October 16, 2020 Homepage Archive

Saturday’s World Half Looks AMAZING 5:00/6:30 AM ET (11:00/12:30 CET) Entries Course Map TV/Streaming *Slits/Results

LRC Joshua Cheptegei Calls Out Mo Farah For Skipping World Half Marathon Championships “It’s quite really ridiculous that [Mo Farah’s] not in the field.”
*MB: Cheptegei calls out Mo Farah for skipping World Half We think the trash talk is good for the sport. What do you think?

Pre-Race Press Conference: RRW: All Eyes Are On Joshua Cheptegei At Saturday’s World Athletics Half-Marathon Championships
Jepchirchir is also confident “I’m feeling good and I’m ready for the race,” said the women’s-only WR holder.
Full Press Conference Video Replay

LRC Women’s Preview: Is This The Greatest Women’s Half Marathon Field In History? Four different women have broken the world record in the half marathon in recent years and all four of those women will be running in Gdynia on Saturday, which makes this one of the greatest – if not the greatest – half marathon fields ever assembled.

LRC Men’s Preview: Joshua Cheptegei Debuts Vs. The Next Great Kenyan Kibiwott Kandie Joshua Cheptegei will try to become just the second man in history to win global titles on the road, track, and cross-country.

Important Administrative News

IOC Assures Many Sports Federations That The 2021 Olympics Will Start As Planned On July 23rd “We are very confident that the games in Tokyo next year will take place.”
2022 Commonwealth Games Organizers Condense Track Schedule So Stars Will Show Up 3 Days After Worlds
UK Sport Announces “Big Shift” For Olympics Moving Forward Funding will primarily be based on medal potential in the next 12 years, not just 4 and the goal is not to be a cut-throat. “We will aim to support the development of the person as well as the performer.”
LRC NCAA Names Hosts Of All NCAA Championships Through 2025 – 2026 Some new hosts are on the list as Missouri will host the NCAA XC Champs for the 1st time ever in 2025 and UVA will host for the first time since 1987 in 2023. Norfolk State and Virginia Beach, VA will also host NCAA indoors for the 1st time in 2025.
*MB: UVA to host NCAA D1 cross country national meet
*MB: NCAAs at Hayward Field 2024-2027
NCAA Extends Extra Year Of Eligibility To Winter Sports Athletes

Previous World Half Champs News

RRW: 7 Women, 2 Men Over The Age Of 40 Will Compete At World Half
Engaged Kentucky Grads Luis Orta And Hiruni Wijayaratne Will Be Running For Ecuador And Sri Lanka At World Half
Ultramarathoner Tom Evans Of The UK Is Stepping Down In Distance To Run World Half This Year In the past, he’s finished third at the World Trail champs as well as Western States.

Coach Patrick Makau (Former Marathon WR Holder) Confident Team Kenya Will Dominate At World Half Champs Makau commented on a few individuals and said the team as a whole is “aware and preparing psychologically” for the possible colder weather.
Daily Nation: Confident Kenya Squad Off To World Half Champs Some positive words from the athletes who flew out of Eldoret on Tuesday.
World Athletics: How World Half Organizers Have Adapted To Ensure Event Can Go Ahead In 2020 With COVID, a lot of races just get cancelled, but organizers put in a lot of effort to make sure the rescheduled World Half Champs could go ahead.
World Half Marathon Champs Course, Scoring And Prize Money Details $30,000 for the individual win and $15,000 to the top team (team scoring based on aggregate time of top 3 athletes).

Technology Debate

InsideTheGames:Should Track World Records Undergo A Javelin-Like Reset Because Of New Shoe Technology? An interesting history lesson about the rule changes behind the javelin WR and questions over whether the new shoe tech is of similar significance.
Sports Scientist Yannis Pitsiladis Shoe Technology Is Undermining The Integrity Of The Sport “…The level of improvement can also vary significantly from one athlete to the next. So while one athlete might get a four or six per cent improvement, another might only get one per cent or none at all. Which means it is leading to distorted results.”
Joshua Cheptegei’s Agent Jos Hermens Defends Use Of New Tech In Breaking World Records “It’s not like we stand on the track, put on the lights and we break a world record. The athletes just have to run. We have to get our sport more interesting.”
Independent: “Joshua Cheptegei, Nike And The Rise Of Technology In Running” GB middle distance runner Jake Wightman said, “So if you go in with the mindset that it’s unfair, you’re already putting yourself at a disadvantage. I think it’s different on the roads, but I don’t think in my events it makes that big of an impact.”

Distance Results

Japan Weekend Recap:Bedan Karoki Runs 27:08.91 At The Chubu Corporate Track and Field Championships At The Nagasaki Nighter Time Trials, Bernard Koech won the men’s 10,000m in 27:31.13 and Rika Kaseda took the women’s race in 32:04.99.
AW Weekly Round-Up Filip Ingebrigtsen won the Norwegian XC Championships.
MB:Chris Robertson Breaks American Beer Mile Record With 4:37
Frank Lara Named The New USATF 15k Champion After Initial Winner Ridouane Harroufi’s Doping Ban

The 2020 Version Of NCAAs XCs Is This Weekend For The Men *Results

LRC The Best NCAA XC Meet Of 2020 Is On Saturday At Oklahoma State Covid-19 has given us a real treat as this weekend’s OSU Invitational will offer us something we wouldn’t get to see if it weren’t for the pandemic: a regular-season matchup between the sport’s top three men’s teams from 2019 NCAAs – BYU, NAU, and Colorado.
*MB: BYU vs. NAU This Weekend!
*MB: Nico Young won’t be racing for NAU this weekend

LRC How (And Why) BYU All-American Clayson Shumway Is Driving 18 Hours To Race This Weekend At Oklahoma State

Middle Distance News

Video Q&A With Jessica Hull, Who Talks About Her Amazing Season Which Saw Her Set Aussie NRs At 1,500, 3k And 5k In 43 Days She also does an interview with “the Toad” here.
Laura Muir Says She Gained Confidence In 2020 “To get three 1,500m runs and all be sub four minutes and all victories then I was thinking, ‘Yeah, that’s better.'”
Laura Muir Isn’t Sure Where She’ll Be Doing Her Winter Training Due To Covid-19
World Junior 1,500 Champ George Manangói’s Training Is Over; He’s Eyeing A Return To The Track The article somehow manages to not devote a single word to his brother whereabouts suspension.
Tokyo2020 Catches Up With Donavan Brazier, Who Reveals He Was Thrilled To Meet “Mr. Rudisha” At Worlds In 2019 He also once again talks about his dream to play in the NFL.
*MB: Nonsense or legit? Donavan Brazier once again says he wants to play in the NFL
Steve Cram Is 60 – A Look At The 60 Greatest Races In His Legendary Career You are limited to his top 20 unless you are AW subscriber.

An Important Look Into A Key Part Of The Anti-Doping Movement

LRC VIP 2020 Has Been The Year Of Whereabouts Failures. Why? Nine athletes – including recent world champions Christian Coleman, Salwa Eid Naser and Elijah Manangoi – have been suspended for whereabouts failures in 2020, compared to two in all of 2018 and 2019 combined. What’s going on? Subscription required for early access. The paywall will be lifted on Monday.

More Distance News

Interesting London Marathon Form Analysis Including Shura Kitata, Brigid Kosgei, Sara Hall, Eliud Kipchoge And More How did Kipchoge’s form compare to when he’s “on” and why does Hall run with her head tipped back?
MB:GALEN RUPP SPEAKS! We haven’t heard from Rupp in months, but here he gives a 47-minute video interview.
Joshua Cheptegei May Have A Street Named After Him In Kampala, The Ugandan Capital
Jake Wightman Talks About How He Took Advantage Of The Pandemic “Off” Year To Focus On Fast Times Which Lead To A Big Breakthrough Wightman took over 2-seconds off his PB to run 3:29.47 in Monaco.
“Arise, Sir Brendan Foster” – Athletics Weekly Takes A Look Back At The First Five Years Of The GB Distance Great’s Career
Marisa Lizak Runs 243.5 Miles In 48-Hours To Set New American Record She averaged 11:49 per mile and broke the previous record by a little more than a mile.
Peres Jepchirchir’s “Women-Only” Half-Marathon WR (65:34), Mo Farah’s One-Hour WR (21,330m) And Sifan Hassan’s One-Hour WR (18,930m) Ratified By World Athletics
2021 Saga Sakura And Itabashi City Marathons In Japan Cancelled Both Races were scheduled for March 21st.

NCAA / HS News

Runner’s World:Why Young Female Runners Shouldn’t Focus On Weight To Run Faster Research found that low BMI didn’t necessarily equate to high fitness and low weight might even harm an athlete’s capacity to operate at a high VO2.
NY Times Opinion Piece:“Colleges Are Cutting Varsity Sports. That Could Be a Good Thing.” They argue athletes can get as good or better experience from club programs.
Virginia’s Rohann Asfaw (23:32.5) And NC State’s Dominique Clairmonte (16:56.4) Named NCAA Athletes Of The Week For Winning Last Week’s Wolfpack Invy Along with the individual win, they each lead their teams to victory as well.
Former USC Assistant Patrick Henner Named New Arizona State XC Coach
DyeStat: Boise High School Girls Team Using Nike Cross Virtual As Motivation During Unusual Season

Non-Distance News

US Record Holder Valarie Allman Talks About How A Background In Dance Has Helped Her Excel In The Discus Throw Allman says dance was her “first love” and she only decided to try throwing because she wanted to go to the throwers annual spaghetti dinner.
The Virginian Pilot: “Grant Hollway’s Olympic Dreams Were Delayed, But The World Champion Is Looking At A Bright Future” Holloway says he’s getting used to the idea of being one of the top runners in the world instead of looking up to them. “I remember there was a picture that a fan sent me, and I was looking at Orlando Ortega like he was one of the greatest. … Now I’m there.”
European 400H Champ Lea Sprunger Plans To Retire At End of The 2021 Season The 30-year-old was 4th at Doha World Champs.
GB Sprinter Bianca Williams Threatens To Boycott Investigation Into Police As She Feels Racism Allegation Isn’t Being Treated Seriously Enough Williams complains that the incident is being investigated as a “‘respect and courtesy’ issue rather than an ‘honesty and integrity’ issue.”
Flo-Jo Named USATF Throwback Athlete Of The Week On September 29 at the 1988 Olympics, Flo-Jo ran the still standing 21.34 200m WR.