October 18, 2020 Homepage Archive

2020 World Half *Results ***Men’s Preview *Women’s Preview ***Course Map *TV/Streaming

LRC Jacob Kiplimo UPSETS Joshua Cheptegei, Wins 2020 World Half Marathon Champions In 58:49 Wow. Joshua Cheptegei was viewed as the new GOAT, now he may not even be the best guy in his country. Is Cheptegei-Kiplimo the new Federer-Nadal? Plus 5 More thoughts on Jacob Kiplimo’s win at the 2020 World Half.

LRC Peres Jepchirchir Sets Women’s-Only World Record Of 65:16 To Win 2020 World Half Marathon Championships Jepchirchir joins Tegla Loroupe, Paula Radcliffe and Lornah Kiplagat, as the only women with two World Half titles. Plus who is the German that won the silver?

World Athletics:After Second Global Title And Third World Record, Peres Jepchirchir Cements Place In History As Half-Marathon All-Time Great
World Athletics:Jacob Kiplimo Makes History For Uganda At World Half Champs
RRW:Peres Jepchirchir & Jacob Kiplimo Take World Half-Marathon Titles In Fast Races
MB: Official 2020 World Half Marathon Championships Live Discussion Thread
MB: Jacob MF Kiplimo The man who recently ran the fastest 3000 in 13-years may have better endurance than the 5,000 and 10,000 WR holder.
MB: Josh Cheptegei should not have run World Half|
MB: Alphaflys a bust?
MB: Cheptegei calls out Mo Farah for skipping World Half: “It’s quite really ridiculous that he’s not in the field.”
MB: Kandie Man to upset Cheptegei for win today.

Long Distance News

Full Fields Released For The Top US Marathon Of 2020 – December 20th’s The Marathon Project Fields Sara Hall leads the way for the women. Could she possibly break 2:20? *Video
Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell Expects WR To Fall At This Year’s Big’s Backyard Ultra, Which Starts Saturday At 6:35 AM ET 14 people will be competing in Tennessee but many more will be competing at satellite competitions around the globe. How many times can you run a 4.166667-mile trail loop once every hour? *Watch It Live For Free At 6:35 AM ET
Shura Kitata Says He Was Thrilled When He Saw The Rain In London “When I saw the rain I was excited because I had been training in heavy rain season in Ethiopia. One day I went to train in Sodere, a place outside the capital, and it rained so much that the town flooded and the coach had to come to my rescue.”
Everything You Need To Know About Next Wednesday’s Michigan Pro Ekiden The Hansons, NAZ Elite, ATC, BTC and more will all be there.
Allie Ostrander Joins Seattle Pacific As Volunteer Coach
Japanese Are Breathing Easier As Everything Is A Go For Hakone Ekiden Qualifier This Saturday With so many events cancelled in Japan, some were fearful it’s #1 sporting event would also be canned but it looks like the Hakone Ekiden will go on.
The First Major Ekiden To Be Held On Public Streets During The Coronavirus Era Is This Weekend – Princess Ekiden Preview

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

Pre-Race World Half News

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

General Track Stuff

Karsten Warholm: Why Nobody Is Going To Be The Next Usain Bolt “I think everybody’s got to find their own way, Usain Bolt was huge so it’s an honor just being compared to him but for me it’s always been about developing.”
Some Jamaican Coaches Are Concerned About Possible World Athletics Rule Changes In Jumping Events At Major Championships They are worried about a rule change which would let World Athletics apply the “final three” long jump format from the Diamond League to a major championship.
GB’s World 200m Champion Dina Asher-Smith Says She’s Used The Japanese Philosophy, Kaizen To Improve In Track Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning “change for the better” or “continuous improvement.”
NBC Sports’ Event-By-Event Men’s 2020 Rankings

Sifan Hassan Out Of World Half Champs

Sifan Hassan Pulls Out Of World Half Marathon Champs Hassan said she and her coach decided to end her season early to start preparing for the Olympic year.
*MB: Breaking: Sifan Hassan pulls out of World Half Marathon Champs. What double should she do in Tokyo 2021?

Assorted Distance News

British Distance Great Brendan Foster Knighted In Queen’s Birthday Honors It wasn’t the first time Foster was honored by the Queen. 50 years ago he received his Commonwealth 1,500m bronze from the Queen in Edinburgh.
*World Athletics Article
Ukraine’s Viktoriya Khapilina (2:27:57) And Morocco’s Youssef Sbaai (2:13:03) Break Course Records At Sofia Marathon In Bulgaria The men’s race was super close as Sbaai finished with the same time as countryman Radouan Nouini.
NAU Men And Women XC Will Compete This Fall All Big Sky teams are allowed to compete in two meets this fall. NAU will race at the OSU Invitational on October 17.
Vienna City Marathon Celebrating The First Year Anniversary Of Eliud Kipchoge Sub-2 Hour With A Special Challenge On Monday The challenge is to cover as much distance as possible in 1:59:40.
Laura Muir, Jemma Reekie And Jake Wightman Get Three-Way Tie For Scottish Athlete Of The Year Award A Scottish Athletics director said the panel “could not split the achievements” of the three so did a joint award.

LRC It’s Here: The 1:59:40 GOAT Shirt Get the premium shirt that signals and celebrates greatness. Order today.

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

News From Japan

18-Year-Old Ryuji Miura Breaks Suguru Osako Japanese U20 Half Marathon Record To Lead Juntendo University To Hakone Ekiden Qualifier Win Miura ran 61:41, beating Osako’s record by 6 seconds. Joseph Razini Lemeteki had the fastest time of the day with 60:13.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga Wants To “Make Sure” The Tokyo Olympics Happen Next Year Suga said, “I hope to revive inbound tourism by somehow surviving this coronavirus pandemic. Unless we balance measures against the novel coronavirus infections and the economy, Japan itself will not be able to keep up.”
Tokyo 2020 Baseball Stadium Has Plans To Be Near Or At Full 34,000 Spectator Capacity In Three-Day Coronavirus Trial At End Of Month
2021 Kagoshima Marathon In Japan Canceled The March 7th race has now been cancelled two years in a row.

Jump News

Recommended Read An In-Depth Look At The Legendary Long Jump Duel Between Carl Lewis And Mike Powell At The 1991 Worlds Where Powell Broke The WR
British Indoor LJ Champ Dan Bramble Quits Amazon Job After Gymshark Surprises Him With Big £8,875 Donation After noticing his post on twitter about working at amazon, gymshark shocked him with a $10,000+ gift.
Two-Time NCAA/Three-Time US TJ Champ Omar Craddock Wants An Olympic Medal In 2021 And Thinks TJers Should Be Mic’d Up “You would hear a lot of funny entertainment, some crazy things.”

Random Link That Passed Our Vetting Process

Cool Story:Runner Running Virtual Chicago Marathon In Maine In Honor Of Her Brother, Who Died At 41, Randomly Runs Into Two-Time Chicago Champ Joan Benoit Samuelson At Mile 18
Kilian Jornet Will Run His 1st-Ever Road 10k This Weekend And He’s Facing Jakob Ingebrigtsen
Reid Coolsaet Thinks If You Plan On Making The Canadian Olympic Team, You’ll Have To Run Faster Than 2:10:51 He says that as he thinks Cam Levins will eventually run faster than the 2:10:51 that Tristan Woodfine ran in London.
Benson Kipruto Isn’t Happy With His 7th-Place Showing In London Even Though He Beat Kipchoge He was slowed by a hamstring injury, but considering his PR was 2:05:13, his 2:06:42 wasn’t horrible given the conditions.
Screw Doubles – Should You Triple Instead Of Running Long On The Weekend?
Dina Asher-Smith Says She Was Relieved When The Olympics Were Postponed As She Didn’t Know How She Could Train At A High Level During The Pandemic
2012 Olympic Hurdlers Kellie Wells-Brinkley & LaVonne Idlette Are On This Season Of Amazing Race The first episode aired on Wednesday night.

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.