Week That Was

LRC WTW: USA Indoors By The Numbers, Cheptegei Is Sublime, Kamworor’s Mysterious Loss, Praise For Nia Akins And Shoes Jam-packed action on the roads, the turf, and the indoor oval.

March / April Road Race News

• Chicago Marathon Champ Lawrence Cherono Will Replace Mo Farah At The London Half-Marathon On March 1st Farah pulled out with injury, so now Cherono will be the one to go up against Kenenisa Bekele.
• Nagoya Women’s Marathon In Japan Limited To Elite Runners Because Of Coronavirus Fears Like Tokyo, next month’s Nagoya Marathon has cancelled the mass participation race.
• Boston Mayor Marty Walsh Says Coronavirus Should Not Affect The Boston Marathon There has been one case of coronavirus in Boston and Walsh says, “I think we have to be very careful in overreacting to a situation that isn’t there.”
• After Setting 5k WR, Joshua Cheptegei Turns His Attention To His Half Marathon Debut At The World Half-Marathon Championships Next Month In Poland

The Jemma Reekie Show

• GB’s Jemma Reekie Gets Her Biggest Scalp Yet As She Beats 800m World Champ Halimah Nakaayi In France Reekie ran 2:00.34 to beat Nakaayi (2:01.96) by over a second and a half.
• Laura Muir: “The faster Jemma’s got, the closer we’ve got.” Despite the fact that Reekie has been beating Muir and breaking her records, Muir says “sorry to disappoint you, but it’s not a big rivalry.”
• Jemma Reekie Dismisses Link Between Her Nike Spikes And Recent Record-Breaking Form “It doesn’t happen overnight and there’s a lot of hard work. … I will just let my legs do the talking.”
• Laura Muir Happy With Her Form Despite Being Outshone By Her Training Partner Jemma Reekie Muir missed a lot of training this winter when she tore her calf and hurt her Achilles.
• The Telegraph: “Jemma Reekie’s Coach Andy Young says 2020 Olympics Is En ‘Exciting Opportunity’ As Her Rapid Rise Continues”
• Jemma Reekie’s Coach Andy Young Thinks Her “Special Kick” Could Take Her To Olympic Glory Reekie has set three British records this month and closed her last lap in 30.1 seconds during her 4:04 win in Glasgow.

More Weekend News Of Note

• NAU Soars 9 Spots To Move To #1 In The Latest Men’s NCAA Rankings LSU, Florida, Texas and Oregon are ranked 2-5.
• LSU Jumps Five Spots To Take Over As The New #1 In Women’s Updated NCAA Rankings
• USTFCCCA NCAA Weekend In Review Olivia Gruver finished 3rd in the PV at USAs with 4.70m, the second best in collegiate history.
• US HSer Cruz  Culpepper Just Misses Sub-4 With A 4:00.10 Mile At The Husky Classic Culpepper placed 6th in the race won by Oregon’s James West in 3:57.43.
  *MB: WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT CULPEPPER’S 4:00.1???
• Marlee Starliper Runs US High School #3 All-Time 3,000m With 9:07.14 At BU Valentine Only Katelyn Tuohy and Mary Cain have run faster on a standard 200m track.
• WA Road Round-Up: Kenya’s Victor Chumo (59:58) And Ethiopia’s Ashete Bekere (66:37) Win Barcelona Half Marathon Kenyans Benson Kipruto (62:13) and Lucy Cheruiyot (70:52) won at the Guadalajara Half.
• Grant Holloway And Keni Harrison Both Skip USAs To Run World Leading 60H At Clemson Holloway ran  (just 0.03 off his PR) and Harrison won with 7.80.
• Japanese Olympic Trials Winner Honami Maeda Breaks National 30k Record With 1:38:35 At The Ome 30k The record belonged to 2004 Olympic champion Mizuki Noguchi. Masaya Taguchi won the women’s race in 1:30:45.

More International Weekend Results

• Caster Semenya Runs Her First Race In 8 Months; Breaks National 300m Record With 36.78 At Low Key South African Meet Semenya is barred from racing distances from 400m to the mile, but 300m obviously falls outside that range. Afterwards she said, “Track and field, you will still see my face. That is all I can say for now.”
  *AP Article Semenya previously made it sound like she was going to play soccer and done with track completely.
• Julia Ratcliffe Breaks NZ Hammer Record With 71.39m At The Porritt Classic In NZ Nick Willis won the 1,500m comfortably in 3:46.71 and Valerie Adams continued her comeback with a season’s best 18.81m in the SP.
• Germany’s World LJ Champ Malaika Mihambo Sets World Lead With 7.07m At The ISTAF Berlin Indoor Meet Three-time European bronze medalist Shanice Craft won the discus with a world indoor best of 64.03m. *Full Results
• Nafissatou Thiam Opens Her Season With 60H At Belgian Indoor Champs Thiam finished 4th in 8.34 (the second fastest time of her career). Eline Berings won the race in 8.10.
• British PV Record Holder Holly Bradshaw Wins BUCS Indoor Championships With 4.65m
• Mesud Pezer, Of Bosnia & Herzegovina, Wins Shot Put At Balkan Indoor Champs (20.75m) And Istanbul Athletics Cup (20.90m) Both meets were this weekend in Istanbul.

Day 1 At USAs

LRC Day 1 Recap: Shelby Houlihan, Paul Chelimo Earn Dominant 3K Wins Thanks To Big Last Laps The best distance runners in the US the last three years, Shelby Houlihan and Paul Chelimo were on display. Houlihan led the BTC women to 1-2-3 finish (and 5 of the top 6), and Chelimo led the Scott Simmons group to a 1-2-3 finish as well. Christian Coleman (6.48) looks like he can break the WR in the 60 and the TJ record fell twice (Keturah Orji (14.60m), Tori Franklin (14.64m)).

LRC 800 Prelims: Ajee’ Wilson And Bryce Hoppel Cruise As Athing Mu Struggles; Raevyn Rogers Is A DNS The biggest surprise may have been Kaela Edwards as the former NCAA mile champ showed the form she flashed in 2018 when she broke 2:00.

Not Every US Distance Star Ran USAs
MB: Jenny Simpson runs 14:58 5k She wanted to bang out an Olympic qualifier in the 5000 in case disaster strikes in the 1500.
MB: Bowerman Track Club men and Jerry Schumacher- Skip USAs to run on illegal track in Washington Lopez Lomong (7:45), Evan Jager (7:46), Sean McGorty (7:46).
MB: LRC Day 1 Thread

UKA Athletics Gets Some Bad Press

• UK Sport Commissions An Independent Review Into UK Athletics Over “Major Concerns” Raised In Recent Months There was the fallout from the Alberto Salazar/NOP scandal which saw performance director Neil Black resign and then the backlash UKA received for almost hiring Zara Hyde-Peters as CEO despite allegations about her husband. *2nd Article
• Setback For UKA Athletics As BBC Balks At Renewing $4 Million TV Rights Deal Insiders think the BBC is only willing to pay a fraction of what it currently pays for the rights to broadcast elite track in the UK (the current deal was set in 2013) because of the declining popularity of the sport and recent UKA controversies.
• Joanna Adams Appointed New UKA Athletics Chief Executive As Chris Clark Stands Down As Chairman Clark will become an adviser while interim CEO Nic Coward will take over as chair.
  *The Telegraph: More Upheaval For UKA As Chairman Chris Clark Quits
• Sean Ingle: Top Coach Says “Dreadful Neglect” Of British Athletics Has Squandered 2012 Legacy Former head coach and UKA’s first performance director Malcolm Arnold says this is “the most worried” he’s ever been about the state of the sport and that UKA has failed in supporting UK athletes and coaches.

Learn About One Of America’s Iconic Clubs (Sponsored By HOKA ONE ONE)

LRC Head Coach Joe Rubio Explains The HOKA ONE ONE Aggies To The World The Aggies are known for having a good time and running fast. Joe Rubio (founder of Running Warehouse and a 2 time OT qualifier himself) gives some insight about the Aggies, how they good hooked up with HOKA, and their athletes running the Olympic Trials.

HOKA ONE ONE Takes On The Marathon Trials (Sponsored)

LRC HOKA ONE ONE Trials Athlete Of The Day: Cancer Rearcher Liza Reichert HOKA ONE ONE Trials Athlete Of The Day #6 Who says you can’t be an Olympic Marathon Trails qualifier and have a very important job? Meet Liza Reichert.

#5 Hoka Trials Runner Of The Day: Texan And US Mountain Team Member David Fuentes Not only does he work a full-time job, he also has a cool side hustle.