Superfan Daily: Hood to Coast Movie

There are no results from yesterday to report, no competitions of any note being held today, and no track and/or running-oriented items being broadcast on TV or the web in the next 24 hours.

There is, however, one rather big thing going on this evening. The documentary film Hood to Coast is being shown in theaters across the country, for one screening only. The film follows four teams competing in the famous long-distance relay race from Oregon’s Mount Hood to the Pacific Ocean. The race is a 20-hour 197-mile festival of crazy and the scenery is amazing, so I figure the film has to be pretty good.  The reviews, what little there are, have been positive.

It’s highly unusual for a film like this one to get wide screening. The norm is either being shown only at a few film festivals or going straight to video. This is being shown all over the nation, even in decidedly second- or third-tier cities like the one where I live.

So go out and support it. Show that people do care for this kind of stuff. To see where it’s being shown in your area, go to the film’s website and they’ll help you out. You may want to purchase your tickets in advance, as there’s a possibility that the one-shot deal might sell out.

News Links
Runner’s World’s Daily News has all the headlines, the biggest of which is that Ryan Hall will run the Houston Half Marathon.

Kara Goucher returns to racing on Sunday after a maternity-induced layoff. runnersworld

The BBC talks to Mark Lewis-Francis, a surprise silver medalist at last year’s European Championships, about the upcoming seasons.

The IOC is meeting this week to, among other things, prepare for opening bidding for US television rights.

Top German high jumper Ariane Friedrich has now revealed that her achilles injury is a rupture, and she will miss the 2011 season.

Martin Bingisser makes a decent case that wind is a factor in hammer throwing.

Charlie Engle, one of the main guys in Running the Sahara, has been hit with a 21-month prison sentence.

Usain Bolt has been signed on for the 200 meters at Oslo’s Bislett Games in June. The timing of that meet in the Diamond League series makes it unlikely that he'll compete in either of the US meets.

David Rudisha will compete twice in the upcoming Athletics Australia tour, at meets in Melbourne on March 3 and Sydney on March 19.

Chris Thompson will attack the UK 10,000 meter record at the Stanford Invitational on April 30. He says he has to go for it now, before Mo Farah gets his turn and “puts it out of sight.”

Cross country news:
*Sylvia Kibet is skipping indoor track this year in favor of cross country
*Kenyan athletes must compete twice in local competitions to be considered for the World Cross Country team
*The first-ever African Cross Country Championships will be held two weeks prior to the World XC meet

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.

Sunday Evening Decathlete

What did we learn this week?

How and why track stars leave college early.  On Thursday, it was announced that Curtis Mitchell would forego his senior year at Texas A&M and join Lance Braumann's training group in Florida.  He was the most important athlete in the Aggies' attempt to defend their NCAA title, and head coach Pat Henry was none too happy about the situation.  "It's often assumed that athletes make this professional move due to academic ineligibility", said Henry. "Curtis was in good standing academically, with no problems what so ever, and was ready to go athletically as well."

Some of the more high-profile early exits have been related to other issues. Kerron Clement was at the height of his signing potential when he left, as he'd just broken the world indoor record at 400 meters. Alan Webb essentially folded on college running after his freshman year was a bust.

In other sports, football especially, athletes turn pro because they fear injury which could jeopardize their livelihood. Injuries like this can happen in track as well; Walter Dix lost most of his senior year to a hamstring injury, which has recurred in each of his two full professional seasons and seriously impacted his earnings. But there shouldn't be much to fear for Mitchell, as Henry's athletes tend to stay healthy and progress to the pro ranks very well. You don't get "used up" at TAMU.

This particular instance appears to be a bit different. Henry explains. "We have agents and management groups who prey on young people's financial dreams and aspirations with no regard to the person's education or even athletic growth. This particular situation borders on legal issues with respect to agents and state laws." More or less, agent John Regis appears to have sweet-talked the kind into signing early. That Regis is British and that the likely goal is to medal at the London Olympics may or may not be coincidental. But it sure looks like Henry was kept out of the loop.

Oregon football is peculiar to its environment. Tomorrow night the Ducks play for the national championship, and in a way that would be unlikely to happen anywhere else. Their offense is based around speed and endurance, which is only appropriate for Track Town USA. It's not that they turn football games into track meets, but rather that their all-game no-huddle offense makes them into hourlong fartlek runs. They have outscored their opponents 115-24 in the fourth quarter.

More unusual yet is that such an approach has led to a title chance. The insurgent strategy, recently explained by Malcolm Gladwell (in an article that everyone incorrectly assumes is just about basketball), is only adopted when you realize that you are David rather than Goliath. Oregon head coach Chip Kelly has somehow convinced his players that they are incapable of being the top team in the land by playing conventional football, and thus inspired them to be the best by playing unconventional football. His players have bought into the system, which asks them to work much harder than anyone else.

Earlier this week, SI's Ian Thomsen related the observations of other coaches on Oregon's approach. One pro coach said "The pace and tempo they practice with really stood out to me...Their conditioning is unbelievable for them to play at that tempo and speed in the fourth quarter."

Yet another coach, one already on Oregon's campus, said "To really play the speed game, the problem is that it's very hard to do and therefore you need a special group of people who are willing to play that way. For traditional...players...it's not easy for them. So that may be the ultimate compliment to Chip Kelly -- that he's gotten his players to do something game after game that's very hard. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. This is a special kind of hard [assignment] to be ready to go play after play after play. And in Chip's case, as the possessions mount, they play faster and they play better."

That last quote is from Oregon's women's basketball coach, one Paul Westhead. That's right, the Guro of Go. The guy who more or less created the Laker's "Showtime" fast-break style, and then took it up another notch at Loyola Marymount. Chip Kelly consulted Westhead on how to make it work.

The problem with insurgent strategies is that they depend on a massive amount of work to make up for a deficiency in resources (in this case, raw football talent). Once the underdogs become the overdogs, they abandon insurgent strategies. Oregon has not been one of the nation's premier programs in any sport (except track). What happens if they win tomorrow night? Eventually they will be able to recruit better players, some of whom will resent the Kelly system, and the whole thing may disappear. Nor has Kelly's uptempo system always worked--in fact, it's only really worked this year. Westhead himself says to appreciate it while it's there, because it almost certainly will not last.

Goliath got pipped. Oregon's track program, unlike its football program, is Goliath. It has a sugar daddy like no other. It has the only track-specific stadium in the world that uses the phrase "season tickets". It stockpiles high school All-Americans. As Duke is to men's basketball, Oregon is to track.

Oregon is so dominant that they hired a high-profile throws coach, Bob Weir, just to try to land a single recruit. They succeeded in getting Sam Crouser, last year's high school athlete of the year, to back out from his commitment to UCLA and come to Eugene. But that wasn't the big fish they were going after.

The big fish is cousin Ryan Crouser, about to enter his senior season of track, who is considered the best American throws prospect in a generation. Oregon pulled out all the stops for him. Usually competing at Hayward Field is enough to put stars in any kid's eyes. But the Ducks brought this kid out to Autzen Stadium for a home football game and put him in the end zone with some track honorees while 60,000 fans chanted "Come to Oregon, come to Oregon..." No 18-year-old thrower will get that kind of attention anywhere in the entire world.

And Crouser decided to go to...Texas.  Why?  Because the academics are a better fit for him. At first this is a stunning thing, but upon reflection it shouldn't be. I've often said that track people are usually a breed apart, more concerned with selves than team. A 6'7" monstrously strong and quick athlete like Ryan Crouser does not choose throwing over football or basketball unless he doesn't particularly care for the approval of thousands of screaming fans. At most meets for the next four years, there will be at most a few hundred people watching him compete, and he's OK with that. Most 18-year-olds can't keep their eyes on the prize like that, but maybe that's another reason why Crouser is the best throwing prospect in a generation.

For more on the Crouser decision, check out TrackFocus.com.

Rivalries are sport-specific. For example, Ohio State and Michigan are such bitter football rivals that I know people who wouldn't let me into their house wearing maize and blue. But in basketball, the matchup is just another game. Indiana-Purdue matters in football, but not anywhere near as much as in basketball. And on and on.

One of the things that really hurts track is that there are so few true rivalries. There's USC-UCLA, but that's one of the few rivalries that is consistently strong and important across all sports. Yesterday I discovered there IS a track-specific rivalry. In a men-only dual meet, Princeton beat Navy to even their all-time series at 20-20. They've been going at this for 40 out of the last 53 years. So it's a bit like Lafayette-Lehigh, in that the teams involved aren't important on a national scale but the history means a lot to the athletes and their fans.

The Big Ten has a few big-time athletes. Three of them showed it yesterday. Derek Drouin, Indiana's defending NCAA high jump champ, opened his season with 2.27 (7' 5 1/4") and took a few good shots at 2.30 (7' 6 1/2"), the Big Ten record. (2.31 would put him in the top ten in collegiate history.)  I hope he and Kansas State's Erik Kynard develop a rivalry; they are currently tied atop the NCAA performance list, and both are the same age and represent neighboring nations (Canada and the USA respectively). Kynard has always had trouble maintaining form over a whole season, though, and so far Drouin has dominated when the two have met.

At the same meet, Indiana's Faith Sherrill added 1.20 meters (3' 11") to her school record in the women's shot put with a massive 18.00 (59' 3/4") heave. It broke the Big Ten record by more than two and a half feet, and would have put her 3rd on last year's US indoor list and 20th in the world.  It puts her just outside the top ten Americans in collegiate history, and her season has just begun.  If she progresses, she has a decent chance at making the US team for the World Championships.

Over at Penn State, the Nittany Lions' Cas Loxsom ran 1:01.28 for 500 meters. It's a bit difficult to put that mark in perspective, as the 500 is a rarely-run distance. But it suggests he's capable of running mid-1:47 for 800 meters right now. Loxsom won silver at last summer's World Junior Championships, and his outdoor PR is only 1:46.57. Indoors, his best is 1:47.98. Obviously, then, he has stepped things up to another level over last year. With distance running you always have to worry about peaking at the right time, and running great in the first meet in January could mean being too sharp too soon. On the other hand, the kid ran at his best in July last year after both an indoor and outdoor college season, so maybe there needn't be any concern.

USATF listens to the Superfan. Last fall USATF's online store rolled out a scarf emblazoned with red, white and blue and the organization's name. A month or so ago they began to sell track-themed crazy bands. An offhand comment by Paul Merca alerted me to the just-introduced USATF blanket.

Until just now, I'd forgotten something that may have contributed to all of this. About a year ago I filled out a survey from USA Track and Field, which among other things asked what I wanted to see in the USATF online store. I replied that while it was well-stocked with items for the athlete, coach and official, what it really needed was fan items. Fans of teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB have almost limitless items to show their support, but fans of arguably the best single team in the entire world, Team USA track and field, have little chance to do so. I suggested they expand their offerings of more casual items. Apparently, I'm like E.F. Hutton: when I talk, people listen.

Mo Farah is running very well. At the Great Edinburgh Cross Country, he ran the team 8k race against the USA and European all-stars. His main competition was Galen Rupp. As a 27:10 runner a year ago, he's hardly a pushover. But on Saturday in Edinburgh, Farah left Rupp nine seconds behind, most of which was gained in the last 2 km. The top African runners were in a separated individual race, and it's hard to say how Farah would have fared. Based on his New Year's Eve race, where he lost to Imane Merga by inches, he just might be the world's fourth-best runner right now behind Merga, Joseph Ebuya, and Haile Gebrselassie.  Which is to say he's the fourth-best out of runners currently competing; where he stands when the World Championships 10,000 meter race comes around, and every serious runner is ready to go, is a different kettle of fish.  But things look very, very good for him right now.

Ebuya, the defending world cross country champ, has lost just once this fall/winter, to Merga, and has since avenged that loss.  He won again today in Spain, smashing a good field by 40 seconds.  At this moment in time, he is doubtless the best runner around.

A wild card right now is Geoffrey Mutai. He toyed with and then destroyed the field at a cross country race in Iten yesterday. He is pointing to a spring marathon, but he also ran the track 10k at the African Championships last summer, so both how he stacks up to the other track runners (and whether or not it matters) is an unknown quantity.

Linet Masai is getting closer to her World Cross Country goal. The world 10k champion has never won a (senior) world cross country championship, taking two silvers and a bronze. She has now won both of her cross country races this season, taking yesterday's Edinburgh race in convincing fashion. She left world 5k champ Vivian Cheruyiot some 12 seconds in arrears in a 5.7k race.

Edinburgh XC video link

http://watchonlinee.com/united-kingdom/bbc-one.html
Let's Run calls it "sketchy" but says it works.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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: Glider Gloves

It's winter.  You wear gloves.  You use an iPhone, iPad, or similar touch-screen device, but have to take off your gloves to use it.  So do I.

Recently I bought* a pair of Glider Gloves, which have conductive threads woven into them and allow the wearer to use said touchscreen device without baring skin to the elements.  How did they perform?

My iPhone was very responsive to the gloves when I first put them on.  After a six-mile run, during which I built up a decent sweat, they still worked but not quite as well.  As gloves they're pretty good, but not anything you'd want to use under extreme situations.  Yesterday afternoon's weather in Toledo was nothing bitter for the lower Rust Belt--30 degrees, windy and overcast--and my fingers were a bit chilly for the first five minutes, but after that were just fine.

The gloves are a basic stretchy knit style and available at glidergloves.com for $24.99.  Athletes, coaches and officials who use touchscreen devices in less than optimal weather would find them useful but pricy.


*I was not compensated in any way for this review, nor did I receive any merchandise.  I'm not opposed to free swag, though--send me some if you've got it.

Track on TV
Sydney 2000: Stories of Olympic Glory, 9:00 PM on Universal Sports (reruns at midnight)
Endurance, 11:35 AM tomorrow on Flix

News Links
Runner's World's Racing News has all the headlines: Usain Bolt, Caster Semenya, Bay to Breakers and more.

Track and Field News released its 2010 women's Performamce of the Year rankings.  Apparently no one gave any thought to Nadzeya Ostapchuk's massive 21.70 indoor throw.

They also just released their 2010 men's Performance of the Year rankings.  David Rudisha is now just the second man to ever go 1-2 (the other is Usain Bolt).

World XC champ Florence Kiplagat will run her first-ever marathon at Boston this April.

Olympic news:
*The IOC is considering auctioning off the US television rights to the next four Olympics (2014, '16, '18 and '20) instead of just the next two.  This means a better chance for ESPN, who had been adamant about such a deal and (in my opinion) would do a much better job than NBC. 
*Japan is seriously looking at a 2020 bid by Hiroshima.

Britain's Guadian newspaper is running a weekly series on training in the Kenyan highlands.  Here is part one.

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.

Sunday Evening Decathlete

What did we learn this week?

It's the week when Track and Field News' annual World Rankings were released. I'm of two minds when it comes to writing about the magazine's World Rankings. The summary of the rankings sent via e-mail specifically states "This is NOT meant as fodder for discussion on the TFN boards." On the other hand, I'm about 100th on the list of people blabbering this all over the internet. So if anyone from TFN is upset about this, e-mail me and I'll take this post down, but otherwise here we go...

Nadzeya Ostapchuk got jobbed. And by only one person.

I have stated again and again that I thought she was far and away the best female athlete of 2010. She did not win TFN's Athlete of the Year, and ended up third in the voting behind Blanka Vlasic and Allyson Felix. The shot putter nearly ran the table, losing only in her final meet of the year. Her best mark, a monster 21.70 throw in February, is the best distance since the Iron Curtain fell. And she went up against the best, nine times facing off against Valerie Adams (who herself is no pushover).

I can see why Blanka Vlasic was rated #1. I won't argue that one. She won 18 out of 20 high jump competitions, and the nature of the event makes it rather difficult to put together an undefeated campaign. She put up pretty good marks and took a few realistic shots at the 23-year-old world record. I'm OK with that.

Felix was good, but I can't even call 2010 her best season. She was top-ranked in both the 200 and 400, but didn't run all that fast by her standards. She lost her lone matchup with Veronica Campbell-Brown.

The thing is this: most of the voting panel agreed with me. #1 votes were split: 22 for Vlasic, 6 for Ostapchuk, 2 for Felix. More voters put Ostapchuk #2 on their ballot than anyone else, too; 10 for her versus 7 for Felix and 5 for Vlasic.

But one jag-off put Ostapchuk tenth on his ballot. Tenth! That one lowball vote was enough to bump Felix ahead. Idiot.

USA men's distance running fortunes continue to rise. In terms of calculating World Rankings by points, 2010 was the best year for USA men since 1986. We had two in the 800 (Symmonds #6, Wheating #10), two in the 1500 (Manzano #6, Wheating #9), two in the 5000 (Lagat #6, Solinsky #8) and one in the 10,000 (Solinsky #3).

And let's think about how much different the world of distance running was in 1986. At that point, Kenya was a non-factor in the marathon. As hard as it is to imagine now, no Kenyans made the World Rankings in the marathon that year. In fact, to that point only one Kenyan ever had (John Nzau, 9th in '83 and 8th in '84).

Equally hard to imagine is that in 1986 Ethiopia had only two athletes in all the World Rankings put together (6th and 7th in the marathon). In general, Ethiopia was a non-factor throughout most of the 1980s due to drought, famine and a government that was unusually self-serving and corrupt even by African standards. Remember Live Aid? And all the trouble they had distributing the aid?

So kudos to the American runners who have met the ever-increasing challenge and fought their way in. They look like America, too, being black, white and brown. And they come from all over; Vermont, Wisconsin, Texas, Oregon, and an immigrant. Diversity is strength, and America should never forget that.

David Rudisha had a really good season. We knew that, but we can put a finger on how good. He was a unanimous choice for Athlete of the Year. This has happened only four other times in the history of the men's AOY: Henry Rono '78 (world records in four different running events), Michael Johnson '96 (first Olympic 200/400 double and a stratospheric world record), and Usain Bolt '08 and '09 (you know what happened). Rudisha is in very good company.

I've got a beef with one ranking. While I nearly always second-guess the voting for the Athlete of the Year honors, I rarely if ever question the individual event rankings. For the latter, the criteria is laid out and the rankings created by committee consensus. It's a very good system. My own Superfan Rankings differ a little, but that's just because my system rewards ever-so-slightly different things.

I'll be curious to see the justification for the men's steeplechase, in which Paul Koech is ranked #1 over Ezekiel Kemboi. It will probably be that the most important criteria, "honors won", will go to Koech, as he won three races in the Diamond League to Kemboi's two. But I'd argue that one of those three wins, the adidas Grand Prix in New York, was against a pretty substandard field and shouldn't be considered much of an honor, putting the two runners even in that category. Far and away the most important race of the year was the Zurich Weltklasse Diamond League final, where Kemboi beat Koech rather handily.

Kara Patterson broke a 29-year drought. That's how long it's been since the USA had a woman in the javelin World Rankings. Going into this year, we knew she was a decent thrower but didn't figure her to be so prominent. If you had rated the events least likely to produce a World or Olympic medal for the USA, the women's javelin probably would have been at the top. Now she's #6 in the world and a very real threat to get on the stand at Daegu '11 and London '12. More importantly, she does not fold under pressure, as in something like four or five meets in a row her best throw came in the final round.

Ohio produces hurdlers. I have no idea why this is so, but virtually all of our historic men's stars have been hurdlers. Ed Moses, Glenn "Jeep" Davis, Jesse Owens (yes, he hurdled), Willie Davenport, Harrison Dillard. Our top-ranked men's athletes this year were again hurdlers, in David Payne and Ryan Wilson. Even our most prominent former track stars in the NFL this year were high school hurdlers (Brian Hartline and Ted Ginn).

Recently we've begun to produce steeplechasers too. It started with Mark Croghan in the 90s, and this year's top steepler in the US rankings was Dan Huling, who spent his college years at Miami University in Oxford OH.

Trevor Barron has made a rarity. The high school racewalking stud was the top-ranked US walker in the 20k. When was the last time a high school boy was the #1 US ranker in an event? This is not a rhetorical question. I really don't know and want to find out.

Non-World Rankings items...

This year's Pre-Nationals (cross country) Invitational will be on a Sunday. Pre-Nats is always hosted by the NCAA Championships host school, and this year it's an unusual situation. It wasn't until just over a month ago that Indiana State had any idea that they might host this year's NCAA meet, and the official word came even more recently than that.

So the Sycamores had little advance warning to keep a weekend open. Their homecoming football game is scheduled for September 24 October 15, the day that Pre-Nats would traditionally be scheduled. What little hotel space there is in Terre Haute will be filled on Friday night. The cross country meet had to be moved to Sunday.

What about schools which will not compete on Sundays? There are a lot fewer of them than you'd think -- so far as I know, only BYU and Liberty have such restrictions. Both are fairly significant programs in cross country, so they'll need to run somewhere else. Arkansas' Chile Pepper Invitational is the same weekend and nearly as competitive, so it's a decent alternative and should pose little if any hardship.

The other interesting thing about this situation is how it may affect attendance. Your most natural audience for college track and XC are high school athletes and coaches, who are invariably busy on Saturdays. I'm no exception. Will significantly more people come to watch? We shall see.

Finally, we learned something big here. Indiana State schedules football around cross country. How do we know? In all the years ISU has been hosting the NCAA and therefore Pre-Nats, this issue has never come up before. Think about that. Cross country calls the tune and football dances. Only in the Missouri Valley Conference could this ever happen.

Mo Farah is primed for a big breakthrough. Or maybe he's already there. Of the fifteen or so New Year's Eve races worth analyzing, the most interesting result was from the BOClassic 10k in Bolzano, Italy. There, Britain's Mo Farah took on Diamond League champ Imane Merga (TFN #1 at 5k) and Olympic bronze medalist Edwin Soi (TFN #9 at 5k). Farah lost to Merga on a sprint finish by just two tenths of a second, and both left Soi well in arrears.

It's worth noting that Merga is race-sharp, having run several top-quality cross country races as well as another road 10k over the last two months. Farah is not, having just come down from a stint of altitude training in Kenya. The list of runners around the world who can give Merga that kind of push is short, and never before did it include Farah. It's December, and things can change, but I think he may have climbed into the top half-dozen or so long-distance track runners in the world.

Farah next runs at the USA-UK-Europe cross country match in Edinburgh on January 8, and I would call him the favorite. The UK's distance runners, particularly on the men's side, have fallen off precipitously over the last few decades; it's a much bigger fall than experienced in the USA, as their best was better and worst was worse as compared to us. But things look to be turning around, at least at the highest level, and who knows what could happen in the London Olympics.

Seb Coe told Margaret Thatcher to stuff it. Maybe not in so many words, but he directly defied Thatcher by competing at the 1980 Olympic Games.

The UK has a 30-year-rule in its Official Secrets Act which, in American parlance, "declassifies" material. Documents released on Thursday showed that Thatcher and others in the then-new Conservative government put huge amounts of pressure on athletes not to compete in the 1980 Olympics. Similar documents just released in Ireland and Australia show more of the same.

That Coe or other world-class athletes would ignore such calls for boycott is hardly surprising. It was their life's work. From an American perspective, it's interesting to reflect on a few other issues. First, while the US government is one of the world's few that does not directly subsidize its Olympic program, it could direct its Olympic Committee to boycott. But in UK, which does subsidize its Olympic Committee, the government did not have that power. Second, Coe did not pay a price for crossing the Tories in his post-athletic political career.

The biggest budgets in college track. TFN message board maven jazzcyclist used Dept. of Education data, adding up men's and women's expenditures across all three sports, and came up with the top 25 schools. They are:
1 $4,200,365 Arkansas
2 $4,153,599 Oregon
3 $4,144,543 Texas A&M
4 $3,510,105 Wisconsin
5 $3,462,928 Florida
6 $3,461,591 LSU
7 $3,457,669 Texas
8 $3,199,766 Nebraska
9 $3,130,991 Oklahoma
10 $3,095,438 Tennessee
11 $3,037,402 Syracuse
12 $3,011,587 Florida State
13 $2,973,832 Auburn
14 $2,931,410 Michigan
15 $2,877,134 Baylor
16 $2,802,068 Stanford
17 $2,736,678 Ohio State
18 $2,735,522 Alabama
19 $2,732,251 South Carolina
20 $2,624,590 Arizona State
21 $2,586,669 UCLA
22 $2,512,551 Indiana
23 $2,423,297 Brigham Young
24 $2,413,662 Texas Tech
25 $2,366,320 Washington

Stunningly, Oregon is outspent by Arkansas. Of course, all the top teams are the perennial powerhouses of their conferences. Arkansas has dropped off a bit in recent years after John McDonnel retired (which is pretty much like saying UCLA basketball dropped off after Wooden retired), but I think they'll be back up there soon.

Other trends: Syracuse is definitely not getting its money's worth. Michigan isn't either, and Ohio State is only just recently getting any performance out of its women's program. BYU is the only non-BCS school on the list, but they're a one-of-a-kind case. Neither the ACC nor the Big East have much of a presence, with only one school apiece--meaning that 22 of the 25 come from just four conferences.

Fearless Predictions for 2011

Rather than look back this week, I will look forward to the coming year of track and field and road running. Few realize I combine the powers of Nostradomus and Ed Glosser,Trivial Psychic. So on with the fearless predictions for 2011...

A previously undistinguished athlete will win a medal at an international championship, and then be surrounded by quite credible accusations of doping and/or questionable gender identity. S/he may or may not be found to be in violation of the rules. You can bank on this.

The London 2012 Organizing Committee will release a glaringly obvious promotional toy: the Paula Radcliffe bobblehead doll. Shockingly, it will be an even bigger bomb than the Brussels Sprouts Whopper.

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.

Lessons of my team's 2010 season

I coach high school cross country.  Or rather, I did.  Facing a $39 million budget shortfall, last spring our school district cut four sports, cross country among them.  I offered to work for free, but in a large 60-school bureaucracy such things don't fly.

It never occurred to myself, the athletes or their parents that we wouldn't have a team.  We trained, formed a club, got new uniforms, and found racing opportunities where we could.  A few high school meet directors took risks by allowing us in their meets; we ran some open meets and some road races as well.  It is charitable to say that our team is made up of unremarkable runners, but the point was that we still got to run.

As we were not a school team, our end-of-the-season awards banquet was not part of the school-wide one for all fall sports.  We are doing it all on our own tonight.  I have never before made a speech, but I think I need to.  Below is the text of that speech, to be delivered in a few hours.

Superfan's Best of the Year

Time for some end-of-the-year assessments.  Here are my opinions on the best of 2010.  Feel free to disagree and say so in the comments.

Athlete of the year, men's track: David Rudisha. This is pretty obvious. Rudisha completely rewrote the record books in the men's 800 meters, took on all comers, and beat them all without fail. I can't write much that hasn't already been written.  Runner-up and US winner is David Oliver, who put together an undefeated outdoor season in the high hurdles (after an indoor campaign that gave no hint of what was to come).

Track book of the year: Unbroken. While a minority of the tale is about track, it is so good that it overcomes that obstacle.  Beware: it can give you a day or so of post-traumatic symptoms.  Runner-up goes to Track Town, USA, a photo-heavy book profiling the history of track in Eugene which was ineligible for the win due to not being widely available.

Athlete of the year, women's track: Allyson Felix.  No one runner stood out head-and-shoulders above the rest, and so Felix won by her versatility.  She was USATF champ in the 100 (albeit against an inferior field), and the world's best at 200 and 400.  Runner-up goes to Kenya's Nancy Jebet Langat, who won all but two of her 1500 races this year.  Veronica Campbell-Brown could have laid claim to the AOY, but did not race enough to earn it.

Sunday Evening Decathlete

What did we learn this week?

Track's greatest spokesman has died.  The Olympic Games, and track and field by proxy, lost Bud Greenspan yesterday.  The filmmaker was possibly more important to the Olympics than Juan Antonio Samaranch (also deceased this year).  His films created our mental image of the games every bit as much as those of Ed Sabol and John "Voice of God" Facenda did for the NFL--the latter gritty and dead-serious, the former joyful and equally dead-serious.

Want proof? Go rent the 2007 comedy Run, Fatboy, Run, and you'll see several homages to Greenspan embedded in the film. Most notable is near the end, where main character Dennis is dead last in the London Marathon and limping along in auto headlights--an exact recreation of Greenspan's famous clip of John Stephen Akwari doing the same at the 1968 Olympics.

Greenspan was a product of a different time, when (unlike today) earnest optimism was common and admired. His films reflected this attitude, and were open to a bit of criticism for it. But they didn't profile only successes, or even admirable failure like that above. For example, one little-known profile he did was of England's Donald Finlay and his sixteen-year pursuit of an Olympic gold medal, one that ended unsuccessfully. His films were there to tell about the triumph of the human spirit. My all-time favorite is from "The Persistent Ones", about young World War II survivor Etienne Gailly. His marathon debut was at the 1948 Olympics, and before the race he said "if I am standing at the finish I will win a medal." In the race's final 500 meters he went from first to third, holding off fourth by mere feet, and fell flat on his face at the line. He kept his promise, but oh so barely on both accounts.  As he was taken away on a stretcher, his hands went up in the air in victory. Greenspan's magic was to be able to find the great story and then get out of the way and let it tell itself.

Alan Abrahamson wrote an excellent obituary today. Everyone, it seems, has stories about Bud. This is Olympic historian Bill Mallon's favorite:

1984 Olympic Trials in the LA Coliseum. I am working for Pete Cava there in the old TAC pressbox crew. It is late one nite, and the decathlon is ending. It is dark, and there are less than 3,000 people left in the stands to watch the decathletes run the 1,500. One competitor, whose named I no longer remember, badly injured his leg in the pole vault, but threw the jav and elects to run the 1,500 despite this. He starts and his limping and hobbling and will eventually finish in over 9 minutes for 0 points, but he wanted to finish. The crowd starts cheering him madly, his fellow runners pat his back as they lap him. It is emotional and somewhat inspiring.


I remember an old quote from a Greenspan Olympiad film and run down to the announcer's booth where Zarnowski is announcing the race. I tell him the quote, and he loves it. He quickly proclaims over the Coliseum PA ' [so-and-so] exemplifies the Ancient Greek saying - if you endure the struggle, you bring honor to yourself, but more importantly, you bring honor to us all." The crowd cheers, the guys finishes. The next day, the LA Times tells the story, and uses the Greenspan quote in it.


Two days later, Zeke and I bump into Bud in the press box and tell him the story and he laughs. I then ask him, curiously, because I did not know, "Do you know the name of the Ancient Greek that actually said that?"


Bud - "Oh that? I made it up."

USATF celebrates Festivus. They must. On December 23, the traditional date of the holiday "for the rest of us", they participated in the Airing of Grievances and told us how fired CEO Doug Logan disappointed them over the last year.

The organization did this by way of filing a counterclaim against Logan's suit for the remaining $1.6 million on his contract (which he is owed if he was fired without cause). Let's Run has all the details, as well as an unusually productive message board thread on the topic. USATF is seeking to get Logan's suit tossed out of court.

Recall that Logan's contract was very specific about what constituted getting fired "with cause". For the most part, that meant "willful and continued failure in the performance of his material duties as CEO". How did they claim he did this? USATF's counterclaim said he failed to serve at the Board of Director's direction (as USATF bylaws state he must), and treated the Board indignantly and with subordination. These are literally the only items known to the Board at the time they decided to get rid of him.

The counterclaim has plenty of other stuff thrown in, but things only discovered after Logan was removed from his position, which makes their argument fairly weak. They allege expense abuse and tax issues, but these were not known until after they fired Logan. If the suit actually goes to trial (which is highly unusual in these kinds of cases), both of those could bite USATF board members in the ass. Were Logan's improper use of USATF monies unusual? In other words, how do they compare to what the members of the board do? That could be very embarrassing and cost people their seats on the board.

The tax issues are potentially more explosive, and not for Logan. USATF's countersuit alleges that Logan directed USATF staffers to not withhold Indiana and local taxes, as he maintained his legal residency in Florida. It maintains that this put USATF in legal jeopardy. I don't know the law, but that sounds fishy to me. Furthermore, this type of knowledge may be privileged information, and USATF's legal team may have violated the law by getting it and making it public.

If this is the best USATF has, they're going to pay Logan and a lot. Whatever birdbrains thought they could fire him and do it on the cheap should get voted out of office when the next elections come around. Seemingly intractable problems, such as this "bunch of clowns" (as Logan called them) in USATF leadership, can sometimes be solved only by a truly spectacular failure that changes the entire landscape. If that happens here, it would be a Festivus miracle!

Next comes the legal wrangling, or as I like to call it, the Feats of Strength.

Imane Merga can win on any surface. The initial 5000 meter Diamond League champion obviously is great on the track. Earlier this year, he took to cross country and beat defending World Champ Joseph Ebuya (who has since avenged his loss). Today he beat the World Record holder in the road 10k, Micah Kogo, at the Corrida de Houilles 10k in France.

Larry Scott looks smarter this week. The commissioner of the Pacific-10 Conference was looking to expand his conference by leaps and bounds this year, but only managed to add two schools (Colorado and Utah), and bit players at that. It seems the conference's "footprint" is not significant enough to make its planned cable TV channel a juggernaut like the Big Ten Network.

But it is poised to be an ever-more significant footprint, due to shifting population. You can see this in the House of Representatives reapportionment announced this week, where the Pac-10 area was a winner. Arizona, Utah and Washington each gained a seat in the next congress, and no west coast states lost any (although California failed to gain a seat for the first time since the Civil War). The Big Ten's footprint lost a total of six seats. The big winner in reapportionment was Texas with a gain of four, which is a nice little reminder of why every conference was kissing the Longhorns' ass.

The University of Maine is strict. Riley Masters, the Black Bears' star miler, and two teammates got busted for having a party in their own apartment and playing a drinking game. They broke the university's student-athlete code of conduct and will be required to do community service. On my college team, I think we penalized the minority of athletes who didn't do these things.

America's Track Towns

Last week I hijacked a thread at the Track and Field News discussion boards in order to get people's thoughts on what locality in their state could best hold the title of "track town".

The criteria was fairly simple: "The city/town where track (or maybe XC or road running) actually matters. The sports press pays some attention to it and attendance is halfway decent." Where the state championships are held, where there are college track programs of some competitiveness, and where the best high school athletes tend to come from are of little to no importance.

Based on that, here are the track towns named so far...

Ohio: Dayton
Texas: Austin
New York: New York City
Pennsylvania: Philadelphia
Michigan: Grand Rapids
Tennessee: Knoxville
Colorado: Boulder
Massachusetts: Boston
Louisiana: Baton Rouge

(Other cities discussed really didn't follow the criteria set out, and will be ignored for the purposes of this discussion.)

One state where the "track town" is obvious yet was totally ignored is Indiana. Terre Haute rightfully calls itself "Cross Country Town USA", as it hosts multiple big-ticket meets every year. As a result, the local press treats cross country as a sport worth their time and effort. That it does not take place on a quarter-mile loop of Mondo isn't important.

I can only guess for some other states. Maybe Orono for Maine, maybe Albuquerque for New Mexico. Definitely Des Moines for Iowa. But while thinking about this, I also stumbled on a troubling trend (although hardly a surprising one).

First off, California's "track town" is hard to pin down. From the dawn of track in the Golden State until maybe 20 years ago, the answer was always Los Angeles. Think about the meets it hosted: two Olympic Games, the Compton Invitational, the Coliseum Relays, the Pepsi Invitational, USC versus UCLA. There was even a major indoor meet in Los Angeles--a place where it doesn't make any sense to run indoors. People came out in droves to watch track meets, and sportswriters wrote reams about it. But the Los Angeles area hasn't had more than 10,000 people come to a track meet since 2005, and that almost certainly involved a lot of "papering the house". I would guess there have not been 10,000+ ticket sales for an LA-area meet since about 1990. And in 1991, LA set an ignominious record: worst attendance ever for the US Olympic Festival's track and field competition.

LA's chief rival for the Cali "track town" status used to be the Bay Area. Stanford Stadium and Edwards Stadium used to be sold out to see the USA take on the Soviets in track meets. Edwards Stadium was a perennial host of the NCAA track championships. The Modesto Relays were a huge hit, and when they began to wane the Burce Jenner Classic took over and was an equally big hit. The Jenner meet is now gone, and Modesto's meet has moved to Sacramento (and may have had less than 1,000 attendees this year). Attendance at last spring's Pac-10 Championships, held at Berkeley, barely passed 2,000 on each day. The state hasn't hosted an NCAA Championship since a few weeks after RFK was assassinated.  It now hosts no major annual competition save the Mt. SAC Relays, which is still based mostly on high schools and colleges.

Besides the fact that California's "track town" title has more or less been abdicated, look at the states where there is a strong "track town" candidate and the ones where there isn't. Most of the former lost enough population in the last decade that they will lose a seat in Congress, and most of the latter will gain. Texas is the lone exception to this trend.  The parts of the country where track matters are fading away, and the places that are growing are oblivious to our sport.

If you have a nominee for your state's track town, leave a comment. I'd love to hear your take. Remember, it's not necessarily where the athletes are good or where the meets are held, but where people care about track (or road running or cross country).

Sunday Evening Decathlete: Special Monday Edition

The weekly round of track-centric Monday morning quarterbacking comes a day late, as I was on vacation in Toronto for the weekend.

What did we learn this week?

USATF announced its CEO job description. This is actually an important part of the search for a new leader. You can read it in a USATF release. What you think of it tells a lot about what you think of USATF's board of directors.

It was written by the search firm hired by USATF, Bialla & Associates. Their services come at no small cost. If you are of the opinion that their well-into-six-figure price tag is merely "ripping off a hopelessly clueless 'amateur' sports organization", as one TFN message board observer put it, then you come down squarely on the side of pessimism. You believe that either this particular board of directors is a bunch of self-serving fools in over their head, or you believe the government-mandated structure of the organization itself makes it essentially incapable of doing much well, if anything.

There is another voice, though, one of cautious optimism. Track writer Larry Eder, for RunBlogRun:

The search firm, Bialla & Company, (www.bialla.com) is one of the heaviest hitters in the world of sports, technology and softwear search firms. They have recently done searches as diverse as Electronic Arts, True North (ad agency), Zoot.com (footwear company) and Avenue A Razorfish, one of Nike's ad agencies (digital). That USATF has hired a firm with such stature should also give you, kind reader, an understanding of the increased level of scrutiny that the search for the USATF CEO position has been under.

It is obvious that the current USATF board has increased their level of focus in this current search. That is to applauded. The current head hunter firm has already spoken to many in the industry, first to get an appreciation for the nature of the business, and secondly to get an appreciation for the concern that many in the industry have on who will lead USA Track & Field. They have heard several earfuls, I suspect. (Bialla & Company, as is their practice, would not comment on current searches or their culture.) Those are all good things, and give comfort to those who are concerned about who will lead our sport's federation.

However well meaning, in my humble opinion, the most recent search for the recently deposed CEO had undercurrents of pressure. It has to be said that the USOC had considerable interest in the most recent CEO of USATF. That does not mean that the USOC has explicit influence on the most recent candidate, but the USOC needs were known and considered in the process. General requirements were; someone entrepreneurial, but someone who was not of the track & field ilk, and someone who looked the part seem have been part of the zeitgeist.

Looking for someone who spoke his mind should not be translated as someone who is incapable of taking advice or estranging every group within the sport. Those are not qualities of a CEO who will last in this sport.

Eder has been around for a while and is no Pollyanna. If he feels that even some signs are positive, we should have reason for hope.

In general terms, the new CEO should really split the difference between the USOC preference of three years ago and the presumed Board of Directors preference of that moment: outsider (no ties to USATF) but insider (within the track & field world). Note that USATF, and its predecessor track division within the AAU, have had just three leaders in the last 40 years. Only one, Craig Masback, left things better at his departure than at his arrival--and he fits that description.

Meets searching for an audience are turning to team competition. Earlier in the week, Athletics Weekly editor Jason Henderson wrote that cross country is in crisis in the UK and most of northern Europe. At almost the same time, northern Europe's only truly relevant cross country meet, the Bupa Great Edinburgh Cross, announced a fantastic idea. They relegated the African runners, who most of the British public sees as nameless and interchangable, to a 4k race. The featured 8k race is now a team competition between the UK, the USA, and the European continent. The UK will have the services of its two best runners, Mo Farah and Chris Thompson. The USA will send two of its best in Dathan Ritzenhein and Galen Rupp. Europe will have nine-time Euro XC champ Sergey Lebid. It should be a bang-up race and will likely gain a great deal of attention in England and Scotland.

Just a few hours ago, the Millrose Games announced that it will have a USA versus Jamaica component in both the men's and women's 60 meter races. The only star yet announced is Veronica Campbell-Brown, but her presence alone will likely excite New York's large Jamaican-American community. If they come out in significant numbers, Millrose will have its biggest attendance in a generation.

The Laverne Jones-Ferrette situation became both more and less clear. The journeywoman sprinter raised some eyebrows during the 2010 indoor season. Never a Worlds or Olympics finalist, she lept to the top of the sprinting world. She recorded the fastest 60m time in eleven years, traded wins with Carmelita Jeter, and took silver at the World Indoor Championships behind Veronica Campbell-Brown. Such a huge and sudden improvement for a 28-year-old is unusual to say the least. Then, she inexplicably missed the entire outdoor season.

A month ago it was announced that she is pregnant, and that was why she missed the summer season. But this didn't seem to wash, unless she quit very early in her pregnancy. She was announced as an entry into multiple April relay meets, and then pulled out.

Now we got a bit more information. On February 16 she tested positive for clomiphene. What is that? It's present in some fertility drugs. It also blocks the effects of estrogen and can be used as a recovery drug towards the end of a steroid cycle. In any case, it is classified as a "specified substance" under WADA rules, and the IAAF's rules are flexible in terms of penalties for this kind of drug. Suspension can be anywhere from zero to two years. Jones-Ferrette got a six-month ban from April to October, but also was disqualified from all of her events after the positive test. So she loses her Worlds silver.

Did she pull one over on the IAAF? Maybe. Note that if you're using a drug for a legitimate reason, there are "theraputic use exemptions". At the very least, you should declare the medication when tested. Jones-Ferrette did not. You be the judge.

Track is getting into the big-money advertisments. Haile Gebrselassie just filmed a commercial for Johnnie Walker (picking up a nifty $100,000 for his trouble). You can see it here. Unfortunately, it probably won't be aired in the USA, as it is targeted towards Africa, Latin America and Europe. I've always thought we've lost out massively by not somehow tapping into beer as a sponsor.

High school meets are upping their game. The professional level of track and road running in the USA has had little in the way of new ideas lately. College track's regular season until recently was essentially unwatchable (with the exception of a handful of relay meets) but has done a lot to make itself more interesting. But the most innovative, competitive level of track meet promotion is at the high school level. For proof one need look no further than the cross country war being waged between Foot Locker Cross Country and Nike Cross Nationals.

Yesterday I was contacted by the director of a prominent high school post-season invitational in regards to ideas for taking it up a notch. I appreciate the gesture and hope I can offer up some good ideas. It really appears as though he takes track and field seriously as a spectator sport, which is the approach you absolutely must have to succeed in today's sports marketplace.

Just this week, Brooks announced a new national indoor invitational for the fastest high schoolers in the country. Called the PR Invitational, it will be held in late February at the University of Washington and will be live on Flotrack. And its promotional video is one of the most bizarre things I've seen in a while.


Track is everywhere. Just like Mojo Nixon says about Elvis.

My wife and I went to Toronto for the weekend to celebrate her 40th birthday. We did all the touristy things and had a great time. On Sunday we were searching for one last thing to see, and settled on Casa Loma. All the travel guides said it was a must-see, and it did not disappoint.

Casa Loma is a giant mansion built between 1911 and 1914 on a high hill overlooking downtown Toronto, and at the time it was the largest private residence in all of Canada. The man who had it built was one Sir Henry Pellatt, a prominent Toronto financier and soldier who, among other things, electrified the city. Owning it eventually left him penniless, and it is now a museum open to the public.

The house should really be called a castle, as that is what it was built to look like. From the inside, it is best described as the Boddy Mansion from the classic Clue board game come to life. It has a billiard room and a conservatory and all the other rooms in the game, a pipe organ, several suits of armor, secret passageways, and everything else you can imagine from prototypical country-house whodunits best ridiculed in Murder By Death. Touring it was thoroughly entertaining and informative, and I can only imagine the fun they have there at Halloween.

The third floor is rather plain in comparison to the rest, as it was the servants' quarters. These days it's set aside as space reservable for private functions, as well as a repository of historical artifacts relating to The Queen's Own Rifles, a still-existing military regiment in which Henry Pellatt played a major role.

Tucked away in display case in a quiet corner of one room are a few items belonging to Pellatt from his early military days. Most, like a saddle and a pommel, are related to horsemanship, so most observers would think this photo and two medals are related to racing of the four-legged kind.

(Forgive the quality; all I had available was my iPhone.)

Both the left and the right say Pellatt won championship mile races, and I immediately knew they could only be footraces. The clothing in which he is pictured was common running garb of the time, which is one clue. The other is the engraving on the 1879 medal: "N.A.A.A.A." That's the National Association of Amateur Athletes of America, the governing body for track and field in the USA from 1879 until being muscled out by the AAU in 1889. Pellatt, a Canadian, was able to win the US championship because virtually all 19th-century meets were open to any amateur. His time, 4:43.4, was fairly competitive for its time. You can see Pellatt listed at Track and Field News' archive of US champions (scroll waaay down). A recent biography of Pellatt says it was a world record, but don't be fooled -- the amateur record at the time stood at 4:24 1/2, the professional at 4:17 1/4.

Keep your eyes peeled. Track is everywhere and it is in everything.

Gone Fishing

Well, maybe ice fishing. I'll be in Toronto through the weekend; no updates until Monday at the earliest.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sunday Evening Decathlete

What did we learn this week?

The s**t hit the fan in Spain. A summary of the initial happenings:

The world 3000 metres champion and one of Spain’s most famous athletes, Marta Dominguez, was released on bail yesterday following a police operation against a doping network. 'Operation Galgo' carried out by the Spanish Civil Guard has led to five people being arrested including the athletic trainers César Pérez and Manuel Pascua Piqueras, as well as a doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes. It is expected that Dominguez will be called to appear in court in the next few days. The operation covered several provinces.

Athletics Weekly reported on Friday that, in all, fourteen athletes and coaches had been arrested. It appears that the authorities have video evidence of blood doping and that defending European Cross Country Champion Alemayehu Bezabeh has confessed. Others implicated include 2002 European 5000m champion Alberto García. The arrested doctors have worked with such notable athletes as '95 World Marathon Champ Martin Fiz and super-cyclist Miguel Indurain, who was Lance Armstrong before there was a Lance Armstrong.

Dominguez was supposedly the intermediary between doctors and athletes in the distribution of banned substances (and/or practices). She is also a vice-president of RFEA, Spain's national governing body for track and field. Or was, as she has been suspended from that position. If all of this comes out to be true, it's pretty alarming that a key person in a doping ring was a VP of a NGB.

While Dominguez is a big sports hero in Spain, there are an awful lot of people who are happy to it go down. European 5,000 silver medalist Jesús España called all of this "an open secret" and is happy to see the cheaters in hot water with the law. He is far from alone in the Spanish running community in that opinion.  It's similar to how America would feel if the feds ever get the goods on Armstrong; those who barely know what he does will be disappointed, but anyone who really pays attention will welcome it.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: law enforcement, not drug testing, is the best weapon we have in the fight against doping. That doesn't mean we should abandon drug testing, but that we must understand that it is only one of many ways to get the job done.

The British are coming. As NPR pointed out earlier in the week, Brits are quite satisfied with being unhappy. Correspondent Philip Reeves said that "there's little the English relish more than a large dose of self-pity". While the truly major-league inward criticism is saved for their perpetually underachieving national football team, Britain's distance runners get a Triple-A version of it. So what will they do about today, when (figuratively) the sun came out in perpetually gloomy Britain?

Britain won three of the six team races at today's European Cross Country Championships. Add in another team silver and three more individual medals and they led the medals table. And there could have been so much more; leading U-32 runner James Wilkinson dropped out due to illness, and Britain likely would have won that race had he been up to form. The only other team without a medal were the senior men, who lost UK Trials winner Andy Vernon to illness--and European track gold and silver medalists Mo Farah and Chris Thompson did not even try out for the team.  It was a hugely successful day.

UK Athletics head coach Charles Van Commenee should be more popular than Fabio Capello, Steve McClaren, or really any football manager since Sir Bobby Robson. I'm sure Van Commenee would be grateful for even a fraction of their pay. While it's hard to directly credit a national coach for individual athletes' successes, he's done a lot to change the attitude and remove obstacles. But will the English be happy with someone who...makes them happy? What a paradox.

People sometimes start out in the wrong events. Via Twitter, American javelin record holder Kara Patterson let it be known that she started as a half-miler/miler in junior high before wisely making a shift to the throws. Which is odd, because top American miler/half-miler Erin Donohue was a champion javelin thrower in high school.

The Jamaicans are leaving us behind. I don't mean in sprinting, although they may be. I mean in the business of track and field. Earlier this week it was announced that worldwide TV distributor IEC in Sports had come to agreement with JAAA for rights to the Jamaica International Invitational and the Jamaican Championships. This means the Jamaican federation will make some dough off their two biggest domestic meets.

How about us?  Are we distributing our meets around the world?  Yes and no.  The two Diamond League meets, the Prefontaine Classic and the adidas Grand Prix, are transmitted globally as part of the circuit.  But what else do we have that anyone wants?  The USATF Championships/Olympic Trials would be a draw, and maybe the Boston Indoor Games.  Everything other domestic meet of interest is either of inferior quality (Millrose Games) or of a purely provincial interest (NCAA Championships, Penn Relays, etc.).  Has it even occurred to anyone at USATF to try to sell our meets overseas?  And this is yet another signal that we are in serious need of decent domestic meets.

Chicago Tribune Olympic writer Phil Hersh is fond of citing the adage: "the only amateurs left in the Olympic movement are the people running it".  It may not be coincidental that the same week the JAAA announced this deal, it changed its name from the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association to the Jamaica Athletic Administrative Association.

The Metrodome is now a source of one-liners.  Among the best...
Just hold a Brett Favre press conference at midfield.  All that hot air will reinflate the dome in no time!

The collapse of the Metrodome is God's way of saying domes are for pussies!

In all seriousness, the NFL has announced that entry to the game, rescheduled for Monday night in Detroit, will be free.  It's a 45-minute drive from my house, and there's literally no chance the Lions will lose.  I may go.

Pat Henry and I agree on a lot.  The head coach of Texas A&M's defending NCAA championship team was interviewed in this month's issue of Track and Field News.  He said that college track is in a crisis situation in terms of lack of attention, funding, fan interest, and all-around respect.  He said that the road we are now going down will not turn us back from this.  And he said that team-oriented competition within a 2-3 hour framework is the key to luring back the interest of the public (and the media).

He suggested a radical change to the NCAA Championships, one that would have teams rather than individuals qualify to the NCAA Championship.  It's basically the same approach I suggested last May.  The specifics of how it happens are different (he likes stats for qualifying, I like competition) but we're in full agreement on the basics.  Look for more on this topic in the coming week.

I have to respect Henry for coming out and saying this, because if it happened it wouldn't benefit him or his program in the short term.  The Aggies' men's team was only third at last year's Big XII outdoor championships, and likely would not have won their NCAA title under the type of competition he suggests.  Their tremendous indoor facility in College Station takes in much less in terms of entry fees from the 8- and 12-team meets it currently hosts than from the kind of 30- and 40-team meets it could.  He appears dedicated to getting track a bigger pie, even if his slice of it is smaller, than from getting a bigger slice of an ever-smaller pie.  It's unusual for a major player in Division I athletics to be dedicated to serving everyone instead of only himself, and I appreciate that.

Japan really loves its ekidens. Brett Larner took us inside the world of the Hakone Ekiden, the most popular of Japan's long-distance road relays.

As the year is winding down Japan's distance runners, all the way from junior high school to the jitsugyodan corporate world, are gearing up for the national championship ekidens. It's a quirk of the system that the biggest of them all, the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden, is a regional university men's event for the Kanto area around Tokyo. Twenty teams, ten men per school, each man running one of ten stages roughly a half marathon in distance over the course of two days all with a live national broadcast with 30% viewership ratings and millions more lining the course. It's hard to overstate how important and popular it is and how captivating to watch.

He goes on to analyze this year's field and who the various favorites are. It's worth noting that there are 45 sub-29:00 runners entered in this all-collegiate race; by contrast the USA, supposedly experiencing a resurgence of distance running, had only 42 such runners last year regardless of age.

The article is a must-read, if for no other reason than to gain some small understanding of Japan's fascination with distance running. A key quote, speaking of Toya University's team:

Along with a keen sense of strategy, the team's greatest asset is Fifth Stage ace [Ryuji] Kashiwabara, who singlehandedly decided the last two Hakones by smashing the record on his nearly 900 m climb stage. Following last year's race marathon great Toshihiko Seko told Kashiwabara in a televised interview, "Next year you should run the Second Stage. That's where all the best people run." It goes without saying that this would be a major strategic error for the team and probably doesn't need to be mentioned that Seko is [rival] Waseda [University]'s most famous alumnus.

And another epic race. This is known as the Bierathlon.

What I can glean from this video involves costumes, racing, carrying crates of beer, chugging beer and more racing. Also, projective vomiting, though I’ll spare you a link to that video.