Run to Win

The IOC has announced that it is going to retest all of the samples collected from the Olympic games in the wake of the positive tests found by the Tour de France for the latest version of EPO, Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator. CERA is a stamina boosting drug which was not detectable until recently. It increases the number of red blood cells produced by bone marrow, but lasts longer and requires fewer injections than older forms of EPO.

“There will most definitely be some athletes who thought they could escape being caught because they thought the test would not be ready,” said Christiane Ayotte, director of a World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited laboratory outside Montreal. “We knew it came to the market just before springtime last year and if there were positives in the Tour de France, then we think there will be positives from Beijing.

“Why the technique was not put into place in Beijing, I have no answer to give you,” she said. “But we’re not missing anything. The opportunity to have those samples retested one or two months later is great.”

The President of the IOC, Jacques Rogge, is planning on making retroactive tests a normal part of the Olympic Games in an effort to discourage doping in the future. The statute of limitations states that an athlete can be found guilty of doping for up to 8 years following an athletic contest.

Christiane Ayotte is positive that there will be more cheats found from the Beijing Games, which is a very cynical point of view that I’m afraid will turn out to be the correct one. There were only 9 positive tests out of 5000, which is less than 0.2% coming positive at the games.

(More Info: NY Times - Photo Credit: Kevork Djansezian)

Here in the United States, everything is in an uproar over the collapse of the financial industries. Personally, I do not worry about it because it lets me buy into the market at a discount. I’m not the only person who isn’t worried, though. IOC president Jacques Rogge has expressed his lack of concern over the financial industry’s problems affecting preparations for future Olympic Games.

“No one has certainties today, but I am not pessimistic for the Olympic Games,” Rogge said.

Funding for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, is secure while authorities in London, site of the 2012 Summer Games, have assured the International Olympic Committee they can overcome the worldwide credit crunch.

The over $3 billion that the IOC spends in each 4-year Olympic cycle are not seen as an expense but as an investment.

The infrastructure improvements that the host cities receive provide benefits for the next 4 to 6 decades, and the Olympic Village is sold after the games to private investors.

(More Info: ESPN - Photo Credit: Dr Andy Miah)

Kenenisa Bekele, Haile Gebrselassie, and Paul Tergat have written an open letter to IOC President Jacques Rogge in an effort to return cross country running to either the Summer or Winter Olympics. Here’s a copy of that letter:

AN OPEN LETTER to the

President of the IOC, Mr. Jacques Rogge and president of the IAAF, Mr. Lamine Diack

We the undersigned global champions and record breakers would like to invite your two highly esteemed federations to consider the re-introduction of cross country running into the Olympic Games programme, either as a summer or a winter sport.

Cross country running is of course the most natural, indeed elemental of all sports. It is a fascinating discipline whose roots are lost in the earliest history of mankind.

In the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, cross country running was so far seen for the last time with the victory of one of the greatest ever Olympians, Finland’s Paavo Nurmi.

The official report at the time noted that a combination of unseasonal hot weather and the effects of the heat of a near-by industrial chimney - yes we had global warming in those days too! - meant that the air temperature on the course was as high as 36 degrees Centigrade (96.8 Fahrenheit). As such, of the 38 starts, 23 failed to finish. The problems of 1924 were certainly unique.

So we humbly and respectfully ask, what is your opinion about returning cross country running to a future Olympic Games, either on the programme of a summer or winter celebration?

We think it would be wonderful to give the worlds best cross country runners the chance to compete in the greatest of all sporting festivals, and are hopeful of a positive response.

Yours in sport,

Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele, Paul Tergat

I would love to see cross country in the Olympics, as well as some event such as a 24 hour or 100 mile trail race. I think that those sorts of sports lend themselves well to not only the Olympic Spirit but also to the Olympic Marketing Machine. Right now, the only foot race off of the track is the marathon, and I would love to see some other races that took to the streets (or preferably, the fields and woods.)

Realistically, I don’t expect to see an ultra- event in the Olympics, but I could see cross country being added in 12 or 16 years or so. I certainly hope to see it, and would make it a point to watch as long as whoever is providing the coverage deigned to allow it.

(More Info: Original Letter [PDF] - Hat Tip: Runner Vision)

Flotrack has some great Olympic coverage and athlete interviews. Here are what the 3 Americans had to say about their performances in the Olympic Marathon:
(Click here to continue reading…)

The 2^nd annual Maine Coach and Athlete Cross Country Clinic was on August 18th, 2008 at the University of Southern Maine. This is the third part of my reporting on the clinic; the first part was about injury prevention and treatment, the second part was about nutrition basics and fueling, and the third part was about selecting proper footwear. This fourth part will introduce you to the 3 current or former professional runners who made up the athlete’s panel.

The athlete’s panel took over the clinic and comprised a little over half of everything that was said. It was very down to earth and full of practical tips and advice from 3 people whose job it was to run. I will provide a bit of a history on each of the athlete’s here, and in the next article I will provide the answers to the specific questions that they were asked.

Matt Lane

Matt Lane was a graduate of Yarmouth High School in 1996, where he had some measure of success on the track but excelled in cross country. He won the North East Regional Foot Locker Championship as a senior in high school, and started his pattern of 4^th place finishes at the national level race.

Matt was recruited to go to Stanford, but wound up choosing to go to William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia for his degree. Right after he arrived, though, the coaches at William & Mary left after the first day. For a short time there were a few interim coaches, but the former Stanford coach Andy Gerard became the permanent coach.

While at William & Mary, Matt won 3 NCAA cross country championships and 8 indoor/outdoor track titles in the 3k and 5k.

In 2000, Matt ran in his first Olympic Trials for the 5000, which he described as just a higher pressure US Championship race. He finished in 4^th place, although he was the 3^rd place finisher who had already run an Olympic “A” Standard. Nick Rogers managed to run the “A” standard before the Olympics, though, which allowed him to continue on to Sydney and left Matt at home.

Matt graduated from William & Mary in 2001 and went to Stanford where he signed a contract with the Nike Farm Team. In 2004, Matt again finished in 4^th place at the Olympic Trials.

At this point, Matt decided to try moving up to the marathon, where he debuted in Chicago with a 2:17:32 and finished in 14^th place. He did not really care for the distance, though, and decided to retire. He has since returned to Maine where he is studying for his law degree.

Louie Luchini

Beginning his track career as a short and chunky shot putter and discus thrower in Ellsworth, Maine, Louie Luchini moved onto the track as he got skinnier and faster in high school. Both him and his brother were state champs and had respectable showings at the Foot Locker championships.

After graduating high school, Louie went to Stanford where he came into his first season injured and out of shape. Every Summer he would become lazy and arrive at pre-season in less than ideal shape, where he’d do all of his training camp runs with the women instead of the men. (They used to call him Louise.)

Louie considered not training over the Summer the dumbest idea that he ever had, but it did not stop him from becoming an All American 7 times with a 13:25 personal best 5000m time.

After graduation, Louie joined the same farm team as Matt, and now runs for the Oregon farm team. He recently competed in the 2008 Olympic Trials, but did not run as well as he hoped with a 23^rd place finish in 29:42.78 in the 10,000m finals.

Lauren Fleshman

The final runner on the athlete’s panel is not a native Mainer and has never lived out this way. Lauren Fleshman is from Southern California. She was a softball player through junior high, but she moved to cross country and track in high school on the recommendation of her coach. She got sucked into the social aspects of the team, and once she began to become more successful as a runner she began to enjoy the training as well.

Every year since she began running she has set personal bests. Her one overriding goal is to constantly improve, and she has now maintained her PR streak for 13 straight years.

She went to school at Stanford, and instantly went from being a stellar athlete on her high school team to an average runner on her college team. If you can call 15 national titles average. She was All American every time she went to Nationals.

In 2006, she won a national title as a professional, and has competed in 2 world championships. She ran in the 2008 Olympic Trials, and despite a sprained ankle she managed to place 5^th in the 5000m finals with a time of 15:23.18.

Now that you have a little background on the 3 athletes on the panel, come back for part 5 where the athletes answer questions such as what they wish they knew in high school that the know now, what they think of the team aspect of cross country, what are some specific workouts, as well as others. It will give you a great insight into the world of professional running as well as offering a lot of good advice that can help an amateur or recreational runner as well. Part 5 will be available at 8:00 am on Friday, August 28^th.

So how exactly does an Olympic Marathoner spend his days leading up to what will hopefully be one of the greatest races of his career? The folks over at Flotrack sent a camera crew to the Rochester Hills Home Depot in Rochester, Michigan to find out: (Click here to continue reading…)

This has been a jam-packed weekend; there was a lot going on! If only NBC actually broadcast the races, I’d be all set. I’d sit there and watch commercial after commercial.

First, the women’s marathon. I almost cried when Deena Kastor broke her foot barely 3 miles into the race. Magdalena Lewy Boulet made it a bit further, but also dropped out due to an injury. Blake Russell was the only American to finish, taking about half a minute longer than it did in the Trials back in April and coming in 27^th overall.

It was an exciting race, though. After a pedestrian pace over the first half of the course (I could have kept up), Constantina Tomescu-Dita of Romania was the only runner to have the courage to go for it. Nobody ever came close to catching her as she crossed in 2:26:44. The race for the next two medals was close, though, as Catherine Ndereba edged out Zhou Chunxiu for the silver medal. Catherine was the only woman to medal that I had predicted before the race, as Paula Radcliffe fell apart and finished in 23^rd. (Deena was my other pick.)

The men’s 100m proved pretty interesting, as Tyson Gay failed to make the finals so he didn’t win the silver medal I thought he’d get. Usain Bolt ran away with it as expected, though, crossing the line in a world record 9.69 seconds despite showboating the last few steps.

The women’s 100m finals was very interesting, with 3 quarters of the field made up of Jamaicans and Americans. The Jamaicans swept, though, keeping every other country off of the medal stand.

On the 1500m front, Bernard Legat missed making the finals by 0.02 seconds. He didn’t even realize it until after he’d left the track.

And of course, last but not least, we go back to Friday and the women’s 10,000m, where Shelane Flanagan managed to set the American record in 32:22 to bring home the bronze medal.

I realize that I’m skipping over the women’s steeplechase, but I don’t want to know the results of that race until I find a video somewhere of the entire race.

Liliana Popescu is one of the fastest 1500m runners in the world this year, clocking 4:00.35 at at a grand prix meet in Bucharest a few days before the indoor world championships. Unfortunately, she is probably not going to be able to display her talents on the world stage.

Romania does not want to break any anti-doping rules, so they are actively banning any athlete from competing who may test positive. Liliana has reportedly tested positive to an undisclosed substance with her “A” sample, although there is not yet any results available for her “B” sample so she hasn’t actually been caught cheating yet.

I hope that her second sample comes back clean and that it was all a mistake, but if she is dirty then Romania is setting a good example. Romanian Athletes who test positive at the Olympic Games will be subjected to an estimated $156,000 fine (100,000 euros.)

(More Info: Reuters - Photo Credit: Bănăţeanul)