December 27, 2020 | LetsRun.com

News From Japan

Japanese Rio Olympians Anju Takamizawa And Hanami Sekine Retire At Age 24 Both women had injury issues which led to their early retirements.
Lake Biwa Marathon To Be Subsumed Into The Osaka Marathon For 2022 2021 will be the last stand-alone edition of Japan’s longest-running marathon.
Tokyo 2020 Refunds 21 Percent Of Paralympic Tickets

News From The Commonwealth

Great Read Ian Stewart – My Greatest Race – The 1975 World XC Race Stewart talks about how he tracked down Bill Rodgers to win gold in 1975 in a hot-as-hell Morocco.
Athletics Weekly Takes A Look As It Does Every Year At Which Brits Will And Won’t Be Training On Christmas Day
Tom Farrell Completes 300-Mile Charity RunVent Challenge He ran 1 mile on the 1st, 2 on the 2nd and then 24 on the 24th to cap off a 147-mile week. He hasn’t quite hit his £2,000 goal. Donate now.
Champs Was Cancelled In 2020 But Jamaicans Believe It Can Be Held Safely In 2021
1976 200 Olympic Champ Donald Quarrie Gives Prep Talk To Jamaican HS

More Marathon Project News

Marty Hehir (2:08:59) And Colin Bennie (2:09:38) Weren’t The Only Syracuse Grads To Run Well For The Reebok Boston Track Club – Paige Stoner’s 2:28 Debut Was A US U-25 Record Stoner: “I’ve been looking up to Colin and Marty since the day I got to Syracuse. They were just examples of how to do it right.”
*Coach Chris Fox Says Stoner Will Be Ready To Run 2:23 In 2024
Sara Hall Wasn’t The Only Woman To Run A Country’s #2 Time In History At The Marathon Project, Natasha Wodak’s 2:26:19 Is The Second-Fastest Time In Canadian History
Ben Preisner Talks About Having The Race Of His Life At The Marathon Project 2:10:17 for a guy who didn’t make it to NCAAs on the track and whose best XC finish was 72nd.

End-Of-Year Stuff

Track And Field News Only Ranking Top 3 Per Event Due To Covid-19

Women’s Track Top 3 Yet another pub that makes the mistake of having Gidey as the #2 choice in the 5,000.
Men’s Field Top 3
Women’s Field Top 3
Men’s Track Top 3
Jake Wightman And Jemma Reekie Named British Athletes Of The Year At British Athletics Writers Association Awards
British Writers Give Ron Hill The Vikki Orvice Inspiration Award Well deserved as he ran 2:09:28 in the marathon 50 years ago and then also ran every day for 52 years.

News From Over The Pond

GB Young 800m Star Max Burgin Is Putting School On Hold To Focus On Running The 1:44.75 18-year-old is taking a gap year before going to the University of Leeds to train for the 2021 track season.
AW Weekly Round-Up: Ireland’s Tommy Hughes Threatens World M60 10,000m Record The 1992 Olympian ran 34:02.52, just missing the 33:57.16 record.
Athletics Weekly: From 1,500m To The Half Marathon, Marc Scott Has Had A Stellar Year The Bowerman Track Club runner says his favorite performance of the year was running his 13:08 British and European 5,000m record indoors back in February.
UK Athletics To Release Survey Pushing For Equal XC Distances For Men And Women Athletics Weekly writer Jason Henderson: “Of course women are capable of racing these longer distances, but do they really want to? UKA is about to find out.”
*The Telegraph: “UK Athletics Praised For Formally Beginning Long-Awaited Push Towards Gender Equality In Cross-Country”
Video: Laura Muir Answers Christmas Questions Her favorite Christmas movie is Home Alone.
BBC: Stephen Maguire Stepping Down As Director Of Performance And Coaching At Scottish Athletics

Sprint Stuff

Top Japanese Sprinter Yoshihide Kiryu Now A Believer In Asics’ Spikless Sprinting Shoes An Asics study found that traditional spikes sticking in the track can slow athletes down and they could take 0.48 seconds off in the 100m if they removed the spikes and increase propulsion. The “Metasprint” is now on sale for $380.
Q&A With Andre De Grasse On What He Learned In 2020 And What He Expects In 2021 On the 2020 season being cancelled: “As a father, it’s kind of good because I got to spend more time with my daughter and my family, get to know her more now. Before all this happened, I think I missed stuff.”
T&F News: Keni Harrison Looking For Championships Golds Harrison is the 100H WR holder and was ranked #1 in the world the last three years, but hasn’t yet managed to win an outdoor global title.
Karsten Warholm: “If you have big dreams in sport, you have to live with the pressure.” Episode 2 in European Athletics mini-documentary series. Video is 4 minutes.
GB Sprinter Dina Asher-Smith Writes Column About Mental Health Asher-Smith mentions Alexi Pappas‘ recent NY Times video where she talks about post-Olympic depression and how her mother’s suicide impacted her as an athlete.

Tokyo 2020

Tokyo Passes 10,000 COVID-19 Cases In A Month For The First Time Tokyo’s governor said that their health care system is “approaching capacity.”
Tokyo 2020 Budget Rises To $15.4 Billion Following Postponement Of Games
Budget For Tokyo 2020 Opening And Closing Ceremonies Set To Increase They are reportedly planning on boosting the budget by $33.7 million.

End-Of-Year Stuff

World Athletics’ 2020 Jumps In Review Mondo Duplantis (PV) and Yulimar Rojas (TJ) highlighted with their world records indoors, but at 2.33m, this was the men’s HJ lowest world indoor lead in 37 years.
2020 Year-In-Review: Throws Ryan Crouser was easily the top men’s shot putter in 2020.
T&F News Explains Why For The First Time Since 1946, They Won’t Be Doing Their Yearly World Rankings Editor E. Garry Hill says they “didn’t want to get into the business of handing out ‘participation trophies.'”
The Telegraph Chooses Mondo Duplantis On Their List Of Names Expected To Dominate The Headlines In 2021
2020 Racewalks In Review

Rest In Peace

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

Doping

Suspended New Delhi Laboratory Had Positive Test Rate Of 4.6% In 2019 This is by far the highest of all the 30 laboratories which WADA gives stats for and there is concern that “multiple AAFs may be linked to the same sample.”
Russian Olympic Committee President Suggests Folk Song Replaces Banned National Anthem At Tokyo 2020 At the 2018 Winter Olympics the Olympic Anthem was used so how about that or just don’t play a song at all?
Opinion: Reduction In Sanctions Against Russia Highlights Need For Anti-Doping Reform “Based on statements and actions, WADA appears to be most interested in sweeping the entire Russian doping saga under the rug.”

Women In The News

Ajee Wilson Using Pandemic To Get Head Start On Philly Home Ownership She’s also been helping out at Sankofa Healing Studio, a Philly-based nonprofit that addresses trauma associated with mass incarceration.
*MB: Wondering what Ajee Wilson has been up to during Covid-19 pandemic, we have an update….
Video Q&A With 1st-Year Pro Makena Morley, Formerly Of Colorado She recently ran 72:15 for the half.
Stuart Weir Takes A Look At The Remarkable Career Of Blanka Vlašić – “I was born to do the high jump.”

More US Pro News

2021 Millrose Games Cancelled Due To Coronavirus The meet was scheduled for February.
T&F News Chooses Ryan Crouser And Shelby Houlihan As Their USA MVPs For 2020

College / HS Corner

Drew Hunter’s Parents, Marc And Joan, Are Stepping Away From Coaching At Loudon Valley High School They are stepping away for the indoor season because of the severity of the COVID restrictions being imposed in Virginia, but they plan on returning for outdoor.
*MB: Hunters Out at Loudoun Valley….????
MileSplit: Police Affidavit Adds Details To Charges Against Huntington University NAIA Coach Nicholas Johnson Johnson, who is married to 2015 World Champs 1,500m runner Lauren Johnson, is accused of creating a fake email under another name to communicate with a minor and arrange an out-of-state recruiting visit.
*MB: Huntington Uni drama
New Committee Is Making Pitch To Get Central Michigan University To Reinstate Men’s Track And Field The best thing they have going for them is that CMU needs to add another men’s sport by 2022 or they will lose their Division I status.
Virginia Tech Signs Eight Members To 2021 Recruiting Class Includes Barbora Malikova, a 51.65/2:03.51 runner from the Czech Republic.
The Bowerman: A Look Back Through The Years Last week would have been the presentation of the 2020 Bowerman Award, but the award wasn’t given this year due to COVID-19 cancelling the last track season.

Japan Distance News

January 31: Japan Olympic Team Members Ichiyama And Maeda Lead Osaka International Women’s Marathon Field Ichiyama is the top in the field with a 2:20:29 PR.
New Mixed Gender Japan National University Ekiden Announced for February
Japan Weekend Road Running Review

Marathon Project Full Results Full Coverage Here

LRC Sara Hall Runs 2nd-Fastest Marathon In US History – 2:20:32 – To Win Marathon Project Hall has had a fall marathon campaign for the ages as after finishing second in London just 11 weeks ago, she’s now #2 all-time in the US. Keira D’Amato‘s amazing 2020 continued as well as she’s now #8 all-time in the US at 2:22:56.

LRC Martin Hehir Wins Marathon Project In 2:08:59 As 7 Americans Break 2:10 Hehir, a father of two and medical student who has spent much of the last few weeks treating Covid-19 patients, is now the 7th-fastest American in history.