December 2016

Track and Field Contents Writers of P. 1 President’s Message America P. 3 2017 TAFWA Awards (Founded June 7, 1973) P. 4 TAFWA Pictures P. 5 USA Track and Field Agrees to 8-year Deal with NBC PRESIDENT Jack Pfeifer P. 5 Montreal Grand Prix Returns in 2017 216 Ft. Washington Ave., P. 6 Stan Huntsman, Track and Field’s Mentor and Passionate Defender, Dies at 84 NY, NY 10032 Office/home: 917-579- P. 8 Man, Not Meme, Eli Moskowitz Recovering After NCAA XC Accident 5392. Email: P. 10 The Best is Yet to Come for Cheserek [email protected] P. 12 Breaking Up With Twitter

VICE PRESIDENT P. 14 Aksana Miankova to be Stripped of Beijing 2008 Hammer Gold Doug Binder P. 14 IOC Strips 10 Athletes of Olympic Medals in Doping Retests Email: P. 15 Budapest, Los Angeles and Paris Offer Contrasting Olympic Visions in Race [email protected]. Phone: 503-913-4191 That Could Yet Prove a Classic P. 18 The Myth of the Sports Scholarship TREASURER P. 23 How a Ragtag Crew of Almost Journalists Created Running’s Most Tom Casacky P.O. Box 4288 Controversial Website Napa, CA 94558 P. 27 ‘I’m Ready to Face This’: Cathy Freeman Opens Up About Her Family’s Deepest Scars Phone: 818-321-3234 P. 28 New Cars, Cooking Lessons and All the Lego You Can Buy: What It’s Like to Go Email: [email protected] Pro in Track & Field as a Teenager SECRETARY P. 31 WADA Report is Microcosm of Everything Wrong With Rio 2016 and IOC Jon Hendershott P. 33 Partial Fixtures List Email: [email protected] Phone: 669-231-4177 President’s Message - December 2016 FAST Dave Johnson Given that November is usually a slow month for T&F, there’s been a lot of Email: [email protected] news the past 30 days. Phone: 215-898-6145 WEBMASTER For one, Vin Lananna, the former Oregon coach and current president of Michael McLaughlin TrackTown, is now also president of USATF. He was selected at the recent Email: [email protected] convention after Jackie Joyner-Kersee withdrew her candidacy. (No word on Phone: 815-529-8454 the reason for that.) He replaces the outgoing and oft-controversial Stephanie NEWSLETTER EDITOR Hightower. Shawn Price Email: [email protected] Many more drug violations have been reported as a result of the retesting of Phone: 979-661-0731 samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. Some of them are reported here. Chaunte Lowe, who finished 6th in a HJ, is now a medalist. Most of the viola- tions come from the Eastern Bloc. This is, as we all know, all about the $$. No one’s ever returning a nickel of their ill-gotten gains. The reputations of the IOC and IAAF sink by the day, where they join the Russian Federation in the muck. Only dark humor remains. It’s too late to say that the sport’s credibility is at stake. It is what it is.

At the college level, there were exciting championship races in cross, especially the thrilling, upset, 1-point victory by the Oregon women over Michigan and favored Colorado in Div. I. There was also plenty of behind-the-scenes noise in the NCAA – some major rules changes involving how to struc- ture and operate a college meet, rules so Byzantine that they threatened the viability of a number of existing major meets on the circuit. Few coaches knew of the changes when they were announced, as they had been reviewed and approved not by the Coaches Association but by a committee. Under an onslaught of protests, the NCAA was forced to “postpone” the changes, announcing that they would be put in place a year from now. From what we at TAFWA HQ hear, good luck with that. This is a knife fight over the future of college TF. We’ll keep you posted.

Social Life TAFWA has also been busy on the social scene, with accompanying photographs to prove it. • The great Frank Litsky, a former TAFWA president as well as a winner of the Jesse Abramson writ- ing award, turned 90 and had a splendid party at Coogan’s Restaurant, on Broadway in NYC, with past colleagues from the NYT. In the group photo, that’s Frank center front. At the far right is Gay Talese, who, yes, was a Times sportswriter for a time and said he loved every minute of it. • A huge reunion of Power Memorial Academy alums, at a Catholic church in Douglaston, Queens, where TAFWA was an interloper. (Jewish kid from a public school!) A good time was had by all. For a school that’s been closed more than 30 years, the alumni (it was an all-boys school) have a lot of staying power. Matt Centrowitz, a Power alum, brought along his son, now the Olympic champion at 1,500, and the place roared its approval. The other photo is of the members of a famous Penn Relays championship DMR squad – Andy Walsh, Tony Colon, and Peter and John Lovett – along with Barbara Reilly, whose late brother was coach of that Power Memorial team. • Our friends Walt Murphy (left) and Dave Evangelista at a get-together at the Penn Club on 48th Street in Midtown Manhattan. Because he arrived later, the Penn Relays’ Dave Johnson failed to make it into the photo!

Deadlines Please note that the deadline for making nominations for several of this year’s TAFWA awards is the end of this month. For others, you have until May. There is also a reminder in this issue that is time to pay 2017 Dues of $30. This can be done as easily as a few clicks on Paypal.

TAFWA Membership Dues for 2017

It’s never too early to think about your TAFWA dues. For 2017, they will remain at $30, and will buy you a series of excellent newsletters, the 2017 FAST Annual, and privileged entry to special TAFWA social events at New York’s Millrose Games in February, the NCAA Championships in Eugene (our yearly breakfast with athletes and coaches), and at the USATF meet in Sacramento. Don’t miss out!

You can send a check, payable to TAFWA, to PO Box 4288, Napa, CA 94558, or use PayPal, to the address [email protected].

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 2 - December 2016 2017 TAFWA Awards

Recognizing excellence in track & field journalism, announcing, photography, film & video, blogging, broadcasting and books in 2016 as well as ongoing cooperation with the media

General information: These awards will be presented in February 2017 in New York and June 2017 in Eugene and Sac- ramento for work in 2016 unless otherwise noted. Self-nominations are allowed. Please include nominee’s name, address, e-mail address and phone.

James O. Dunaway Memorial Award | For excellence in track and field journalism, both in print and online Award Chair: Jack Pfeifer ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: January 1

Sam Skinner Memorial Award | For ongoing cooperation with the press Award Chair: Jon Hendershott ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1 Note: Submit name of nominee and a brief narrative

Announcing Awards | For excellence in track and field announcing Scott Davis Memorial Award: presented to a current announcer Pinkie Sober Award: presented to a retired announcer or posthumously Award Chair: Dave Johnson ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1

Rich Clarkson Photography Award | For excellence in track and field/cross country/running still photography Award Chair: Jack Pfeifer ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1 Note: Submit an electronic portfolio with a minimum of 10 photos and maximum of 20.

Bud Greenspan Memorial Film & Video Award | For excellence in track and field/running film & video production Award Chair: Nancy Beffa ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: January 1 Note: This award will recognize outstanding achievement in film or video on track & field or running during 2016.

Criteria: contact Nancy Beffa for details. • Submissions are judged based on innovation, impact and creativity • Entries must have been released, televised or copyrighted in 2016 • Must be at least 25 minutes in length • Submit 5 DVD copies of the film or a link to the work online. Note: A second award recognizing works shorter less than 25 minutes will be inaugurated in 2018.

Adam Jacobs Blogging Award | For excellence in online personal writing on track and field, cross country or running in 2016 Award Chair: Parker Morse ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1

Armory Foundation Book Award | For the leading book published in 2016 on track and field, cross country or running Award Chair: Peter Walsh ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1 Note: Please submit three copies of the book for review to Peter Walsh, Coogan’s Restaurant, 4015 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10032

Cordner Nelson Memorial Award | For a body of work writing about track & field and running. Award Chair: Peter Walsh ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: January 1

H. D. Thoreau Award |For excellence in track & field broadcasting Award Chair: Jack Pfeifer ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: January 1 TAFWA Newsletter - Page 3 - December 2016 Top: 90th birthday party for Frank Litsky, a former TAFWA president and a winner of the Jesse Abramson writing award.

Left: Power Memorial Academy alums included Matt Centrowitz, who brought along his son, now the Olympic champion at 1,500. Also in attendance were members of a famous Penn Relays championship DMR squad – Andy Walsh, Tony Colon, and Peter and John Lovett – along with Barbara Reilly, whose late brother was coach of that Power Memorial team.

Right: Walt Murphy (left) and Dave Evangelista at a get-together at the Penn Club on 48th Street in Midtown Manhattan. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 4 - December 2016 USA Track and Field agrees to 8-year deal with NBC By Eddie Pells | Associated Press USA Track and Field has cut an eight-year deal for NBC to present the federation’s key events on its main broadcast network, cable and digital platforms. Details of the contract, which runs through 2024, were given to The Associated Press by a person familiar with the negotiations. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement had not been made public. The deal is considered groundbreaking for Olympic sports, many of which pay the network’s production costs in exchange for the air time. The person familiar with the arrangement said it greatly reduces USATF’s costs, which have reached nearly $2 million a year. The agreement calls for at least 18 hours of live coverage of USATF events, including national championships and the Prefontaine Classic, with at least eight of those hours on NBC. These events are in addition to the 2020 and 2024 Olympic Trials and Olympics. This is the latest in a series of moves that have dramatically increased NBC’s presence in presenting Olympic sports. In 2010, the last year NBC presented Olympic sports only on weekends and on its main broadcast chan- nel, it televised about 75 hours of Olympic sports, not counting the Games and trials. In 2016, NBC will exceed 1,300 hours on all its platforms. NBC has the contract to televise the Olympic Games in the United States through 2032. Montreal Grand Prix returns in 2017 Hershey Indoor Youth / Junior Championships February 18, 2017 to February 19, 2017 Montreal, Quebec

The return of theGrand Prix d’Athlétisme de Montréal as part of the 2017 Hershey Canadian Indoor Youth and Junior Championships is going to make for one outstanding weekend of athletics in February. It’s been over 20-years since the last Grand Prix d’Athlétisme de Montréal but it’s coming back this February 18 as part of the Hershey Canadian Indoor Youth / Junior Championships.

MONTREAL GRAND PRIX - ELITE ATHLETE INFO Evening of Saturday February 18 Elite coordinator, Kris Mychasiw, [email protected] Offered events (subject to change) Men: 60-metres, 60-metre hurdles, 1000-metres Women: 60-metres, 60-metre hurdles, pole vault, 400-metres Prize money (Canadian funds) 1st – $1,000 2nd – $750 3rd – $500 Travel allotment (Canadian funds, against travel receipts) $500 Accommodations Provided by event organizer at the Courtyard Marriott, 7000 Place Robert Joncas, Montreal, Quebec All invited athletes will receive their race packets upon check-in at the hotel. The package will include the schedule, per diem, bibs and any other pertinent information. Note, all athletes are able to arrive in Montreal at Trudeau International Airport (YUL) on February 17th and can depart on February 19th unless otherwise discussed and agreed upon. - See more at: http://athletics.ca/championnat/hershey-indoor-youth-junior-championships/#sthash. cy15hRd3.dpuf TAFWA Newsletter - Page 5 - December 2016 Stan Huntsman, Track and Field’s Mentor and Passionate Defender, Dies at 84 By FRANK LITSKY | NEW YORK TIMES | NOV. 26, 2016 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/sports/olympics/stan-huntsman-dead.html?_r=0 Stan Huntsman, who coached out- standing college track and field teams for 39 years, led a dominant United States men’s team at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, and fought tirelessly against cuts in financial support for the sport, died on Wednesday in Austin, Tex. He was 84.

His wife, Sylvia, said the cause was complications of a stroke he had two years ago.

Huntsman coached at Ohio University (1957-70), Tennessee (1971-85) and Tex- as (1985-95). At Tennessee, his athletes won N.C.A.A. team championships in cross-country (1972) and outdoor track (1974) and 31 Southeastern Conference team titles, and he was named N.C.A.A. national coach of the year six times.

His Olympic career began with the 1976 Games in Montreal, where he was an assistant coach on the men’s track and field team. He was an assistant again with the 1980 team, which never com- peted: The United States boycotted the Games, in Moscow, to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Huntsman presenting awards at the 2014 Tennessee Relays. Credit Matthew S. DeMaria/Tennessee Athletics His greatest Olympic glory came as head coach in 1988, when his United States men’s team won seven gold medals in Seoul — the most in track and field by any nation — including two by Carl Lewis (in the 100-meter sprint and the long jump).

Huntsman’s and Lewis’s paths had crossed in 1983, when Huntsman was head coach of the United States men’s team in the first International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships, held in Hel- sinki, Finland. His team won six gold medals — three by Lewis — and 18 medals altogether, each mark the most for any nation.

In all, Huntsman produced 41 N.C.A.A. individual champions and 201 all-Americans. His best athletes includ- ed Patrik Boden, a world-record holder in the javelin throw, at Texas; the sprinter Emmett Taylor at Ohio; and, at Tennessee, the steeplechase Olympian Doug Brown, the hurdler Dave Patrick and the sprinter Willie Gault. (Gault was a member of the 1980 Olympic team and was later a wide receiver for the Chicago Bears and the Los Angeles Raiders.)

After the Seoul Olympics, despite his team’s clutch of gold medals, Huntsman had reservations about the state of American track and field. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 6 - December 2016 “It’s kind of scary,” he told The New York Times, “because the American public is starting to drift toward want- ing to see the superstars and not a good basic track and field meet. Every four years, the Olympic Games save us so that a young man will say this is worthwhile and worth sacrificing eight to 10 years.”

That remark was in keeping with Huntsman’s abiding concern for the health of the sport. He was a longtime critic of the N.C.A.A., the major national governing body for college sports, saying it was doing too much for football and too little for track and field and other sports that did not generate revenue.

In 1991, after the N.C.A.A. had limited major colleges to 12 track and field scholarships for men and trimmed coaching staffs and practice time, he wrote in a letter to The N.C.A.A. News, “It would be far better to eliminate track and field and perhaps other sports in the N.C.A.A. than to try to struggle on.”

In 2007, Ohio University, where Huntsman had earned a master’s degree, eliminated four sports, in- cluding men’s and women’s track and field. It cited budgetary reasons and compliance with Title IX, the federal law mandating gender equity in higher education, which required equal athletic opportunities for college women.

Huntsman was so angry that he mailed back his master’s degree and had university officials remove his plaque from their athletic hall of fame.

“At least try to solve the monetary problems another way,” he said.

The women’s team was later reinstated. The men’s team was not, although the university does have a cross-country team.

Stanley Houser Huntsman was born on March 20, 1932, in Scottdale, Pa. He was raised in Indiana and starred in football and track and field at Wabash College, where his father, Owen, was the track coach.

As a fullback, Huntsman was named to the Little All-America football team for small colleges. In a game against Ball State, he rushed for 259 yards and five touchdowns. The Indianapolis Star once said, “He was built like a medicine ball, and he ran all doubled up through the line.”

The Chicago Cardinals (the N.F.L. franchise now in Arizona) took him in the 20th round of the 1954 draft, but he turned to graduate study and coaching instead.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Wabash in 1954 and a master’s from Ohio in 1956. He was elected to the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2004.

In addition to his wife, the former Sylvia Scalzi, Huntsman is survived by a son, Stanley Stephen; a daughter, Constance Huntsman Stogner; and three grandchildren.

With colleges and universities cutting back on the sport, Huntsman came to believe that for Ameri- can track and field to continue to flourish, it could no longer rely on the college system alone to produce high-caliber runners, hurdlers, jumpers, pole-vaulters and the rest. He argued that once they graduated, athletes needed further support through national programs to allow them to continue to compete.

“The American college system can’t cut it anymore,” he told Track and Field News magazine. “You can’t win with college boys.”

Memorial services will be held on Saturday, December 3, 2016 at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, 4311 Small Drive, Austin, TX, 10:00 am. A celebration of Coach’s life will be held immediately following the services at the church. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in memory of Stan Huntsman to SafePlace in Austin, Texas at www.safeaustin.org or to the Huntsman Scholarship Fund at the University of Tennessee at https://allvols.com/give/authentication/login TAFWA Newsletter - Page 7 - December 2016 Man, Not Meme, Eli Moskowitz Recovering After NCAA XC Accident BY CHRIS LOTSBOM | RACE RESULTS WEEKLY

Eli Moskowitz of North Caroline State competing at the 2016 NCAA Division I Cross Country Cham- pionships after a bad fall (photo by Chris Lotsbom for Race Results Weekly) (22-Nov) -- A mile and a half into last Saturday’s NCAA the ground, Moskowitz’s face was full of blood, covering his Division I Cross Country Championships, in Terre Haute, mustache and staining his white singlet. Ind., North Carolina State’s Eli Moskowitz believed he was “The last thing I remember,” Moskowitz began, speaking in great position. The sophomore from Amherst, N.H., with Race Results Weekly over the phone in an exclusive in- had executed his plan of getting out hard and mixing it up terview, “is the guy in front of me bent over. I tried to jump towards the front half of the 250-man lead pack. Part of over him and I think my foot caught on him.” the No. 17-ranked Wolfpack, Moskowitz was slated to be Chances are you may have seen pictures of Moskowitz the key fifth man and aimed at moving up over the 10 km racing at NCAA’s. It’s been re-tweeted hundreds of times course. and was the basis of a LetsRun.com message board thread Then, in the blink of an eye, things became a blur. On (since deleted). It’s been described as the epitome of cross TAFWA Newsletter - Page 8 - December 2016 country, showing true grit and determination and the will- going to run tough no matter what happened. My mindset ingness to sacrifice body for team. changed from, ‘I’m going to place really well,’ to, ‘I’m just So, what exactly happened to Moskowitz during that going to run as tough as I can,’” he said. “Adrenaline sort second mile at NCAA’s that caused him to bleed profusely? of took over and I went after it however I could. I knew my Moskowitz recounted the race in detail. Between two and teammates were running as hard as they could so I figured I three kilometers, his day took a turn for the worse, leaving might as well go for it [after the fall].” him with a battered nose and concussion symptoms. At the finish, Moskowitz was swiftly taken to the medical With no time to react to the fall ahead of him, Mos- tent to be checked over. He was cleaned up and assessed, kowitz’s instinct was to jump. In the process, his foot got and given tests for a possible concussion. Upon his return clipped by another runner, causing Moskowitz to face-plant to the N.C. State tent near the start, Moskowitz was greeted into the frozen grass of the LaVern Gibson Cross Country by an enthusiastic bunch of teammates who’d heard what Course. happened. The Wolfpack placed 22nd of 31 teams. Stunned with his nose hurting, Moskowitz attempted to “It was really awesome, they gave me a big hug and said, get back to his feet only to be kicked hard in the face again ‘you’re the toughest kid I’ve ever met,’ and that kind of by a fellow competitor. thing,” Moskowitz recalled. “My coaches gave me that sup- “That knocked my head back, and I just curled up in a ball port too. I transferred here this year, and that’s a big reason waiting for everyone to go over me and get past before I got I came here because I really feel like the team and coaches back up,” he said. “After that it was a little of a blur, but I got are a big family and support each other even when it’s the back up and the pack was pretty far ahead. I tried to catch toughest day, the toughest cross country race I’ve ever been back up and was trying to test myself to see if I was fully in. It was really awesome to have them for that support.” conscious.” As pictures from NCAA’s have spread through the media, Dazed, confused, and gushing blood, Moskowitz briefly countless friends and family have reached out to Moskowitz contemplated dropping out. The thought quickly left his expressing their concern --and awe-- with regard to his race. mind. Moskowitz’s mother, Shari, was very concerned and called “When I first got back up I was sort of assessing myself him in tears (“She saw the pictures and thought I was com- to see if I was going to pass out or something,” Moskowitz pletely destroyed” he said). Moskowitz’s Facebook profile said. “I wasn’t sure how bad it was. At first I was definitely picture is now one from the finish stretch, blood covering thinking about stopping, but then I saw some runners with- his face, neck, shirt, and legs; it has gained more than 200 in my reach and said I might as well try to catch back up. If likes. I pass out then someone will help me. That’s the mindset “I don’t think it deserves that much attention. But I in cross country anyway, push yourself to the point where guess the pictures are pretty brutal,” Moskowitz said with a you’re not really sure you’re going to make it all the way.” laugh. “I guess it just served and was a good opportunity to Thankfully, Moskowitz didn’t suffer any spike puncture prove to myself that I could get through anything. I think I wounds on his head. He ran the final seven kilometers just had the circumstance of getting kicked in the face, and trying to chase runners down, ultimately finishing 243rd that’s pretty much what it was. But I think pretty much any out of 251 in 32:55.9 (For context, Moskowitz ran 30:24.1 distance runner would have done the same thing, I feel. at Regionals a week prior). As more and more spectators People say they wouldn’t have, but the mindset of a distance recognized his injury and the blood running down his face runner is that pretty much anyone would have done that and neck, support for the Wolfpack grew. [finish].” “I hate to be the guy who gets the pity clap kind of thing, Resting in Raleigh, Moskowitz said he is experiencing a but it did help to get that support from everyone. It made very sore nose, headaches, and mild concussion symptoms. me realize it was still sort of important what I was doing, Follow up appointments are schedule with doctors to assess even though I wasn’t going to finish where I wanted. It the symptoms, and a CT Scan is planned to rule any other proved to myself that next time I’m here I’m going to run to injuries out. my fullest ability, no matter if it’s 33 minutes or 30 minutes Though he’ll take some time off before the indoor track or 29,” he said. season, Moskowitz is eager to lace up his spikes again. He’ll Looking back, Moskowitz chuckled at the race and how it focus on the mile and 3000m indoors, then the 1500m and played out. His fitness was peeking just at the right time of 5000m on the outdoor oval. the season. “I can’t wait to start on track and start showing what kind “It was crazy how quickly it changed. I was in the mindset of shape I was in at the end of the season, even though it of, ‘Wow, I could have a really great race here.’ The way my didn’t show at the nationals race,” he said. “Even though season had been going, I had a pretty bad regular season this is kind of cool to get, whatever, the attention for a and came to Regionals and had my best race of the sea- bloody face, I’d much rather have finished where I wanted son so far. I was really starting to hit the workouts really and helped the team to place better. Hopefully next time nicely, so I was excited for this race. I had told myself from I’m getting interviewed it’s for becoming an All-American.” the start that I’m committed to my teammates and I was TAFWA Newsletter - Page 9 - December 2016 The best is yet to come for Cheserek BY JON HENDERSHOTT | IAAF.ORG https://www.iaaf.org/news/feature/edward-cheserek-ncaa-distance-running Even if he missed out on adding to his own legacy by winning a fourth consecutive NCAA cross-country title last Saturday, Oregon student Edward Cheserek has already authored his own notable ad- dition to the collegiate record books. The 22-year-old from Kenya placed third in Terre Haute, trailing unexpected winner Patrick Tiernan as well as 2015 runner-up Justyn Knight, who again finished second this year. But Cheserek had already written his own history when he won last year’s NCAA title: he became the first Division I cross-country runner to win three straight titles. A trio of legends in US collegiate running had won three titles – Washington State’s Gerry Lindgren, Oregon’s Steve Prefontaine and Washington State’s Henry Rono. But none had won three in a row until Cheserek in 2015. He later revealed that just as Tiernan and Knight made moves away from the pack at about 8km, a hamstring tightened and he couldn’t follow his foes. “I was in decent shape and ready to go, but when those guys made their move, my hamstring got really tight,” Cheserek told the Eugene Register-Guard. “I couldn’t do anything. I could have dropped out, but I was like, ‘You know what, I’m going to finish and do it for my team’.” He later added: “It’s kind of disappointing because this was my last year [to try for the record fourth win]. Now I will stay focused on indoors and outdoors.” On the track, whether inside or outdoors, Cheserek definitely will add to his collegiate resume. Outside, he has won three consecutive 10,000m titles, plus the past two years at 5000m. His overall tally – including his five individual track titles, indoors and out, plus two indoor relays and his three cross-country victories – of 15 NCAA victories equals the record of individual titles set by Tanzania’s Sulei- man Nyambui, who also claimed 15 distance triumphs between 1978 and 1982 for Texas-El Paso. Teamwork makes the dream work Cheserek’s motivation isn’t waning. Earlier this year at the NCAA Indoor Championships, he first won the 5000m in 13:47.89. Then about 25 minutes later, he anchored Oregon’s distance medley relay team with a 3:52.19 split for the 1600m anchor leg (which roughly equates to a 3:54 mile). He returned the next afternoon to claim the 3000m victory in 8:00.40. “The coaches asked me before the meet if I would consider running the relay, even if there wasn’t a lot of time after the 5000m,” Cheserek recalls. “I had taken it easy in the 5000m and I cooled down after that race. They asked me again if I wanted to run the relay and I said yes. “I jogged a little to warm up, put on a fresh singlet and then went to the track. In the relay, I felt really strong. I don’t think I had ever been in as good shape as I was for the NCAA Indoor meet last year. I took it easy until the last couple of laps and then thought, ‘Just go’.” The fact that Cheserek willingly ran that demanding double points out one of his strongest assets as an ath- lete. “He is an ultimate team guy,” says Oregon head coach Robert Johnson. “I have said before that Ed has ‘no ego’. By that I mean that it would be easy for a guy as talented as him to not be that excited about being on a college team. “But he is a very humble, down-to-earth guy. He knows that looking forward to achieving things in the future is all about ‘How can we get better today?’ Of course, he does want to beat everybody just as badly as any other TAFWA Newsletter - Page 10 - December 2016 athletes. But for him to keep those mental aspects in check is very impressive for someone his age.” “Individual wins aren’t as important to me as my teammates,” Cheserek adds. “I just focus on one season and one race at a time. Whatever will happen just happens. Team was my focus in high school and then when I came to Oregon. The team aspect has always been my main thing.” From Iten to Oregon, via Newark Cheserek is a member of the Marakwet subgroup of the Kalenjin tribe, which has produced many world-class runners. He hails from near Iten, in Kenya’s Rift Valley, famed as the home ground of many of those distance runners. He mainly played soccer as a youth, always able to outrun other players with both his strength and speed. “My father said, ‘You know, you could be a runner’,” he says. “A teacher also told me that. I said it depended on what distance he wanted me to run. He said the 5000m, but I said, ‘That’s too long’, so I tried the 1500m and I won my first race without even training. The next week, I did run a 5000m and won in 14-something. “I began training, about 40 miles a week. I ran my first 10,000m in ninth grade; it was 31 minutes. Shortly after that, I ran 9:05 for the steeplechase, 1:56 for the 800m and 3:56 for the 1500m. All of this was at about 9000-feet of altitude. Plus I had gotten kicked in the shin by another player in soccer and was limping around. “My dad said, ‘This is no good’ and that he would buy me whatever I needed to just run. He also took me to a training camp run by Moses Kiptanui (three-time world steeplechase champion). That really motivated me, so I quit soccer and concentrated on running after that.” He was identified by a missionary group as a candidate to attend St Benedict’s, a private Catholic boys’ high school in Newark. He had to take an entrance exam in Iten, but days before he was to take the test, torrential rains turned the dirt roads around his village into impassable mud. There was no chance his father could drive him. So Cheserek ran to the test site – some 60 miles away. “It was really a long way and it took me all day,” he says. “The test was on a Monday and I left my home on Sunday at about 5am. I got to the school at about 6pm. I slept for a few hours, then got up to study for the test, then took the test at 8am.” Cheserek passed all the tests and travelled for his first overseas trip to Newark. While at St Benedict’s, he set US high school indoor records for 3000m (8:05.46), two miles (8:39.15) and 5000m (13:57.04). He then moved on to Oregon in the autumn of 2013 and proceeded to begin his NCAA victory string by taking his first cross- country win after reeling in defending champion Kennedy Kithuka of Texas Tech and Kenya. “That was the most satisfying of my cross-country wins,” he points out. “It was my first time to race so many of the big college guys. My most memorable track race was the 5000m/distance medley double last winter. No one had ever done that before. “I would like to win more NCAA titles, sure,” he adds. “I always want to score as many points for my team as I can. But regardless of what the distance is for a race, I just try to lead my teammates. Then when the time is right for me to make a move, I will just go.” International goals Cheserek has never represented Kenya internationally – or the US. His application for US citizenship has been working its way through the US immigration system for some two years, the effort being headed by Marty Han- non, his coach at St Benedict’s. “My biggest goal is definitely to represent the US in the Olympics and the IAAF World Championships, so I just have to wait for my citizenship to come through.” Cheserek has worked up to now logging about 80 miles per week during the main part of the season. But how good a runner can he ultimately become? “He is going to get a lot better as he gets older,” says Oregon associate head coach Andy Powell. “We have the philosophy at Oregon to take things slow and keep runners healthy. Don’t double except in NCAA champion- ships races and stay a little on the lower side of training volume.” “Ed has tremendous capacity in workouts,” adds Powell. “I push the distance runners maybe twice in an entire season. Otherwise, I hold them back because I just want to keep them healthy. There will be time after college for Ed to do some killer workouts. Yet the few times he has been pushed in training so far, Ed’s response has always been remarkable. “Honestly, I have worked with some very good athletes, like (Olympic 1500m champion) Matthew Centrowitz and (13:07.33 5000m runner) Eric Jenkins. But I have never worked with anyone as good as Ed Cheserek.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 11 - December 2016 Breaking Up With Twitter By FARHAD MANJOO | NEW YORK TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/fashion/breaking-up-with-twitter-presidential-election-2016.html Twitter, the well-known but less-well-used social network week. of 140-character quips about the news, is polarizing. You’re “Twitter is toxic,” tweeted Steve Kovach, a writer at the either an addict, or you don’t get it. Business Insider website who likened the service to an And if you get it, explaining what it is and why you’re on unshakable addiction. “I can’t stand it anymore,” he told me it — and why you can’t stop looking at it even though you’re in a private message on Twitter. “I started regularly delet- supposed to be tending to your 3-year-old at the park, on ing my tweets this summer and unfollowed everyone and the swings, where she’s just fallen and hit her face, some- started over. It was driving me nuts and making me sad.” thing that actually happened to me — can be a challenge Mr. Kovach said he has had trouble sticking with his self- even in ordinary times. imposed ban, but that the campaign’s end had strengthened But the last year and a half were not ordinary times. In his resolve. the midst of the craziest period of breaking news in recent As a Twitter binger, I, too, had a similar impulse to ques- memory — not just Donald J. Trump but San Bernardino tion my commitment to the service after the election. It felt and Paris and Brexit and Scalia and the Cubs (and did I men- so insular, so time-consuming and yet so meaningless, too, tion Donald J. Trump?) — Twitter’s pull grew irresistible, in the grand scheme of things. It feels like time for detox. As and then overwhelming and then world-swallowing. they might say on Twitter (where people are fond of saying Historians and media theorists will one day study wheth- things in weird ways): What even are we doing here? And er the journalistic corps’s devotion to a platform that prizes why can’t we stop? cutting remarks over nuance and empathy was ultimately Though Facebook is by far the larger and more conse- good for the republic. But for news addicts like myself, little quential social network, Twitter functioned as this election of that mattered. cycle’s heartbeat. Just about every story that captivated The thrill of Twitter in 2016 was visceral and habit- the campaign either began on Twitter or got its viral energy forming. It was the show that never stopped, the fireworks there; a breaking news event wasn’t really a breaking news display you couldn’t keep your eyes off even as it grew event until it was a tweet that could be passed around and dangerously bright and transfixing, and then set the whole commented on, and only then would it hit the wider online town on fire and invited floods and locusts and plague, too. and television news circuit. But what now? As a business, Twitter had not been hav- Olivia Nuzzi, who covers politics for The Daily Beast, told ing a good run before the presidential election reached its me that even though she found Twitter to be “a very upset- spectacular conclusion. New users aren’t joining the service ting social media platform” that allowed people to bombard and longtime denizens have been using it less. When Twit- her every day with the most ghastly content, she considered ter tried to sell itself this fall, nobody wanted to buy it. it vital to her job. “If I’m not on Twitter for 30 minutes, I Both potential users and would-be acquirers seem turned miss a story,” she said. off by its complexity, its ugliness (Twitter has become a One Friday afternoon near the end of the campaign, haven for misogynists, racists and other trolls), and most exhausted from the constant thrum of news, Ms. Nuzzi said deeply its apparent uselessness for people who aren’t clus- she inadvertently fell asleep at her kitchen table. She woke tered in the bubbles of tech, politics and media. up to a news release from the Trump campaign defending All that considered, Twitter had a good week. On elec- his words as “locker room talk.” tion night, as Americans watched this once-in-a-lifetime “It turned out that David Fahrenthold’s story about the election happen, they flooded to Twitter to comment and ‘Access Hollywood’ tape had blown up and taken over the congratulate and commiserate, sending traffic on the service election,” she said, “and it was because I wasn’t on Twitter to all-time highs. On Wednesday, while the shares of most for 15 minutes that I didn’t know what Trump was talking technology companies plummeted, Twitter’s stock rose about.” slightly. With its short posts and chronological feed, Twitter was Yet it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if this moment perhaps always destined to play this seeding role in the turns out to be the peak for Twitter. After the election, a campaign news cycle. But its centrality was cemented on handful of Twitter loyalists confessed to feeling alienation June 16, 2015, the day Mr. Trump descended in the gilded over the role the service played in their lives, and the coun- escalator at his Manhattan skyscraper to announce his try, this year. intention, then quixotic-seeming, to run for president. “At best, it was just quips and outrages — a diet of can- The man the world would come to know as @realdon- dy,” wrote Brent Simmons, a well-known software developer aldtrump joined Twitter in 2009, after a publicist urged who took his feed dark after blaming the service for, among him to use the service to promote a new book, “Think Like a other things, being part of the system that helped elect Mr. Champion.” He took to Twitter instantly, instinctively get- Trump. ting the punchy rhythms of a perfectly crafted tweet. But it was less partisan outrage and more a feeling of Mr. Trump also possessed in spades the primary fuel of exhaustion that inspired a new round of quitter Twitter last every successful Twitter account: a bottomless thirst for TAFWA Newsletter - Page 12 - December 2016 promoting one’s supposedly necessary ideas on anything been hooked to Twitter this year to ask why they kept at and everything, no matter how frivolous the subject or it, and whether they may stop after the election. What was banal the observation. striking was how many people, unprompted, floated the “Everyone knows I am right that Robert Pattinson should idea that their use was a result of some kind of addiction. dump Kristen Stewart,” he declared in a typical tweet from Stuart Stevens, the lead strategist of Mitt Romney’s 2012 2012. “In a couple of years, he will thank me. Be smart, presidential campaign and the author of the political satire Robert.” “The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear,” told me he started For much of the campaign, Hillary Clinton, whose tweeting a few years ago when social media experts at The staff would spend hours composing her campaign tweets, Daily Beast, where Mr. Stevens wrote a regular column, repeatedly tweaked Mr. Trump on his apparent inability to told him he had to promote himself. He’s been hooked ever moderate himself on the service. In the final weeks of the since. “I got a good appreciation of why the first hit of crack campaign, after Mr. Trump’s staff banned him from tweet- is free,” Mr. Stevens said. ing, President Obama also took to the mockery. Clara Jeffrey, the editor of Mother Jones magazine, “In the last two days, they had so little confidence in his said she appreciated Twitter as a source of news, but was self-control, they said we’re just going to take away your troubled by the increasing sexism, racism, anti-Semitism Twitter,” Mr. Obama said. “Now, if somebody can’t handle a and a general tide of misinformation that swamped the Twitter account, they can’t handle the nuclear codes.” service during the last few weeks of the election. And yet Though many on Twitter got a laugh out of the presi- she, too, couldn’t stop using Twitter, even as she wondered dent’s line, I suspect more than a few were chuckling about its effects. inwardly. Mr. Obama’s construction — “if somebody can’t “I think everybody has been really anxious about the elec- handle a Twitter account” — assumed a fact not in evidence: tion, and for any number of good reasons,” Ms. Jeffrey said. that there are any Twitter users who can actually comport “But the question we’re not going to have great perspective themselves well when presented with the awesome power of on is how much social media is the cause of the anxiety, an unfiltered text box that instantly goes out to the world. both in a chemical sense — in the sense of us being ad- Anyone who’s halfway decent on Twitter lives in constant dicted to it, like a dopamine drip — but also because it’s the fear of saying something wrong, and the frisson of danger, platform for so much disinformation and hate.” the flirtation with getting fired, is both the peril and the Ms. Jeffrey conceded it’s not all anxiety. There have been promise of Twitter. Perhaps it’s for this reason that Mr. many moments during the race in which Twitter was col- Obama also does not usually handle his own Twitter ac- lectively thrilling, sometimes even plain fun. count; he has the nuclear codes, but Twitter, that’s just too When Mr. Trump suddenly announced he’d make a trip dangerous. to Mexico, or when he set up a table of off-brand raw steaks The inherent danger of Twitter compounds the mystery at one of his campaign events, or when a Twitter user of why anyone tweets in the first place. People on Twitter discovered that portions of Melania Trump’s convention aren’t given to introspection about the service; the things speech had been cribbed from Michelle Obama — at these one does on Twitter tend not to be discussed outside of moments, Twitter exploded in an orgy of jokes. It func- Twitter, for much the same reason that heroin addicts don’t tioned as group therapy as much as entertainment, a kind talk with friends and family about their favorite methods of of gallows humor in the face of a campaign gone mad. mainlining. “At this point, for people who’ve been following the When asked in the third presidential debate why he uses campaign for the last two years, it’s almost difficult to have the service, Mr. Trump seemed at a loss. “Tweeting happens conversations with people who haven’t been following it — to be a modern-day form of communication,” he said. (Fact- with ‘normal people,’” said Oliver Darcy, the politics editor check: True!) After reveling in his follower count and the of Business Insider. “And so Twitter often feels homier than effectiveness of his tweets, he added, “I’m not unproud of it, hanging out with people who aren’t following the election. to be honest with you.” When you’re not surrounded by people who are always talk- Jack Dorsey, a founder of Twitter and its chief executive, ing about this stuff, it almost feels like you’re out of place.” declined to be interviewed for this article. But he has often I feel that. Twitter, during this campaign, really did spoken in lofty terms about Twitter’s potential to expand become a second home for me. Sure, it was a home strewn democratic discourse, especially for activists, including the with hot garbage, a haunted house that often pushed me to #blacklivesmatter protesters, whom Mr. Dorsey joined on question my sanity. And one that did little to edify our de- the streets of Ferguson, Mo., in 2014. mocracy, that turned every campaign story into a moment More recently, he has also acknowledged that Twitter has for a sound bite or a joke, that promoted the soul-destroy- been too slow in offering ways to curb some of the most ing notion that campaign news is best experienced as a kind terrible parts of the service, including trolling. “Twitter’s a of spectator sport of warring sides rather than something reflection of the world, and it definitely makes it easy to say substantial that, you know, matters to the country and anything, and sometimes those things aren’t positive — stuff. and maybe in some cases it makes it way too easy,” he said So it wasn’t a great home. And it’s likely best we all take a at the Recode Conference in June. break from it for some time. And yet, I’m not unproud of it, Over the last few days, I called a number of people who’ve to be honest with you. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 13 - December 2016 Aksana Miankova to be stripped of Beijing 2008 hammer gold ATHLETICS WEEKLY http://www.athleticsweekly.com/featured/aksana-miankova-to-be-stripped-of-beijing-2008-hammer-gold-53900

Belarusian hammer thrower tested positive for banned substances in reanalysis of both her Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics samples Aksana Miankova is among five Belarusian track and field athletes to have been sanctioned by the Interna- tional Olympic Committee for failing anti-doping tests on samples taken at the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic Games. Thrower Miankova is to be stripped of her Olympic hammer gold medal won in Beijing eight years ago, while she will also be disqualified from London 2012, where she placed seventh, after reanalysis of both her samples tested positive for prohibited substances dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol) and oxandrolone. Miankova threw an Olympic record 76.34m to win the title ahead of Cuba’s Yipsi Moreno eight years ago, while her personal best of 78.69m set in July 2012 currently lists her fourth on the world all-time rankings. Natallia Mikhnevich, who claimed shot put silver at Beijing 2008, will also lose her medal after reanalysis of her sample resulted in a positive test for methandienone and stanozolol. Beijing fourth-place shot putter Pavel Lyzhyn and Sviatlana Usovich, who reached the semi-finals of the 800m and formed part of the Belarus 4x400m relay team, have both also been disqualified from the 2008 Games, with the Belarus team disqualified from the relay event. Nastassia Mironchyk-Ivanova, who placed seventh in the long jump at London 2012, has been disqualified from that event. The IOC has requested that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) modifies the results accordingly and also considers any further action within its own competence. IOC strips 10 athletes of Olympic medals in doping retests https://apnews.com/291eb8313d56457fa07fe0f5d3115c99

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The International Olympic Committee on Thursday stripped 10 athletes of medals from the 2008 Olympics after banned substances were found during retests of samples from the games. The IOC says the 10, nine of whom hail from former Soviet nations, had all tested positive for various ste- roids. No gold medalists were among the 10, though there were three silver medalists from weightlifting and wrestling. Track and field was also hit, with Greek triple jumper Chrysopigi Devetzi and Ukrainian pole vaulter Denys Yurchenko losing their bronze medals. Yurchenko’s ban could elevate Derek Miles of the United States to the bronze medal position. Six athletes who did not win medals in 2008 were also disqualified. There could be another U.S. medal for high jumper Chaunte Lowe, who originally finished sixth but is now in line to inherit bronze. Among those disqualified Thursday were the athletes who had finished in the two places immediately above Lowe, Russia’s Elena Slesarenko and Ukraine’s Vita Palamar. The bronze medal position was vacated last month when the IOC said Russian Anna Chicherova had tested positive for the steroid turinabol. The IOC ruling also casts a shadow over the career of Slesarenko, who was the gold medalist in 2004, though she will not be stripped of that title under Thursday’s ruling. The three silver medalists affected are Azerbaijani wrestler Vitaly Rahimov, Russian wrestler Khasan Baroev and Kazakhstan weightlifter Irina Nekrasova. Weightlifting has been by far the worst-hit sport in retests so far and saw nine more athletes sanctioned Thursday, taking the sport’s total for the 2008 Olympics alone to 22. Other athletes who stand to benefit include Canadian weightlifter Christine Girard, who could move up to the bronze position because of Nekrasova’s disqualification, and Mariam Usman, who would become only the second Nigerian to win a weightlifting medal with bronze after Kazakhstan’s Maria Grabovetskaya was disquali- fied from third.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 14 - December 2016 Budapest, Los Angeles and Paris offer contrasting Olympic visions in race that could yet prove a classic BY NICK BUTLER | INSIDE THE GAMES http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1043826/nick-butler-budapest-los-angeles-and-paris-offer-contrast- ing-olympic-visions-in-race-that-could-yet-prove-a-classic After simmering along gently over the last 12 months, the race for the 2024 Summer Olympic and All three gave their first 20 minute international Paralympic Games is beginning to boil up. presentation in the Qatari capital in an opening test Sport has simply been too preoccupied with anti- seen as the Olympic bidding equivalent of the Iowa doping and Rio 2016-induced hysteria to divert too Caucus. much attention onto a contest for which runners and I somewhat hastily tweeted straight afterwards that riders were still being decided. I felt Los Angeles had done the best job of conveying a Most of our focus until now has been on problems strong and effective message. This did not go down too with the process: withdrawals from Boston and Ham- well with one prominent Paris consultant, but it was burg followed by the “self-suspension” of Rome last clear many other observers felt the same. month after a failure to gain Mayoral support. Clearly, Sun and the power of Hollywood shone throughout, the attempted Agenda 2020-induced reinvigoration but so did more powerful language about creativity, rolled-out by the International Olympic Committee finance and - crucially - a lack of risk. “If you think (IOC) in 2014 has had only a limited benefit so far. about it,” smirked bid leader Casey Wasserman, “each But the three cities who are left showed during last Olympic and Paralympic Games is a five billion dollar week’s Association of National Olympic Committees start-up. And nobody does start-ups like the people in (ANOC) General Assembly in Doha that they each California.” have real potential. One perceived problem for Los Angeles surrounds

Allyson Felix (centre) was the star speaker for Los Angeles 2024 ©LA2024/Twitter TAFWA Newsletter - Page 15 - December 2016 the possible impact of soon-to-be-inaugurated United IOC” that it came across as conceited. States President Donald Trump. In what many con- There are two key figures within the bid team who sidered a masterstroke, this was addressed by six-time can remedy this: IOC Athletes’ Commission chair and Olympic champion sprinter Allyson Felix who is also, chief strategy officer, Angela Ruggiero, and chief execu- without wanting to state the obvious, a black woman. tive Gene Sykes. Both come across as approachable, “We just finished our Presidential election, and willing to listen and humble despite their high-level some of you may question America’s commitment to respective backgrounds as an Olympic ice hockey gold its founding principles,” she said. “I have one message medal winner and a Goldman Sachs financial bigwig. for you: Please don’t doubt us. America’s diversity is Sykes’ style bears similarities with another Goldman our greatest strength.” Sachs man in London 2012 Organising Committee chief executive Paul Deighton. He is also a Republican The stark nature of her words reminded me of a in a Democrat-dominated team, which could be key similarly aggressive but effective speech given by Ka- domestically. zakhstan Prime Minister Karim Massimov in which he highlighted “real snow” when Almaty came so close to Paris also have some highly effective figures within beating Beijing in the 2022 race last year. Confronting their bid team. Leading the way is co-chair Tony Es- the elephant in the room head on. tanguet. While Ruggiero appears to have grown into the Both were written by consultant turned Los Angeles role, the three-time canoe slalom Olympic champion 2024 marketing director Terrence Burns and, while it turned Athletes’ Commission vice-chair is a natural. remains to be seen if such a direct approach will always “The best speaker across any presentation,” one IOC be the most effective, it certainly made an impression member said about him afterwards. His performance here. at yesterday’s World Anti-Doping Agency Foundation Two challenges surround the LA bid so far as I can Board meeting showed he could have a sporting future see. far beyond Paris 2024. The first, which is more of a question mark than a I got a dose of the Gallic charm when asking Paris specific problem at this stage, concerns their finances chief executive Etienne Thobois what he had learned and technical plans. Unlike their two rivals, the Califor- from his previous role overseeing finances as a consul- nian city neglected to publish their venue costs in their tant for the Tokyo 2020 bid - which produced a budget second candidature file submission last month. It was city authorities now claim was grossly undercooked. omitted to “protect LA24 proprietary information” al- After Thobois had answered, Estanguet took over and though they claim the IOC have all the details and that said: “We have a collective responsibility on this point they will be published in full by February, if not before. - this is key. We really have to take this point seriously if we want to be able to host any other events in the fu- They are also the only one of the three not yet to have ture. Really we will not cheat with the figures this time.” finalised all of their venues. Homes for archery, modern Technically, their bid does seem strong and, as double pentathlon and mountain biking are still yet to be con- Olympic judo champion Teddy Riner pointed-out dur- firmed, although organisers insist announcements will ing the presentation, 22 sports will all lie within a 10 ki- be made soon. They are also planning to have just one lometres radius of the Olympic and Paralympic Village. overall operational budget for the Games because of an Their message pledging to ensure full-stadia was also a apparent absence of wider infrastructural costs. Their good one post-Rio. effort will also be “privately financed” with no depen- dence on the public purse. While a California Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) But with Rio 2016 still awaiting state funds in order report last week warned Los Angeles 2024 would only to make payments owed to staff and contractors, despite have a “neutral” economic impact for the region, Paris having made a similar claim about “no public money” have prioritised legacy benefits. I spent a day with bid being used, we would not be doing our job properly if team members on a promotional trip to Marseille in we were not slightly sceptical. September, one of many they have done across the country, and it seemed they are genuinely trying to A second issue concerns the perceived “arrogance” involve all citizens, and particularly the young. which has hindered previous American Olympic bids. This came across in the speech of Estanguet’s fellow Several IOC members have raised this as a challenge bid leader Bernard Lapasset in Doha. “The legacy of despite LA claims that they are different from past at- Paris 2024 will see sport as a driver of positive change,” tempts. One even said that their bid presentation was so he declared. “Education, health and social inclusion.” “smooth” and focused on “how California can help the TAFWA Newsletter - Page 16 - December 2016 Parisian Mayor Anne Hidalgo also outlined how Weightlifting Federation President Tamas Ajan should her city had supposedly “taken the lead” on worldwide be helping out? And why not International Judo Federa- responses to issues such as climate change. tion counterpart, Marius Vizer, described usually as a The only thing I would say here is that I have spent Romanian-born Hungarian? a fair bit of time with IOC members over the last three It is too early to count them out, and certainly they years and I have never once heard a single one talk can emerge as a viable third option if rival efforts go about global warming - in fact it may be hard to find sour - security fears for Paris and the “Trump” factor for a group of 98 people with a worse carbon footprint. LA appear the most likely reason for this. At present, “Sustainability” may be one of the Olympic Movement’s however, it appears Budapest have some catching up to favourite buzzwords, but I wonder if the LA messages do. about money and technology may be more powerful. That said, it remains early stages and, with Paris’ con- Bizarrely, the Agenda 2020 reforms introduced by sultants including Nick Varley, the architect of winning the IOC ostensibly to reduce costs and stop richer bids speeches for London 2012, Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, I gaining an advantage have backfired. Because they suspect they will build-up their presentational momen- have less formal opportunities to present and show- tum as we build towards the September 13 judgement case themselves than before, it has become harder for day in Lima. Budapest to stand-out and make up the ground as the importance of lobbying becomes ever more vital. Budapest, of the three, have perhaps the most power- All three bids, it is worth pointing out, constantly ful message in the slogan: “right city at the right time”. moan to us about the IOC’s increasingly dictatorial In a strong performance in Doha, bid leader Balázs restrictions on promoting themselves. Latest measures Fürjes did a good job of explaining how they offer an included journalists being banned from taking photos exciting alternative, but also - and this is key post Rio as they presented... (with the IOC doing their usual 2016 - how they can provide an option that can be trick of getting ANOC to tell the journalists this rather trusted to succeed. than do it themselves). “We have the fundamentals in place,” he said “Be- Perhaps IOC President Thomas Bach should think cause a mid-sized global city such as Budapest can offer about this the next time he claims, as he did in Doha, a truly compact and intimate Games experience. A that Agenda 2020 has saved the Games and was directly mid-sized city can deliver a Games at reasonable scale responsible for all three bids being launched. and reasonable cost. And this is a Games that will trans- form the city and leave a lasting legacy. It is nigh-on impossible to pick a favourite at this “A Games in Budapest sends the message that the stage. Olympic Games are not simply for the mega-city but for mid-size cities.” Paris insiders are claiming that, to quote rapper Hungary is the most successful medal winning nation Eminem, this is their “one shot, one opportunity”. never to have hosted the Olympic Games, remember, They claim that if they are not successful this time, the and they must now convince voters that the benefits of French capital will cease trying whereas, if they win, going somewhere new outweigh the risks. another US city would be likely to bid for 2028. On the other hand, there are important commercial and fi- My concern is that, in comparison with the other nancial incentives for choosing California to the extent two, their lobbying effort appears weaker. Paris and Los that the IOC will be both a winner and a loser whoever Angeles leaders were everywhere in the Sheraton Hotel wins. last week as they frantically hunted for the 50 or so IOC members present. Budapest were far less visible, and It will also be interesting to see whether Bach or it was notable that when asking people about the race ANOC President Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah they, almost without exception, mentioned either the clearly align themselves to one bid and, if they do, how French or US bids first. many members will listen. Hungarian IOC member Pal Schmitt was present, It should be a fascinating 10 months building up to and it is vital they get well-connected old hands like the vote in Lima. him involved as much as possible. It was unfortunate new Athletes’ Commission member Daniel Gyurta was ill and unable to travel last week and, as a newbie, it will be hard for him to match Ruggiero or Estanguet when he does appear. Surely the likes of International TAFWA Newsletter - Page 17 - December 2016 The Myth of the Sports Scholarship By Brad Wolverton | Chronicle of Higher Education http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Myth-of-the-Sports/238453?key=4RKr4qKcf4rcS4jgH7bQLivBf_UFD- DV6qBjuE-5X8PmlKXn7aRIcJ-eFo3mvZKwFaGM4aVRVbWtsTndMa29SNV9CdWRTOXBCVmk2TmZGRk1QN- zdIZnZBY0FJTQ Annandale, Va. It can happen to any parent whose kids play competitive sports — that moment when you catch a glimpse of athletic greatness in your child and let yourself wonder: How far could her talent take her? For Tina Ellerbee, the first time that happened was 10 years ago, when her daughter, Allison Goldblatt, participated in one of her first swim meets. She was just 7 years old and had only had a few lessons. But she beat every kid she raced at that meet and posted the second-fastest time of any girl under age 8 that day in Northern Virginia, a hotbed of swimming talent. After that, says Ms. Ellerbee, a former college swimmer, she and her husband prioritized their daughter’s swimming. They enrolled Allison in a year-round training program and slowly increased her practices, from three a week to more than five. Before long they had organized their lives around the sport, waking up at 3:30 in the morning to get her to practice on time and traveling across the country to watch her compete. They stopped taking regular family vacations, instead spending thousands of dollars a year on her swimming. The attention paid off. By age 11, Allison was beating her mom’s best college times, and a few years later, she qualified for Junior Nationals. It was then that Ms. Ellerbee realized that her daughter could swim in college. And not just any college: Even though she was only in eighth grade, her times were already good enough to earn a spot on a top-20 team. Last spring Allison, now a high-school senior, began exploring her college options. Many of the schools she was consider- ing, including Ohio State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, cost more than $40,000 a year. For a middle-class family with three kids, including one already in college, they were going to need all the help they could get. Despite her talent, Allison is not a lock to receive athletic aid. Nearly eight million kids played high-school sports last year, the highest number ever. But just 170,000 athletes — about 2 percent of those who compete in high school — receive a sports scholarship, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Many colleges award millions of dollars in athletic aid, touting individual scholarships worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the vast majority of athletes get nowhere near that much. For families expecting a return on their investment in their children’s sports, they are in for a surprise. This fall, as Allison began visiting colleges, she felt anxious about her prospects. Who was going to give her family what

Tina Ellerbee and Alan Goldblatt organized their lives around Allison’s swimming, arising at 3:30 a.m. to get her to practice, and spending thousands of dollars a year on the sport. T.J. Kirkpatrick, Redux for The Chronicle TAFWA Newsletter - Page 18 - December 2016 they were looking for? And how much money was out there? If there is anyone who understands the realities of sports scholarships, it’s Pete Morgan, Allison’s coach. Mr. Morgan, who directs the Nation’s Capital Swim Club, one of the country’s top amateur training programs, has helped hundreds of swimmers earn athletic scholarships. In late May, after a practice at a suburban Washington pool, he held a meeting for Al- lison and five of her teammates who were hoping to swim in college. His goal was to help them understand the variety of college swimming programs and the long odds of landing a scholarship. Coaches told Allison she could get a ‘pretty good’ athletic scholarship, or a ‘very, very good’ package. But whenever she pressed for details, she got nothing firm. When most people think of a sports scholarship, Mr. Morgan told his swimmers, they think of football and basketball players, whose aid covers their full tuition, fees, room and board, and books. The assumption, he said, is that all athletes get full scholarships. But that’s hardly the case. NCAA institutions treat athletic aid as a kind of coupon off the cost of college, reward- ing athletes with the most value — including football and basketball players, whose sports bring in the most money — with the best deals. In all but six sports — football, men’s and women’s basketball, women’s gymnastics, women’s tennis, and women’s volleyball — Division I colleges are more limited in how they hand out money. In more than a dozen other sports — including baseball, lacrosse, and soccer — the scholarships don’t come close to covering the full cost of every athlete’s education. Those limits were put in place by the NCAA more than 40 years ago amid concerns about parity and overspending in big-time college sports. But as high-school sports participation rates have climbed, and women’s sports, in particular, have taken off, the NCAA’s aid restrictions have stayed largely the same. (The association has added a few sports, but many colleges don’t sponsor them.) Median spending on scholarships has increased each of the past four years for the 128 wealthiest athletic departments. Over all, athletic aid represents about 15 percent of spending for those colleges. One top program, the University of Oklahoma, brought in about $135 million last year in ticket sales, sponsorships, and NCAA and conference distributions. It spent $24 mil- lion of that money on coaching salaries and $23 million on facilities and administrative expenses. Its 430 scholarship athletes received about $12 million in aid. Division I college swim teams, Mr. Morgan told his swimmers, are allowed to give the equivalent of 14 scholarships for women and 9.9 for men. Most college teams have about 30 female and 30 male swimmers. Coaches typically give the most money to the swimmers with the potential to score the most points for their teams. That means that a dozen or more swimmers, Mr. Morgan said, often aren’t getting any money. On any given team, Mr. Morgan told his group, the spectrum of aid can be vast. “From books to full is probably how I’d put it,” he said. And in Allison’s sport, there are far more athletes on book scholarships, which can amount to a few hundred dollars, than full scholarships. All of the colleges Allison was considering provide scholarship assistance up to the NCAA limit in the sports they sponsor. But a closer look at athletic-aid distribution at one of those institutions, North Carolina State University, shows how scarce the dollars are for many athletes. More than 200 of NC State’s 558 athletes last year had 20 percent or less of their costs covered by athletic aid. Outside of football, basketball, and the four other sports that can award full athletic scholarships, just 27 Wolfpack athletes were on a full ride. Elsewhere, dozens of Division I programs hand out fewer than half of the scholarships they are allowed to give. The University of North Dakota gave the equivalent of 0.4 schol- arships during the 2013-14 academic year in men’s golf, while its men’s tennis team got no athletic aid; those sports can give the equivalent of 4.5 scholarships per team. George Mason University gave 4.14 softball scholarships; the NCAA allows 12. And the Uni- versity of Cincinnati distributed 2.26 scholarships among its men’s track team in 2013. Division I men’s track programs can give the equivalent of 12.6 scholarships. The average track squad size is about 40. As athletic departments have squeezed scholarships, Mr. Morgan told his swimmers, TAFWA Newsletter - Page 19 - December 2016 many coaches have become less clear about the terms of their aid. “A coach might say, We’ll give you 50 percent,” he said. “Fifty percent of what? In-state tuition? “Tell them, My parents need to know how much money it will cost them to send me to your school,” he said. “Then get it in writing.” He also urged the group to be “real” about their expectations. “You can dream all you want,” he said. “But you are recruited off your current profile, not times you hope you can swim.” The message didn’t get through to everyone. During the meeting, Mr. Morgan asked each swimmer to write down three colleges where they could see themselves next year. One female swimmer who might be good enough to land a spot on a Division III squad, whose teams don’t offer athletic scholarships, listed the University of Georgia. Its women’s swim team has won three of the past four NCAA titles. Allison was trying to be realistic about her potential. She had just come off a shoulder injury, which had sidelined her for 10 months, and she was concerned about making a full recovery. Just before the meeting with Mr. Morgan, she made a verbal commitment to attend Virginia Tech. While the Hokies compete in a major Division I conference, Allison had been aiming higher. And Virginia Tech had of- fered her a scholarship that would cover only 30 percent of her costs. Her decision was driven by fear. She worried that her shoulder would continue to hobble her once she got to college and that she might have to give up swimming. If that happened, and she lost her scholarship, she knew her parents could still afford to send her there. But in early May, she swam a personal best in the 200-meter butterfly, missing the time she needed for the Olympic trials by two-tenths of a second. In a race that lasts the length of two football fields, she was short by a snap of the fingers. Convinced her shoulder was 100 percent, and encouraged that she had room to improve, she told Virginia Tech that she was having second thoughts. Ned Skinner, the Hokies’ head coach, asked if her decision was about money. “I realize we had a bit of a lower starting point regarding scholarship,” he emailed Allison in early June. “Is there a way we can structure a more aggressive opportunity to help you and your family?” “Honestly,” Allison wrote back, “that topic didn’t have any impact on what I was feeling.” But she told the coach she had not crossed Virginia Tech off her list. Allison’s dad, Alan Goldblatt, forwarded those emails to Rick Paine, a recruiting adviser the family had hired during her freshman year of high school. “Allison, you need to learn how to play the recruiting game,” Mr. Paine wrote back. “I understand that your change of heart didn’t have anything to do with scholarship, but don’t let the coaches know that.” “Coaches treat this like a business and their job is to get you for the least amount of money,” he added. “One of your jobs is to get the best deal you can.” On a certain level,a sports scholarship is all about money. But the one thing that coaches will do anything to avoid talk- ing about is money. The NCAA prohibits swim coaches from calling recruits or discussing the specifics of scholarships until July 1 of their senior year of high school. (Coaches and athletes are allowed to have conversations before then, as long as the recruit initi- ates the call.) Allison, who had been talking to college coaches since eighth grade, was eager to hear who was interested and how much money they could offer. Virginia Tech’s coaches made their position clear, asking her to clarify if its university was among her top three choices. She didn’t have a top three, she told an assistant coach. So the coaches rescinded their offer, saying they needed to free up their money for other recruits. Many coaches opened conversations by asking about Allison’s academic credentials. She has a 4.1 grade-point average and scored a 31 on the ACT. Those numbers would qualify her for an academic scholarship at most of the colleges she was considering. Several coaches, including Bill Dorenkott, head coach at Ohio State, told her how much academic money she could get. Even before any athletic consideration, she would qualify for $12,000 in merit aid, covering about a third of her Ohio State education. But when she asked about athletic aid, every coach danced around a number. An assistant coach at the University of Louisville told her that, in addition to an academic scholarship, she could probably land a “little bit” of athletic money. Ohio State’s coach said she could get a “pretty good” athletic scholarship. And Texas Christian University said she would qualify for a “very, very good” package. Whenever Allison pressed for more details, she got nothing firm. Rich DeSelm, the head coach at North Carolina, told her that he had faster swimmers, but he was intrigued by her rate of improvement. He said he wasn’t sure how much money he could give her. The truth is, if she could swim for UNC, her parents probably would find a way to make it work. Her grandmother used to live near Chapel Hill and Allison has visited the campus many times. One time, on a visit there a couple of years ago, Mr. DeSelm took her on a tour of the business school. He reminded her of Mr. Morgan, her current coach, who has high expec- tations for his team and a calm, reassuring temperament. Soon after July 1, coaches at Louisville, whose team finished fourth in this year’s ACC championships, began to call regu- larly, pressing her to commit to an official visit. After the start of their senior year, recruits are allowed to take five official visits, which are paid for by colleges. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 20 - December 2016 Allison told Kameron Chastain, a Louisville assistant, that her parents wouldn’t let her visit unless the university told her how much athletic aid she could get. He said he’d have to check with his head coach. He never got back with a number. She didn’t always need such assurances. An assistant coach at the University of California at Los Angeles was blunt: Alli- son didn’t have ideal times. And she wouldn’t qualify for an academic scholarship, as many UCLA students have even stron- ger academic credentials. If she got any money at all, the coach implied, it probably wouldn’t be much. But if she wanted to pay her own way to visit, she was welcome to check them out. Despite the sharp critique, Allison and her mom went out for an unofficial visit, hoping to see for themselves why more students apply to UCLA than any other college. After introducing herself, Cyndi Gallagher, the head coach, turned to Allison, who had flown all the way from her Virginia home, and said, “You’re the girl from New Jersey, right?” Allison shook her head. “I’m sorry,” the coach said. “New York?” Once Ms. Gallagher figured out who Allison was, she spent a couple of hours answering her and her mom’s questions. At one point, Allison’s mother excused herself to use the restroom. As soon as they were alone, Ms. Gallagher asked Al- lison if she had talked scholarship with her parents. “How important is money in your decision?” the coach asked. Allison was surprised at the coach’s directness and concerned that, at age 17, she wasn’t prepared to negotiate with someone with nearly 30 years of experience as a head coach. (Allison’s negotiating experience, she told her mom later, con- sisted of deciding which of her friends was buying the chips at Chipotle.) But with her mom in the bathroom and the coach asking about money, she gave as honest an answer as possible. Her parents wanted her to get a scholarship, she told Ms. Gallagher. But it was not a driving factor in her decision. As Allison’s mom approached the coach’s office, she realized that her daughter and Ms. Gallagher were having the money talk. It bothered her that the coach would bring up money when she wasn’t there. (Ms. Gallagher says she deliberately talks to recruits about money because some parents try to aggressively negotiate before an offer is even made.) Allison’s mom, however, didn’t want to appear overbearing and hurt her daughter’s chance at landing a scholarship. So she waited outside until Allison and the coach had finished. Allison scheduled official visits to North Carolina and Ohio State, whose head coach told her that he typically handed out offers on the Sunday morning of official visits. She was still interested in UCLA, but the only opening it had left for an official visit was on a weekend when Allison was already booked. She had just started her senior year, and with three AP and honors classes and an intense swimming schedule, she wanted to make sure that any colleges she visited were serious options. UCLA costs more than $60,000 for out-of-state students, which, without scholarship assistance, was out of reach for Allison’s family. Swimmers have a hard time taking one day off, much less three, which recruiting weekends often eat up. In a typical week, Allison has at least eight practices. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning, she swims for an hour and a half, starting at 4:30 a.m. On weekday afternoons, she swims up to two and a half hours more. She practices for three more hours on Sundays, unless she has a meet. She maintains that pace about 50 weeks a year. Until her injury, she had not missed a single practice, outside of an occa- sional sickness, in four years. On average, Allison swims about 60,000 yards a week. That’s the equivalent of about 34 miles of swimming. Almost everything in Allison’s family revolves around swimming. Her two siblings have also swum competitively. Her older brother, Zachary, now 21, stopped when he went to college; her younger brother, Leo, who’s 14, practices nearly as much as her. On the rare family vacation, they still find a pool where Allison can train, often starting at her usual time of 4:30 in the morning. Her parents have made a significant financial investment in the sport. For many years, they have spent more than $10,000 a year on Allison’s swimming. Most of the money goes toward coaching and training costs and expenses for travel to meets (at least one of her parents accompanies her on every trip). That doesn’t count the more than $5,000 in unreim- bursed medical expenses from her recent injury. If her parents added up all the money they’ve invested in her training, they could have already paid for a couple of years at a prestigious university. Nonetheless, Ms. Ellerbee says, the investment has already paid off. Swimming has taught her kids the value of hard work, setting goals, and dealing with adversity. Even if her children don’t swim in college, it’s a sport they can enjoy their whole lives. It’s hard to get too worked up over kids from country-club sports — and swimming is certainly one of them — failing to get their fair share of college scholarships. But in sports like track and field and wrestling, which are dominated by financially needy athletes, the NCAA’s scholar- ship limits take on different meaning. Families in those sports have invested in the same elusive dream. But if their kids don’t earn meaningful scholarships, it’s a lot more likely they’ll end up saddled with large student loans. Mr. Dorenkott, Ohio State’s swim coach, was not able to do as much for Allison as he had initially suggested. That $12,000 academic scholarship? Turns out it wasn’t a sure thing, he told Allison on her official visit, in early September. And TAFWA Newsletter - Page 21 - December 2016 when it came time to discuss athletic aid, he had no money to offer. If she was serious about Ohio State, he told her, he needed her verbal commitment. Then they could talk money. Allison had expected to leave Columbus with her first offer. What she left with was more uncertainty than ever about her scholarship search. If Allison’s parents added up all the money they’ve invested in her training, they could have already paid for a couple of years at a prestigious university. She was glad for one thing. Just before Allison left for Ohio State, UCLA found another weekend she could visit. As she saw it, she still had two options. She always knew North Carolina was a reach school, but she was encouraged that her times stacked up well against her fellow recruits. UNC, which had invited about 30 recruits over three weekends, had just 10 open spots. By the time Allison took her trip, in mid-September, two of those spots were already taken. And Mr. DeSelm was still mum about her chances. Nonetheless, she was sold on the college and encouraged when her host, a senior swimmer, dropped her off at the Raleigh-Durham airport. “We hope you’ll be a Tar Heel!” she said as Allison headed back to D.C. The next day, Allison emailed Mr. DeSelm to express her strong desire to join his program. She couldn’t commit because she didn’t have an offer. But she did everything but tell him she could see herself in Carolina blue, pressing him for more specifics on a scholarship. He said he had some things to work out before he could answer her. “If you are under pressure to make a commitment to another school, we understand,” he emailed. “I hope you understand that it may be next week or a while before we get some clarity on this with you.” With just one more official visit left, to UCLA, and a chance that it might not lead to an offer, Allison’s mom urged her to email the head coach at Georgia Tech. She had recently visited there for a meet and liked the campus. Based on her times, she would be one of the Yellow Jackets’ top recruits, and it would be nice to have a back-up. Her mom also wasn’t sure if she was ready to go across the country for college. But on her trip to UCLA, the first weekend in October, she felt more at ease than at any other school she had visited. She loved the Bruins’ rich athletic heritage. And she connected with Ms. Gallagher, one of the few female head coaches of a major program, who entertained recruits one night in her house near Venice Beach. Allison’s flight departed early Sunday morning, when Ms. Gallagher usually discussed offers, so the coach promised to call her when she got home. For the first time during her monthslong recruitment, a coach delivered on a financial promise. That night, Ms. Gallagher called to offer her an athletic scholarship to UCLA. And it was more than Allison had expected: 30 percent. Following Mr. Morgan’s advice, Allison asked Ms. Gallagher to tell her exactly how much money it would cost her parents to send her there. A few days later, Allison’s father talked to the UCLA coach and negotiated another 5 percent. Thanks to swimming, UCLA wasn’t going to cost her family $62,000 a year; it would be just under $40,000. Before making her decision, Allison made one final pitch to UNC, asking Mr. DeSelm if he had any updates on her situa- tion. He wrote back saying he was still in a holding pattern. That’s all she needed to make it official: She was going to college in California. As it turned out, it wasn’t UCLA’s championship history or the sunny Southern California weather that sealed it (al- though the idea of year-round outdoor swimming didn’t hurt). It was something Ms. Gallagher offered beyond money: a belief in her swimming potential that no other coach emphasized. The money, however, was not insignificant. If Allison swims four years at UCLA, she will save her parents at least $80,000. If there’s a pot of gold for college athletes, this is what it looks like. And that’s for an elite athlete whose parents spent tens of thousands of dollars to help make it happen. One day this past summer, at an early-morning practice in Burke, Va., Mr. Morgan surveyed his swimmers. There was another crop coming up, and another set of eager families. Art Singletary stood near a clubhouse watching his 13-year-old son, Justin, wrap up a workout. Justin has been swim- ming competitively since he was 7, the same age that Allison got her start. Last year, at a national meet in Florida, he won the 50-meter and 100-meter butterfly. His dad says he doesn’t want to push his son too hard, so he’s practicing only five days a week. Who knows where his tal- ent will take him, or what opportunities await? Maybe the best his family can hope for is that they know what they’re getting into. Brad Wolverton is a senior writer who covers college sports. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter @bradwolverton, or email him at [email protected].

Clarification: The chart accompanying this article originally stated that North Carolina State University offers 19 sports, when it actually offers 23. The university initially omitted men’s and women’s cross country and indoor track from the tally it supplied to The Chronicle. The number of scholarships remains unchanged.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 22 - December 2016 when it came time to discuss athletic aid, he had no money to offer. If she was serious about Ohio State, he told her, he needed her verbal commitment. Then they could talk money. Allison had expected to leave Columbus with her first offer. What she left with was more uncertainty than ever about her scholarship search. If Allison’s parents added up all the money they’ve invested in her training, they could have already paid for a couple of years at a prestigious university. She was glad for one thing. Just before Allison left for Ohio State, UCLA found another weekend she could visit. As she saw it, she still had two options. She always knew North Carolina was a reach school, but she was encouraged that her times stacked up well against her fellow recruits. UNC, which had invited about 30 recruits over three weekends, had just 10 open spots. By the time Allison took her trip, in mid-September, two of those spots were already taken. And Mr. DeSelm was still mum about her chances. Nonetheless, she was sold on the college and encouraged when her host, a senior swimmer, dropped her off at the Raleigh-Durham airport. “We hope you’ll be a Tar Heel!” she said as Allison headed back to D.C. The next day, Allison emailed Mr. DeSelm to express her strong desire to join his program. She couldn’t commit because she didn’t have an offer. But she did everything but tell him she could see herself in Carolina blue, pressing him for more specifics on a scholarship. He said he had some things to work out before he could answer her. “If you are under pressure to make a commitment to another school, we understand,” he emailed. “I hope you understand that it may be next week or a while before we get some clarity on this with you.” With just one more official visit left, to UCLA, and a chance that it might not lead to an offer, Allison’s mom urged her to email the head coach at Georgia Tech. She had recently visited there for a meet and liked the campus. Based on her times, she would be one of the Yellow Jackets’ top recruits, and it would be nice to have a back-up. Her mom also wasn’t sure if she was ready to go across the country for college. But on her trip to UCLA, the first weekend in October, she felt more at ease than at any other school she had visited. She loved the Bruins’ rich athletic heritage. And she connected with Ms. Gallagher, one of the few female head coaches of a major program, who entertained recruits one night in her house near Venice Beach. Allison’s flight departed early Sunday morning, when Ms. Gallagher usually discussed offers, so the coach promised to call her when she got home. For the first time during her monthslong recruitment, a coach delivered on a financial promise. That night, Ms. Gallagher Team LetsRun. From left: Jon Gault, Steve Soprano, Robert Johnson, Millie, Hershey, and Weldon Johnson called to offer her an athletic scholarship to UCLA. And it was more than Allison had expected: 30 percent. Photo: Daniel Cronin Following Mr. Morgan’s advice, Allison asked Ms. Gallagher to tell her exactly how much money it would cost her parents to send her there. A few days later, Allison’s father talked to the UCLA coach and negotiated another 5 percent. Thanks to How a Ragtag Crew of Almost Journalists swimming, UCLA wasn’t going to cost her family $62,000 a year; it would be just under $40,000. Before making her decision, Allison made one final pitch to UNC, asking Mr. DeSelm if he had any updates on her situa- Created Running’s Most Controversial Website tion. He wrote back saying he was still in a holding pattern. That’s all she needed to make it official: She was going to college in California. By Charles Bethea | Outside As it turned out, it wasn’t UCLA’s championship history or the sunny Southern California weather that sealed it (al- http://www.outsideonline.com/2135791/how-ragtag-crew-almost-journalists-created-runnings-most-controversial-website though the idea of year-round outdoor swimming didn’t hurt). It was something Ms. Gallagher offered beyond money: a For the past two decades, the website LetsRun.com has straddled the lines between gossip, investigative reporting, and belief in her swimming potential that no other coach emphasized. The money, however, was not insignificant. If Allison swims four years at UCLA, she will save her parents at least hardcore training advice, angering Nike, USA Track and Field, and traditional media in the process. Charles Bethea joined $80,000. If there’s a pot of gold for college athletes, this is what it looks like. And that’s for an elite athlete whose parents them at the 2016 Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, to figure out how they’ve managed to become the most important, spent tens of thousands of dollars to help make it happen. and controversial, outlet in competitive running. One day this past summer, at an early-morning practice in Burke, Va., Mr. Morgan surveyed his swimmers. There was Last spring, a relatively unknown 33-year-old British took the tracking one step further. Delmott figured that another crop coming up, and another set of eager families. ultrarunner named Robert Young set out to break the North running solo through the night would be lonely, so he laced Art Singletary stood near a clubhouse watching his 13-year-old son, Justin, wrap up a workout. Justin has been swim- American transcontinental record. The feat would require up and headed out in the early hours of June 5 to ­offer ming competitively since he was 7, the same age that Allison got her start. Last year, at a national meet in Florida, he won covering more than 3,000 miles from Huntington Beach, Young some surprise company. the 50-meter and 100-meter butterfly. California, to Times Square in New York City. The fastest But Young didn’t appear to be anywhere near his support His dad says he doesn’t want to push his son too hard, so he’s practicing only five days a week. Who knows where his tal- time—46 days, 8 hours, 36 minutes—had been set in 1980 vehicle as it crept down Old State Highway 50 at around ent will take him, or what opportunities await? by Frank Gian­nino Jr. Numerous attempts had since failed.* 2 a.m. Meanwhile, the tracker continued to show Rob’s Maybe the best his family can hope for is that they know what they’re getting into. In his memoir, Marathon Man, the dirty blond, boyish- progress, beeping along at the same speed and location as Brad Wolverton is a senior writer who covers college sports. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter @bradwolverton, or looking Young writes of running 370 marathons in a single the RV. Delmott, whose father had worked as a detective, email him at [email protected]. year since beginning to compete at long distances in 2014. was suspicious and started a thread on the message board Still, he would need to cover more than 65 miles a day, for of the website LetsRun.com. His provocative post was titled Clarification: The chart accompanying this article originally stated that North Carolina State University offers 19 a month and a half, to break Giannino’s record. He left on “Robert Young fakes run across America.” sports, when it actually offers 23. The university initially omitted men’s and women’s cross country and indoor track from May 14, followed by a huge RV with his two-man support Delmott’s evidence included time-stamped screen shots the tally it supplied to The Chronicle. The number of scholarships remains unchanged. team inside. Young kept track of his mileage using two GPS of Young’s online tracker and cell-phone videos that seemed watches and a binder, where he logged his daily totals. An to show the RV—you can see the flag waving behind it— American flag flew behind the vehicle. at those same times, demonstrating that Young was not After 23 days, Young was halfway through his epic plod, running beside it. Delmott also obtained security footage which fans could follow using a virtual tracker on his web- from a car wash displaying what looks like Young’s RV site. Twenty-five-year-old Asher Delmott, of Lebo, Kansas, slowly passing, without a runner visible nearby. His post TAFWA Newsletter - Page 23 - December 2016 concluded, “I am convinced that Robert is not completing dropped its lawsuit. It’s not always pretty (the site looks a all of the distance on foot, and I understand my screenshots little like Craigslist), but LetsRun may be the most effective and videos cannot definitively prove it, but I think it at least watchdog—and cheerleader—for an increasingly dirty sport warrants a very close inspection of his attempt.” relegated to the margins of media coverage. Trouble is, even Immediately, the LetsRun forums ­erupted. “Hindsight the BroJos aren’t sure if they’re journalists or not. says you should have had a witness and a low-light camera,” wrote a user under the name “I was driven across America,” “Weldon and Robert’s work has qualities of journalism,” adding: “Why didn’t you talk to the RV crew to document it says Tim Layden, a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. was his van?” Heavyd84 posted: “Good investigative work! “But their best quality is that they don’t give a shit about Now all of us living in states he hasn’t run through yet need offending people. They just fire away at perceived injustice to go out and get more evidence. Letsrun unite!” or wrongdoing, and they have a pretty good sense of the After two days, as the thread grew to thousands of posts, aggrieved little guy.” LetsRun cofounder Robert Johnson weighed in with a few In early July, I spent four days crashing at a rented cot- questions: “Couldn’t me and a buddy prove this in the span tage in Eugene, Oregon, with the BroJos, their two full-time of 24–48 hours? Why would it entail anything besides us LetsRun staffers, and a college cross-country coach and getting a bike, throwing it in a car, and riding next to these BroJos bud I’ll call Coach. They were covering their sport’s guys for 48 hours. My buddy is a schoolteacher and is free. Burning Man: the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Trials, at Maybe we’d need a third person. One rides the bike, one Steve Prefontaine’s old stomping ground, Hayward Field. drives the car and one sleeps.” He added, “How much time When I arrived midway through the 11-day reporting is left in this journey? I’d rather not have to drive out to marathon, the group was sitting in a slouched semicircle in middle America right now to prove this. Can I wait until the cottage’s com­ically quaint living room amid dis­carded NCAAs are over? Or are there any college kids near the soda cans and a stranger’s bric-a-brac, cobbling together route that want me to pay them to do it.” a story about a men’s 1,500-meter heat that most media As suspicion spread online, Young and his team were would ignore. forced to spend their spare time debating doubters and “Is unmitigated a word?” Robert asked. answering to the media. “I could have been on the other RoJo looks like a Texan Hugh Grant. He’s chatty and side of the road,” Young told Runner’s World. “I don’t know. twitchy, and can get ­debilitat­ingly hangry. He writes much I could give you fifty different reasons.” He added: “See this of the site’s commentary and travels to places like Byd- nose? I know it’s big, but I am not Pinocchio.” goszcz, Poland, and Guiyang, China, to cover some of the Thirteen days after Delmott’s post, Young quit his record world’s most remote cross-country meets. For exercise, attempt due to injury. In the aftermath, he maintained his RoJo pushes his French bulldog in a stroller around his innocence. “The run was all done aboveboard and, above all neighborhood in Baltimore, wishing he could remind eye- else, truthfully,” he wrote me in an e-mail. But the LetsRun rollers that he once paced an Olympic marathoner for half message-board sleuths kept on investigating, analyzing her race (Catherine Ndereba in 2001). He has an economics photos of Young and his vehicle and poring over his racing degree from Princeton but still needs a bit of help from his stats. As of press time, there were nearly 500 pages of com- coworkers. ments. “RoJo is the worst speller,” says Steve ­Soprano, from a Johnson, however, is no longer reserving judgment: “He couch in the cottage. cheated.” A short, shaggy, 29-year-old distance runner with an Frankly, 42-year-old identical twins Robert and Weldon eye on the 2020 Olympic Trials, Soprano joined LetsRun Johnson can’t write that well. This is notable, since the pair, in 2011. He’s the site’s workhorse, often staying up until 4 who go by RoJo and WeJo, write, edit, and oversee LetsRun, a.m. to collect a dozen noteworthy running links from the which covers the colorful characters and serpentine sub- far reaches of the Web—Japan Running News, for example, plots of competitive running for a million unique visitors and “a couple good Jamaican ones”—which he posts along every month. The Johnsons are—and often won’t dispute with a running quote of the day. He sometimes writes com- being—disorganized, mumble-mouthed, and a tad prideful. ment pieces, too. “I can make fun of Russian dopers and But 15 years ago, the BroJos, as they are known, created race-­walkers,” he said. the most obsessed-over site in competitive running, one “I edit twenty typos in RoJo’s pieces,” ­added Jon Gault, a that has advanced reporting on some of the biggest—and tall, pale, bespectacled young man sitting across the room, smallest—­scandals in the sport over the past decade. frowning. At a press conference during the 2012 Summer Olym- Meticulous and peevish, 25-year-old Gault was born out- pics in London, while traditional media outlets demurred, side London but largely­ raised in Boston. He is in possession WeJo pressed three-time medalist Carmelita Jeter until she of the LetsRun team’s lone journalism degree, and he wields admitted her close relationship with Mark Block, a coach it mightily. Earlier this year, Gault published a 16,000-word, who’d been suspended for providing PEDs to athletes. In three-part oral history of the 2012 Olympic Trials women’s 2015, the site published a police report that described John 5,000-meter race. Capriotti, Nike’s VP of global marketing, allegedly threaten- “Who writes better, Robert or me?” WeJo asked, then ing to kill Danny Mackey—a former Nike employee and the answered: “Jon does.” Jon generally fields Journalism 101 head coach of the Brooks Beasts, the latter shoe company’s questions, like “Can I write that a source told me she was team—at the 2015 USA Outdoor Track and Field National crying her ass off?” (Jon: “Yes, but rephrase.”) “I’d take any Championships. Last summer, LetsRun shined a light on sports-journalism job I could get after school,” Jon told 800-meter runner Boris Berian’s feud with Nike—the ap- me. He didn’t get a Denver Broncos online internship and parel behemoth sued him for breach of contract after he instead joined LetsRun in 2014. “I love what I’m doing now,” inked a deal with New Balance—and Nike subsequently he continued. “I get to attend the Olympics and interview TAFWA Newsletter - Page 24 - November 2016 guys like Matt Centrowitz”—the 2016 1,500-meter gold One of the earliest “employees” was George Malley, a medalist—“but if the Globe said, ‘We’ll pay you eighty grand former professional runner who helped moderate the site’s to cover the Red Sox,’ I’d take it.” message boards for free. There was no content-­management WeJo is 25 pounds lighter than RoJo and resembles system until 2013, and even today the BroJos don’t employ Willem Dafoe in Birkenstocks. He’s probably best known an accountant or a lawyer, and they have no strict budget for running a 2:18 marathon while pacing world-record or designated ­offices. “We’re lean,” WeJo told me. “We just holder Paula Radcliffe during the 2002 Chicago Marathon. make it work.” He could claim to be LetsRun’s CEO—the site is technically LetsRun generally uses ad networks to make money and based in his Fort Worth home—but no strict hierarchy ex- has had only one down year. “We’ve built the most influen- ists. Equanimity is also important to WeJo. “I don’t want us tial running audience,” WeJo says. “We’ve got the fastest in to be hot-headed, self-righteous pricks like some Deadspin every community and the coaches. If we keep bringing in a guys,” he said. million upper-­income, educated people monthly, we’ll figure WeJo earned an ­economics degree at Yale and spends out how to best monetize that traffic.” more time managing the site than writing. His ­rationality LetsRun is a private company, and the BroJos declined tempers the often whimsical RoJo, who claims to suffer to share specific financial data. Profit, though, has never from “idea­phoria.” (“I’d be a billionaire if someone imple- been the point. “There are those who want what’s best for mented all my ideas,” RoJo told me. One of them: a “how the sport,” says Willis, “and there are those who want what’s to be an adult” website.) Not that WeJo is without quix- best for themselves. Robert and Weldon care more about otic goals. “I want my dogs to break the 100-meter world the sport than the success of their site.” record,” he said, refer­ring to his two Vizsla mutts, Millie In Eugene, the BroJos, Jon, Steve, and Coach spent 12 and Hershey, who’d driven with him from Texas to Oregon. hours a day watching, discussing, and writing about Trials “Bolt would get out faster, but Millie would crush him over runners, often loping, between heats, from their nosebleed the final 50.” seats at Hayward Field to the media tent. There they pressed Just then, Millie was humping Hershey in a corner. Jon themselves against the fence between reporters and racers watched gravely. RoJo took a slug of Dr. Pepper and kept and tried to nudge a fifth-place finisher over to the side for typing. a scoop. “If the BroJos were one person, they’d be president,” said Often there was none. After the women’s steeplechase Coach, who was tagging along to help write race recaps. “But final, RoJo grabbed his computer and backpack and ran his they’re not. It’s like two ten-year-olds ran away from home.” own steeple down four flights of stairs, through the rain, The twins grew up comfortably in ­Dallas. After running to the media tent, in loafers. Still panting, he thrust his a successful mail-order clothing business, Dad worked for recorder in the face of a crying non-qualifier, Ashley Hig- governor and then president George W. Bush. Mom was in ginson, who had just lost her Olympics bid to women she the State Department. Neither parent was terribly athletic. tearfully described as “so blond and pretty and fierce.” RoJo In elementary school, the boys took the presidential fitness filmed her crying. “I always feel bad,” he told me after. “But test and discovered that they were runners: in the 99th it’s part of the drama.” percentile for their grade. Which twin was better shifted Thirty minutes later, RoJo shared with Jon a bit of prose throughout adolescence, with WeJo finally pulling ahead, he’d produced about the race: “In the last six hundred me- running a 4:29 mile as a senior. WeJo walked on to Yale’s ters, you saw the spectacle we call the U.S. Olympic Trials in track team but never qualified for an NCAA meet. “I sucked all its glory.” He paused for effect. “Unscripted drama at its in college,” he told me. finest.” But he kept running. He won the Marine Corps Marathon Jon nodded mute approval. in 1998, then clocked a 2:19 at Chicago the next year, quali- “Thank you!” RoJo exclaimed. “The master in journalism fying for the 2000 Olympic Trials. He also qualified for the thinks I wrote a good sentence!” The story was posted that 5,000 and 10,000 meters, becoming one of just five Ameri- night. can men to run all three events at the Trials. He quit his job The next day, the group drove 75 minutes to a hammer- and moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, where he trained, occa- throwing qualifier, held at Western Oregon University. A sionally sleeping in his SUV. In his spare time, he and RoJo few dozen spectators would be there, at most. No other launched a website with an inviting name: LetsRun.com. media. But the BroJos were excited to have finally put a Recognizing the Internet’s potential to find an audience LetsRun logo on WeJo’s truck, which he took to the event. A for anything—and track and field’s struggle for Americans’ few drivers honked and waved. But the excitement faded as attention—they hoped that reclusive running geeks would they got lost and fell behind schedule. gather en masse to talk training tactics and race results. “Oh, my God,” Jon said. “We’re not gonna make it. Why At the 2000 Olympic Trials, WeJo finished 25th in the were you so late leaving the house, RoJo?” marathon and 17th in the 10,000. He led for parts of the “I was editing your 5,000-word article.” 5,000 but ended up last. The silver lining: he wore a Lets- “Yeah,” WeJo said. “That’s important.” Run ­singlet. In no time, the site became known as a place to “Is that sarcastic?” asked Jon. “wax philosophical” about the sport, as Runner’s World put WeJo, ignoring Jon: “I knew we wouldn’t make it. Give it in 2001. me the phone, Robert.” Young wannabe pros like Nick Willis, the 2016 1,500-me- RoJo, exasperated: “The GPS didn’t tell me to turn!” ter bronze medalist, were hooked. “It gave me a ton of Jon, sarcastically: “Call the organizers and tell them to inspiration,” Willis says. “LetsRun is one of the primary delay the competition if they want media coverage!” reasons high-quality coaching and training have improved RoJo: “Turn here! We have to get to western Oregon and in ­America, and it’s showing in the results. The site spreads we haven’t gone west yet!” wisdom.” They arrived a few minutes into the competition. As TAFWA Newsletter - Page 25 - November 2016 expected, there was no other media, just a half-dozen mas- being picked apart in the forums. sive hammer throwers—guys named Kruger and Rudy with “There is a distinction between the community and the big beards and bellies—and a scattering of husky family, editorial side,” WeJo insists. “‘LetsRun’ can refer to both, friends, and coaches looking on with pride and amazement but we try and give proper credit on who is doing what. As as each man entered the little circle and gave the 16-pound to whether that distinction matters, I’m not sure. I’m glad hammer a grunting swing. cheaters get exposed.” “I don’t know much about the hammer, to be honest,” (In early October, an independent report, commissioned said Jon, taking notes on the sideline. “But I think that’s by Young’s primary sponsor, Skins, determined that he did pretty much par for the course here.” cheat in his cross-country attempt. The report credits Asher After it was over, team LetsRun went for tacos. “Nobody Delmott’s post on LetsRun as a catalyst for catching Young, writes detailed hammer and steeple recaps,” RoJo boasted, who continues to deny any wrongdoing.) “except us.” Of course, the subjects of the exposés usually aren’t RoJo staggered into the living room on day eight, wearing thrilled. The site has been sued, or threatened with a law- an Orioles shirt and pajama bottoms. The reporting grind suit, at least five times, according to the Johnson brothers, was wearing on the crew, as were the presumed cheaters who say that no damages have been awarded. everywhere. “I woke up thinking about Rob Young again,” he A month after leaving Oregon, WeJo and Jon were in Rio said. “There’s just no way!” de Janeiro covering the Olympics. The men’s marathon is “We figured out pretty quickly,” he continued, ­after one of the most important events to the site’s readers, and getting some Dr. Pepper in his system, “that Mike Rossi on the final day of the games it didn’t disappoint. Kenya’s cheated, too.” Rossi, a 48-year-old Pennsylvania dad, ran Eliud Kipchoge won in 2:08:44, arguably cementing his case what appeared to be a 3:11:45 at the 2014 Lehigh Valley for being the greatest marathoner of all time. Galen Rupp, marathon, qualifying him for Boston. Afterward, when his the American middle-distance runner competing in just his kids’ principal scolded him for taking them out of school to second marathon, took bronze, becoming only the second watch that race, he bragged in a Facebook post, which sub- American man to medal in the event since 1976. Kipchoge’s sequently went viral, about how much more they learned and Rupp’s performances were both big stories that, WeJo watching him run than they would have in school—despite figured, would be the focus of one of the final press con- a great deal of evidence, outlined in a 5,000-word LetsRun ferences of the Games. He and Jon attended, despite the article by RoJo, casting doubt on his qualifying time. (The unlikelihood of anything newsworthy being said. BroJos offered Rossi $100,000 to run his 3:11 at any point Then the first hand shot up. It was Jon’s. He asked Feyisa in the following 12 months; he hasn’t pursued the ­offer, Lilesa, the Ethiopian silver medalist, why he had repeatedly which they renewed this year.) made an X sign with his arms as he was coming down the Chasing cheaters has won LetsRun fans. But not every- course’s final straightaway. one’s impressed. Says Scott Douglas, a contributing editor “I’m five feet from Jon,” WeJo recalls. “And we’re both at Runner’s World, “One problem I have with the site and working on three hours sleep. I’m thinking, What the hell? the Johnson brothers’ presentation is a willful lack of dis- Jon hasn’t asked a question this stupid during the entire tinction between something they did—broke a story or ad- Olympics. But I know Jon doesn’t ask stupid questions. vanced a story—versus something somebody posted on the Before I can rationalize the question in my head, Lilesa says message board that becomes ‘LetsRun broke this story!’ ” that the Ethiopian government is killing his people, and he Indeed, by “we figured out,” RoJo really meant posters could be killed or detained for protesting, but it was some- like gatorade&vodka who did much of the early legwork on thing he must do.” the Rossi story. (That thread stretched to more than 1,200 “Oromo is my tribe,” Lilesa told the scrum of internation- pages.) A similar narrative played out with Rob Young’s run al journalists. “Oromo people now protest what is right, for across America and the scrutiny of the unlikely marathon peace.” He went on: “Maybe I move to another country.” résumés of Michigan dentist Kip Litton and repeat Marine Lilesa’s X quickly became one of the biggest and most Corps Marathon finisher Gregory Price, of Washington, D.C. enduring stories of the Rio Olympics, picked up by The While most news organizations routinely publish stories Guardian, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, originating from civilian ­tipsters, it’s standard practice for and giving voice to a conflict in an often overlooked part of that raw and often unreliable information to be vetted by the world. the journalists those organizations employ. With Lets- “It was the moment of the Games for me,” WeJo says. Run, that extra step is not always taken. In the case of Rob “Running was suddenly very ­unimportant.” It was LetsRun Young, RoJo and WeJo didn’t speak with him in person at its best. They had broken a big story with a question that or closely monitor his run. Nor did they fully crunch the had come straight from the message board. “A few guys numbers to authenticate or debunk some of Young’s claims. were saying ‘What a poor sport’ after Lilesa threw up the X,” Instead, their eventual conclusion—Young cheated—re- WeJo says. “But then someone said, ‘He’s not being a jack- lied pretty much exclusively on the amateur work of the ass—it’s a political statement.’ Robert saw this back home message-board posters who’d first suggested the possibility and texted Jon and me to ask about it. I didn’t see the text of Young’s fraud and then looked into it themselves. when the conference started.” But Jon did. Because the site is home to both a large and active post- “There is a chance someone else would have asked about ing community and original reporting by its founders—and the X if he hadn’t,” WeJo allows. “But I can’t be certain of it.” because the line between the two is often blurry—LetsRun as a whole can sometimes shade from journalism into witch- *Editor’s note: After publication, the trans-America record hunting. “Many of the people behind these alle­gations are was broken by 29-year-old ultrarunner Pete Kostelnick, in Oc- anonymous posters on a notoriously biased and sensation- tober 2016. He ran from San Francisco to New York City in 42 alist website,” Rossi told Runner’s World as his story was days, six hours, and 30 minutes. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 26 - December 2016 ‘I’m ready to face this’: Cathy Freeman opens up about her family’s deepest scars

Olympian Cathy Freeman. She will reveal a deeply personal family story as part of social justice initiative. Photo: Lung Foundation Australia By Daisy Dumas | Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/news-features/im-ready-to-face-this-cathy-freeman-opens- up-about-her-familys-deepest-scars-20161117-gsrdr1.html Behind the medals, starting blocks and immense national pride, Cathy Freeman is a woman still coming to terms with the gross injustices borne by her family at the hands of Australian authorities. Ten years before she was born, the Olympian sprinter’s Aboriginal parents sought the simple privilege of spending the Christmas of 1963 with their closest family in Queensland. The plan was to travel from Ayr to Woorabinda where their grandparents and their siblings lived. But permission to visit the community was required, and their request to the Direc- tor of Native Affairs and Superintendent to visit Woorabinda was rejected on the grounds that her parents, Norman and Cecilia, were unmarried. Living under “The Act” – legislation dating back to 1897 that tightly controlled Queensland’s large Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, separating parents from their children – Woorabinda residents and their families’ basic civil rights went ignored. “I think daughters carry those setbacks and struggles of their parents. I feel that my mother is impacted upon by those memories of her life back in the 1960s, I can sense it when I’m with her,” Freeman said, speaking exclusively with Daily Life on the eve of the launch of the Fighting For Fair social justice initiative for which the athlete will publicly face her family’s deep, unspoken scars. “I think that the memories are still quite overwhelming for a lot of people like my mother, it definitely impacts a lot of people of my generation or earlier.” As one of 12 speakers at Thursday’s Your Right is My Right storytelling event, Freeman will open up about her parents’ struggle – and how the injustice has influenced her own life. “It is challenging, that personal management of the way it makes me feel, the sadness that is attached to that story,” she said. “In a sense it draws me nearer to my mother [who is] having to sustain and manage the scars of that era. “It certainly has changed part of my character … I feel like I’m personally ready to face this part of my identity which is so central to [my life]. It’s a big part of who I am and I have no doubt that it will continue to be that way,” she said. “I’m a fam- ily girl and I’m very proud of where I come from.” Freeman will share her story alongside Peter Greste, Michael Caton and Carlotta on a stage co-hosted by Maurice Black- burn Lawyers and New York-based storytelling platform, The Moth. Determined to “fight for what is right”, she hopes voicing her family history so publicly will allow her five-year-old daughter to one day understand the context of the equality that is so fundamental to Freeman’s life. “It’s having a profound impact on me,” she said of the storytelling process. “It’s very cathartic, it grounds me but also humbles me and inspires me … It’s all very personal soul-bearing stuff.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 27 - December 2016 New Cars, Cooking Lessons and All the Lego You Can Buy: What It’s Like to Go Pro in Track & Field as a Teenager By Jonathan Gault | Letsrun.com http://www.letsrun.com/news/2016/11/new-cars-cooking-lessons-lego-can-buy-like-go-pro-track-field-teenager/ Noah Lyles has it pretty good for a 19-year-old. After running 20.09 to break the 200-meter high school national record and finish fourth at the U.S. Olympic Trials in July, Lyles inked a pro contract with adidas and moved to Clermont, Fla., to train under Lance Brauman. So what does he do with his newfound wealth? Buy a big flat-screen TV? Perhaps a few dozen pairs of sneakers? “I love Legos,” Lyles said. “I’m actually putting together a whole Lego city.” Lyles and his brother Josephus, 18, who ran 20.76 (200) and 45.46 (400) at age 16 and also turned pro this summer, moved around a lot as kids. Noah would construct small Lego cities but inevitably would have to de- molish them when the family packed up for a new town. Now that he got his own place (he and Josephus share an apartment in Clermont), he’s starting a new development. The first building: a $250 theater set. He’s since bought five more Lego sets and has plans to visit Legoland Florida in Winter Haven, an hour’s drive away. A few years ago, Lyles’ situation would have been unique, but more and more U.S. high schoolers are bypass- ing the NCAA system to turn professional early. After one year of college, Alan Webb went pro in 2002. A year later, Allyson Felix was the first prominent U.S. track athlete to bypass NCAA competition entirely, but the current trend really began with 800-meter star Ajee Wilson, who turned pro in January 2013. Since then middle distance runners Mary Cain, Alexa Efraimson and Drew Hunter, sprinters Kaylin Whitney and Candace Hill and high jumper Vashti Cunningham have all followed a similar path. So why now? First, the money. Track and field is a fully-professional sport now (the IAAF didn’t allow professional athletes until 1982, and prize money at Worlds wasn’t introduced until 1997) and there’s more money available than ever before due to increased competition between an ever-growing number of shoe companies in track and field. Second, there has been a great deal of teenage talent coming of age of late. Quite simply, for most of the past two decades, there were very few American high schoolers good enough to earn professional contracts. When Cain entered high school in 2010, the national high school record in the 1500 was 4:14.50. By the time Cain graduated in 2014, she had won two USATF indoor titles, made a World Champi- onship final and knocked almost 10 seconds off the high school record. Cunningham won the World Indoor title in March of her senior year. Hill was the first high school girl to break 11 seconds in the 100 meters, and she did it as a sophomore. For future pros, the NCAA serves as a development system, but athletes such as Cain, Cun- ningham and Hill were already world-class. And in a sport where sponsor money is hard to come by, it makes financial sense to grab as much as you can as early as possible. If Cain were turning pro now instead of three years ago, she’d be worth far less on the open market. While the benefits of a contract are obvious ($$$), turning professional is a big decision followed by lots of smaller decisions. Do I stick with the same coach? Relocate or stay with mom and dad? How much can I spend on luxuries? And what’s the deal with taxes? Athletes have agents to assist in those areas, but it also helps to have a “momager” — the title the Lyles bestowed upon their mother, Keisha Caine. “I basically manage everything they do, from their eating, their doctor’s appointments, rehab if they need to go to rehab, I help with their schedule, I coordinate conference calls between their medical staff and their coaching staff,” said Caine, who is a social worker in Washington, D.C., when she’s not wearing her momager hat. “I work with their CPA now, I formed their LLC, I go check on them monthly where they live to make sure that everything is okay, I remind them of the little things, make sure you update your USADA app, anything and everything that has to do with running…I really don’t know how anybody can do this without a manager, whether it’s your mom, whether you hire a professional person because there’s so many distractions. They don’t have time to sit there and form an LLC. They don’t even understand what that is.” Perhaps the biggest area in which Caine helps is the brothers’ finances. She’s read all the stories about NFL and NBA players going broke and doesn’t want her boys to wind up in the same situation. She handles their bills and has put Noah and Josephus on a budget, allowing them a couple hundred dollars every other week. When they want more than that, they have to go through mom, which is what happened when Noah said he wanted to buy a car.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 28 - December 2016 …..What type of wheels are appropriate?….. Caine and Noah spent a month visiting dealerships and talking to their CPA about which type of car would offer the best tax deduction, which they determined to be an SUV. But Noah had his heart set on a 2017 BMW 430i convertible, a car that retails from $50,300. “He told me the car that I wanted and I said oh,” Caine said. It was a very tough decision. So she dragged her brother, Rahsaan, to the dealership, and laid out the pros and cons. “You know, there’s gonna be some really hard days in practice,” he told her. “They don’t ask you for much, and it fits in the budget. Just let them get the car.” So Caine relented, but even after Noah bought it, she agonized over the decision. When she got home from the dealership, she cried. Caine wanted to ensure she was upholding her fiduciary duty to the boys. She was also worried about the optics. “They’re so young,” Caine said. “And I don’t want people to think they, you know, stole this car. Even people at the dealership were like ‘That young boy bought that car?’” It wasn’t until one of Caine’s friends called her that night that her mind was finally at ease. “She said, ‘Keisha, what did the boys do as soon as they got the car?’ And I said ‘They went to track practice.’ And she said, ‘Okay it’s 10:00 at night right now, they just bought the car today, where are they?’ I said ‘They’re in the bed.’ And she said ‘They’re in the bed and they have a new car and they went to track practice. I think they’ll be okay.’” More than anything, Caine wanted the boys to understand how money management works. Because Noah splurged on the car, they decided to only furnish part of the boys’ apartment, not because they couldn’t afford it but because Caine wants them to be wise with their money. Ironically, Noah doesn’t even have his driver’s license yet (he plans to get it soon), so Josephus has been the one driving the boys around town. That wasn’t the only car they bought. For years, Rashawn Jackson, their high school coach, would schlep them around to practices and meets in a beat-up old Mitsubishi. The windows were broken, and the interior of one of the doors was stripped. Two months before the Olympic Trials, Jackson got in an accident and the car was totaled. Noah and Josephus had vowed since freshman year that they would buy him a car when they turned pro (yes, they were that confident in their abilities). So in October, they did: a 2004 Nissan Altima. “He didn’t cry at the school because he’s also a football coach and he was around the football team but he said his wife called him a sissy because he was crying at home,” Noah said. Like the Lyles brothers, 19-year-old Donavan Brazier, who turned pro after his freshman year at Texas A&M, bought a car shortly after signing his contract: a 2016 Chevy Silverado. And like the Lyles, his mother, Jennifer Pennington, doubles as his “momager,” though he also employs an accountant and a financial manager. “[I tell him] you need to live like a college student and he is very good about doing that,” Pennington said. “So I think he’ll be okay. He splurged on his truck and, of course, he can do that. He’s more than able to do that. Just don’t spend it all. He asks a lot of questions, he doesn’t just go spend his money. If it’s any sort of big purchase, he’ll call and ask, not so much for permission but more for guidance and advice.” Hill turned pro earlier than both the Lyles and Brazier — after her sophomore year of high school– and as a result, it’s harder for Hill, now a senior, to access the money from her 10-year contract with Asics. Hill’s parents have full control over her account and said that she can assume control of the money once her contract is up at age 26 as long as she has completed three years of college. Hill, whose first purchase as a pro was a pair of Beats headphones, is happy with that plan. She already has a car, a 2005 Mazda 5, and isn’t looking to replace it any- time soon. “I’m acting as if I didn’t have money,” Hill said. “I’ll splurge here and there but I just want to invest it and keep it as much as possible for as long as possible. I didn’t want to have a lot of money and go crazy and then not have any when I’m 30 or something when I really, really need it.”

…..Location, location, location….. Money is just one new variable teenage pros have to manage. They also have to decide where to train and who to train under, and unlike buying a car, this decision can have a major impact on their professional careers. For Cain and Efraimson (who signed at the start of their senior year of HS) and Hill, the where was simple: all three elected to stay at home until they graduated high school. Cain stayed with the coaches she had been working with when she signed her contract (Alberto Salazar and John Henwood; last month, Cain announced Henwood is now her sole coach), as did Efraimson (Mike Hickey). Hill said Asics told her they wanted a coach with experi- TAFWA Newsletter - Page 29 - December 2016 ence coaching professionals and she switched to Tony Carpenter, who has coached three-time Olympic cham- pion Veronica Campbell-Brown. Wilson currently attends Temple University in Philadelphia, where she trains under her high school coach, Derek Thompson. When it came time to leave home, both Cain and Efraimson (who is one year younger) went to the same col- lege, the University of Portland, but the two had vastly different experiences. Though UP was much closer to Cain’s primary coach, Salazar, it was almost 3,000 miles away from her hometown of Bronxville, N.Y., and she struggled on the track, eventually transferring to Fordham University after her freshman year. Though Efraim- son, whose hometown of Camas, Wash., is just across the Columbia River from Portland, did not PR in the 1500 last year as a freshman, she ran an 800 personal best (2:00.99) and recorded her best finish at USAs (6th in the 1500). Hill, who lives outside Atlanta, said her plan is to attend the University of Georgia next year. Asics will pay for her college tuition. Brazier initially moved to Orlando in August to train under University of Central Florida coach (and American 800 record holder) Johnny Gray, but returned to Texas A&M last month. Loneliness and boredom were two of the main reasons. Brazier would get up early in the morning to work out with training partners Duane Solomon and Sean Obinwa, but after practice was over, Solomon would go home to his family, Obinwa would go to work and Brazier would go home to an empty apartment with the rest of the day to kill. He’d initially planned to take classes at UCF, but he couldn’t get in, leaving him with nothing to do with all his free time. There were other issues (Brazier wasn’t a fan of the extra mileage Gray had him running), but Gray had seen this situation before. A few years earlier, Gray had worked with Puerto Rican 800 runner Wesley Vazquez, who was in the exact same situation: 19 years old and on his own in a professional environment. Vazquez began eat- ing poorly and eventually left Gray after becoming homesick. Both Gray and Brazier knew that he was better off leaving. “Donavan’s a 19-year-old kid,” Gray said. “He’s a year older than my youngest son. I can’t imagine my youngest son in an apartment by himself somewhere by himself trying to be responsible. It’s kind of rough to do. Going back to where he left, he has his sophomore friends that he was running with last year, he’s in a familiar area, he has kids his age he can hang out with and have fun with and he’s still in a school atmosphere. I think that’s a better place for him. But as he gets older, if there’s a problem then I think he can handle it when he’s much older than at 19.” Brazier is now back at Texas A&M training under his college coach Alleyne Francique. He’ll start taking classes again in December. Noah and Josephus Lyles are in the same situation now that Brazier was in – they moved to Florida on their own, and don’t have plans to enroll in a college until next year – but with one huge difference – they still have each other, which they hope will allow for a smoother transition than the one Brazier faced. Josephus said their biggest challenge has been cooking for themselves; before he moved to Florida, Josephus was so clumsy in the kitchen that Keisha had to keep burn cream near the stove. But part of being a professional athlete is eating properly, so the Lyles brothers signed up for a service, Blue Apron, that ships the ingredients for fresh meals to their doors. That has made cooking easier — as have the several pairs of oven mitts Keisha bought for them. “Now I can do a little something something,” Josephus said. The current generation of prep-to-pro athletes will serve as an experiment of sorts. Clearly Felix made the right decision and Wilson, who has made the U.S. senior team every year since turning pro and earned a silver medal at World Indoors in March, looks to be another hit. But for the others, it’s still too early to tell. If athletes like Efraimson, Hill and the Lyles brothers start making teams and winning medals, you can expect even more young superstars to follow in their footsteps. But there are others who have elected to stay in school (for now). Union Catholic (N.J.) High School’s Sydney McLaughlin made the Olympic semifinals in the 400-meter hurdles the summer after her junior year of high school and has yet to sign a contract. Michael Norman of Vista Mur- rieta (Calif.) High School, who ran 20.14 for the 200 in July, will run for USC this year. Norman’s case is particularly interesting. He finished fifth at the Olympic Trials, just .05 of a second behind Noah Lyles. That presents a rare opportunity to compare two runners with similar ability: one who turned pro- fessional out of high school, and one who decided to go through the NCAA system. The world will be watching how the two phenoms develop — on and off the track.

Full disclosure: Global Athletics & Marketing, which represents Hill, Brazier and the Lyles brothers, covered two nights of the author’s lodging during the reporting of this story.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 30 - December 2016 WADA report is microcosm of everything wrong with Rio 2016 and IOC By Nick Butler | Inside The Games http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1043203/nick-butler-wada-report-is-microcosm-of-everything-wrong- with-rio-2016-and-ioc Last week’s World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to provide anti-doping educational information to ath- Independent Observers report into drugs testing pro- letes waiting for testing, beyond “one or two posters” cedures at Rio 2016 felt like a snapshot of every major across all venues. story we have written this year. “In the circumstances, however, this was the least Incompetent organisation by Rio 2016, check. of Rio’s problems,” conclude the observers in a similar Worrying revelations about anti-doping procedures world-weary tone to that which we journalists had in sport, check. taken when asking for the 10th successive day about A nauseating press release from the International the discrepancy between empty seats and official Olympic Committee (IOC) taking a different perspec- ticket sales. tive from everyone else, check. Two key questions here concern to what extent Virtually the only thing missing was a reference on these problems were avoidable from the IOC perspec- page 43 to how Russian (ex-) Sports Minister Vitaly tive and to what extent this fundamentally affected Mutko had appeared halfway through brandishing a the efficiency of the anti-doping operation at Rio test tube full of urine and shouting about politically 2016. influenced conspiracies... To some extent, there appears little the IOC and To start with the first point, the report could prob- other sports officials could have changed the approach ably be used as a case study to typify any area of the of the organisers. Brazil and chaotic preparation are Organising Committee’s operations. just too closely entwined and, when the budget cuts Rio 2016, it transpired, had a mysterious feud which and political disruption is considered, it is a miracle meant they refused all cooperation with the Brazilian the Olympic and Paralympic Games happened at all. Anti-Doping Agency. Chaperones and others working Yet, on the other hand, the IOC had seven years to in doping control were trained poorly and looked after get this one right and were not exactly strapped for even worse. cash to provide more support. Their accommodation frequently changed and was We were told over and over again ahead of the often far away, while there were no specific transport Games about how Rio made cuts only in non-essential plans, no advanced rota and no free meals to mitigate areas in order “maximise” their budget, and, in the the hardship of a long shift. Most typically of all, Rio words of the IOC, to make it more “economically sus- 2016 officials appear to ignore most of the advice they tainable”. were given, or promised they would make changes yet But, hold on, now it appears that a contract to failed to do so. source 25 local phlebotomists to collect blood samples “For reasons that were never very clear, rosters were had been slashed shortly beforehand. The blood often communicated in fairly chaotic fashion,” read testing operation was, therefore, severely limited the section on planning…and “often very late in the and, in many sports, non-existent. This is even more day prior to the next day, and sometimes changes were concerning when you consider that blood testing was made to the rosters but not communicated properly or also considered a problem in the London 2012 WADA in a timely fashion to the test scheduling team.” Independent Observers report. In another responses to a suggestion to hire extra Surely the IOC’s “zero tolerance” approach towards doping control offices; “This instruction was acknowl- doping could stretch to a permanent official there to edged and accepted by the Rio 2016 general manager liaise with organisers? And, after the problems seen but then not actioned.” at Sochi 2014 and then at Rio 2016, could anti-doping Then: “After a week of delay, Rio 2016 advised that not form a more serious part of the bidding process? this additional resource would not be pursued because Or, at the very least, of IOC Coordination Commission of (among other things), difficulties in getting new inspections? accreditations, lack of access to uniforms, and lack of So how far did these problems affect the anti-doping time for training. This was very disappointing.” operation? Perhaps my own personal highlight was a section The WADA team, let’s not forget, were under pres- revealing how Rio 2016 had missed the opportunity sure here after their complete failure to notice the TAFWA Newsletter - Page 31 - December 2016 alleged manipulation of samples at Sochi 2014. The more public criticism. 55-page report spearheaded by British lawyer Jona- There were, however, some serious conclusions that than Taylor is duly more detailed than the 34-page we can make already. In total, 4,125 athletes compet- one on Sochi and the 13-page one in London and they ing at Rio 2016 were found to have no record of being appear determined not to get it wrong again. tested this year. Even more worryingly, 1,913 of these Out of all the reports they have conducted over the had come from the 10 sports deemed to be at the last five years, only the one on the 2015 All-African highest risk. Games in Brazzaville comes even close in the criti- This, according to the report, highlighted the “inad- cism stakes. Even so, after members of the Sochi 2014 equacy” of test distribution planning by International team admitted to us how they feared never being Federations and National Anti-Doping Organisations given work again by the IOC if they did not focus on in these sports. Results of the intelligence testing sub- the positives, you wonder if they could have concluded sequently carried-out also “potentially indicated that even more critically this time around? the athletes in question had not expected to be tested They assert that, “generally, the integrity of the and thought they could dope right up to the Games process was not undermined”, but, as is often the way with impunity”. with these things, positive conclusions are not always This is deeply concerning considering the year we backed-up by the nitty gritty details. have had. The IOC were in no doubt, and my colleague Liam WADA also felt the need to point-out that there was Morgan has already put their gushing press release no out-of-competition testing in football and “limited” trumpeting a “successful anti-doping programme” to testing for “Erythropoiesis-Stimulating Agents” in the sword. It bolstered our view that the IOC need swimming, cycling and athletics endurance events. a radical rethink of their communications strategy. There was also “little or no” blood testing took place Facing spin with similar levels of competence to the in weightlifting, the most drug-addled sport of all if England cricket team, they have once again made retested samples from Beijing 2008 and London 2012 a situation worse with a condescending attempt to are anything to go by. switch the agenda which insulted the intelligence of Clearly, the organisation of Rio 2016 was at least everyone who read it. partly to blame for this, but the singling out of these Clearly, there were some positive aspects. The sports suggests that they were worse than the norm. intelligence-led approach focusing on quality rather And in the case of weightlifting, whose officials con- than quantity was certainly one, showcased by their stantly claim to catch more athletes because their pro- Pre-Games Intelligence Task Force, while their increas- cedures are more stringent than those in other sport, ing use of the Athlete Biological Passport system was this is not good enough. another. Another nugget buried in the report is that one Security also gets a resolute green light, although I unnamed International Federation delegate was “so sincerely doubt the Brazilians would have been com- upset with the perceived lack of collaboration that he petent enough to even consider a system as sophisti- effectively withdrew all cooperation with the doping cated as the one allegedly undertaken by Russia during control personnel working at his IF’s event”. Sochi 2014. A private team guarded the laboratory While many anti-doping officials still have doubts alongside 180 surveillance cameras, including one per- about the envisaged “independent” testing system due manently displaying the cold storage room in which to come in by Pyeongchang 2018, the evidence here samples were kept. further suggests that the conduct of Ifs is not good But daily targets for out-of-competition testing were enough. “rarely met” and were often “only 50 per cent or less” Overall, the WADA report is a brilliant exercise in of planned figures. As mentioned already, blood test- the incompetence of Rio 2016, further showing how, ing was rudimentary, while only 28.62 per cent of the despite the brilliance of sporting performances, the 11,303 athletes competing at Rio 2016 were tested. first South American Games were far from “marvel- There were also “non-conformities” in the processing lous” (©Thomas Bach) in an organisational sense. of around 30 per cent of samples received; in compari- Yes, some elements of the programme as well as the son to 10 per cent at London 2012. wider backs against the wall mentality does deserve As it stands, we can only agree that “it was only due praise, and it does seem that the crux of the problem to the enormous resourcefulness and goodwill of some was Brazilian inefficiency rather than fundamental key doping control personnel working at the Games shortcomings. that the process did not break down entirely”. But certainly the report does, on the whole, produce It would be good to have some more follow-up more bleak reading on sport’s overall ability to combat inquiries, but I fear that sport will try and evade even doping. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 32 - December 2016 Partial Fixtures List 2017 Feb. 3-4 Armory Track Invitational, NYC Feb. 9 TAFWA Winter Awards Dinner, Coogan’s Restaurant, NYC, 6 PM Feb. 11 Millrose Games, Armory, NYC March 2-4 NAIA Indoor Championships, Johnson City, Tennessee March 3-5 USATF Indoor Championships, Albuquerque, New Mexico March 10-11 NCAA Division I Indoor Championships, College Station, Texas NCAA Division II Indoor Championships, Birmingham, Alabama NCAA Division III Indoor Championships, Naperville, Illinois March 26 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, Kampala, Uganda April 22-23 IAAF World Relays, Nassau, Bahamas April 27-29 Penn Relays, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Drake Relays, Des Moines, Iowa May 25-27 NCAA Division I East Preliminary Rounds, Lexington, Kentucky May 25-27 NCAA Division I West Preliminary Rounds, Austin, Texas NCAA Division II Championships, Bradenton, Florida NCAA Division III Championships, Geneva, Ohio NAIA Championships, Gulf Shores, Alabama May 26-27 Prefontaine Classic, Eugene, Oregon June 7-10 NCAA Division I Championships, Eugene, Oregon June 23-25 USATF Outdoor Championships, Sacramento, California July 12-16 IAAF World U18 Championships, Nairobi, Kenya Aug. 4-13 IAAF World Championships, London Nov. 18 NCAA Division I Cross Country, Louisville, Kentucky NCAA Division II Cross Country, Evansville, Indiana NCAA Division III Cross Country, Elsah, Illinois

2018 March 2-4 IAAF World Indoor Championships, Birmingham, England March 9-10 NCAA Division I Indoor Championships, College Station, Texas April 4-15 Commonwealth Games, Gold Coast, Australia May 24-26 NCAA Division I East Preliminary Rounds, Tampa, Florida May 24-26 NCAA Division I West Preliminary Rounds, Sacramento, Calif. June 6-9 NCAA Division I Championships, Eugene, Oregon July 10-15 IAAF World U20 Championships, Tampere, Finland August 7-12 European Championships, Berlin, Germany Sept. 8-9 IAAF Continental Cup, Ostrava, Czech Republic

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 33 - December 2016