Sprint News

LRC Olympic Champ Brianna Rollins-McNeal Is Provisionally Suspended For An Anti-Doping Violation For Second Time One of America’s 4 individual track gold medalists in Rio, Rollins-McNeal is accused of tampering and most likely is facing a 5-8 year ban. *Discuss

MB: 16-year-old Erriyon Knighton turns pro with adidas This summer at age 16, he ran 20.33 for 200 and looked like a man among boys at 6’2″.

Non-Distance News

• South African Paper Reports That Suspended Long Jumper Luvo Manyonga Is Batting Drug Addiction Once Again And Nike Didn’t Renew Him Let’s hope this doesn’t get any more tragic. A source close to the situation said, “Nike has zero tolerance for drug abuse,” which made us laugh.
• Chaunte Lowe To Be Presented With NCAA Inspiration Award During Virtual NCAA Honors Celebration Despite a double mastectomy and six rounds of chemotherapy, Lowe has continued to train for a fifth Olympic berth.
• Andrew Pozzi Talks About How He’s Thriving Under His New Cuban Coach Santiago Antunez In Italy They’ve made it work even though Pozzi didn’t speak Spanish or Italian as Antunez has coached 2 of the last 5 Olympic 110H champs.
• Iceland Has Only Had 1 Male Track Athlete Medal And That Was 65 Years Ago; Could Gudni Valur Gudnason Change That This Year? The discus thrower credits his success to drinking 2 liters of milk a day as a kid.
• Chaos Ensued At 1st AK Relays Series Over The Weekend AK Relays Series and they had to stay in their lane during the relays.
• Vaulter Olivia Gruver Is Excited For 2021

Other News That Passed Our Vetting Process

LRC This Week’s Podcast: Doom And Gloom? Or Hope And Light? Boston 2021? Tokyo 2021? Olympic Trials Without Fans? Covid is wreaking havoc but vaccines are going into people’s arms as we speak. What does it mean for the running world?

• Meet The Indiana Man Who Has Won 114 Marathons In His Life And Is Aiming For 200 As A Local Pizza Restaurant Will Let Him Eat For Free Justin Gillett has a 2:25 PR.
• Want To Host A Worlds In Your City? World Athletics Open For Submissions To Host Three Championship Events Don’t forget to include the $70 to $80 million with your application.
• HOKA NAZ Elite Adds Jenna Wrieden As An Assistant Coach A college coach since 2006, she was a college teammate of Amy Cragg and Des Linden.
• Tokyo Olympics Organizers Say The Idea That The IOC Is Going To Meet In February To Discuss Canceling Olympics Is “Fake News” They also dismissed a poll saying 80% of Japanese want it cancelled or postponed. “The number of people calling for it to be canceled has only risen by about five percent.”
• “Breaking Bad” Star Bryan Cranston Reveals He Once Ran A 3:20 Marathon
• Q&A With 400 World Champ Steven Gardiner On What His Life Has Been Like During Covid-19 The Florida-based man hasn’t been to the Bahamas in over a year.
• Catching Up With World Athletics Refugee Team During Covid-19

Assorted Distance News

• Tsigie Gebreselama Keeping Focus Despite Challenges From Coronavirus And Ethiopian Civil War “I never stopped my training since the beginning of COVID but I had to stop my training for a little bit when the war started.”
• Nick Willis Says He’s A “Believer In The New Spike Tech” He says he ran 2 seconds faster than expected for his time trial a couple of days ago.
• Q&A With Andrew Bumbalough On His Retirement From Professional Running Bumbalough is getting into coaching, but says he wants his career to be working in sports industry footwear and reveals he worked with the team that developed Nike’s Next% shoes. *Bumbalough Video Chat
• Former Two-Time World Marathon Champ Abel Kirui Wants Athletics Kenya To Provide Athletes With Medical Coverage Kirui is 38 years old and even though his first world title came over a decade ago, he says he still “has energy to run” and “ambitions to feature at the Tokyo Olympics.”
• AW Weekly Round-Up:Eilish McColgan Runs 31:08 To Win SuperSports 10k In Dubai McColgan was frustrated that it won’t count as an official PR, though, because race marshals sent her the wrong way on the course (even though she still ran the 10k).

UK News

• AW’s Coronavirus Update For British Athletes Elite athletes are allowed to train, travel and compete to some extent despite strict lockdowns which have suspended all non-elite events.
• GB Sprinter Emily Diamond Urges Athletes Not To Abuse Elite Athlete Exemptions In response to soccer players singing together celebrating a victory she posted, “Please don’t ruin it for all elite sport, football.”
• Top Brits Share Their Training Tips Includes advice from Brendan Foster, Tim Hutchings, Steph Twell, Hannah England and former 110H WR holder Colin Jackson.
• Scottish Paralympian Says Athletes Face “Moral Dilemma” If Given Priority For The COVID-19 Vaccine Ahead Of Tokyo
• RIP:Lloyd Cowan, Former Coach Of 2008 Olympic 400m Champ Christine Ohurugou, Dies At Age-58
  *AW: Tributes Paid To Leading Sprints Coach Lloyd Cowan Seb Coe, Dina Asher-Smith and Jessica Ennis-Hill were among those to pay their respects.

Japan Distance News

• Recommended Read:The Captivating Allure Of The Hakone Ekiden, One Of Japan’s Most Popular Annual Sporting Events What is it about this 10-leg, 217km relay race that gets half the Japanese population to tune in and sees the athletes treated like pop stars?
• Osaka Women’s Marathon Looks To Go Ahead Despite Coronavirus Pending State Of Emergency The January 31st race has Tokyo Olympic marathon team members Mao Ichiyama and Honami Maeda among the less-than-100-athlete field.

Sponsorship Changes

LRC Keeping Track Of Pros Who Have Switched Sponsors In 2021 A number of pros are no longer being sponsored by Nike. A bunch of them including Sandi Morris and Gesa Krause have signed with Puma.