Blogs About DL Cuts: “Diamonds Aren’t Forever” Bartoletta rips the IAAF and questions the research and justifications for the events they chose to cut.
• Scottish Sprinter Beth Dobbin Is Concerned For “Future Of The Sport” After Diamond League Cuts She is angry the 200m won’t be included in the DL and seems to be worried this could be a stepping stone to events being cut from the Olympics.

Mary Cain Makes Serious Allegations Against Alberto Salazar And Nike

LRC Nike, Alberto Salazar and Top Pros Respond To Mary Cain’s Allegations Nike has issued a statement saying they will start an immediate investigation of the “troubling allegations” while Cain has confirmed she did try to rejoin the team in April of this year. Additionally, three former NOP members have said Salazar was very focused on the weight of his female athletes, but Salazar has issued a forceful denial of Cain’s allegations, writing to Ken Goe, “To be clear, I never encouraged her, or worse yet, shamed her, to maintain an unhealthy weight.”
*Salazar Denies Cain’s Allegations Salazar tells Ken Goe that both of Cain’s parents, including her father who is an MD, were deeply involved in her training and aware of all supplement she was on. He says when Cain struggled “to find and maintain her ideal performance and training weight” he referred her to a female doctor. He also shared a text message from April where Cain wrote, “Thanks again so much for a great trip — I’m excited to be working together again and I really want this.”

LRC Full Transcript of NY Times Video: Mary Cain Says She Was “Emotionally And Physically Abused By A System Designed By Alberto [Salazar] And Endorsed By Nike” In an explosive New York Times video essay, Cain claims she was pressured by Salazar to lose weight (to get down to 114 pounds) and was weighed in front of teammates and “publicly shamed” if she didn’t hit weight. She also says Salazar wanted her to take birth control pills and diuretics to shed pounds – the latter of which is against track and field’s rules according to Cain. Cain also says she became suicidal and started to cut herself and says when she told Alberto Salazar and Darren Treasure that she was cutting herself that “they pretty much told me that they just wanted to go to bed.”
*MB: Explosive New York Times article: Mary Cain breaks silence about NOP

• Former NOP Runner Jackie Areson Speaks Out About Alberto Salazar On Instagram She says Salazar was “obsessed” with weight and called her fat and said she had a huge butt, even when she was setting PRs. She also says Salazar bashed Jenny Simpson for her weight in 2012 and says NOP’s Darren Treasure was “just as bad” as Salazar.
• Writer Elizabeth Weil Regrets The Positive Piece She Wrote On Mary Cain And NOP For The NY Times In 2015 “In hindsight I got it so wrong.”
• Shalane Flangan reacts “I’m so sorry @runmarycain that I never reached out to you when I saw you struggling. I made excuses to myself as to why I should mind my own business. We let you down. I will never turn my head again.”
• Mary Cain and her mother go on Good Morning America
• Amy Yoder Begley On Twitter: “After placing 6th in the 10,000m at the 2011 USATF championships, I was kicked out of the Oregon Project. I was told I was too fat and ‘had the biggest but on the startling line.'”
• Mary Cain Story Picked Up By People Magazine On twitter, Jonathan Marcus was the meet director for the 2015 Oxy meet and confirmed Cain’s story about Salazar yelling at her in public for “gaining weight.”

The Weekly LRC Podcast

LRC Podcast 2019 New York City Marathon Recap + Look at 2020 US Olympic Marathon Trials, New Shoes, World Marathon Majors Expansion? New York City is in the books and the Olympic Trials on the horizon.

One Final Look Back At NYC

LRC 4 Final Thoughts On The 2019 New York City Marathon: The NY Men’s Field Was Shallow, Desisa DNFs Early and Adidas Surprises? We take one final look at the NYC Marathon where for the first time all-year half the podium spots were taken by non-Vaporfly wearing athletes.
*MB: Stat of the Day: Heading into NY, 33 of 36 (91.67%) podium finisherss at the AWMMs in 2019 were wearing Vaporflys.

NCAA Updates

• Vin Lananna Sees “Boundless” Potential As New Director Of Virginia’s XC And Track Programs Lananna talks about how he wanted to be a “hands-on coach” again and shares his thoughts on the future of Virginia.
• UC Santa Barbara Men’s And Women’s XC And Track Programs Cited For NCAA Violations UC Santa Barbara self-detected and self-disclosed the violations which for the XC team, included mandatory logging of training in the summer.
  *MB: UC Santa Barb Athletes Punished for Running on Off Days
• NAU, BYU And Colorado Stay Ranked 1-3 In Week 6 NCAA Coaches’ Poll Oregon had a huge jump up from 16th to 6th.
  *Men’s Regional Rankings
• Arkansas And Stanford Women Remain 1-2 In Week 6 NCAA Rankings BYU moved to 3rd and Washington down to 4th.
  *Women’s Regional Rankings
• Colorado’s Joe Klecker And New Mexico’s Weini Kelati Are NCAA Athletes Of The Week At PAC-12, Klecker became the first Buffalo to win an individual title since 2007 while Kelati dominated at Mountain West Champs.

More From NYC

• NY Times Article On Girma Bekele Gebre – The Sub-Elite Who Made The NYC Podium Gebre is a NYC regular as for years he’s spent two or three months at a time living and training in NYC with the West Side Runners Club. His coach says he’s probably ran 100 races in the NYC area.
• NY Times: Joyciline Jepkosgei’s NYC Marathon Upset Caps A Year Of Leaps And Turmoil From the Caster Semenya testosterone debate to debate over Nike’s new shoes and Alberto Salazar‘s doping ban, it’s been a year full of controversy.*Great pre-race read: How Mary Keitany went from maid to marathon champ
• 42-Year-Old Sinead Diver Finished Fifth In NYC Diver is Irish, but represents Australia where she has lived since 2002.
• AP: Lelisa Desisa Drops Out Of NYC 29-Days After Taxing Win In Doha Desisa was in 17th place at the seven mile mark when he dropped out.
• How Fast Did The “Celebs” Run In NYC Tiki Barber ran 4:18:24.
• NY Times: 2019 NYC Marathon In Photos