Voting Now Open – 64 Races … 4 Remain … 1 Champion

LRC LRC’s Race Of The Decade: The Final Four Is Here! As we choose the race of the decade, we’re now down to 4 and the two most powerhouse #1 seeds now will clash. Which was a better race – Chris Solinksy’s shocking upset of both Galen Rupp and the 27:00 minute barrier all at once in his pro 10,000 debut or David Rudisha’s majestic wire-to-wire 800m WR in London? And what about Wayde van Niekerk’s stunning WR from lane 8 to win Olympic gold in Rio or Eliud Kipchoge’s marathon WR?

NCAA News

• Grant Holloway Wins 2019 Men’s Bowerman Award Holloway beat out Mondo Duplantis and Divine Oduduru for the award.
  *University Of Florida Article Holloway topped off his career by becoming the first collegian to go sub-13 seconds in the 110H, running 12.98 to win NCAAs.
• Sha’Carri Richardson Wins Women’s 2019 Bowerman Award Richardson was chosen over Janeek Brown and Yanis David.
  *LSU Article Richardson broke the 30-year-old collegiate 100m record, running 10.75 to win NCAAs.
• RIP Longtime Dartmouth Coach Sandy Ford-Centonze Ford-Centonze led the women’s program for 28 years and passed after battling cancer for the last several months.
• Kansas State’s Tejaswin Shankar And Oklahoma’s Mikeisha Welcome Are NCAA Athletes Of The Week Shankar cleared 2.23m in the HJ on his way to scoring 4137 points in the pentathlon while Welcome jumped 13.35m.
• USTFCCCA Collegiate XC/Track Hall Of Fame Coming In 2021
• Event-By-Event Top-10 Marks NCAA Marks From Last Week
• Ole Miss Head Coach Connie Price-Smith Honored With Jimmy Carnes Award

British Distance News

• Callum Hawkins Pre-Selected For GB Olympic Marathon Squad The World Champs 4th placer was the only one pre-selected. The other two men and all three women will be chosen at the 2020 London Marathon.
• GB 800m Runner Alexandra Bell Hits Out At UKA After She Is Overlooked For Lottery Funding She claims that was denied based on “personal opinions and predictions” rather than “the actual selection criteria itself.”
• BBC Video: British 100k Champion Sophie Mullins Talks About Her Struggle With Anorexia She now suffers from osteoporosis because of it.
• Scottish 800m Runner Lynsey Sharp Advocates For The Importance Of Smear Tests After Having Surgery To Remove Pre-Cancerous Cells

End-Of-Year Awards

• Eliud Kipchoge Voted BBC World Sport Star Of The Year
• The Bowerman Presentation Returns To Orlando On Thursday, December 19 It will be aired live at 7PM ET on ESPN. Men’s finalists are Mondo Duplantis, Grant Holloway and Divine Oduduru. Women’s finalists are Janeek Brown, Yanis David and Sha’Carri Richardson.
• Dina Asher-Smith’s Coach John Blackie Wins BBC Coach Of The Year Award
• Dina Asher-Smith Finishes Third In BBC Sports Personality Of The Year Cricket player Ben Stokes won the award.
• World Champion Racewalker Yusuke Suzuki Named Japanese Athlete Of The Year “I was in darkness for two-and-a-half years, while I was hurt from 2015-18. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do and even thought I should quit. So I would like to deeply express my appreciation to those who brought me back to this stage.”
• Joyciline Jepkosgei Voted 2019 New York Road Runners Pro Performer Of The Year Jepkosgei won the NYC Marathon in the second-fastest time in event history as well as the NYC Half.
• World Champions Niklas Kaul (Decathlon) And Malaika Mihambo (LJ) Win German Sports Personality Of The Year Awards
• Jackie Joyner-Kersee Honored With An Award From The US Olympic Endowment The award is given to an “individual or group who has made extraordinary contributions to the advancement of the Olympic and Paralympic movements.”

Des Is Going For 2020 Olympic Trials And 2020 Boston Marathon Double

LRC Thoughts On The 2020 Boston Marathon: Des Linden’s Double, East African Olympic Teams, & How To Fix World Marathon Majors Des Linden is 1 of 8 former champs returning to Boston in 2020 and we spoke to her about her trying to do the Olympic Trials/Boston double just 7 weeks apart.
*MB: Des Linden doing the Trials AND Boston!!

RRW: 8 Prior Champions, Including Des Linden, To Run 2020 Boston Marathon Besides Linden, other past Boston winners include Yuki Kawauchi, Edna Kiplagat, Geoffrey Kirui, Caroline Rotich and Lelisa Desisa.

2019 Foot Locker XC *Full Results *Race Replay *LRC FL Preview

LRC Josh Methner Dominates, Poland’s Zofia Dudek (16:45) Wins Thrilling Battle With Marlee Starliper To Claim 2019 Foot Locker Titles The girls race was a classic as four girls entered the final hill together. In the end, Zofia Dudek came from behind to win with the 5th-fastest time in history.

DyeStat Profile On Graydon Morris Who Became Just The Second Male Athlete To Qualify For Foot Locker Four Times Jorge Torres (from 1995 to 1998) is the only other male runner to do that.

Foot Locker MB Discussion

• Official 2019 Foot Locker Nationals XC Thread
• Methner wins footlocker and proving all the LR haters wrong
• A Pole just won Foot Locker. A Pole just won Foot Locker. List of runners who were born outside of the US who have won Foot Locker
• 2019 girls Foot Locker predictions and discussion!
• 2019 boys Foot Locker predictions and discussion!
• If you were in charge of Footlocker Nationals, how would you compete with NXN?

Russian Doping News

• Chair Of The British Athletes Commission Quits WADA Over Refusal To Ban Russia From All Sport Victoria Aggar: “I simply can no longer be a part of an organisation that places politics over principle.”
• Former WADA President Dick Pound: Taking Off The Gloves – Russia Called To Account” “The velvet glove treatment did not produce the hoped-for conduct change within Russia’s sport-doping culture.”
• AP: WADA Committee Chairman Defends Partial Russian Ban Jonathan Taylor: “We have to be careful as well, because those who say it should be blanket ban … it’ll be thrown out in court. We have to focus on what happened in 2018 and ’19. That was the cover-up of the cover-up of the original doping.”
• USOPC Chair Concerned About How Russians Prove They’re Clean
• WADA Director General Olivier Niggli Admits There Is A “Great Polarization Of Athlete Views” On Russia
• Reuters: Russian Track Athletes Could Still Be At Tokyo 2020 As Neutrals

Zatopek 10,000m *Results

Stewart McSweyn Runs 27:23.80 To Break Australian 10,000m Record At Zatopek 10,000m Former NCAA XC champ Patrick Tiernan was runner-up with 27:31.20. Genevieve Gregson (formerly LaCaze) won the women’s race in 32:47.83.
*World Athletics Recap

Doping News: WADA Drops The Ban Hammer On Russia

Russia Gets Four Year Ban – Will Miss 2020 Olympics And 2022 World Cup The ban has been handed down by WADA and RUSADA still has 21 days to appeal. And as it was previously, Russian athletes who can prove they are clean can compete as neutral athletes.

• The Telegraph: Russia Escapes Complete Sporting Exile Despite WADA’s 4-Year Ban With exceptions for neutral athletes and certain events that don’t fall under WADA’s jurisdiction, many, including Travis Tygart and WADA vice president Linda Hellelan are saying that this 4-year ban is too lenient.
  *The Telegraph: Doubts Raised Over Credibility Of WADA’s Sanctions Russia will still be able to compete in the European soccer championships and while they can’t play in the World Cup, they can play in their home qualifiers as Russia and in Russia.
• Travis Tygart Says Witnesses In Alberto Salazar Case Had “Death Threats Not To Testify” Tygart talks about possibly going after a longer ban for Salazar, calls Paula Radcliffe‘s comments “nonsensical” and touches on Russia and Lance Armstrong.
• WADA Vice President Linda Helleland: “I’m not happy with the decision we made today. But this is as far as we could go.”
• NY Times: Russia Banned From Olympics and Global Sports for 4 Years Over Doping
• Russian Fencing Federation President Tells Craig Reedie Not To Turn Fight Against Doping Into A “Lynching”
• NY Times Article Last Week: “Russian Doping Blurs Innocence And Guilt, With Olympics Caught In Middle”