January 27, 2021 Homepage Archive

Boston Picks Its 2021 Date

LRC2021 Boston Marathon Is Scheduled For October 11; All Six World Marathon Majors To Be Contested In 6-Week Span We break down what it all means, tell you what to expect with the weather and tell you and why this could be a great thing for American marathoning.
*MB: Boston 2021 Date Selected – October 11th

Kenyan News

February 19:Geoffrey Kamworor And Hellen Obiri Added To RAK Half Marathon Field The men’s race also has WR holder Kibiwott Kandie and London Marathon champ Shura Kitata. This will be Kamworor’s first race in just over a year.
*Geoffrey Kamworor Is Back From Injury After Months Layoff Kamworor was hurt in a freak accident in June last year when a speeding motorcycle hit him from behind.
Sammy Wanjiru Case Still Ongoing Ten Years Later?Two Government Pathologists Say Wanjiru Was Hit With Blunt Object According to them, Wanjiru died from the hit to the head rather than the fall from the balcony of his one-story building.
Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed Confident About Kenya’s Bid For The 2025 World Championships

Florida 2020?

Florida Offers To Host Olympics If Tokyo Backs Out A letter from Florida’s chief financial officer to IOC president Thomas Bach cited the strength of Florida’s vaccination roll-out, its economic re-opening and sports events it has hosted during the pandemic. *Full Letter *Discuss

More Olympic News:

Tokyo 2020 Concerns Continue As COVID Vaccinations Yet To Get Underway In Japan Vaccine rollout in Japan isn’t expected to start until late February. The delay is due to Japan requiring domestic trials before the vaccine can be approved.
The Telegraph: “Why Cancelling The Olympics Would Be ‘Catastrophic’ For Sport” From athletes to governing bodies to fans to the city of Tokyo, many people would be negatively impacted.
The Telegraph Reports That The IOC Is Working With The World Health Organization To Get All Athletes Vaccinated Ahead Of Tokyo Games However, athletes would not skip ahead of vulnerable groups.
*IOC And WHO Pledge To Help NOCs With Vaccine Access Prior To Tokyo
World Health Organization Says Olympic Athletes Should Not Cut Line For COVID Vaccine They said the focus should be on “populations that are most at risk” like elderly and health care workers.
Tokyo 2020 Torch Relay May Be Forced To Divert Away From Public Roads In Japan

NCAA News

MB:Christian Noble 13:37 at Magic City Elite – DII National Record
Arkansas Men Are #1 In First NCAA DI Indoor Rankings Of The Year North Carolina A&T, LSU, BYU and Tennessee round out the rest of the top 5.
Arkansas Women Are #1 In NCAA DI Indoor Rankings Texas A&M, Georgia, Texas and Alabama are ranked 2-5.
NY Times: Hammered By Pandemic, NCAA Revenue Falls By $600 Million Cancelling March Madness last year reportedly cost the NCAA more than $800 million and even after insurance and cutting expenses, they still posted a $56 million loss.
Event-By-Event Top 10 NCAA Marks Of The Week

HOKA Project Carbon X 2 ResultsStream Race Replay Here

LRC VIP Jim Walmsley Just Misses 100k World Record By 12 Seconds – Video Reaction Show The LRC staff was yelling at the TV during the final 400 urging Jim to get the record.

Walmsley Is Upbeat After Race: “Definitely feels like one of the more special runs I’ve had. I got everything out of myself today, dug real deep, and fought all the way to the line.” “I don’t feel like I gave up, but it was tough to see the seconds tick by. It’s a little bittersweet, but definitely awarded with an American record today, and those don’t come very often … A 45-minute PR. It was a pretty amazing day.”

More Weekend Road Action Pat Tiernan (62:38) and Molly Seidel (69:20) win half marathons in Vegas

Tokyo 2020 News

Cancelation Of Olympics Would Result In Estimated $43.5 Billion Loss, 1% Of Japanese GDP Another less obvious impact of cancellation would be that the future value of facilities would be greatly reduced as they wouldn’t be able to apply the Olympic brand name to them.
Study Finds Tokyo 2020 With No Spectators Would Result In Economic Loss Of Up To $23 Billion
Seb Coe Comments On Olympic Cancellation Rumors “It’s probably better for athletes, who I do have concerns about, that they’re not swept along from rumor to rumor…”
IOC President Thomas Bach Sees “No Reason Whatsoever” That The Tokyo Games Won’t Take Place This Summer “This is why there is no plan B…”
Japanese Government Claims That There Is “Absolutely No Truth” To Report Of Tokyo 2020 Cancellation

Give The Gift Of LetsRun.com This Holiday Season

Distance News

Recommended Read:Donavan Brazier Says He Wants To Make The US Olympic 4×400 Team In Addition To The 800m Brazier says he wants to move down to 400m before going up to 1500 (which he’ll save for when he’s older). He also talks about the prospect of 1:39 and when he may retire.
Telegraph Writer Wants Men And Women To Run Equal XC Distances To Combat Those Who Label Women’s Sport “Inferior” She acknowledges that there are sometimes biological reasons for differences between men’s and women’s sports, but wants to ignore those in favor of “gender equality.”
MB:Official discussion thread on HBO Real Sports’ feature/expose on Nike Oregon Project Features interviews with Mary Cain, Kara and Adam Goucher, and Dorian Ulrey.
Q&A With Double Olympic Champ Kelly Holmes About Starting Her Own Home-Workout Program On YouTube

Sprint Stuff

Good Read:Interview With World 400H Champ Karsten Warholm Warholm talk about exchanging DMs (direct messages) with Usain Bolt, building Legos during lockdown and and wearing shorts to meet the king of Norway.
January 31:Mondo Duplantis And Dina Asher-Smith Announced For Dusseldorf
Friday: Dina Asher-Smith Confirmed For Karlsruhe Indoor Meet

The Olympics And The Vaccine

The Guardian:“Mo Farah Claims Olympic Athletes Have Been Told They Will Get COVID Vaccines” The headline is a bit clickbait because as Reuters points out, Farah never specifies if he was referring specifically to athletes getting vaccinated or to the general public.
*Mo Farah Thinks The Games Will Go Ahead
USOPC Medical Chief Jon Finnoff Says Some Athletes Will Resist COVID-19 Vaccination He says athletes are worried if it will affect their performance.
IOC Athletes’ Commission Candidates Split On Whether Tokyo 2020 Will Take Place Olympic PV champ Katerina Stefanidi supported having the Games while two-time Olympic triathlon champ Alistair Brownlee said not to “rush into a decision.”
GB Paralympian Claims That Athletes Who Get The Vaccine Will Have An Unfair Advantage Over Athletes Who Don’t Only indirectly because an athlete that is recovering from COVID ahead of the Games will have hindered performance.

Results From Down Under

MB:Brett Robinson (28:00.25) And Rose Davies (31:39.97) Win Zatopek 10,000m Jordan Williamsz won the 1,500m in 3:39.59 over Ryan Gregson (3:39.85) as Linden Hall dominated the women’s race in 4:04.33. *World Athletics Recap *Full Results
Matthew Ramsden Runs 3:34.96 For 1,500m In Australia

Olympic Bans

RUSADA Confirms It Won’t Appeal Against CAS’ Two-Year Sanction Decision We’d like to see an appeal from WADA to bump RUSADA’s ban back up to four years.
IOC Threaten Italy With Tokyo 2020 Flag And Anthem Ban Due To Government Interference

International Action

Tom Walsh (20.78m) And Valerie Adams (18.34m) Win Shot Put At Potts Classic In New Zealand
Belgium’s Noor Vidts Sets Early Season Heptathlon World Lead With 4665 Points At The X-Meeting In France
Ferdinand Omanyala Runs Fastest Ever 100m On Kenyan Soil With Wind-Aided 10.11 In other action, world 800m bronze medalist Ferguson Rotich won his 400m heat in 48.68.
World Athletics Weekend Round-Up: Germany’s 2015 World Champ Christina Schwanitz Returns With 19.11m Winning Shot Put After 14 Months Off With Knee Surgery
European 110H Champ Pascal Martinot-Lagard Opens His Season With World-Leading 7.54 Win In The 60H

T&F Vs. COVID-19

British Indoor Championship Cancelled Due To Covid This is the first time there hasn’t been a British Indoor Champs since 1961. British Athletics say they are looking into how they can hold “micro-meetings” tl let athletes qualify for Euro Champs in March.
MB:2021 NB Indoor Grand Prix moved from Boston to Staten Island This is due to the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston being converted to a mass vaccination site.
CARIFTA Games Pushed Back To July 2021 Due To COVID The meet, being held in Bermuda, was originally scheduled for April 3-5.

Admin / Other News

Daily Mail:Pressure Mounts On UK Athletics CEO Joanna Coates After Multiple Coaches And Athletes Receive Anonymous Email Posing “Serious Questions” About Her Leadership The email claimed to be on behalf of an anonymous collective of coaches employed by UKA, but UKA thinks it is a former employee.
MB:NBC will shut down NBCSN by end of the year. Where will track and field be broadcast moving forward?
Glasgow Considering Bidding For The 2024 World Indoor Championships They hosted European Indoors in 2019.
Italy To Avoid Tokyo 2020 Ban After Government Sport Reform Guaranteeing Autonomy For National Olympic Committee

Wejo Speaks / Week That Was

WTW Crouser Gets His WR, Walmsley Just Misses; Patrick Mahomes Gets His Super Shoes And Michigan Gets Cancelled We hope you were entertained over the weekend. We try to tell you what it all means in our Week That Was column.

LRC Why We Need The Olympics In 2021 The Olympics are not just the biggest sporting event in the world. They represent what is best about the world. They remind us of our shared humanity and never has the nations of the world coming together been more important than after a year in which we were isolated and cut off from one another.
Discuss: Official We Want The Tokyo Olympics Thread

Assorted Distance News

Brett Larner Compares The Splits Between Jim Walmsley And Nao Kazami’s 100k Runs While Kazami went out hard and slowed down when he set the record, Walmsley went out conservatively and tried to negative split.
MB:Good Video Interview With Shelby Houlihan Houlihan talks about her 2020 season, training and rivalry with teammate Karissa Schweizer.
Kenya’s World 800m Bronze Medalist Ferguson Kiprotich Thinking About Switching To 1500m After Tokyo Games He even talked about eventually transitioning to the half or full marathon.
Bucket List Marathons To Run Before You Die This is a list for interesting settings (like the Great Wall of China and the North Pole) rather than prestigious races.

American Track League #1 *Results

LRCRyan Crouser Shatters Indoor Shot Put World Record With 22.82m (74’10.5″) Heave Randy Barnes‘ 32-year-old record is history. Several others set world leads, including Grant Holloway (7.35 AR in 60H), Trayvon Bromell (6.48 in 60), Fred Kerley (45.03 in 400), Tonea Marshall (7.86 in w60H) and Quanera Hayes (51.76 in w400). Gabby Thomas moved to #6 all-time in the rarely run women’s indoor 300 (35.92).
*MB: Ryan Crouser SHATTERS indoor shot put world record on 1st throw at American Track League meet