Superfan Daily: Women's Dual-Meet Rankings

Following up on Tuesday’s rankings of men’s teams, these are the dual-meet rankings for college women’s teams.

Remember, these are a ranking of teams based on how they would currently fare in dual meets; teams which have not yet run their whole squad are not ranked. Notable such teams are LSU, Georgia and the whole Pac-10. Teams without a dual, tri or quad on their schedule are ineligible for ranking.

1. Texas A&M (meets LSU on Saturday)
2. Ohio State (1-0, beat #3 Michigan)
3. Michigan (0-1, lost to #2 Ohio State)
4. Tennessee
5. Texas Tech
6. Indiana (1-0, beat Purdue)
7. Nebraska
8. Kansas (1-0, beat Missouri)
9. BYU
10. Eastern Michigan (1-0, beat Toledo)

Track on TV
Reliving the Glory: Los Angeles '84, 7:00 PM tonight on Universal Sports

News Links
Runner's World's Racing News has all the headlines, including indoor track previews.

Let's Run's Week That Was in running.

Flotrack's Kick of the Week:


and Flotrack's Tasty Race of the Week:

More on the London Olympic Stadium situation: both bids could be rejected, and UK head coach Charles Van Commenee says England could become like Albania.

Millrose start lists are up.

Universal Sports' interview with Alberto Salazar about Kara Goucher's return to racing.

An update on Oklahoma star German Fernandez.

Notes from the New York Track Writers' weekly luncheon.

An update on new pro Curtis Mitchell.

Track Alerts feature on Jamaican quarter-miler Jermain Gonzales.

ESPN and Texas announced a partnership for a Longhorn TV channel. Texas Relays on TV, please!

Superfan Daily: What's On The Weekend

Cross Country
The Cross Internacional de Itálica, an IAAF Cross Country Permit meet, will be held in Seville on Sunday. It is so named because it takes place in the former Roman city of Itálica, looping through ancient streets and ruins.
The men's race is deep, with undisputed world #1 Joseph Ebuya; Teklemariam Medhin, the only man to have beaten him this season; Leonard Komon, world record holder for the road 10k and 15k; and Tariku Bekele, last summer's #2 track distance man.
The women's race is also deep, with Linet Masai, the dominant runner of late; Emily Chebet, the defending World XC champion; Vivian Cheruiyot, the defending World 5k champion; and Pauline Korikwiang, who won in Amorebieta last weekend.
Meet website / Wikipedia page
IAAF preview

The Cross della Vallagarina, an EAA Cross Country Permit meet, will be held in the Italian city of Rovereto on Sunday.
Meet website
FIDAL preview (in Italian)

The Kenya Police Service Cross Country Championships will be held at Nairobi's Ngong Race Course on Saturday. While undoubtedly deep, the exact makeup of the fields are up in the air; some previously announced runners, such as Linet Masai and Vivian Cheruiyot, are running the day before in Seville, and cannot possibly do both.
The Standard Preview

The first-ever Bay Area Cross Challenge will be held on Sunday in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The meet is part of an attempt to create a domestic winter-season cross country circuit; there will be $9,000 of prize money on the line.
Leading men's confirmed entrants: Abdi Abdirahman, David Torrance, Belota Asmerom, Boaz Cheboiywo
Leading women's confirmed entrants: Molly Huddle (5k American Record holder) Magdalena Lewy-Boulet, Alissa McKaig, Megan (Metcalfe) Wright, Renee Metivier Baillie
Meet website

Road Racing
The Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon will be run through the Indian city on Sunday. One runner will be no stranger to India: John Kelai, who won the Commonwealth Games marathon last fall in New Delhi.
Race website / live webcast
IAAF preview / Hindustan Times / OneIndia News
The Rock n' Roll Arizona Marathon will be run in Pheonix on Sunday. Kara Goucher will make her return to racing after maternity.
Race website
AP preview / Arizona Republic preview

Indoor Track
Texas goes to Arkansas on Friday for a men-only dual meet.
Preview / Meet schedule / Start lists / Live blog / Live Results

Missouri goes to Kansas on Friday for a dual meet.
Preview / Meet schedule

The Washington Indoor Preview will have a couple of notable post-collegians running in the women's 3000 meters: Shalane Flanagan and Lisa Koll.
Meet schedule / Heat sheets
Paul Merca's preview / Flotrack coverage page

Texas A&M hosts a "four-conference challenge" on Saturday between teams from the Big 12, Southland, Sun Belt and SWAC. I wonder which conference will win...
Live webcast at Aggies All-Access begins at 1:00 PM EST
Preview / Heat sheets / Live results

Michigan goes to Ohio State for a men-only dual meet on Saturday. I will be there and will tweet updates during the meet.
Flotrack coverage page
Video preview / Meet schedule / Live results

In a brilliant home-and-home move, Ohio State simultaneously goes to Michigan for a women-only dual meet.
Meet schedule / Video preview

Indiana travels to Purdue on Saturday for a dual meet.
Video preview / Meet schedule / Live results

All other college meets

Vault Manchester, a stop on the pole-vault only Perche Elite Tour, will take place on Sunday.

Also on Sunday is the Capital Perche, another stop on the Perche Elite Tour, in the French city of Clermont-Ferrand.

Other minor European meets: the Demyanuk Memorial in Lviv UKR, the Reykjavik International Games, and the AAI Games in Nenagh IRL.

Track on TV (and the web)
Live web chat with Ryan Hall and Magdalena Lewy-Boulet, 2:00 PM Friday at USATF.org
Texas A&M Challenge, live webcast begins at 1 PM Saturday at Aggies All-Access
Bud Greenspan's Athens 2004: Stories of Olympic Glory, Saturday at 9:55 AM and 8:00 PM on Showtime Family Zone

Superfan Daily: Your Track Vault Pick of the Week

Today we have a Sports Illustrated article from 1965 profiling the start of the track season.

Two months ago the prospects for a successful indoor track season seemed about as rosy as winter slush. The combination of post-Olympic ennui and post-truce hostilities between the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Amateur Athletic Union made promoters wonder where they would get enough athletes to fill their programs or enough ticket buyers to fill their seats.


They need not have worried. What threatened to be one of track's dullest winters in years shows every sign of being its brightest and most exciting. Last week in San Francisco a crowd of 11,412 showed up at the Cow Palace for the first indoor meet of the season. No legitimate indoor records were jeopardized, but as a preview of things to come the meet was a rousing success.


First of all, it was revealed that there will be girls, lots of them. There will be plenty of visitors from abroad, too, the largest and most exotic group the indoor season has ever enjoyed. There will be imaginative new events that would have tickled P. T. Barnum. And finally, to assuage fears of the serious indoor track enthusiast that more cake than bread will be available, there will be lots of plain, nourishing competition.

Track on TV
Endurance, 6:00 AM tomorrow onFLiX
Running , 9:30 AM tomorrow on Showtime Family Zone
Prefontaine, 9:30 AM tomorrow on Showtime Showcase

News Links
Runner's World's Racing News has all the headlines: Millrose adds Galen Rupp and a 2-mile race, the Boston Indoor Games have a new title sponsor, and more.

Lolo Jones wins Mr. Universe's Tweet of the Week award.

Part 2 of iRunnerblog's interview with Shalane Flanagan.

Galen Rupp's 2011 season will have distinct and separate indoor and outdoor portions.

Olympic News: the USOC and IOC are opening discussions on a new revenue-sharing agreement, and GM paid big to be the lone auto advertiser for NBC's 2012 Olympic coverage.

TFN's Garry Hill says loud music and other histrionics get in the way of experiencing a track meet.  Agreed.  I've also noticed that a road race or triathlon that has a DJ is almost invariably poorly organized.

College news: Pre-season D-II rankings released, and Florida's super-sprinter/footballer Jeff Demps will miss the season opener (and maybe more).

Anti-doping news: The two Greek sprinters are finally in court for their 2004 Olympic antics, a key suspect in Operation Galgo has been found dead, an editorial explains how dope cheaters who pass tests are still found, and a researcher will probe into Kenyan running.

Superfan Daily: Weekend Roundup

Results from the weekend...

Cross Country
Bupa Great Edinburgh International Cross Country (IAAF Permit)
Saturday, Edinburgh SCO
Winners: Eliud Kipchoge (4.2k), Linet Masai (5.7k), Mo Farah (8k individual), European all-stars (8k team)
Let's Run coverage and results: Men’s Int’l 4.2k / Women’s 5.7k / Men’s team 8k

2010/2011 Kenya Commercial Bank/Athletics Kenya National Cross Series finale
Saturday, Iten KEN
Winners: Geoffrey Mutai (12k), Lineth Chepkurui (8k)
IAAF story and results

Cross del Calzado
Sunday, Fuensalida ESP
Winners: Teklemariam Medhin (11.7k), Eunice Jepkorir (8k)
Leading results

Cross Internacional Zornotza
Sunday, Amorebieta ESP
Winners: Joseph Ebuya (10.7k), Pauline Korikwiang (6.7k)
IAAF story and results

Road Racing
PWN Egmond Half Marathon
Sunday, Egmond aan Zee NED
Winners: Ayele Abshero (1:02:23), Abebech Afework (1:12:53)
IAAF story and results

Valencia 10k
Sunday, Valencia ESP
Winners: Josphat Kiprono Menjo (27:58 course record), Sonia Plaza (35:45)
Leading results

Disney Half Marathon
Sunday, Orlando FL
Winners:
Orlando Sentinel story

Asahi Ekiden (99.9k)
Sunday, Fukuoka to Kita-Kyushu JPN
Winner: Team Kyudenko (led off by Paul Tanui, 42:30 for 14.6k)
Japan Running News summary and results

Indoor Track
Christmas Starts
Friday, Yekaterinburg RUS
Highlights: Aleksandr Shustov 2.32m, Mikhail Tsvetkov 2.30m, Sergey Mudrov 2.30m HJ
Results

Christmas Cup
Sunday, Moscow RUS
Highlights: Maksim Sidorov 20.25m SP, Yulia Golubchikova 4.40m PV
Results / EAA story

IAAF story on above

All the college meets

Track on TV
Bud Greenspan Presents: Beijing 2008 - America's Olympic Glory, 4:35 AM and 8:20 AM tomorrow on Showtime Extreme

News Links
Runner's World's Racing News has all the headlines: weekend results, Ritz to run London, Shelly-Ann Fraser gets married and adds another hyphen to her name.

Running Times recaps the weekend's racing action.

In advance of tomorrow's college football championship game, TrackFocus looks at the connection between Oregon's football and track programs.

Mo Farah to come to New Mexico for a training stint with Galen Rupp.

Colin Jackson picks five athletes to watch in 2011.

Track and Field News profiles shot-put age-group sensation Jacko Gill.

An editorial tells Kenya to develop more than just distance runners.

Superfan Daily: What's On the Weekend

Highlight meet of the weekend
The Bupa Great Edinburgh International Cross Country, an IAAF Cross Country Permit meet, will be held in the Scottish capital’s Holyrood Park on Saturday.  The course, a version of the 2008 World Championships course, uses the famous Arthur's Seat. There may be ways to see the BBC coverage online; watch this space for updates when I get them.

1:07 PM local time (8:07 AM Eastern): Men’s International 4.2k
This is the race Let’s Run is calling the “Varsity” race, as it’s significantly deeper than the featured team race. Entries include Eliud Kipchoge (World #5 at 5k), Asbel Kiprop (World #1 at 1500m), Arturo Casado (European 1500m champ) and Brimin Kipruto (World steeplechase #4) as well as home favorite miler Tom Lancashire (2006 NCAA runner-up at FSU).

1:25 PM local time (8:25 AM Eastern): Women’s International 5.7k
This race is the deepest of the day, loaded with Linet Masai (World 10k champ), Vivian Cheruiyot (World 5k champ), Tirunesh Dibaba (5k World Record holder), Jessica Augusto (European XC champ) and Milcah Chemos (World steeplechase champ), plus home favorites Steph Twell, Charlotte Purdue, Emma Pallant, Hattie Dean and Liz Yelling.

1:55 PM local time (8:55 AM Eastern): Men’s International Team Challenge 8k
This is a three-way team competition between teams from the UK, USA and Europe. Let’s Run is calling it the “JV” race, but I think the team competition is making it the more interesting of the two men’s races.  Teams have nine runners and the first six for each score.

Leading the way for the home team is Mo Farah. Chris “Tommo” Thompson was supposed to run but pulled out with injury. The best of Farah’s supporting cast is Frank Tickner and Andy Vernon.

The European team’s leader is nine-time Euro XC champ Sergey Lebid of Ukraine. He’s helped by Ayad Lamdassen (Spain), this year’s Euro XC silver medalist, as well as Youssef El Kalai (Portugal), the bronze medalist. In fact, six of the top ten at the Euro XC are competing.

The USA appears to have the deepest team, with Galen Rupp as the star. Dathan Ritzenhein was supposed to compete but pulled out citing an ankle injury. Behind him are Ed Moran, Stephen Furst (fresh off a course record at the Emerald Nuts Midnight Run), Scott Bauhs (5th at the BOClassic 10k) and Nick Arciniaga.

Race website
Previews: The Scotsman / IAAF / Team USA / Athletics Weekly / Eurosport / BBC


Other Meets
There will be two pro-level cross country meets in Spain on Sunday, the Cross Internacional del Calzado in Toledo and the Cross Internacional Zornotza in Amorebieta.
RFEA website

The seventh meet in the KCB/Athletics Kenya cross country series will be run on Saturday in Iten.
Athletics Kenya website
Daily Nation preview

There will be two early-season indoor meets in Russia this weekend, the Christmas Starts in Yekaterinburg on Friday and the Christmas Cup in Moscow on Sunday.  The first of the two meets will see Andrey Silnov versus Aleksandr Shustov in the high jump.
Russian Athletics website

Colleges
On Friday, Oklahoma and Ole Miss are at Arkansas for a tri-meet.
LIVE blog / LIVE results / Men's promo / Women's promo

Iowa is at Illinois for a men’s-only dual meet.
Heat sheets / Promo

All the rest

Track on TV
Endurance, Friday at 11:35 AM on FLiX
Bud Greenspan Presents: Beijing 2008 - America's Olympic Glory, Saturday at 10:30 AM on SHO EXTREME
Athens 2004: Stories of Olympic Glory, Saturday at 9:00 PM on Universal Sports (reruns at midnight)

Yesterday's Results
Cross Country Internazionale Campaccio (San Giorgio su Legnano ITA) EAA Permit
Tiberias International Marathon (Tiberias ISR)

News Links
Runner's World's Racing News has all the headlines.

Lineups for a few Millrose Games events have been announced, and they are good. The men's 60 had just about the best athletes available, and the women's 60 is decent too. Recall that both are being scored as a USA-Jamaica dual meet. There's also a new "Millrose Multi Challenge" pitting five top American decathletes against each other in a hurdle/high jump/shot put competition--Bryan Clay, Trey Hardee, Ashton Eaton, Jake Arnold and Curtis Beach.

Britain's Athletics Weekly magazine rolled out a completely redesigned website. It's sweet.

Preseason computer rankings from the coaches' association have Florida (men) and Oregon (women) as the #1 teams. Texas A&M's hopes for a men's title are severely curtailed by the surprise announcement yesterday that Curtis Mitchell, the Aggie's defending NCAA champ at 200 meters, has decided to forego his senior season and join the professional ranks. TAMU head coach Pat Henry sounds pissed off about it.

Flotrack has announced its indoor coverage schedule, with 20 meets and four FloLive webcasts. It kicks off next weekend with The Dual (Michigan at Ohio State), which I'll be seeing the old-fashioned InPersonLive way.

No link, but Alan Webb has been announced as opening his season with a mile race in New York on January 22.  That could only be the New Balance meet at the Armory.  2011 marks the tenth anniversary of him breaking 4:00 at the same site as a high schooler.

Superfan Daily: Exhibit on '36 Olympics and Jesse Owens

It recently came to my attention that the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage now has a special program titled “The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936”, a traveling exhibit of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It seeks to explain how the Olympic Games were used to softpedal the uglier sides of pre-war Germany.

Of interest to track fans in particular is an emphasis on Jesse Owens. Among the items displayed are his journal from those Olympics, one of his gold medals, and other items from the Ohio State University archives.

Normally I would go first and then plug the exhibit, but I did not find out about it until last week, well into its run. It opened on October 19 and will close on January 23. I will be there this Sunday.

The museum is located in the Cleveland suburb of Beachwood. Guided tours are available for groups of ten or more on weekdays, and for individuals and/or smaller groups at 2 PM on Sundays. Admission is $12.

What’s On
The 54th Cross Country Internazionale Campaccio, an EAA Permit cross country meet, will take place tomorrow in the Italian township of San Giorgio su Legnano. The men’s race should be a good one, matching the world’s top XC runner, Joseph Ebuya, against the world record holder for road 10k and 15k, Leonard Komon.
Meet website
Schedule: Women (6k) at 12:30 PM (6:30 AM Eastern); men (10k) at 1:10 PM (7:10 AM Eastern)
Fidal preview (in Italian) / EAA preview

Track on TV
Sydney 2000: Stories of Olympic Glory, part of Universal Sports’ tribute to the late Bud Greenspan, will be on that channel at 9 PM on Thursday. It reruns at midnight.

News links
Runner’s World’s Racing News has all the headlines: athlete profiles and blogs, and an update on the Sammy Wanjiru situation.

San Diego will host the 2011 USATF cross country championships.  Dathan Ritzenhein is expected to compete.

Ryan Bailey will double in the 60 and 200 for the US team in the five-nations meet in Glasgow at the end of January.  The world's 6th-ranked 200 meter man, Bailey is the only athlete on any team who will double.

Nigerian-turned-Portugese sprinter Francis Obuikwelu, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist, has been linked to the Spanish "Operation Galgo".  He, of course, denies it.

Long jumper Brianna Glenn blogs about being relaxed and mean.

Unbroken, the best-selling book about miler/WWII POW Louis Zamperini, has been optioned for a film.

Arkansas' indoor track, among the world's fastest, has been refurbished and is ready to go.  But the track used for the recent Commonwealth Games at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi is now too damaged to use, due to a faulty foundation.

What's On: The Weekend

While Thanksgiving Day races are the thing in the USA, New Year’s Eve races are traditional in much of the rest of the world. Most are named after St. Sylvester, whose feast day is December 31.

The top domestic race is the Emerald Nuts Midnight Run, a four-miler in New York's Central Park. The top entries are Bobby Curtis and Desiree Davila. Davila should be considered a "throwback" runner, as she races often and at a wide range of distances but still cranks out great marathon performances.
Race website

In Madrid, the distance is 10 km and it is an IAAF Silver Label Road Race.  World half marathon record holder Zersenay Tadese is entered and will face local stars such as Ayad Lamdassem (World XC silver medalist) and Sergio Sánchez (World Indoor 3k silver medalist). The women's race looks to be a very good one, as Euro XC champ Jessica Augusto takes on Liliya Shobukhova, the world's top marathoner.
Race website
IAAF preview

In Bolzano, Italy, the distances are 10 km for men and 5 km for women. It's an elite-only race, but spectators are estimated around 10,000. This is probably the best race of the weekend, as European 5k/10k champ Mo Farah goes up against Diamond League champ Imane Merga, Olympic bronze medalist Edwin Soi, and nine-time European XC champ Sergey Lebid. The women's race is not quite as deep, but still boasts World 5k champion Vivian Cheruyiot and World XC bronze medalist Priscah Jepleting Cherono.
Race website
Live webcast begins at 8:50 AM (EST) at RAI Sport
IAAF preview

In Luanda, Angola, the distance is 10 km. This race has the biggest name in Haile Gebrselassie. He is going to have his hands full with Josephat Menjo, the fastest 10k runner of 2010, as well as 15k world record holder Deriba Merga. The women's race features Grace Momanyi.
All-Africa preview

In São Paulo, the distance is 15 km. Top entries are Brazil's Marilson Gomes, two-time defending champion James Kwambai of Kenya, and Abderrahim Bouramdane of Morocco. Defending women's champion Alice Timbilili of Kenya is also entered.
Race website

In Soest, Holland, it's a cross country race; the women run 6 km and the men run 10.4 km. European 800m silver-medalist Yvonne Hak is entered, and will face off against the top Dutch cross-country specialist Adrienne Herzog.
Race website

In Trier, Germany, the distance is 8 km for men and 5 km for women.  Micah Kogo is entered.
Race website

In Peuerbach, Austria, the distance is 6.8 km and will feature world steeplechase champion Ezekiel Kemboi against Austria’s Gunther Weidlinger and defending champion Abere Chane of Ethiopia. In the women’s race the top entries are Austria’s Andrea Mayr and defending champion Asmera Work Bekele of Ethiopia.

In Japan, it's Ekiden season. The New Year Ekiden will be run on (you guessed it) New Year's Day.

That, however, is only the warmup to the biggest of them all, the Hakone Ekiden on Sunday and Monday. To learn what the heck it is and how much attention the Japanese pay to it, check out Japan Running News.

You can watch both of these online. The New Year's Ekiden coverage will begin 6:15 PM Friday (EST) and run for more than six hours. The Hakone Ekiden will be on from 5 PM to midnight (EST) on Saturday and Sunday. (Japan Time is fourteen hours ahead of Eastern Time, so it's more or less it's always already tomorrow there.)

Track on TV
There's not much, but what there is is pretty good.

On 8:30 PM Thursday and 7 PM Friday, TV Land will show "The Olympics", an episode of Sanford and Son in which Fred tries to impress his lady friend by doing the decathlon in the Senior Olympics. Besides having the single greatest theme music in all of TV history, the thing I like about S&S is that it's a double-anachronism. Not only is it a 35-year-old show in reruns, it was made to be out of step with its time back when it was new.

To memorialize Bud Greenspan, Universal Sports will show one of his films each night for nine days in a row. It begins on New Year's Day at 9 PM with 16 Days of Glory, his first official Olympic film which covered the 1984 Los Angeles games. The next two nights cover winter games, then back to the summer with Atlanta's Olympic Glory on Tuesday, Sydney 2000: Stories of Olympic Glory on Thursday, and Athens 2004: Stories of Olympic Glory next Saturday.

What's On: This Week

The Zatopek:10 sees its 50th annual running on Thursday at Melbourne's Olympic Park.  It's actually an entire track meet, but the highlight is a track 10k, set for 9:30 PM local time (5:30 AM EST).  The big name signed up is the year's fastest 10k runner, Kiprono Menjo.  He is capable of breaking the race record of 27:22.54, and doesn't need a pacemaker; he famously broke 27:00 and 13:00 in solo runs this summer.  Most of the top Australians are also entered, as is the USA's Bobby Curtis.  There's a women's race, too, but it isn't quite as competitive this year.
Event website
IAAF preview / Runner's Tribe preview
Race history

 

A few low-key college track meets begin during the week. Colorado has an intrasquad on Wednesday, as does Nebraska on Friday.
All the rest

 

 

Track on TV

• New York City Marathon rerun, 3:00 PM Monday on Universal Sports
• Endurance, 3:00 PM Monday on SHO Extreme
• Bud Greenspan Remembers: The 1984 L.A. Olympics, 8:00 PM Monday and 12:45 AM and 2:35 PM Thursday on Showtime Family Zone
• Bud Greenspan's Athens 2004: Stories of Olympic Glory, 12: 45 PM Tuesday on Showtime Family Zone
• Running the Sahara, 5:30 AM, 7:30 AM and 4:05 PM Thursday on SHO Extreme and 2:00 PM Friday on SHO Next
• Prefontaine, 11:30 AM Friday on Showtime Family Zone

What's On: The Weekend

Road Racing
The 64th Fukuoka International Open Marathon, an IAAF Silver Label Road Race, will be run in the Japanese city on Sunday (Saturday night in the USA). Once the unofficial World Championships, this men-only race is still one of the best in the tier just below the World Marathon Majors.
Race website
Live webcast: 10:00 PM EST on Saturday night at Keyhole TV
Japan Running News viewing guide / IAAF preview

The Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon, an IAAF Silver Label Road Race, will be run in the southeast Asian island nation on Sunday.
Race website
IAAF preview

The Wincanton Montferland Run 15k will be run on Sunday in the Dutch city of Heerenberg. Super-marathoners Samuel Wanjiru and Patrick Makau are slated to run.
Race website

The Safaricom Great Lake National Marathon will be run on Sunday in the Kenyan town of Kisumu.

The Cal International Marathon will be run on Sunday in Sacramento.
Race website
Race preview

The MetroPCS Dallas White Rock Marathon will be run in the Texas city on Sunday. An interesting twist added on is a special high school relay trying to beat the pros.
Race website
Live local TV coverage: 8:00 AM (local time) Sunday on WFAA (Channel 8)
Race preview

The Rock N’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon and Half Marathon will be run in Sin City on Sunday.

Cross Country
The fifth meet in the KCB/Athletics Kenya cross country series takes place on Saturday in Kisii.

The Ethiopian Clubs Cross Country Championships will be held on Saturday in Addis Ababa.

The Cross International de la Constitucion takes place on Sunday in the Spanish town of Alcobendas.

Colleges
The NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships will be held on Saturday at Tom Sawyer State Park in Louisville KY.
Live webcast: 11:00 AM EST at NCAA.com
Meet website / Flotrack coverage
Previews: NCAA / Courier-Journal
Let's Run prediction contest

College track starts up.
Athletic.net list of meets

High Schools
Nike Cross Country Nationals, aka NXN, will be held on Saturday at Portland Meadows Racetrack in Oregon.
Meet website / Flotrack coverage
Live webcast: 1:05 PM (EST) Saturday at runnerspace.com
Previews: Flotrack / USA Today Milesplit boys / Milesplit girls

The Foot Locker West regionals will be held on Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut CA.
Meet website

Track on TV
Running the Sahara, 1:00 PM Friday on SHO Extreme and 7:30 AM Sunday on SHO Next
NCAA Division II XC Championships live webcast, 11:00 Saturday at NCAA.com
Nike Cross Nationals live webcast, 1:05 PM Saturday at runnerspace.com
Fukuoka Marthon live webcast, 10:00 PM Saturday at Keyhole TV
Dallas White Rock Marathon live local TV,  8:00 AM (local time) Sunday on WFAA (Dallas Channel 8)
Prefontaine, 8:00 PM Sunday on Showtime Family Zone
Endurance, 5:45 AM Monday on SHO Extreme

Sunday Evening Decathlete

What did we learn this week?

Joseph Ebuya is back. Last year's World Cross Country champion had a disappointing summer, running only 13:11 and well beaten in big races. In his first race of the new cross country season he was second behind Eritrea's Teklemariam Medhin. Today in France's Cross de l'Acier, Ebuya beat the initial Diamond League champion Imane Merga. As of Sunday evening (EST) a detailed race report has yet to come online.

Valerie (Vili) Adams has changed coaches again. In March the Kiwi Olympic shot champion split with the only coach she'd ever known as an adult, Kirsten Hellier. This came after her first championship loss in years as well as a divorce. Adams went with New Zealand-based French coach Didier Poppe, but that came to an end this week after disagreements ran through the 2010 season. Adams had already done some work with Switzerland's Jean-Pierre Egger, and will likely formalize the relationship this week.

Egger will be assisted by his own former athlete Werner Gunthor, the three-time World Champion. Gunthor's titles are only barely more notable than the fact that he was essentially the only world-class shot putter whose marks were unchanged both before and after random out-of-competition dope testing was instituted in the early 90s, which suggests he was the era's only top thrower who never used anything illicit.  Egger says he can get Adams consistently over 21 meters, which would mean she'd have a chance against a resurgent Nadzeya Ostapchuk.

The USA has created a new tradition. I've always thought that Thanksgiving is the most American of all holidays. It was invented here, it is openly but non-specifically religious, and its traditional foods (turkey, cranberries, potatoes, pumpkins) are all new-world natives. In addition, its sporting tradition is our peculiarly American kind of football. There appears to be a new one, though: turkey trots on Thanksgiving morning.

The races are generally only nominally competitive. Out in San Jose there was a big matchup between Alan Webb and Galen Rupp, but even that didn't seem to be a terribly serious affair. (Webb won. But no one is taking it as a hugely meaningful result.) Here in Toledo we had two races, and the bigger one was won by a local Kenyan transplant who half-assed in it at 15:30 or so.

The Race Results Weekly summary of the nation's 20 biggest Thanksgiving Day races showed participation numbers to be flat as compared to last year, but the numbers invite deeper scrutiny. Large portions of the country had pretty nasty weather that day, and big declines there wiped out good increases elsewhere.  And I don't think looking at big races is most meaningful for this particular new tradition; USATF counted nearly 600 races across the country, most of them small and local affairs. Here in Toledo we had bad weather, two races, 2500 entrants and 2000 participants, all in a metro area of 500,000 people. With good weather we likely would have had more than 3,000 participants, a number we've never had on any day save the annual Race for the Cure madhouse. By contrast, this week's races were little-publicized. I did not race but ran later that morning instead, and encountered more runners and walkers on the paths than cars on the road.  The new Thanksgiving tradition appears to be "get out and move your feet in the morning".

Garry Hill thinks we should have the Worlds in every non-Olympic year. When I read this I thought it was a non-starter. You can't have the Worlds in the even-numbered year opposite the Olympics. Then I thought a little more. Why not?

The years opposite the Olympics have traditionally been set aside for regional competition, things like the European Championships and the Commonwealth Games. But those regional events are nearly all shells of their former selves. The Commonwealth Games haven't been an important fixture in the track season for at least twenty years. Ditto for the Asian Games and the African Games. Only the European Championships are still popular and well-attended by both the fans and the stars. I'm certain that a truncated version could be found which would fit into a Worlds year--after all, the Euros will be held in the next Olympic year. Either the Euros will adapt for that, or the meet will shoot itself in the foot.

Hill is right.  Without a championship, the sport goes to sleep for a year.  We can't afford that.

Track on American TV will be much better in 2011. This came to us last week, not this week, but I couldn't jam it into my all-NCAA writeup. And if any week-old topic merits mentioning, this one does.

On the House of Run podcast, Boldon let it be known that many changes are in store for VISA Championship Series coverage. He would not be specific, but it sounds like the production company that does the meets is ready to show us the three-ring circus of track and field. Months ago Boldon solicited suggestions for how to make TV coverage better, and I gave him plenty of suggestions. Mostly it came down to two things: better camera angles, and replacing talking heads with field event action. Via Twitter, Boldon vowed we will be happy with the Millrose Games broadcast.

Possibly more important is a new show called Foot Race. Created by Rich Christensen ("Pinks" and its derivatives) and currently seeking a distributor, it's a more serious version of last summer's "Shaq Versus" episode with Tyson Gay. Basically it breaks down to this: two athletes negotiate a handicap and then race. Check out the website. I have no idea if this is the specific "reality TV" series that former USATF CEO Doug Logan spoke about, but it falls into the reality genre. We all presumed such a show would be a festival of shame and humiliation (example: Kardashians), but it certainly doesn't have to be. This kind of "reality" competition is now the backbone of basic cable. A successful track show in the same vein would do wonders for our sport.

What's On: The Weekend

Cross Country
The Budapest Challenge, an EAA Permit cross country meet, takes place on Saturday in the Hungarian capital’s Népliget Park.
Meet website
EAA preview

The fourth meet in the KCB/Athletics Kenya Cross Country series takes place on Saturday in Kangaru-Embu.

The UK will hold its European Cross Country Trials on Saturday in Liverpool's Sefton Park.
Meet website
Athleticos coverage

The Cross Internacional Valle de Llodio, another EAA Permit cross country meet, will take place on Sunday in the Spanish city of Llodio. Leading entries are Teklemariam Medhin, who is riding a two-race winning streak, along with Samuel Tsegay, Kidane Tadese and Josephat Kiprono Menjo.
ABC.es preview (in Spanish)

The strongest lineup of the weekend is at the Cross de l'Acier, another EAA Permit cross country meet, in the French coastal town of Leffrinckoucke. Imane Merga, the summer's dominant track runner, will take on defending World Cross Country champion Joesph Ebuya. The women's competition is also strong, featuring Linet Masai, the defending World 10k champ, along with Meselech Melkamu and Wude Ayalew.
Meet website
Nord Eclair preview (in French)

The International loket.nl Warandeloop, an EAA Permit cross country meet, takes place on Sunday in the Dutch city of Tilburg.
Meet website
EAA preview

Road Racing
The Florence Marathon takes place on Sunday in the Italian city.
Race website
FIDAL preview (in Italian)

The Eldoret KASS Marathon takes place on Sunday in the Kenyan town of Eldoret.
Race website
The Standard preview

High Schools
Three Foot Locker Regional cross country championships take place on Saturday: the Northeast on Long Island, the Midwest in Kenosha WI, and the South in Charlotte NC.
Foot Locker website
Flotrack coverage: Northeast / Midwest / West
ESPN Rise coverage: Northeast / Midwest / South

The California High School Championships will take place on Saturday in Fresno.
Meet website

Track on TV
Bud Greenspan Presents: Beijing 2008 - America's Olympic Glory, 10:40 AM Saturday on Showtime Family Zone
Running the Sahara, 9:15 AM Sunday on Showtime Family Zone

What's On: The Weekend

NCAA Championships

The NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships are Monday in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Women at 12:08 PM EST, Men at 12:48

Meet website / Flotrack coverage / Cross Country Town USA page

LIVE webcast begins at Noon on Monday at NCAA.com
LIVE Pre-Shows at Flotrack.org:
Saturday at 2 PM
Sunday at 12:30 PM
Monday at 11:30 AM

I'll be there this weekend, twittering and covering it for House of Run.

To truly enjoy a race, you've got to know who the favorites are and who the underdogs with a legitimate chance are.

On the men's side, I'm calling it for Oklahoma State over Stanford.  The outside shot goes to Wisconsin.  A under-appreciated contender for one of the four trophies is Colorado. Sam Chelanga of Liberty is the overwhelming favorite to win, with Northern Arizona's David McNeill a nearly equally overwhelming favorite for second.

In the women's race, Villanova is a strong favorite.  If they falter, Florida State is most likely to take the title.  The individual race is considered wide open; my super-secret gambling-based predictor calls it for Sheila Reid.
Previews: Spiked Up Psyched Up (women) /  SUPU (men)

International
The third meet in the KCB/Athletics Kenya Cross Country series takes place on Saturday in Kapsokwony.

The Nyeri Half Marathon will be run on Saturday in the Kenyan town of Nyeri.

The Safaricom Siaya 10 kilometer Road Race will be held on Saturday in the Kenyan town of Siaya.

The Airtel Delhi Half Marathon, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race, will be held on Sunday in the Indian city.
Race website
Ten sub-1:00:00 men are running, headlined by Deriba Merga and Geoffrey Mutai.  Twelve sub-1:10:00 women are running, headlined by Aselefech Mergia.
Previews: Times of India / Hindustan Times / Wall Street Journal / IAAF

The ABN AMRO Zevenheuvelenloop 15k, an IAAF Silver Label Road Race, will be held on Sunday in the Dutch city of Nijmegen.
Race website
Two road world record holders are entered: Leonard Komon (10k) and Felix Limo (15k).  This looks like a great battle.
Previews: Mzungo / IAAF

The Lotto CrossCup van West-Vlaanderen, an EAA Cross Country Permit meet, will be run on Sunday in the Belgian city of Roeselare.

The Corta Mato Cidade De Amora, an EAA Cross Country Permit meet, will be run on Sunday in the Portugese city of Amora.

The Cross Internacional de Soria, an EAA Cross Country Permit meet, will be run on Sunday in the Spanish city of Soria.
Preview of all three EAA meets

The Great Ethiopian Run will be held on Sunday in Addis Ababa.  With 35,000 entrants, it is Africa's largest 10k.

The Tuskys Mattresses Wareng Cross Country meet will be held on Sunday in the Kenyan town of Eldoret.  World champion Joseph Ebuya is entered.

The Kobe Women's Half Marathon will be held on Sunday in the Japanese city.

Track on TV
Running the Sahara, 11:10 AM and 9:40 PM Saturday on Showtime Family Zone
NCAA Cross Country Championships Pre-Show, 2 PM Saturday at Flotrack.org
Big Ten Cross Country Championships (tape-delay), noon Sunday on the Big Ten Network
NCAA Cross Country Championships Pre-Show, 12:30 PM Sunday at Flotrack.org
New York City Marathon rerun, 1 AM Monday on Universal Sports
NCAA Cross Country Championships Pre-Show, 11:30 AM Monday at Flotrack.org
NCAA Cross Country Championships Live Webcast, Noon Monday at NCAA.com

What's On: The Weekend

New York City Marathon
The (arguably) most famous race in the world, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race and the final World Marathon Major of 2011, will be run through the five boroughs on Sunday. 

Pro women at 9:10 AM, pro men and mass start at 9:40.

• Race website
• TV Coverage: 2 PM Sunday on NBC (tape-delay)
• LIVE TV Coverage: 9 AM Sunday on Universal Sports
• Live Webcast: 9 AM Sunday at UniversalSports.com ($)

The media has blanket coverage of the race.  Your best sites for race previews and coverage are Runner's World, Flotrack, the NYRR Marathon Channel, and Universal Sports.  You could immerse yourself from now until the gun on Sunday morning with those sites alone.

Also check out Flotrack's The Weekend Ahead video, with the always-hip background music...


Believe it or not, there are other major races going on.

The Joongang Seoul Marathon, an IAAF Bronze Label Road Race, will be run in the South Korean capitol on Sunday.
Race website

The Cross Internacional de Atapuerca, the opening race of the 2010-11 IAAF Cross Country Permit series, will be run on Sunday through the Spanish town on Atapuerca and its archealogical site.  Headliners are both defending World XC champions, Joseph Ebuya and Emily Chebet.
Race website
IAAF Preview

Most NCAA Division II and NAIA conference cross country championships are this weekend, highlighted by the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference meet in Las Vegas on Saturday.
USATFCCCA Championship Central page
NAIA Conference pages: men / women


Track on TV
World Half Marathon Championships rerun, 4:30 PM Friday on Universal Sports
2008 New York Marathon rerun, 8:00 PM Friday on Universal Sports
2009 New York Marathon rerun, Midnight and 8:00 PM Saturday on Universal Sports
Endurance, 8:00 PM Saturday on Showtime Family Zone
New York City Marathon live coverage, 9 AM Sunday on Universal Sports and UniversalSports.com
New York City Marathon tape-delay package, 2 PM Sunday on NBC
Prefontaine, 5:35 AM and 9:40 AM Sunday on SHO Next
New York City Marathon rerun, 8 PM Sunday on Universal Sports

Chilean Miner Edison "The Runner" Pena on Letterman Tonight

From Deadspin:

How would the average person spend 69 days trapped underground? Edison Peña ran three to six miles daily. Now he's running in the NYC Marathon this weekend. Great. I'll be on a couch, trapped under a pile of wings.

Peña was invited to watch the New York Marathon. He decided he’d rather run, and the NYRR gave him an entry. Read the AP story; it’s good.  Key quote: "he'll probably reject the hero label, insisting that the focus should be on worker safety, faith in God and the restorative power of sports."

He will be the lead guest on tonight’s Late Show with David Letterman. I am definitely recording this one.

Letterman, a runner himself, has been very friendly to distance types. After last year’s NYC win, he had Meb Keflezighi read the Top Ten List. At other times guests have included Alan Webb, Dean Karnazes and Pam Reed.

Letterman hasn’t cornered the market on tracksters. Jay Leno is more partial to throwers, as he was a thrower himself in high school. His Olympic-year guests have included Reese Hoffa and John Godina (against whom Leno competed in a series of silly throws).

What's On: The Weekend

International
The BUPA Great South Run, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race, will be run on Sunday through the streets of the English city of Portsmouth. 

• Race website
• There will be live TV coverage on BBC Channel 5 beginning at 10:30 AM local time.
• The men's field is supposed to be pretty darned good: World Cross Country champ Joseph Ebuya and half-marathon ace Zersenay Tadese are the headliners.  The women's race suffered from the withdrawal of Jo Pavey due to injury.
• Athletics Weekly: men's preview / women's preview

There are a couple of lower-level races, both IAAF Silver Label Road Race status.  Both the Venice Marathon and the Chosunilbo Chuncheon International Marathon will take place on Sunday.

Domestic
Not much. 

The Rock N' Roll Los Angeles Half Marathon is on Sunday, but apparently has no pro-level entries.

College cross country is decidedly low-key this weekend, as conference championships come next weekend.

Track on TV
World Half Marathon Championships, 1:00 PM Friday on Universal Sports
Prefontaine, 10:10 AM Friday on The Movie Channel Xtra
Without Limits, 10:30 AM Sunday and 4:00 AM Monday on WGN

What's On This Week

Basically, nothing. It's fall, there's no action besides cross country and road racing.


Track on TV
Prefontaine, 6:00 AM Monday and 10:10 AM Friday on The Movie Channel Xtra
Running the Sahara, 1:05 PM and 10:00 PM Tuesday on Showtime Extreme; 9:45 AM Thursday on Showtime Next
Continental Cup Day 1 rerun, 3:00 AM Tuesday on Universal Sports
Continental Cup Day 2 rerun, 3:00 AM Wednesday on Universal Sports
World Half Marathon Championships, 1:00 PM Friday on Universal Sports

What's On the Weekend

Professionals

The Berlin Marathon, a World Marathon Major, will be run in the German capitol on Sunday. 

Live webcast: 2:50 AM, German News Channel N-TV

Race website / World Marathon Majors site

Previews: IAAF / Universal Sports / Examiner.com: men, women / Mzungo.org / Associated Press / Athletics Weekly

The Vodafone Half Marathon of Portugal, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race, will be run in Lisbon on Sunday.

Race website
IAAF preview

The Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, an IAAF Silver Label Road Race, will be run in the Ontario capitol on Sunday.

Live webcast: 7:30 AM at Flotrack.org

Race website / Flotrack coverage

Previews: Runner's Web / Guelph Mercury

The Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile will be run in New York City on Sunday.  A great field includes Bernard Lagat, Leo Manzano, Nick Willis and Alan Webb, and Shannon Rowbury, Molly Huddle and Kalkidan Gezahegn.
Live webcast: 12:50 PM at NYRR.org

Race website / Flotrack coverage

Previews: Running USA Wire / Track and Field News / Runner's World: men, women / Universal Sports: men, women / Radio New Zealand / WomenTalkSports.com

Colleges

The 25th annual Roy Griak Invitational will be run at Minnesota’s Les Bolstad Golf Course on Saturday.

Live webcast: 10:00 AM at Flotrack.org
Meet website / Flotrack coverage / Spectator info & directions
Previews: Gophersports.com: men, women / Minnesota Daily

The Stanford Invitational will be held on Saturday on the Stanford Golf Course (aka "where we let Tiger Woods play golf on our cross country course").
Meet info / GoStanford.com preview

The 73rd Brooks Cowboy Jamboree will be held on Saturday at Oklahoma State.
Meet info / Flotrack coverage
OKState.com preview

All the rest

Track on TV
Diamond League Brussels rerun, 10 AM Friday and 3:30 PM Sunday on Universal Sports
2010 Boston Marathon rerun, 1:30 PM Friday on Universal Sports
Continental Cup Day 2 rerun, 5 PM Friday on Universal Sports
Endurance, 1:45 AM Saturday on Showtime Extreme
2009 Berlin Marathon rerun, Noon and 6:30 PM Saturday on Universal Sports
Diamond League Zurich rerun, 3:30 PM Saturday on Universal Sports
Big Ten Icons: #19 Suzy Favor Hamilton, 12:30 AM and 11:30 AM Sunday on Big Ten Network

What's On The Weekend

The Decastar decathlon and heptathlon, an IAAF Combined Events Challenge competition, takes place on Saturday and Sunday in the Bordeaux suburb of Talence. Leading names are European decathlon champion Romain Barras (France) and a faceoff between World Indoor medalists Tatyana Chernova (Russia) and Natalia Dobrynska (Ukraine).
Meet website
Previews: IAAF / L'Equipe

The IAAF Race Walking Challenge Final will take place on Saturday in Beijing. Who ya got in your racewalking fantasy league?
Race website / IAAF preview

The Great North City Games takes place on Saturday in the streets of Gateshead, England. It’s one of those city-center competitions, set up as a dual meet between the UK and Australia. Most of each nation’s A-squad will be there, including Steve Hooker.
Meet website
Athletics Weekly / ESPN UK / BBC Sport / The Mirror / Bettor.com

The next day (Sunday) is the Great North Run half marathon in the same city. Martin Lel has dropped out, leaving the marquis matchup between Haile Gebrselassie and Dathan Ritzenhein. Yeah, I think I know how this one is going to come out.  This is the "more celebrity, less competition" run in Britain--Coronation Street's stars are among the 54,000 entrants.
Race website
Athletics Weekly / BBC Sport / AA of Ireland

The final track invitational of the season, the Super Meet, takes place on Sunday in Kawasaki's Todoroki Stadium.  The headliner is French sprint phenom Christophe Lemaitre.
Meet website / Daily Yomiuri

The Rock N’ Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon will be run on Sunday. Some good matchups here: Ryan Hall v. Gebre Gebremariam v. Abderrahim Goumri for the men, Shalane Flanagan v. Meseret Defar in the Ethiopian’s first-ever half-marathon
Race website
Live webcast: competitor.com beginning at 7:55 AM.

The CVS Downtown 5k, the USATF road championship at that distance, will be run on Sunday in Providence RI. The top entry is Molly Huddle, who broke the American Record at this distance last month.
Race website / USA Running Circuit page
Live webcast: Runnerspace.com beginning at 11:05 AM
Another weekend of college XC is on tap.
USTFCCCA collegiate meet listing

Track on TV
Continental Cup Day 2 rerun, 1 PM Friday on Universal Sports
Diamond League Zurich rerun, 6 PM Saturday on Universal Sports
Diamond League Brussels rerun, 5 PM Sunday on Universal Sports
Endurance, 6:45 PM Sunday on Showtime Extreme

Sunday Evening Decathlete

What did we learn this week?

Apparently newspapers think “shot putting” ahead of “professional wrestling”. Jim Neidhart was arrested on drug charges this week and his hometown paper identified him first as a former local shot putter. A onetime California high school recordholder, he continued on for a year at UCLA and then on his own, making the TFN US Rankings in 1975 at #10. Only later in the story did they identify him as I first knew him, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, half of the former WWE tag-team champion “Hart Foundation” with Brett “Hitman” Hart. Pro wrestling is interesting kabuki theater which has always told you a lot about the American culture, but it sounds like a horrible way to make a living. Niedhart was arrested for painkillers.

No one likes domestic TV track coverage once they’ve seen the BBC’s. Last Tuesday on Twitter, former steeplechaser Ann Gaffigan berated Universal Sports for failing to show the women’s steeple on their Continental Cup coverage. She’d watched the Universal Sports webcasts and then compared it to the Universal Sports TV coverage and found the latter severely lacking. Surprisingly, they actually responded to her concerns.

I’ve never seen it, as my cable provider doesn’t carry Universal Sports, but I can hazard a guess as to the difference: talking heads, metric-phobia, interviews and commercials. The webcasts, which are direct rebroadcasts of BBC TV, have none of these. Commercials eat up 16 minutes of every hour, of course, but I have no idea why the others are found necessary for American TV. No matter how good Ato Boldon is, he’s not why I watch a track meet because he’s not competing.

So unless Universal Sports breaks the mold in terms of broadcasting a track meet, Gaffigan and I will always be disappointed. No-metric field event coverage means crappy-graphics field event coverage. Famous-person face time is non-track and field time—and time is at a premium when your broadcast is only 75% as long as the foreign counterpart.

Kibwe Johnson is moving up. In late July, the hammerer threw in some little-known meets at Ohio’s Ashland College and put up a personal record (77.07m). Then on Saturday he threw at the DecaNation meet in France and topped a decent field which included #7 Nicola Vizzoni and #8 Markus Esser. If he continues to improve, and the rest of the world remains stagnant at its current 80-meters-is-very-rare level, he could have a shot at an Olympic medal in two years. (Hat tip to Martin Bingisser)

The “wierdest road race prize ever” title has changed hands. Yesterday at the Daniel Defense 5k in Pooling GA, the winner took home a semi-automatic rifle. Yes, the race was on September 11.

Tracksters have a fundamentally different level of freedom than athletes in professional team sports. Australian quartermiler John Steffenson has had a bit of a row with his governing body, Athletics Australia. He has badmouthed AA, and apparently not without good reason. This is not terribly unusual in track, as NGBs are often self-righteous and foolish if not outright corrupt. What is unusual here is that AA fought back; Steffenson may be charged with “bringing the sport into disrepute”, whatever that means, and I’m not even sure if there’s any other penalty that comes with it.

Compare this to those in the NFL, NBA or MLB who openly criticize the league. They’re fined and often heavily. Outspoken critics of leadership like Butch Reynolds during his whole false-positive dustup or Carl Lewis always was get nothing except maybe a bit of trouble when relays are being selected.

Sorry About the Jinx

LATE UPDATE:  The plot thickens.  IAAF president Lamine Diack just appointed Logan to the IAAF School/Youth Commission.  Interpretation: Diack wants to keep Logan around, and the job probably comes with perks for the rest of USATF, thus giving the Board of Directors reason to move with caution.

Earlier this week I assumed that silence was meaningful in terms of Doug Logan's job as CEO of USA Track and Field.  You may recall that in late July he was told that his performance needed to improve or he'd be fired.  Having heard nothing for quite some time, I said I thought his job was safe.

I just had to go and say it, didn't I?  Reuters reports just this morning that his fate will be determined this weekend at a meeting in Las Vegas.  The story also extensively quotes Carl Lewis, who doesn't like the meddling.

"He brings credibility, knowledge and expertise," Lewis told Reuters. "He understands the future and has a vision.

"They (USATF) were lucky he fell in their hands," added Lewis.
...
Lewis said for too many years USATF and its predecessors had been dysfunctional and run by "people who don't understand anything outside their own zip code."

"The sport is not even an also-ran in America," said the former sprinter and long jumper. "I can't believe they want to try and get rid of him.

Lewis has thought for at least 30 years that USATF is run by a bunch of jackasses, so nothing new here.  That Reuters specifically sought out Lewis for comment is interesting.  Lewis was one of nine experts hand-picked by Logan for his Project 30 task force.  The AP also has an article, also extensively quoting Lewis.

It sounds like Logan's detractors want improvement but not change, and we all know one is not possible without the other. Recall that Logan's predecessor, Craig Masback, was twice threatened in a similar way and came through unscathed.  But Masback abruptly resigned in early 2008, and speculation was that he saw the coming leadership in that year's elections as even more difficult to work for.

The most immediate change that came out of the Project 30 task force report was the cancelation of the National Relay Program, as it had done nothing for our relay performances and cost a lot of money.  Once that happened, Brooks Johnson retired.  It was his baby and cash cow.  He was very tight with new USATF President Stephanie Hightower and Men's Track & Field Committee chair John Chaplin (a man once described as "a douche for the decades").  Canceling the program was the right thing to do, but these people are nothing if not vindictive.  I suspect nothing would happen to Logan if these two didn't want it to happen.  Giving Carl Lewis a position of power and advocating for an athletes' union are two other things that are necessary for USATF to improve but guaranteed to piss off its power brokers.

What's On Today
The Notturna Di Milano, an EAA Permit Meeting, takes place in Italy.

Track on TV
Diamond League Zurich rerun, 1:30 PM on Universal Sports
Diamond League Stockholm rerun, 10 PM on Universal Sports

Around the Web
Runners' World Racing News has all the headlines, including the announcement of elite fields for the NYC Marathon

Shelly-Ann Fraser avoids a (stupid) 2-year ban, but exactly what will happen is still unknown

Sprinters on the mend: Asafa Powell and Walter Dix

Teddy Tamgho chooses a new coach