The Latest Distance News

Recommend Read In Her Own Words: Molly Seidel Opens Up To ESPN Even More About Her Struggles With Anxiety, Depression And Disordered-Eating If you think once you make an Olympic team, life instantly because a non-stop joy fest, this essay will be eye-opening.
*MB: Molly Seidel shares more about her struggles with anxiety, depression and eating : “I will never overcome my eating disorder.”

• Shadrack Kipchirchir and Stewart McSweyn will go for US and Aussie 10,000 record in Oct 7th race in Spain where Cheptegei goes for WR
• Eliud Kipchoge Is Feeling Good About His London Chances, Has Tested Negative For Covid-19 And Will Go To London On Sunday “I am really feeling good having trained for the last three months and now I am waiting for the big day.”
• Mo Farah Switches PR Firms His old firm wasn’t cheap as they even flew out to Rio to help handle his PR.
• Leo Manzano Interviews HS Sub-4 Miler Leo Daschbach Check out the latest episode of Leo’s learnings.
• Parkrun Postpones Its UK Returns As Covid Cases Rise The good news is that running is up overall in England during Covid-19.
• Backlash Builds Over Super Strict COVID-19 Policy For Qualifying Race For Japan’s Biggest Race Of The Year One college coach says the rules will lead to suicide. What do you think? Tell us on the message board. Podium Reviews New Biography On Joe Vigil, “Chasing Excellence” They write “If you coach, you need to read this book.”
• Are your carbon-plated shoes making you weaker? Shalaya Kipp has looked into and says the verdict is TBD. “Longterm, after someone wears the shoe for months, nobody knows that outcome yet.”
• Dec. 6th’s 2020 California International Marathon Canceled Due To COVID-19

Diversity Talk

• Michael Johnson Says BLM Has Helped Him Realize There Is A Lot Of Racism He Didn’t Know Existed “The Black Lives Matter movement is highlighting the racism and it is taking the first step. It has done a phenomenal job of getting people, even myself, to sort of wake up and see that what we thought, the progress that we have made has been phenomenal, but it is far from over. There is still a tremendous amount of work to do because there is a tremendous amount of racism that we didn’t even know exists that is affecting black people every single day that must be rectified and that is going to take a very, very long time.”
• Meet Janine Geigele, The Woman Who Became The Weltklasse Zurich Announcer At Age 19 She also was the youngest female TV sports journalist in Swiss TV history and says, “Athletics needs more women’s voices within the sport.”

USADA Nails A Guy And We Celebrate

LRC Drug Cheat Who Won US 15K Title In March Gets Popped (Twice!) For Taking Drugs Yet Again For some reason, even though people like Edward Cheserek and the Stepanovs can’t get citizenship, the US government decided to grant EPO cheat Ridouane Harroufi citizenship. He has rewarded them by showing his “good moral character” by testing positive two more times.
*MB: Unreal: Ridouane Harroufi – the doper whom the US made a citizen – gets popped for doping two more times!!!
*From The Archives: MB: Why wouldn’t testing positive for EPO be an automatic disqualifier for US citizenship? Ridouane Harroufi win US 15k title

More Doping News

• Remember the story from January about the “top Kenyan athlete” who jumped out a window and over a fence to avoid a drug test? He has been named and banned. We wouldn’t exactly call a 60:43/2:11:00 guy a top Kenyan athlete but Patrick Siele is out for 3.5 years.
  *MB: Update: The Kenyan athlete who jumped out window and over fence to escape drug testers has been banned
• CAS Gives Two Russian Winter Olympians Their Sochi Medals Back They initially lost them from Russian athletes convicted on Rodchenkov evidence.

A Story The World Needs To Know – We LOVED The Book On Their Story So Much We Had Them On Our Podcast

Podcast Interview The Stepanovs Share Their Story With LetsRun.com Would you risk your life and be willing to re-locate your family halfway across the globe simply because you believed in clean sport? These two heroes did just that.

LRC “The Russian Affair” By David Walsh: The Story Of The Stepanovs, As You’ve Never Heard It Before In his latest book, David Walsh – the Irish reporter who helped bring down Lance Armstrong – tells the story of the Russian doping scandal through the eyes of whistleblowers Yuliya and Vitaly Stepanov, whose relationship was far more complicated than you could imagine. On, February 8, 2013, the couple was supposed to get divorced. Instead, the Stepanovs decided to bring down the Russian doping regime and save their relationship in the process. 5 stars out of 5. Let’s hope this is made into a movie. *Purchase here.
*London Times: “The candour with which they have allowed Walsh to tell their story is rare and gripping.”
*Walsh: “It’s a love story set against the backdrop of a doping thriller.”

NCAA News

• Ken Goe: Men’s College Track Is Being Threatened In Budget-Strapped Division 1 Athletic Departments Goe has a scary stat about men’s non-revenue college sports as he writes, “There were 146 Division I men’s wrestling programs in 1981. There are 75 now. There were 210 Division I men’s gymnastics programs in 1969. There are 15 now …Men’s track could be the next sport to start circling the drain.”
• It’s Official: D1 Board Of Directors Approves Plan For Holding Fall Championships In Spring NCAA XC will still be held on March 15, the same weekend as 2021 NCAA Indoors.
  *MB: Not making this up: NCAA reschedules the NCAA XC championships for the same weekend as the 2021 NCAA indoors
• There Will Be No Regionals For NCAA XC Champs; Teams Will Be Chosen By Committee
• MB: What’s going on? HBO’s Real Sports pulls feature on debate over transgender women competing in sports at last minute It featured a segment with former Montana runner June Eastwood.
• Washington Post: Cal XC Runner Andrew Cooper Wants To Dismantle The NCAA Among changes Cooper wants is a collective bargaining agreement for athletes.
  *MB: WaPost article: Meet the Cal cross-country runner who wants to dismantle the NCAA
  *MB: White Cal xc/track athlete quits via screenshot because NCAA is racist; surprised coach doesn’t respond.

Olympic Related News

• ABC News: Tokyo Needs To Convince Sponsors Olympics Will Really Happen Tokyo organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto: “The fact the Olympics are going to take place — the fact itself — is not fully distributed to the public. People need to be more convinced that, yes, the Olympics will be taking place for sure.”
• Japan May Ease COVID Entry Restrictions For Tokyo 2020 Athletes
• IOC President Thomas Bach And New Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga Have 15-Minute Phone Call To Discuss Tokyo 2020
• Thomas Bach Says Phased Return Of Sport Around The World A Cause For “Confidence” Regarding Tokyo 2020
• Canadian Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission Wants Clarity On Rule 50 And “Protected Spaces” For Demonstrations
• IOC Urged To Expel Iran From Tokyo Games After Controversial Execution Of Young Wrestler The wrestler was accused of stabbing to death a security guard.
  *IOC Vice President John Coates Hints That A Ban For Iran Is Unlikely After Execution Of Wrestling Champ