Emmanuel Bor may be America's latest Olympic contender as he was on American record pace until the final 800m, but he had to settle for the #2 US time ever and the win over Paul Chelimo.
Archived Homepage For March 05, 2021
Archived Homepage For March 05, 2021
Tragic News
McMullen, a semi-finalist in the 1500m at the 1996 Atlanta Games, was only 49-years-old. In a sad coincidence, he passed away one day after Bob Parks, the head coach at Eastern Michigan when McMullen was there.
- RIP: Eastern Michigan University Mourns The Loss Of Legendary Coach Bob Parks Who Passed Away Wednesday At Age-90 Parks was at EMU for 34-years and impressively, had athletes he had coached at every Olympic Games from 1968 to 2012.
On The Boards
On The Boards
COVID Cancellations
On April 24th there will be a Philadelphia-region collegiate only meet and they also plan on hosting a pro meet and a high school meet later on.
- 2021 USATF Under-20 Championships Cancelled Due To COVID Positions for the 2021 Pan Am Championships in Chile will instead be selected based on performance rank order.
Random Distance News
She claimed she had rushed to see her sister in the hospital, but turns out she had made up the story and forged hospital documents. The Kenyan was due to be switch allegiance to Bahrain this summer, but now will be banned for three years. *2nd article
European Champs Start Today In Poland
- What A Shame: False Positive COVID Test Rules 20-Year-Old Irish 3000m Runner Out Of His First Senior Championship Darragh McElhinney had a positive when tested via PCR, but his antigen and subsequent PCR tests were negative, however he was still forced to withdraw.
- BBC: Five Things You Need To Know For European Indoors 2021
- European Athletics: Nine World Leading Athletes To Challenge For Titles In Torun Jakob Ingebrigsten is the lone distance runner among the nine and going for the 1500/3000 double.
- European Athletics: With Three European Leaders In Their Ranks, The Dutch Are Poised For A Golden Campaign In Torun
NCAA Rankings And Lists
- BYU Near Unanimous #1 Ahead Of NAU In Updated Men's NCAA XC Coaches' Poll Arkansas and Stanford are ranked 3-4.
- Arkansas Women Ranked #1 In Latest NCAA XC Coaches' Poll BYU, New Mexico and NC State are ranked 2-4.
- Women's Pre-NCAA Indoor Bowerman Watch List Athing Mu, Joyce Kimeli and Courtney Wayment are the three distance runners on the ten person list.
Olympic News
- Tokyo 2020 To Decide On International Spectators By End Of March The original title of this article said Tokyo 2020 was planning on holding the games "without international spectators" as that's what a Japanese newspaper was reporting.
- Another Poll Says Majority (58%) Of Japanese Public Do Not Want Olympics To Happen This Year Another useless stat because it says "this year" as if another year is an option. The choices are 2021 or not at all so that's the only thing a poll should be asking.
- US Politician Nikki Haley Joins Calls For Boycott Of Beijing 2022 Olympics Over China's Human Rights Record How about we leave politics out of the Olympics?
- Tokyo 2020 Appoints 12 Women To Executive Board In Response To Sexism Controversy
USATF Finally Stepping Up
The first meet (as well as three others) will be in Texas. Most of the meet locations are listed TBD, but there will also be one in Boston and another in California.
Mid-Week Result
- MB: Stewart McSweyn Runs 13:05.87 For 5000m In Australia; Misses His Target Of Craig Mottram's 12:55 National Record Izzi Batt-Doyle won the women's race in 15:11.07.
NCAA News
Cooper Teare talks about how he and Cole Hocker laughed at coach Ben Thomas' pre-race split sheet that had 3:49 written down as they were only expecting to run 3:53 high at best.
- List Of Accept Entries For NCAA DI Indoor Champs
- MB: Athing Mu Will not run NCAA indoor 800 She's entered in...
- The Register Guard: Led By Historically Good Men's Distance Team, Oregon Loads Up For NCAA Indoor Champs
- Updated NCAA DI Men’s Cross Country Regional Rankings
- Latest NCAA DI Women’s Cross Country Regional Rankings
- Qualifiers Announced For 2021 NCAA DII Indoor T&F Championships
Upcoming Distance Action
This will be her first race since giving birth to her son last year and her first race since 2018 according to Tilastopaja.org. Eliud Kipchoge was previously announced for the men.
- MB: Solid 800, 1500 And 5000 Fields With BTC And More Set For Sound Running Invite On Saturday The men's 5000m has Marc Scott, Morgan McDonald, Kieran Tuntivate, Grant Fisher while the women's is lead by Molly Huddle, Emily Sisson, Kellyn Taylor, Weini Kilati. Scott posted that he actually skipped Euro Indoors for this race and he's expecting a "big one." *Meet Home
Mass Racing News
- MB: Boston 'anticipate(s) having a reduced field size' this year, London anticipates having its biggest ever
- MB: 2021 Grandma's Marathon 2021 Will Let Runners Start Only Five At A Time
- Prince Harry Praised For "Unstinting Support" Of London Marathon After Nine-Year Patronage
- Parkrun Starting Back Up In England June 5th However, "Junior Parkrun" (smaller version of the normal races) is starting up April 11th.
More European Champs Previews (Starts Thursday)
Week That Was
In our weekly recap, we catch up with Mike Smith and ask him about his team's loss a the Big Sky xc champs, wonder if a team can go from 8th at SECs to #1 at NCAAs, and rave about Yuki Kawauchi and Athing Mu.
Q&A
Q&A
Learn how Tuntivate managed to run 27:17 despite having a 5000 pb of just 13:57.
Marathon News
Kawauchi talks about continuing to try and run sub-2:20 marathons into his late 40s or 50s. “I personally think I will never retire from marathons and continue to do this as long as I live.”
- World Half-Marathon Record Holder Peres Jepchirchir Expects Her Kenyan Teammates To Be The Biggest Threat To Her Winning Olympic Gold She's definitely not wrong.
- Pretty Cool: Eugene Marathon Is Using Salvaged Wood From Hayward Field For Their Finisher Medals Less cool is that the race will be virtual again this year.
*Oregon's COVID-19 State Of Emergency Extended To May 2 - Virtual London Marathon Sells Out As 50,000 Sign-Up To Run Remotely How do you sell out of a virtual race?
COVID Vaccine Discussion
"My mind still stays strong, I don’t want the vaccine. ...I don’t want to get into it right now, but I have my reasons." Asafa Powell on the other hand was under the impression he would need to take the vaccine to compete abroad.
MB: Yohan Blake: "I’d rather miss the Olympics than take the vaccine. I am not taking it."
- NY Times Analyzes The Ethics Of Olympic Athletes Skipping The Line For COVID Vaccinations Some don't think it's fair for athletes to get priority while others think having thousands of unvaccinated people from all over the world in Tokyo could be a "superspreader" event.
European Indoor Champs Start Thursday
- Athletics Weekly Men's Track Preview Jakob Ingebrigsten vs Marcin Lewandowski in the 1500m should be a highlight.
- Women's Track Preview Can 18-year-old star Keely Hodgkinson win 800m gold?
- Men's Field Preview Mondo Duplantis vs Renaud Lavillenie in the pole vault.
- Women's Field Preview Ukraine's Yaroslava Mahuchikh has cleared 2.06m this season in the HJ.
- Irish Miler Ciara Mageean Pulls Out Of European Indoor Championships She was expected to be one of Ireland's best medal hopes, but she cited lack of fitness due to setbacks for not wanting to compete.
- HJer Morgan Lake Leads List Of Six Athletes Added To UK Euro Indoor Squad
NCAA / HS News
- Oregon, LSU And Arkansas Stay 1-3 In Latest Men's Indoor Rankings With Only A Week Until NCAAs BYU jumped up from 6th to to 4th.
- No Changes To Women's Top-4 Ranked Indoor Teams As Arkansas Stays On Top Texas A&M, Texas and Georgia are ranked 2-4.
- MileSplit: Four College Recruits Whose Progression Has Exploded Upward Hobbs Kessler tops their list.
- Event-By-Event Top-10 Collegiate Marks From Last Week
Doping News
- Alberto Salazar's CAS Appeal Hearing Starts Tomorrow (Wednesday) (link updated)
- World Athletics Council Approves Russian Federation Reinstatement Plan There are a number of reform changes required in the coming year, but the report notes that "irreversibly changing a culture will in fact take a generation". *2nd article
Tokyo 2020 Updates
Tokyo 2020 Updates
- Tokyo 2020 President Seiko Hashimoto Believes Fans Should Be Allowed To Attend The Games In Limited Numbers "When we think about the possibility of holding the Olympics without fans in the stands, athletes will definitely wonder why there are no fans just for the Olympics and Paralympics when other competitions are allowing in spectators."
- Seb Coe Addresses Reports Of Japanese Public Wanting Games Cancelled Or Postponed "I think we all have to be realistic that a postponement is not possible. I think we recognize that it will not be a postponement, it would be a cancellation, and the next Games would be Paris."
- Athletes Could Receive Exemptions To Enter Japan When State Of Emergency Lifts Athletes wouldn't be required to quarantine for two weeks when they arrive.
- New Tokyo 2020 President Seiko Hashimoto: “On a daily basis I am faced with difficult challenges and I am spending my days in a hectic manner. I have been reminded of the importance of this position.”
- Around 1000 Tokyo 2020 Volunteers Quit In February Due To Sexism Controversy And COVID-19 Concerns Would be interesting to know the breakdown of each.
- Tokyo Leg Of Torch Relay Will Give Nod To 1964 Olympics
SEC Champs - Another Record For Athing Mu
The magical freshman season of the Texas A&M sensation hit a new high as the 18-year-old went from 2:01 to 1:58 in a single race.
- Arkansas Men Win SEC Champs Without A Single Individual Victory It was the first time in the history of the meet for a team to do that. They Beat LSU by 23 points.
- Arkansas Women Take Their 7th Consecutive SEC Indoor Title Arkansas' Krissy Gear won the mile in 4:34.72. Auburn's Joyce Kimeli completed the 3k/5k double with 8:56.02 over Arkansas' Katie Izzo (8:56.55).
- SEC 200m Record Falls Twice Within The Span Of Five Minutes Florida's Joseph Fahnbulleh ran 20.32 to break the record in the first final, but LSU's Terrance Laird ran 20.28 in the second final a few minutes later.
- MB: Athing MF Mu DESTROYS NCAA and WU20 Records - 1:58.40!!
- MB: Athing Mu Progression
Lake Biwa Goes Out With A Bang
Kego Suzuki got the NR. Behind him, the results were staggering as 5 Japanese men broke 2:07, 15 ran 2:08 or faster, 26 broke 2:09 and 40 broke 2:10. Suzuki's final 7.2k was LEGENDARY.
Atlanta Half-Marathon
A year after making the US Olympic Marathon, team Seidel was back in Atlanta setting another PR. Abdisamed Abdi won the men's race in 63:59.
Your latest American stars share their insights.
American Record Holders
American Record Holders
Keira D'Amato, the new American record holder in the marathon, was joined by Deena Kastor, who held the record for 15 years.
Sisson was the guest on the LetsRun.com Track Talk podcast after she became the first American to go sub 67 in the half marathon on a record-eligible course. Podcast highlights above. Full pod here.
Woody Kincaid joined us after he broke the American record indoors at 5000. He talks above why he left the Bowerman Track Club. Podcast highlights and link to full podcast here.
Coogan's New Balance Boston team had 3 Olympians in 2021 and 2022 could be the biggest year yet for the program with 2 new additions and the TRACK at New Balance coming on March 1st.
Danny Mackey has taken the Brooks Beasts from an unproven club to the Olympic podium in its first decade.
Dathan Ritzenhein is the first of the top pro coaches to sit down and talk about his club heading into the 2022 campaign.
Best of Jon Gault
Best of Jon Gault
Take Your Love of LetsRun to the Next Level
Take Your Love of LetsRun to the Next Level
LetsRun Classics
LetsRun Classics
‒Emmanual Bor after running the #2 time ever by an American at 5,000m.