World XC - A Story Almost Too Good To Be True
LRC Training Talk 7: Joseph Ebuya's Coach And Manager Talk With LetsRun.com
Joseph Ebuya's story is truly remarkable - from a nomadic existence in Turkana, to signing a Nike contract when he didn't even know what the clock on the track meant, to Kenya's greatest sporting hero - read or listen to the entire story of an inspiring figure.
*LRC Transcript Of Interview With Ricky Simms And Noah Ngeny - Managers Of World XC Champion Joseph Ebuya
LRC Photos From World Cross-Country 2010 Photos of the Americans jumping the logs on the course in Poland.
BBC Sports Statistician Mark Butler Wonders What Is Behind Europe's XC Decline He credits Kenyan "organization, management and coaching" for the shift.
College Action
Texas Relays: *Results
*Ashton Eaton Misses NCAA Record In Decathlon At Texas Relays
*Chelsey Sveinsson Runs 10:07 3,200m To Break State Record At Texas Relays
*UTEP Olympic Medalist Blessing Okagbare Wins Texas Relays LJ In Record 22'7"
Florida Relays: *Results
*Jeff Demps Runs 10.11 At Pepsi Florida Relays Christian Taylor, best known as a long and triple jumper, showed what an unbelievable athlete he is by running 45.55 to win the open 400. Francena McCorory and Shana Cox set world leads in the 200 and 400. In distance races, Julius Bor nipped Ryan Foster in the 1,500, both running 3:41.
Wilfred Bungei Tells Is Like It Is
*Wilfred Bungei Says Kenyan Defections Will Kill Athletics If Kenyans keep defecting, Bungei says, there will be 12 Kenyan-borns in every distance final at the major events. 3 Kenyan males who didn't even make their team have run 27:22 or faster on the roads this year.
*Bungei Says David Rudisha Can Break WR And Cautions Media In Dealing With Athletes
Caster Semenya's Comeback Compared To Tiger Woods'
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NY Times: Tiger Woods And Caster Semenya Making Comebacks Like We've Never Seen Before Most LetsRun visitors think Semenya should compete as a male (see poll, right).
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Mike Hurst Points Out Semenya Or ASA Defying IAAF Could Jeopardize Other Athletes *2nd update: this rule still stands (earlier Hurst told us the IAAF had changed the rule but then he found it in a different place in the IAAF rulebook).
Employee #1 Saves Your Time And Gives His Friday Top 5
1. Old LetsRun.com Favorite - He even trains in Flagstaff.
German Jan Fitschen - 2006 Version Of Billy Mills - Hopes To Relive 2006 10,000m European Champs Magic
*LetsRun Page From Kitschen's 2006 Win: "This morning I was hoping to be top 10. Now I'm the top of the top 10."
2. Recommended Read: Why Jamaica's Champs Is One Of The Best Track Meets In The World We keep a list of "meets to see before we die." This one is in about the top 3.
3. Decathlon News: The Old And The New
*Roman
Sebrle Approaching Ripken-Esque 100th Multi-Event Appearance
*Eaton's
Windy Season-Opening Decathlon Falls Just Short Of NCAA Record One of these days you'll hit it big, kid. Oh, my bad ...
4. Lisa Koll - With the World XC madness, some of you might not know she ran an NCAA record on Friday night.
Lisa Koll Wins USATF Athlete Of The Week
5. IAAF Nightmare Scenario Continues
*Semenya Barred From Running As Unexpected Announcement Causes Stir
*Semenya May Race Next Week If "She Talks To The Right People"
*Clever Headline: Semenya's Lawyers Planning Legal Action What else do lawyers plan besides a $300/hour bill?
*Suspended South African Athletics Officials Won't Face Hearing For Few More Months Anything the IAAF can do, the South African legal system can do better.
Bonus: Kenya swept all 8 World XC golds. They easily won the men's senior team title. And look at guys not even on the team. Micah Kogo, Moses Masai and Martin Mathathi (see video, right) have all run road 10ks in 27:22 or faster in the past few weeks.
LRC
The Week That Was
In breaking down the greatest distance race on the planet for you, we try to put the US women's bronze medal in perspective, we wonder if we have another Asbel Kiprop in the making and we scour the results for the first non-African-born finisher. Along the way, we remember the last US men's
team to medal at World XC and
then we move on to talk about Lisa Koll's amazing run and then talk about Usain Bolt's future rival at 400 meters.
Interview With Bernard Lagat Where He Says He Wants To Run 12:50 And Shares Training And Mental Advice Lagat says he's going to Flagstaff to train himself to get ready to break the American record in the 5k. He also discusses why he's so good at 35 and his A sample EPO positive from 2003.
Spring "Marathon Major" Updates
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Ryan Hall Talks With Running Times About His Faith And Running We give Hall a lot of credit as he talks sincerely about his morals and beliefs.
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WBZ Boston Catches Up With Low-Key Ryan Hall Training On Boston Course We'll see how Hall's non-existent racing schedule pays off in 3+ weeks.
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Boston Elites Robert Cheruiyot pulls out but Meb K remains only the 16th-fastest PR in the deep field.
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Virgin London Elites Biggest international superstars still heading to London.
LRC How Non-African-Born Athletes Fared At 2010 World XC Some prompting from track writer Alfonz Juck prompted us to look back at World XC results. Only 2 non-African-born men finished in the top 30 in the men's junior and senior races in Bygdoszcz. The fastest-ever American 5k/10ker, Shalane Flanagan, finished 12th in the women's senior race but was still 54 seconds from a medal.
World XC - Kenyan Men Basking In Hero Status
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Paul Tergat And John Ngugi Express Joy Over Kenya Finally Winning Senior Men's Title Tergat was awarded an honorary Doctorate in South Africa over the weekend.
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Kenyan Coaches Credit Tactical Changes And Excellent Preparations For Medal Sweep Of course it's all the coaching from Athletics Kenya in the 3 weeks before the meet.
Road Races - Crescent City And Two Oceans Marathon
- Crescent City Classic Results Lineth Chepkurui followed her 5th place at World XC with a stellar 30:45 to win the women's race by over a quarter mile. Tilahun Regassa got the men's win, while Antonio Vega was 7th and top American.
- Lebopo Becomes First Man From Lesotho To Win Two Oceans Marathon Since 1976
More From South Africa: *Sports Writer Says Perhaps Semenya Should Take On Russian Women Who Win 56km Race Every Year - Boards: Five men ran sub 28 at a 10k road race in Germany today
New IAAF "Entourage Commission" Led By Sergey Bubka Will Examine Doctors, Physios And Coaches Accompanying Athletes According to one of our sources, the IAAF is trying to figure a way to hold coaches and doctors responsible if they have anything to do with athletes doping.
Track Greats From India And Jamaica - 2 Good Reads
*Bollywood Making Film On Life Of Milkha Singh, India's Most Famous Athlete You may recognize Milkha Singh as the only Indian athlete to ever hold a world record (45.8 in the 400) and last Indian to win a Commonwealth Games gold (1958) heading into this year's games in New Delhi. You might also recognize the name Jeev Milkha Singh, a pro golfer and Singh's son.
*Esquire Runs Lengthy Feature On Usain Bolt Titled: Mutant
Coach Glen Mills says the #1 thing he has done for Bolt is reduce his training load and tailor his exercises to help overcome his scoliosis.
*For Your Convenience: Usain Bolt Esquire Article 1-Page Version
American Road Race Section
*Recommended Read: Ryan Hall Chats With Runner's World - Can He Win Boston In Try #2? From the sound of things, Hall has done everything right, though fans squirm at his only pre-marathon race where he got crushed by Simon Bairu in a half marathon.
*Meb
K Talks To Running Times, Hopeful For American 1-2 Meb has the 16th-best PR in the strong field.
*Boston Elites
World XC Champ Emily Chebet To Race Meseret Defar At Carlsbad 5k On April 11 Race organizers deserve major credit for getting this matchup, though Defar (with a track 14:12 and road 14:46) has to still be a big favorite.
Saturday AM: New Orleans Crescent City Classic Organizers Bring In Strong Fields
Japanese News From The Man In Japan
Marathoner Arata Fujiwara Quits Team In Unprecedented Move For Japanese Elite JRN's Brett Larner's take: This is big news. As far as we are aware, Fujiwara is the first
Japanese man ever to make this kind of move at the peak of his
marathoning career.
*Martin Mathathi Plans Half Marathon And Marathon Debuts After Outstanding 10k Success Mathathi's manager talks about his latest road 10km in a video to the right.
Running Greats Interviewed
Recommended Read: Kids, Read About Dave Wottle And How Track Used To Be Münich 800m champion Dave Wottle gives a long and interesting interview with Gary Cohen. Outside of running, he talks about water skiing naked with Steve Prefontaine.
*Extensive Interview With Irish Distance Great Sonia O'Sullivan
Usain Bolt Daily Bulletin
*Bolt/Gay/Powell In Brussells Will Be Most Expensive 100m In History
*Usain Bolt Commits To 10-Year Partnership Of Supporting His Local
Hospital It's good to see not all the money is going to fast cars and the local nightclubs.
American Buzz
*Bernard Lagat Joins Usain Bolt In adidas Grand Prix Field Lagat will run the 1,500. It was also announced that the world's best all-around athlete, Jessica Ennis, will be in the US to compete with Hyleas Fountain. Get your tickets here for the Diamond League meet in New York City.
*Lagat To Open Outdoor Season With Mile At Drake Relays
*Brief Chat With American World Indoor 1,500 Finalist Garrett Heath He(ath) led the first few laps of one of the most entertaining professional races you will ever see.
*Vega And Lehmkuhle Announced To Run New Orleans' Crescent City 10k Classic US road race.
*Andy Baddeley And Erin Donohue Will Headline BAA Mile Also get some news and notes from RRW desk including amazing Rotterdam Marathon lineup.
Bryan Green Gives His Top 50 US Distance Runners In Terms Of Trade Values 5 out of the top-6 are women and German Fernandez is #7 with Alan Webb #16.
Sanya Richards-Ross To Compete On Special Track In Manchester City Games
*See The Richards-Ross Wedding Photos
ESPN April Fools Headline: Texas Runner Trains With Cheetah Was it the cheetah that Bolt adopted?
So Amazing, It Almost Sounds Like An April Fools But It's The Actual Truth: World XC Champion Joseph Ebuya's Dad Didn't Watch World XC As He Was Up All Night Trying To Keep Elephants From Trampling The 2.5 Acres His Son Had Purchased For Him Even if he was able to watch, it would have been hard as he doesn't have a television as well. We are going to give you more insight into the amazing life story of Ebuya tomorrow, as we just did a LetsRun.com Track Talk with Ebuya's coaches Noah Ngeny and Ricky Simms. We'll have a recap tomorrow.
The Kenyans ... Are Happy ...
*Kenyan President Kibaki Honors Cross-Country Victors And Offers Them Bonus Prize Money Video on the right of some of the celebrations.
*Heroes' Welcome At Airport For Kenyan Cross-Country Runners
Preview Of South Africa's Two Oceans Ultra Marathon
IAAF To Caster: Keep Waiting
Caster Semenya Told She Must Wait Until June For IAAF Test Verdict
Caster To IAAF: Make The Decision
Semenya Emphatically Announces Return To Competitive Running In a media announcement where she read a speech seemingly prepared by lawyers hoping to put more pressure on the IAAF, Caster Semenya described her saga and announced her intent to compete.
*Official Transcript Of Caster Semenya's Media Announcement
*Athletics South Africa And IAAF Say Semenya Will Not Compete Until Decision Is Made What would you decide if you were the IAAF? See the poll results to the right.
April Fools
April Fools Archives:
Judging from the texts, emails, posts, people upset with Obama, people wanting Obama to sue us for slander, a lot of viewers fell for our 2010 April Fools homepage. While our April Fools page was pretty good, the best April Fools Prank
was on the Boston Marathon. A LetsRun.com visitor planned his prank weeks in advance as he created a fake a website mybaa.org (that looked nearly identical to the real Boston website) and said the Boston Marathon qualifying times changed 10 minutes for each age group. He then posted on LetsRun that the times changed and soon the news spread. People were up in arms and apparently the people at the Boston Marathon can't take a joke as
they wasted who knows how much money having their lawyers send a letter threatening the guy. All we can say is - excellent job.
LRC April Fools Archives:
*2010
*2009 *2008
*2007 *2006
*2004 *2003
*2002 *2001
We were threatened with a lawsuit for our 2004 edition.