June 30, 2020 Homepage Archive

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Archived Homepage For June 30, 2020

Quote Of The Day

“Nothing surprises me about track and field. Athletes come and go.”

– Coach Derek Thompson talking about Raevyn Rogers leaving his group in Philadelphia (which includes 2019 Diamond League champion Ajee’ Wilson) for Pete Julian‘s Portland-based group.

We Gotta Admit It, We Didn’t See This One Coming

LRC Raevyn Rogers Has Left Derek Thompson’s Group, Will Now Be Coached By Pete Julian The 23-year-old, coming off a World Championships silver, will no longer train alongside Ajee’ Wilson.
*MB: Breaking: Raevyn Rogers has left Derek Thompson and joined Pete Julian’s group

Related: Leo Manzano Does Podcast Interview With Ce’Aira Brown Brown reveals she has joined Derek Thompson‘s group with Ajee Wilson in Pennsylvania.

Who Will Be The Next UKA Head Coach?

Daily Mail Reports That There Is A Three-Way Race For The Open Position As The New UK Athletics Head Coach They say that it’s between Scottish Athletics director Stephen Maguire (reportedly the favorite), Jessica Ennis‘ former coach Toni Minichiello, and former world bronze medalist sprinter Christian Malcolm.

Saturday Night Distance Action

Emma Coburn Breaks Colorado Mile Record With 4:32 At The Team Boss Colorado Mile She broke the previous record of 4:36 held by Dani Jones. In the men’s race, the 4:01 state record didn’t go down as Morgan McDonald ran 4:02. *Discuss

Pre-Race:Team Boss Going For Colorado State Mile Records On Saturday Night

Other Distance Action:

MB:HS Junior John Lester runs 1:48.93 negative split (June 27) Lester ran splits of 55.09 and 53.84.
MB:Aussie Matt Ramsden Runs 13:27 For 5000m In Perth It was the first sanctioned race in Australia since the coronavirus lockdowns.
MB:Danish 15-Year-Old Axel Vang Christensen Runs 14:06 5,000m & 9:06 Steeple
HOKA NAZ Elite men beat Team Boulder in virtual 2-mile; NAZ women also win

More Athletes Speak On Whereabouts Failures

AP:Most Athletes Are True To Word In Dates With Drug Testers In 2018, there was 34 whereabouts violations among a worldwide pool of 20,000 to 30,000 athletes.
Kara Goucher Shares Her Three Tips On How To Not Miss A Doping Test Number one, and the most obvious, is pick an hour you know you’ll be home. Most athletes pick 6AM since they know they’ll be sleeping.
GB’s Former World 400H Champ Dai Greene Doesn’t Have Any Sympathy For Christian Coleman “To do three [failures] in that short period of time is a bit much really. I don’t know how you manage to do that. I’ve never missed three in my whole career.”

Geoffrey Kamworor’s Bad Week Just Got Way Worse

MB:Geoffrey Kamworor has surgery after being hit from behind by motorcycle It’s been a tough week for the two-time NYC Marathon and World XC champ as NYC was cancelled just days ago. The injury has been described as an “incomplete tibia fracture” as well as “soft tissue injuries and loose bone fragments.”

Sprint Stuff

Seb Coe Dismisses Suggestion That Christian Coleman Could Strike A “Deal” To Compete At The Tokyo Olympics Coe had some pretty harsh words for Coleman: “If you’re hanging by a thread on one or even two [missed tests], then my instinct would be to be sitting by my front door for that hour. You wouldn’t risk not being there. If they fall foul of this regularly they will be banned. I can’t put it in any blunter way.”
GQ: After Three Olympic Medals, Sprinter Kerron Clement Does His First Pride Month Clement talks about coming out as gay last year on National Coming Out Day and about being “paranoid” when he was in college that someone would figure out his secret.
GB Sprinter Dina Asher-Smith Talks About How Racism Has Affected Her Among other things, she says she’s had her skin tone lightened in post-production after photo shoots.
Leroy Burrell’s 9.90 100m World Record From 1990 Named USATF’s Throwback Of The Week

Film Review

LRC Tracking The Ups And Downs Of The Athlete Refugee Team In “RUN” Over the course of three years, filmmaker Richard Bullock followed the Athlete Refugee Team as its members competed at the World Championships, sought asylum in Europe, and saw their Olympic dreams halted by COVID-19.

Ingebristens In Oslo

Henrik Ingebrigtsen Runs World-Leading 13:19.65 In Oslo The top four runners broke 13:40 with Narve Nordas (13:33.39) taking second. The other two Ingebrigsten brothers will race the 800m tonight. *Discuss*Results

Are US Sports Ready To Come Back?

USATF Considering Holding A Meet In Mid To Late September, But Undecided On Whether Or Not It Will Serve As The 2020 US Championships The US has had a national track and field championships every year without interruption for over 120 years.
Ken Goe Has Heard There Could Still Be Some “Popup Meets” This Summer In The Portland Area
Oregon Coach Robert Johnson Writes Open Letter To His Team; Says They’re Almost Ready To Welcome Athletes Back

Non-Distance Results From Europe

Italy’s European Indoor Champ Gianmarco Tamberi Equals World-Leading High Jump Of 2.30m This was Tamberi’s third competition of the week (he cleared 2.25m last weekend and 2.21m in a virtual meet on Thursday).
Switzerland’s European U20 Decathlon Champ Simon Ehammer Soars To Big Long Jump PR Of 8.15m The mark broke the Swiss U23 record. Interesting note, the best long jump during a decathlon is Ashton Eaton‘s 8.23m from the 2012 US Olympic Trials.
Belarus’ European Champion Elvira Herman Clocks World Leading 12.73 In The 100H In Minsk

Coronavirus-Related News

Eliud Kipchoge Gives More Coronavirus Relief Aid To Needy Iten Athletes Kipchoge gave food to 100 athletes in Iten. It was the third time he had donated food to athletes in the region.
Athletics South Africa Opts Against Return To Competition Despite Government Approval To Start Back Up With Non-Contact Sports The ASA president said the rise of South African infections was a major factor in the decision.
NBA Star Nikola Jokic Tests Positive For Coronavirus Days After Hugging Infected Tennis Star Novak Djokovic
Pre Classic Meet Director Tom Jordan: “We held on as long as possible …” “There’s no international travel allowed and even national travel might be problematic with hot spots popping up.”
New Virtual Distance Challenge To Fill Place Of Canceled Japan National H.S. and J.H.S. Championships

LRC-Only Content

Guest Column The Case For Interval Starts As An Emergency Option For Fall 2020 XC Racing High school coach JD Downing – assistant at 2018 NXN girls’ champions Summit HS in Bend, OR – explains why interval starts, common in Nordic skiing, present a strong, (relatively) safe option for XC races this fall if the traditional start format is outlawed.
*MB: An Interesting Proposal To Save The Fall XC Season: Implement Interval Starts

LRC A Look Back At Duane Solomon’s Career As The 1:42 Man Has Hung Up His Spikes Solomon, a two-time US outdoor champ, was one of America’s best 800 runners of the 2010s. He ran 1:42.82 (#3 all-time US) in the 2012 Olympic final but missed a medal in the deepest 800 in history.

Throwback Thursday #12
LRC I Was Bored, So I Watched The Crazy 2004 Men’s Olympic Marathon You know about Meb‘s silver and the attack on leader Vanderlei de Lima, but do you remember Stefano Baldini‘s incredible 28:59 close in 80+ degree temps that featured a 14:12 5k from 35k to 40k or the Austrian guy in a fuel belt?

More Distance News

Good Read:iRunFar.com Profile On Western States 100 Race Director Craig Thornley Thornley talks about how the first time he spectated Western States was by accident when he and his brother were kids and camping out next to a creek along the trail.
Des Linden Says Cancellation Of Boston And NYC Marathons Could Add Years To Her Career “I think we were putting all of our chips in (to 2020), and now it’s gonna be regroup and see, can we do this for the long haul for another three or four years? It might not be the worst thing.”
DyeStat: High School Summer Running Camps Cancelled Due To Coronavirus Another Blow To XC
Toronto Marathon Race Director Alan Brooke’s Shares His Perspective After Ethiopian Marathoner Etaferahu Temesgen Wodaj Failed A Test At His Race And Got A 12-Year Ban “So, I think Wodaj’s disqualification is cause for a small celebration that progress is being made. The concern remains now that there are many races in Canada and globally that don’t do in-competition testing …”
DyeStat Recap Of Nico Young’s 5000m Record Attempt With Quotes From Young, His Coach, The Pacer Galen Rupp
Osian Perrin (8:14) And Megan Keith (9:21) Now Lead British Milers’ Club 3k Time Trial Rankings

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

LRCHigh Schoolers And College Runners- Train Smarter This Summer With The LetsRun.com Summer Training Program If you aren’t sure what you should be doing for summer training and want to be your best this fall, sign up for our summer training program. Get a daily training schedule, interact with our team, and be your best this fall.

International Comeback News – Hopefully Monaco In August

World Champions Sifan Hassan And Yulimar Rojas As Well As Road 5k WR Holder Joshua Cheptegei Confirmed For Monaco DL On August 14th European 110H champ Pascal Martinot-Lagarde was also announced.
Survey Finds Tokyo Residents Have A Pretty Split Opinion On Holding The Olympics Next Year The survey of 1,030 people had 51.7% for further postponing or cancelling the Games with 46.3% wanting them to go on next summer.
Scottish Championships Could Be Cancelled As The Rescheduled UK Championships Now Conflict
Hamburg Marathon, Which Still Hasn’t Cancelled, Announces a Strict Hygiene Policy The policy was outlined by experts at Manchester Metropolitan University and includes separate start and finish lines for the half and full marathons, staggered starts, disinfection stations and a scarf with a breathing filter for every runner.
December 20 Mie Matsuzaka Marathon In Japan Is Cancelled

Doping News

Interesting Stat:Analysis Of Russian Doping Finds Female Athletes Are Four Times As Likely To Be Banned The analysis also looks at how performances differed between banned athletes and “clean” athletes.
Seb Coe Says Athletes Should Not “Minimize” Whereabouts Rule Coe: “The whereabouts rule is to protect the athletes, it’s to protect their reputations and it’s to make sure that we move as hard and as fast as we can to drug-free sport.”

Distance News

Geoffrey Kamworor Discharged From The Hospital To Recover At Home
*MB: Geoffrey Kamworor has surgery after being hit from behind by motorcycle
British Athletics’ Head Of Endurance Barry Fudge Stepping Down Fudge said, “The time is right for me to move on …” but it’s very likely this is related to his role in the Alberto Salazar scandal as Fudge was a big supporter of Salazar working with UKA and Mo Farah. *2nd article
MB:27-year-old Alyssa Clark has smashed the women’s WR for most days in a row with a marathon as she’s at 85 and is going for 100 Clark started running a marathon a day on the treadmill when she was quarantined in Italy, but decided to keep it going (even through dust storms and days of global travel) when she was allowed to start running outside.

Non-Distance News

Mondo Duplantis Will Make His 2020 Domestic Debut Next Saturday Duplantis said training has been much easier in Sweden because training facilities have been closed in the US.
Ashton Eaton Relives His First Decathlon WR At The New Hayward Field Eaton had high praise for the reconstruction after doing a tour of the new Hayward.
Two-Time Olympic PV Champ Yelena Isinbayeva Writes Open Letter Urging IOC And World Athletics To “Protect Russian Athletes” RusAF needs to pay half of a $10 million fine by July 1 or the neutral athlete program will be suspended.
Sandra Farmer-Patrick’s 400H American Record (53.75) From 1989 Wins USATF Throwback Of The Week Honors

Two More Diamond League Meets Taken Off The 2020 Calendar

The 2020 Pre Classic And Paris Diamond League Are Both Cancelled Paris had been rescheduled for September 6th and Pre for October 4th, but now both meets have been completely cancelled due to coronavirus restrictions.

Admin / Industry News

Nike Reports Unexpected Loss As Sales Tumble 38% And Shares Fall Online sales increased by 75%, representing 30% of the total, but it wasn’t enough to make up for losses from physical stores.
World Athletics Launches “Road To Tokyo” Qualification Tracking Tool The online tool to will let athletes, media and fans track the qualification process for the Tokyo Games and sort athletes by discipline, country and qualification status.
British Athletics Championships Rescheduled For September 4-5 Behind Closed Doors The meet was originally scheduled for June 20-21 and had already been rescheduled once for August 8-9.
New UKA CEO Joanna Coates Talks About The Search For A New Olympic Head Coach She said she wants coaches who have been “disenfranchised” with UKA to consider applying.