Boston Cancelled; We’d Be Shocked If London Isn’t Soon As Well

The Boston Marathon Postponed Until September 14th Due To Coronavirus

London Marathon Postponed Until October 4

• New Dates Agreed On For China World Indoor Championships The championships were due to be held this week, but will now are March 19-21, 2021. The same weekend as World XC Champs.
• Donald Trump Says It Would Be Better to Postpone Olympics Until 2021 Rather than Cancel We agree but no need to do anything now and Trump now says there are lots of options available.
• Prefontaine Classic Suspends Ticket Sales Because Of Uncertainty Over Coronavirus Tickets were to go on sale Friday, but the meet decided to delay that until the situation is more clear.
• NY Times:Twenty-Four Hours When Sports Hit the Halt Button Andrew Keh write, “Professional basketball disappeared first, then the college game followed; hockey melted away; baseball went on indefinite hiatus; and soccer took leave, as well.”
• Greek Leg Of Olympic Torch Relay Cancelled Over “Unexpectedly Large Crowds” Despite recommendations for the public not to come out for the ceremony, there were crowds when the flame visited Sparta Friday morning. Actor Gerad Butler (who played King Leonidas in 300), got to carry the torch before the relay was cancelled.
  *Olympic Torch Lit At Olympia Includes photos/video. *2nd article
• AFP:Worldwide Sports Collapse Piles Pressure On Olympics
• Tokyo Governor Says Cancelling The Olympics Is “Unthinkable”
• USATF Coronavirus Update

2020 NCAA Indoors Are Are Fri. / Sat. But W/O Fans *Schedule & Entries *TV & Streaming

LRC Women’s Mid-D/Distance Preview: Dani Jones Chases Audacious 800/Mile Double We don’t expect her to pull it off as we think Nia Akins will win her first NCAA title in the 800, but if Jones wins just 1 NCAA title she’ll join Jenny Simpson and Adam Goucher for the most in CU history. Plus can Whittni Orton win her first in the 3,000?

LRC Men’s Mid-D/Distance Preview: Studs Galore & Wide-Open Races We break down the men’s distance action for this weekend’s NCAA Champs which are LOADED with 11 guys under 3:58, 12 guys under 7:50, 4 under 13:30 plus the fastest DMR team in NCAA history.
*MB: 2020 NCAA Indoors men’s fields are LOADED. Who you got?

• NCAA Bans Fans From NCAA Indoors And All Winter Championships Some family members may be let in. If that’s the case, not much may change as most of the fans are family.
• MB: Harvard scratches all runners from NCAAs against their will
• Men’s 400 #7 Seed Elija Godwin Of Georgia Was Nearly Killed After Being Impaled By A Javelin Last Year “I realized a javelin was in my back, and right after that I started coughing up blood.” The javelin had pierced his left lung. “I’m thinking about movies – any movie I ever watched where a character is coughing up blood, they usually die.”
• NCAA’s #1 Man At 400 – True Frosh Randolph Ross Of North Carolina A&T (45.44) – Is Thriving While Running With His Dad As The Coach He has already improved a ton from HS. In HS, he ran 21.25 and 46.60 and now he’s run 20.85 and 45.44.
• South Africa’s George Kusche Of Nebraska Went For Win At Big 10s – Will He Do It Again At NCAAs?
• Good Read:6 Years After Running 1:48.97 In HS, Western Oregon’s Derek Holdsworth Will Get His 1 And Only Chance For An NCAA Title This Weekend At D2 Nats

Bonus Podcasts

LRC Aliphine Tuliamuk Podcast: Smooth Sailing For 25 Miles AT The Trials, Eyeing A Medal In Sapporo Hear from the Olympic Marathon Trials champ.

LRC Ben Rosario HOKA NAZ Elite Coach And Coach Of 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials Champ Aliphine Tuliamuk How did coach Ben go about the big day, how did he build his team, and what are the plans for Sapporo?

Coronavirus In The News

• NYRR Cancels This Weekend’s NYC Half
• Kenya Imposes 30-Day International Travel Ban For Its Athletes Due To Coronavirus It’s not like there were that many big races to go to anyway.
• Coronavirus Is Starting To Impact The Finances Of Kenyan Athletes “The virus is bad and it will affect the economy because many people depend on the races in Asia, Europe, Australia and other continents. What they earn from these races trickles down from managers all the way to our relatives,” said one athlete.
• Kenya’s Sports Cabinet Secretary Is Called To Speak Before Parliament To Talk About Whether Tokyo 2020 Will Be Safe For Athletes
• Penn Relays Organizers Monitoring Coronavirus Outbreak If they follow the lead of the Ivy League office, which stupidly canceled its basketball tournaments on Tuesday, then the meet has little chance of happening.
• It’s Possible The Champs 2020 Will Be Held Without Spectators Even In Jamaica The issue is people coming from the US or elsewhere might have the disease. Jamaica just confirmed its 1st case and it was a young girl who arrived from the UK.
• Announcement As To Whether Champs 2020 Will Be Cancelled Entirely Will Come Within 24 Hours Says Jamaica’s Health Minister
• PodiumRunner: Worried That Your Race Will Get Cancelled Because Of Coronavirus? How To Cope

Mid-D News

• Denver Post:Is Cruz Culpepper, Son Of Olympians Alan And Shayne, The Next Great American Miler? Culpepper just missed breaking 4 minutes indoors when he ran 4:00.10 to become the third-fastest 17-year-old in US history behind Jim Ryun (3:59.0) and Marty Liquori (3:59.8).
• Nick Willis Secures New Zealand 1,500m Title In 3:42.94 He held off a late-charging Julian Oakley by just .05. He said part of his motivation was you get a lot of points for running at nationals with a quick time. Angie Petty won the women’s race in 4:18.14.
• World Athletics Profile On Aussie 800m Record Holder Catriona Bisset Bissett talks about how she overcame her issues with depression, anxiety and an eating disorder to go from 2:09 to 1:58 over the course of two years.

Random But Interesting

• 1996 Olympic Shot Put Silver Medalist John Godina Ran His First Half Marathon Last Week In Atlanta “I see why people get hooked on this now because it’s more than just a sport. It’s something you can do forever.”
• German Florian Neuschwander Breaks 50K Treadmill World Record He ran 2:57:25 to break the record by 1:38 which was set just six week earlier.
• Japan’s National Public Broadcaster NHK To Provide Tokyo 2020 Olympic Coverage In 8k

Doping News

• 27 People, Including Trainers And Veterinarians, Indicted In Horse Racing Doping Scheme One horse trainer is accused of working with someone else to “quietly dispose of the bodies of dead horses,” rather than report those horses’ deaths to authorities. *Discuss
• Jo Pavey And Other British Athletes Call On Authorities To Investigate UKA And Its Use Of Alberto Salazar And Thyroid Meds Former GB 800m runner Emma Jackson believes high levels of thyroxine, prescribed by a UKA doctor, ruined her career.
• AIU Says They’re Taking On Potential “Rampant, Unchecked” Doping In The Marathon They have found that in 2018, in non-World Marathon Major races, 70 to 80 percent of the podium finishers didn’t have any out-of-competition tests in the 9 months leading up to the race.
• CAS Hears Case For Five Russians Appealing Their Banns Including 2012 Olympic HJ Champ Ivan Ukhov
• WADA Fail With Bid To Hold Russia Doping Case Hearing In Public WADA had asked for the hearing to be staged in public “to ensure that everybody understands the process and hears the arguments” and RUSADA agreed, but it sounds like either the IOC or Russian Olympic Committee prevented it.

Gender News

• InsideTheGames:IOC Attempt To Find Balance Between Fairness And Inclusion In Debate Over Transgender Athletes The IOC dropped the ball on this one as their current rules require trans women athletes to keep testosterone levels under 10 nanomoles per liter when women’s levels normally range from 0.12 to 1.79 nmol/l. And many would argue transgender athletes shouldn’t be allowed to compete in the women’s category at all.
• IOC Approve Joint Flagbearers And Quotas For Increased Gender Balance At Olympics Flags can now be carried by one man and one woman.
• World Athletics:Gender Leadership On The Rise At All Levels Of Athletics
• WA Vice President Ximena Restrepo: “Gender Equity Is Fundamental To Making Athletics Grow”

LRC Book Review

LRC Book Review: “Sporting Gender” Offers Much-Needed History And Context On A Challenging Topic Written by medical physicist Joanna Harper, the book is part scientific explainer, part history lesson, part personal story and attacks a tricky subject from multiple angles.