December 09, 2020 Homepage Archive

Where Your Dreams Become Reality

Archived Homepage For December 09, 2020

Quote Of The Day

“Cross country is an exciting and fast growing sport around the world so we are clearly disappointed it will not feature at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, even more so given the heritage of cross country in France at the Paris 1924 Olympic Games. However, we have developed what we believe is a really exciting mixed relay product and have been encouraged by the commitment from the IOC that they will continue to work with us to realize our vision of seeing cross country in a future Olympic Games.”

– A statement by World Athletics reacting to cross-country being rejected for addition into the Paris 2024 Olympics.

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.

Multi-Eventer News

Signatures Still Needed In Petition Asking The IOC Make Jim Thorpe The Sole Olympic Champion In The Decathlon And Pentathlon At The 1912 Games Thorpe was stripped of his medals because of amateur eligibility rules (he played minor league baseball). The IOC restored his medals in the 1980s, but made him the co-champion rather than sole champion.
Tribute To Florida’s 1976 NCAA Indoor Pentathlon Champion Heidi Hertz Sweet, Who Passed Away Last Week At The Age Of 64

NCAA / HS News

60 Minutes Did Segment On Colleges Cutting Olympic Sports Programs “While some schools are moving mountains to get in football and basketball seasons, non-revenue generating sports are on the chopping block.”
Kansas State’s Tejaswin Shankar And North Dakota State’s Akealy Moton Are NCAA Athletes Of The Week Former NCAA HJ champ Shankar scored 4343 points in the pentathlon to put himself #4 on the collegiate all-time list. Moton won the shot put at the Dakota Dual by more than seven feet with 17.31m.
The Staten Island High School Indoor Track Could Be Moved Outdoors Get ready to shovel off that track in Trevor Dunbar fashion.
Event-By-Event Top 10 Marks From The Collegiate Weekend

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.

LRCThe 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

Sports Science

The Science May Finally Be Catching Up To Common Sense:Study Finds Trans Women Still Retain 12% Advantage In Tests Two Years After Transitioning Even After Taking Hormones To Reduce Testosterone The new study is calling into question IOC rules which only require biological male athletes to lower their testosterone for a year before competing in women’s sports.
What Does It Take To Run A 2-Hour Marathon?Recently Published Study Looks Examines The Elite Runners Who Took Part In The Breaking2 Project An interesting note was that researchers found elite runners could take in oxygen twice as fast at marathon pace as a “normal” runner could while sprinting at their max effort.

Sport Politics

Seb Coe And IOC President Thomas Bach Clash Over Podium Protests Apparently Bach “implicitly criticized” Coe for giving an award to Tommie Smith, Peter Norman and John Carlos for their podium protest at the 1968 Games.
1992 Olympic 10,000m Champion Derartu Tulu Officially Nominated As Permanent President Of The Ethiopian Athletics Federation She has been the interim president since November 2018 with Haile Gebrselassie stood down two years into his four-year term.
Russia Critical Of US Politicization Of Sport After Passing Rodchenkov Act One official said, “There is the IOC, there is the CAS, there is WADA, and suddenly there is a law that creates complete chaos in this harmonious system.”

On The Roads

Former NCAA Champ Ben Flanagan Wins In His Half Marathon Debut Flanagan ran 63:19 to win the Mortgage Network Half in South Carolina.
The Marathon Project Will Be Broadcast Live On USATF.TV On December 20
Comody Iida Breaks Okutama Keikoku Ekiden Course Record

Cross-Country Loses Out To Break Dancing For Paris 2024

Cross Country Overlooked For Inclusion For The Paris 2024 Games It would have been fitting as the last time cross country was at the Olympics was at Paris 1924. It was a controversial event with only 15 of the 38 athletes completing the difficult course in heatwave conditions.
World Athletics “Disappointed” At Omission Of XC For Paris 2024 They are still hoping XC will be featured at a future Games.
IOC Cut The Men’s 50k Racewalk From The 2024 Olympic Program But don’t celebrate too soon, non-racewalk fans, World Athletics is going to replace it with a “mixed gender racewalk event.”
Break Dancing Added To The Olympics For Paris 2024 Break dancing beat out cross-country, squash, parkour, cue sports and chess for a spot in the 2024 lineup.
The Telegraph: “IOC Accused Of Making A ‘Mockery’ Of Olympics By Squash Stars Bemused At Breakdancing’s Inclusion” The IOC chose break dancing, citing their desire to appeal to younger people. Squash has been trying unsuccessfully for decades to get into the Olympics.

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.

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.

Why WA Reversed Course On Some DL Changes

World Athletics Chief Executive Jon Ridgeon Admits They Made “Too Many Changes” At Once To The Diamond League Program “It was important what the athletes had to say, but it was equally important what the broadcasters had to say, because they pay most of the bills. … Some of our key DL broadcasters said to us that actually, do you know, we quite like the two-hour window.”
The Athletes Association Welcomes World Athletics U-Turn On Diamond League Cuts Cutting these events from the DL was the initial catalyst that led Christian Taylor to form the Athletes Association.

Olympic News

Tokyo 2020 Claims Postponement Will Cost $2.8 Billion, Higher Than The $1.9 Billion Initially Reported $1 billion will be paid by the Tokyo government, $1.1 billion by the organizing committee and the last $700 million by the Japanese government.
IOC Confirm Athletes Will Have Limited Time In The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Village To Lower COVID Risk Athletes are expected to arrive five days before their event and leave a maximum of two days after.
Queensland, Australia Revives Bid For 2032 Olympics

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?