Commonwealth Games Awards, Sportsmanship At Its Finest, Ryan Vail > Mo Farah, Is Shalane Too Old, and Steve Hooker’s Wife Gets Busted

The Week That Was In Running – July 28 – August 3, 2014

by LetsRun.com
August 7, 2014

Previous versions of the Week That Was can be found here.

Questions? Comments? Email us.

We apologize for not getting this up on Tuesday as we try to do but summer vacation got in the way.

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DJ Zoroski Nijel Amos Wins Commonwealth Gold/Sportsmanship at Its Finest

Rudisha is already a legend. Will Amos be one soon as well?

THE story of the Commonwealth Games track and field action for the LetsRun.com audience was the 800 final featuring David Rudisha and Nijel Amos.

The world record holder and Olympic champ Rudisha had the lead for most of the race but once Amos got out of a box in the final straight he was dominant over the final 25 meters and won by 0.3 seconds in 1:45.18.

The anticipation of the final kept us excited all week and the race itself lived up to the billing but we want to talk about what happened afterwards.

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After the race, the three medallists were all shown in an incredible light.

1) Nijel Amos was incredibly humble after the race.

Amos displayed great class. Remember, Amos is a guy who at 18 won an Olympic silver medal by running a world junior record time of 1:41.73  — a time that we should point out is nearly two full seconds faster than what David Rudisha ran as a teenager (1:43.72). Still just 20, Amos is now the world leader in 2014 and has beaten both Mo Aman (2013 world champ) and David Rudisha (2012 Olympic champ, 2011 world champ) each of the last two times they’ve raced.

Given those stats, Amos certainly could be forgiven if he claimed to be the new king of the 800. But when asked if he was now the man in the 800, Sean Ingle of The Guardian reports Amos shook his head no and said, “No, I will only think that if I break the world record five times.”

Remember, all of this humility is coming from a guy that many in the sport were worried about just last fall. He crashed a car, wasn’t training seriously and instead seemed to be more focused on becoming a new DJ star where he goes by the stage name “DJ Zoroski.”

Ingle reports that running fans weren’t the only ones worried about Amos. His sister Francinah also was worried.

Was Amos spiraling out of control with early fame and fortune like Sammy Wanjiru or simply having a little fun in the offseason like Usain Bolt?

Well Amos certainly seems to be on the right track right now. In addition to the nice comments showing great admiration for Rudisha, Amos also celebrated after the race with training partner Andre Olivier, and for good reason (see #3 below)

2) David Rudisha handled defeat with great class.

Many stars don’t know how to lose. David Rudisha does.

There is no way we could tell you how impressed we were by David Rudisha’s actions after the race better than Ingle did for The Guardian so we’ll defer to his simply fantastic sports writing:

Defeat did not diminish him. Quite the opposite. At the finish, when the lacerations were sharpest and the wounding deepest, David Rudisha hugged Nijel Amos, the 20-year-old from Botswana, and told him: “Well done, my brother.” Then he wrapped a Kenyan flag around his back and went on a lap of honour to celebrate his silver medal.

If there was disappointment Rudisha masked it with the skill of an actor. He smiled and waved as he received a standing ovation. “It wasn’t so bad,” he sighed, each word soft, tender. “I am happy to have a silver medal. Nijel is a tough competitor and he was very good.”

There were echoes of a swollen Muhammad Ali after his defeat by Joe Frazier, winking at the hundreds of fans who had converged on his hotel, determined to show light on his darkest day. The bruises on Thursday night were to Rudisha’s record, not his face. Like Ali, he will be back.

3) Andre Olivier Helps Out A Training Mate 

A long time ago, the Red Sea parted for Moses. In Glasgow, a big box suddenly disappeared for Nijel Amos.

As the runners were coming down the homestretch, Amos found himself boxed in on the inside in third behind two Kenyans with South Africa’s Andre Olivier on his outside. Amos wanted to go outside but had nowhere to go until Olivier gave him an opening by going way wide into lane three. After that it was all Amos.

After the race, we found out that Olivier moved wide on purpose as he saw that Amos, whom he trains with in South Africa, was in a bit of a box.

A nice gesture.

After the race, Amos was very thankful, “I was lucky because my training partner Andre, someone who really cares about me, let me out.”

We disagree that Amos was lucky. Yes he was boxed, but a big coaching mantra we have, even indoors on a 200-meter track is that, “It almost always opens up.” Boxes hardly ever cost someone a race as runners normally start kicking so far out that things open up in the final 100.

(We know there are a few hard-core racers who are up in arms reading this. Please don’t email us about how a racer should never help another athlete beat them in a race. With 80 meters remaining, Olivier wasn’t going to win the race).

If you haven’t seen the race it’s a must watch:

More: LRC Nijel Amos Dethrones King David In CW Games 800m Final
*Guardian: David Rudisha stays humble after Nijel Amos storms to 800m gold
*MB: Down goes Rudisha: Nijel Amos kicks past Rudisha to win Commonwealth Gold in 1:45.18

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2014 Commonwealth Games Awards

Since the majority of our audience is based in the US (though London is the #2 city in the world for LRC), we’ve decided to quickly get the Americans caught up on the key mid-d/distance action at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. On the right, you will find a list of all of the mid-d/distance medallists. Below, we hand out a few awards.

Total Class Acts – Nijel Amos, and David Rudisha and Andre Olivier

See above.

Total Domination – Kenyan Women

They won every single women’s mid-d/distance event in Glasgow and 12 women’s medals in total, an average of two per event. The Kenyan men weren’t bad (10 medals, 3 golds), they just weren’t as dominant as the women.

Most Inspiring Medal (Men) – Moses Kipsiro’s Gold in 10,000

Kipsiro, the reigning 5,000 and 10,000 champ, is a hero in our book for having the courage to expose the sexual assaults of teenage girls that were allegedly going on at a Ugandan training camp earlier this year. Kipsiro was punished for his bravery and left off the Ugandan World Half Marathon team and nearly the Commonwealth Games team as well until the Uganda Olympic Committee intervened.

At the 2014 Commonwealth Games, the 27-year-old Kipsiro finished so far back in the 5,000 (8th in 13:28) that he almost didn’t start the 10,000. At the end of the 10,000, he somehow found an opening on the rail and stole the gold in 27:56.11 from Kenya’s Josphat Kipkoech Bett and Canada’s Cam Levins as the top three were separated by just .12.

The final lap is worth a watch if you haven’t seen it:

Jo Pavey in 2012
*More 2012 Olympic Photos

Most Inspiring Medal (Women) – Jo Pavey’s Bronze in 5000

England only won two mid-d/distance medals at the Commonwealth Games and one of them was Jo Pavey‘s bronze in the 5,000 in 15:08.96 (the other was a silver by Laura Weightman in the women’s 1500), but that’s not why we were inspired by Pavey.

We are amazed that she found a way to medal at age 40. Yes, 40. In fact, she’s much closer to 41 than 40 (birthday of September 20). Pavey graduated from college in 1995. The mother of two will be celebrating her 20th college reunion next year. If her medal at the age of 40 doesn’t just blow you away, consider another fact that makes it even more impressive –  it also came less than 11 months after Pavey gave birth to her daughter (born September 4, 2013).

Talk about a Super Woman. All we can say is, ‘Wow.’

We bet many of our younger visitors who aren’t real familiar with Pavey are reading this and wondering, “If Pavey can medal and run under 15:10 at age 40, how good was she in her prime?”

Answer: Very good.

Pavey made the final of every major outdoor championship between 2000 and 2008, was fifth in the 5000 at the 2004 Olympics, and has a pb of 14:39.96 – which is of course faster than the American record in the event (14:42.64).

Pavey’s problem was there was a woman named Paula Radcliffe competing for Britain and England during that time period.

Dumbest Bureaucratic Decision – Athletics Kenya

Whenever Kenya doesn’t do well at a Worlds or Olympics, Athletics Kenya complains that their athletes are racing too much for paydays and are burned out as a result. To combat this, they often try to limit the paid races their best athletes can do yet stupidly have two different sets of trials – one for World Relays and one for CGs, which results in athletes having to race more than they need to. (In reality, many in the sport believe the Athletics Kenya training camps prior to big events are what has led to the occasional burnouts.)

Well this week, Athletics Kenya’s poor decision-making continued.

How did they reward Kenya’s Commonwealth Games 10,000 gold and bronze medallists Joyce Chepkirui and Emily Chebet? By barring them from competing at the Beach To Beacon 10k road race. We can understand limiting athletes’ racing before a major championship. But after? Come on.

Ben True and Joan Benoit Samuelson in Maine last weekend

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Did you miss the Beach To Beacon action last week? It was quite a race and we were there on-site to cover it. Catch up here: Beach To Beacon Coverage.

One thing you may not have realized about Beach To Beacon was that both Meb Keflezighi and Chris Solinsky ran the race. You may not have known they were there as they were buried in the results.

13. Meb Keflezighi, 39, San Diego, CA             29:59
14. Chris Solinsky, 29, Portland, OR              30:02

On the positive side of things, one thing about the race that was big for us was the performance of Ben True (3rd, 27:51) and Patrick Makau (4th, 27:57). Makau, the former world record holder in the marathon, has only finished two marathons since his 2:03:38 world record in 2011, with his last being a 2:14:10 in London 2013, so it was good to see him healthy and in shape.

As for True, after his 13:02 in Stanford in early May, his 13:25 at Pre and 13:13 in Paris were disappointing so it was good to see a positive result from him, giving American fans hope he can possibly get under 13:00 in a few weeks in Europe.

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Stat of the Week I

With the break in the Diamond League action for the Commonwealth Games, many American fans tried their best to get into the Commonwealth Games. Along those lines, we loved one fan’s question on our running messageboard: Why can’t USA compete in Commonwealth Games?

The question seems foolish when you first read it but more interesting when you think about it as America was of course part of the British Empire, just as Kenya once was as well. Anyway, the fact that Pavey’s 14:39.96 pb is faster than the 14:42.64 American record got us to thinking, “In how many of the 44 Olympic track and field events (we ignored the 3 walking events) is the British record better than the American record?”

Answer: 10 – five each on the men’s and women’s side.

The Grand Union Flag was the 1st flag of the US

Olympic Athletic Events Where British Record Is Superior To America’s 

Women

800 – Kelly Holmes 1:56.21 (Jearl Miles Clark 1:56.40)
5000- Paula Radcliffe 14:29.11 (Molly Huddle 14:42.64)
10,000 – Paula Radcliffe 30:01.09 (Shalane Flanagan 30:22.22)
Marathon – Paula Radcliffe 2:15:25 (Deena Kastor 2:19:36)
Triple Jump – Ashia Hansen 15.15m (Tiombe Hurd 14.45m)

Men

800 – Seb Coe 1:41.73 (Johnny Gray 1:42.60)
1500* – Mo Farah 3:28.81 (Bernard Lagat 3:29.30)
5000 – Mo Farah 12:53.11 (Bernard Lagat 12:53.60, run in the same race)
Triple Jump – Jonathan Edwards 18.29m (Kenny Harrison 18.09m)
Javelin Throw – Steve Backley 91.46m (Breaux Greer 91.29m)

*Bring Back the Mile fans, it’s worth noting that Steve Cram’s 3:46.32 British record in the mile is also faster than Alan Webb‘s 3:46.91.

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Ryan Vail in London (Photo by David Monti/RRW)

PR of The Week (That Somehow The Media Missed)

Did you know there was a guy from Portland, Oregon, who recovered from London Marathon in time to be in the track shape of his life the week of the 2014 Commonwealth Games?

No, seriously it’s true and no, Mo Farah didn’t run some secret race.

The person we are talking about is American.

Former Oklahoma State star Ryan Vail, who finished just two spots behind Farah at the London Marathon (Vail was 10th in a pb of 2:10:57, Farah was 8th in 2:08:51), accomplished something last week that Farah only dreamed of: running a 5000 pb. Vail ran 13:28.11 on Saturday to take third in a race in Ninove, Belgium  (previous pb of 13:32.10).

The Brooks-sponsored Vail, who is coached remotely by Oklahoma State’s Dave Smith, deserves a lot of credit for having a great track season so quickly after his pb in London. Vail also was third in the 10,000 at 2014 USAs.

More: http://ryanvail.blogspot.com/

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Stat of The Week II

33 years, 3+ months – age that Deena Kastor was when she set the 2:19:36 American record in the women’s marathon in London in 2006.

33 years, 3+ months – age that Shalane Flanagan will be when she runs the BMW Berlin Marathon in September.

Flanagan surprised many last week by saying her fall marathon will be in Berlin this year, not Chicago or New York, as she feels the Berlin course and more predictable weather give her the best shot at getting Kastor’s 2:19:36 AR as compared to Chicago.

Flanagan told us at Beach to Beacon that she feels now is the right time in her career to go for a fast time, and she will be almost exactly the same age than Kastor was when she set the record in 2006. We’ve done the math and Flanagan will run Berlin on her 12,136th day of existence.

Kastor was just two weeks younger when she set the record in 2006 – it was her 12,122nd day of existence.

More: Shalane Flanagan Going For The American Record This Fall At The Berlin Marathon

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Stat of the Week III

16-15 – Career head-to-head record between Polish 800 runners Adam Kszczot, the 2014 world indoor silver medallist, and Marcin Lewandowski, the 4th-placer at 2011 and 2013 Worlds, after Kszczot won the Polish championships last week over Lewandowski, 1:47.07 to 1:47.35, according to tilastopaja.org (we imagine there are a few races the database service doesn’t have).

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Stat of The Week IV

5 – Number of Kenyans that crossed the line before a Japanese runner did at the Japanese HS championships last week.

(Results via Race Results Weekly).

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Quote of the Week (that wasn’t quote of the day)

Bolt’s Not A Fan of Selfies

“I want to say that this new thing about selfies, they are really making these laps of honor really, really long.”

– Usain Bolt, joking to Eurosport after competing for the first time in 2014 at the Commonwealth Games, where he anchored Jamaica’s 4 x 100 to gold.

More: Commonwealth Games – Bolt leads Jamaica to 4x100m glory as England claim silver

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It Never Passed The Smell Test…..1:56 Beauty/Steve Hooker’s Wife Gets Busted…Yet Another Track Bureaucrat Talking Like An Idiot…. 

Cracking down on doping is very difficult. We don’t envy the jobs that WADA/USADA face every day as it’s very hard to actually catch people with drug tests.

Thankfully, the use of the biological passport has given the anti-doping authorities a chance to really eradicate doping. The biological passport struck again last week as 1:56 Russian runner Ekaterina Kostetskaya, who attended HS in Arkansas and ran in the NCAA for Texas State, was busted for  “use/attempted use of a prohibited substance/method”. Details are scarce but apparently there were “inconsistencies” in her tests. The ban is backdated to 2011 for a sample she gave at the 2011 Worlds where she was 5th in the 800.

Kostetskaya being exposed as a doper isn’t a surprise at all for us. Catching cheats scientifically is very hard. The unscientific “smell test” works amazingly well in many instances. On that front, Kostetskaya failed a long time ago as shown below:

From 6th at NCAA indoors to 1:56 in the span of 16 months – too good to be true

Kostetskaya, whose mother ran 3:54 back in the time when drug testing was largely a joke, is clearly a talented runner. She ran 2:05.95 and won the US outdoor HS national meet in North Carolina in 2003, then moved the 400 hurdles in 2004 in Europe where she was world junior champion over Zuzana Hejnová. She then came back to the States and went to college at Texas State.

In 2007, she was the NCAA leader at 2:03.58 heading into NCAAs but was just sixth. Outdoors, she ran collegiately through the conference meet before going to Europe, where she ended up breaking 2:00 that year. The next year (2008), she was a 1:56.67 runner and Olympian. Amazingly, in drugged up Russia when she ran her 1:56.67 at the 2008 Russian champs, she only crossed the line fourth in the race!!!

The 2008 Russian champs women’s 800 was a drug-user’s dream race. Check out the results.

Now, Kostetskaya’s bust is more interesting than your average Russian drug bust because she’s not someone who is never discussed in the English-speaking media. Far from it. Kostetskaya is married to 2008 Olympic pole vault champion Steve Hooker of Australia.

After Kostetskaya’s bust was announced, the head of Athletics Australia, David Grace, reacted very defensively. We’ve never understood why track and field bureaucrats gets defensive when questioned about doping. In countries like the US and Australia where there is no real chance of state-sponsored doping, the bureaucrats in charge should be happy that the sport is getting cleaner by the day. You should want questions to be asked and for cheats to be exposed.

Grace’s response to the whole affair was horribly done and very defensive. Check out what he said according to Michael Gleeson of The Age:

“I don’t think it is a fair connection at all to taint Steve Hooker

Steve Hooker has probably been, with Sally Pearson and Jared Tallent, our most successful athlete over the past decade. No question.

At one time he held every world, Commonwealth and area title that was available – just an outstanding performance.

He was drug tested on probably hundreds of occasions and never once was any concern ever expressed on a sample taken from him.”

To us, Grace’s response to the whole affair was horribly done.

Our thoughts.

1) If an athlete gets busted for doping, only a complete moron would not wonder about the spouse. C.J. Hunter/Marion Jones – Tim Montgomery/Marion Jones anyone?

2) Grace should know that passing drug test after drug test means very little. David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene, has told us in the past something along the lines of, “To actually fail an in-competition drug test is hard for a smart doper to do, you have to be foolish to fail one.”

3) Instead of immediately getting defensive and mouthing off about hundreds of passed drug tests, why wouldn’t Grace just state the actual facts?

Yes, Grace is right. It’s unfair to taint Steve Hooker simply because his wife tested positive for a very simple reason. Hooker didn’t even meet Kostetskaya until the 2012 Olympics. They met at the 2008 Olympics. She was banned for something that happened in 2011. If his 2008 Olympic gold was achieved unfairly, it certainly had nothing to do with his current wife.

Since the test came to light, we’ve heard nothing from Kostetskaya or Hooker. That’s a shame. If Hooker wants to remain in the sport as a commentator on TV in Australia, the public has a right to hear from him. What would we like to see? The truth/a confession. “Yes, before I married my wife, she used drugs. She grew up in a country where drug use was rampant, etc.”

Speaking of Kostetskaya and drugs, LRC asked her at the 2012 Olympics if she thought doping was more common in Russia. She said, “I’m not really aware of that. It doesn’t bother me because I’m not a part of it. I just do my job and train really hard.”

More on this topic on the messageboard: Wow: IAAF bans Ekaterina Kostetskaya – Steve Hooker’s wife and 1:56 Russian who went to HS in Arkansas – for doping
*Archive 2012: Does anyone remember Russian 1,500 champ Ekaterina Kostetskaya attending HS in US?

More Doping News From Last Week: *We’ve Been Saying This For Years British Columnist Says Athletes Should Publish List Of Drugs They Are On We’ve thought this for years. If you are on thyroid medication, we want to know. Let the public decide.
*Yet Another Russian Racewalker Is Banned For Doping This time it’s European champ Stanislav Emelyanov.
*Amantle Montsho Tests Positive For Stimulant Banned In Competition

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Ford Palmer Breaks 4:00 / What About The Sport?

Between the Commonwealth Games and the Beach to Beacon 10k, there was a lot of pro action last weekend, so we’ll understand if you missed the inaugural Sir Walter Miler race at Raleigh’s Meredith College on August 1. If you did, you definitely check out the video below as it’s well worth four minutes of your time.

The winner was first-time sub-4 miler Ford Palmer of NJ*NY Track Club, the vegan/bartender/lifeguard/HS football player that took fifth at USAs in the 1500, who used a strong last 200 to lead three men under 4:00 in 3:57.61. While Palmer was obviously capable of the time (he ran 3:38 for 1500 at Oxy in May), sub-4:00 was a long time coming as he has run 4:00 four times, including a 4:00.00 at this year’s Penn Relays.

The fans had a great view when Ford Palmer first broke 4:00

Even though Palmer broke 4:00 easily, he didn’t know he was under until the final meters.

“Normally when there’s a clock at the finish line, you can see the time with 100 to go, but with the amount of people on the track, I couldn’t see the clock until about two feet to go,” Palmer told LetsRun on Monday. “I saw 3:56, 3:57 and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I did it!'”

Meet organizers of America, take note: this is how you put on a professional track meet. There were just three races on the schedule and fans were allowed on the track for the two pro races, creating a noise tunnel on the home stretch for all four laps. Palmer said that when he went back and watched the race video, he had to take out his headphones because the crowd was so loud and that it was the same level of noise when he was actually running.

“I think this is the template for popular track meets,” Palmer said. “They had a tight schedule under an hour long: a community mile, women’s elite mile and men’s elite mile. But before that, they had a pre-party at the Raleigh Brewing Company. It was almost a carnival on the college campus, everyone went to the race, cheered their butts off, and went back to the brewery afterwards. It was the best event I have ever been to as a track athlete.”

The next morning, the pros gathered for a run at Raleigh’s Umstead Park, where fans were encouraged to join in. Palmer said he enjoyed being able to interact with the fans after the meet and loved the encouragement he and the other runners received during the race. The meet was put on by Pat Price (Daily Relay) and brothers Logan Roberts (former Baylor runner) and Sandy Roberts (former Georgetown/NC State runner), who saved money by putting up athletes with host families and raising prize money ($1,000 for first) through Kickstarter. Sandy Roberts also ran in the race and was eighth in 4:05.02.

So in conclusion how do you make track more popular? You have fewer events but more alcohol and insist that the athletes interact with the fans before and after the event. Golfers play in pro-ams before PGA events, runners should run with fans in a similar fashion.

Kudos to everyone in North Carolina who put on this event – our Race of The Week.

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Recommended Reads

• Inspirational: Jamaica’s Novlene Williams-Mills Fight Continues At The Commonwealth Games Once battling cancer, the 400 ended up taking silver at the CGs. She said, “For the past two years to just come back on the track to do what I love to do, so to get that medal would tell all my fellow cancer survivors to never give up hope and to keep fighting”.
• We’ve Been Saying This For Years British Columnist Says Athletes Should Publish List Of Drugs They Are On We’ve thought this for years. If you are on thyroid medication, we want to know. Let the public decide.

• Good Read: Toni Reavis Introduces You To The Woman Who Never Ran In HS Or College But Was 10th At Bix – Laura Batterink Scroll down as her story comes out in the second half.

• The Meteoric Rise Of Trentavis Friday Friday, the world junior 200m gold medalist, didn’t run  track as a freshman due to poor grades. As a sophomore, with little training, he ran a 48.12. Last year he ran 10.37, 20.79, and 46.97. Now he’s run 10.00 and 20.03.
• Interesting Q&A With Michael Johnson About The Financial Side Of The Sport And How He Went From Making “$3 An Hour To $500,000 Per Race”

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Other News of Note

Galen Rupp Is The Father Of A Baby Boy And Baby Girl Rupp’s wife is doing well after giving birth to twins on Tuesday. Congrats to them both. *MB: It’s twins: a Rupp boy and girl

Tragic News: Former 400m NCAA Champ Torrin Lawrence Dies In Car Accident Lawrence ran for the US in the opening round of the 4 x 400 at the World Relays two months ago, helping the team on to the final where they won gold. *UGA Athletics Article *USATF Release: Lawrence Ran A PR Of 45.32 Just 2 Weeks Ago In Belgium