December 8, 2020 | LetsRun.com

Week That Was

LRC WTW: Super Shoes = Super Times, Weini Kelati Goes Pro, And World Athletics Reverses Course After a long Covid-19 break, Rojo‘s weekly recap is back in full force.

2020 Valencia *Full Results

LRC Utter Insanity: Kibiwott Kandie Runs 57:32 As The Top 4 Finishers Break The World Record In The Valencia Half Marathon The Valencia Half Marathon was incredible as not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 men broke the old WR of 58:01.

LRC The Rest Of Valencia: Evans Chebet (2:03:00) And Peres Jepchirchir (2:17:16) Set Valencia Marathon Course Records As Genzebe Dibaba (65:18) Wins Her Half Marathon Debut Pre-race, we said the Valencia fields were the deepest in history and that proved to be the case, particularly in the men’s race, where 30 men broke 2:10.

2021 Will Be A Big Year For Aliphine Tuliamuk

Olympic Marathon Trials Champ Aliphine Tuliamuk Is Pregnant She is due in January and still plans on being ready to race in Tokyo.
*MB: Olympic Trials Marathon Champ Aliphine Tuliamuk is Pregnant

They Want To End Sex Testing? Why Have Women’s Sports At All?

Hyperandrogenous 800m Runner Margaret Wambui Says She “And Other Women Are Being Crushed By The Soft Fingertips Of World Athletics’ Iron Fist” She accuses World Athletics of “spying on [her] through blood samples,” which is a ridiculous assertion seeing as how all athletes are subject to blood tests whether it’s for drugs or sex testing.
World Athletics Accused By Human Rights Watch Of “Abusive Sex Testing” Of Athletes The group claims that testing regulations which are meant to protect women athletes are demeaning and target women based on racial stereotypes.
*NY Times: Rights Group Demands End To Sex Testing Of Female Track Athletes

Doping News

Belarus’ Ex-800m World Champ Marina Arzamasova Gets 4-Year Doping Ban She had been suspended since August 2019 after failing an out-of-competition drug test.
President Trump Signs Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act Into Law The law gives US officials the power to prosecute individuals for doping schemes at international sports events involving American athletes. It has caused some controversy as WADA opposes it.
WADA Bashes The NFL For Two-Week Doping Ban Given To Luke Gifford After Positive Test A WADA spokesperson said the sanction “brings into sharp focus the anti-doping problems that exist in the United States.”
The International Testing Agency Running An Independent Anti-Doping Program For The IOC Ahead Of Tokyo 2020
WADA Expands Executive Committee With Two Independent Members

News From The UK

Coach James Thie Talks About How Jake Smith Managed To Drop His PR From 62:01 To 60:31 This Year Pretty amazing for a guy who started the year with track PRs of just 14:00/29:01.
Sir Mo Farah Is Booted Off His Reality TV Show Farah never has been exceptional at super-long events.
Mo Farah Struggled To Find WALES On A Map During One Show … When He Was In Wales At The Time Apparently, he got it confused with Scotland.
British Indoor Championships To Be Held Without Spectators
Grigory Rodchenkov’s Tell-All Book Wins William Hill Sports Book Of The Year Award “The Rodchenkov Affair: How I Brought Down Putin’s Secret Doping Empire” won the 30,000 pound ($40,233) prize.
Mondo Duplantis, Sifan Hassan Win Athletics Weekly AOY Awards The crazy thing is they don’t even have world record holders Joshua Cheptegei or Letesenbet Gidey at #2. We’re sorry. Cheptegei’s season was clearly better than Warholm’s.
Jemma Reekie And Jake Wightman Win British AOY Awards
Usain Bolt And Tirunesh Dibaba Voted As The Greatest Athletes Of All Time By Athletics Weekly Readers
*MB: Fair or Foul: Tirunesh Dibaba named greatest women’s track athlete of all time by Athletics Weekly readers. JJK not even top 3.
Colin Jackson Hopes Bolt Travels Worldwide To Give “… seminars and insights into the life of a superstar in our sport.”

Pre-The Track Meet News

New Pro Tyler Day Hoping To Get Olympic Standard But Admits He’s Not Mentally Fresh “Mentally, I don’t feel fresh but on paper I’m doing things (in workouts) I’ve never done before. I want to take a crack at the Olympic ‘A’ standard and hopefully it’s the start of an eventful 2021.”
Maggie Montoya Looking To Break 32:00 For 1st Time

MB Talk

USATF Virtual Meeting

Thursday On LetsRun: Becca Peter Is Here To Answer Your Questions On USATF Annual Meeting And Why You Should Vote No On Giving The Board More Power

Opinion Piece By USATF Activist Becca Peter: “Vote No On USATF Losing Its Voice In Governance”

Begun, The Shoe War Has …

LRC adidas’ “Super Shoe,” The adizero Adios Pro, Is A Huge Winner In Valencia With Half Marathon World Record Since Nike unveiled its Vaporfly 4% in 2016, every other shoe manufacturer has been playing catch-up. But now could the tide be turning? 3 of the 4 winners on Sunday were wearing adidas.

World Athletics Reverses Rule, Will Allow Athletes To Wear Prototype Shoes In Competition As Long As They Meet Technical Specifications This means shoes will no longer need to be available for purchase for athletes to race in them. However, this rule change doesn’t apply to the Olympics or World Athletics championships.
GB Coach Toni Minichiello: “World Athletics had a chance to be all in on shoe technology or all out, like swimming did in banning those suits. They have gone all in.”

**The Track Meet *Results**

LRC The Track Meet Day 2 Recap: Eric Jenkins (27:22) & Rachel Schneider (31:09) Win 10ks As 12 Athletes Hit Olympic Standard There was also an Australian record for Patrick Tiernan (27:22), impressive runs from new pros Weini Kelati (31:10) and Alicia Monson (31:10), and a second PR in 24 hours for Brit Sam Atkin (27:26).

MB: Official The Track Meet 2020 Live Discussion Thread
MB: Jenkins is back baby!!!

LRC The Track Meet Day 1 Recap: Shelby Houlihan And Elise Cranny Pick Up Olympic Standards, Luis Grijalva (13:16) Continues To Roll As Matthew Centrowitz Wins The B Heat The weather was ideal and the times were super-fast – at least for December.
*Register-Guard: Cooper Teare Nearly Kicks His Way To Oregon 5,000m Record Teare’s 13:17.13 is now #2 in the school record books behind Bill McChesney Jr.‘s 1982 record of 13:14.80.

Athletes Of The Year

World Record Breakers Mondo Duplantis And Yulimar Rojas Named World Athletics Athletes Of The Year Duplantis broke the PV record twice with 6.17m and 6.18m on back-to-back weekends while Rojas leapt 15.43m to break the world indoor TJ record. Duplantis parents also won the coaching award.
*Full Awards Stream Replay
T&F News Chooses Mondo Duplantis As The 2020 Men’s MVP Duplantis had 9 of the 10 best jumps in 2020.
Yuliamar Rojas Is T&F News’ 2020 Women’s MVP She had the top 7 farthest jumps in 2020.

The Weekend Started Off With A Bang In Japan

10,000 Madness Takes Place At Japanese National Champs Hitomi Niiya ran 30:20.44 to get the women’s NR as expected but the men’s race was even crazier as not 1, not 2 but 3 men broke the NR, led by Akira Aizawa with 27:18.75.

This Weekend’s US HS Action Is Insane

LRC Sydney Thorvaldson And Brynn Brown Set To Square Off At High School Cross-Country National Invite Great match-up between Sydney Thorvaldson and Brynn Brown in Texas.
Lubbock Christian HS Invite: Girls Preview And Box Assignments This is the unofficial girls national championship in our book – Sydney Thorvaldson, Brynn Brown and many more.
Charlotte Bednar, Kate Wiser And Sydney Masciarelli Scheduled To Square Off At East Coast Cross-Country Championships At Holmdel
Five Story Lines To Follow At AAU Cross-Country National Championships
Cal Student Creates HS Track And Field Recruiting App Instead of writing the same email to a million coaches to see if you are a good fit, you can use this app. *Download It Here
MB: Recruiting App for High School XC & Track Athletes

Random Distance News

Cheptegei Says 5,000 WR Was His #1 Highlight In 2020 “The highlight of my year would have to be the 5,000m race in Monaco. I came to the race with so many people saying I wouldn’t be able to break the record.”
Under Armour Releases New Track Spike Collection
Illinois Ultrarunner Joe Miller Destroys FKT For Ozark Trail By Nearly A Day

This Week’s Pod

LRC Podcast: Valencia Marathon Preview, Fast Times In Delhi, Guest Nick Cordes On Thorvaldson Brown Showdown Get your latest running fix with the LetsRun.com Track Talk podcast

More Valencia

RRW Emily Sisson Comes Up 1 Second Short Of American Half Marathon Record In Valencia Oh so close. Sisson missed the American record by a single second in Valencia this morning.

More Distance News

World XC Champs Officially Moved To 2022 In Bathurst, Australia This comes as no surprise as organizers had already requested it be postponed until 2022 back in July. The meet is now scheduled for February 19, 2022 which meant that World Indoor Champs were pushed back a week.
*MB: World XC in the summer in 2022 in Australia
Japan’s Yuya Yoshida Wins Fukuoka Marathon In 2:07:05 Yoshida has planned to quit the sport multiple times this year, but stellar performances like this have forced him to reconsider.

US Female Teen Phenoms – Past And Current

LRC Jordan Hasay Looking To Get Back On Track At Tomorrow’s Valencia Marathon The last 14 months have been tumultuous for Hasay, from losing coach Alberto Salazar to DNFing Chicago to finishing a hobbled 26th at the Olympic Trials. Find out here what new coach Paula Radcliffe is expecting from Hasay on Sunday.
*MB: What is Paula Radcliffe hoping to see from Jordan Hasay?

Big US HS Action

LRC Sydney Thorvaldson (16:23) Defeats Brynn Brown (16:50) At High School Cross-Country National Invite In Lubbock, Texas 10th grader Tayson Echohawk won the boys race in 15:25.
MB: Notre Dame commit Kate Wiser (17:25) crushes Charlotte Bednar (17:46) and Kate Wiser (17:59) at Holmdel’s East Coast Championships Nicholas Bendsten won the boys race in 15:40.

More Valencia

Video Preview Show

LRC American Record Alert: Emily Sisson Targeting Molly Huddle’s 67:25 AR At Sunday’s Valencia Half Marathon It’s been a good year to chase records (and not much else). The next one to go down could be Molly Huddle‘s 67:25 in the half, as Sisson’s coach Ray Treacy says her fitness is “really, really good.”
*MB: Emily Sisson is going for the AR on Sunday in Valencia: “Emily will try to run 67:00 pace and see what happens,”

Can Clemson Track Be Saved?

RIP To A Legend

1960 Olympic Decathlon Champ Rafer Johnson Has Died At 85 The guy lived quite the life. Played basketball for John Wooden, won Olympic silver and gold in the decathlon, acted in movies, lit the Olympic flame in 1984 and even tackled the guy who killed RFK. *Pay Your Respects In This Thread

Ashton Eaton Reflects On Rafer Johnson’s Amazing Life: “Everyone who knew him only had good things to say about him.”

Have You Purchased Your LetsRun T-Shirt Yet?

LRC The Softest T-Shirt You’ll Ever Wear Is Here For the first time in history, you can now sport the iconic look of the original LetsRun.com singlet or get one of our 1:59:40 or 1:59:40* t-shirts.