CROWDED STREETS: The NYC Marathon broke the record for the most finishers ever in a 26.2M race with its 59,226. The old record of 56,640 was set at last spring’s London affair…
Sub-2:00 in the 800 and sub-2:25 in the marathon? For women, this is an awfully small club. Jessica Warner-Judd of Great Britain recently joined the three others: Tigist Assefa, Genzebe Dibaba and Sifan Hassan…
France’s Dorian Louvet apparently became the first to run all 7 World Marathon Majors in one season, with times that ranged from 2:19:02 to 2:33:23…
The Brussels Marathon will be redesigning its course, it looks like, after the city banned it from running in its jurisdiction, citing the strain on municipal resources…
Victor Conte, the founder of the infamous BALCO lab that led to one of the biggest steroid scandals in history, has died at age 75 from pancreatic cancer…
Algeria’s Jamel Simohamed, a former member of the WA Council, died on October 13 at age 85…
Art Kranick, who with his wife Linda coached the powerhouse Saratoga Springs prep program in New York for decades, died of heart failure on November 8 at age 74…
Femke Bol has released a children’s book called Team TOFF Gaat Ervoor! (“Team Toff is going for it!”) but the publisher says it means “Go Femke!). It’s about a girl who goes to sports camp and discovers her talents and the importance of sticking to it and believing in herself…
Audrey Werro, the Swiss 800 recordholder at 1:55.91, says that Bol can be “competitive from day one” in the 2-lapper…
In more Bol news, note that her DL winning streak is now at an unprecedented 30 straight meets. The streak started in her DL debut in ’20. She also is the first track athlete ever to win 5 straight DL titles…
Jakob Ingebrigtsen has bought a 150-acre farm near Sandnes, Norway. No word on if he is planning a drastic career shift…
Mondo Duplantis may have revealed where his next WR will occur. An interviewer recently brought up next summer’s Euro Championships in Birmingham, England. His response: “I guess I haven’t broken the World Record at the European Championships? So yes, that’s something that I have to do. That’d be great if I was able to do it in Birmingham. I just got to lock in. I can make it happen. I guess less talking and more doing? It’s just up to me to make sure that I’m in the right shape and that I’m ready to do when it comes time.”…
Close readers of our recruiting report may have noticed that Nafy Thiam is set to compete for Florida State this school year. It’s not the 3-time gold-winning heptathlete, however, but a thrower with the same name, also from Belgium…
With our feature on foreign recruiting in this issue, perhaps a nod is due the New Mexico JC program, which might just have the most international team in the sport this year. The men’s track roster boasts 28 foreign athletes on a squad of 30. The women’s roster is 22 of 23…
Javelin Olympian Michael Shuey is now coaching the throwers at Lehigh…
The sport seems healthy in Karlsruhe, Germany, where all 3500 seats for the WIT Gold indoor on February 08 were sold out in 12 hours…
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is among those trying to speed recovery from the devastation caused to Jamaica by Hurricane Melissa. Her Pocket Rocket Foundation has been raising money for “critical resources, supplies, and ongoing support to those most affected.”…
Josh Hoey has left coach Justin Rinaldi, who took him from 1:47.36 to 1:42.01 in two years. Rinaldi told LetsRun, “It was literally Josh wasn’t happy with his season, had some ideas on how he could improve for next year. I disagreed with those ideas. I thought it was a little bit too intense. I wanted a 3-year progression and Josh wanted a 6-month progression.”…
In an eagerly awaited announcement, teen 400 star Quincy Wilson has chosen close-to-home Maryland as his college team. The Terrapins topped his other top contenders, South Carolina, Texas A&M, UCLA and USC. The national HS recordholder still has a year to go as a prep…
Virginia’s Longwood U has added indoor track to its line-up, hoping to gradually become more competitive in the Big South Conference…
Wisconsin-Stevens Point has gotten final approvals for a new “state of the art” outdoor track facility…
Among those not happy that Oklahoma State won the men’s NCAA title with a foreign-dominated squad was Olympic 1500 champion Matthew Centrowitz, who tweeted, “Anyone know if the after-party is in Iten or Stillwater?”…
On the heels of Gjert Ingebrigtsen’s child abuse trial (and acquittal on most charges), the Norwegian federation has opted not to pursue the coach with sanctions of its own…
Russia’s TASS news agency reports that RUSADA recorded 47 drug violations in October, one of its worst months ever…
It’s being reported that former Athletic.net CEO Dan Bowdoin passed a USATF background check and continued working as a meet timer four months after he was charged with 5 counts of child abuse…
Former UCLA assistant Sean Brosnan has appealed a ruling by the NCAA’s committee on infractions that he tampered with athletes at other schools before they were in the portal. The former prep coach at the Newbury Park powerhouse program maintains he only had non-recruiting conversations with the athletes’ parents, with whom he had pre-existing relationships…
The lifetime ban on javelin star Ashad Nadeem’s coach has been overturned by the Pakistan Sports Board, which ruled the punitive ban by a regional federation was illegal…
Nike is being sued by a former Cal runner who alleges that theAlphaFly 2 carbon fiber shoes caused a catastrophic fracture in her foot. Heather Cerney says she was injured the first time she wore the shoes and it has caused a permanent partial disability and the end of her running career…
Sri Lanka is no longer on WADA’s naughty list. Nearly 2 months after being classified as “non-compliant,” the nation’s anti-doping agency has fulfilled the conditions of reinstatement…
The Enhanced Games took a blow when a U.S. district court in Manhattan threw out the organization’s lawsuit against WADA and the swimming federations, which it had accused of exercising a monopoly over international swimming competitions. Three days later came news that the co-founder, Australian Aron D’Souza, has been “transitioned out of the company’s day-to-day” operations…
WADA president Witold Bańka has put pressure on USADA to stop the Enhanced Games, saying “We really want our colleagues from the U.S. to do more to make sure that this event will not happen.” USADA chief Travis Tygart called the issue a “smokescreen,” accusing WADA of trying to avoid the issue of the Chinese swimming positives from ’21…
The plan to hold the LA ’28 Closing Ceremony at two sites has been dropped. Now the LA Memorial Coliseum is scheduled to be the sole venue, as SoFi Stadium has been dropped from the plans approved by the LA City Council…
The South African government approved a bid for either the ’36 or ’40 Olympics. No specific city has been named. The Games have never been held on the African continent…
The final lap bell that was used by Seiko at the World Championships in Tokyo has been given to the Tokyo 2025 Foundation and may see duty in future events…
WA’s World Indoor Tour has been expanded to 77 events across all of its tiers for this coming winter, with 8 meeting the gold standard. Two of those are in the U.S.: Boston’s New Balance GP (January 24) and New York’s Millrose Games (February 01)…
Russia wants to be back in the track & field world, and is proposing a “phased return,” starting with U20 competition. A federation official said, “We are in dialogue, it’s not public. The two presidents, Sebastian Coe and Petr Mikhailovich Fradkov, are in contact. There is a working group on the reinstatement of Russian and Belarusian athletes.” ◻︎
