More Post-Marathon Project News

LRC Marathon Project Podcast Extravaganza: Winners Sara Hall And Marty Hehir And Scott Fauble Talk To LetsRun.com We know you’ll have some extra free time on your hands the next few days so we recorded an epic podcast to keep you sane. Find out what they think they could run for 26.2 miles in year 2015 racing flats and how in the hell they managed their busy family lives while running.

LRC A Runner At The Marathon Project Tested Positive For Covid-19 After The Race Two others were forced to withdraw the week of the race after testing positive pre-race as the event had strict pre-race testing requirements.  *Discuss

2021 Tokyo News

• Russian Sports Minister Is “Positive” All Top Track Athletes Will Compete In Tokyo 2021 “I am positive that our leading athletes of track and field athletics will be cleared to perform.”
• All 68 Domestic Sponsors Agree To Extend Contracts For Postponed Tokyo Games In Japan, consensus is valued.
• Aliphine Tuliamuk’s Pregnancy And Training While Pregnant Gets A Write-Up In The NY Times
• Rachel Schneider Goes On The Carrie Tollefson Podcast

Depressing Administrative News

• RUSADA Says It Has “No Control” Over Moscow Laboratory Data And yet the CAS decision last week said they are supposed to do “everything possible to locate the complete and authentic data from the Moscow Laboratory relating to those cases, so as to rectify in full the tampering that has impacted those cases.”
• UHouston’s FasTrak/NSAF Southern Indoor Challenge That Was Scheduled For February Is Cancelled For 2021 Due To Covid-19
• Were Whereabouts Failures The Biggest Story For Kenyan Athletics In 2020? Wilson Kipsang, Alfred Kipketer and Elijah Manangoi all went by the wayside.

Post-Marathon Project Analysis

LRC Six Final Thoughts About The Marathon Project: 2:09 Isn’t 2:09 Anymore, Des Linden Says America Needs To Join The 2:19 Party, & More Having had a few days to reflect back on the race, one must conclude the event was a HUGE success. But that doesn’t mean the US marathoning is back. Is Marty Hehir the equivalent of a 13:30 5,000 runner?
*MB: The Marathon Project was a HUGE success, but is Marty Hehir the equivalent of a 13:30 5000 runner?

Watch Out, Dopers

• Seb Coe Claims Dopers Have A “Greater Chance Of Being Caught” At Tokyo 2020 Than Any Other Games Before Coe explained how the AIU as an independent organization has been very important as they don’t have to be “fearful” of going after “a big name” like Christian Coleman.
• The International Testing Agency Rolling Out Long Term Storage And Re-Analysis Program For Samples Collected At Future Olympics
• Sean Ingle: “Athletes Need To Understand Why Russia Is So Important To The IOC”

Assorted Distance News

• Recommended Watch: Athletics Illustrated Video Interview With Martin Hehir In this 22-minute interview, Hehir talks through his 2:08:59, his training, his time at Syracuse and getting back to the track to try to make the Tokyo team in the 10,000m.
• Bring Back The Mile Chooses Their Best Mile Moments From 2020 From Cruz Culpepper just missing sub-4 to Elinor Purrier‘s US indoor mile record, there were still some great mile races in 2020 even with COVID.
• Evans Chebet Hopeful Of Making Kenyan Olympic Squad After Winning Valencia Marathon Given World Athletics’ transfer of allegiance rules, we’re not sure how he is eligible to race for Kenya considering he represented Azerbaijan at Rio 2016 and 2019 Worlds.
• USA’s 16:27.02 World 4 X 1,500m Record Ratified By World Athletics Includes quotes by Colleen Quigley, Elise Cranny, Karissa Schweizer and Shelby Houlihan talking about setting the record during COVID lockdowns.

Russian Doping News

• iNADO Slams CAS For Sending “Confusing” Message To Athletes By Halving Russian Ban They said it is “difficult to understand” why Russia did not receive the “same sanction of four years that any individual athlete would receive for cheating deliberately.”
• USA Today Opinion Piece: IOC President Thomas Bach Enabled Russian Doping “Russia has been making a mockery of the very foundation of the Olympics for more than a decade now, and Bach might as well be the lookout at the door of the lab.”
• Opinion: Why WADA Should Appeal To The Swiss Federal Tribunal Over CAS RUSADA Decision
• World Athletics Response To CAS Decision On RUSADA They note that this doesn’t change anything with their process with the Russian Athletics Federation.
• Reuters: Russia Relieved After Olympic Doping Ban Shortened A statement from the Kremlin said they viewed the overall ruling “negatively,” but were happy Russian athletes would be able to compete at neutrals.
• RUSADA Head Says They Have Led The Way In Testing During The COVID Lockdowns

Outside Marathon Project Coverage

• IndyStar: Noah Droddy: From Nowhere To The Fastest Indiana Marathon Runner Ever Droddy never made a state meet, never ran at NCAA Champs, but now is 9th on the US all-time list with 2:09:09.
• RRW: The Marathon Project Delivers Fast Times, Great Racing
• Athletics Weekly Recap: Sarah Inglis Makes 5th-Fastest Debut In GB History With 2:29:41
• USATF Marathon Project Recap