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MB: Official 2020 Doha Diamond League Discussion Thread

LRC Doha Recap: Faith Kipyegon Sends a Message in 800 & Stewart McSweyn Breaks Aussie 1500 Record as 2020 DL Season Wraps Up The 2020 Wanda Diamond League season is in the books and Faith Kipyegon, Hellen Obiri and Stewart McSweyn picked up big mid-d/distance wins in Doha. Plus Jessica Hull got crushed but was happy.

• MB: McSweyn. Wow. 3:30.52 in Doha today.
• MB: Official 2020 Doha Diamond League Discussion Thread

USADA Nails A Guy And We Celebrate

LRC Drug Cheat Who Won US 15K Title in March Gets Popped (Twice!) For Taking Drugs Yet Again For some reason, even though people like Edward Cheserek and the Stepanovs can’t get citizenship, the US government decided to grant EPO cheat Ridouane Harroufi citizenship. He has rewarded them by showing his “good moral character” by testing positive two more times.
*MB: Unreal: Ridouane Harroufi – the doper whom the US made a citizen – gets popped for doping two more times!!!
*From The Archives: MB: Why wouldn’t testing positive for EPO be an automatic disqualifier for US citizenship? Ridouane Harroufi win US 15k title

More Doping News

• Remember the story from January about the “top Kenyan athlete” who jumped out a window and over a fence to avoid a drug test? He has been named and banned We wouldn’t exactly call a 60:43/2:11:00 guy a top Kenyan athlete but Patrick Siele is out for 3.5 years.
  *MB: Update: The Kenyan athlete who jumped out window and over fence to escape drug testers has been banned
• CAS gives two Russian winter Olympians their Sochi medals back They initially lost them from Russian athletes convicted on Rodchenkov evidence.

A Story The World Needs To Know – We LOVED The Book On Their Story So Much We Had Them On Our Podcast

Podcast Interview The Stepanovs Share Their Story With LetsRun.com Would you risk your life and be willing to re-locate your family halfway across the globe simply because you believed in clean sport? These two heroes did just that.

LRC “The Russian Affair” By David Walsh: The Story Of The Stepanovs, As You’ve Never Heard It Before In his latest book, David Walsh – the Irish reporter who helped bring down Lance Armstrong – tells the story of the Russian doping scandal through the eyes of whistleblowers Yuliya and Vitaly Stepanov, whose relationship was far more complicated than you could imagine. On, February 8, 2013, the couple was supposed to get divorced. Instead, the Stepanovs decided to bring down the Russian doping regime and save their relationship in the process. 5 stars out of 5. Let’s hope this is made into a movie. *Purchase here.
*London Times: “The candour with which they have allowed Walsh to tell their story is rare and gripping.”
*Walsh: “It’s a love story set against the backdrop of a doping thriller.”

NCAA News

• Ken Goe: Men’s College Track Is Being Threatened In Budget-Strapped Division 1 Athletic Departments Goe has a scary stat about men’s non-revenue college sports as he writes, “There were 146 Division I men’s wrestling programs in 1981. There are 75 now. There were 210 Division I men’s gymnastics programs in 1969. There are 15 now …Men’s track could be the next sport to start circling the drain.”
• It’s Official: D1 Board Of Directors Approves Plan For Holding Fall Championships In Spring NCAA XC will still be held on March 15, the same weekend as 2021 NCAA Indoors.
  *MB: Not making this up: NCAA reschedules the NCAA XC championships for the same weekend as the 2021 NCAA indoors
• There Will Be No Regionals For NCAA XC Champs; Teams Will Be Chosen By Committee
• MB: What’s going on? HBO’s Real Sports pulls feature on debate over transgender women competing in sports at last minute It featured a segment with former Montana runner June Eastwood.
• Washington Post: Cal XC Runner Andrew Cooper Wants To Dismantle The NCAA Among changes Cooper wants is a collective bargaining agreement for athletes.
  *MB: WaPost article: Meet the Cal cross-country runner who wants to dismantle the NCAA
  *MB: White Cal xc/track athlete quits via screenshot because NCAA is racist; surprised coach doesn’t respond.

Olympic Related News

• ABC News: Tokyo Needs To Convince Sponsors Olympics Will Really Happen Tokyo organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto: “The fact the Olympics are going to take place — the fact itself — is not fully distributed to the public. People need to be more convinced that, yes, the Olympics will be taking place for sure.”
• Japan May Ease COVID Entry Restrictions For Tokyo 2020 Athletes
• IOC President Thomas Bach And New Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga Have 15-Minute Phone Call To Discuss Tokyo 2020
• Thomas Bach Says Phased Return Of Sport Around The World A Cause For “Confidence” Regarding Tokyo 2020
• Canadian Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission Wants Clarity On Rule 50 And “Protected Spaces” For Demonstrations
• IOC Urged To Expel Iran From Tokyo Games After Controversial Execution Of Young Wrestler The wrestler was accused of stabbing to death a security guard.
  *IOC Vice President John Coates Hints That A Ban For Iran Is Unlikely After Execution Of Wrestling Champ

Distance News

• Kenenisa Bekele Talks About His Prep Against Next Month’s Rescheduled London Marathon Bekele says his training has “been good so far but not super because of the [COVID] lockdown.”
• Good Read: Lopez Lomong Talks About His Reluctance Transition To A 10,000m, But Says He Isn’t Done With The 5,000m Lomong says that he wants to do the 5000/10,000 double next year in Tokyo.
• Mo Farah To Focus On 10,000m At Tokyo Olympics; Won’t Defend His 5,000m Title “I’m getting on a bit, and I think the key thing is to stick to one event and see what I can do.”
• London Marathon To Cut Prize Money By Half For Next Month’s Race However, for first time there will be a separate prize pool for the top British runners.
• Aisha Praught-Leer Says She’s Running Over 90 Miles Looking Ahead To Next Year’s Olympics “I am in the ‘meat’ of training for the season because I am preparing my body and mind to start a little bit early because I am not leaving anything to chance.”

Weekend International Action

World Athletics Weekend Round-Up: Kenya’s Nicolas Kimeli Runs 10,000m World Lead With 26:58.97 At The Gouden Spike Meet In The Netherlands At the Norwegian Championships, Jakob Ingebrigtsen had a solid double winning the 1,500/800 in 3:33.93 and 1:48.72 (he won the 1,500m by 13 seconds). Karsten Warholm won the 400H in 48.23, beating the rest of the field by more than five seconds.

• Richard Kimunyan Wins Japan National Corporate Champis 10,000m In 27:01.42 It was a close three-way race as Bernard Koech (27:02.39) and Bedan Kroki (27:02.80) were right behind.
• Top Three Go Sub-15 As Kenya’s Rebecca Njeri Wins Japan National Corporate Champs 5,000m In 14:55.32 Hitomi Niiya was a close second in 14:55.83, becoming just the second Japanese woman ever to break 15 minutes. Jonathan Ndiku won the men’s race in 13:10.64 over Bernard Koech (13:11.00).
  *19-Year-Old Ririka Hironaka Wins Jr. Women’s 3000m In 8:52.80
• World Athletics: 2015 World Bronze Medallist Jianan Wang (LJ) And World Silver Medallist Liu Shiying (Javelin) Highlight Chinese Championships Wang won the LJ with a world-leading 8.36m while Shiying won the jav in 67.29m.
  *Asian Games Medalist Zhang Deshun Claims Women’s 10,000m Title In 33:26.85 At Chinese Champs
• Jonathan Davies And Ian Crowe-Wright Become The First Athletes In 11-Years To Run A Sub-4 Minute Mile In Scotland Davies won the race in 3:59.36 to Crow-Wright’s 3:59.61.
• GB’s Charlotte Arter Wins Cardiff Sunset 5k In 15:59

Semenya Legal Battle Is Over, But Debate Continues

• #LetHerRun Movement Started To Call On World Athletics To Reverse Testosterone Rules After Caster Semenya Defeated In Court They put out a video ad which is a gross misrepresentation of the situation with Semenya and claim World Athletics is sexist because women need to prove they’re women, but men don’t need to prove they’re men. (Obviously a woman competing against men wouldn’t get an advantage so it’s not an issue.)
• MB: David Epstein explains why he no long supports the Semenya testosterone policies. In an interesting read, Epstein compares and contrasts his views with experts Joanna Harper and Ross Tucker.
• South African Rights Group Wants To Petition The United Nations And African Union Over Caster Semenya Ruling As usual, people miss the point as one of the leaders compared Semenya’s testosterone to Usain Bolt’s “height and long legs.” We don’t divide sports by height; we do by sex.