March 4, 2020 | LetsRun.com

Some Recent International Results

Brazil’s Johnatas de Oliveira And Canada’s Genevive Lalonde Win Pan Am XC Cup Hosted In Langford, Canada USA’s Anthony Rotich and Carrie Verdon were the runner-ups. USA won the overall team competition. *Athletics Illustrated Recap *Results
Australian High Jumper Eleanor Patterson Breaks 31-Year-Old National Record With 1.99m In New Zealand
World Athletics Round-Up: World Champion Anzhelika Sidorova Sets PV World Lead With 4.95m At The Pole Vault Festival In Moscow (Equal #3 On The World Indoor All-Time List)
Karsten Warholm Wins His Season Opener 400m With A European Leading 45.97 At The Karsten Warholm International Yes, apparently there is a meet in Norway named after him.
Belgium’s Nafissatou Thiam Breaks LJ National Record With 6.79m At The French Indoor Championships She actually broke the record with all three of her jumps, though she was still short of her 6.86m outdoor PR.
Filip Mihaljevic Throws His Third Croatian Indoor Record Of The Month With 21.84m To Win At The Serbian Open Indoor Meeting
Miltiadis Tentoglou Jumps European Leading 8.26m To Win LJ At The Greek Indoor Champs

US Olympic Marathon Trials Tracking & Results Post-Race Videos

LRC Galen Rupp Is Golden As Unsponsored Jake Riley And 43-Year-Old Abdi Abdirahman Make Olympic Marathon Team Rupp won it handily in 2:09:20 while there was a 3-way battle for the last two spots with Riley taking 2nd (2:10:02), and Abdi 3rd (2:10:03). Leonard Korir finished the dreaded 4th in 2:10:06.

LRC In A Wildly Unpredictable Race, Aliphine Tuliamuk, Molly Seidel, & Sally Kipyego Earn Olympic Marathon Spots updated Tuliamuk and Seidel make their first Olympics (Seidel in her marathon debut) and Kipyego makes her first US team. Des Linden tried to reel in Kipyego, but came up short in 4th (2:29:03).

LRC Unsponsored Jake Riley Makes All The Right Moves To Earn Olympic Berth In Atlanta Jake Riley was a big surprise at the Trials.

LRC Live Marathon Trials Thread

More Olympic Trials Coverage

RRW: Winds Whipping, Galen Rupp And Aliphine Tulimuk Win Dramatic USA Marathon Trials
Ken Goe: “Relieved And Happy, Galen Rupp Relives His Victory At The Olympic Marathon Trials” Rupp said with the wind, some of the hills felt like “you could have been just as fast walking up them.” He also talks about consoling Jordan Hasay post-race.
NY Times: This Was Molly Seidel’s First Marathon. Her Next Will Be At The Olympics Seidel actually gave her sister (who is also her roommate) in the crowd a high five at mile 7.
*Daily Mail: Coffee Shop Worker Molly Seidel Runs First-Ever Marathon, Qualifies For Olympic Team
NY Times: At Olympic Marathon Trials, the Agony Of Fourth Place Des Linden: “I still thought I had a chance. I wasn’t going to give up until I finished. Well, when she finished. Then I gave up.”
NBC Sports OT Recap Jacob Riley: “You’re seeing somebody live their happiest moment of their entire life, so it’s pretty special right now.” *NY Times *USATF *World Athletics
Cool Pre-Race NY Times Article: “Why Are American Women Running Faster Than Ever? We Asked Them – Hundreds Of Them” The NY Times reached out to about two-thirds of the 450+ qualifiers. Includes graph, pics and quotes.

More Marathon Trials Coverage

Q&A With Galen Rupp Ahead Of The Trials Rupp talks about coming back from injury, getting older, how much mileage he does on the underwater treadmill and what’s been different training under Mike Smith.
RRW: Seven-Hundred Strong, Atlanta Is The People’s Trials
ESPN: Family First, But Olympics Next For U.S. Marathon Hopeful Jared Ward? Ward, his wife and four kids all spent the night in the same hotel room before the NYC Marathon (where Ward was 6th in a 2:10:45 PR).
Des Linden: “I’m not going to the Trials to have a good experience and have some fun. I’m going there to make a team.”
Sara Hall Ahead Of The Trials: “I don’t think I could have trained any harder.”
Abdi Abdirahman Doesn’t Think Age Will Be A Factor In Atlanta He says it’s the best buildup he’s ever had.
Marathon Rookie Emily Sisson Is Prepared For Anything At The Marathon Trials This is only her second marathon so Sisson said she’s still trying to figure out what works best for her.
Podcast Interview With Sam Chelanga Talking About Coming Out Of Retirement
Podcast Interview With Atlanta Track Club Director Of Marketing And Communication Jay Holder Holder talks about what type of person will win on the Olympic Marathon Trials course and what it’s like preparing to host the OT.
Reuters: Nike Shoe Debate Rages As Runners Weigh Advantages At US Marathon Trials
Chris Chavez’s Marathon Trials Preview/Predictions

Assorted Distance News

Podcast Interview With Elle Purrier Carrie Tollefson talks about Purrier about setting the indoor mile American record, growing up on a farm, Tokyo 2020 and “her love story.”
Brigid Kosgei’s 2:14:04 Marathon WR Ratified By World Athletics It’s officially the WR, but Paula Radcliffe‘s 2:15:25 will always be the pre-Vaporfly mark. World Athletics also ratified the University of Houston’s 3:01.51 world indoor 4 x 400m record.
A Missed Result: Recent Japan Half Marathon Record Setter Hitomi Niiy Wins Auckland 5,000m In 15:07.02; Nick Willis Takes Close 1,500m In 3:41.7 Willis beat out compatriot Rorey Hunter by .04. Tom Walsh won the shot with 21.66m as Canada’s Sarah Mitton threw more than a half meter PR (18.84m) to get a surprise win over Valerie Adams (18.73m).
World Athletics Podcast Interview With 1983 World 1,500m Champ Steve Cram The former mile WR holder looks back on his mid-d battles with Seb Coe and talks about his transition from athlete to broadcaster.
Japan Announces Team For The 2020 World Half-Marathon Championships The team is led by #2 Japan all-time Taku Fujimoto (60:06) and Japanese marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura. *Japan Running News Article
Kristina Schou Madsen Becomes First Woman To Win World Marathon Challenge She ran an average of 3:25:57 for seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.

Sprints/Jumps

Good Read: Sandi Morris Explains Why She’s The “Queen Of Third Attempts” And Why She Wishes The PV Could Be More Like The LJ Morris also talks about Mondo Duplantis‘s recent WRs and her own goal of breaking the women’s WR.
May 2: Christian Coleman And Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Announced For The Jamaica Invitational Other big names announced include Noah Lyles, Justin Gatlin, Yohan Blake, Andre Degrasse, Keni Harrison and Dalilah Muhammad.
Albanian Sprinter Klodina Shala Caught Steroid Doping In London 2012 Retests The now 40-year-old was tested, but actually didn’t race at London 2012 as she withdrew with injury.

Week That Was

LRC WTW: Bernard Lagat’s Sister Is Fast, False Starts In The Half Marathon, And More Vaporfly Talk? Bernard Lagat‘s sister may have found a new distance, the NCAA DMR heated up, there was a false start in the world record in the half marathon, and of course Rojo has some Vaporfly talk.

More International Results From The Weekend

Mondo Duplantis Concludes His Indoor Season With 6.01m Victory In France Duplantis made another attempt at 6.19m to try and break his own WR, but failed his three attempts. He did become the first PVer since Sergey Bubka in 1991 to clear six meters in five consecutive competitions. Former WR Renaud Lavillenie was runner-up with 5.94m.
Yaroslava Mahuchikh Clears 2.01m At Ukraine Indoor Champs
Zimbabwe’s Sasha Zhoya Runs World Indoor U20 60H Record With 7.34 In Miramas He broke the record by .06 which had belonged to US’s Trey Cunningham.
Tamari Davis Wins Her Pro Debut At The USC Indoor Open With 7.20 Seconds In The Women’s 60m

Doping News

World Steeplechase Champion Ruth Jebet Gets 4-Year Ban After Being Found Guilty Of EPO Doping She was originally suspended back in February 2018 when she failed an out-of-competition test.
AIU Head Brett Clothier Says “There Will Be [Doping] Cases Before The Olympics That Will Shock People” (article behind paywall) The AIU has made great strides in the fight against anti-doping in the three years since it was formed 3 years ago. They have double the funding the old IAAF anti-doping department had, they are completely independent and they take an intelligence-based approach to testing. Rather than doing a bunch of randomly timed tests on random athletes, they target certain athletes at specific times for specific substances.
An Interesting Non-Doping Ban: Panamanian Sprinter Virjilio Griggs Gets 4-Year Ban For Falsifying Results In Attempt To Gain Entry To The 2017 World Championships Griggs admitted to sending a document with forged results which took a meet from Texas and replaced the date/venue and the second place finisher to make it look like he ran 10.11 in the 100m.
Ukraine’s Two-Time European 800m Champ Nataliya Krol Suspended After Failing Drug Test

Coronavirus Updates

Japan’s Olympic Minister Says The Tokyo Games Could Be Delayed Until The End Of The Year He said that Japan’s contract calls for the Games to be held within 2020, a statement that is “open to interpretation.”
*IOC Has A Meeting This Week Where They Will Discuss Making “Final Decisions” About Tokyo 2020
*The Telegraph: Sports Finds Itself At The Mercy Of A Microbe As Coronavirus Threatens Tokyo Olympics And Euro 2020
Olympic Marathon City Sapporo Declares State Of Emergency Over Coronavirus State of emergency measures will remain in place until March 19th. More than 900 cases of the disease have been reported in Japan.
London Marathon Organizers Say They Will “Continue To Monitor The Situation” With Coronavirus Race director Hugh Brasher said, “The Government’s current advice is that all mass events should still go ahead.” *2nd Article
MB: Paris half marathon was CANCELLED the day before it was scheduled to be run due to coronavirus Is London next?

Tokyo Marathon And London Half *Tokyo TV And Streaming Info

Ethiopia’s Birhanu Legese Retains Tokyo Marathon Crown In 2:04:15 As Israel’s Lonah Chemtai Salpeter Smashes Course Record With 2:17:45 The men’s side was super-deep with 17 men running under 2:08 with Belgium’s Bashir Abdi (2:04:49) and Ethiopia’s Sisay Lemma (2:04:51) taking second and third. On the women’s side, the top 5 were under 2:22 with Birhane Dibaba second in 2:18:35.
*MB: Tokyo Official Discussion Thread

Japan Running News Tokyo Recap The Japanese depth here was crazy with Suguruo Osako holding on to his Olympic spot by breaking his own NR in 4th with 2:05:29 while another eight Japanese men ran between 2:06:45 and 2:07:45.
*MB: Suguru Osako runs 2:05:29 National Record, Non-African-Born Record

London Big Half:

Kenenisa Bekele Breaks Mo Farah’s Course Record With 60:22 At The Big Half In London GB’s Lily Partridge won the women’s race in 70:50.
*MB: Bekele runs 1:00:22 at Vitality Big Half!
*MB: Bekele had on Next Percents today in the 1/2 marathon and lots of runners opted for the Next Percents yesterday

Trials On The Forums

Our Final HOKA ONE ONE Trials Athlete Of The Day (Sponsored By HOKA ONE ONE)

LRC Kellyn Taylor: After Finishing 4th In 2016, Can #4 Seed Kellyn Taylor Earn Career-Defining Olympic Spot? On the one hand, Kellyn Taylor says her “life is not and will never be all about running.” On the other hand, she says if you are a pro runner, you need to be an Olympian as it’s a career-defining accomplishment.

LRC HOKA NAZ Elite Pros Podcast Before The Trials: Can One Of Them Make The Team!? Hear from Kellyn Taylor, Stephanie Bruce, Aliphine Tuliamuk (3 of the top 10 seeds on the women’s side) and Scott Fauble (#3 seed for men), Sid Vaughn and Scott Smith (2:11 marathon).

Coronavirus News

Britain Rules Out Stepping In To Host The 2020 Olympics If Coronavirus Threatens Hosting It In Tokyo IOC member Dick Pound has said there is a risk of cancellation if the virus is not contained by the end of May.
MB: Daily Mail has article that says Marathon Runner was Super Spreader in Italy. 38 years old. In Serious Condition
Lake Biwa Marathon Organizers Ask People Not To Come Cheer Because Of Coronavirus Fears
Japan Withdraws From The World University XC Championships Due To Coronavirus The meet is next week in Morocco.
The Telegraph: How Coronavirus Could Affect The Olympics, Euro 2020, Six Nations And Other Sporting Events This Year They actually have an interactive map which lists the coronavirus cases, deaths and recoveries per country.
Reuters: Careers Could End Without Olympic Highlight If Tokyo Games Are Cancelled New Zealand performance director Scott Goodman talked about how this was likely the last games for veterans like Nick Willis and Valerie Adams.
MB: Coronavirus is in California – First case not from known infected person – Sh!t just got real!
MB: What are the odds Boston will be cancelled this year due to coronavirus?
Tokyo 2020 To Consider Downsizing Torch Relay Because Of Coronavirus

Trials Question Of The Day

LRC How Will Jim Walmsley Do At The Trials? Does America’s ultra marathoner really have a shot?
*Discussion Here

Trials Talk On The Boards

Mo Farah Follow-Ups

Mo Farah Explains Why He Changed His Story When Talking To USADA About L-Carnitine Farah says he forgot he had taken it and corrected the record right when Bary Fudge reminded him.
UK Officials Had Concerns About Alberto Salazar’s Use Of Medications With Mo Farah As Early As 2011 A senior UKA doctor remarked at the time: “Wonder how much other medical stuff [Salazar] may drive and not keep us informed.” Emails from the time also said UK athletes based in the US were asking UKA doctors about thyroid medication for “performance gains” because “the Americans” were taking it.
Mo Farah Says Constant Doping Questions Surrounding Him Are “Depressing” “It’s not fair on my kids and my family. … Mentally and physically it’s had an effect on me. It has made me question if I’m a bad person. Is it against me? Is it because of my colour? It makes you question everything and that’s annoying and damaging. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, but I’ve always done the right thing.”
*MB: Mo says that people constantly asking about his doping is making him depressed.

Conference Champs Weekend *USTFCCCA Conference Champs Central

SEC: *Results *Meet Home *SEC Network
Arkansas Men And Women Sweep SEC Indoor Titles Highlights included Tennessee’s Carey McLeod winning the LJ with 8.19m (17th on the all-time NCAA list) and Texas A&M’s Tyra Gittens scoring 4391 points in the heptathlon (23rd all-time). *Day 1 Recap

ACC: *Results *Meet Home *ESPN Broadcast
FSU Men, Virginia Tech Women Claim ACC Indoor Titles Notre Dame’s Yared Nuguse highlighted the meet, running 3:55.62 to win the men’s mile by almost 7 seconds. VA Tech’s Sarah Edward won the women’s race in 4:37.11 and Peter Seufer won the 5k/3k double. *Friday Recap

MPSF: *Results *Meet Home *FloTrack Broadcast
BYU Men Beat Out Arizona By 4 Points To Take MPSF Title
Oregon Women Win Handily At MPSF Champs Stanford went 1-3 and 5th in the women’s mile lead by Ella Donaghu‘s 4:34.85.
Ken Goe: The Oregon Ducks Aren’t Invested In The MPSF Indoor Champs Based on the fact that they sent their top mid-d guys to BU instead.

Big 12: *Results *Meet Home *ESPN Broadcast
Iowa State Men, Texas Women Win Big 12 Indoor Champs Iowa State beat Texas Tech by 10 points while Texas dominated by almost 50. Iowa State went 1-4 and 7th in the men’s 5,000m lead by Edwin Kurgat (14:01.15) and Thomas Pollard (14:01.97). The two also went 1-2 in the 3,000m. *Day 1 Recap

Big Ten: *Results *Meet Home *FloTrack Broadcast
Indiana Men Win Big Ten Conference Champs
Ohio State Women Defend Indoor Big Ten Title They beat out Minnesota by 5 points.

Ivy (HEPS): *Results *Meet Home *ESPN Broadcast
Princeton Men And Penn Women Repeat As Ivy League Indoor Champions
MB: Sam Ellis (Princeton) pinches runner in chest to keep him from passing
Harvard Men, Cornell Women Lead After Day 1 At The Heps Both sides are close with the Harvard men just one point ahead of Penn and Princeton and Cornell women up 1.5 points ahead of Princeton.

Transgender Runner June Eastwood Wins Conference Mile Title In 4:50.28 Eastwood won the race by 3.5 seconds.
USTFCCCA Conference Champs Weekend Recap
Conference-By-Conference Team Rankings

Fast Times At BU *Results

LRC BU Last Chance Friday Results: Shadrack Kipchirchir Runs 13:08, Fast Mile/1,500s And Mary Cain’s Comeback Continues There was more fast action in Boston on Friday night highlighted by a deep men’s 5,000m where the top 6 ran under 13:14. Two UO men ran 3:55 in the mile, Cain improved to 9:07 and Kate Grace moved to #3 on the US indoor 1,000m all-time list.

LRC Karissa Schweizer Outkicks Shelby Houlihan To Crush American 3,000m Record In Boston Schweizer, Houlihan and Colleen Quigley all broke the previous American record. Vanessa Fraser – yes, Vanessa Fraser – became the 2nd-fastest American ever indoors at 5k, and Josh Thompson got the Olympic standard.

BBC: Marc Scott Breaks Mo Farah’s British And European Indoor 5,000m Record With 13:08.87 In Boston Farah’s record was 13:09.16 and he actually ran that in the final indoor race of his career at the 2017 Birmingham GP.
MB: Mary Cain is back? Runs huge SB of 9:07 3k at Boston University
Oregon’s James West Breaks NCAA Indoor 1,500m Record With 3:36.93 At BU Last Chance West broke Edward Cheserek‘s 3:37.01, finishing 4th in the race won by BTC’s Josh Thompson in 3:34.77. Lopez Lomong won the 3,000m in 7:37.74 over Ryan Hill (7:38.03) and Evan Jager (7:38.25).
MB: Schweizzer Outkicks Shelby Houlihan for 8:25 AMERICAN RECORD
MB: Koko Destroys Bowerman Women (14:30), Vanessa Fraser 14:48 #2 American All-Time Indoors
MB: Tinman Elite – Boston 5k Predictions
MB: Vanessa Fraser 14:48 at BU
MB: Gwen is back baby! 15:10

Previous NCAA News

RIP Former Legendary Penn State Coach Harry Groves Groves was an NCAA coach for 53 years, including 38 seasons as head coach of Penn State.
Top Men’s Ranked NCAA Teams Stay The Same With NAU, LSU And Florida Sitting 1-3
No Changes To Top 7 Ranked Women’s Teams As LSU, Georgia And Arkansas Sit 1-3
MB: 38 Athletes Quit Emory University XC/Track Team Amid “Culture Shift”
South Dakota’s Chris Nilsen And Notre Dame’s Rachel Tanczos Were Last Week’s NCAA Athletes Of The Week Nilsen broke Mondo Duplantis‘s NCAA pole vault record with 5.93m while Tanczos threw 23.31m in the weight throw to move to #11 on the all-time NCAA list.
Event-By-Event Top-10 NCAA Marks From Last Week

More Trials Coverage

LRC Marathon Trials Preview Podcast Get the lowdown from the LRC crew before they departed for Atlanta.

If You Read One Article Before The Trials, It Needs To Be This
LRC Mile-By-Mile Analysis Of How The Hills Will Impact The 2020 US Olympic Marathon Trials Olympic Marathon Trials coaches, participants, race fans, and TV commentators, please do yourself a favor and print out the chart above and carry it with you in a pocket on Saturday.
*MB: JK is a genius Part III: Here is his mile by mile analysis of how much the hills will impact the 2020 US Olympic Marathon Trials

LRC The Women’s Underdogs The group of underdogs is pretty darn talented. It includes an Olympic medalist, a trained firefighter who was third in last year’s USA 10k on the track, a woman who was 4th in Chicago last year and more.

LRC Turning Down A Contract To Race In The Vaporflys? Vaporfly > Alphafly? How Shoes Will Affect The US Olympic Marathon Trials If you’d like to pretend footwear isn’t going to be an important topic of discussion at this weekend’s US Olympic Trials, enjoy your time in Candy Land.

Our Trials Coverage Is Insane – Even More

LRC Which Woman Is Most Likely To Make The US Olympic Marathon Team? Des Linden, Emily Sisson, Jordan Hasay, Sara Hall, Molly Huddle, Kellyn Taylor, Sally Kipyego, Emma Bates, Aliphine Tuliamuk, Stephanie Bruce.
*MB: Which woman is most likely to make the team? Des, Sisson, Hasay, Huddle, Hall?

LRC 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials Preview: The Men’s Underdogs – From Bernard Lagat To Jim Walmsley The odds are the Olympic team will consist of 3 of the “Big 4” of Rupp, Korir, Fauble and Ward, but here are 26 underdogs with a chance if 2 of the 4 falter. From 45-year-old Bernard Lagat to 24-year-old Jerrell Mock, meet those with “a chance.”