June 06, 2020 Homepage Archive

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Archived Homepage For June 06, 2020

Really? Missing 3 Drug Tests Is "Normal"

“I’ve never been a cheat. I will never be. I only missed three drug tests, which is normal. It happens. It can happen to anybody. I don’t want people to get confused in all this because I would never cheat.”

“This year I have not been drug tested. We are still talking about the ones of last season before the world championships.”

“Hopefully, it’ll get resolved because I don’t really like the image, but it has happened. It’s going to be fine. It’s very hard to have this little stain on my name. I would never take performance-enhancing drugs.”

– World champ Salwa Eid Naser making the extraordinary claim on Instagram live that missing three drug tests is “normal.”

The World’s Best 400m Runner Gets Popped

Salwa Eid Naser Downplays Her Drug Suspension, Says Missing Three Drug Tests In A Year “Is Normal”

LRC 2019 World 400m Champion Salwa Eid Naser Is Busted For Missing Three Drug Tests – Her Agent Says He Had No Idea She Was Popped Until LetsRun.com Told Him Eid Naser, who last year ran the fastest 400m time since 1985, is the latest athlete represented by Juan Pineda to be suspended for a doping violation following in the footsteps of Abraham Kiptum, Robel Fsiha and Sadik Mikhou.

MB: Bahrain’s world 400m champion Salwa Eid Naser (48.14 pb) suspended for whereabouts failures

From The Archives
2020: MB: Juan Pineda – one athlete dead at 22, one athlete busted for doping, both within 48 hours
2019: MB: On what kind of stuff is Salwa Eid Naser?
2019: MB: Juan Pineda group: Kiptum again with sub 60
2018: MB: Juan Pineda “handler” in Spain- Is Jama Aden really still coaching his athletes?

This Weekend’s Action

World’s Top 3 Decathletes – Mayer, Kaul, Uibo – Will Battle In Garden Challenge This Weekend The competition will begin with the pole vault where the athletes will attempt to clear 4.00 meters as many times as possible during a 10-minute period. They’ll then move on to the shot put where the challenge is to send the 7.26kg iron ball beyond a 12-meter line as often as possible during a 10-minute period. The triathlon concludes with a shuttle run competition in which two cones are placed 20 meters apart, with the athletes collecting points for each completed back and forth shuttle over the course of five minutes.

Previous George Floyd Reactions

Quarantine Conversations With 800 Star Nia Akins Of Penn Akins described encountering racists yelling profanities on the day of her graduation (May 18th) and talks about the recent killings of Arbery, Floyd and others.
Conference Call Is Held With Team USA Track Members And Tianna T. Bartoletta Was Thrilled With How It Went “Really proud of my @usatf teammates for speaking up on this call tonight. It’s not an easy conversation to have but we’re doing it. And we’re fighting for each other. And I am so proud.”

Field Event / Sprint News

Amazing: Californians Built An Entire Pole Vault-Only Facility In Six Weeks During Covid-19 And It’s Hosting A Meet This Weekend The 1st Vaulter Magazine Vaulter Club Big Red Barn Meet is Saturday.
Former Jamaican LJ Record Holder James Beckford Says He Was “Very, Very, Very Happy” To See Tajay Gayle Break His NR “I was like yes, there it is, world champion. I was excited. I was very, very, very happy to see my record broken, absolutely. I was very happy,” said the 45-year-old Beckford, who has won several world masters LJ titles in recent years.
June 4, 1998 – UCLA Men’s 4 X 400 Team Became The 1st NCAA Team To Break 3:00 The team was studly as it contained two Olympic gold medalists and a bronze medalist.
Doper Amantle Montsho Was Planning On Medaling This Year In 400, But May Quit Sport Instead As She’ll Be 38 In 2021

Administrative News

Japanese Government Considering Scaling Back Of The Opening And Closing Ceremonies There also may be a reduction in the number of spectators at the Games if Covid-19 is still a problem. “Athletes may also have restrictions on the number of times they can leave the Athletes’ Village, with testing mandatory for athletes, staff and spectators.”
Paris 2024 Often Scaling Back The number of beds required in the Olympic and Paralympic Village had been reduced from over 17,000 down to 14,000.
Bolder Boulder Cancels 2020 Race After Initially Postponing It From Memorial Day To Labor Day
Investigation Reveals That International Weightlifting Federation Hid 40 Positive Tests Fom WADA And $10.4 Million Dollars Is Missing The head of the organization, who has now resigned, would routinely accept hundreds of thousands of dollars for doping ‘fines’ for positives test – in cash.
*BBC: “Corrupt At Highest Level”

The Latest Distance News

Alberto Salazar’s And Jeffrey Brown’s CAS Appeal Will Be Heard November 8-16
Timothy Cheruiyot Talks Up Super-Fast Time For Next Week’s 2,000m Race
*MB: Really? Timothy Cheruiyot says he’s hoping someone on his team can break 2000 WR of 4:44 in Impossible Games
Recommended Read Abdi Nageeye, Dutch Record Holder In Half And Full (60:24/2:06:17), Has Many Fascinating Observations To Share He shares the best advice his training partner Eliud Kipchoge has given him, reveals why doping isn’t going away anytime soon in Kenya or Ethiopia and talks about how people in the Netherlands are a bit spoiled. “It’s one of the best countries in the world, yet you see so many people complaining, and you think, come on, half the world are struggling.”
Eilish McColgan: “There are people cheating and that is just the way our sport is.” – AW
Neil Gourley: Getting Snubbed For 2018 Euros Led To Him Making Worlds Final In 2019 11th in the world is pretty good for someone who was just 7th at NCAAs for Va. Tech in 2018.
A Quarantine Conversation With Sir Mo Farah, Who Has Been Doing A Ton Of Treadmill Running

Track Is Back, Baby

17,000 Athletes, Including Barbora Spotakova, Competed In Track Meets In The Czech Repulbic On Monday As The “Back On The Track” Series Began 17,000 athletes competed across 173 locations, with televised events in Pilsen and Kolin as well as Kladno.
*Spotakova Won Javelin At 63.69 *Video

A Throws Meet Took Place In Estonia On Monday Adam Kelly of USA topped the field with 69.12 in the hammer.
Colleen Quigley DESTROYED 7 Other Professional Women In ESPN’s Peloton All-Star Ride She also easily beat all the men if you are looking at w/kg. Of course, wouldn’t you expect her to destroy the likes of Rory McIlroy and Allyson Felix in an endurance challenge?

Will NCAA XC Change Its Qualifying System?

LRC What We Know About The Potential Changes To The NCAA Cross-Country Regional System Change may be coming to the NCAA XC qualification system, but the crazy thing is, NCAA coaches have no idea who is driving this change, beyond a faceless NCAA working group. The NCAA committee charged with developing the new regional concept contains representatives from 11 schools. Only two of those schools, Kansas and Ohio State, have ever sent a team to the NCAA Cross-Country Championships.
*MB: NCAA Cross Qualifying Changes?

We’ve Brought John Kellogg Out Of Retirement – Our Summer Training Program Is Back

LRCLetsRun.com High School And College Summer Training Program Is Baaack!If you want to set yourself up for success not only this fall, but in the future, join our summer training program which is being offered for the first time since 2001! Not only will you get a training plan for the summer, but you’ll interact with the LRC team and understand the principles for a lifetime of success in running. 19 years ago, it produced an NCAA regional XC champ and All-American who almost took down Ryan Hall.

The Latest Distance News

3:55/13:32 Guy Cooper Teare Of Oregon Runs 1:49 800 PR I Eugene Time Trial
Kiwi And UW Sub-4 Miler Sam Tanner Beats Rugby Record For Endurance Challenge In a test of shuttles of 20 meters, 40 meters, and 60 meters run five times, he ran 4:01 to beat the old record of 4:12 but said it wasn’t easy.
Athletics Kenya Says It May Change Its 2020 Olympic Marathon Team We hope so. Since it was selected, they should be reevaluated based on 2020-21 results.
3 Time WMM Major Champ Florence Kiplagat Is Frustrated With Lack Of Races Due To Covid-19 As She’s Finally Over A “Nagging Injury” The 2009 World XC champ has only finished 1 marathon each of the last 3 years. Her 2:19:44 PR stems from her 1st marathon.

Distance News

9-Time All-American, 4-Time PAC-12 Champ Nicole Freitag (Née Blood) Is Loving Being A Distance Coach At UVA At Age 32 After her pro career didn’t amount to much as a runner, she struggled finding a new passion but loves being at UVA. “Coach Vin wants to build a nationally competitive track and field and cross-country program. We’ve got a ways to go.”
Kipchoge Says He Was At “Peak Fitness” Prior To London Being Postponed And That He “Took two weeks to be sad, and then I went back to training. This is life.”

Brown Is Getting Heat For Cutting One Of Its Most Diverse Teams Supposedly In The Name Of Diversity

Brown University, If You Were Actually Serious About Racial Justice, You Would Not Be Cutting The Men’s Track Team Russell Dinkins, the 800 leg of the Princeton DMR team that won NCAAs in 2013, rips Brown after discovering that Brown’s track and field team has more black men on its roster than Brown’s lacrosse, baseball, hockey, and crew teams combined!
*Check out Savebrowntrack.org
*Video:Brown athletes describe how they were blindsided & devastated by the news, alums offer support
*MB: Brown University, with a $4.2 billion endowment, cancels men’s track and field and men’s cross country
*MB: The more I think about the way the Brown sports decision went down, the more OUTRAGED I become

Administrative News Of Note

Jamaica Opens Stadiums To Allow Pros To Train In Groups Once Again Meanwhile, the millionaires in the NBA and MLB can’t figure out how to get back to action.
NCAA Responds To Lawsuit Filed By High Jumpers Who Were Allegedly Sexually Abused 20 Years Ago By Coach John Rembao And Says Their Lawsuit Is Legally Flawed “This case is not about whether the NCAA opposes sexual abuse and works to support its member institutions in eradicating it – it does. This case is about what the NCAA’s legal duty is to take action with respect to sexual abuse on campuses nationwide and, more specifically, what the NCAA’s legal responsibility is for the alleged sexual abuse (all outside California) by one track coach twenty years ago. The NCAA respectfully submits the Complaint is flawed as a matter of law and that all claims against the NCAA and its Board be dismissed and/or stricken.”

These Reads From The US Are Definitely Interesting

“The Fastest Nice Christian Boy In The World”: Nearly 7,000 Words On 1956 Triple Olympic Champion Bobby Morrow, Who Claimed He Wished He’d Never Been A Track Star This 1984 feature on Morrow, who died on Saturday, from Texas Monthly is very interesting.
*A Look Back At Nearly Every Single Race In Bobby Morrow’s Career
Leo Daschbach Reveals What A Typical Week Of Training Looks Like And What His Final Workouts Were Before Breaking 4:00
*MB: Secrets of Leo Daschbah’s sub-4 training revealed. How would you rate these workouts?
2016 World Junior 1,500 Bronze Medalist Christina Aragon Reflects On Her Career During Covid-19: “I feel like I am where I should be at this point.” The former Montana legend, who ran 2:04 and 4:08 and was valedictorian as a prep, is hoping to help the Stanford women to an NCAA XC title this fall.
Toni Reavis Writes About Race Relations In The US
Michael Wardian Runs To The 4 Boundary Stones Of Washington, DC (59.9 Miles) In 8 hrs, 35 Minutes
Stephen Pifer Looks Back On His Career That Saw Him Win The Triple Crown (XC, 1,600, 3,200) In Illinois In HS Before Starring At Colorado “(My HS coach) said ‘the harder you work, the luckier you get’ and that’s something I’ve always used as a mantra in life,” said Pifer, who now works for Mizuno.

Get Healthy

Are You Struggling With Plantar Fasciitis? Read This. 5,600 Words On How To Treat It

Administrative News

USATF Releases Return To Training And Event Hosting Guidance *Return To Training Guidance *Event Hosting
Scottish Athletics Head Is Confident He And UK Athletics Can Finally Work Together And Build Up The Sport “Scottish Athletics chair Ian Beattie believes the recently-published blueprint to reform UK Athletics (UKA) can lift it out of the doldrums and put the whole sport back on track.”

Sprint / Field News

Florida HS Vaulter Laine Roberts Is Still Focused On Breaking The 13’3″ Florida HS Mark She set the state record in middle school and has won two states but hasn’t gotten her long-sought HS state record. During Covid-19, she built a pole vault runway in her back yard.
Catching Up With Reigning Olympic 100, 200m Champ Elaine Thompson During COvid-19

The Latest George Floyd-Related News

US Indoor 400m Champ Rashard Clark Has An Interesting Perspective To Share He’s black and his mom was an LAPD cop for 40 years but he also was handcuffed and thrown on the ground as a freshman in college by cops when he didn’t do anything. His mom experienced the Rodney King riots and is disappointed not all that much has changed nearly 30 years later.
Gwen Berry Writes An Open Letter To Share Her “… opinion on the relationship between protests, sport, the Olympics and the role that athletes can play in advocacy for civil rights.”
Runner’s World: How To Be An Ally To The Black Running Community
Olympic Civil Rights Icon John Carlos Turns 75
Jasmine Todd Talks About The Injustice Of Growing Up Black In America
Police Brutality Exists All Over The World Kenyan Police Have Killed 15 People During Covid-19 Lockdowns

LRC I Was Bored, So I Watched Joan Benoit Samuelson Win The 1984 Olympic Marathon After a runner that was “considerably heavier than the other marathoners” took an early lead, Benoit won the inaugural women’s Olympic marathon thanks to a daring early breakaway, clocking the #3 time ever (at the time) and demolishing a field of studs (Grete Waitz, Ingrid Kristiansen, Rosa Mota) to cement her status as a legend.
*MB: How hot was it really during the 1984 Olympic women’s marathon? The NY Times report on the race says it got up to “near 90” but the weather data doesn’t show that.

LRC’s Weekly Podcast 2020 Boston Marathon Cancelled, Brown Track And Field Cancelled + Guest Tyler Andrews Goes For Treadmill World Record At Chaski Challenge And HSer Joe Fast Joins The Show Listen to the best track and field running podcast on the planet and learn about the guy who may dominate the NCAA men’s 800 for years to come.

The Latest News That We Found Interesting

World Athletics Headquarters Have Opened; They Immediately Release 4-Year Strategic Plan As Well As 2021 Olympic Qualifying Procedures “Our head office may have been closed for 11 weeks but we have not been idle,” said Seb Coe. As for the Olympics, nothing changes except the qualifying window has been extended into next year.
*Olympic Qualifying Procedures
*WA Unveils 4-Year Strategic Plan
*World Athletics’s New Strategic Plan Includes Support Campaign After Research Shows 88 Per Cent Exercise Boom In Lockdown
Q&A With Atlanta Track Club Head And 1997 WC Bronze Medalist Rich Kenah Kenah has doubled the ATC budget in six years but unlike Max Siegel, he’s not pulling in 7 figures a year.
New Book Is Published On Whether Genetics Explains Certain Groups’ Dominance In Certain Sports – How To Argue With A Sport-Loving Racist People of East African descent seem to dominate distance and people of West Africans seem to dominate the sprints. Is that genetic?
Alexa Efraimson Runs 4:27 1,600 Time Trial She had missed the full indoor season.

World Athletics Headquarters Have Opened; They Immediately Release 4-Year Strategic Plan As Well As 2021 Olympic Qualifying Procedures “Our head office may have been closed for 11 weeks but we have not been idle,” said Seb Coe. As for the Olympics, nothing changes except the qualifying window has been extended into next year. *Olympic Qualifying Procedures *WA Unveils 4-Year Strategic Plan *World Athletics’s New Strategic Plan Includes Support Campaign After Research Shows 88 Per Cent Exercise Boom In Lockdown
Q&A With Atlanta Track Club Head And 1997 WC Bronze Medalist Rich Kenah Kenah has doubled the ATC budget in six years but unlike Max Siegel, he’s not pulling in 7 figures a year.
New Book Is Published On Whether Genetics Explains Certain Groups’ Dominance In Certain Sports – How To Argue With A Sport-Loving Racist People of East African descent seem to dominate distance and people of West Africans seem to dominate the sprints. Is that genetic?
Alexa Efraimson Runs 4:27 1,600 Time Trial She had missed the full indoor season.

World Athletics Headquarters Have Opened; They Immediately Release 4-Year Strategic Plan As Well As 2021 Olympic Qualifying Procedures “Our head office may have been closed for 11 weeks but we have not been idle,” said Seb Coe. As for the Olympics, nothing changes except the qualifying window has been extended into next year. *Olympic Qualifying Procedures *WA Unveils 4-Year Strategic Plan *World Athletics’s New Strategic Plan Includes Support Campaign After Research Shows 88 Per Cent Exercise Boom In Lockdown
Q&A With Atlanta Track Club Head And 1997 WC Bronze Medalist Rich Kenah Kenah has doubled the ATC budget in six years but unlike Max Siegel, he’s not pulling in 7 figures a year.
New Book Is Published On Whether Genetics Explains Certain Groups’ Dominance In Certain Sports – How To Argue With A Sport-Loving Racist People of East African descent seem to dominate distance and people of West Africans seem to dominate the sprints. Is that genetic?
Alexa Efraimson Runs 4:27 1,600 Time Trial She had missed the full indoor season.

Athletes Speak Out After George Floyd’s Murder

Marielle Hall On Her Upbringing And Life Right Now As A Black Distance Runner Hall says that some of her high school friends said people only asked her out “because they were curious about what a ‘black girl would be like.'” She chose to attend the University of Texas because it was a more diverse, inclusive environment.
Gwen Berry Demands The USOPC Send Her A Written Public Apology For Putting Her On Probation For Her Awards Stand Protest At Pan-Ams Last Year “I want an apology letter … mailed … just like you and the IOC (International Olympic Committee) MAILED ME WHEN YOU PUT ME ON PROBATION. Stop playing with me.”
American Hammer Throw Record Holder Gwen Berry Says She Doesn’t Regret Her Protest At The Pan Am Games Last Year Even Though It Cost Her $50k “I just felt something. I don’t know what it was. When I was up there, I just felt something come over me. I can’t describe it,” Berry told CBC Sports from Houston. “It was like a spirit. I felt different. It was indescribable but I’ll never forget it or regret it.” *Discuss
Welsh Sprinter Sam Gordon Says Racism Is A Daily Issue In The UK
World Athletics And Many Track Stars Tweet Out Support For #BlackLivesMatter
Former GB Olympian And Harvard Sprinter Chris Lamber Pens “A letter to my white friends.” “We don’t inherit our oppression from our parents, we inherit it from your silence.”
Noah Lyles And Other US Pros Post On Social Media After George Floyd’s Death Jasmine Todd: “We put the three letters … U S A … on our chest SO PROUDLY … for a country that doesn’t even like or respect US because of OUR skin. A country that statistically sets blacks up for failure. A country that kills us because of our skin color …”
Michael Johnson Changes His Opinion And Says Prominent Athletes Need To Speak Out After George Floyd’s Death “If you have a platform you owe it to those people, you owe it to those whose lives have been lost, you owe it to our ancestors who fought through the civil rights movement back in the sixties. You owe it to all of them. If you have this position, like I did, you have a prominent position and you’ve benefited from the hard work of all of those people to have what you have, you owe it to all of them to not be silent.”