December 12, 2020 | LetsRun.com

US News Of Note *Watch Hutchins 5k Record

LRC Jenna Hutchins Runs 15:34.47 To Break US Girls High School 5,000 Record Hutchins broke Katelyn Tuohy‘s 15:37.12 mark by leading the entire last 8 laps. *Replay
*MB: Jenna Hutchins Runs 15:34 at Five and Dime To Break Katelyn Tuohy’s 5000 US HS National Record

Recommended Read Catching Up With 1995 Foot Locker Champ Abdul Alzindani 25 Years After His Win Just 5 years after arriving in the US not knowing English, Alzindani won a Foot Locker title even though he was crying moments before the start..
Video Q&A With Rachel Schneider After Her 31:09.79 Breakout In Flagstaff
USOPC Will Not Punish Athletes For Protests At Olympics And we’re sure we’ll have a ton of them.
UTEP Track Legend, Fred “DeCo” DeBernardi, The 1972 NCAA Shot Put And Discus Champ. Dies Of Cancer The NY Times once wrote about how coach Wayne Vandenburg, now the head of the USATF Foundation, stayed at his home for 3 days until he signed with UTEP as HSer.
Southside Chicago Teacher Who Was A Football Player Is Running A Marathon Trying To Raise $250,000 To Create A STEM Department You can donate to the worthy cause here.
If NCAA DII Indoor Track Champs Happen, Field Size Will Be Reduced By 25% Due To Budget Impacts Of Covid-19

The Latest Olympic News

World Athletics Catches Up With Tommie Smith And John Carlos 52 Years After Their Iconic Olympic Protest Smith says many misunderstand his 1968 protest: “[It] wasn’t done to hate the flag. I love the flag.”
*Carlos Urges Potential Protesters In 2021 To Do Their “Homework” Before Protesting He says they need to “… have a clear understanding of why [they] are making the stance – what you anticipate in terms of bringing to society. And be prepared for any challenges or questions that come to you thereafter.”
Tokyo Games Sponsors Have Already Paid A Record $3.3 Billion, But Japanese Are Asking Them To Pay More Due To Extra Year And Many Japanese Companies Will Do It “Harmony and consensus are valued in Japan, and this stretches to the corporate world. It’s best illustrated by this Japanese saying: The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.”
Route For Sapporo Olympic Marathon Course Is Approved A test event will be run in May on the course that follows much of the Hokkaido Marathon course.

LetsRun Staples

Our Weekly Pod LRC Valencia World Half Marathon Record Podcast Plus Super Shoes, Olympic Babies, And The Track Meet What a week in running. Listen today.

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.

Jump News

RIP: 1970 NCAA And 1976 Olympic LJ Champ Arnie Robinson Dies Of Covid-19
World Athletics AOY Yulimar Rojas Won’t Be Satisfied With Just The Greatest Triple Jump In History “15.50m I know I can do,” she said. “My ambition is to become the first woman to jump 16 metres. It is something unimaginable in people’s minds, but I think I have the ability to do it.”
Athletics Weekly Fondly Remembers The Two Greatest Long Jump Competitions In History Mike Powell wasn’t exactly gracious in victory, “I really hate to say, ‘In your face, Carl,’ but, well, in your face.”
India’s Only-Ever World Championships Medalist, Anju Bobby George, Reveals She Won Her 2003 LJ Bronze With Only 1 Kidney

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.
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.”

Vaccine / Tokyo News

Seb Coe Says Athletes Shouldn’t Get Priority For COVID Vaccine And Need To Take Their Place In Line Coe was also very complimentary of Japan’s response to Olympic postponement saying he “wakes up grateful that it’s the Japanese who are dealing with this.”
WADA Tries To Calm Concerns From Athletes Over Coronavirus Vaccine WADA has insisted that “there is no reason to believe” the vaccine would cause drug test failures.
Seb Coe Says He’s Confident The Tokyo Olympics Will Happen “The games will go ahead. Under different circumstances, under stressful conditions, but the games, I think, will go ahead.”

Seb Coe Shares His Vision

LRC “In A Way, The Horse Bolted The Stable Many, Many Years Ago”: Seb Coe Speaks To LetsRun.com About Shoes, World Records, & 2021 Diamond League Changes Coe acknowledges technology is having an effect on the sport, but believes world records still mean something in 2020: “It is important that when a world record gets broken, that it is broken as a result of outstanding jaw-dropping athletic talents. And I’m still of the belief that in large part that is why we’re seeing those records.”
*MB: Seb Coe talks to LetsRun about the super shoes: “In a way, the horse bolted the stable many, many years ago.”

Seb Coe Is Impressed By The Current Training Of The Current Crop Of British 800m Men “This is the first generation where I can really put my hand on my heart and say that they really are doing the right things.”

US Distance News

Keira D’Amato Was A DNS In 10,000 Last Weekend Due To Food Poisoning But She’s Running The Marathon Project
Jared Ward added to Marathon Project men’s race
Reid Buchanan Will Have The Fastest Half Marathon PR Of All The Debut Marathoners At Next Weekend’s Marathon Project The 27:58 10,000 man who ran 28:07 last week has a 61:45 half PR.
The Marathon Project Will Be Broadcast Live On USATF.TV On December 20 It will also be on NBCSN on tape delay.
Long-Time Colorado 1,600 State Record Holder In The Mile, Rich Martinez (4:10.98), Has Died At 57 Martine was also 5th at the 1988 Olympic Trials. Cole Sprout finally beat his mark unofficially in a time trial in April. *Share Your Condolences
14:48 Woman Vanessa Fraser Chats After Running 32:09 Normally that would be a disappointment but she had surgery in May to remove damaged tissue in both of her Achilles.
A Look At The Latest Transfers Changes For NCAAs For Next Year

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. Plus last time we checked, trans women NEVER get their periods.
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.

Why WA Reversed Course On Some DL Changes

Wanda Diamond League Releases Which Meets Will Have Which Events For 2021 Distance-wise, Eugene officially gets men’s and women’s 1,500s, a women’s steeple, and men’s 800 and 3k/5k.
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

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.

International News

Kenya’s Kibiwott Kandie Was Given A Heroic Welcome When He Returned Home After Breaking Half Marathon WR In Valencia (Pics)
10 Years Ago, 2 Docs Told Sam Atkin He Was Wasting His Time Trying To Run Due To A Rare Foot Problem; Now He’s #4 All-Time In The UK At 10,000 And he seemingly has much more in the tank as he just cracked 80 mpw for the 1st time.
*MB: Sam Atkin is officially everyone’s hero. After his 13:18/27:26 double, it’s revealed his twin sis is Miss Great Britain (pics)
Morgan McDonald Says He’s Training Great “After a bit of a bumpy year, I’ve had a great few months of training and am in good form!”
Australian Mass Participation Events Begging For A Govt. Bailout “They’re asking for the same kind of support that the Australian government has provided to the arts and music industries.”
Athletics Looks Back At The World’s Best Milers When It Was Founded 75 Years Ago
Jemma Reekie Admits She’s Better Aat 800 Than 1,500 And Says She Loves Having 1 Day Off Every Week “I like to count down the days to rest day!”
Kilian Jornet Says He Learned In Training For Flat Races That You Must Train Less For The Track Than For The Mountains “Three hours of running on track are not the same as doing it in the mountains. I learned I had to reduce the number of hours I trained every week versus what I do for mountain running.”

International Distance News

2021 World Indoors In China Postponed To 2023 We’ll now have it in 2022, 23 and 24.
English National XC Meet – Which Has Has Never Been Cancelled Except For A World War – Is Postponed Even Though It Wasn’t Scheduled Until March Memo to Brits: 1) The vaccine is being rolled out 2) Covid-19 is not very dangerous for young, healthy people. *Discuss
Jake Wightman Reminds Everyone You Don’t Have To Be A Teen Star To Be Great “When I go back to U15/U17 level and I was racing Neil Gourley up in Scotland, we were finishing in the middle of the field in races.”
*MB: Jake Wightman says he and Neil Gourley were finishing “middle of the field in races” as teens. now both are WC Finalists
Video Chat With Sam Atkin After His 13:18/27:26 Double On Back-To-Back Days Atkin isn’t the only member of his family in the news.
*MB: Sam Atkin is officially everyone’s hero. After his 13:18/27:26 double, it’s revealed his twin sis is Miss Great Britain (pics)
22 Japanese High School Boys Broke 14:00 This Year; Only 9 American HSers Have EVER Done It
Good News: Mass Participation Japanese Half Marathon With 10,000 Runners Will Run At 70% Capacity In April

More On The Shoes

Seb Coe Speaks On The Shoes; Defends World Athletics Stance On New Technology Coe argues that shoe technology has always improved through the years. “I still marvel at the fact that we had people like Ron Hill running significantly under 2:10 (in the marathon) in shoes that had little more than cardboard support in them.”
RT.com: “Shoe Wars … Arms Race Between Sneaker Brands Takes Center Stage” “With World Athletics seemingly happy to allow a virtual arms race to develop between the world’s top sneaker brands, fans could expect more records to be broken, and more complaints to be made …”