December 22, 2019 Homepage Archive

Where Your Dreams Become Reality

Archived Homepage For December 22, 2019

Quote Of The Day

“Ten years is a long time in the life of any product. Diamond league was 10 years old this year. We looked at it and we thought, actually, it’s a good product, but it can be better. … So in simple terms, they reduce the broadcast window to make sure that we have a faster, pacier event particularly for young people watching. Because these young people see the world in a very different way. We need to make sure that our fans of tomorrow are engaging with the sport. Every event will be judged at the end of the year for its popularity, for the amount of broadcast time, for the amount of interest for the social media. These are all the things that we will take into consideration. But it is really important that we changed. … The second we started to talk about change and making it a faster pacier format, then we get a sponsor. And there’s no coincidence in that.”

– Seb Coe talking about the changes they have made to next year’s Diamond League, which included shortening the broadcast window and cutting some events.

Big Recruiting News

MB:KATELYN TUOHY TO NC STATE Tuohy made the announcement today via Instagram.
*MB Thread Earlier This Month: Tuohy should go to NC State!!!

MB: NICO YOUNG COMMITS TO NAU!!!

Admin Stuff

Russia To Appeal Against Its Four Year Doping Ban President Vladimir Putin claimed WADA’s ban “is not only unjust, but it also goes against common sense.”
USATF Foundation Awards Grants To 50 Elite Athletes The athletes receive $1,500 each.
Seb Coe Confident Of A Brighter Future For UK Athletics After “Horrible” Hyde Peters Episode
Budapest Government Starting To Make Preparations To Host 2023 Worlds
Bregen, Norway To Host The 2021 European Under-23 Championships

Non-Distance News

GB Sprinter Adam Gemili Knows He’s At An Age Where He Needs To Be Bringing Home Medals “I am 26 years old, I am not an 18-year-old … The years are going by faster and faster and before you know it I am going to be retiring, and you look back at your career and think maybe I could have done this or that different.”
400 Hurdles WR Holder Kevin Young Injured In Bus Crash A double decker bus crashed into a railway bridge, injuring multiple people. Young suffered broken ribs and head trauma.
*Young Tried To Pull Widescreen TV Off A Fellow Injured Passenger After Bus Crash
Olympic Shot Put Champ Ryan Crouser New Volunteer Assistant At Arkansas
RIP:Germany’s 1964 Olympic 80m Hurdles Champion Karin Balzer Dies At Age 81
*European Athletics Tribute
Jamaican 100m Hurdler Megan Tapper Leaves MVP Track Club She’s now being coached by Austrian Phillip Unfried with her husband overseeing her workouts.

More Recent Distance Results

84-Year-Old Canadian Becomes The Oldest To Run Antarctic Marathon It took him 11 hours and 41 minutes to finish it. The winning time was 3:34:12.
GB’s Charlotte Purdue (68:45) Wins Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon Rachel Cliff broke her own Canadian NR with 70:06 in 6th place.
Matthew Kiprotich (2:10:47) And Hisae Yoshimatsu (2:39:22) Win Hofu Yomiuri Marathon Wan Chun Wong ran the Hong Kong NR with 2:20:58.
Kenyans Kenneth Mburu Mungara (2:14:54) And Antonina Kwambai (2:31:27) Win Taipei Marathon

Distance News

Eliud Kipchoge Will Return To Defend His Title At The 2020 London Marathon Kipchoge will be aiming to win London for a record-breaking fifth time.
Eliud Kipchoge Talks About Nike Shoes, Mo Farah Ditching The Marathon And How Far He’s Going To Run On Christmas On Farah, Kipchoge says he thinks he’ll come back to the marathon and run 2:03.
Toni Reavis Writes About How 2019 Was A “Sub-2:10 Bonanza” 2019 didn’t just break the record for sub-2:10s; it destroyed it. There were 150 sub-2:10s in 2016, 186 in 2017, 164 in 2018 and a ridiculous 293 in 2019. What could have changed?
David Rudisha Admits He Needs To Lose Some Weight As He Looks Ahead To Tokyo 2020 “I am working on shedding off some weight then see how my body reacts to the training.”
Kenya’s Former Tokyo Marathon Champ Sarah Chepchirchir Banned For Doping She was provisionally suspended in February and now has an official 4-year ban for EPO. Kenyan runners Mercy Jerotich Kibarus and James Kibet have also been provisionally suspended by the AIU.

Club Nats *Results

Women: Aisling Cuffe (20:07 for 6k) And Hoka Aggies Win Titles 3-time NXN champ Katelyn Tuohy was 2nd and Mary Cainwas 33rd, exactly one minute back of Tuohy.
Men:Triathlete Morgan Pearson Spanks Field At Club Nats, So Does Tinman Elite
*MB: USATF Club Cross Country Championships at Lehigh thread
RW:USATF Club XC Champs Bring Rain, Mud And Tinmane Elite Three-Peat
MileSplit:Aisling Cuffe Outlasts Katelyn Tuohy, Mary Cain At USATF Club XC

Will World Athletics Act?

Updated NY Times Study Shows Next Vaporflys Are Even Better Than They Thought An analysis of more than 1 million results on Strava show that “in a race between two marathoners of the same ability, a runner wearing these shoes would have a significant advantage [2=3%] over a competitor not wearing them.”
*MB: NYT: Vaporfly gives “bigger advantage than we thought”

The Irish Times’ “Global Sports Star Of 2019”: Vaporfly Nike’s new shoes are the real athlete of the year for 2019.

Better Running Shoes

LRCThe 10 Most Popular Running Shoes On LetsRun.com Before we do our final call of shoe reviews in 2019, we decided to take a look at what shoes are the most popluar on LetsRun. Four shoe lines dominant, the Nike Pegasus, the Brooks Ghost, the HOKA Clifton and the Saucony Kinvara. These four might be a great place to start when looking for a new pair of shoes.

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

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”

Sprint Stuff

Noah Lyles Selected As T&F News’ Men’s US Athlete Of The Year Lyles took the award for the second year in a row, taking 22 of the 31 votes.
Dalilah Muhammad Voted T&F News Women’s US Athlete Of The Year Muhammad was chosen unanimously, picking up all 32 of the votes.
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Talks To The Telegraph About Coming Back From Childbirth To Have One Of The Best Seasons Of Her Career In 2019 Fraser-Pryce struggled after having an emergency C-section, but didn’t listen to people who said she should just “bow out now.”
Dina Asher-Smith Knows Being World Champ In 2019 Doesn’t Mean Anything For 2020 “It’s a new year, while you might be world champion this year, next you might be ranked fourth, you might not even make the final.”
Dina Asher Smith: “This Is What It Takes To Be A Gold Medal Sprinter” “Leading into a major championship, I go into my own world for the four weeks beforehand.”
Multis: The Guardian Profiles GB’s World Heptathlon Champ Katarina Johnson-Thompson Who Looks Back At Her Turbulent Career Doha 2019 marked Johnson-Thompson overcoming years of injuries and poor championship performances.

Week That Was

LRC WTW: Rest In Peace Peter Snell, Zofia Dudek Vs. Katelyn Tuohy, Mary Cain Vs. Her Younger Self Peter Snell‘s great life has come to an end, Foot Lockers are in the books and we debate who wins – Zofia Dudek or Katelyn Tuohy? Plus Mary Cain is back, and of course Vaporfly talk.

Podcast:RIP Peter Snell, Foot Lockers, Alberto Salazar, The 2010-2019 Decade

Tokyo 2020 News

AP:Tokyo Being Billed As The “Recovery Olympics” – But Not For All The torch relay is starting in Fukushima, the place devastated almost 9 years ago by an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor meltdown. But according to this article, many still haven’t recovered from the disaster.
IOC And World Athletics Officials In Sapporo To See Potential Olympic Marathon Course
Japan Times: News Outlets Miss Pivotal Factor In Decision To Shift 2020 Olympic Events To Sapporo
A Crisis for Tokyo Olympics Over IOC Promise that Marathon Swimming Will Be Held In Tokyo Bay There are concerns over water quality and temperature.
Japanese Governing Bodies Fail To Meet Female Members Target In Time For Tokyo 2020 Their target was 40%, but they only had 16.1% females.

College News

LRC In Case You Haven’t Noticed, Texas A&M’s 2020 Recruiting Class Is Officially Insane Texas A&M has signed the Japanese national champ in Allon Tatsunami Clay (1:46.59 PR) and American Brandon Miller (800s age-group WRs at age 13 and 14) but the headliner has to be Athing Mu – the American record holder indoors at 600m.

More Weekend Results

Kenya’s Leonard Barsoton And Ethiopia’s Guteni Shone Break Course Records At The Kolkata 25K Barsoton broke Kenenisa Bekele‘s record by 43 seconds and says he thinks now he can 2:03 even if it is a “crazy time.” Other notables in the men’s race were Tariku Bekele in 10th and former two-time world marathon champ Abel Kirui in 11th.
Ethiopia’s 2013 World Bronze Medalist Tadese Tola (2:10:13) And Belaynesh Yami (2:27:52) Win Shenzhen Marathon In China
Kenya’s Martin Cheruiyot (2:10:08) And Ethiopia’s Selamawit Getnet Tsegaw (2:27:56) Break CRs At The Zurich Maratón de Málaga
JRN: Mutsmikita Girls And Ichikai Boys Win First National Junior High School Ekiden Titles

An All-Time Great Has Died

RIP:Running Legend, Three-Time Olympic Champion And Former World Record Holder Peter Snell Has Died At 80 Years Old Snell is the only man to win the 800m and 1,500m at the same Olympics in the last 99 years. In total, he had three Olympic golds and set world records at at 800 (1:44.3 on a grass track), 1k (2:16.6) and mile (3:54.1).
*MB: Peter Snell Has Died