January 03, 2020 Homepage Archive

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Archived Homepage For January 03, 2020

Quote Of The Day

“Well, these days there are the shoes, the Vaporfly, so I don’t feel especially psyched about it.”

– Rei Yonemitsu of Japan on being asked how he felt after running the 2nd-fastest time ever on the opening stage of the famous Hakone Ekiden.

MB: Holy **** – The Vaporflys just broke the Hakone Ekiden. 4 teams break CRs, 1 guys run 58:35 half marathon pace for 21.4 km

LetsRun.com Podcast *Subscribe Here

LRC2020 Tokyo Predictions Podcast + Best Of LetsRun.com 2019 Who is more likely to get gold? Kenenisa Bekele or Evan Jager, Shelby Houlihan or Matthew Centrowitz, Ajee’ Wilson or Donavan Brazier? What about Bryce Hoppel or Clayton Murphy, Mo Farah or Muktar Edris? Who gets more medals? Jerry Schumacher‘s Bowerman Track Club or Pete Julian‘s unnamed group? Plus of course Alberto Salazar and Mary Cain talk.

Non-Distance News

Christian Taylor Shares The How And Why Behind Starting The Athletics Association To Fight Against Some Major Changes Being Made By World Athletics Taylor says a big boost to their cause was the 200m being removed because that made it so no sprinter feels safe.
IAAF Profile On 19-Year-Old Brazil 400 Hurdler Alison dos Santos, Who Had A Huge Breakthrough In 2019 Dos Santos had a big breakthrough in 2019, dropping his PR 1.5 seconds to 48.28 and finishing 7th at Worlds.
RIP Scottish Olympic Shot Putter Mike Lindsay, 81 Lindsay was 5th in the shot put at the 1960 Rome Olympics and won silver medals in both the shot and discus at the 1962 Commonwealth Games.

End- Of-Year Racing

LRC Steve Spence’s Legendary Sub-5:00 Mile Streak Comes To An End After 43 Years There had been one constant in the world since 1976 Steve Spence broke 5:00 every year in the mile. A last-ditch attempt on December 30th came up short and Spence’s streak is history.
*MB: Steve Spence’s 5:00 mile streak ends at 43 years
*MB: Employee 1.1’s 17-year sub-5 streak is on the line. Can he break 5 today at age 32 with almost zero training?

Belgium’s Bashir Abdi (27:47) And Ethiopia’s Helen Bekele Tola (30:50) Win San Silvestre Vallecana 10k In Madrid Tola beat world marathon champion Ruth Chepngetich by 7 seconds.
Italy’s Eyob Faniel (28:21) And Kenya’s World 5,000 Silver Medalist Margaret Chelimo Kipkemboi (15:30) Victorious At The Boclassic Silvesterlauf Faniel got an upset win over world 5,000m leader Telahun Haile Bekele by 7 seconds, becoming the first Italian to win since 1988. Kipkemboi beat world half champ Netsanet Gudeta and tied the CR.
Early Celebration Costs Ugandan Teenager Jacob Kiplimo The Win As He Gets Nipped By Kibiwott Kandie At The San Silvestre De Sao Paulo 15k Kandie ran 42:59 to Kiplimo’s 43:00. Marathon WR holder Brigid Kosgei won the women’s race comfortably in 48:54.
*World Athletics Recap

Olympic News

Tokyo 2020 Celebrate Start Of Olympic Year They sent out a tweet that said “This is our year” and had a video with their two mascots flying through space.
Tokyo 2020 Olympic Stadium Hosting Its First Sporting Event Today; The Final Game For A National Soccer Tournament
InsideTheGames’ David Owen: Welcome To The Decade Of Sponsorship – And Global Warming

Another Low Key Racing Weekend

Random Links That Passed Our Vetting Process

Track And Field News Celebrates Publishing Its 900th Edition Robby Andrews was on the cover for #800, but dopers were on the cover for #500 (Randy Barnes), #600 (Dennis Mitchell), and #700 (Regina Jacobs).
Eliud Kipchoge Shares Whether He Prefers Tea Or Coffee, Cats Or Dogs, His Favorite Meal, Favorite Footballer And That The One Person Dead Or Alive He’d Most Like To Have A Meal With Is Barack Obama
USATF’s Year-In-Review They give a lot of pub to athletes who did a masterful job of peaking too early – Ajee Wilson, Sha’Carri Richardson and Michael Norman.
Kyron McMaster, Who Was 4th At Worlds In 400H But Didn’t PR This Year At Age 22, Says He’s More “Disciplined” Going Into 2020 Season
Scientific Study: HS Athletes Getting Less Than 8 Hours Of Sleep Per Night Are 70 Per Cent More Likely To Develop An Injury

GB News

Laura Muir Wants To Break The 1,000m WR This Indoor Season She’s going for it at the Glasgow Indoor GP in February. The record is 2:30.94 by Maria Mutola and Muir’s PR is 2:31.93.
UK Athletics Year-In-Review: November-December

The People Have Spoken

LRC David Rudisha’s 1:40.91 WR Gold Medal Run Is Letsrun.com’s Race Of The Decade December Madness – our 64-race tournament to determine the Race of the Decade – is over and the London 2012 Olympic men’s 800m final has emerged as the dominant winner, destroying Eliud Kipchoge‘s Berlin WR, taking 78.1% of the votes. When one front-runs a world record on the biggest stage imaginable, pulling everyone behind them save one person to a PR, they deserve all the accolades they get.

The Year Is Almost Over

Athletics Weekly’s 10 Craziest T&F-Related Moments Of 2019 From Mo Farah vs. Haile G in a verbal spat to Marquise Goodwin winning $1 million in a sprint, they’ve got you’ve covered.
RW: 10 Gifs That Perfectly Sum Up This Year’s Biggest Moments In Running
European Athletics’ A To Z Of The Decade (Part 2)

Youngsters In The News

Record Breaker Max Burgin (1:45:36 At Age 17), Talks About His Year And How He’s Getting Ready For Some Road 5ks It started off perfectly but then he got injured. In the long-term that might be a blessing in disguise but it was hard to deal with. “From my point of view, from June onwards, it was very frustrating.”
World U18 200 WR Holder Amy Hunt Recalls Her Magical 2019 In one race, she went from never having broken 23 seconds to running 22.42 to break Candace Hill‘s 22.43 WR. Now she’s appearing in Vogue as a result. Let’s hope in 4 years time, she’s not unable to break 23 like Hill.
Marco Arop, The Two-Time NCAA Runner-Up For Miss St. And WC Finalist, Goes Pro He was NCAA runner-up 2018 outdoors and 2019 indoors but didn’t even make it out of NCAA Regionals outdoors as he was injured but rebounded and got 7th at Worlds.
Matthew Boling’s US 4 X 100 Teammate, Arian Smith (10.31 100), Is Also Going To Georgia (But To Play Football) Want to see what world class track speed looks like on a football field? Watch this clip.
RRMeet Max Lewis – Middle School XC Runner And Bone Marrow Transplant Survivor This is an inspiring read. Also if you are a middle school or HS XC coach, this has some great inspirational ideas as Max’s coach seems amazing. It also reminds us all to join the Be The Match Registry right now.

Injured?

Might Low-Intensity Ultrasound In Your Home Coming From A Handheld, Battery-Powered Device Be The Key To Solving Your Achilles Or Knee Problems? You can wear the device for hours. More info at samrecover.com.

Administrative News

USATF Announces TV Schedule For 2020 Indoor Season
It Looks Like Spartan Race And Tough Mudder Are Merging In 2020
Doha 800 Semi-Finalist Alexandra Bell Is Considering Legal Action Against UK Athletics After Being Denied Funding Despite Hitting Selection Criteria She thinks Barry Fudge has a personal vendetta against her as she says he told her she doesn’t have the “medal mentality.” “He doesn’t know me from Adam. I just don’t understand how I can be judged on his opinion.”
British Journalist Clearly Isn’t Happy About Brexit And What’s Happened To Britain Since 2012 Olympics: Even As the Olympics Lit Up The Nation, We Were Already On The Path To Disaster “We were on our way to becoming bitterly divided, politically banjaxed and an international laughing stock. A basket case of a country, hopelessly broken in two by dint of having asked itself a profound question, and returning an answer that has broken all before it.”
*MB: Jonathan Gault, this is for for you. Do you consider your native Britain to be an “international laughing stock?”

Tokyo 2020 Marathon Course Finalized

Tokyo 2020 Unveils Full Olympic Marathon Course In Sapporo The route features a large loop which is about the length of a half marathon, followed by a second smaller loop which will be completed twice.
Japan Running News: Second Half Of Sapporo Olympic Marathon Course To Be Two Laps Of 10k Loop
*Course Map *World Athletics Article
Reuters:Tokyo 2020, IOC Still To Decide Who Pays For Marathon Move

Kenyan Distance News

Kenya’s Tokyo Olympic Marathon Team Will Be Named This Month They are choosing the team early to give athletes plenty of time to focus their training and racing plans.
With Just 169 Days Until The Kenyan Olympic Trials, There Is Concern That The Kip Keino Stadium Won’t Be Ready In Time Apparently the track is in good shape, but the rest is incomplete or in need of maintenance.
World Bronze Medalist Rhonex Kipruto Dreaming Of Ending Kenya’s Olympic 10,000 Gold Drought At Tokyo 2020 Only one Kenyan has won Olympic 10,000m gold and it was back at the 1968 Mexico City Games.
Now Recovered From “Monster Injury” In 2019, Elijah Manangoi Is Ready To Go For 1500m Gold At Tokyo 2020 He says he “wants to forget” the knee injury that kept him from Doha Worlds.

Anti-Doping News

HJ World Champ Mariya Lasitskene Not Confident Russian Track Athletes Will Be Allowed At Tokyo 2020 Even If Russia Wins Its CAS Appeal “Even if Russia wins this trial, athletics will still remain the poorest, and everyone will regret us, and again do not know what to do with us.”
Russia Finally Responds To Forgery Charges Over Danil Lysenko Case They responded yesterday after having the initial December 12th deadline extended. Remember, this is a complete separate corruption charge from the one going to CAS over Russia doctoring the Moscow lab data.
Independent Audit Says That WADA Intelligence And Investigations Unit Is Suffering From “Acute” Lack Of Resources The audit urged WADA to hire three people “as soon as possible.”
Outgoing President Craig Reedie Says WADA Is Better Positioned Than Ever To Fight Doping

Olympic News

Tokyo 2020 Opening Ceremony Will Apparently Have Flying Cars And Mario At Rio 2016, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe dressed up as Mario in the handover segment of the Closing Ceremony.
The Guardian Picks Twenty Athletes “Set To Light Up The Tokyo 2020 Olympics” Track athletes mentioned include Christian Coleman, Dina Asher Smith, Shaunae Miller-Uibo, Russian HJer Mariya Lasitskene and New Zealand PVer Eliza McCartney.
Thomas Bach Warns Athletes Against Political Protests At Tokyo 2020 Bach reiterated his opposition to the “growing politicization of sport” and claimed it “leads to no result and in the end just deepens existing divisions.”
European Athletics Unveils A New Logo For 2020 Celebrating Its 50th Anniversary

Kenyan Distance News

World 1,500m Champ Timothy Cheruiyot Dreaming Of Breaking Hicham El Guerrouj’s 1,500m World Record “Yes, I know the record has been there for long. In order to achieve that (lower) then we have to focus on our training and for sure the record will fall one day.” El G’s record is 3:26.00 and Cheruiyot has run 3:28.41.
Eunice Sum Worried About Kenya’s Chances In The 800m At Tokyo 2020 “I have represented Kenya for the last eight years but I have not seen serious competitors in our category, unlike in the men’s where we have new runners season after season.”

Previous End-Of-Decade News

RRW:What They Said – The Year In Quotes RRW gives their favorite quotes from 2019.
MileSplit Shares Their Top 10 Best XC And Track Moments From 2019 We’ll save you having to click ten times and tell you Katelyn Tuohy‘s NXN win got #4 and #1 was Matthew Boling‘s crazy senior track season.
Conseslus Kipruto’s One-Shoe Victory In 2018 The Diamond League Steeplechase Final In Zurich Voted Best Long Distance DL Moment Ever The Diamond League is exactly a decade old and they’re celebrating by having a fan vote for to pick the best moment in each event category. Kipruto lost his shoe with six laps to go, but managed to still just beat out Soufiane El Bakkali for the win.
The Telegraph: “Sports People Of The Decade (Track): Usain Bolt And Caster Semenya – The Phenomenon And The Excluded Champion They call Bolt “the man who grew bigger than the sport.”
IndyStar Chooses HJer Derek Drouin As Indiana’s Olympic Athlete Of The Decade Drouin won world gold in 2015 and then Olympic gold in 2016. 400H Olympic bronze medalist Ashley Spencer was 7th on their list of 10.
Darrell Hill’s Shot Put Victory At The 2017 Diamond League Final In Brussels Voted Best Diamond League Throws Moment Ever Hill got an upset victory over favorites Olympic champ Ryan Crouser and world champ Tom Walsh.
Track And Field Gets Highlighted Multiple Times In The Guardian’s Sports Photos Of The Decade Remember that Mo Farah photo that gave us all those great memes in 2012?
Athletics Weekly’s British Athletics Annual Health Check Using stats they evaluate which events are struggling and which are thriving for UK athletes. They say that the 100/200 and marathon are all doing well, but the steeplechase and the men’s 400 are weak.

Doping Stuff

Molly Huddle Advocates For The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act Which Would Criminalize Doping The bill passed last month in the House of Representatives and now needs to pass in the Senate.
HJ World Champ Maria Lasitskene, Former 110H World Champ Sergey Shubenkov And Others Hit Out At Russian Federation In Open Letter
Outgoing President Craig Reedie Says WADA Will Defend Russian Doping Decision With “Utmost Vigor” At CAS Reedie’s 6-year stint as WADA president will end January 1st when Poland’s Witold Bańka takes over.
MB:US Heptathlete Alexandria Gochenour Gets 4-Year Doping Ban She was second at 2018 US Champs.
*InsideTheGames Article She claims she is innocent and said, “My sample contained .01ng/mL of the substance. To put that into perspective, I believe that’s equal to about a grain of salt in an Olympic sized pool.”

More End Of The Year Stuff

Dalilah Muhammad And Karsten Warholm Appear As Guests On World Athletics End Of Year Video Special
Athletics Weekly’s Top 3 World Rankings For 2019 – Men Selemon Barega didn’t win a 5,000 all year but he gets the #1 ranking.
Athletics Weekly’s Top 3 World Rankings For 2019 – Women Ajee Wilson gets the #1 nod in the 800 despite bronze at Worlds.
AW’s Top 3 British Women’s Rankings
AW’s Top 3 British Men’s Rankings
Canadian Running’s Most Memorable Running Moments Of The Decade From the Boston marathon bombing to Salazar being banned, they have you covered. Only one moment involves in a Canadian.
Three-Time Olympic Heptathlon Bronze Medalist Kelly Sotherton And Former British 1,500m Record Holder Frank Clement Recognized In New Year Honors List Sotherton is made an MBE and Clement got a BEM. *2nd Article
Diane Clement, A Founder Of Both Vancouver Sun Run And Richmond Kajaks Track Club, Named As 2019 Member Of The Order Of Canada

Tokyo 2020

Irish Times: Spirit Of Tokyo 1964 Sidetracked As Olympic Men’s Marathon Moves To Sapporo This Irish Times writer isn’t happy that the marathoners will be racing so far away from Tokyo.
Japan Airlines To Offer 50,000 Free Flights To Foreign Nationals During Tokyo 2020 The tickets are designed to entice those who travel to Japan for the Games to visit other areas of the nation. They will be able to fly free from Tokyo to other local destinations.
Reuters: Tokyo 2020 CEO Pledges To Keep Games Costs Under Budget They are reiterating that the budget will stay under $12 billion, but there is concern that moving the marathon and race walks to Sapporo will increase that.

Distance News

Under Armour Starting A Pro Team In Flagstaff Running agent Stephen Haas, who also coaches Edward Cheserek, is behind the team’s formation. Former UC Berkeley coach Shayla Houlihan (sister of Shelby) will also coach. 2018 NCAA 10,000m champ Sharon Lokedi, RachelSchneider, & Pat Casey are among the group’s starting members.
Good Read: Suggestion From A Coach Helped Turned George Young Into A 4-Time Olympian When Young was a senior he hadn’t even heard of the steeplechase since it wasn’t a collegiate event. He was preparing to enter the Army and be done with track, but his coach suggested he gave the steeple a try.
MB:Katelyn Tuohy Does Goofy Video Interview “Running With The Toad”

Olympic News

Tokyo 2020 Still Short 14,000 Hotel Rooms Required While Hosting The Games Estimates say visitors will increase by 7.9% from 2019.
Sapporo Preparing To Bid To Host The 2030 Winter Olympics The city, which will host the 2020 Olympic marathons and race walks, also hosted the Winter Games back in 1972.
The Vatican Plans To Create Its Own National Olympic Committee And March At The Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony The Vatican’s minister of sport said, “People are very attracted to the spectacle of sport. It means that sport touches something deep in the individual. But we must help this industry to adopt a code of ethical regulation, by always putting people at the center of the sport. Sport must be a means, not an end.”

Previous End Of Year / Decade News

Joe Kovacs’ 75′ Shot Put Is Easily TFN’s Men’s Performance Of The Year Kipchoge was nowhere to be seen as his sub-2 was 17th and his London win was 27th. Kenenisa Bekele‘s 2:01:41 was #3.
Dalilah Muhammad’s 52.16 WR Is TFN’s #1 Women’s Performance Of The Year Brigid Kosgei‘s 2:14:04 was only #4 as 5 voters didn’t even put it on their ballots at all as it was aided by super shoes. Hassan’s 3:51 WC win was #4.
1 Eurosport Journalist Says Kipchoge’s Sub-2 With “Insane Trampoline Shoes And Elite Cycling Tactics” Is His Sporting Moment Of 2019 We’re not sure if that’s a compliment as another guy said a snooker pro taking 6 minutes to take a single shot was his #1 moment.
Stat Attack – A Look AT The NN Running Team’s Amazing 2019 They 3 fastest marathoners of the year are all Team NN as are the road 5k and 10k WR holders.
Conseslus Kipruto’s Win With 1 Shoe At 2018 Zurich DL Final Is Named Diamond League Distance Moment Of The Decade Sadly, the steeple will no longer be in the DL Final.

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!!!
NAIA Champ Stacey-Ann Williams Transfers To Texas She won five NAIA national championships (2019 outdoor 400m, 4 x 100m, 4 x 400m; 2019 Indoor 400m, 4 x 400m). She has a 52.60 400m PR.

Looking Back At The Year And Decade

Karsten Warholm Is T&F News’s World Men’s Athlete Of The Year Warholm easily won the vote for #1, but Americans cleaned up the top-10 rankings with Noah Lyles 2nd, Sam Kendricks 6th, Donavan Brazier 7th, Christian Coleman 8th, Rai Benjamin 9th and Christian Taylor 10th.
Dalilah Muhammad Chosen As T&F News’s World Women’s Athlete Of The Year Muhammad dominated the vote with Sifan Hassan coming in ranked 2nd. Hammer world champ DeAnna Price was the only other American to make their top-10 world rankings.
Bring Back The Mile’s Best Moments Of 2019
European Athletics Gives Their A To Z Of The Decade (Part 1) “F is for Family” highlights the Ingebrigstens and H is for (Sifan) Hassan.
10 Memorable French Victories In European Championships History

The Decade Has Ended

LRC LetsRun.com’s Decade Awards: Alberto Salazar Is Our Person Of The Decade + Best Runner, Best Upset, Doping Excuse Of The Decade, & More! In a decade marked by controversy, it’s fitting that Alberto Salazar is our Person of the Decade as controversy clung to Salazar like a paper clip to a magnet. Plus who wins our world and US athlete of the decade honors?

LRCUS And World Runners Of The Decade: Jenny Simpson, Matthew Centrowitz, Caster Semenya And Eliud Kipchoge

LRC 2019 LetsRun.com World And American Rankings: Donavan Brazier And Ajee’ Wilson Are World #1s The 6th annual world and US distance rankings are here and for the first time ever two Americans are #1 in the world in their events.

Rojo Speaks: The 2010s Are History: It Was Both The Best And Worst Of Times For Track And Field Fans What a crazy decade. From Chris Solinsky‘s 26:59 at the start of the decade to Brigid Kosgei‘s 2:14:04 at the end, there were plenty of high highs but the lows were also big as well as Olympic champs at 800, 1,500, steeple and the marathon were all banned from the sport. What does it all mean? LetsRun.com co-founder Robert Johnson looks for meaning and tries to figure it all out by taking you back in a time machine to January 1, 2010.

Looking Ahead To The 2020 Indoor Season

European Athletics: Nine Europeans To Follow During The 2020 Indoor Season Their list includes Armand Duplantis, Karsten Warholm, Dafne Schippers and Mariya Lasitskene. No distance runners.
Ticket Program Announced, Mascot Unveiled For The 2020 World Indoor Championships In Nanjing, China The mascot is a squirrel named Cedar.
Chinese Sprint Star Su Bingtian Leads More Than 4,000 Runners On New Years Day Jog In China Bingtian, the Asian co-record holder in the 100m, leads the runners along with Cedar, the mascot for the 2020 World Indoor Champs in Nanjing.

More End Of Year/Decade News

Caster Semenya Tops This List Of Biggest Controversies In Women’s Sport They also mention Sifan Hassan‘s double gold being “marred by Alberto Salazar allegations.”
Video:USTFCCCA Collegiate Decade In Review Highlight Reel
Athletes Share Their New Year’s Resolutions British pole vault record holder Holly Bradshaw wants to spend less time on her phone and do more social things. A lot of the others were kind of boring and said they didn’t really have a resolution.
European Athletics:Nine European Athletes Lead The World Lists In 2019 Nine athletes, but ten events as Sifan Hassan lead both the 1,500m and 10,000m.
Leroy Burrell Named University Of Houston’s Coach Of The Decade
Athletics Weekly’s Year-In-Review

RIP Nike Vaporflys?

Could Nike’s Controversial Shoes Be Banned By World Athletics In 2020? Irish journalist Cathal Dennehy reports that a World Athletics technical committee that has been studying the shoes has drafted a rule that will limit the allowable thickness of a shoe’s midsole.
Good Read: Independent Ireland Opinion Piece:“Ban These Shoes … Just Do It.” “Over the last few years, athletes have been forced to fight for Olympic places, major medals, against rivals who are smuggling a gun to a knife fight.”
MB: Should we allow Employee 1.1 to attempt to go sub-5 in the mile for a 17th straight year on a downhill course or on a treadmill at 0% grade since he isn’t wearing the Vaporflys?

Links We Found (At Least Somewhat) Interesting

Recommended ReadBBC Takes An Inside Look At St Patrick’s High School In Iten, Kenya, Where Brother Colm O’Connell Coaches Future Champions A simple, but busy life with first lessons starting at 4:30AM and kids are occupied all day until the last class ends at 10PM.
Is Cornelius Kemboi The Next NCAA Star?
Mary Cain Appears On Citius Mag Podcast And Discusses Aftermath Of Her Alberto Salazar/NOP Allegations In NY Times And Her 2020 Plans
Seb Coe Says Track And Field Is Well On Its Way To Being One Of The Top 4 Sports In The World – It’s Already Moved Up To #5 “One of the ambitions which I set when I became president was that in the next few years, athletics should become one of the top four sports in the world. At that time, athletics was about ninth. Now we are fifth.”
*MB:True or false: Track is the world’s #5 sport
Henry Rono Is Back In Kenya And A Journalist Is Determined To Get Hin The 8 Cows, 8 Goats And Land That Rono Was Promised By Kenya’ s President 41 Years Ago
Wearing Vaporflys, Sean Tobin Sets New Irish NR At 4 Miles (17:45)

Doping News

NY Times Catches Up With Russian Whistleblowers Yuliya Stepanova And Vitaly Stepanov They have moved six times since leaving Russia, but say they feel safe living a quiet life in an undisclosed location in the US (with their income paid by the IOC). That said, they still felt anxious when a neighbor recognized who they were.
Kenya’s Former Chicago Marathon Runner-Up Sammy Kitwara Gets A 16-Month Doping Ban Kitwara’s ban is less than 2 years because it was backdated since Kitwara admitted to the violation and waived his right to a hearing.
*MB: Another Kenyan goes down
RUSADA Send Former Notice To WADA To Appeal Against Doping Ban RUSADA director general Yury Ganus actually didn’t want to appeal the ban, but was overruled by the Supervisory Board. In a personal letter to WADA, Ganus said he “regrets to inform you that all my attempts, including attempts to introduce changes to the RUSADA notice, have failed.”
Russian Anti-Doping Agency Hires Powerful Swiss Law Firm To Appeal Ban
Does Russia Have Competition?WADA Stats Reveal That Italian Athletes Had The Most Anti-Doping Rule Violations In 2017 Italy had 171 ahead of France’s 128 and the US’s 103. Russia was fifth with 82.
South African Racewalker Lebogang Shange Reportedly Fails A Drug Test Shange has been provisionally suspended after testing positive for a banned steroid.

More 2019 / Decade-In-Review News

The BBC Is Looking Back At Some Of Their Top Moments Of The Decade Starting With Super Saturday At The 2012 London Olympics On one day, Mo Farah (10,000), Greg Rutherford (LJ) and Jessica Ennis (heptathlon) all won gold in front of the home crowd.
Transgender D2 NCAA Hurdles Champ CeCé Telfer Is Outsports Female Athlete Of The Year Telfer is the poster child for the problem with transgender athletes competing in women’s sports. Telfer actually got faster after transitioning and went from not scoring at the conference meet to NCAA champion.
*LRC Archive: What No One Is Telling You: An Athlete Who Ran NCAA Track As A Man For 3 Years Just Won An NCAA Women’s Title
MileSplit’s Top 21 Most Popular Stories Of 2019
Japan Running News’s Ten Most-Read Stories Of 2019

Traveling? Or Already Tired Of The Relatives? Listen To One Of Our Podcasts

LRCEnd Of The Decade Podcast: Who Are Our Runners Of The Decade? And Person Of The Decade? We hand out our Runner of the Decade Awards both for the world and US and also our Person of the Decade. Plus we respond to Alysia Montaño‘s claims of misogyny in the race of the decade voting.

It’s Hannukah And Christmas Time

Will You Be Training On Christmas? Eliud Kipchoge And Kartsen Warholm Will Be “Christmas is on a Wednesday this year so an easy day, I’ll just go for 20km,” said Kipchoge.
RR Toni Reavis: A CHRISTMAS MEMORY “Here’s wishing that all today’s lost souls find a measure of comfort – even if just for a brief second – in this season of sharing and hope. Merry Christmas to all.”
RR Feeling Down This Holiday Season? It’s OK To Be Sad On Christmas Replace “Christmas” with “Holidays” or “Wedding Days” if you want. Heck, replace it with “random Tuesday in January.”
5 Reasons To Run Outside All Winter Did you know 10-time WR holder Swedish miler Gundar Hagg ran half his winter mileage in knee- and hip-deep snow in the 1930s and 1940s?
Elite Runners From Minnesota, North Dakota, Switzerland, And Finland Tell You How To Run In The Cold
A Look At Some Great Winter Running Cities
Eliud Kipchoge’s face painted on a wall on Nairobi’s Kenyatta avenue
UK Metro: 10 Things We Learned From Sport This Year A good read and #10 is “Athletics remains dogged by doping” thanks to Alberto Salazar.

Free Ultra Training Advice

Camille Herron’s Shares The Secrets To Being The Best 24-Hour Women’s Runner In History – Don’t Run Too Much She’s planning on making her 48=hour debut between December 28 and January 1.
How Camille Herron Fuels Ultras – Don’t Be Afriad To Eat Taco Bell “I eat pretty healthy normally but ultra running is all about what you’re craving and at 2 A.M. in the middle of an ultra, I was craving Taco Bell.”
Jonathan Albon, 3-Time Skyrunner World Series Champ, Shares His Secrets Similar to Camille Herron, he thinks you can run too much and he often does a lot of training at just 120 bpm. “I think there’s a big thing about overtraining but I’m starting to realize it’s more about over-running – running isn’t the best thing for you, some people can handle more than others. My body definitely prefers less running but it still wants the load so I’ve tried to replace that with cycling.”
More Ultra News: Scottish woman runs 50k every day for 10 straight days on a 400m track
More Free Coaching Advice British Pole Vault Star Holly Bradshaw’s Free Advice To Parents: Remember To Tell Your Kids That Learning To Lose/Deal With Adversity Is A Key Part Of All Sports

International Distance News

Filbert Bayi Recounts His Legendary 1,500m World Record Run In 1974 Running at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand, Bayi led from gun to tape to win gold for Tanzania in a WR of 3:32.2.
World Athletics Profile:After Record-Shattering Run, Olympic Glory Is Next On Brigi Kosgei’s Agenda On speaking to Paula Radcliffe after the race, Kosgei said, “She was happy, somehow she was happy. Somehow! She didn’t believe her record had gone.”
GB Marathoner Callum Hawkins Hoping To Go Into Tokyo 2020 “Calmer” Than He Was At His First Games In Rio “Olympics can be more pressure, it can be a difficult experience to get over due to the enormity of it. You are sort of in awe of it all, going in to it. I have experienced it already in Rio, so hopefully I can go in calmer and focus more on the race.”
GB’s Charlotte Arter Talks About How Setting The Parkrun World Record (15:50) Set Her On The Track To Try And Qualify For Tokyo 2020

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.