Valencia More Than Lives Up To The Hype

• Joshua Cheptegei Smashes 10k WR With 26:38 WR In Valencia It was great day for the Vaporflys in Valencia.
• Roza Dereje Runs 2:18:30 As 4 Women Break 2:19 And 5 Break 2:20 
• Unheralded Kinde Atanaw Alayew Debuts At 2:03:51 As 4 Break 2:05 And 8 Break 2:07 The 26-year-old, who was 4th in the World Junior 10,000 in 2012, hadn’t done a whole lot as a pro and only had a 60:12 PR.
• MB: Vaporflys (presumably) crush it again. Produce amazing times in Valencia. 26:38 10k, A 2:03:51 and 4 2:18s!!! 

*Pre-Race: LRC Preview The Best Marathon Of The Fall? 10 Sub-2:06 Guys Plus A 10K WR Attempt At Sunday’s Valencia Marathon

News That Passed Our Stringent Vetting Process

• Crazy Boyfriend Of Mom Of French Distance Runner Who Tested Positive For EPO Says He Injected Her While She Was Asleep And Thus Didn’t Know
  *MB: AlSal was RIGHT! Athletes can be sabotaged; french runner administered EPO while sleeping by mom’s BF
• Recommended Read AP: An In-Depth Look At How Bill Staab Has Dedicated Much Of His Life To Helping Immigrants Via The West Side Runners’ Club Girma Bekele Gebre‘s third-place finish in NY got the group a lot of publicity but Staab has been helping the runner for roughly 40 years and they are appreciative, “For Ethiopian runners, he’s like a father. We love him.”
• RR #2 Tianna Bartoletta Blogs About Visiting A Women’s Prison In The UK Where The Prisoners Determined She Was The Guest Speaker Because She’d Had A “Shit Life” Despite Her 3 Olympic Golds
• Alan Abrahamson Says Christian Taylor Should Be Worried If Nike Pulls Its Support For Track, Not If Triple Jump Is Part Of DL TV Window
• Mercedes-AMG Formula One Team Treats Eliud Kipchoge To An Exclusive Experience (Pics)
• Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Stadium Is Officially Complete As It’s Handed Over To Japan Sports Council It cost $1.4 billion to build.
• Jamaican-Born Derek Thompson – Coach Of Ajee Wilson And Raevyn Rogers – Thinks Jamaica Could Be An 800 Power “Put it this way,” Thompson contended, “If Puerto Rico can have three 800m runners clocking sub-1:45.00 minutes, Jamaica should have more than that.”
• World Record Holder Brigid Kosgei Says Tokyo Gold Is “Main Target And Challenge” For 2020
• Brit Overcomes Muggings And Getting Shot At To Run A Marathon In Every Country In The World
•  Cathal Dennehy Remembers How All Of Ireland “Ran With Sonia” As O’Sullivan Is Inducted Into Irish HOF On Her 50th Birthday The former WChamp and Olympic silver medalist had the “greatest career in Irish sport” according to Dennehy.
• The Keys To Peter Seufer’s 4th Place Finish At NCAAs – 90-95 MPW On 6 Days A Week Seufer took it easy early in the summer as he was working in NYC.
  *Seufer Admits Weight Loss Was Key To 4th-Place Finish At NCAAs Getting rid of the “summer vest” is something he always has to do.
• Many Africans Are Outraged They Can’t Vote For Kipchoge as BBC World Sport Star Of The Year 2019 Due To Geo Restrictions “Denying Kenyans to vote for Eliud Kipchoge by BBC Sport is another form of colonization,” said one fan.
• The Extreme Lengths Runners Go To Run A PB From peeing in your pants mid-marathon to forging a doctor’s note to get out of school, Canadian Runing Magazine has some interesting stories.

LRC Podcast / Turkey Trot News

One We Missed Thursday Shannon Rowbury Defeats Kim Conley, Emily Infeld, Stephanie Bruce At Applied Materials Silicon Valley Turkey Trot Aaron Templeton won the men’s race. Results and race videos.

RRW: Eric Jenkins, Edna Kiplagat Win Blustery Manchester Road Race Jenkins outkicked Edward Cheserek by 3 seconds while Kiplagat beat out Sally Kipyego by 13 seconds. *Discuss
*Local Fox Article With Video Interviews

Craig Engels Wins His Hometown Turkey Trot In Winston-Salem, NC Engels won the Turkey Strut 5k in 15:05 and did another mile afterwards to complete the workout. Asked about cutting his trademark mullet and mustache, he said, “I feel like if I had the mullet and mustache year round people wouldn’t appreciate it, but I’ll have my fancy mullet and mustache again by June.”

• Turkey Trots On The Forums: Gobble, gobble: Official Turkey Trots Results Thread
• Turkey Trot DEVASTATION
• Did anyone get “chicked” at their Turkey Trot today?

LRC Gobble, Gobble: Post-NCAA Cross-Country Turkey Trot Podcast NCAAs are in the books and Turkey Trots are here.

Catching Up On Russian Doping Scandals

• Russian Athletics Federation Officials (Including President Dmitry Shlyakhtin) Charged With Obstructing An Investigation Into A Whereabouts Failure By HJer Danil Lysenko An AIU investigation found the cover-up included fabricating documents from a fake clinic to show Lysenko was too ill to provide his whereabouts. *2nd Article
• Russian Athletics Federation Selects New President As Dmitry Shlyakhtin Resigns  World HJ champ Maria Lasitskene was very critical of his replacement, claiming that Yulia Tarasenko “is Shlyakhtin’s appointess and should immediately quit.”
• Associated Press Obtains Report Showing Depths Of Russia Cover-Up The tampering apparently went to extreme lengths by even writing fake memos to cast doubt on the Russian whistleblower.
• NY Times: Inside Russia’s Failed Doping Cover-Up *Discuss
• WADA Says Russian Data Tampering Throws 145 Cases Into Doubt
• World Athletics (Formerly The IAAF) Halts Russian Reinstatement Process After Most Recent Cover-Up Scandal
  *World Athletics Statement They are considering the “expulsion of RusAF from membership of World Athletics.”
• WADA Pushes For Russia To Be Banned From Tokyo Olympics Over Tampering With Anti-Doping Data WADA will meet December 9th and decide whether to approve the recommendations from their investigators to ban Russia for 4 years and strip them of hosting sports events. *2nd Article
  *Previously: IOC Suggests It Will Oppose Blanket Bans On Russian Athletes From The Olympics Typical apathy we’ve come to expect from the IOC when it comes to Russian doping.
• USADA Head Travis Tygart Calls For Complete Ban Of Russian Athletes From The Olympics “Russia continues to flaunt the world’s anti-doping rules, kick clean athletes in the gut and poke WADA in the eye and get away with it time and time again. WADA must stand up to this fraudulent and bullying behavior.”
• CAS Confirms Bans For Two Russian Athletes Over London 2012 Retests The athletes banned are sprinter Yuliya Gushchina and LJer Anna Nazarova. It’s not surprising at all that most of the relays Gushchina had competed on were already stripped of medals because one of her teammates tested positive.
• Provisional Suspension Against Russian Sprinter Artyom Denmukhametov Lifted By The IAAF Denmukhametov was originally accused of working with a banned coach. Denmukhametov opted to not have the decision published, so we don’t know the details which lead to the suspension being removed.
• World Athletics Approves The Application Of Six Russians To Compete At Euro XC Champs As Neutral Athletes

NCAA / HS XC News

• NXY New York / Northeast Previews And Projections Katelyn Tuohy will highlight on the girls side.
• MileSplit: Foot Locker Northeast Preview – Individual Stars Head To Van Cortlandt Park
• MileSplit Video: A Day In The Life Of Foot Locker Champ Sydney Masciarelli
• MileSplit Video About The Girls XC Team At The Islamic High School, Salam School In Wisconsin
• USTFCCCA: Which Region Ruled The Day At The 2019 NCAA XC Championships? The Mountain Region dominated both the men’s and women’s races with five of the eight possible spots on the podium (top 4 on each side). They also took the top 3 men’s team spots.
• 2019 NCAA DI National XC Awards Edwin Kurgat and Weini Kelati were athletes of the year; Ed Eyestone and Lance Harter the coaches of the year.

A Look Back At The 2019 NCAA XC Meet And The Last 10 NCAA XC Meets

LRC The LetsRun.com Decade Awards: Which NCAA Cross-Country Programs & Athletes Were The Best Of The 2010s? We hand out awards, including Runner of the Decade, Upset of the Decade, & Program of the Decade. Plus, what were the best single-season teams of the last 10 years? *Discuss

LRC WTW: Was BYU’s Win Really An Upset? How Would An All-Star High School Team Do At NCAAs? A full look back at the 2019 NCAA cross-country champs.

UK News

• New UK Athletics Chief Zara Hyde Forced To Stand Down Before Job Begins After Allegations About Her Husband It was alleged her husband was allowed to continue coaching at a club where she was vice-chair after he was banned from teaching over alleged relationship with a 15-year-old girl. *BBC Article
• The Guardian: UK Athletics Thrown Into Crisis As New CEO Loses Job Before Starting An insider said the Hyde Peters scandal confirms track is “the most dysfunctional Olympic sport in Britain.”
• December 8: Andrew Butchart Leads Announced Team GB For Euro XC Champs The women’s team includes Jess Judd and Kate Avery.
• GB’s Former 400m Olympic Champ Christine Ohuruogu Talks About Why She Doesn’t Comment On Doping Debates She says, “I never cast aspersions – not with my history.” She served a one year ban for three missed tests.
• Dina Asher-Smith And Katarina Johnson-Thompson Nominated For BBC Sports Personality Of The Year Award
• GB Olympic 4 X 400 Bronze Medalist Anyika Onuora Retires From The Sport The 35-year-old said, “Physically, I can do any workout. But mentally, I’m not where I want to be so I just want to move onto the next chapter of my life.”
• Another Short Course: Leeds Abbey Dash 10k Found To Be 23m Short; Charlotte Arter’s 31:34 Won’t Count

NCAA XC Champs *Men’s Results *Women’s Results

LRC Final Men’s XC Champs: #3 BYU Shocks #1 NAU To Win 1st Title, Iowa State’s Edwin Kurgat Delivers As Favorite Edwin Kurgat of Iowa State came through as the individual favorite but there was a big upset in the team race as BYU won its 1st-ever title.

LRC Final Arkansas Holds Off BYU To Complete Triple Crown, Weini Kelati Runs Becomes Second Foot Locker/NCAA Champ Both Arkansas (NCAA title #1) and Weini Kelati (NCAA title #1 to go with her Foot Locker title) made history in Terre Haute. LRC Post-Race Interviews Hear from the stars of Saturday’s action.

• MB Talk:
• Official 2019 NCAA XC Discussion Thread 
• NAU GOES HOME DEVASTATED!!!!!! 4th ranked BYU stunned NAU to win the men’s title whils Arkansas won the women’s to complete the calendar-year triple crown. Edwin Kurgat and Weini Kelati were your individual champions.
• The Athlete Special goes home devastated almost 34 minutes and almost dead last.
• Just ran the NCAA course in Terre Haute — a couple observations
• Fiona O’Keeffe out of NCAA
• Worth running for NAU?
• NCAA Banquet Photos Up
• What is the worst team score in men’s NCAA XC history?
• NAU and Mike Smith Training

UK Admin Stuff

• BBC: Some Of Britain’s Top Athletes Threaten Legal Action Against BOA Over Olympic Sponsorship Regulations Earlier this year the IOC softened its stance on the Rule 40 sponsorship restrictions and said national Olympic committees are free to implement them as they see fit. The USOPC relaxed its rules, but GB athletes weren’t happy with the limited changes made by the BOA.
  *The Telegraph: “Adam Gemili Leads Team GB Group Threatening Legal Action Over BOA’s ‘Window Dressing Relaxation’ Of Rules” Mo Farah, Laura Muir and Katarina Johnson-Thompson are also among the athletes who could sue the BOA.
• Incoming UK Athletics Chief Zara Hyde Peters Faces Questions Over Her Husband’s Coaching Past There are allegations that her husband was allowed to continue coaching at a club where she was vice-chair despite being banned from teaching over an “inappropriate relationship” with a 15-year-old schoolgirl. *BBC Article
• UK Sport Under Pressure To Lead Probe Into Accusations Against New UK Athletics Chief
• British Athletics Appoint Interim Performance Leadership Team Ahead Of Tokyo 2020 To Replace Neil Black Their top choice (sprint/hurdle coach Stephen Maguire) turned them down, so the pair of Steve Paulding (former cyclist) and Tommy Yule (former weightlifter) are taking over on a temporary basis.

NCAA XC Banquet Photos *Full Gallery Here