Archived Homepage For March 23, 2021

More Recent Results

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Opens Season At Velocity Fest In Jamaica SAFP won the 200 in 23.19. World silver medalist Shanieka Rickets set a TJ world lead with 14.63m. *Full Meet Video
Euro Steeplechase Silver Medalist Fabienne Schlumpf Breaks Swiss Half-Marathon Record With 68:27 Victory In Dresden, Germany Germany’s Simon Boch won the marathon in 2:10:48.
Juntendo University Wins First National Mixed-Gender University Ekiden The race's format had men passing the tasuki (a sash that is an ekiden's version of a baton) to women and the women on to men.
AW Weekly Round-Up
Event-By-Event Top-10 Marks Of The Collegiate Week

Weekend Results: USATF 15k Champs

RRW: Emily Sisson (48:09) and Clayton Young (43:52) Win US 15k Titles at 2021 Gate River Run

Sisson ran the #5 women's time-ever and dominated, picking up $15,000 as she won the $5,000 battle of the sexes bonus.
*Top 20 Results
*MB: Gate River Run US 15k Champs

World Half Champ Jacob Kiplim And Ethiopia's Tsehay Gemechu Win Campaccio XC Race In Italy Both won by a margin of 3-seconds.
No Finishers At The 2021 Barkley Marathons Two runners completed three loops of the five loop 100 mile race, but no one started a 4th loop. Only 15 runners have ever finished the race since it began in 1986, the last one was in 2017. *Discuss

On The Boards

Distance Talk

DyeStat Video "Milers Roundtable Q&A" With Alan Webb, Jim Ryun, Drew Hunter And Hobbs Kessler The four fastest US prep milers ever answer questions and talk amongst themselves in this hour and a half interview.
RW Q&A: Eliud Kipchoge, Feeling Mentally and Physically Fit, Is Ready for the NN Hamburg Marathon Asked what sport he'd do if he hadn't become a runner, Kipchoge chose tennis, though he admits he's never played.
Runner's World Catches Up With The Six Members Of The US Olympic Marathon Squad Talking about goals, Galen Rupp and Sally Kipyego both mention medaling while Abdi Abdirahman mentions top 10 or top 5.

Seb Coe Speaks

Seb Coe Claims He Went Out Of His Way To Keep Competitive Options Open For DSD (Athletes With Differences In Sexual Development) Athletes

"If I’m being hard-nosed about it, if I’d stuck simply to the definitions around biology then I would probably have got support for preventing those athletes from competing at all in a female category. I didn’t want to do that."

High School Action

Euro Indoors And COVID

Coronavirus Positives From Euro Indoors Escalates With Dozens Of Cases Reported At least 10 GB team members tested positive, 15 Italian, eight Dutch and cases in the German, French, Irish and Denmark teams as well.
GB Pole Vaulter Holly Bradshaw Says She's "Nervous" About Traveling As A Team To Tokyo After Picking Up COVID At Euro Indoors Bradshaw tweeted that she "thankfully [has] minimal symptoms."

T&F News' Indoor AOY

1500m WR Setter Gudaf Tsegay Is T&F News' Women's Indoor AOY They chose Athing Mu as the US woman and Tyra Gittens as the top collegiate. Mid-distance runner Sophia Gorriaran was the top for HS.
T&F News Chooses Ryan Crouser As Their 2021 Men's Indoor Athlete Of The Year KC Lightfoot was the collegiate AOY and sprinter Jaylen Slade the top for HS.
T&F News Profile And Season Recap For Jaylen Slade

What About The Fans?

Foreign Spectators Barred From The 2020 Olympics

The move is disappointing, but expected. Discuss.

Several National Olympic Committees Express Their Disappointment On The Decision To Ban Overseas Fans At Tokyo 2020
Outside Magazine: Will There Be Fans At The Hayward Field Olympic Trials? TrackTownUSA CEO Michael Reilly says, “We are certainly hopeful that we will have fans at the Olympic Trials, but we are far from certain that that is going to be the case."

The UK Olympic Marathon Trials Are Friday

The British Olympic Marathon Trials Are Set For Flat, Fast Course Next Week

This is the first time in 40 years that the British Olympic Marathon Trials has been its own event. Usually it is part of the London Marathon.

Athletics Weekly British Marathon Trials Previews Dewi Griffiths (2:09:49), Steph Davis (2:27:40) and Lily Partridge (2:29:24) lead the entries.

NCAA News

MB: NCAA cuts regional fields from 48 per individual event to 32...

The NCAA said "the reduction will help address COVID-19 concerns associated with a large number of participants. "

NCAA Indoor Awards: Cole Hocker, Athing Mu Named Track Athletes Of The Year By USTFCCCA JuVaughn Harrison and Tyra Gittens were the field event athletes of the year.

Race Walkers Are People Too

On to Outdoors

LRC Paul Chelimo Runs 13:09.90 to Win Boost Treadmills 5,000 as American Record Attempt Falls Short

Paul Chelimo got revenge on Emmanuel Bor, but not the American record in the final indoor race of 2021. *Race replay
Podcast: World Record Holder (Grant Holloway) Is Our Featured Guest + NCAA x2, & Cole Hocker Superstar? You won't want to miss our sit-down with Grant Holloway after we break down the NCAA Indoor Track and Field and Cross Country Championships.

Doping News

World Athletics Reinstates Neutral Athlete Program For Russian Athletes, But Only Ten Athletes Will Be Allowed To Compete At The Olympics And Worlds

For comparison, Russia had 29 neutral athletes at 2019 Worlds. *World Athletics Release

COVID Talk

British Athletics Concerned About Coronavirus Protocols At Euro Indoor Champs Among their concerns were a lack of space for social distancing and protocols not being adhered to or properly enforced.
European Athletics Releases Statement Defending Its Coronavirus Protocols They say all the positive cases can be traced back to two hotels where athletes weren't always following COVID rules.
GB Sprinter Adam Gemili: “It’ll be heartbreaking if you get to the Olympics and get a message saying you have to isolate and you were competing the next day. That is an athlete’s worst nightmare..." Gemili says in Tokyo you'll see him on the track and then he'll be back "in his room under the covers."
Russia To Offer Voluntary Vaccines to Athletes Ahead Of Tokyo 2020

Bolt Updates

USA Today: Usain Bolt Talks Tokyo Olympics, Fatherhood And Noah Lyles' Potential Talking about his first Olympics as a retired athlete, Bolt says he "misses competing, but the training keeps me away."
Usain Bolt Donates 150 Laptops To Rural Schools In Jamaica Bolt said: “The best thing about my life is being able to give back, especially to the children."

More Sprint Stuff

Good Read: World Athletics Illustrated Article On Former 100m WR Holder Evelyn Ashford: "From Racing The Boys To Four-Time Olympic Gold Medalist" Ashford held the WR from 1983 to 1988, made her first Olympics at 19-years-old in 1976 and made her last Olympic appearance in 1992 at age-35.
Olympic Schedule May Prevent Shaunae Miller-Uibo From Attempting The 200/400 Double She wanted to try and become the first to win the 200/400 double in 25-years. Miller-Uibo complained that the double is more manageable for the men as they have an extra day between the 400 semis and final.
RIP: Czech Republic's Three-Time European Medalist Helena Fuchsova Dies At The Age Of 55 After A Long Illness She won medals at 400m, but also placed 5th in the 2000 Olympic 800m after leading the race through a fast 55.04 first lap.

Event News

Tokyo Marathon Plans To Go Ahead In October With Reduced Field Of 25,000 The normal field size is 38,000.
Athletics Canada Announce Nine-Meet Domestic Series In Advance Of Tokyo 2020 The first meet is May 21 in Ottawa.
Athletics South Africa Returning To Action, Launching New Meet On March 23

US Distance News

LRC 47 Athletes Raced Both NCAA Indoors & NCAA XC. Here's How They Did.

This is a fascinating read and really must-read for any coaches out there.

More US News:The 4 fastest US HS milers ever - Jim Ryun, Alan Webb, Drew Hunter & Hobbs Kessler - do a video roundtable

Is It Too Soon For Nike To Be Taking The Lead on Celebrating Powerful Pregnant Women?

Embed from Getty Images

Alysia Montaño slams Nike for its new pregancy ad, says they are gaslighting people

In her mind they are claiming to be "leading the charge in empowering women in all areas" and she finds this fact to be "infuriating" since until recently they weren't even paying their star women during pregnancy.

Speaking of Nike: Good feature on Irish Olympic marathoner Paul Pollock who put on the super shoes and dropped his pb from 2:15 to 2:10 Before his 2:10, his training was so bad (only 41 mpw) that he decided he's drop out after halfway but felt so good that he kept going.
MB: Holy sh**. Meet Paul Pollock aka the guy who ran a 17:20 5k 4 weeks b4 his marathon, bought a pair of Next% and ran 2:10!!

British Distance News

Laura Muir believes Covid-19 Olympic delay has helped her medal chances "I’m certainly in a better position than had the Olympics been last year...This time last year I was just getting back into things."
Elliot Giles says the main reason he has performed so well recently is because he has finally learned to enjoy competing "I always said if I could race the way I train, I knew I could be one of the best in the world," he said.
Elliott Giles fires back at people who say he broke Coe's 800 record due to super spikes Giles points out he's been running in the shoes since 2019.
Compression sleeves cause freak injury to Britain's Jonny Mellor who ran 2:10 twice in 2020 and now he will miss Olympic Marathon Trials.
British Olympic 10,000m Trials Head To Birmingham On June 5 After Cancellation Of Usual Night Of 10,000m PBs Event Entries will be invite only and there will likely be no spectators.
After Breakthrough, Keely Hodgkinson Sets Sights On Euro U20 Champs And Tokyo 2020 Her coach Jenny Meadows says that she'll run Euro U20 no matter what and then peak in August, either for the Olympics or World Junior Champs.

Administrative News of Note

Three of USATF's Journey to Gold-Tokyo meets awarded Gold status on World Athletics Continental Tour The USATF Grand Prix on April 24, the USATF Golden Games at Mt. San Antonio College on May 9, and the adidas Boost Boston Games on May 23 have been awarded gold label status. Gold status designates the meet will offer a higher level of World Athletics Ranking points, as well as significant prize money.
World Athletics Continental Tour grows to 85 events in 2021 after only 29 were held in 2020
Paul Tergat has been appointed as a Board Member of the Olympic Refugee Foundation for a period of four years
Michigan's outdoor track season will only feature meets against other Big 10 schools

World Record Talk

Seb Coe Talks About Shoe Tech Innovation; Concedes That New Shoe Designs Are "Unlikely To Inhibit" World Records At Tokyo 2020

The full quote is amazing. "I hope we have a clutch of world records in Tokyo and I think they will reflect a whole series of interlocking factors that go to high class performance, but I readily concede that the creativity of the shoe companies is unlikely to inhibit those performances."
World Athletics Reviews A Memorable 2021 Indoor Season Four world indoor WRs were broken: Gudaf Tsegay (1500m), Grant Holloway (60H), Ryan Crouser (SP) and Hugues Fabrice Zango (TJ).

Free Coaching Advice

Recent African Distance Results

AW Weekly Round-Up: World Half-Marathon Champ Jacob Kiplimo Raced At The Italian XC Champs, Winning The 10k Race In 30:09
Hellen Obiri Wants To Run The 5000/10,000 Double At Tokyo 2020 She ran the 10,000m at an Athletics Kenya meet this weekend and won in 31:24.7.

Other GB News

UK Athletics Have Had Ten Positive COVID Cases Since Returning From Euro Indoor Champs, Including Pole Vaulter Holly Bradshaw UK Athletics isn't happy with the COVID protocols at the championships and are contacting the organizers.
Good Read: GB Sprinter Jason Gardener Writes About How He Went From A Double Hernia Repair To Winning World Indoor 60m Gold In The Same Season
A Look Back At When Jessica Ennis Won Her First Global Title In The Pentathlon At The 2010 World Indoor Champs

Random Stuff

IOC Votes For Closer Ties With Esports, But Not “Violent” Vid Games IOC president Thomas Bach: "We have a clear red line that we do not want to deal with any game which is contrary to the Olympic values."
This Summer's World Junior Champs Will Have A Reduced Number Of Fans Due To COVID-19 At least they are committing to having fans.
World Athletics Launches The World's First 3D Virtual Sports Museum The museum is available for free here.

Road Race News

2021 Boston Marathon Capping Entrants At 20,000 Due To COVID-19

That's 33% less than the usual number. *BAA Release

Mo Farah And Ethiopia's Yalemzerf Yehualaw (64:31 PB) Announced For Antrim Coast Half-Marathon On August 29 Yehualaw is #2 on the all-time list and wants to break the WR here. On the men's side, four sub-hour runners are already announced in addition to Farah.
The Gate River Run Will Have Reduced Numbers And Other COVID Procedures When Hosting USATF 15k Champs The mass race will be capped at 8000 runners (about half the usual number).

Women's Coaching News

DyeStat: "Despite The Odds, Cross Country And Track And Field Women Are Making Waves In Coaching" Four of the top five women’s teams at NCAA XC Champs were led by women coaches, including BYU's Diljeet Taylor.
Runner's World Asks Why Aren’t More Female Coaches in Charge of Pro Teams? They asked Swiss footwear company On who they interviewed before choosing Dathan Ritzenhein to run their group in Boulder and they said two of the five candidates were women.

Best of the LetsRun.com Track Talk Podcast

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RRW: Emily Sisson (48:09) and Clayton Young (43:52) Win US 15k Titles at 2021 Gate River Run

Seb Coe Claims He Went Out Of His Way To Keep Competitive Options Open For DSD (Athletes With Differences In Sexual Development) Athletes

Foreign Spectators Barred From The 2020 Olympics

The British Olympic Marathon Trials Are Set For Flat, Fast Course Next Week

MB: NCAA cuts regional fields from 48 per individual event to 32...

LRC Paul Chelimo Runs 13:09.90 to Win Boost Treadmills 5,000 as American Record Attempt Falls Short

World Athletics Reinstates Neutral Athlete Program For Russian Athletes, But Only Ten Athletes Will Be Allowed To Compete At The Olympics And Worlds

LRC 47 Athletes Raced Both NCAA Indoors & NCAA XC. Here's How They Did.

Alysia Montaño slams Nike for its new pregancy ad, says they are gaslighting people

Seb Coe Talks About Shoe Tech Innovation; Concedes That New Shoe Designs Are "Unlikely To Inhibit" World Records At Tokyo 2020

2021 Boston Marathon Capping Entrants At 20,000 Due To COVID-19

American Record Pod: Yared Nuguse and Wood Kincaid Open Up

Webb, Ritz, and Hall

Madeline Manning Mims

Frank Shorter

LRC American Marathon Record Podcast: Keira D'Amato and Deena Kastor

LRC Emily Sisson - The Next US Marathon Superstar?

LRC Woody Kincaid - On His American Record and Leaving Bowerman

LRC New Balance Boston's Mark Coogan

LRC Brooks Beasts' Danny Mackey

LRC OAC's Dathan Ritzenhein

The Rise of Syracuse: How a Cross Country Powerhouse Was Built From Scratch in 10 Years

26:59: The Story of Chris Solinsky's American Record and Upset of Galen Rupp

The Summer of Webb: An Inside Look at Alan Webb’s Magical 2007 Season

Dreams Become Reality: Jake Wightman Stuns Jakob Ingebrigtsen to Win World 1500m Title

Wejo Speaks: Why I Sucked in College

Escorting Paula - How LRC Co-Founder Weldon Johnson Paced Radcliffe To Her 1st World Record

American Strong: How American Teamwork Helped Meb Keflezighi Win Boston

LRC's Robert and Weldon Johnson Named as Two of “The 50 Most Influential People in Running”

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