The Virgin Money London Marathon is Sunday

LRC Kenenisa Bekele and Eliud Kipchoge Speak Ahead of 2020 London Marathon: WRs, Shoes, and Kipchoge’s COVID Message of Hope for the USA Great news fans. Bekele says he’s in the same shape at Berlin 2019 and admits its “really difficult” to see his track WRs fall. Kipchoge says Covid-19 shows why fans need to accept the new shoe technology.
*LRC Eliud Kipchoge Offers Americans A Covid-19 Pep Talk After doing a one on one interview with LetsRun.com, Kipchoge unsolicited gave Americans some words of encouragement. “Americans, please take heart. COVID cannot make you lose self-esteem. Make sure in life, you joke around, make sure in life you keep positive, and all Americans will be great again,” said Kipchoge.

LRC 2020 London Marathon Men’s Preview: What to Expect from Eliud Kipchoge & Kenenisa Bekele in the Race of the Year It’s here. We made it, people. We may have lost Boston, Berlin, Chicago, and New York, but the world’s greatest marathon, London, has found a way to survive the pandemic.

1 Minute American Preview

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Our SC Discussions Of The Day w the LRC Staff.

• Question #3: Is Kenenisa Bekele the 2nd most likely person to win the London men’s race after Kipchoge?
• Question #2: Who will be the top American women in London? Will the top American men and women both be lapped?
• Question #1: Will the 19 x 1.3 mile loop course make a difference?

More Distance News

• Recommended Read: World Athletics Talks To Joshua Cheptegei’s Coach Addy Ruiter About His 5000m WR, Training, World Half Champs And More Ruiter says Cheptegei ran a workout that told him he was in 13:20 shape. “Knowing he was that much further ahead of the world record was important because we knew the likely hot conditions he would face in Monaco would slow him down a little.”
  *MB: Addy Ruiter on Joshua Cheptegei : “He is much fitter than Bekele ever was. He proved me he is in 12:30/26:00 shape.”
• Good Read: BBC: Meet British 800m Champ Daniel Rowden – 2020’s Comeback Star On Faith, Fast Times And Vomiting Pizza Rowden talks about his religion, coming back from a very painful stomach surgery and how he uses Donavan Brazier as a benchmark.
  *MB: BBC article on Daniel Rowden
• World Athletics Profile: Hellen Obiri: “I’ve won a lot but I’m not yet there,” she says. “Olympic gold is the only medal that’s missing from my collection.” Obiri says she considered quitting the sport after the 2012 Olympics (where she came in as one of the favorites, but finished 12th), but bounced back in 2016 to win Olympic silver 15 months after giving birth.
• The Roar: Is Australia Experiencing A Distance Running Renaissance? Stewart McSweyn and Jessica Hull are among those having a great year.
• Kosuke Ishida Breaks His Own Japan 5000m High School National Record With 13:34.53 He finished 3rd just behind the top-2 fastest Japanese 5000m runners ever Tetsuya Yoroizaka (won in 13:33.53) and Suguru Osako (13:33.83).

Admin News

• Study Estimates There Has Been An Over $6.7 Billion Loss From Cancelation Of Japanese Marathons The study is estimating losses for fall 2020 through spring 2021, but doesn’t even include all the races cancelled between February and September this year.
• Porscha Dobson Named New Dartmouth Director Of Track And Field And Cross Country Dobson is the first African-American woman in the Ivy League to lead both men’s and women’s programs. She previously served as associate head coach at Penn.
• Tokyo 2020 President Yoshirō Mori Claims The Olympics Will Take Place “No Matter What Happens”
• Helsinki Olympic Stadium Officially Opens Again With A New Mondo Track It was shut down in 2016 for refurbishment and renovation which reportedly cost around $410 million.
• Possible Joint Bid From South Korea And North Korea For The 2032 Olympics
• Athletics Weekly (AW) Relaunches Under New Ownership The magazine will now be published monthly by 21six.

London Marathon Updates

• London Marathon Race Director Hugh Brasher Says Sunday’s Race Could Be “Most Unpredictable Ever” With the pandemic preventing athletes from racing for months, there will be a lot of unknowns going into this race.
  *MB: London race director already making excuses for Bekele: “Kenenisa has not always been able to train in the way he would normally.” Brasher mentioned the political unrest in Ethiopia.
• Some Ethiopian Athletes Missed Their Flight To London For “Personal Issues” No word on which athletes missed the flight, but thankfully Kenenisa Bekele wasn’t one of them.
• Elite Athletes Start To Arrive In London Eliud Kipchoge, Kenenisa Bekele, Brigid Kosgei and Ruth Chepngetich were among the first group of athletes to arrive at the “biosecure hotel bubble” on Monday.
• List Of Random London Marathon Facts You Might Not Know The hottest London Marathon was 75.56F (24.2C) in 2018 while the coldest was 41.54F (5.3C) in 2004.
• The Guardian‘s Sean Ingle: “London Marathon Goes Virtual, But Its Unrivaled Ability To Unite Never More Vital Ingle writes, “Sunday’s 40th edition of the race will be like no other but that it is being staged at all is cause for celebration in troubled times.”

Kenyan News

Tokyo 2020 News

• IOC President Thomas Bach Says The Return Of Cycling With The Tour De France Gives Him Confidence For Tokyo 2020 “Tokyo will not be the Pandemic Games, they will be Games fit for the post-corona world. We have to adapt to the new world we are living in.”
• Tokyo 2020 Collects Enough Plastic Bottles To Create Recyclable Podiums They collected a total of 24.5 tons of used plastic and around 400,000 laundry detergent bottles.
• Tokyo 2020 Confirms Torch Relay Schedule And Start Date The Torch Relay will start on March 25 and end on July 23.

Random Links That Passed Our Vetting Process

• World Athletics Extends Russia’s Deadline For Its Reinstatement Plan To March 1, 2021 It was initially due at the end of September.
• “5 Years Of Disgrace”: Russian High Jump Champ Lasitskene Is Still Pissed That Russia Hasn’t Figured Out A Way To Get Reinstated Again How about not cover up doping?
• Athletics Weekly Is Soon Undergoing A “Relaunch” After 75 Years; Here’s A Look At The 10 Best Covers In Their History There’s more than 3,000 to choose from. Not sure why they’d pick a doper to be one of the 10.
• 2,000 Runners Run Road Race In New Zealand We’re not sure why this is newsworthy as last week 20,000 ran in Russia where there is lots of Covid.
• New Zealand Shot Put Stars End Seasons That Saw Them Get Nowhere Near Their Best Marks Val Adams has a pretty good excuse as her son was hospitalized and diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Tom Walsh suffered as he wasn’t allowed to compete against the stars.
• In July, A Poll Showed That Only 1 In 4 People In Japan Wanted To Host The Olympics In 2021

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.