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

LRC NAU Men (42) Edge BYU (50) And Oklahoma State (51) In Biggest NCAA XC Meet Of The Year Today’s OSU Invitational featured the top three teams from last year’s NCAAs plus hosts Oklahoma State. It lived up to the hype. Luis Grijalva got the individual win.

• BYU Women Dominate OSU Invitational Whittni Orton won the individual race to lead BYU to a 40 point victory over Southern Utah.
• NAU Recap With Quotes From Mike Smith
• Texas Men And Women Arturo Barrios XC Invitational Texas dominated the team competition lead by individual wins from Haftu Knight (23:52) and Beth Ramos (20:23).
• MB: BYU vs. NAU This Weekend!
• MB: Nico Young won’t be racing for NAU this weekend

More Distance News

• Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdal Breaks Norwegian 10k Record With 30:32 At The Hytteplanmila 10k; Jakob Ingebrigtsen And Kilian Jornet Bomb She destroyed her own national record of 31:25 which she set at this same race in 2017. Zerei Mezngi won the men’s race in 28:20 as Filip Ingebrigsten was back in 6th (29:03), ultra runner Kilian Jornet ran 29:59 and Jakob Ingebrigsten jogged it in in 35:05.
  *MB: Famed ultramarathon star Kilian Jornet debuts on the road…. Only runs 29:59 10k
• Bernard Lagat Says Track And Field Is “Not Doing Enough” On Social Justice; Want Olympic Protest Rules Changed But Lagat pointed out the problem with political demonstrations at the Olympics: who decides which groups are allowed to protest? Lagat: “Because if we open it for everything, what will stop someone from raising a Nazi salute?”
• DyeStat’s Colorado High School XC State Meet Recap In their preview, DyeStat called this meet the deepest girls state championship race in the country.

Women’s Pro News

• NY Times: Lauren Fleshman Making Sure The All-Female Running Group She Coaches Doesn’t Suffer With Weight Issues Like She Did Fleshman says she never reached her full potential in part because she was trying to be too thin. “If the scale moved in the wrong direction, it would haunt me.”
• AW: Pacing The London Marathon For 17 Miles Was A Great Step To Eilish McColgan’s Marathon Career “I obviously was a little scared. … I said … I’ll try and get to 15km, but I ended up running to just over 17 miles. … It’s the furthest I’ve ever run in my life!”
• Jordan Gray, The American Record Holder In The Women’s Decathlon, Is Fighting To Get The Women’s Decathlon At The Olympics The article is painting this as an equality issue, but is it? The issue is there isn’t a big campaign to trade the heptathlon for the decathlon. As Gray points out, the top multi-event women don’t want a change out of self-interest.
  *The Guardian Article From 2018: “Women’s Decathlon: Overdue Game-Changer Or Heptathlon Killer?”

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.

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

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