December 2019

Track and Field Contents Writers of P. 2 President’s Message America P. 3 2020 TAFWA Awards (Founded June 7, 1973) P. 4 Prefontaine’s Final Cross-Country Race P. 9 Chase Sutton Honored with Sports Photo of the Year PRESIDENT P. 9 New Website Jack Pfeifer P. 10 The Ham-Handed, Money-Driven Mangling of and Deadspin 2199 NW Everett St. #601 P. 12 The Coach Behind Many of the World’s Greatest Runners Portland, Oregon 97210 Office/home: 917-579- P. 14 Teenager Latest Kenyan Runner to Fail Drugs Test 5392. Email: P. 14 Jamaica’s Sachin Dennis to Switch Allegiance? [email protected] P. 15 Beatrice Chepkoech: Move Will Kill Careers P. 16 Empty Words and Echo Chambers Continue to Permeate the Olympic Movement SECRETARY- P. 17 IAAF Confirm Receipt of Missing Money from Nigeria TREASURER Tom Casacky P. 17 Track Briefs P.O. Box 4288 P. 18 I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined Nike Napa, CA 94558 P. 19 Tells Her Story Phone: 818-321-3234 P. 20 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials Standards Email: [email protected] P. 21 2020 Standards FAST P. 22 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials Schedule - Revised Dave Johnson P. 23 IAAF Taking the Lead in Transgender Regulation, Working With Other IFs on Testosterone Email: Levels [email protected] P. 24 LED Dazzled at Phone: 215-898-6145 P. 26 Is is Time for a Trade Union for Athletes? WEBMASTER P. 27 In Swipe at Russia, U.S. Says Countries Can’t be Allowed to ‘Steal’ Olympic Medals Michael McLaughlin P. 28 Canadian Runner Suggests Changes to Diamond League Broadcasts Could Save Events Email: P. 29 World Athletics Responds to DL Event Cut Protest [email protected] P. 30 Munich to Host Multi-Sport European Championships in 2022 Phone: 815-529-8454 P. 31 Runner Diego Estrada Knows the Weight of Joining Team USA NEWSLETTER EDITOR P. 32 Ancient Cup Given to 1st Victor Returned to Shawn Price P. 33 Another of ’s Runners Says He Ridiculed Her Body for Years Email: P. 35 Mayor Warns IOC of Risks Attached to Airbnb Deal [email protected] P. 35 A New Series: The Continental Tour Phone: 979-661-0731 P. 36 French Steeplechaser Reportedly Fails Doping Test P. 36 Russian President Resigns as Federation Faces Expulsion Threat P. 37 Oregon Seeks Artifacts P. 37 Olympics: Japanese, English - But Where’s the French? P. 38 Russia Facing Possible Track and Field Expulsion Over Faked Medical Records P. 39 Muhammad and Kipchoge Named World Athletes of the Year P. 40 Mary Cain Still Calling on Nike to Hold Third-Party Probe Into Disbanded Oregon Project P. 42 USADA Chief Calls for Complete Ban of Russian Athletes from Olympics P. 43 Giving Thanks to Maximilian F. Ihmsen for ’s Olympic History P. 45 Shore AC Anniversary Party • Elliott Denman’s 85th Birthday Party P. 46 Oregon Gov. Kate Brown Will Need Help from Legislature to Fund World Championships P. 47 USATF Announces Olympic Games Toyko 2020 Coaching Staff P. 48 Partial Fixtures List President’s Message - December 2019 A new decade Another Olympic season is upon us. The Tokyo Games are seven months away, the Eugene Olympic Trials six. This will be the fourth consecutive time the Trials have been held in Eugene, dating back to 2012 – though they were supposed to be in , until Mt. SAC dropped the ball on its new stadium. Nevertheless, the Trials will be in a new stadium after all, the completely rebuilt , set to open 100 years after the original was built. The first meet scheduled for the new stadium is the Pac- 12 Championships May 16-17. A number of questions have come up regarding the new press setup. TAFWA has reached out to the University, and we expect to have information on the subject for the January Newsletter. Stay tuned.

2020 Dues It is time to pay your Dues for 2020, $30 to Treasurer Tom Casacky, by check or Paypal.

Awards Nominations for our 2020 Awards can be made now through May 1. The exceptions to this are Film & Video and Books, which must be nominated sooner to give the respective selectors, Nancy Beffa and Peter Walsh, time to review all the submissions. Next year’s awards will be presented during the Olympic Trials in Eugene. No TAFWA event is sched- uled for the 2020 NCAA in Austin.

Mary Cain Once the country’s young sensation, she has returned to the limelight with her outspoken comments on her treatment at the hands of her sponsor, Nike, and her coach, Alberto Salazar. There is more on Cain in this issue, including her gutsy insistence that Nike not be allowed to investigate itself.

Russia It doesn’t get any better with them. The internal manipulations of their drug history continue. Some corners want them out of the Olympic Movement entirely, all sports, no Autonomous athletes. You won’t get an argument from this corner. The country’s entire culture of deceit has to be overturned. Meantime, a teenager became the 43rd Kenyan runner to be caught for drugs … this year.

HIGH SCHOOL TRACK 1940 Jack Shepard, boys HS editor for Track & Field News and editor/publisher of the High School Track series (since 1980), along with Bob Jarvis, FAST Award winning statistician, have spent decades gathering data to con- tinue High School Track back into the pre-1950s. The first of this historic series covers the year 1940. The booklet contains 30-deep yearly lists, with meet/site/date, along with the then HS records and 10-deep all-time lists. [26 8½” x 11” pages]

Send a check or money order for $20, made payable to Jack Shepard, 14551 Southfield Dr., West- minster, CA 92683. Postage is included in the price for North America. Add $2 for foreign postage.

TAFWA Membership Dues for 2020 TAFWA dues for 2020 will remain at $30, and will buy you a series of excellent newsletters, the 2020 FAST Annual, and privileged entry to special TAFWA social events at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene (our yearly breakfast with athletes and coaches). Don’t miss out! You can send a check, payable to TAFWA, to PO Box 4288, Napa, CA 94558, or use PayPal, to the ad- dress [email protected]. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 2 - December 2019 2020 TAFWA Awards Recognizing excellence in track & field journalism, announcing, photography, film & video, websites, broadcasting, writing, and cooperation with the press.

Presentation TAFWA’s 2020 awards will be presented June 26, 2020, in Eugene, Ore., during the Olympic Trials. Self- nominations are allowed. Include the nominee’s name and contact information.

James O. Dunaway Memorial Award For excellence in track and field journalism, in print or online, during 2019 Award Chair: Jack Pfeifer ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1

Sam Skinner Memorial Award For ongoing cooperation with the press Award Chair: Walt Murphy ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1 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

Photography Awards For excellence in track and field photography Rich Clarkson Award presented to a current photographer Award Chair: Kim Spir ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1 Note: Submit an electronic portfolio Manning Solon Award For a career of excellence in track and field photography Award Chair: Steve Sutton ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1

Bud Greenspan Memorial Film & Video Award For excellence in track and field/running film & video production Award Chair: Nancy Beffa ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: March 1 Note: This award will recognize outstanding achievement in film or video on track and field or running during 2019 Criteria: Contact Nancy Beffa for details • Submissions will be judged on innovation, impact and content • Entries must have been released, televised or copyrighted in 2019 • Must be at least 25 minutes in length • Please submit 2 DVD copies of the film or a link to the work online

Adam Jacobs Memorial Award for Online Excellence For excellence in online personal writing on track and field, cross country or running in 2019 Award Chair: Paul Merca ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1

Coogan’s Track & Field Book Award For the leading book published in 2019 on track & field, cross country or running Award Chair: Peter Walsh ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: February 1 Note: Please submit three copies of the book for review to Peter Walsh, Coogan’s Restaurant, 4015 Broadway, New York, NY 10032

Cordner Nelson Memorial Award For a body of work writing about track & field and running Award Chair: Jack Pfeifer ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1

H. D. Thoreau Broadcasting Award For excellence in track & field broadcasting Award Chair: Jack Pfeifer ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 3 - December 2019 Prefontaine’s Final Cross-Country Race By Andrew Boyd Hutchinson | https://medium.com/@Real_XC/prefontaines-final-cross-country-race-2a3c0051f962 The date was September 28, 1974, a typical, sunny, late-summer course was used just once. Saturday in Eugene, Oregon — where local talent converged on “We never used the course to race on again. Sometimes we Lane Community College for a special one-off European-style would train on it. Our team did assist with building the trails,” said cross-country romp. One runner called it a “hack event”; the Eu- Krause. “Later, in the early 80’s, they used Lane as the USA qualify- gene Register-Guard noted “the rough and rugged terrain…splash- ing race for the World XC Championships, but I don’t believe they ing through water jumps.” A sweet spot in time: the Oregon Track ran up in the hills.” On January 19th 1980, won at Club Invitational International Cross Country Meet could have Lane, en route to becoming the first U.S. runner to win the men’s made history. Instead, it was nearly forgotten. senior title at the World Cross-Country Championships. But Virgin Unique even to those who took part, the meet resonates like didn’t have to contend with barriers, water, or the steep sections. a Homeric saga––full of young heroes, legendary veterans, and This particular September in 1974, there was an aura sur- occasional notes of colorful absurdity. For these reasons and many rounding Eugene that bordered on the unbelievable. More than a more, it bears remembering 45 years later. uniquely challenging course, it was the circumstances surrounding First were the barriers, solid wood and standing the attendees that also warranted attention. thigh-level, situated out of place on the fringes of Lane’s athletic The local prep harriers in attendance just so happened to be the fields. Next was the distance. For the high schoolers it wasn’t the fastest team in the nation. South Eugene High School had won the sanctioned 4,000-meter Oregon state course they were accus- Oregon state cross-country title in back-to-back tries entering the tomed to, it was significantly longer — 5,000 meters for girls and 1974 season — and they’d go on to win it again five weeks after 6,000 meters for boys. For the qualified elite men it was double this event in commanding fashion — also held at Lane. Led by that: a full 12,000 meters of racing, seven and a half miles encom- coach Harry Johnson, who started his high school coaching career passing two tours of Lane’s unforgiving loam. as a hard-nosed gymnastics coach (and would later be recruited “Unforgiving” meant sections of flat, grassy sod, interspersed by Nike to foster their Athletics West program), the Axemen from with the aforementioned steeplechase barriers… gnarled wooded South Eugene were fast and had unusual depth. South Eugene sections that had trees within singlet-snagging distance… sharp, alum Steve Surface shared the story: “Prior to 1972 South Eugene 200-meter inclines and even steeper descents… wet creek beds, had only nine runners [total] go sub-10:00 in the two-mile in rolling singletrack, muddy hills, road crossings… and a sprint fin- school history. In 1973 we had nine guys run sub-10:00, and 24 ish on the track through the water-splash. Proper cross-country, run sub-5:00 for the mile…Prior to 1973 only two Oregon preps then. had gone sub-9:00.” Eugene native Scott Krause explained his experience: “I was in In the fall of 1974, South Eugene’s team leaders were brothers that race…kinda… Two or three of my teammates finished in the Bill and Steve McChesney, who boasted track times in the two-mile top-10 over the 7.5 mile course, which was run on the athletic of 8:55 and 9:04, respectively. Behind them came Seth Brown fields of LCC and in the wooded hills above the college. There were (8:30 for 3,000-meters), John Gustafson (4:16 miler and national lots of barriers, creek beds and hills to navigate. Did I mention the prep record-holder in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at 9:06), Rich poison oak?” Harter (4:25 in the mile and 9:25 in the two-mile), and sixth-coun- Poison oak is a Lane fixture even now. Krause shared, “Lane, to ter Chris Nielsen, who clocked 4:12 in the mile the spring of 1975. this day, is the most-used XC course in the state. The Oregon HS At the 1974 Oregon State Cross-Country Championship, South State Championships are held there every year.” But this particular Eugene made history, running the fastest team time for 4,000-me-

Bob Williams (left) and Steve Prefontaine (right) hurdle a steeplechase barrier at Lane Community College in Sept 1974. Photo courtesy of Bob Williams. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 4 - December 2019 ters for a high school squad, ever. Faster than known teams from Elmhurst, Illinois, Hammond, Indiana, and Palos Verdes, California that year, the Axemen from South Eugene averaged an impressive 12:02 among their top five. Behind Bill McChesney’s indi- vidual victory in 11:38 and brother Steve’s sixth-overall finish in 11:57, the team scored 56 points total. Seth Brown (13th) crossed in 12:09, Gustafson (15th) in 12:12, and anchor Harter in 12:17. Their 12:02 team average is a U.S. national record for 4km (2.5 miles) that still stands today. But South Eugene High School wasn’t the only national-caliber team on the course on September 28, 1974. Host Lane Community College also had an impressive record. Two years earlier Lane had won the Junior Col- lege National Cross-Country Championship held in Pensacola, Florida. And by 1974, the national championships were to be held on Lane’s home course. In 1974 the Lane Titans’ top runners were Rod Cooper and John Miller, who each later ran for the University of Oregon. Fellow Or- egon Duck and Lane alum Ken Martin spoke of his time there: “At Lane, we were basi- cally doing the South Eugene High School training…I could just barely hang on to their top guys,” he admitted. “Which impressed [Coach] Dellinger.” Lane coach Al Tarpenning was the impetus behind this 1974 invitational. He was close to not only South Eugene’s Harry Johnson, but also University of Oregon icon . Tarpenning’s Titans won nine-straight Oregon Community College Association championships in cross-country and track between 1971 and 1980. He was named Coach of the Year 37 times, one for each of his championship seasons. Bowerman needed no introduction. By the time of this inaugural OTC cross-country meet he had retired from his storied stint as head coach of the University of Oregon’s athletics programs. And yet his iconic stature was stronger than ever. He seemed to cast a gold and green hue on everything he touched. Bowerman was the emblematic face of the Eugene running community, and like usual, he had galvanized the community to make this event a reality. It was in 1956 that Bowerman, Tarpen- ning, and others founded the Emerald Empire Athletic Association, whose rise coin- cided with the mobilization of U.S. distance running — which was just beginning to emphasize post-graduate training and travel for international competition. That year the EEAA hosted their first major track invita- tional: a highly successful USOC-sanctioned event that drew many leading American ath- letes, including several Olympians. Funded entirely by local donations, this initial event led to many more, and by 1965, when the EEAA changed its name officially to the Oregon Track Club, Eugene track meets of all stripes were consistently drawing top-ranked Never-Before-Seen Photos from the 1974 Cross-Country Event. Open Women competitors from around the country. (top) and Master’s Men (bottom). Photos by Joe Matheson, Eugene Register- 1968 was the year, hot off the thriv- Guard. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 5 - December 2019 In 1971, the Oregon Ducks won their first NCAA Cross-Country team title. Prefontaine is second from left on the top row, shadowed by Bowerman, with Bill Dellinger featuring on the far-right. Source: The University of Oregon archives. ing competition at the Olympics, that Bowerman named head coach of the 1972 Olympic team, and from there the recruited Bill Dellinger to join him at the University of Oregon as momentum kept building. an assistant coach. Dellinger, who had been coaching at Lane Com- Starting in 1973, the OTC’s “restoration” track meets at Or- munity College alongside Al Tarpenning, was then tasked with egon’s Hayward Field helped modernize the stadium by bringing in profiling Oregon’s hottest sensation: a high school senior from top international competition and abundant local profits, all with Coos Bay named Steve Prefontaine. Bowerman’s guidance. After holding the second restoration track After a meteoric rise in high school (twice state cross-country meet in the spring of 1974, Bowerman then turned his attention champion and national prep record-holder in the two-mile) Pre- to hosting the AAU national cross-country championship that fontaine trained under Bowerman and Dellinger at the University coming fall. A foreign visitor shared: to become the most prolific distance runner the had “The local club is Oregon Track Club. It runs an on-off program of seen in decades — possibly, ever. running events throughout the year…Quality of fields is excellent. I If Bowerman was the face of Eugene running, Prefontaine was ran in a local cross-country hack event last Saturday and the personnel its beating heart. Although he obtained three NCAA titles in cross- included Steve Prefontaine, Bob Williams, and George Conelrey plus a country, Prefontaine was practically unbeatable on the oval. By the few college stars. This course will be used for the National AAU Cross- time he graduated he had collected nine collegiate track records, Country Championships in November, so I’ll let you know the results.” including four-straight collegiate 5,000-meter titles, and an unde- With all of this came the undeniable presence of Prefontaine feated college career in races at 3 miles, 5,000 meters, 6 miles, and at his peak. 1974 was the year Prefontaine held every American 10,000 meters. record from two-miles to ten thousand meters. He ran his Ameri- As such, it was widely believed that cross-country was not Bow- can 10K record (27:43) in front of a home crowd at Hayward Field erman’s forté. Until Prefontaine arrived, the men of Oregon had in April at Oregon’s Twilight Meet. In early June he edged Frank only raced at the NCAA cross-country championships three times, Shorter in the three-mile at the second restoration meet, clock- without any individual or team championships. With Prefontaine ing 12:51. He would then go on to race in Europe, setting national on board, the Ducks finished first twice as a team, in 1971 and records for 5,000 meters (13:21), 3,000 meters (7:42), and the 1973, to go with Pre’s three individual cross-country titles. two-mile (8:18). Prefontaine’s goal was to run his best in the later Bowerman retired as Oregon’s head coach in March, 1973 and summer months to mimic conditions for the 1976 Summer Olym- was succeeded by assistant coach Bill Dellinger. But he remained pic Games; to avenge his fourth-place finish from the 5,000-meter as active as ever. After the Oregon Track Club hosted the U.S. in Munich, 1972. Olympic Track and Field trials in Eugene in 1972, Bowerman was In early September, three and a half weeks before the 1974 OTC TAFWA Newsletter - Page 6 - December 2019 Invitational, Prefontaine raced in front of a hometown crowd at Oregon State Cross Country Championship three times in four Hayward and ran a 3:58 mile. The meet was a simple all-comers. years (setting a course record of 9:59 for 3,000 meters in 1976), Bill Dellinger would later say that Prefontaine was “in awesome while also finishing with a duo of back-to-back top-ten finishes at shape. Maybe the best he’d ever been in.” the Women’s National Cross-Country Championship in 1975 and But Prefontaine had never encountered a race as long as the 1976 (all as a teenager still in high school). Forbes would then go cross-country course OTC had planned. Seven and a half miles was on to compete at the World Cross Country Championships and much further than he was used to, and with the steeple barriers run well for the University of Oregon. On this day in 1974, she ran and obstacles thrown into the mix, much more treacherous, too. 20:07 for the 5,000-meter distance, beating not only the highly That made this OTC cross-country invitational — the first of its lauded high schoolers in attendance, but runners twice her age in kind — quite the enigma. Scott Krause described the route: the field representing the Oregon Track Club and beyond. “The start by the baseball field: every cross-country race at Lane For the masters men’s division, Ken Richardson was photo- since the 1960’s has started there. So the international XC course ran graphed leading mayor Les Anderson as they ran by the I-5 free- this loop and as we came out of the ponds, we turned right — just at way. Both would finish well behind Oregon state masters distance the west bank of the track — and headed across the road and into the champion Ray Hatton of Bend, who won the 6,000-meter race in hills. The course looped in the hills on the south side of campus and 20:01 (about 5:21 per mile). came out at Poison Oak Alley. From there began another complete loop. Similar to their state meet triumph five weeks later, the On the second loop, after going around the ponds, instead of turn- McChesney brothers would win the high school boys 6,000-meter, ing right again at the west bank, we finished with 300 meters on the clocking 19:40 for Bill and 20:09 for Steve. Teammates Brown track. The water splash? It was a dry creek bed with steep entry and (20:35), Nielsen (20:50), Harter (21:04) and Gustafson (21:24) exit about 400 meters after crossing the road into the hills. It only had would also do well. [real] water in it in the winter. The hill coming out of the woods and Fighting through the frustrating course layout and finishing onto Poison Oak Alley was a very steep downhill [of about] 200 meters. the arduous 7.5 mile (12,000-meter) run in 37:37 (5:02 mile pace), I believe there were 2–3 of those [steeplechase] barriers set up between Prefontaine would lead his Oregon Track Club teammates across Poison Oak Alley and the ponds along 30th Avenue (a very flat grassy the line. Williams would finish second in 38:03, Conelrey fifth in area).” 39:13, and Heinonen sixth in 39:29. Among the giants stood Lane The novelty of the event, along with Bowerman’s and Tarpen- Community College runners Rod Cooper (fourth in 38:49), Jeff ning’s promotion, attracted about 200 competitors (about 60 of Book (ninth in 40:19), Carl Johnson (tenth in 40:48), and John those raced in the men’s open race; more runners featured in the Miller (eleventh in 40:51). junior classes). Among the starters were local celebrities, like Eu- Following his victory in the men’s open division over 12,000 gene’s mayor, Les Anderson (whose son, Jon, had qualified for the meters, Prefontaine went on to register for the 1974 AAU National U.S. Olympic Team in 1972). Other entrants included the Oregon Cross-Country. A billing that hyped the showdown between Frank Track Club’s Tom Heinonen, who played an influential role in the Shorter (four-straight national cross-country titles), and Prefon- development of women’s athletics at the University of Oregon taine (three-straight NCAA cross-country titles), the race would when he joined the coaching staff in 1975 as the University’s only ultimately be held in Belmont, California where Prefontaine’s col- full-time women’s track and field and cross-country coach. lege rival John Negno claimed victory. Speaking in the lead-up to Meanwhile, the race itself would prove to be as diverse and the race, Prefontaine’s close friend shared: “[Prefon- memorable as the participants. taine’s] busy building a sauna now and not running much. I’m all Bob Williams, an All-American steeplechaser at the University for him taking a length of time off. He’s been obsessed too long.” of Oregon who had won the 1967 Pac-8 steeplechase title in 8:51, Prefontaine never made it to Belmont. was running for the Oregon Track Club after finishing his master’s The cross-country landscape 50 years ago was similar to today’s. at the University that previous spring: Despite the “boom” led by Prefontaine and others, it was still “The race organizers didn’t give us very clear instructions. They said, rare in the 1970s for an event to feature elites running shoulder- go around the pond. So Steve Prefontaine and I take off, and we go left, to-shoulder on the same grounds as high schoolers and college- and we’re about 2,000 meters into the race — running together ahead aged athletes. Just like today, most invitationals segmented the of the field — and he looks at me, and says ‘Where do we go?’ I didn’t competitive classes based on school-year which ensured compe- know, and I kind of mumbled a response. Steve got real angry. ‘WHERE tition would be relative. The incorporation of barriers, ditches, DO WE GO?’ he yelled. I said, ‘We go straight! We go straight…’ so water-crossings and natural interference — born in the genesis of Steve takes off and ends up finishing on the track as I entered. I finished the sport in England, France, Belgium and Spain — was certainly 300 meters behind him for second. We were still good friends and shook atypical. Participation numbers for cross-country were still largest, hands after the race, but he didn’t apologize. He didn’t need to. That’s and most enthusiastic, at the younger echelons. just who he was.” Events like this OTC meet in September, 1974 never took hold. Across the board, all the competition was fast. Debbie McCann, In fact, even today there seems to be a modern sentiment that a sub-5:30 miler who ran for Corvallis’s Crescent Valley High cross-country just isn’t “worth” treating seriously in America at a School under coach Lyle Fagnan, finished first in the high school level that celebrates the sport the way this event did. girls division in 21:58 for the 5,000-meter course. The girls divi- But this current practice doesn’t have to be the standard. In sion was brand new for Oregon in 1974. 2004, when Nike first decided it was going to initiate a high school Five weeks later the Oregon State Cross-Country Champion- team cross-country championship, it partnered with USA Track ships featured female competition for the first time. Making their and Field to collaborate on a weekend that featured the National debut at that November state meet in 1974 were teammates Club Cross Country Championships with their prep offering: same Jenifer Bates and Kim Hills, who ran for North Eugene High course, same conditions, same day of competition. While that School. Bates finished 13 seconds back of McCann at this Septem- event, too, was a one-off, it was also an overwhelming success. ber OTC event and would go on to finish seventh overall at state in And if major collegiate meets across the nation every fall are any November. Hills (who finished fourth in this race, 39 seconds back indication, the best college competition typically draws the biggest of McCann) crossed the line 12th overall at state. and best high school competition if they run the same course on Also of particular note was the performance of the women’s the same day. This connection should not be ignored. open winner, Eryn Forbes, who not only decimated her competi- On November 9th, 1974, the week before the Oregon State tion — beating the nearest runner in her event by nearly two Meet where South Eugene High School set their historic meet- minutes — she did so at the age of 13 years old. Forbes, running record and where girls competition was featured for the first time, for the Portland Track Club in this event, would go on to have a Lane Community College hosted the 1974 Junior College National prosperous career. She would first gain notoriety by winning the Cross-Country Championship at Shadow Hills Country Club. The TAFWA Newsletter - Page 7 - December 2019 night before the race, the pre-meet banquet was held in the Center himself, and that way he helps the team.” He gave a treatise on Court building at Lane. It was here on Friday evening that Steve what cross-country did for the athlete: “It builds toughness (both Prefontaine spoke in front of a packed house of coaches and cross- mentally and physically), character, pride, dedication, and friend- country runners about the importance of the sport. ship…” And finally, Prefontaine shared three notes about succeed- In attendance that night was an athlete from Nebraska’s Platte ing in the sport: “Know your competition,” he wrote. “Know the Technical Community College named Rich Rohde, who asked for course. Practice for the race.” Prefontaine’s autograph after the banquet. Going through the That September OTC event in the fall of 1974 was the last banquet program, Rich later discovered Pre’s original hand-written cross-country race of Prefontaine’s career. Less than a year later he notes folded inside. tragically lost his life in an auto accident near Eugene. That night, Prefontaine didn’t talk about his own Olympic Prefontaine’s legacy lives on, however, and the opportunity for achievements or share workouts from the Oregon Track Club. the sport of cross-country to offer exciting, unique, local, high-lev- Instead, he spoke from the heart about why cross-country running el competition has never been stronger. We can all practice a little was essential: “Your number five man is just as important as your better for our next race, knowing that Prefontaine wasn’t afraid to number one man,” Prefontaine wrote. “Each man competes against give everything he had in his final run.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 8 - December 2019 Chase Sutton honored with Sports Photo of the Year The Daily Pennsylvanian won the prestigious Pacemak- er award, commonly referred to as the “Pulitzer Prize” of college journalism, for the third year in a row. The DP also took home several other awards including Senior Multimedia Editor and College junior Chase Sut- ton winning the 2019 Associated Collegiate Press Sports Photograph of the Year Award. Sutton’s winning photo was taken at the 125th run- ning of the Penn Relays. Chase’s father, Steve, is a long- time TAFWA member. This year, the DP was one of 15 publications total and the only newspaper to win the Pacemaker award. The accolade was given out by the Associated Col- legiate Press at its Fall National College Media Convention in Washington, D.C. Other winners included The Daily Bruin at the Univer- sity of California, Los Angeles, The Daily Orange at Syracuse University, and The Crimson White at the University of Ala- bama. New World Athletics Website Dear Athletics Follower,

We will shortly be launching our new website www.worldathletics.org to coincide with the change of name and brand from the International Association of Athletics Federations to World Athletics. The new website will still carry all the content you have come to expect, plus new content to help you stay close to the athletes and the sport we love. It includes new sections to make it easier for you to find the information you want, such as: Stats Zone The place to find all the facts, figures and results. Library The section to find all our documents. Inside World Athletics Governance, Structures, Who’s Who will all be centralised here. Be Active A brand new section designed for the recreational athlete and more casual fans of our sport. If you visit www.iaaf.org, you will be automatically redirected. We’ll be migrating all the old content to the new site. We’re confident that you’ll find it in our new navigation, but if you do experience any problems or identify any bugs, please let us know. If you have feedback, please send it to: [email protected].

Regards, World Athletics TAFWA Newsletter - Page 9 - December 2019 The Ham-Handed, Money-Driven Mangling of Sports Illustrated and Deadspin By Louisa Thomas | The New Yorker | https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-ham- handed-money-driven-mangling-of-sports-illustrated-and-deadspin? Two years ago, Sports Illustrated, which had been a weekly Stephanie Apstein about an outburst by a Astros magazine for decades, began publishing just thirty-nine issues executive following the American League Championship Series, a year. The magazine’s revenue from print ads had been plum- which led to the firing of that executive during the World meting since the recession; it had dropped more than forty per Series. Sports Illustrated may not have been thriving, but it cent in just the previous two years, from 100.1 million dollars, wasn’t dead. in 2015, to 57.4 million dollars, in 2017. Digital-ad revenue didn’t make up the difference, and subscriptions were down. So why does Maven seem determined to kill it? Even if it Orders to cut costs came again and again from the publisher, hits whatever benchmarks Maven has set for it, the new Sports Time Inc. At the start of 2018, Sports Illustrated went biweek- Illustrated will be unrecognizable. The plan isn’t to reinvest in ly—around the same time that Time Inc. was sold to the media the kind of reporting and writing that the magazine is famous conglomerate Meredith Corporation, which published life-style for—the kind that illuminates the inner workings of sports or- magazines such as Southern Living and Cooking Light. Less ganizations, or explains developments in strategy and analysis, than a year and a half later, in May, Meredith sold the intellec- or explores the lives of athletes, or investigates and exposes tual property of Sports Illustrated to a group called Authentic abuses of power. The plan is to attract “an intense community Brands. When the deal was first announced, it was reported of fans”—not of Sports Illustrated but of specific teams—“who that Meredith would continue to publish the magazine for come back to the site every day,” Bill Sornsin, the C.O.O., said two more years. But, a few weeks after that, Authentic Brands in a presentation. “Nobody is actually a fan of ESPN or Sports licensed the magazine’s publishing rights to a company called Illustrated,” he explained. “They’re a fan of the New York Gi- Maven. A month ago, Maven laid off around a third of Sports ants, or the Iowa Hawkeyes, or what have you. They’re a fan of Illustrated’s staff. their team.”

It seems that not one of the buyers had purchased Sports Actually, many people were fans of Sports Illustrated. The Illustrated because it valued the publication’s work. What con- publication helped shape the way people watch, talk about, and cerned the buyers was how much money they could wring from write about sports. The current economic environment is chal- their purchase. Authentic Brands held the licensing and trade- lenging for serious sports journalism, maybe even more than mark rights to celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad it is for other sorts of news. But economic factors—Google Ali, and had never actually published a magazine. The compa- and Facebook siphoning off ad revenues, the proliferation of ny’s C.E.O., Jamie Salter, wanted to stick the Sports Illustrated game highlights on Twitter and other free outlets—don’t fully name on everything from “medical clinics and sports-skills explain what is happening with sportswriting right now. Some training classes to a gambling business,” Variety reported. He of the people who are ostensibly funding it seem to have little also wanted to make “better use of the magazine’s vast photo interest in what it is and what it’s for. library.” Maven, meanwhile, laid out a scheme to launch a network of “team communities,” or local fan sites, which would I learned many of the details above from a piece titled “In- post as much search-optimized content as possible, produced side TheMaven’s Plan to Turn Sports Illustrated Into a Rickety by news aggregators and low-paid, or even free, labor. The Content Mill,” which was published, in October, by Deadspin. pitch to prospective content producers included lip service to I learned a lot of things from Deadspin over the years. It influ- the magazine’s tradition of deep reporting and award-winning enced and deepened my understanding of the conflicts between prose, but it was impossible to imagine how the company labor and management, the ways that organizations handle or could maintain high standards given the limited editorial and mishandle cases of domestic violence, and many other things. financial investments that it planned to make. Maven report- The writing that it published was, by turns, stylish, crude, edly wanted new contributors to post stories or videos multiple sarcastic, earnest, goofy, and snarky, even verging on mean. times a day—at a salary of about twenty-five thousand dollars But that brashness was often part of the point—these writers a year, with no benefits, plus bonuses for hitting traffic goals. weren’t cultivating access. They weren’t trying to be liked by the people they wrote about. That included me: after I wrote a In 2018, Sports Illustrated had nearly three million subscrib- piece for Grantland that accompanied a documentary produced ers. That was down from the magazine’s peak, and subscription by ESPN, about the first pitch that President George W. Bush numbers can be propped up by various short-term promotions. threw at Yankee Stadium after 9/11, the site published a piece Still, that’s a lot of people. It was enough people, in fact, for criticizing the network’s whole production and called my role in the magazine to produce operating profits—not high ones, and it “craven.” I had been put “in the unenviable position of writ- only under cost-saving pressure, but, at least according to one ing a story about George W. Bush without straightforwardly Meredith spokesperson, Sports Illustrated was in the black. acknowledging that the man belongs in a prison,” the writer of It had a strong and respected Web presence, and it employed the post, Tom Ley, concluded. But, however harsh Deadspin’s well-known and influential journalists. Even during the past writers were about their subjects, they respected their readers few months, under uncertain and demoralizing conditions, and they respected their mission, which was to write about the magazine’s remaining staff has produced some of the most sports—and not only sports. Because why, if you wrote about noteworthy stories in sports—investigations into allegations sports, would you pretend that sports weren’t part of the wider of sexual harassment against the former N.F.L. wide receiver world? Antonio Brown, for instance, and an instantly viral piece by TAFWA Newsletter - Page 10 - December 2019 The Deadspin piece that reported on Maven’s plans had wrote one story, was overwhelmed with vitriol on Twitter, and three authors: Laura Wagner, David Roth, and Kelsey McKin- immediately quit. ney. All three of them quit this past week. So did the rest of the staff. Whatever happens next, it seems likely that Deadspin G/O Media, facing incredible public backlash (Bernie Sand- will not, in a meaningful way, continue to exist. ers and Cory Booker are among those who have voiced their support for the departing Deadspin staffers), has tried to justi- The story of Deadspin’s demise is much weirder than the fy its decision by saying that non-sports posts drew less traffic decline of Sports Illustrated, a legacy-media publication. Years than sports posts. In doing so, it was echoing ESPN, which also ago, one of its sister sites, Gawker, published a piece about the has tried to restrict its reporting and commentary to sports-re- sexual orientation of a billionaire, and that billionaire didn’t lated analysis. ESPN has cited audience research that purports like the story; he later decided to fund a lawsuit filed by the to show that a majority of its viewers favors such restrictions, former wrestler Hulk Hogan, who believed that Gawker, in which seems conveniently beneficial to the network’s powerful another piece, which included an explicit video, had invaded his sports-league partners, most notably the N.F.L. Both ESPN and privacy. The case went on for years, and Hogan ultimately won, G/O Media have argued that the mandate to cover sports is, as and, as a result, Gawker Media, the parent company of Gawker, G/O Media put it in a public statement, “incredibly broad.” But Deadspin, and a handful of other sites, filed for bankruptcy. the limits of such a rule are as evident as they have ever been. Gawker Media was sold to Univision, which rebranded it as When the N.B.A. became embroiled in a conflict with govern- Gizmodo Media Group and then sold it to the private-equity ment interests in China, after the Houston Rockets’ general firm Great Hill Partners, which then renamed it G/O Media. manager, Daryl Morey, posted a tweet in support of protesters Deadspin’s editorial staff immediately clashed with its most in Hong Kong, ESPN’s news director sent a memo instructing recent management; in August, the site published a long inves- on-air talent to avoid discussion of the political situation in tigation into G/O Media’s hiring practices, corporate culture, China or Hong Kong—which seemed to violate the basic stan- and failures to guarantee editorial independence. Shortly after, dards of journalism. How could one provide any understanding the editor in chief, Megan Greenwell, resigned over disagree- of why Morey’s tweets were so explosive without discussing ments with ownership, which she also laid out in a long post. politics? I learned about that ESPN memo from Deadspin, too.

The writing was on the wall then. On Monday, G/O Media Former Deadspin staffers have strongly disputed G/O sent a directive to Deadspin to keep its focus on sports, and Media’s contention that non-sports posts did not attract the not on politics, or pop culture, or how to make the best chili, or highest traffic. In fact, they have claimed the opposite. (A story any of the other subjects that the site had made its own since in the looked at the numbers and backed up its founding, in 2005. “Where such subjects touch on sports, the former staffers.) On another level, though, that argument they are fair game for Deadspin,” Paul Maidment, the editorial doesn’t matter: it has long been a fundamental tenet of the site director of G/O Media, wrote. “Where they do not, they are that in order to understand what happens in sports you have not. We have plenty of other sites that write about politics, to look outside of them. You have to understand power, money, pop culture, the arts and the rest, and they are the appropriate and the broader culture in which athletes—and the people in places for such work.” Stick to sports, in other words. their orbit—operate. If you want to understand the flaws in the way the major sports leagues address domestic violence, for “Stick to sports” has for years been a favorite phrase of the instance, you need to understand the problems with zero-tol- site, always used sardonically. The staff has been tireless in erance policies. To understand anything in America right now, defending the right of athletes to speak up about issues they you have to talk about the context that has created Donald care about, and in pointing out the agendas behind those who Trump, and the context that Trump, in turn, has helped to wish they would stay silent. Or, as the longtime contributor create. And another of Deadspin’s central themes has been Drew Magary put it in a post called “You’re Not Sticking to that human beings should be allowed to talk about important Sports When You Stick to Sports,” earlier this year, “Sports are things, and joke about ridiculous things, regardless of what a highly visible part of the world, and they are both underwrit- their job is—not because they have a platform or a mandate ten and infiltrated by multiple political forces in that world. but just because they’re human beings. You think I wanna fucking talk about politics? I don’t. I swear. I just wanna smoke some dope and chill the fuck out and treat I don’t doubt that ESPN’s audience research suggested that politics as something tedious and inconsequential. But that is many people, as they eat their Cheerios, prefer not to read not the country I live in.” about anything more controversial than going for a two-point conversion. That’s a human impulse, too. But the anxiety The memo from Maidment went out the same day that G/O around preserving sports as a carefully insulated and entertain- Media was facing a minor insurrection from its Web sites, ing distraction may be as damaging as treating them merely which jointly published a post criticizing new video ads on as a vehicle for short-term profits—and may not be entirely their home pages that had led to mass complaints by read- unrelated. Sports are played by real people, and organized by ers in their comment sections. G/O stepped in, removing the real people, and watched by real people, and they are influenced critical posts. The next day, Deadspin began posting stories by vast sums of real money. There is something dehumanizing that were flagrantly unconcerned with sports: one was about to pretend otherwise, and the best sportswriters have always a pumpkin thief; another was about wedding attire. Barry realized that it takes nothing from the joy of watching people Petchesky, a longtime staffer who was serving as the interim play a game to point that out. editor-in-chief after Greenwell’s resignation, was fired. After a frustrating staff-wide meeting with Maidment about the new stick-to-sports policy, other staffers started handing in their resignations, too. By the end of the week, the entire staff had quit. The first new post-exodus contributor, Alan Goldsher, TAFWA Newsletter - Page 11 - December 2019 Haji Adilo during a training session in . Source Hannah Borenstein The Coach Behind Many of the World’s Greatest Runners By Hannah Borenstein | The Daily Dose https://www.ozy.com/the-huddle/building-a-marathon-juggernaut-in-ethiopia/221285/ “This is very difficult work,” coach Haji Adilo says as we drive past an elderly woman toting a bundle of sticks on her back down Entoto Mountain in northern Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on a Thursday morning. “She’ll probably only get a few hundred birr for this.” Then he pulls out a 100 birr note (a little more than $3) from his pocket and hands it to her through the window of his black Toyota. Four-and-a-half hours earlier, as the sun was just beginning to rise, we were driving up the same mountain for a training session. Adilo, 44, was monitoring a different kind of difficult work — often glorified in Ethiopia: marathon running. Entoto Mountain stands around 10,000 feet and overlooks Ethiopia’s burgeoning capital city. It’s the high- est nearby reachable point to push athletes to their peak endurance and part of the schematic planning that Adilo oversees as coach of Ethiopia’s preeminent marathon training group. When we arrive, Adilo greets his two brothers and assistant coaches, Kassim and Moges, and his 100-plus athletes, taking the time to shake everyone’s hand individually and kiss each of them on the cheek. He then orders a one-hour- and-40-minute endurance run for most athletes and an easy 45-minute jog for those about to head out to the Marathon. Among the latter group is Kenenisa Bekele, who would win that week, two seconds shy of world-record time. Lelisa Desisa leads another pack, and two weeks later, he’d become the world champion in Doha, Qatar. Now Desisa is looking to defend his Marathon title this weekend — requiring quick-turnaround training arguably more innovative than ’s recent feat of finishing a marathon in under two hours. As the athletes head off in single-file lines, zigzagging their way through the eucalyptus forest, Haji, Kassim and Mo- ges jog next to each other, looking to spot their athletes, observe their form, talk strategy and share a few jokes. Countless stars from Ethiopia throughout the last few decades have trained under the tutelage of the Adilo family, who, as former athletes, understand the slog. Thus, the brothers are constantly talking to their athletes and consulting with each other to see how each individual is feeling physically and emotionally. “Our philosophy is structured around the athletes maintaining interest and excitement in the training,” Adilo says. “So one day we might go to Entoto for endurance training, but then we may drop down to [lower-altitude] Sebeta for speed w or k .” At the end of some training sessions, the coaches host an open forum, where the athletes and supporters — partners, siblings, etc. — can voice concerns and express feedback. The coaching magic occurs by taking each individual’s train- ing progression, race date and mental, physical and emotional health into consideration, then producing workouts that upward of 90 people can do together: collectivism in an individual, often solitary, sport. But extensive familial ties are more than a coaching style for the brothers — it is a way of life. Adilo was raised in an agrarian family with 13 siblings near Mount Chilalo in the Arsi province, famed for being the birthplace of many Ethiopian icons. He went on to win several international , but his career was cut short due to injury. Now, at any given time, up to 17 extended family members reside in his sizable Addis Ababa home. And Moges lives five houses TAFWA Newsletter - Page 12 - December 2019 down. Adilo has always incorporated attention to athletes’ entire well-being, from advising them about financial investments to sharing personal experiences. In 2006, he and Hussein Makke, of Elite Sports Marketing & Management, met through a mutual Ethiopian friend. From there, they began working together to develop the next great crop of Ethiopian distance runners. “What makes Haji such a good coach is his ability to read each athlete individually,” Makke says. “He’s very under- standing and genuine.” However, the coaching and management in Ethiopia expand beyond the marathon. While Moges, Kassim and Haji administer the marathon training program, they also are bringing up Ethiopia’s next generation of track champions. That includes several 2020 Olympic hopefuls in middle and long distances, such as 800-meter Olympian Habitam Alemu, 1,500-meter world-record holder Samuel Tefera, world silver medalist Selemon Barega and 10,000-meter world cross country champion Senbere Teferi. This breadth of talent is a testament to early and gradual development, and individualized training plans. The world champion Desisa, for instance, was approached by Adilo more than 11 years ago. “He found me at a junior competi- tion and told me to come and train with him,” Desisa says. “But now he’s become more than a coach to me. He’s like a brother, like a father to me.” Desisa’s training partner and last year’s runner-up, Shura Kitata, will also be toeing the line in New York. So, too, will 2019 Champion . Some controversy has stirred since Aga and Desisa were selected to represent Ethiopia at the world championships. Because of Doha’s grueling temperatures, the competition, usually held mid-summer, was pushed back to October. The move made it interfere with the fall marathons, and the heat still proved to be a determining factor. The race was run in 90-degree heat with 70 percent humidity, causing Aga and 27 other women to drop out. Desisa endured slightly cooler temperatures to win the men’s race. However, many have questioned the training program to be able to run two mara- thons in such close proximity (most elite athletes run only two per year). It’s required a shift. Although athletes and coaches, like much of the world, were impressed by Kipchoge’s recent sub-two-hour feat in the marathon, it was run under ideal conditions. Preparing for two different top-tier marathons in divergent climates arguably requires even more creativity. “In many ways, this preparation has gone against our past training philosophies,” Adilo says. “We’ve had to adjust and create a specific approach based on a long build-up and an active recovery period between marathons. It’s been challeng- ing, but they are capable.” Marathon spectators have come to expect runners from Ethiopia and neighboring to be out in front, and Afri- cans are often seen as naturally talented runners. But the Adilo brothers show that it takes difficult — and innovative — work to get there.

Adilo’s athlete Kenenisa Bekele runs in the 46th Berlin Mara- Ethiopia’s Lelisa Desisa celebrates as he wins the Men’s Mar- thon and wins with a time just two seconds shy of the world athon at the 2019 IAAF Athletics World Championships in record. SOURCE CHRISTOPH SOEDER/GETTY Doha. SOURCE GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP VIA GETTY TAFWA Newsletter - Page 13 - December 2019 Teenager latest Kenyan runner to fail drugs test By Duncan Mackay | Inside The Games https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1086681/kenyan-teenager-latest-kenyan-suspended

Teenager Angela Ndungwa Munguti is the latest Kenyan athlete to fail a drugs test and face a doping ban. The 17-year-old African Youth Games silver medallist tested positive for Norandrosterone, a a metabolite of anabolic steroid nandrolone, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced on Twitter. Munguti, whose personal best for the 800m is a relatively modest 2min 06.21sec, is represented by Italian agent Gianni Demadonna, a former distinguished distance runner who finished second in the 1987 . She is the second African teenager in less than a month to be charged with doping by the AIU. Ethiopia’s African Games 10,000m champion Berehanu Tsegu has been provisionally suspended by the AIU after testing positive for the blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO). Tsegu was only 19 in August when he won the African Games title in Rabat. Munguti is just the latest runner from Kenya to be linked to banned drugs. She is the 44th Kenyan athlete to be currently suspended for doping. Banned athletes include Jemima Sumgong, winner of Kenya’s first Olympic gold medal in the women’s marathon when she crossed the line first at Rio 2016, who tested positive for EPO. Last year, three-time world champion and Olympic 1,500m gold medallist Asbel Kiprop tested positive for EPO and was also banned. Between 2004 and August 2018, 138 Kenyan athletes tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, according to a World Anti-Doping Agency report published in September 2018. The report concluded that anabolic steroid nandrolone, corticosteroids and EPO were the substances most used by Kenyan athletes. Earlier this year, on the eve of the IAAF World Championships here, German broadcaster ZDF had footage which allegedly showed top male and female athletes being injected with EPO in pharmacies in the African country. There were also claims from a doctor that Kenyan athletes and officials have found a way to sidestep testing methods. International Association of Athletics Federations President Sebastian Coe promised the world governing body would investigate the claims. Jamaica’s Sachin Dennis to switch allegiance? By Jeremain Brown | RJR Gleaner | http://rjrnewsonline.com/sports/breaking-sachin-dennis-to-switch-allegiance

As the search continues for Jamaica’s next set of great male sprinters, one outstanding junior athlete may not be among them. RJR Sports understands that St Elizabeth Technical star sprinter Sachin Dennis is in the process of switching al- legiance to represent the country of Bahrain, but against the wishes of one of his parents. Dennis who won the Class 3 sprint double as well as the 100 meters twice in Class 2 at “Boys Champs” has not raced competitively since 2018. That year his winning time of 10.20 seconds for the Class 2 boys 100 meters was faster than the 10.24 posted by Calabar’s Tyreke Wilson to win Class 1. Dennis was also touted in 2017 as the fastest 15 year old in the world. There have been talks of injury since 2018 but even more eye opening has been a revelation to RJR Sports that Dennis is being courted by Bahrain for a move to represent that country but that it’s being done in a controversial manner. RJR Sports travelled to the district of Giddy Hall in Dennis’ home parish of St Elizabeth to speak with his mother Clau- dette Anderson who has expressed hurt and disagreement with how the matter is being handled by his coach at STETHS Reynaldo Walcott and his father Dalfry Dennis. But with the parents no longer in a relationship, Dennis’ mother says she is being kept away from her son and is in the dark about his future. But it was not always so, as she actually attended a meeting to discuss him running for another coun- try. She adds that she later told coach Walcott she did not agree and that she would prefer for him to represent Jamaica. Anderson says she has been in the dark since then, but revealed that Sachin has actually travelled to Bahrain Efforts by RJR Sports to get a comment from Sachin’s father were unsuccessful. RJR Sports also went to STETHS to find out from coach Walcott if Dennis was being prepared to represent Bahrain. However, he refused to comment on the record, noting it was not in the best interest of the athlete for him to do so. We also caught up with STETHS’ principal Keith Wellington who while not denying the matter and also declining to com- ment on the record, noted he could not comment on the private life of a student. Meanwhile, when contacted by phone, Dr Warren Blake, the president of track and field’s local governing body, the JAAA , said they had not been approached about Dennis switching allegiance. However, he explained that as per IAAF rules, the athlete would have had to first represent Jamaica to need permission to compete for another country. Interestingly, Dennis has never represented Jamaica.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 14 - December 2019 Beatrice Chepkoech: Diamond League move will kill careers https://www.nation.co.ke/sports/athletics/Beatrice-Chepkoech-Diamond-League-switch-will-kill-careers/1100- 5339402-jx6w0vz/index.html For the second year running, Kenya has suffered a massive blow on the global track and field circuit with the 3,000 metres steeple- chase effectively struck off the lucrative Diamond League series for 2020. Last year, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) downgraded the 5,000 metres, removing the 12-lap spectacle from the live television broadcast window of the 14-leg Diamond League series. This was after the ejection of the 10,000 metres race, a popular event especially at the leg of the series in Eugene, Oregon. As a consolation, the IAAF said in a statement on Wednesday that the steeplechase, along with the 200m, will be held at selected meetings – including Oslo, , and Doha - but outside the 90-minute broadcast window. But the two events will not be part of races culminating in an end-of-year final that earns athletes a tidy sum of money, and removing them from the live broadcast will effectively reduce their appeal. SWITCH And world women’s steeplechase record holder Beatrice Chepkoech said she was stunned by the latest development, arguing that the move would “kill careers.” “This is killing careers for athletes who had specialised in the event,” the freshly-minted world champion from last month’s IAAF World Championships in Doha told Nation Sport. “But for me, I can still switch to 1,500m and 3,000m flat and I can still do well. I can also run in the 10-kilometre road race,” added Chepkoech, who set a new world steeplechase record at eight minutes, 44.32 seconds at last year’s IAAF Diamond League meeting in . Wednesday’s IAAF statement argued that the removal of the men’s and women’s steeplechase from the 15-leg 2020 IAAF Diamond League series was informed by “Representative online research carried out in China, France, and the USA.” At the IAAF World Championships in Doha last month, the world athletics governing body announced it had expanded the Diamond League series from 14 to 15 meetings in 2020 with the additional meet to be hosted at a yet-to-be-named venue in China. China also hosts the Shanghai leg of the series. NEW SPONSORSHIP DEAL The IAAF also announced a new sponsorship deal for the series with Chinese multinational conglomerate, Wanda Group, taking over the title sponsorship for the next 10 years. Previously, Korean electronics giant Samsung was title sponsor of the annual series after it evolved from the previous “Golden League” format in 2010 before ending their backing in 2012, leaving IAAF without a title sponsor since. “The top three most popular disciplines in the Diamond League are the 100m, long jump and high jump, followed by pole vault, the 200m and 400m, according to the latest research carried out by the Diamond League,” the IAAF said in a statement on Wednesday. “Popularity of athletes, head-to-head competitions and excitement of the individual competition were cited as reasons for the choice of the most popular events in the largest consumer survey into the disciplines hosted in the IAAF Diamond League.” The IAAF added that the online research and “post event surveys in Belgium, Great Britain and Switzerland and click-throughs on Diamond League social media videos during 2019” informed their decision to drop the steeplechase along with the 200m races. “As a result of the research, and the decision taken earlier in the year that only 24 disciplines (12 male/12 female) will form the core disciplines at all meetings, eight disciplines (four male and four female) will not be contested during the 2020 Diamond League season,” the statement added. “These disciplines are the discus throw, triple jump and 3000m steeplechase - three events that currently sit towards the bottom of the research conducted - and the 200m which DL organisers felt would be too congested alongside the 100m, particularly in an Olympic Games’ year.” The statement added: “Following a detailed review of the schedule for the 90-minute broadcast window of the Diamond League both the 200m and the 3,000m steeplechase will be included in 10 meetings (five male and five female) in the 2020 Diamond League season, including Oslo, Rome, and Doha. “Two meetings will also feature discus and triple jump (one female and one male). However, none of the four disciplines will feature in the Diamond League Final in 2020.” FAST-PACED SERIES IAAF President Seb Coe, who is also the IAAF Diamond League Chairman, said they wanted a “fast-paced” series. “Our objective is to create a faster-paced, more exciting global league that will be the showcase for our sport. “A league that broadcasters want to show and fans want to watch. However, we understand the disappointment of those athletes in the disciplines not part of the 2020 Diamond League season,” said Coe. “We want to thank the 10 Diamond League meetings which have found a way to include the 200m or the 3,000m steeplechase (male and female) during the 2020 season and the four meetings hosting a discus throw competition or a triple jump competition.” “The Continental Tour, an enhanced global series of one day meetings supporting the Diamond League, will integrate these eight disci- plines to ensure athletes get opportunities to compete extensively and earn prize money. We will also work more closely with the athletes in these eight disciplines to help promote them and their events,” add Coe. The highest scoring athlete in each of the eight disciplines named above will also win a wild card into the World Championships, the IAAF said. All disciplines will be reviewed at the end of the 2020 Diamond Leagues season and decisions on the 24 disciplines for 2021 agreed. The full list of events in each Diamond League meeting will be released shortly. All meetings also have the opportunity to feature additional disciplines outside the 90-minute international broadcast window to cater to their domestic fans and athletics, which will be carried by domestic broadcasters. All meetings, including the final in , are also looking at innovation around disciplines that can be taken into city centres to attract new fans to the sport. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 15 - December 2019 Empty words and echo chambers continue to permeate the Olympic Movement By Liam Morgan | Inside The Games https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1086711/echo-chambers-empty-words-olympics Former Manchester United captain turned criticiser-in-chief Roy Keane is famous for his no-nonsense quotes and one of them got me thinking about the Olympic Movement. In an ITV documentary in 2013, Keane, reacting to a comment from his old adversary Sir Alex Ferguson in the Scot’s autobiogra- phy, said he was insulted by some of the adulation he received and compared it to “praising the postman for delivering letters”. Ignoring the aggressive tone in which it was delivered, Keane’s viewpoint is an interesting one - that he hated being revered for simply doing his job. This is where the Olympic Movement, where backslapping and lavishing praise on senior officials is actively encouraged, comes in. Its members clearly do not share the view of the former Irish midfield general. International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach this week received an honorary doctorate from the University of Gdansk for “building the Olympic Movement”, the very entity he is tasked with overseeing. Of course, administrators who do a good job in any industry should be praised but few, apart from the odd loyalist, would say Bach has been a complete success since his election as President in 2013. At last month’s Association of National Olympic Committees IOC President Thomas Bach is no stranger to accepting General Assembly, a meeting notorious for the gushing rhetoric awards and receiving praise ©IOC displayed by the membership to the top brass, the Moroccan delegate stood up unprompted to wax lyrical about the great job being done by Bach. There have been countless other examples in the past. Instead of offering worthy interventions, asking legitimate questions and holding the IOC and others to account, the delegates too often turn up purely to provide a public show of affection for the President in the hope the favour will be returned in future. The result? Far too many of these gatherings end up being little more than talking shops, where all the main decisions have been predeter- mined and genuine debate is a rarity. It is a theme apparent throughout other conferences and events across the Olympic spectrum. Last week, the International Federation (IF) Forum took place in Lausanne - billed as an annual meeting of the great and the good of the Olympic world - and was held under the banner of “athlete-centred sport”. Quite what sport is if it is not “athlete-centred”, I am not entirely sure, although that is often lost among the bluster and ego-driven nature of some of those who govern it. Either “athlete-centred sport” should be the theme of the IF Forum every year, or it is too obvious to be an appropriate tagline. I tend to lean towards the latter. Put simply, the attendees at the IF Forum - and the vast swathes of other conferences spread across the Olympic calendar - should put athletes at the centre of what they do. It is their job. Yet the attendees leave with a genuine belief that they have somehow contributed to their main mission purely by being there. They then congratulate each other for their great commitment to sport, to the Olympic Movement and to athletes, when in reality next to nothing tangible has been achieved. I am not suggesting these types of events do not have a place in the world of sport. They are good meeting points and offer officials the chance to debate key issues which have an impact. They can also be invaluable for us in the media as they allow us to ask questions directly to key administrations - when we are allowed into the sessions, that is. But they are often populated by an irritating trend of the same people saying the same things, occasionally in a slightly different way, until the next edition of that event or a similar circus rolls into town. All of this while athletes, who are supposed to be at the forefront of their thinking, continue to struggle with the same issues - a general feeling of being ignored by the powers-that-be and, in drastic cases, fearing sports organisations are incapable of protecting them and ensur- ing their safety. It would be better if concrete aims and plans were put in place at these events. Instead, you get the feeling the words spoken fail to reach further than the echo chamber in which they are delivered. It is also far too easy for the likes of Bach to step up to a lectern and give a speech promising the world to sport’s most important stake- holders. It is much harder to deliver on those promises. Speaking during the opening of the IF Forum, Bach said: “This [athlete-centred sport] is a topic very close to all of us. Athletes are not only at the heart of the Olympic Movement. They are the heart of the Olympic Movement.” Some might suggest Bach, and sport in general, has a funny way of showing it. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 16 - December 2019 IAAF confirm receipt of missing money from Nigeria By Liam Morgan | Inside The Games https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1086829/iaaf-receive-nigeria-refund Nigeria has refunded in full a payment it mistakenly received from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), ending a long-running saga which sparked a crisis at the country’s national governing body. A spokesperson for the IAAF confirmed receipt of the $65,000 (£51,000/€59,000) which remained outstanding. Nigerian Sports Minister Sunday Dare claimed last month that he had approved the refund to the IAAF and the money eventually arrived in the banking account of the worldwide organisation after a short delay. The Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) owed the IAAF a total of $130,000 (£102,000/€118,000). The IAAF had erroneously paid the AFN $150,000 (£117,000/€136,000), instead of the annual grant of $15,000 (£11,700/€13,400) it gives to its Member Federations. The remaining balance has proved a bone of contention between the IAAF and authorities in Nigeria, who had made several promises to repay it. Former Sports Minister Solomon Dalung is thought to have paid half of the outstanding amount in May, shortly after the IAAF warned Nigeria would incur sanctions if it was not returned in full. Dare revealed in a post on Twitter in October that he had sent the remaining half of the money, but the IAAF only con- firmed it had landed in its bank account this week. In August last year, Dalung supposedly pledged to immediately sign off the repayment of half the missing amount. The money has been huge issue for the AFN and led to the arrest of secretary general Amaechi Akawu by the Indepen- dent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission in Nigeria last week. Akawu was detained on suspicion of misappropriation of the $130,000 before later being released. Track Briefs USATF Cross Country Credentials May 31—Rabat, Morocco Credential applications are now open for the 2019 June 07—Eugene, Oregon USATF Club Cross Country Championships and US- June 11—Oslo, Norway ATF National Junior Olympic Cross Country Champi- June 13—Paris, France onships. July 04—, England July 10—Fontvieille, Monaco 2019 USATF Club Cross Country Championships August 16—Gateshead, England December 14, 2019 August 20—Lausanne, Switzerland Lehigh University Cross Country Course September 04—, Belgium Bethlehem, PA September 11—Zürich, Switzerland Click here to access the application. Application Deadline: December 13, 2019 Papa Massata Diack appears before judge in Dakar Papa Massata Diack, the son of disgraced former 2019 USATF National Junior Olympic Cross Coun- International Association of Athletics Federations try Championships (IAAF) President Lamine Diack, has appeared before December 14, 2019 an investigating judge in Dakar in what could be the Yahara Hills Golf Course first step in the process to extradite him to face trial Madison, WI in France on charges of hiding Russian doping cases in Click here to access the application. return for cash. Application Deadline: December 13, 2019 Swiss-based CAS to hear appeals next March Please visit usatf.org/media-center for additional The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is set to information and media credential applications for up- hear on March 3-5, 2020 appeals of five Russian track coming events. Reach out to communications@usatf. and field athletes against their suspensions over ac- org with any questions. cusations of anti-doping rules’ violations. According to the statement, the Russian track and The 2020 Diamond League Schedule field athletes at issue filed appeals with the Court of Arbitration for Sport on February 22. They are Ly- April 17—Doha, Qatar ukman Adams (triple jump), Yulia Kondakova (60 May 10—TBD, in China and 100m hurdles), Svetlana Shkolina (high jump), May 16—Shanghai, China Yekaterina Galitskaya (100 and 200m running, 100m May 24—Stockholm, Sweden hurdles) and Ivan Ukhov (high jump).

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 17 - December 2019 I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined Nike Mary Cain’s male coaches were convinced she had to get “thinner, and thinner, and thinner.” Then her body started breaking down. By Mary Cain with Lindsay Crouse | Opinion | Mary Cain became, in 2013, the youngest American track and field athlete to make a World Championships team. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/opinion/nike-running-mary-cain.html At 17, Mary Cain was already a record-breaking phenom: the bodies broke down and they left the sport. It’s easier to focus on fastest girl in a generation, and the youngest American track and bright new stars, while forgetting about those who faded away. We field athlete to make a World Championships team. In 2013, she fetishize the rising athletes, but we don’t protect them. And if they was signed by the best track team in the world, Nike’s Oregon fail to pull off what we expect them to, we abandon them. Project, run by its star coach Alberto Salazar. Mary Cain is 23, and her story certainly isn’t over. By speaking Then everything collapsed. Her fall was just as spectacular as out, she’s making sure of that. her rise, and she shares that story for the first time in the Video On Thursday, Nike released this statement: Op-Ed (https://nyti.ms/2pFE30g). These are deeply troubling allegations which have not been Instead of becoming a symbol of girls’ unlimited potential in raised by Mary or her parents before. Mary was seeking to rejoin sports, Cain became yet another standout young athlete who got the Oregon Project and Alberto’s team as recently as April of this beaten down by a win-at-all-costs culture. Girls like Cain become year and had not raised these concerns as part of that process. We damaged goods and fade away. We rarely hear what happened to take the allegations extremely seriously and will launch an imme- them. We move on. diate investigation to hear from former Oregon Project athletes. At The problem is so common it affected the only other female Nike we seek to always put the athlete at the center of everything athlete featured in the last Nike video ad Cain appeared in, the we do, and these allegations are completely inconsistent with our figure skater Gracie Gold. When the ad came out in 2014, Gold, values. like Cain, was a prodigy considered talented enough to win a gold On Friday, Mary Cain responded to Nike’s statement: medal at the next Olympics. And, like Cain, Gold got caught in a For many years, the only thing I wanted in the world was the ap- system where she was compelled to become thinner and thinner. proval of Alberto Salazar. I still loved him. Alberto was like a father Gold developed disordered eating to the point of imagining taking to me, or even like a god. her life. Last spring, I told Alberto I wanted to work with him again — Nike has come under fire in recent months for doping charges only him — because when we let people emotionally break us, we involving Salazar. He is now banned from the sport for four years, crave their approval more than anything. and his elite Nike team has been dismantled. In October, Nike’s I was the victim of an abusive system, an abusive man. I was chief executive resigned. (In an email, Salazar denied many of constantly tormented by the conflict of wanting to be free from Cain’s claims, and said he had supported her health and welfare. him and wanting to go back to the way things used to be, when I Nike did not respond to a request for comment.) was his favorite. , an Olympic distance runner who trained with Last month, after the doping report dropped that led to his the same program under Salazar until 2011, said she experienced suspension, I felt this quick and sudden release. That helped me a similar environment, with teammates weighed in front of one understand that this system is not O.K. That’s why I decided to another. speak up now. “When you’re training in a program like this, you’re constantly People should never have to fear coming forward. I hope this reminded how lucky you are to be there, how anyone would want Nike investigation centers on the culture that created Alberto. to be there, and it’s this weird feeling of, ‘Well, then, I can’t leave Nike has the chance to make a change and protect its athletes go- it. Who am I without it?’” Goucher said. “When someone proposes ing forward. something you don’t want to do, whether it’s weight loss or drugs, you wonder, ‘Is this what it takes? Maybe it is, and I don’t want The video led to an outpouring of stories and eyewitness ac- to have regrets.’ Your careers are so short. You are desperate. You counts from other athletes. want to capitalize on your career, but you’re not sure at what cost.” , Olympic medalist, New York City She said that after being cooked meager meals by an assistant Marathon champion and Nike coach. coach, she often had to eat more in the privacy of her condo room, “I had no idea it was this bad. I’m so sorry @runmarycain that nervous he would hear her open the wrappers of the energy bars I never reached out to you when I saw you struggling. I made she had there. excuses to myself as to why I should mind my own business. We let A big part of this problem is that women and girls are being you down. I will never turn my head again.” forced to meet athletic standards that are based on how men and Cam Levins, Olympian and former Nike athlete. boys develop. If you try to make a girl fit a boy’s development “You deserve an apology for not having a person who was look- timeline, her body is at risk of breaking down. That is what hap- ing out for you in the right ways during your time in Portland at pened to Cain. the Oregon Project, and I wish I had been that person. After months of dieting and frustration, Cain found herself “I knew that our coaching staff was obsessed with your weight choosing between training with the best team in the world, or loss, emphasizing it as if it were the single thing standing in the potentially developing osteoporosis or even infertility. She lost her way of great performances. I knew because they spoke of it openly period for three years and broke five bones. She went from being a among other athletes.” once-in-a-generation Olympic hopeful to having suicidal thoughts. Amy Begley, Olympian and former Nike athlete. “America loves a good child prodigy story, and business is ready “After placing 6th in the 10,000m at the 2011 USATF champi- and waiting to exploit that story, especially when it comes to girls,” onships, I was kicked out of the Oregon Project. I was told I was said , who ran for Nike until 2012. “When you too fat and “had the biggest butt on the starting line.” This brings have these kinds of good girls, girls who are good at following di- those painful memories back.” rections to the point of excelling, you’ll find a system that’s happy Steve Magness, former Nike coach. to take them. And it’s rife with abuse.” “In 2011-2012, I witnessed many instances that confirm @ We don’t typically hear from the casualties of these systems runmarycain and @yoderbegley’s accounts. It was the norm. It was — the girls who tried to make their way in this system until their part of the culture. It was abhorrent.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 18 - December 2019 Full transcript of Cain’s comments: I was the fastest girl in America. I set many national records and I was a straight-A student. When I was 16, I got a call from Al- berto Salazar at Nike. He was the world’s most famous track coach and he told me I was the most talented athlete he’d ever seen. During my freshman year at college, I moved out to train with him and his team at Nike World Headquarters. It was a team of the fastest athletes in the world and it was a dream come true. I joined Nike because I wanted to be the best female athlete ever. Instead, I was emotionally and physically abused by a system designed by Alberto and endorsed by Nike. This is what happened to me.When I first arrived, an all-male Nike staff became con- vinced that in order for me to get better, I had to become thinner and thinner and thinner. This Nike team was the top running program in the country and yet we had no certified sports psychologist, there was no certified nutritionist. It was really a bunch of people who were Alberto’s friends. So when I went to anybody for help they would always just tell me the same thing, and that was to listen to Alberto. Alberto was constantly trying to get me to lose weight. He created an arbitrary number of 114 pounds and would usually weigh me in front of my teammates and publicly shame if I wasn’t hitting weight. He wanted to give me birth control pills and diuretics to lose weight — the latter of which isn’t allowed in track and field. I ran terrible during this time. We reached a point where I was on the starting line and I’d lost the race before I started because in my head all I was thinking of was not the time I was trying to hit but the number on the scale I saw earlier that day. It would be naive to not acknowledge the fact that weight is important in sports. It’s like boxers need to maintain a certain weight or everybody ends up studying the math where the thinner you are, the faster you are going to run as you have to carry less weight. But here’s a biology lesson I learned the hard way. When young women are forced to push themselves beyond what they are capable of at their given age, they are at risk for developing RED-S [Syndrome]. Suddenly you realize you’ve lost your period for a couple of months and a couple of months becomes a couple of years, and in my case, it was a total of three. And when you are not getting your period, you’re not gonna be able to have the necessary levels of estrogen to maintain strong bone health. And in my case, I broke five different bones. The New York Times Magazine published a story about how Alberto was training me and nurturing my talent. We weren’t do- ing any of that. I felt so scared. I felt so alone. And I felt so trapped and I started to have suicidal thoughts. I started to cut myself. Some people saw me cutting myself and (voice cracking) nobody really did anything or said anything. In 2015, I ran this race and I didn’t run super well. And afterwards there was a thunderstorm going on. Half the track was under one tent and Alberto yelled at me in front of everybody else at the meet. He told me that I had clearly gained five pounds before the race. It was also that night that I told Alberto and our sports psych that I was cutting myself and they pretty much told me that they just wanted to go to bed. And I think for me that was my kick in the head where I was like, “This system is sick.” I think even for my parents in certain ways once I finally vocalized to them [what was going on], I mean they were horrified. They bought me the first plane ride home. They were like, get on that flight, get the hell out of there. I wasn’t even trying to make the Olympics anymore. I was just trying to survive. So I made the painful choice and I quit the team. Those reforms (Nike shutting down the NOP) are mostly a direct result of the doping scandal. They’re not acknowledging the fact that there is a systemic crisis in women’s sports and at Nike where young girls’ bodies are being ruined by an emotionally and physically abusive system. That’s what needs to change and here’s how we can do it. First, Nike needs to change. In track and field, Nike is all-powerful. They control the top coaches, athletes, races, even the governing body. You can’t just fire a coach and eliminate a program and pretend the problem is solved. My worry is that Nike is merely going to rebrand the old program and put Alberto’s old assistant coaches in charge. Secondly, we need more women in power. Part of me wonders if I had worked with more female psychologists, nutritionists and even coaches, where I’d be today. I got caught in a system designed by and for men which destroys the bodies of young girls. Rather than force young girls to fend for themselves, we have to protect them. I genuinely do have hope for the sport and I plan to be running for many years to come and so part of the reason I’m doing this now is I want to end this chapter and I want to start a new one. Mary Cain Tells Her Story Clean Sport Collective - Podcast | http://cleansport.libsyn.com/episode-20-mary-cain-tells-us-her-story Link for podcast: html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/12065732 In 2012, Mary Cain set the US High School record in the 1500m subsequent decision to join the . She tells the at the World Junior Championships running 4:11. Later that year, story about when Salazar first discussed her weight with her right she got a call from Alberto Salazar who invited her to come train after she won the 3000m at the World Junior Championships. with the Nike Oregon Project (NOP). She was 16 years old. After From there, she details how her weight became Salazar’s near-con- joining the NOP, she had initial success that belied her age includ- stant obsession, leading her to feel like something was wrong with ing a remarkable run in 2014 when she won the 1500m at the US her. Isolated and ashamed, she discusses how workouts and races Indoor Championships, finished 2nd to at the US became increasingly difficult as she struggled to meet the unreal- Outdoor Championships, and then capped an amazing year win- istic expectations put on her and her body. She talks about how no ning the 3000m at the World Junior Championships. one reached out or stood up for her until she finally made the deci- From there, her experience took a dark and heartbreaking turn sion to tell her parents about her struggles. From there, you will that would ultimately cause her to leave the NOP for reasons that hear about the tension between her misdirected love for Alberto only recently have been made public. On November 7th, Mary and the terrible actions against her, along with what ultimately came forward to share her story of weight shaming and emotional caused her to come forward and what she hopes happens next. abuse during her time with Salazar and the NOP in this NY Times We believe and support Mary Cain and consider her a hero for video op-ed. telling her story. We thank her for shining the spotlight not only Kara and Shanna lead this powerful interview with Mary as she on a broken system at Nike, “the global leader of sport”, but also gives more details about her time with Alberto Salazar and the on how positions of power in sport can create an unhealthy view NOP. She talks about that initial phone call from Salazar and her on bodyweight and performance. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 19 - December 2019 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials Standards Men Women Standard Field Size - Rounds Event Standard Field Size - Rounds 10.05 (32–3) 100m 11.15 (32-3) 20.24 (30–3) 200m 22.80 (30-3) 45.20 (28–3) 400m 51.35 (28-3) 1:46.00 (32–3) 800m 2:02.50 (32-3) 3:37.50 (30–3) 1500m 4:06.00 (30-3) 13:25.00 (24–2) 5000m 15:20.00 (24-2) 28:00.00 (24–1) 10k 32:25.00 (24-1) 1:36:00 (15–1) 20k RW 1:48:00 (15-1) 5:15:00 (15–1) 50k RW - - 13.48 (32–3) 110m Hurdles - - - - 100m Hurdles 12.84 (32-3) 49.50 (28–3) 400m Hurdles 56.25 (28-3) 8:32.00 (24–2) 3000m SC 9:50.00 (24-2) 2.26 (24–2) High Jump 1.87 (24-2) 5.75 (24–2) Pole Vault 4.60 (24-2) 8.00 (24–2) Long Jump 6.70 (24-2) 16.66 (24–2) Triple Jump 13.50 (24-2) 20.65 (24–2) Shot Put 17.70 (24-2) 62.00 (24–2) Discus Throw 58.00 (24-2) 72.00 (24–2) 68.00 (24-2) 75.00 (24–2) 54.00 (24-2) - - Heptathlon 6,000 pts (18) 7900 pts. (18) - -

The Sport Committee Chair will, and only where necessary, adjust • high school meets but not dual or triangular meets. the standards no later than 45 days prior to the competition, based on • meets or events which meet a minimum for competitiveness as entries received up to that time. set by the Chair of the Sport Committee and determined to be valid by As required, USATF may have no standard that is superior to the the USATF staff member responsible for the verification and validity of Olympic standard. The number of rounds in the 100m, 200m and marks. 110mH coincide with the Olympic Games program, where those who • Please refer to the following link for Criteria for a Legal Meet achieve the standard will advance directly to the quarter-final round. 3. Hand times are acceptable only for those events in which the The Men’s and Women’s T&F Chairs will handle all entry appeals up distance is equal to or greater than 800 meters. No timing allowance to 48 hours prior to the start of competition in each event. Thereafter, factor for qualifying shall be made for hand times. Hand times will be the Entry Appeals Committee, consisting of two Athletes Advisory adjusted using USATF Rule 166-7 for the purposes of seeding. Committee members, one Men’s T&F Committee member and one 4. Wind-assisted performances will not be accepted for 2020 U.S. Women’s T&F Committee member will have the sole responsibility to Olympic Trials qualifying. handle entry appeals. 5. There will be no adjustment for marks made at altitude. For each event, the approximate field size (not the minimum) and 6. Qualifying marks must be attained in a 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials number of rounds are shown. Also shown are the standards that will event. No qualifying marks will be allowed using alternate events, ex- be used for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials. cept for the men’s and women’s Mile runs as follows: An appeal to use All verified entries who have met the standard within the pre- a Mile qualifying mark for the 1500 will be accepted only if the mile scribed period and at a bona fide meet (see guidelines below), shall mark was made during the 2020 season, from Wednesday, January 1, be qualified to participate in the U.S. Olympic Trials. Additional veri- 2020 through Sunday, June 7, 2020, and the mark is 3:54.00 or better fied entries from the rank order list of those who have entered and for the men and 4:28.43 for the women. declared shall be invited to participate in the Trials only to the extent 7. An Athlete must be U.S. citizen and eligible to represent the that the indicated field size has not been filled by those with the stan- United States in international competition, as well as being a U.S. dard. An invitation will be extended to these additional persons based citizen on the date of Declaration for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials in on verified entries in their performance rank order. that event - this date being 48 hours prior to the first day of competi- tion in the event. 2020 USOT - QUALIFYING GUIDELINES: 8. Athletes who have earned Automatic Qualification into the meet 1. All qualifying performances for the U.S. Olympic Trials must be under USATF Rule 8 must follow all entry procedures and declarations attained on a standard outdoor track in the period Wednesday, May 1, procedures, and will be counted in that event’s field sizes by the seed- 2019 through Sunday, June 7, 2020, or on an indoor track, in the same ing committee. event, in the period Wednesday, January 1, 2020 through Sunday, 9. At the U.S. Olympic Trials, the mark used for qualifying and the June 7, 2020; except for the 10,000 meters, Decathlon & Heptathlon mark used for first round seeding might not be the same, as described and 20km Race Walks, whose qualifying period is from Tuesday, Janu- per USATF Rule 166.2.(d).i. Each qualified entrant in each event ary 1, 2019 through Sunday, June 7, 2020. The qualifying performance should submit a 2020 season best (January 1, 2020 – June 7, 2020) for the men’s 50km Race Walk must be attained in the period Monday performance, if one exists, whether it meets the qualifying standard January 1, 2018 through Sunday, January 12, 2020. or not. Seeding for the first round of competition is based, first, on all 2. Qualifying marks must be made in accordance with USATF Rule 2020 season performances in rank order, followed by any 2019 season 149 and verifiable in one of the following: performances, even if they do not meet the qualifying standard (Rule • USATF or IAAF sanctioned meets/events which prescribe to or 166-2.(d) i ). Note that a 2019 season mark may qualify an individual exceed USATF competition rules, or into the competition, but will not be used for seeding purposes when a • college meets/events which prescribe to or exceed USATF com- 2020 season mark exists. petition rules, or TAFWA Newsletter - Page 20 - December 2019 2020 Olympic Games Standards

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 21 - December 2019 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials Schedule - Revised Friday, June 19 3:00 p.m. Hammer Throw Men Final 11:00 a.m. Shot Put Men Qualifying 4:30 p.m. Hammer Throw Women Qualifying 2:50 p.m. National Anthem Hammer Throw Women Qualifying 3:00 p.m. Discus Throw Women Qualifying 6:30 p.m. Hammer Throw Women Final 3:02 p.m. 400m Women 1st Round 3:30 p.m. 400m Men 1st Round Thursday, June 25 3:45 p.m. High Jump Women Qualifying 1:30 p.m. Shot Put Women Qualifying 3:58 p.m. 1500m Women 1st Round 5:00 p.m. Pole Vault Women Qualifying 4:26 p.m. 800m Men 1st Round 5:45 p.m. Long Jump Women Qualifying 4:54 p.m. 5000m Men 1st Round 5:50 p.m. National Anthem 5:15 p.m. Triple Jump Women Qualifying 6:04 p.m. 1500m Men 1st Round 5:25 p.m. Shot Put Men Final 6:31 p.m. 200m Women 1st Round 5:32 p.m. 100m Women 1st Round 7:00 p.m. 5000m Women 1st Round 6:22 p.m. 10,000m Women Final 7:20 p.m. Discus Throw Men Qualifying 7:44 p.m. 800m Women 1st Round Saturday, June 20 8:00 p.m. Shot Put Women Final 12:00 p.m. 100m Men Decathlon 8:16 p.m. 400m Hurdles Men 1st Round 12:50 p.m. Long Jump Men Decathlon 8:48 p.m. 3000m Steeple Women Final 1:15 p.m. Javelin Throw Men Qualifying 1:50 p.m. Shot Put Men Decathlon Friday, June 26 3:00 p.m. High Jump Men Decathlon 1:00 p.m. Javelin Throw Women Qualifying 3:20 p.m. National Anthem 1:50 p.m. National Anthem 3:30 p.m. Pole Vault Men Qualifying 2:04 p.m. 200m Men 1st Round 4:04 p.m. 100m Hurdles Women 1st Round 2:10 p.m. Long Jump Men Qualifying 4:15 p.m. Triple Jump Men Qualifying 2:33 p.m. 110m Hurdles Men 1st Round 4:34 p.m. 100m Men 1st Round 3:00 p.m. High Jump Men Qualifying 5:03 p.m. 100m Women Semi-Finals 3:02 p.m. 800m Women Semi-Finals 5:18 p.m. 400m Men Decathlon 3:18 p.m. 400m Hurdles Men Semi-Finals 5:40 p.m. 1500m Women Semi-Finals 3:30 p.m. Discus Throw Men Final 5:42 p.m. Discus Throw Women Final 3:35 p.m. 400m Hurdles Women 1st Round 6:04 p.m. 800m Men Semi-Finals 4:05 p.m. 1500m Men Semi-Finals 6:20 p.m. 400m Women Semi-Finals 4:25 p.m. 200m Women Semi-Finals 6:35 p.m. 400m Men Semi-Finals 4:42 p.m. 3000m Steeple Men Final 6:51 p.m 100m Women Final Saturday, June 27 Sunday, June 21 9:00 a.m. 20km Race Walk Men Final 12:15 p.m. 110m Hurdles Men Decathlon 9:01 a.m. 20km Race Walk Women Final 1:20 p.m. Discus Throw Men Decathlon 1:15 p.m. 100m Hurdles Women Heptathlon 3:45 p.m. Pole Vault Men Decathlon 2:30 p.m. High Jump Women Heptathlon 5:15 p.m. Javelin Men Decathlon 4:40 p.m. Shot Put Women Heptathlon 5:40 p.m. National Anthem 5:20 p.m. National Anthem 5:50 p.m. High Jump Women Final 5:30 p.m. Javelin Women Final 5:55 p.m. Triple Jump Men Final 5:38 p.m 200m Women Heptathlon 6:03 p.m. 100m Hurdles Women Semi-Finals 5:40 p.m. Pole Vault Women Final 6:15 p.m. Javelin Men Decathlon 6:03 p.m. 110m Hurdles Men Semi-Finals 6:19 p.m 100m Men Semi-Finals 6:19 p.m. 400m Hurdles Women Semi-Finals 6:35 p.m. 3000m Steeple Women 1st Round 6:30 p.m. Long Jump Women Final 7:06 p.m. 400m Women Final 6:35 p.m. 400m Hurdles Men Final 7:15 p.m. 400m Men Final 6:43 p.m. 10,000m Men Final 7:23 p.m. 1500m Men Decathlon 7:20 p.m. 200m Women Final 7:43 p.m. 100m Hurdles Women Final 7:34 p.m. 200m Men Semi-Finals 7:52 p.m. 100m Men Final 7:51 p.m. 110m Hurdles Men Final

Monday, June 23 Sunday, June 28 4:20 p.m. National Anthem 1:00 p.m. Long Jump Women Heptathlon 4:30 p.m. PoleVault Men Final 2:05 p.m. Javelin Throw Women Heptathlon 5:15 p.m. Javelin Throw Men Final 2:35 p.m. National Anthem 5:40 p.m. Triple Jump Men Final 2:45 p.m. High Jump Men Final 5:50 p.m. 3000m Steeple Men 1st Round 3:25 p.m. Long Jump Men Final 6:22 p.m. 800m Men Final 3:40 p.m. 800m – b Women Heptathlon 6:30 p.m. 1500 Women Final 3:53 p.m. 800m – a Women Heptathlon 6:40 p.m. 5000m Men Final 4:03 p.m. 400m Hurdles Women Final 4:12 p.m. 5000m Women Final Wednesday, June 24 4:35 p.m. 800m Women Final 12:50 p.m. National Anthem 4:43 p.m. 1500m Men Final 1:00 p.m. Hammer Throw Men Qualifying 4:53 p.m. 200m Men Final Hammer Throw Men Qualifying TAFWA Newsletter - Page 22 - December 2019 IAAF taking the lead in transgender regulation, working with other IFs on testosterone levels By Rich Perelman | The Sports Examiner | http://www.thesportsexaminer.com/lane-one-iaaf-taking-the-lead-in- transgender-regulation-working-with-other-ifs-on-testosterone-levels/ Advancements in medical technologies have brought new chal- ate a “level playing field” for transgender athletes to compete as lenges to sports regulators, especially the International Federa- women: tions. One of the newest battlefields is transgender athletes. “The minimum interval between the achievement of the target serum Back in February, now-former marathon world-record holder T and eligibility for competition should be tailored for the purpose of (GBR) sounded the alarm quite clearly, telling the each sport, and possibly also for events within a sport. Considering cur- BBC: rently available scientific knowledge, an interval of at least 12 months “Right now, transgender women are not a threat to female sport. But remains reasonable; more may be appropriate depending on the sport you would be naive if you thought that, by not putting in any rules, it and event.” couldn’t come to that at some point in the future. These concepts weren’t chosen randomly, or based on simply “People will manipulate this if there is an opening there to make guessing. In addition to the scientific testing on testosterone, most money and win medals and we’ve seen the lengths people go to, the of this approach was modeled after the successful defense of the lengths Russia went to cheat in sport. IAAF’s regulations that were challenged by Semenya. There’s no “Absolutely, any transgender men or women should be able to access doubt that a legal challenge will be thrown up against such rules sport; it just depends which category.” as they are adopted; those regulations which will be upheld by the The International Olympic Committee adopted rules in 2015 Court of Arbitration for Sport are those which are as narrowly- that are now outdated and has not been able to come to a consen- drawn as possible to achieve the desired effect of fair competition. sus on new regulations as yet. But that has not stopped the Inter- The IAAF issued its own regulations for transgender eligibil- national Assn. of Athletics Federations (IAAF, soon to be World ity, approved by the IAAF Council in Doha (QAT) in October and Athletics) on its own path. effective as of 1 October 2019. The 21-page document requires Moving forward after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld those wishing to compete in the female division (in any event) to its new regulations on women with differences in sex development maintain serum testosterone levels of 5 nmol/L for a period of a – the Caster Semenya case – the IAAF has now taken the lead in year. The regulations note that typical women’s testosterone levels the transgender area, and working with other federations. are 0.6-1.68 nmol/L vs. normal male levels of 7.7-29.4 nmol/L. In a forthright approach to the issue, the IAAF hosted a meeting But even as all this was going on, a new study was announced in Lausanne (SUI) on 19 October that included not only scientific in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, in which a Swedish re- and legal experts, but also the International Paralympic Commit- search team – some of whom have worked with the IAAF – tested tee and the International Federations for golf, tennis and rowing. the impact of a moderate testosterone increase on athletic achieve- A report on this “International Meeting on Transgender Eligibil- ment in young women. ity in Competitive Sports” was issued 12 days later and outlined The findings were that a modest, 10 mg treatment of testoster- – with clarity – a process which could be used for regulating trans- one cream increased serum testosterone by 378% from 0.9 nmol/L gender athletes who want to compete as female. Highlights: to 4.3 nmol/L and an 8.5% increase in running performance was “2. Each sport is different with regard to the physical attributes that observed. That’s substantial and continues to confirm the crucial distinguish male from female performances and with regard to their role of testosterone in improved athletic performance. policy preferences for classifications. Rules or regulations intended to The IAAF is leading the issue and the impact has already spread accommodate trans athletes according to their gender identity should beyond the federations attending the Lausanne conference. On be sports-specific and designed by the relevant international federa- Monday (4th), the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) confirmed tion. So that the eligibility standards remain consistent with the best that it is “pleased by the consensus obtained by the working available evidence, such rules or regulations should always be consid- group” and “The UCI shares the conclusions reached by the partici- ered ‘living documents,’ to be updated according to the latest scientific pants, who included representatives of transgender and cisgender knowledge. athletes. The conclusions notably state that if a Federation decides “3. It is widely recognised that testosterone (T) distributes bimodally to use serum testosterone to distinguish between male and female among male and female populations. T is also the primary known driver athletes, it should adopt a maximum threshold of 5nmol/L for eli- of the performance gap between males and females. Consequently, gibility for the female category.” It plans to issue guidelines which while acknowledging that testosterone is not the only physical basis for can be adopted for use in 2020. the performance gap, serum T has been found to be an acceptable proxy The UCI’s statement is especially important given the current to distinguish males from females for sports purposes. debate inside the cycling community following the second consecu- “4. If a federation decides to use serum T for this purpose, in order to tive World Masters Sprint title won by Canada’s Rachel McKinnon, be consistent with the biological rationale for the female category, and a transgender female, in late October. based on current data, rules or regulations on trans women’s eligibility McKinnon says she is compliant with the IOC’s 10 nmol/L regu- for that category should adopt a fixed threshold at or below 5 nmol/L. lations, but the firestorm about her status on social media makes Consistent with the fact that healthy female T levels are typically in the it clear that new regulations will be just the start – not the end – of range from 0 to 1.7 nmol/L, it was noted that the typical medical target the debate. serum T for trans women who choose such intervention is well below 5 There was a time, not long ago, when the IFs worried mostly nmol/L.” about setting up event, publishing competition rules and trying For those who followed the Semenya case, the reference to 5 to promote their sports. Now, the IAAF is leading the way – even nanomoles per liter of blood is familiar: it’s the same level to which ahead of the IOC in some areas – in organizing scientific programs the IAAF now requires women with “differences in sex develop- both in research and in anti-doping and integrity enforcements. ment” to meet to compete in events from 400 m to the mile. The There is a lot of criticism in track & field circles of IAAF chief transgender proposal would apply to all athletes wishing to com- Sebastian Coe and his Monaco-based headquarters team, about pete in the female classification. the recent World Championships in Doha (QAT) and about the The report also noted that as with the Semenya case, there is standing of the sport internationally. But in the lab and in turning also a time target to reduce high testosterone levels so as to cre- up the pressure on doping, they deserve credit. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 23 - December 2019 LED Dazzled at Doha By Guy Campos | AV Magazine | https://www.avinteractive.com/markets/sports-and-arenas/ct-projection-maps- world-champions-athletics-track-07-11-2019/ The IAAF World Athletics Championships made history when it took its tournament to the Middle East for the first time since the inaugural event in 1983. The 10-day competi- tion is one of the largest sporting events in the world and saw nearly 2,000 athletes from 209 countries compete. The 17th edition of the event took place at the Khalifa Inter- national Stadium in Doha, capital of Qatar, and saw some fantastic performances and record-breaking results. For 2019 a multitude of technical innovations were introduced to the event including light shows, new camera angles and increased engagement with athletes. Florian Weber, IAAF event presentation manager, was responsible for the athletics presentation concept and challenged Cre- ative Technology (CT) to deliver a projected track-athlete introduction which covered the entire running track, entertainment lighting, LED athlete entrances for both track and field positions, and an LED medal ceremony podium on top of the usual event presentation control and stadium relay screens. VR pre-visualisation For the track projection, it was essential that the stadium was dark which required the sports lighting to be switched off. Naturally, switching the stadium lights off during a televised stadium sports show is not something broadcasters are comfortable with, so Weber commissioned CT to deliver a VR model of the Khalifa Stadium featuring athletics apparatus, production overlay and the proposed LED screens and track projection. This was primarily to present the lights-out track projection concept to broadcasters to ensure they understood and bought into the concept, but it quickly became a key pre-production tool for the IAAF as the project took shape allowing for pre-visualisation of the entire stadium by stakehold- ers and sponsors. This bespoke pre-visualisation service also assisted the broadcast team with planning camera locations around the stadium and even with individual camera and lens specifications – reducing site-visit requirements and reducing overall broadcast costs. The VR model and the easy visualisation of design changes allowed CT to work closely with the IAAF sports presentation team to plan and design the in-stadia overlay, integrating all sports, functional, presentation and broadcast elements of the event. This could then be viewed by stakeholders to assess the project and pre-visualise the whole event from all locations within the stadium and from a live broadcast perspective. LED screens To enhance the spectator experience and give a greater focus to the finals for each athletics discipline, LED screens were installed throughout the stadium with the key placements including: the medal presentation and ceremonies stage, stadium relay screens, and athlete entry screens. CT supplied over 500 sq m of recently delivered curveable 4.8mm LED screens providing a high-resolution, high brightness solution to display all the sports presentation content including event information, live video feeds, athlete information, and live results. CT also supplied eight mobile battery-powered LED Monoliths, a solution to field of play displays giving the athletes tak- ing part in the field event finals the star treatment they deserved. The LED Monoliths could be positioned anywhere around the athletics arena displaying live data for athletes’ names and country flags – a world first! Lighting Lighting was focused on occasions such as the athlete’s entrances, medal ceremonies, and every time an athlete won a tournament. CT supplied over 80 lighting fixtures which consisted of a mixture of Robe BMFL Blades, Clay Paky B-Eye K15 and Clay Paky Sharpy Plus fixtures. In addition to the lighting fixtures at the athlete’s entrance and medal ceremony stage, CT also provided lighting fixtures around the top of the stadium. These fixtures were part of the entertainment feature and added to the atmosphere of the architectural lighting of the stadium for the duration of the event. Projection Arguably the most impressive and talked about innovation at the championships this year was the track projection. CT used over 100 21K and 31k laser projectors to project custom content across the entire running track – bringing it to life during the finals. The creative team worked closely with the CT team to develop the content and technical solution to deliver the vision. This was no mean feat, considering the size and varying textures of the projected surface not to mention the resolution of the content and the last-minute line-up information for the track finals. Over a year in planning, one of the initial tests required the team to hire an athletics track close to CT’s headquarters in London Gatwick for a feasibility study, measuring the required light levels for good image visibility, and monitoring the colour of the projected image on the track surface alongside other LED display devices. The development then continued with projection tests onto samples of the actual Mondo track surface installed at the Khalifa stadium in order to look more TAFWA Newsletter - Page 24 - December 2019 closely at the colour qualities of the surface. The projector placement and light levels required were then modelled in the Photon server to work out how to project a single continuous image taking into consideration the environmental and structural constraints of the stadium and other stakeholder requirements. Camera Systems and Production CT provided cameras and switching to ensure a seamless delivery of the sports presentation content for the stadium LED screens which in- cluded: EVS playback, custom graphics, realtime edit and playback for production highlights. In all, 24 broadcast and dedicated camera feeds were fed into the PPU and sent out via the switcher as four separate HD video outputs, each fed to the stadium control system over a Mediornet wide area network (WAN). Communication and audio feeds were also transported along with the video signals via the Mediornet WAN. Editing System As part of the event presentation team, three editors were working round the clock to deliver content bespoke to each event final for use in the live event presentation and international broadcast. Multiple feeds and an 8-channel recorder linked on 10GB network to multiple NAS drives were supplied to three editors which enabled them to select and record the action from all the available camera feeds within the venue. In addition to this, the editing team had access to all the broad- cast EVS content collected on-site via IPD Director, including that from CT’s colleagues at NEP Broadcast. Stadium Control The stadium control system based around two Barco Encore switchers controlled the content to every display, with eight Watchout media servers providing 32 HD outputs for the content playback to the LED. These were also capturing 4K live data from Mercury Sports to display the digital flags and athlete names for the medal ceremony. The projection mapping and content playback was handled by six Photon media servers. CTs Mercury sport application interrogated and formatted the results and timing data to drive Character Works, al- lowing CT to deliver 13 independent scoring outputs, each capable of displaying different graphical states for 49 athletics events. Controlling the feed to the stadium PA system CT supplied a Yamaha CL5 desk, and Sigma Spot-on for audio playback. Comms Creative Technology supplied the communication systems for the event presentation team and broadcast production team. The event presentation system was built around a Riedel artist 128 matrix and featured 16 comms panels, 12 ways of Riedel C3 belt-packs. Also managed through the artist matrix were 20 Bolero wireless belt-packs for the floor manage- ment team and 4 CCP-1116 commentary units. As a backup to the event presentation system CT supplied 50 duplex hand portable radios. For the broadcast rights holders CT provided 150 hand portable radios with 18 duplex talkback channels linked from the stadium via an audio-over-fibre solution. 24 channels of MADI delivered over Mediornet were used to make four-wire connections between event presentation and the broadcast compound. Another 36 radios, four channels of Helixnet talkback and Glensound commentary units were provided at the Corniche for the event production of the road racing events, the system also featured motorbike communications and audio channel. Corniche Doha 2019 saw the debut of the first midnight marathon taking place along Doha’s corniche with the iconic skyline as a backdrop. CT was contracted to supply video and audio solutions for the marathon and walks along the corniche with further audio and comms for the spectator grandstands. CT was also responsible for distributing all live signals and content to the LED screens that ran along the finish line. Irum Ashraf, CT’s Middle East general manager, commented: “Our local office fully supported the wider Creative Tech- nology team with both human and technical resources. Having been part of several athletic meetings held in Doha over the last year, CT’s local office played a pivotal role in providing knowledge of the local market, which helped with our success- ful delivery. It’s a very exciting time for sport in Qatar right now and having a base here puts us in a prime position to be involved in such great events in the future.” Steve Purkess, head of sport at Creative Technology, said: “Working towards the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Doha has been an amazing journey, delivering presentation techniques at a scale more commonly seen in opening ceremo- nies into live athletics gave us a unique challenge. It has been a privilege for CT to play a part in delivering this game-chang- ing approach to event presentation.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 25 - December 2019 Is it time for a trade union for athletes? By Tom Craggs | Fast Running https://www.fastrunning.com/running-athletics-news/is-it-time-for-a-trade-union-for-athletes/27765 With the Diamond League announcing the cull of a wide based upon internet click throughs and ‘research’ that left range of events from it’s programme including the steeple- huge sections of the athletics community out (Africa for chase, 5000m, 200m and triple jump is it time for athletes example!) to me just encapsulates the hegemonic approach to have proper collective voice? of world athletics governance at the moment. Has the gap The decision by the IAAF and Diamond League to cull between athletes and athletic governance ever been so a broad range of events from their 2020 fixtures seems great? Something needs to change to redress that balance. to have been met with almost universal dismay, at least Glorious amateurism amongst athletes and many coaches. The amateur history if our sport affords the opportunity The basis of the decision appears to be to allow meet- for athletes to be put in a subservient position. Regardless ings to be more easily delivered in line with a 90 minute of whether athletes are full time or working other jobs to TV schedule. Whether you agree with this or not (I don’t support their careers they are all professionals. clearly) the reaction of athletes to the decision raises ques- Invoking terms like ‘for the good of the sport’ or ‘to grow tions around whether athlete’s voices are ever really consid- the sport’ is to me little different from a Victorian mill ered by those organisations who ultimately control the fate owner invoking the guilt of a puritanical work ethic. We cel- of their careers. ebrate the glorious amateur, rightly of course, but money is The decision comes on the back of a contentious World being made in our sport make no doubt about it just rarely Championships in Doha which despite some fabulous per- by athletes beyond a select few at the very top. formances and events has also been widely criticised. There “Bringing the sport into the 21st century” and “innova- is also recent decision to move the marathon and race walk- tion” – under this IAAF administration I read in the same ing events at the Tokyo Olympics to a different venue which way as businesses using terms like “streamlining and ef- has raised questions around consultation with athletes. ficiency savings” it’s a proxy for cutting the quality of the Whose interests really count? product or the money to the people who create that prod- My feeling is that if a international governing body is so uct, or both. disconnected with the values and feelings of athletes and Of course we are all passionate about the sport, and sport fans that they need poorly conducted social media ‘research’ for sport’s sake, but that should not be used as a way of su- to help them make decisions we are in trouble. pressing voices who are asking for a better lot for athletes. The reality is the Diamond League decision felt less about Power and control the ‘research’ and more about the who’s interests really Of course power and control doesn’t just rest in the count – athletes or TV? Sponsors or those creating the hands of governing bodies. It also rests in the hands of product being sponsored? brands, sponsors and race directors, coaches and selectors. In the end in Doha the fabulous performances by athletes Whilst we await more details of the scandal that seems dug the sport out of a hole it had made for itself. However to emerging from NOP for me it goes way beyond the use that should not detract from the fact that the decision to of PEDs. The bigger scandal is where the power and control take the games to Doha to start off with was hugely contro- of coaches, and of brands, leads to a broad spectrum of versial and the stated aim to spread the sport to other parts unethical practice that impacts on the mental and physical of the world seemed to be a failure given the mostly empty wellbeing of athletes. This was brought into stark relief by stadium – I can’t see the consideration for athletes in these the powerful piece by Mary Cain in the New York Times, decisions. it’s a difficult read and watch as a coach or anyone who is in A collective voice sport because they fundamentally care about people. What a difficult position for those athlete’s whose events Where do athletes turn when they are a part of this? Why have not been cut – a signficant part of their livlihoods can is it only months and years down the line (if at all) a few continue but what about their friends and training part- brave voices can feel ready to speak out? Where do athlete’s ners who will no longer be attending? This is the point in turn if they feel that selection decisions are not in line with having a collective voice. Athletes look out for the needs of policies or indeed to challenge the polices themselves? Of each other more than they do the needs of television or the course we have individual governing bodies in our own governing body. countries most of whom will have codes of conduct and Does it mean that things never change? Of course not. policies in place to safeguard the welfare of athletes. However the ‘spectacle’ of athletics is a product packaged I think it would be fair to say though that athlete’s don’t and sold by people in suits, don’t blame athletes if those often know about these and also that it is a tricky position people don’t do their jobs effectively. If TV wants to make when the governing bodies still have a significant role in athletics more engaging how about having more engaging the career of an individual athlete and where some of the voices to explain the details and intricacies of our wonderful coaches, decision makers or brands involved already have a sport? role or link to home nation governing bodies. The reductionist approach of dumbing down meetings Whilst not a traditional ‘trade union’ others sports do TAFWA Newsletter - Page 26 - December 2019 have stronger representation for athletes such as the PFA. view. In athletics of course it’s harder than football. The line Athlete commissions and forums of course have a role, between professional and non professional athletes is a and have already had some impact, but the weight of a grey one, the number and disparate interests of athletes is broader union or federation of athletes, particularly if greater but that’s not a reason to not try. harnessing a global reach would be a real force to influence Politics is everywhere decisions. It might be that athlete commissions or panels If the term trade union sounds a bit political then so be provide a starting point but for me it’s all to easy to ignore it. To me every part of our lives involves socio-political acts. unless there is a sense of collective action from a much big- Sport has never been separate from politics and right now ger base of athletes (and even separately coaches). the IAAF is led by a former politician with a specific political I don’t know how it could work. I can see huge practical outlook. Many will disagree with me but I believe this im- difficulties with a potentially unwieldy organisation repre- pacts on the decisions made and direction the sport seems senting athletes whose interests may not always align. But to be going in. something needs to change. It might be that others have a In order to influence decisions athlete’s need a stronger much better solution but I can’t see it right now. political (with a small p) voice. As long as power sits at the I don’t pretend to be objective and I know many reading top with a governing body and brands that they work with this will hold different socio-political views to me but for decisions like this will always be taken and the manipula- me athletics IS the athletes who through their physical and tion of athletes for the gain of others will continue. psychological acts inspire and entertain. Governing bodies Tokenism vs a seat at the table should tremble at the thought of the power their collective Many years ago I did a bit of work with the GMB. It was voice could bring. interesting to see how ‘staff forums’ were often used as a Idealistic perhaps but it seems to me that there is a fun- proxy for supressing real dissenting voices and placating damental lack of ideals in some of the highest international staff who felt disenfranchised by presenting too narrow a power structures in athletics, we need more, not less ideals. In swipe at Russia, U.S. says countries can’t be allowed to ‘steal’ Olympic medals By Karolos Grohmann | The Fanantic | https://thefanatic.com/more/olympics/2019/11/in-swipe-at-russia-u-s-says- countries-cant-be-allowed-to-steal-olympic-medals/ The election of a new president of the World Anti-Doping Agency should give it the strength to stop countries stealing Olympic medals, the U.S. anti-doping chief said on Wednesday in remarks aimed at Russian state-sponsored doping. Speaking at WADA’s World Conference on Doping in Sport, Travis Tygart, a strong critic of WADA’s handling of a Rus- sian doping scandal, said the Tokyo 2020 Games would be the fifth Olympics where doping was the main issue instead of athletes’ performances. WADA is set to elect Polish sports and tourism minister Witold Banka on Thursday to succeed president Craig Reedie on Jan. 1. The London 2012 Games saw scores of positive doping tests years after the event with many medals stripped, most of them from Russians athletes. Russian track and field athletes were banned from the Rio 2016 Olympics for doping, while Russia’s 2014 Sochi winter Games were tarnished by the country’s elaborate doping scheme to help their own athletes win more medals. At the 2018 winter Olympics the entire Russian team competed as independents as a result of the doping affair. “We can do more and we must do more,” Tygart, the head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), told the conference. “We cannot allow one country to steal medals.” “We must have a strong and independent WADA and not a weak service provider some have enjoyed in the last few years,” he said. The Russian sports ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment. “WE CAN DO BETTER” Russia’s anti-doping agency RUSADA was suspended after a 2015 WADA report that found vast evidence of state-spon- sored doping in Russian athletics. The country has since struggled to restore its international credibility in sport. RUSADA’s suspension was lifted in September 2018 amid strong criticism as WADA gradually obtained access to key Rus- sian athletes’ data from the Russian lab. But in September WADA again opened compliance proceedings after finding “inconsistencies” in the vast bank of histori- cal testing data finally handed over in January. That means RUSADA is again at risk of being non-compliant and thus putting Russia’s participation at the Tokyo Olym- pics next year at risk. “Tokyo 2020 will be the fifth Games where state doping and not the athletes are the issue,” Tygart said. “When the mi- crophones are on, we all express our support.” “But clean athletes want to know what happens when the mikes are gone. Are we still on their team? We can do better.” In separate comments to TASS news agency that were not related to Tygart’s remarks, Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov said that athletes should be punished for anti-doping violations, no matter where they are from. “If someone violates anti-doping rules, then of course this person should be punished,” Kolobkov said. “This rule should be applied to any athlete from any country.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 27 - December 2019 Canadian runner suggests changes to Diamond League broadcasts could save events Olympian Matt Hughes affected by IAAF decision to drop steeplechase, other events By Doug Harrison | CBC Sports | https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/trackandfield/matt-hughes-dia- mond-league-event-cuts-1.5359716 Canada’s Matt Hughes says it’s time the governing body for track and field got out of the “Stone Age” and improved the fan experience for online and television viewers. The national record-holder in the 3,000-metre steeplechase is one of many athletes affected by the Interna- tional Association of Athletics Federations’ recent decision to drop the event along with discus and triple jump as official points-scoring events on the 2020 Diamond League pro circuit due to what it claims is fading interest. The IAAF wants fewer long-distance races in a shorter, 90-minute broadcast package (down from two hours) to create “a more consistent, action-packed format for broadcasters” and tempt more fans to follow the May-to- September season. In 2020, Diamond League competitions will have a core of 24 events —12 each for men and women — in- stead of the 32 from this past season, and no races beyond the 3,000 metres. The steeplechase will be part of the lineup at 10 of the 14 meetings — five male, five female — but won’t be featured at the Sept. 11 Diamond League Final in Zurich. Hughes, who said the decision would have affected him more earlier in his career, believes all 32 events could be included in a 90-minute broadcast by cutting the approximate 10-minute wait between events and introduc- ing split screens to broadcasts.

Access to every event on NBC Sports “It’s almost like [the IAAF] took the easy way out rather than examining how fans are consuming the sport. Why not have individual feeds of every event before cutting athletes out of your sport?” the six-time national champion said in a phone interview. “How do you consume 12 [track and field] events, most of which happen simultaneously? We have the technology to have split screens and watch everything on our phones, laptops and iPads.

It’s like reading the start of a book and skipping to the end. You can’t consume track and field that way. — Canadian runner Matt Hughes on the Diamond League showing only portions of distance races

“With individual feeds of the events, fans get to choose what they want to watch. I went to a couple of athlete forums this year and the hot-button issue was having to get down to 90 minutes. They were telling us that’s the best way to watch [track and field] on TV. Maybe [the IAAF] needs to invest research into how best to view the sport online.” During the track and field world championships in October, subscribers to the NBC Sports Gold live stream- ing service had access to every event over the 10-day competition in Doha, Qatar. According to Hughes, the IAAF will often show the start of the 5,000 metres from a Diamond League event, break away from coverage for seven or eight minutes and come back at the end. “It’s like reading the start of a book and skipping to the end. You can’t consume track and field that way,” said the 30-year-old native of Oshawa, Ont. “I’m a little biased but the best part of a distance race is how it devel- oped. “It’s like the IAAF is stuck in the Stone Age on this 90-minute timeframe [for broadcasts] and hasn’t thought of anything else. “There isn’t a union of professional track and field athletes, but if a lot of us came together and voiced our opinion on what we thought would be best for the sport that would be good,” he said. “But until a large number of us do, I don’t think [the IAAF cares] what the athletes think.” Back in March, the IAAF dropped the 5,000 from its program for next season, one of the most popular road race distances for any distance runner or casual jogger, according to Hughes. “Their research shows the 5K isn’t a popular event,” said the 2016 Olympian. “I would argue it’s not popular because you’re not broadcasting it. You show one or two minutes of a 15-minute race.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 28 - December 2019 World Athletics Responds To DL Event Cut Protest https://trackandfieldnews.com/world-athletics-responds-to-dl-event-cut-protest/ Letter From World Athletics CEO Jon Ridgeon To Global Throwing Group:

Dear Global Throwing Group, Thank you for your recent letter. As CEO of World Athletics (IAAF) I am replying on behalf of the organisation. As you know, the Diamond League is an important showcase for our sport and it is our responsibility, working in col- laboration with the individual Meetings that make up the league, to create the best possible series of one day Meetings that fans want to watch and broadcasters want to show. The very existence of the Diamond League depends on it, as the Meet- ing budgets (including athlete prize money) are only viable through the investment of broadcast and sponsorship revenues, alongside World Athletics’ contribution, which to date has been almost $50 million. After ten years of existence, the market demanded that the Diamond League product now evolve, as evidenced by the fact that the league has not enjoyed the presence of a title sponsor for the last eight years. As a result, we have listened to our broadcasters and fans and made changes, some of which were announced this week. One of the changes requested by the majority of our contracted broadcasters is the reduction of our international broadcast window from 120 minutes to 90 minutes, in order to create a faster-paced and more entertaining product that can attract the widest possible live audience. To make this happen, we had to make decisions in terms of reducing the number of disciplines held within the live broad- cast window, alongside other changes such as concluding the league with one final rather than the current two and looking to establish a more logical spread of Meeting dates. Of course these are difficult decisions and we realise they impact on individuals. This is why we conducted extensive research this summer to guide the selection of the disciplines that would be included for 2020. These decisions were taken collectively by the Meeting Directors and World Athletics, who make up the Diamond League General Assembly. Knowing that some disciplines would not be included within the 90 minute international broadcast window and short- ened final, World Athletics has invested time and considerable funds to create a new strong one day Meeting series – The World Athletics Continental Tour. The Continental Tour will offer those athletes affected by next year’s changes to the the Diamond League, opportunities for high level competition, significant prize money, top flight world ranking points and vis- ibility to fans, both live and through international broadcast. This is in addition to signature disciplines being held within the Diamond League, either in or outside of the international broadcast window. Whilst change will always be challenging, the market has already responded positively, with a new title sponsor in Wanda Sports Group being recently secured. This new partnership represents the single biggest sponsorship deal that the has ever attracted and was only possible because of the message of evolution we sent to the market through our proposed changes. The Wanda partnership has also enabled us at World Athletics to invest more significantly in the World Athletics Con- tinental Tour, which will be a series of between 10 and 12 Meetings covering disciplines that will not be in the Diamond League, as well as some that are. The details of the 2020 Continental Tour will be shared with the World Athletics Council and the Athletes Forum in Monaco in a couple of weeks time. Everything that is proposed by the Diamond League General Assembly and that we, at World Athletics, are including in the Continental Tour, will be fully reviewed at the end of 2020. Those disciplines not included in the Diamond League will be in the Continental Tour but may return to the Diamond League in 2021. You and all the athletes have our absolute commitment on this and we would value further the Global Throwers input. I have already arranged to meet with Shaun Pickering next month, as a representative of your group, to take these discus- sions forward. Finally, like you, we want athletes to be at the centre of decision-making, which is why we will have two athletes as full voting members of our Council from this November’s Council meeting onwards.

Kind regards,

Jon

Jon RIDGEON Chief Executive Officer www.iaaf.org 6-8, Quai Antoine 1er | BP 359 | MC 98007 Monaco Cedex

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 29 - December 2019 Munich to host multi-sport European Championships in 2022 https://www.european-athletics.org/news/article=munich-host-multi-sport-european-championships-2022/index. html?cid=rss The EC2022 Board is pleased to announce that Munich will host the 2022 European Championships following unani- mous approval of their bid by the participating European Federations. Munich 2022 will also mark the 50th anniversary of the Olympic Games held in the German city, with the iconic Munich Olympic Park set to be the heart of the second edition of the multi-sport championships. Six sports that were part of the 2018 edition have already confirmed their participation and the staging of their respec- tive continental championships in the event that will take place Thursday 11 to Sunday 21 August 2022: Athletics, Cycling, Golf, Gymnastics, Rowing and Triathlon. Eurovision Sport, a division of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), will again be the media rights partner for the Championships, ensuring extensive free-to-air coverage through EBU Member broadcasters and partners. The majority of events and activities will take place in and around the Munich Olympic Park in order to create an ex- traordinary festival atmosphere that allows athletes from different sports to experience the event together and visitors to embrace multiple events. The EC2022 Board is also pleased to confirm the dates of the 2026 edition of the European Championships. Following consultation involving the participating European Federations (European Athletics, UEC, FISA, UEG, ETU, ET-LET), the dates are: Thursday 30 July to Sunday 9 August 2026. European Championships 2022 Board Chair and European Athletics President Svein Arne Hansen said: “I speak for all the participating sports in saying how delighted we are to be going to the wonderful city of Munich in 2022, and for athletics we are especially happy to be heading back to Germany, after the success of Berlin 2018, where we know there are so many passionate sports fans. It is testament to the fantastic legacy of the Munich Olympic Park that we will bring our individual European Championships together again there, on the 50th anniversary of the Olympic Games, and use many of its iconic venues. “We are very pleased to partner again with Eurovision Sport, meaning that millions of sports fans will be able to experi- ence the unique excitement of the European Championships 2022, via free-to-air broadcasters.” The inaugural European Championships in 2018 took place through 2-12 August, with Glasgow and Berlin successfully staging seven European Championships with 13 disciplines. A television audience of more than 1.4 billion watched this memorable first edition on free-to-air channels via EBU Member broadcasters and partners in 44 territories across Europe and worldwide. There were 1.9 billion visits on websites registered and the reach on social media was 745 million. Across the two host cities, a total of one million people attended a sports session at the likes of Berlin’s Olympic Sta- dium, watched a road race on the cities’ streets, or experienced the festival-like atmospheres in George Square in Glasgow and the Breitscheidplatz in Berlin.

Fifty years after staging the 1972 Olympic Games, Munich will be the host city for the multi-sport European Championships in 2022. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 30 - December 2019 Runner Diego Estrada Knows the Weight of Joining Team USA By Emma Sarran Webster | MTV.com http://www.mtv.com/news/3145560/diego-estrada-interview-team-usa-olympics/ For most people, running 26.2 miles in one go would be an impressive enough feat to warrant at least a week of celebra- tion and relaxation — but 29-year-old Diego Estrada isn’t most people. Two days after crossing the finish line of the 2019 Marathon in 19th place (and with a personal best of 2:11:54, or an average of roughly five minutes per mile), he was already hitting the pavement for an eight-mile training run with his sights set on his next big goal: securing a spot on the United States 2020 Olympic Track & Field (USATF) team. It’s a goal he’s been chasing for the past eight years, since the 2012 Olympic Games in London, where he represented Mexico in the 10,000-meter track race. A U.S. resident since he was 13 months old, he became a citizen in 2011 and had initially hoped to compete as a member of Team USA. But he missed the chance due to confusion surrounding the recently changed USATF rules of eligibility and citizenship. So when Mexico invited him to represent them in London, he took the opportunity. He didn’t always dream of running glory — or running at all, for that matter. He serendipitously stumbled into the sport during his freshman year of high school when he had to fulfill an honors program requirement of joining a club or sport. “I figured that I’d join cross country because [I thought], how hard could it be?” he tells MTV News. “They just show up and “an easier route” to the Olympics. “It felt like I betrayed my they run.” He wasn’t cleared to compete in the first meet of the country,” he says now. season, but seeing the race from the sidelines was motivation But there isn’t an “easy route” to one of the most competi- enough. “Without even actually racing, I was hooked on it just tive athletic competitions in the world: Every runner, regard- by watching my fellow peers compete,” he says. less of country, has to achieve an “A” or “B” qualifying standard Of course, succeeding in the sport requires far more than time established by the International Association of Athlet- just showing up — which Estrada now knows all too well. As a ics Federations (IAAF) — each country can send up to three pro, he runs almost every day, sometimes twice. His training qualifying runners in each event, and only one with a “B” time. regimen requires early bedtimes and taking breaks from family In 2012, Estrada was the sole Mexican runner to achieve the holiday gatherings to run. “The training itself is not fun,” he 10,000-meter race “A” standard (which was 27:45, or an aver- says, adding that the runs are “a lonely process most of the age of four minutes and 28 seconds per mile), in addition to time,” and he mentally often suffers alone, even if he’s working the five American runners who did so at Team USA trials; in with a team or a coach. “It’s the competition that’s fun.” his qualifying race at a separate event, Estrada was faster than In high school, he earned two California regional champion- four of them. Only 29 athletes ran the race in London; three ship titles, among other successes, and went on to Northern athletes did not finish the 6.2-. He came in 21st place, Arizona University (NAU), where he racked up a long list of about 54 seconds behind ’s first-place finish for Great championship titles and accolades and established himself as Britain. one of the fastest collegiate runners in the country. And he In retrospect, Estrada wishes he had focused more on did it all despite a string of health problems — including a his performance at the Olympics and ignored the backlash; collapsed lung and an Achilles injury — that tested his mettle. instead, he let those critics “get the best of” him, which took He admits that he has questioned if the sport is worth it, “But a toll on his body and mind. “Once the games were said and when you get across that [finish] line, and things actually turn done, I was just too emotionally spent from giving people too out the way you want them, then it’s easy to get the motivation much of my attention on both ends,” he says. He continued to fuel you to get through another phase.” competing for Mexico after the London games, including in the That perseverance ultimately led to Estrada qualifying for 2013 IAAF World Championships, but a nagging feeling stuck the 2012 Olympics as a college junior, but that achievement with him. came with an entirely new kind of challenge when people “It was really hard to get motivated, and get out of bed, and weren’t as supportive as he’d hoped they would be on either go and train,” he says. “I was losing momentum and motiva- side of the U.S./Mexico border, despite it being quite common tion, so I decided to switch my allegiance back to [try to repre- for Olympic athletes to compete outside of their home country. sent] the U.S. in search of that motivation.” “People were surprised that I was actually fluent in Spanish; That’s not to say the decision was driven solely by external and here and there, you would hear comments that I was tak- criticism. The U.S. is his home, and he’s determined to repre- ing a spot that didn’t belong to me because I wasn’t a ‘true’ sent his fellow Americans in 2020, especially after experienc- Mexican,” he says of his arrival in the country; stateside, he ing a back spasm during the 2016 Olympic marathon trial and remembers people calling him “unpatriotic,” and also claimed dropping out mid-race. “This country has made me the athlete he “was running away from the real competition” by taking I am,” he says. “If it wasn’t for being raised in this country, I TAFWA Newsletter - Page 31 - December 2019 don’t know if I would have even become a runner. So in that grams like the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals (DACA) regard, I owe everything to this country. I am proud of both program. These xenophobic policies affect immigrants from nationalities, but I am an American citizen.” every country and continent, but Trump himself has a habit of And if he earns the chance to join Team USA in Tokyo, Estra- painting Mexico as an enemy in particular. da says it will be momentous not only for himself, but also for For Estrada, then, there’s power in the opportunity to run his family. “We’ve come a long way, and we are proud American for Team USA as an immigrant, and in holding his home coun- citizens,” he says. “We love this country. It would be a big mo- try to a higher standard. He loves the U.S., he says, “but that ment for our family to see that we came here and we’ve, in a doesn’t mean that I approve of the personnel that represents small way or not, made a positive impact in this country, just us [or] that I stand for certain things, because they hit home representing the U.S. I think it’s going to fill my parents with a with me. I am an immigrant, and I can’t support children being lot of pride.” pulled away from their parents.” He’s nonetheless proud to That said, he’s not running in a vacuum — he knows what be an American and represent what he believes that means: it would mean to compete on Team USA in 2020, with the cur- “We’re a subculture, [and] made up of so many different colors, rent president’s legacy looming in the background. In the past ethnicities, cultures, religions,” he says. “And maybe not so year alone, the Trump administration has shut down an im- much lately, but we used to stand for hope.” migrant hotline that connected people in detention centers to That’s something he’s happy to project from his platform as resources and support; removed protections for undocumented a professional athlete, especially when it comes to inspiring immigrants seeking life-saving care in the U.S.; conducted ICE young people in Latinx communities to take up running. And raids that left children of immigrants stranded at school; ex- he still loves the sport just as much now as he did during that panded a rule allowing officials to deport immigrants without first track meet, and perhaps even more, given everything he’s due process; and enforced policies that resulted in the separa- faced to compete at this level. tion of hundreds of migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border. “It’s like, OK, all those runs were worth it,” he says of the The Supreme Court is also set to hear a series of cases whose runner’s high he gets after a particularly strong run. “The end decision could impact whether residents who were brought to result makes it worth it.” the U.S. as children, like Diego was, should be protected by pro- Ancient cup given to 1st marathon victor returned to Greece By https://www.ctvnews.ca/sports/ancient-cup-given-to-1st-marathon-victor-returned-to-greece-1.4684146 , Greece -- An ancient Greek cup awarded as a prize to the marathon winner in the first modern Olympics of 1896 has been returned to Athens from a German university. Greece’s Culture Ministry said Wednesday that the 6th century B.C. pottery vessel was considered lost for decades until research in 2014 by archaeologist Giorgos Kavvadias identified it in the University of Muenster’s collections. A ministry statement said it was proved “beyond any doubt” that the two-handled wine cup painted with ancient runners was the one given to Spiros Louis, the Greek marathon victor in the 1896. Following correspondence with Greek officials, the university agreed to return the cup, which was part of a private German collection it had bought in 1986. The statement said the collection had been put together by Werner Peek, a scholar of Greek and historian who lived in Athens during the 1930s. But it was unclear how the cup ended up in Peek’s hands. The vessel was presented at a ceremony at the National Ar- chaeological Museum in Athens, where it will be exhibited for the next three months before being put on permanent display at a museum in Ancient Olympia, birthplace and venue of the an- cient Games. Louis, a humble water carrier with no training in running, won enduring fame in Greece for his unexpected victory on home turf in the marathon, seen as the most Greek of Olympic disci- plines. He was presented with a silver An ancient Greek drinking cup decorated with runners, which was one of the awards presented to Spyros Louis, the Greek winner of the Marathon in the 1896 first cup and a silver medal -- both of modern Olympic Games in Athens, is seen at the National Archaeological Museum in which are in Greece -- as well as Athens on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) the drinking cup. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 32 - December 2019 Another of Alberto Salazar’s Runners Says He Ridiculed Her Body for Years says she was criticized for being overweight, told her laugh was annoying and made to sign a contract promising not to become friends with her teammates. By Matthew Futterman | The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/sports/olympics/alberto-salazar-nike.html? For Amy Yoder Begley, an Olympic middle-distance runner, four tumultu- ous years with Alberto Salazar’s Nike Oregon Project came to an abrupt end in September 2011. “Alberto told me he was kicking me off the team for having ‘the biggest butt on the start line,’” Yoder Begley said. Salazar’s critical assessments of her body, how she socialized with her teammates, even the sound of her laugh, had finally reached a break- ing point. She was out of the Oregon Project, the elite training group Nike bankrolled to develop mostly Ameri- can runners it hoped would become the world’s best. Yoder Begley is the latest former Oregon Project member to publicly ac- cuse Salazar of manipulating and ver- bally abusing the athletes who trained under him. The other runners include Kara Goucher, a two-time Olympian, and Mary Cain, a prodigy who skipped collegiate running to train with Salazar but quit the team within a few years, her body and her spirit broken by overtraining and verbal abuse. While Salazar’s methods initially produced success with some runners, Yoder Begley and others claim they ul- timately damaged promising careers. The complaints, which include putting young women on prescription medi- cation to spur weight loss, holding public weigh-ins and making humiliat- ing comments in front of teammates, have sparked a national conversation about how female athletes are treated by coaches who believe criticism, Peyton Fulford for The New York Times which can resemble bullying, is essential for success. “His opinion could change in a matter of days,” said Yoder Begley, now a coach with the Track Club, a longtime running organization that is training elite athletes. “If I had a bad workout on a Tuesday, he would tell me I looked flabby and send me to get weighed. Then, three days later, I would have a great workout and he would say how lean I looked and tell me my husband was a lucky guy. I mean, really? My body changed in three days?” Salazar did not respond to requests for comment from The New York Times. He is currently serving a four-year ban from the sport for violating antidoping regulations. He has denied the doping charges and plans to appeal the decision. In a statement released to Sports Illustrated and The Oregonian, however, he appeared to acknowledge that some of the accusa- tions by Cain, Goucher and Yoder Begley were true. “My foremost goal as a coach was to promote athletic performance in a manner that supported the good health and well-being of all my athletes,” Salazar wrote in the statement. “On occasion, I may have made comments that were callous or insensitive over the course of years of helping my athletes through hard training. If any athlete was hurt by any comments that I have made, such an effect was entirely unintended, and I am sorry. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 33 - December 2019 “I do dispute, however, the notion that any athlete suffered any abuse or gender discrimination while running for the Oregon Project.” Nike shut down the project last month after the doping ruling against Salazar. The company did not respond to a request for comment on the accusations regarding his weight-loss regimen and verbal abuse. Yoder Begley became a running star in high school. She reached her adult height of 5 feet 4 inches in eighth grade, and as she blossomed as a runner, her body found its natural weight of about 115 pounds. Other girls were leaner, but Yoder Begley became the Indiana state champion in cross-country and at 3,200 meters, and earned a track scholarship to the . In her freshman year in college, she experienced her first battle with weight. She had a weakness for the readily available ice cream in the dining hall and put on 13 pounds. She remembers her track coach expressing concern. When her weight got into the same range as that of her boyfriend and soon-to-be husband, Andrew Begley, a fellow Razorbacks runner, she promptly got back to 115. She went on to win two N.C.A.A. championships and became a 15-time all-American. After college, Andrew Begley took over as her coach. She had sporadic success, winning the 10-kilometer road racing national championship in 2004. But having her spouse as her coach and supervising what food she was putting in her body “was not a good situation,” she said. In 2007, partly because Goucher wanted a training partner, Nike and Salazar took a chance on Yoder Begley, allowing her to join the Oregon Project even though she had had limited success and was recovering from hip and ankle injuries. Within months, Yoder Begley said, Salazar had decided she needed to be leaner. She worked with a team nutritionist to reduce her calorie intake and manage a diet limited by celiac disease. Yet whenever she had bad workouts, she said, Salazar would accuse her of not following her nutrition plan or make comments about her thighs, stomach or rear end. “He was obsessed with her butt,” Goucher said of Salazar. “He would always talk about how it was hanging out of her shorts.”

The criticism went beyond Yoder Begley’s appearance and weight, which she said was usually 112 to 116 pounds. At one workout in March 2008, when Yoder Begley said she was mourning the recent death of her dog, Salazar told her she was bringing down the rest of the team. The next month, Yoder Begley said Salazar told her that her laugh was annoying him and other run- ners. Then, she said, he asked her to sign a contract stating that she would not befriend other athletes on the team. Other Oregon project athletes were not asked to sign the contract, as she was led to believe they would. “He told me I should think of my teammates as business acquaintances,” she said. At a training camp in Park City, Utah, ahead of the 2008 United States Olympic trials, Salazar weighed Yoder Begley in front of Goucher and Goucher’s husband, Adam, a fellow runner. Seeing her weight was 116 pounds, Salazar told Yoder Begley she had blown her shot to make the Olympic team. When Yoder Begley left the room, Kara Goucher said, Salazar turned to her and Adam and ridiculed Yoder Begley. “I feel bad that I didn’t stand up for her, and I didn’t because I was just glad it was not me,” Kara Goucher said. At the trials one week later, Yoder Begley set a personal record in the 10,000 meters and made the Olympic team, along with Goucher. Both Goucher and Yoder Begley said Salazar and a top assistant, , tried to pit the teammates against each other, telling Yoder Begley that Goucher did not want to room with her at the Olympics and Goucher that Yoder Beg- ley resented her success. Treasure did not respond to requests for comment. Once in Beijing, however, Yoder Begley crossed the finish line 26th in her race. At the end of the year, she said Salazar told her that making the Olympic team had been a fluke and that she could not expect to be an elite runner weighing 114 pounds.

She started dieting, but her weight remained largely the same, as she won national championships on the road at 15 kilometers and on the track at 10,000 meters. She set personal records at every distance from 800 meters to the . There was a problem, though — she was starving herself, and when she took time off to rest, her weight shot up to 121 pounds. To Salazar, that was unacceptable. Yoder Begley proposed working with Krista Austin, a top nutritional physiologist who had worked with other American Olym- pians. Salazar agreed, but gave Austin only two weeks to make progress. In an interview this week, Austin said it was a tight timeline, but Yoder Begley quickly improved. Austin decreased Yoder Beg- ley’s calorie intake and set up a more nutritious meal plan. The pounds came off. Within months, Yoder Begley set her personal record in the 5,000 meters, dropping below 15 minutes. Despite the improvement, Yoder Begley said, Salazar continued to express skepticism of Austin’s work and comment about how much Yoder Begley was eating whenever she had a subpar workout. Slow times generated comments about her legs and her backside, she said, or got her sent for a weigh-in. Then, after a few intense speed workouts, Yoder Begley’s injuries returned, culminating in Achilles’ surgery in the summer of 2010. The next year, her other Achilles’ tendon acted up, a new ache that joined nagging injuries to her hip and foot.

After she finished sixth at the 2011 outdoor track and field national championships, Salazar told her she had “the biggest butt on the start line” and removed her from the team. At the time, she said, she weighed 112 pounds. Her body composition was comparable to what it had been when she finished sixth in the world in 2009. That didn’t matter. Nike cut Yoder Begley’s funding and cut her in 2012. Her career as an elite runner was over, her body and spirit broken a little more than two years after her best performances. “She had one amazing year with the Oregon Project, but at what cost?” Goucher said. Now Yoder Begley is focused on how she can benefit from the experience. “My hope is that by coming forward we can learn how we can talk about these subjects,” she said. “We need to find a way.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 34 - December 2019 Paris mayor warns IOC of risks attached to Airbnb deal By Matthew Glendinning | Sports Business https://www.sportbusiness.com/news/paris-mayor-warns-ioc-of-risks-attached-to-airbnb-deal/ The mayor of Paris has sent a letter to IOC president als driven by dedicated internet platforms. The phe- Thomas Bach warning of the “risks” inherent in the nomenon slows the supply of sustainable housing in recently-signed Olympic sponsorship with the accom- Paris and causes a decrease in the number of inhabit- modation marketplace Airbnb. ants, the report said. Airbnb was yesterday (Monday) unveiled as a World- According to the same report, the city does not seek wide Olympic Partner in the exclusive category of to prohibit individuals from occasionally renting their ‘Unique Accommodation Products and Unique Experi- homes, but will fine platforms, like AirBnb, that offer ences Services’ and in a deal running until 2028. to rent housing that has already been rented 120 days In the letter, which was seen by AFP, Anne Hidalgo in the year. expressed her “total determination to make sure regu- Paris took legal action against Airbnb this year in a lations relating to rental platforms are reinforced” in bid to have the company fined €12.5m ($13.8m) for al- Paris, host of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. lowing owners to rent their properties without having Hidalgo also said she could make short-term tourist them properly registered. rentals against the law in some parts of the city. Airbnb invoked European law that would exempt Hidalgo explained: “By removing a significant the platform from monitoring user activity. The Court number of lodgings from Paris, Airbnb contributes to of Justice of the European Union should decide on the rising rents and worsens the shortage of apartments case in 2020. on the rental market, at a cost for all Parisians, in par- According to the Financial Times newspaper, the ticular the middle class.” deal with Airbnb is worth $500m (€452m) over the The platform was also accused of “destabilising local nine-year term. This covers three Summer and two businesses and competing harshly with traditional Winter Olympic Games in five major cities: Tokyo hotels”. 2020, Beijing 2022, Paris 2024, Milan-Cortina 2026 At Monday’s announcement of the Airbnb deal, and Los Angeles 2028. Bach defended the brand against criticism that the It is reported that, along with a significant rights platform was pricing people out of cities. fee, the $500m total takes into account the cost of ser- Bach said: “It is quite normal that such a disruptive vices that Airbnb will provide, including free accom- business then needs to settle and needs regulation. modation for athletes and executives. This is happening in a dialogue with Airbnb and cities The views of the Paris authorities on Airbnb may and countries.” run counter to those of smaller event host cities, Earlier this year, the mayor’s office released findings such as Eugene, Oregon, hosts of the World Athletics which revealed that the share of unoccupied housing Championship in 2021. in Paris had jumped by three points, from 14.1 per The city has roughly 200 hotel rooms constructed cent to 17 per cent, over the last five years. as of today and would likely need 12,000 to accommo- The main reason cited was the boom in tourist rent- date all of the visitors to the event. A New Series: The Continental Tour As the second phase of revamping the international calendar World Athletics has announced the new Conti- nental Tour, which is slated to grow to some 100 competitions, managed by Area associations. The meets will be divided into gold, silver and bronze levels, determined by the quality of the competition and the amount of prize money made available. For ’20, the gold level—whose roster of meets very much resembles the old IAAF World Challenge series—will be funded by WA “to increase the number of high quality competitive opportuni- ties available to showcase our sport’s best athletes.”

The 10 gold level meets in the first year will offer a total of $2 million in prize money, with a minimum of $20K for “core” events ($6K for the winner) and $10K for “discretionary” events ($3K for the winner) at each stop on the tour. Diamond League winners, by way of comparison, receive $10,000 per meet. The core events for ’20 will be those 4 expelled from the DL (200, steeple, TJ, DT) plus the hammer, which previously had its own challenge. Yearly CT winners in the 5 core events will also earn Wild Card entries to the ’21 Worlds.

The current 9-meet CT schedule (with the tenth meet to be announced later): May 10—Tokyo, ; May 13—Nanjing, China; May 22—Ostrava, Czech Republic; June 01—Hengelo, ; June 09—Turku, Finland; June 13—Kingston, Jamaica; July 07—Székesfehérvár, Hungary; September 06—Silesia (Chorzów?), Poland; September 15—, Croatia. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 35 - December 2019 French steeplechaser reportedly fails doping test By AFP | https://www.france24.com/en/20191119-french-steeplechaser-reportedly-fails-doping-test French 3,000m steeplechase specialist Ophelie Claude- Boxberger has tested positive for EPO, said a source close to the case on Tuesday. This is third doping case in French athletics in less than a year. Paris’ Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed it had opened a “preliminary investigation on 14 October into offences under anti-doping and poisonous substances legislation.” Claude-Boxberger, 31, had a difficult time at September’s World Championships in Doha as she finished a distant last in her heat and social media postings suggested she was in a relationship with the French team’s medical director Jean- Michel Serra. He quit his position midway through the championships “for personal reasons”. In June, Serra, without warning his superiors, complained about the number of doping tests Claude-Boxberger had been subject to by the French authorities. At the time, he denied any relationship with the runner. Spe15.fr, a French website specialising in doping in middle-distance running, reported Claude-Boxberger’s home had been searched. French newspapers reported police had visited the headquarters of the French Athletics Federation.

During the World Championships, German broadcaster ARD reported another French runner, Morhad Amdouni, the 2018 European 10,000m champion had exchanged WhatsApp messages with a person asking him for payment for an EPO purchase. Amdouni denied the accusations. On Wednesday, another French athlete, marathon runner Clemence Calvin, faces a disciplinary hearing along with her husband and coach Samir Dahmani, for avoiding an unannounced test in Morocco in March. “It’s very good that there’s a massacre right now, it proves that things are opening up and moving towards a cleaner sport,” said decathlon world record holder Kevin Mayer as the French team assembled on Sunday for a training camp to launch their Olympic preparations. “It drives me crazy. I don’t know who’s doped in the French team... The only buddy who doped in the French team was Quentin Bigot and I haven’t wanted to have any personal relationships with him since,” he added. Of the athletes with Mayer, only Bigot, a hammer throw silver medallist in Doha but suspended for two years for using an anabolic steroid in 2014, offered a more nuanced answer opinion. “Am I the best person to talk about this,” he said. “It’s sad. I’ve been there, I know what it is like, it’s especially hard for the athlete and everyone around them. We shouldn’t be happy about this kind of news.” Russian track and field president resigns as federation faces expulsion threat By Associated Press https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2019/11/23/russian-track-and-field-president-shlyakhtin-resigns/ (AP) — The president of the Russian track and field neutral team, as it did at the 2018 Winter Olympics. federation resigned on Saturday, two days after he was accused of “The main task is that the athletes and their coaches don’t suffer obstructing an anti-doping investigation involving fake medical in the current situation, so that the guys can keep training for the documents. Olympics and compete there,” he said. “In what status they com- Dmitry Shlyakhtin told an emergency federation conference in pete, that’s another question.” Moscow that he was stepping down. He was already provisionally A politically well-connected regional sports minister, Shlyakhtin suspended pending a full hearing on the charges from the Athletics took office in January 2016 pledging to overturn Russia’s suspen- Integrity Unit. sion from international track events due to widespread doping. Runner-turned-businesswoman Yulia Tarasenko has been ap- Nearly four years later, the suspension is still in place. World pointed acting president. Athletics, formerly known as the IAAF, said Friday that Russia Russia was hit by a double blow Friday as the World Anti- could be expelled altogether following the new charges against Doping Agency said a key panel had recommended the country be Shlyakhtin and senior officials. declared non-compliant for allegedly tampering with lab data in a World Athletics’ “statements are beyond comprehension,” separate case. Tarasenko said. She didn’t elaborate on how, or if, the federation That could lead to Russia being banned from the 2020 Olympics intended to fight the charges. in Tokyo. Russia’s track team was reduced to a single athlete in “We’re not feeling very joyful, put it that way,” said Tarasenko, 2016 amid earlier doping revelations. who was a sprinter in the 1990s and is now CEO of a company lay- Russia’s head track coach Yuri Borzakovsky indicated one path ing tracks. “We think there’s still some chance to keep fighting for could be for Russia to compete at the Olympics as an officially the federation.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 36 - December 2019 Oregon Seeks Artifacts Following is an excerpt from a letter from Oregon head coach Robert Johnson:

Greetings Oregon Track & Field Faithful, ...there is tremendous excitement within our program as we await the completion of the Hayward Field proj- ect. ...This project has also provided an opportunity for all of us to reflect upon the history of Oregon track and field... In order to capture the nostalgia and history of Oregon track and field, a unique dynamic of the new facility is Hayward Hall, which will include the comprehensive history and magic of Hayward Field. Our mission with the hall is to feature exhibits that capture everything in the past and present of Hayward Field... We are in collaboration with the University of Oregon Archives and Special Collections as well as current and former coaches, athletes and officials in an effort to procure items that reflect our unrivaled heritage. We are in the process of curating items and fashioning exhibits in the hall that will help recreate and tell the story of our extensive track and field history that is uniquely Oregon.. We are inviting those interested to share their treasures for display in these exhibits (uniforms, shoes, tro- phies, photographs, film, books, pins, posters, etc.)... If you wish to share your treasures and memories of Hayward Field for display, please reach out to us at Hay- [email protected]....

Robert Johnson Tokyo Olympics: Japanese, English - but where’s the French? By Stephen Wade | Associated Press | https://apnews.com/965533597c03458e9c4cea668721442d TOKYO (AP) — The French language has been almost French usage has been slipping in recent Olympics. It invisible during the drawn-out preparations for next year’s seemed to have disappeared altogether three years ago in Tokyo Olympics. Rio de Janeiro. Signage in French was nowhere. And to be News conferences in Tokyo are conducted in Japanese or fair, the organizing committee could barely afford to put in English — or with English interpretation. Signs around up signs in the local Portuguese, or English — much less the organizing committee offices are in Japanese and Eng- French. lish. Printed material is largely in Japanese and English. In a statement to the Associated Press, the Canadian French is seldom seen or heard. Olympic Committee declined to evaluate “the organizing The L’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, committee’s use of the official IOC languages.” known also as The Francophonie, signed an agreement with “We can confirm that all communication at the Games organizers on Thursday that it hopes might change things. from the Canadian Olympic Committee will be available The body represents countries and regions where French is and conducted in Canada’s official languages: French and used, or the culture is represented. English.” “La Francophonie welcomes the Tokyo 2020 commitment French is the predominant language of Quebec, the to respect the Olympic Charter with regard to official lan- Canadian province that makes up almost one-quarter of the guages, of which French is an integral part,” Louise Mushi- country’s population. kiwabo, the secretary general of the organization, said in a Interpretation for athletes and for news conference dur- statement. ing the Tokyo Olympics will be in Japanese, English, French, Le Francophonie even has an overseer called the Grand and eight other languages: Spanish, German, Russian, Ital- Temoin — the Great Witness — to monitor French use. ian, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Portuguese. Organizers said the agreement was designed to encourage The opening ceremony and closing ceremony will be in the use of French “through the establishment of an official French, English and Japanese, as will most announcements Tokyo 2020 website in French, and the promotion of French at venues. culture.” But signs are unlikely to appear in French, and few Olym- Article 23 of the Olympic Charter specifies that French pic volunteers are likely to speak French. and English are the official languages of the games. In fact, The good news for French is that the trend is likely to the charter suggests French has standing over English. change when Paris holds the 2024 Summer Olympics. This is the legacy of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of Denis Masseglia, the head of the French Olympic Com- the modern Olympics. mittee, told AP he was “not aware of any problem whatso- “In the case of divergence between the French and ever” with Tokyo. English texts of the Olympic Charter and any other IOC “For us, it looks like these Games won’t be different than document, the French text shall prevail unless expressly the others,” he said. provided otherwise in writing,” the document says. Which means, not a lot of French. The reality is different. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 37 - December 2019 Russia facing possible track and field expulsion over faked medical records President of Russia’s track and field federation and its top anti-doping official were suspended Thursday By Associated Press | https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/russia-doping-track-official-lakistene-1.5369273 The governing body for track and field will consider expelling Russia from membership following new charges that senior officials faked medical records. Russia has been suspended by World Athletics, formerly known as the IAAF, over widespread doping since 2015. There will be a review of whether vetted Russians should still be allowed to compete in international events as neutrals. “We need to deal with renegade factions like this,” World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said Friday in Monaco. World Athletics has frozen talks about lifting the long-running suspension and asked its Russia task force for recommendations on expelling the country’s track federation. “It’s not symbolic,” said Coe, who said the charges and suspensions against Russian officials were so wide- ranging that they left the task force with almost no one left to talk to. One route could be to close the Russian track federation and set up a new national governing body. Russia’s sports minister said he had referred the federation to a commission which oversees such matters.

Obstruction charges Federation president Dmitry Shlyakhtin and four other senior officials are accused of obstructing the inves- tigation into 2017 world championship silver medallist Danil Lysenko, who was accused last year of failing to make himself available for drug testing. Lysenko allegedly provided fake medical documents as an alibi with help from the officials. He and his coach have also been suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit pending full disciplinary hearings.

Lasitskene blasts Russian track officials Also Friday, the three-time world high jump champion Mariya Lasitskene assailed Russian track leaders after they were charged Thursday, saying they have made a “doping nightmare” even worse. Lasitskene called for swift and radical reforms, and the removal of officials appointed by Shlyakhtin. Shlyakhtin took office shortly after the federation was suspended from international competition for wide- spread doping. The suspension remains in place four years later. “The new team, whose task was to take us out of this doping nightmare, has turned out no better than the old one. And in some ways worse,” Lasitskene wrote on Instagram. “Shlyakhtin and his team must quit their posts immediately and never come back. And I will make sure this happens.” Lasitskene has won two of her three world titles as a neutral athlete as a result of Russia’s suspension, which also caused her to miss the 2016 Olympics. “Our track and field is in its death throes and we can’t procrastinate anymore,” she wrote. “We’ve lost four years already. Clean athletes are still defenceless and not sure they’ll be able to compete tomorrow.”

‘Emergency situation’ Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov expressed concern about the “emergency situation” and referred the federa- tion to a ministry commission which could officially withdraw its government recognition. “The future fate of the track and field federation will be examined,” Kolobkov said Friday in a video statement. “For us now, the main thing is that the training process isn’t interrupted. That means all of the athletes will get the help they need to continue the training and competition process.” Earlier, the Kremlin said the charges against Shlyakhtin and others won’t derail the country’s preparations to compete in next year’s Olympics. “Undoubtedly, this [situation] requires attention from the sports authorities, and I’m sure they’re dealing with it,” said Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin. “But I don’t see a direct con- nection with Russia’s participation in the Olympics here.” With Shlyakhtin suspended, the federation is set to select an interim president at a board meeting on Satur- day. Russia is also facing a World Anti-Doping Agency ruling next month on whether it manipulated data from a lab in Moscow. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 38 - December 2019 Muhammad and Kipchoge named World Athletes of the Year IAAF | https://www.worldathletics.org/news/press-release/kipchoge-muhammad-world-athletes-of-the-year2 Eliud Kipchoge and have been named the male and female World Athletes of the Year at the World Athletics Awards 2019, held at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on Saturday (23). Kipchoge, the winner of the award last year, added to his phe- nomenal marathon CV in 2019. In April he captured his fourth victory at the with a 2:02:37 course record, the third fastest performance of all time. The 35-year-old Kenyan followed up in October by blasting through the distance’s two-hour barrier with a 1:59:40.2 perfor- mance at the Ineos159 Challenge in Vienna. Muhammad, 29, broke the world record in the 400m hurdles twice this year, first with a 52.20 performance at the US Champi- onships in July to eclipse a mark which had stood since 2003. Muhammad broke it again at the World Athletics Championships Doha 2019, clocking 52.16 in one of the championships’ most eagerly-awaited finals to claim the world title for the first time. Muhammad also won world gold in the 4x400m relay and won five of her seven races. Male Rising Star - Selemon Barega Dabo stopped to help his distressed fellow competitor. Barega, 19, was the silver medallist in the 5000m at the President’s Award - Vikki Orvice World Championships, and finished fifth in the senior race at Orvice, a long-time British athletics journalist for The Sun, the World Cross Country Championships Aarhus 2019. The passed away last February after a long battle with cancer. Ethiopian also produced world U20 leads at both the 5000m Orvice served as chairperson of the British Athletics Writers and 10,000m with 12:53.04 and 26:49.46, respectively. Association (BAWA) between 2003 and 2005, the first woman Female Rising Star - to be appointed the role. Mahuchikh, the 2017 world U18 champion, continued her She was also vice-chair of the Football Writers Association, ascension into the high jump elite at the World Championships one of the directors of Women In Football and a member of the where she twice broke the world U20 record, first with a leap of IAAF Press and Media Operations Advisory Group. 2.02m and again with a clearance of 2.04m to secure the silver Woman of the Year - Derartu Tulu medal. The 18-year-old also won the European U20 title. The Ethiopian distance running legend who won Olympic Coaching Achievement - Brother Colm O’Connell 10,000m titles in 1992 and 2000, Tulu has served as acting During a coaching career that has spanned more than four president of the Ethiopian Athletics Federation since Novem- decades, O’Connell, an Irish missionary who has lived in Iten, ber 2018. She is also a Council member of the African Athletics Kenya, since 1976, has coached 25 world champions and four Confederation and vice president of the East Africa Athletics Olympic gold medallists, including Wilson Kipketer and David Region. Rudisha, the World Athletes of the Year in 1997 and 2010, Athletics Photograph of the Year respectively. Kipketer presented him with his award. - Felix Sanchez Arrazola Fair Play Award - Braima Suncar Dabo The Spanish photographer’s image of a jubilant Shelly-Ann Dabo, a distance runner from Guinea-Bissau, made head- Fraser-Pryce moments after winning her fourth world 100m lines around the world after he helped fellow runner, Jonathan title was judged to be the winner from this year’s shortlist of Busby of Aruba, to the finish line during their opening round three photographs. Arrazola also won the award in 2018. heat of the 5000m at the World Championships. Busby was near collapse with about 200 metres left in the race, when TAFWA Newsletter - Page 39 - December 2019 Mary Cain Still Calling on Nike to Hold Third-Party Probe Into Disbanded Oregon Project More than six million people have viewed Cain’s op-ed video for The New York Times since it posted on Nov. 7. By Rosemary Feitelberg | WWD.com | https://wwd.com/eye/people/mary-cain-still-calling-on-nike-to-hold-third- party-probe-into-disbanded-oregon-project-1203378609/ Two-and-a-half weeks after elite runner Mary Cain should step up in situations like this and really de- aired allegations of forced weight loss and public mand change. If they really believe in a product that shaming in a Nike-supported running program, she they are trying to sell, then they should make sure is still calling for a third-party investigation into the they are doing it responsibly. And they should make matter. sure that the people they are using for advertising and Her op-ed video “I Was the Fastest Girl in America” to sell that product are being treated properly.” for The New York Times had more than six million She added, “In situations like this, a brand should views as of Monday afternoon. Cain, who signed up step up and say, ‘Hey, we messed up. Let’s do a third- with the now-disbanded Nike Oregon Project in 2013, party investigation and make sure that we get this claimed the program’s coach Alberto Salazar publicly right for the future.’ That’s the responsible thing to shamed her for not being thin enough and bred an eat- do.” ing disorder culture. She exited the program in 2016 From her perspective, internal investigations inhibit after allegedly telling Salazar she has been cutting athletes from speaking openly “because that’s their herself as a form of a self-harm, essentially getting no sponsor and how they make money.” Cain said. “The reaction and phoning her parents to share her prob- company has kind of victim-blamed me in a lot of their lems. statements so that will breed mistrust and a little bit of confusion as to what they plan on doing within an In late September, Salazar was handed a four-year investigation and whether it will be taken seriously.” ban from the U.S. Anti-Doping Association for “orches- trating and facilitating prohibited doping conduct” at On a typical day Cain runs between six and 14 miles. Nike’s Oregon Project. Nike Inc. executives initially Her 30-hour weekly training schedule is comparable stood by Salazar and then back-peddled days later, to her training at the Oregon Project time-wise, but it cutting ties with the former Olympian. In response to is more balanced. She spends 10 hours running with Cain’s video, Nike challenged Cain in a statement is- the remaining 20 hours related to recovery. “Back then sued earlier this month for not raising her concerns in it was 30 hours of heavy training. Now there is more April when she was looking to rejoin the program. The recovery work, physical therapy and things that are company also announced plans to launch an immedi- less intensive, but that are still time commitments,” ate investigation to hear from former Oregon Project she said. athletes. Asked if she has signed any new endorsement deals, But Cain said Friday, “I haven’t heard much more be- Cain said, “Oh, no, no, this is not why I did this.” But yond [that and] they don’t seem willing to do a third- after the op-ed broke, various brands sent her running party investigation even though I called for it. There gear. Cain declined to identify any of the companies. really hasn’t been much change from their platform She said, “The biggest thing that I’ve appreciated is and position, so there really hasn’t been from mine that a lot of brands have stepped up and sent me stuff. either.” As a professional runner, for many years I’ve been Should Nike commit to a third-party investiga- given Nike clothes. It’s been kind of cool and fun to tion, Cain said she would “happily” cooperate. As for try something new and to do something that I haven’t whether there will be any legal ramifications against done in six years — train in non-Nike gear.” Nike, she said, “I don’t really know going forward. The truth is a lot of that I’m keeping closer to my chest.” In a study of Division 1 NCAA athletes, more than A Nike spokesman did not acknowledge requests for one-third of female athletes reported attitudes and comment Monday about the status of the investiga- symptoms placing them at risk for anorexia nervosa, tion, with specific questions including whether there according to the National Eating Disorders Associa- will be a third-party investigation. tion. Non-athletes are also suffering from eating disor- ders — more than 10 million American women alone. Speaking in broader terms, the recent Fordham grad The issue has been an area of great concern in fashion said she is a big believer in Corporate Social Respon- where models’ livelihoods are tied to their physiques. sibility “in that companies are not people. They are Council of Fashion Designers of America first zeroed made up of people. The individuals within a company in on the problem in 2007, by circulating its Health TAFWA Newsletter - Page 40 - December 2019 Initiative. closed doors ever,” Cain said. “I absolutely don’t hold All in all, Cain said she never imagined her story anybody accountable for having not known what was “would break past the track world,” she said. “I just going on. At that time, I wasn’t even fully vocal with honestly assumed that most people were so ingrained my parents — let alone a reporter I didn’t know.” within the system that the reaction would be 50-50 — She continued, “In any situation like this, there’s positive and negative. I just genuinely did not expect a tendency to cast blame whether it’s on the victim, it to have such an international and national reach. family, friends, the sports world, media — anything. It’s really hopeful that it did, because it means there’s But it’s most important to reflect on the fact that this more opportunity for change. But it’s almost sad that is systemic and yes, in my case, there were certain bad it did, because it shows how systemic it is and how eggs. But the truth is so much of what I went through broadly people can empathize and sympathize with so many people do. It’s about rewriting the general, such and experiences. It really does transcend sport.” societal and cultural pressures that we put on people Allowing that being lean and strong can be desir- to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” able for performance, Cain emphasized that taking arbitrary numbers just to be skinny does not create Cultural awareness, as in high school and NCAA strength and power. “And it doesn’t make a good coaches discussing the issue with their teams to make athlete. The issue with my story was not the fact that I people feel comfortable about being more open and had a coach who wanted me to lose weight. Sometimes talking about their experiences, would be a good start- athletes are expected to lose weight over the course of ing point, according to Cain. Longer-term, educational the season. But usually they work with a professional programs for coaches and athletes are needed, perhaps nutritionist. There’s not some arbitrary target that’s along the lines of sexual abuse awareness ones that trying to be reached. It’s more go through the process have proven to be effective, she said. By doing so, ath- — train hard, eat well. Maybe weight would fall off, letes would recognize instances of abuse before they maybe it won’t. Rather than almost targeting a look,” escalate to remove themselves or to cause the abuser she said. to be removed sooner. With an undergrad degree in business and having Competitive sports like gymnastics, wrestling, long- completed her premed requirements, Cain’s short- distance running, figure skating, diving and dancing term career plans are to pursue running. On a broader may have greater risks of eating disorders, since body sense, she aims to take on advocacy roles for women size is highly scrutinized among some competitors. in sports with the hope of changing the system. With figure skaters, ballerinas and runners, there is “Longer-term, I’m not quite sure. In so many ways, “very much a picturesque view that the coach will put I just love athletics. It would be really hard for me to on the board to say you have to look like that. Genet- pivot outside of the sports world. But I have so many ics don’t work like that,” Cain said. “Societal pressures aspirations in that regard that I’m just going to let the can really force girls to look one specific way, when in next few years play out and take it one step at a time,” reality there’s not one way to be good.” Cain said. Kara Goucher, Yoder Begley and other world-class runners substantiated Cain’s claims and pledged their As for whether Cain has any regrets, she said there support earlier this month. Goucher offered to share are always regrets after situations like this. But she re- her own experiences via social media. Cain has yet to minds herself that some of the issues that she suffered meet with any of them in the past few weeks, due to from at the Oregon Project are systemic throughout geographical challenges. “It is really cool to know now running. “I can’t say with confidence that had I not that I have this almost second team. I’ve obviously been in the NCAA or gone to another program that made a lot of great connections through this,” said some of these issues wouldn’t have still been a prob- Cain, adding she periodically receives texts from sup- lem,” she said. “Based on the reaction of my piece, porters to see how she is doing. it’s really clear that a lot of girls on so many different levels within the sport go through this. My experi- While some in the media and via social media have ence was particularly egregious, based on the nature challenged The New York Times for not recognizing of it being a professional program. But nonetheless, Cain’s struggles when she was profiled for a 2015 mag- that does not mean it was a one-off take. It’s easy to azine piece, Cain defended the new outlet. “I was so in look back and say, ‘Oh, I should have done something the system. They kept the door closed on the reporter sooner or I shouldn’t have listened to them.’ But I be- [Lindsay Crouse], who I worked with so tightly. I was lieve that everything happens for a reason. It’s incred- in college at the time and they made it so difficult for ibly sad to reflect upon what happened. But I can’t live her to get in touch with me. Any time they were going my life with regret because then you can never move to sit down and talk, a coach or somebody had to be in forward.” the room. The process was very difficult. The truth is it was a cult and we really didn’t let people in behind the TAFWA Newsletter - Page 41 - December 2019 USADA chief calls for complete ban of Russian athletes from Olympics By BBC | https://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/50569813 The World Anti-Doping Agency “must get tougher” and ban all Russian athletes from competing at the Olympics, says US Anti-Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart. World Athletics, formerly the IAAF, has halted Russia’s reinstatement after senior officials were suspended for anti- doping rule breaches. Russia has been banned from competing as a nation in athletics since 2015. Some athletes have been able to compete under a neutral status, including at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olym- pics. “Wada must get tougher and impose the full restriction on Russian athlete participation in the Olympics that the rules allow,” said Tygart. “Only such a resolute response has a chance of getting Russia’s attention, changing behaviour, and protecting to- day’s clean athletes who will compete in Tokyo, as well as future generations of athletes in Russia who deserve better than a cynical, weak response to the world’s repeated calls for Russia to clean up its act. “It is sad when a country’s athletes suffer for the fraud of the governmental and sport system they represent. How- ever, the failure to stand up to Russia’s five-year flaunting of the rules would cause even more harm to athletes in and outside of Russia. The time for the toughest penalty available is now.” Last week, Wada’s compliance review committee (CRC) recommended a raft of measures - including banning Russia from hosting and competing in major international events - after declaring the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) non-compliant over inconsistencies in anti-doping data. Wada’s executive committee will consider the recommendations and make the final decision at a meeting in Paris on 9 December. Athletes have not been able to compete for Russia since November 2015 after state-sponsored doping was uncov- ered. Under the terms of the ban, athletes who have met World Athletics’ doping review board’s drug-testing criteria can compete under a neutral flag. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has demanded the “toughest sanctions” against Russia but would be willing to allow clean athletes to compete under a neutral flag again. “Russia continues to flaunt the world’s anti-doping rules, kick clean athletes in the gut and poke Wada in the eye and get away with it time and time again,” Tygart added. “Wada must stand up to this fraudulent and bullying behaviour as the rules and Olympic values demand. The re- sponse proposed by the CRC is inadequate, especially given the deceit perpetuated by the Russian sport system which is controlled by the government. “History has taught us the response to Russian doping used in Rio 2016 and Pyeongchang 2018 - in which a se- cretly managed process permitted Russians to compete - did not work.” Russian doping whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov - the former head of Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory - has also called for harsher punishments. “The Russian gangster state continues to deploy a predictable and deplorable policy of deception, evidence tamper- ing and lying to cover up its crimes,” his lawyers said in a statement. “The Kremlin must think the people of the world are idiots to believe this shameless and transparent stunt. “Wada should be applauded for revealing Russia’s latest crime, but if the IOC and the international sports regula- tory framework gives Russia yet another free pass, other countries will simply follow in their footsteps.”

Analysis - BBC sports editor Dan Roan All the signs are that, on 9 December, Wada’s leadership will accept the recommendation of its compliance panel and cast Russia into the international sporting wilderness. For the second successive Olympic Games, and in many other major events, for the next four years, there would be no official Russia team, with athletes forced to compete as neutrals and only after passing eligibility checks. Given the scale of cheating and deception, many critics will argue a blanket ban on all Russian athletes would be a more appro- priate punishment. But even though almost five years have now passed since the Russian doping scandal was first exposed, this is unlikely be the end of the story. Russia is expected to appeal via the Court of Arbitration for Sport and argue that individuals acting on behalf of the state - rather than its sports authorities - were responsible for the audacious ma- nipulation and deletion of data, and therefore athletes should not be punished. Do not be surprised therefore if the build-up to another Olympics is overshadowed by further twists in what has arguably become the gravest scandal in sports history.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 42 - December 2019 Giving thanks to Maximilian F. Ihmsen for Los Angeles’s Olympic history By Rich Perelman | The Sports Examiner http://www.thesportsexaminer.com/lane-one-giving-thanks-to-maximilian-f-ihmsen-for-los-angeless-olympic-history/ Los Angeles is well known today as the host of two ultra- successful Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984, with a third coming in 2028. But that his- tory had a start and it was 100 years ago this week. The post-event Official Report of the Games of the Xth Olympiad noted that while the 1932 Games was a major success, the genesis started more than a decade earlier, in a typical manner associated with expanding cities of the early 20th Century: “In the year 1919 there was formed in Los Angeles, at the instance of the publishers of the daily newspapers of the city, the California Fiestas As- sociation, for the purposes of reviving the old Spanish fiestas typical of the atmosphere of our State and City.” There were quite a few newspapers in those days and the dailies pushing to promote the area likely included the Los Angeles Evening Express, Los Angeles Herald, Los Angeles Examiner, Hollywood Citizen, Los Angeles Record and the only still-existing publication, the Los Angeles Times. The Fiestas Association didn’t last long, only for about a year, but it had an impact. In order to mount a “fiesta” of some stature, the report says, it “became obvious almost immediately that the contemplated project could not proceed without there first being provided the facilities of a stadium.” That was the birth of what turned out to be the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. At the same time, there was another idea brewing to help promote the Los Angeles area: “For several years there had been a growing consciousness in local sports circles of the possibility of holding the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. At a meeting of the California Fiestas Association held November 26, 1919, Maximilian F. Ihmsen, one of the directors, presented the suggestion that later resulted in the first formal ap- plication by the City of Los Angeles to the International Olympic Committee for the award of the Games.” Max Ihmsen. Who was he? It turns out that Ihmsen was a political and press dynamo, working in the service of William Randolph Hearst. Born in Pennsylvania, he had worked for Hearst when the latter entered the newspaper field in 1895, originally for the New York Journal. Ihmsen became the head of the Hearst Washington Bureau during the Spanish-American War, went back to the Journal, then was political editor of one of Hearst’s new papers, the New York American in 1902. He helped try to have Hearst selected as the Democratic Party candidate for the 1904 Presidential election, and later helped manage Hearst’s unsuccessful campaign for Mayor of New York. In 1908, Hearst sent Ihmsen west to head another new paper, the Los Angeles Examiner, and it was as head of the Examiner that he proposed bringing the Olympic Games to Los Angeles. His suggestion had legs. The head of the California Fiestas Association was a real-estate developer named William May Garland, who was already planning a European vacation in the summer of 1920, when the Olympic Games would be held in Antwerp, Belgium. Completely in line with what happens today, Garland took with him a set of plans for the new stadium, letters of invitation from the City and County of Los Angeles and the State of California and documentation about how Los Angeles would make a great host. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 43 - December 2019 Garland met with the International Olympic Committee while in Belgium and while the organization did not award the Games to Los Angeles for 1924 (Pairs) or 1928 (Amsterdam), it did elect Garland as a new member of the IOC! At the same time, the stadium concept was taking shape. The California Fiestas Association dissolved and was replaced by the Community Development Association, which became a powerhouse organization in the expan- sion of Los Angeles. The CDA arranged with the City and County for a joint program of financing and construc- tion of a new stadium, to be placed on the site of an abandoned horse-racing facility south of downtown that had previously been a gravel pit. The stadium got built straightaway and by the time Garland proposed Los Angeles as the site for the 1932 Olympic Games in 1923, it was nearly completed and the IOC awarded the Games to Los Angeles unanimously. The Coliseum – originally called the Colosseum as per the famed Roman structure from antiquity – was completed with 76,000 seats and had its first sporting event on October 1, 1923, when the USC Trojans football team defeated Pomona, 23-7, before 12,836. That first game attendance wasn’t too impressive, but a month later (Nov. 10), some 63,408 showed up to see the Trojans lose to the University of California, 13-7. Just three years later, the Coliseum had 74,661 on hand to see USC play Stanford in 1926 and 74,378 a month later for the first game of the USC-Notre Dame series. By 1928, the Olympic organizing effort got moving and the stadium was expanded with a third section all the way around the top to enlarge the capacity to 105,000 seats, where it remained until individual seats replaced the bench seating in the 1960s. Ihmsen, unfortunately, didn’t live to see any of this. Following a lengthy illness, he died in early May of 1921 – at age 53 – and never saw the Coliseum in operation, or the 1932 Games. But he started the process by which Los Angeles became one of the world’s greatest Olympic cities and the Coliseum became the first stadium to host two Olympic Games, and will become the first to host three Games, in 2028. So in this Thanksgiving Day, we should say thanks once more, Max.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 44 - December 2019 Shore AC Anniversary Party • Elliott Denman’s 85th Birthday Party Photos provided by Walt Murphy

Four of our favorite TAFWA members were among the 250 attendees last month at Elliott Denman’s 85th birth- day party, held in conjunction with an anniversary party for the founding of New Jersey’s historic Shore AC. Here is Elliott (right) with (from left) Walt Murphy, Ed Grant and Marc Bloom. Walt, born in Brooklyn, was an interloper. The others all currently live in the Garden State.

Olympians who made the event -- (from left) , Norm Tate, Aliann Pompey, Fred Samara, Marcia Smoke (2-time silver medalist in rowing), Barbara Friedrich, Elliott Denman, , Joetta Clark-Diggs, Milton Goode (behind Clark-Diggs), Ajee Wilson, Curt New Jersey owns the 800, from past to Clausen -- and one memorable non-Olympian from the Garden State, present -- , Joetta Clark- Renaldo Nehemiah. Diggs, Ajee’ Wilson. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 45 - December 2018 Oregon Gov. Kate Brown Will Need Help from Legislature to Fund World Championships By Jeff Manning | The Oregonian | https://www.oregonlive.com/sports/2019/11/brown-will-need-help-from-legis- lature-to-fund-track-and-field-world-championships-in-eugene.html As any track and field athlete knows, progress comes in fits and starts and a big breakthrough can come at any time. Less than two years before the scheduled opening of the 2021 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, organiz- ers and track fans are waiting for a breakthrough from Gov. Kate Brown. Organizers say they need $40 million from the state. Brown seems stuck at about $20 million. Since she attended the 2019 World Champions in Doha in September, Brown has been more vocal in her support. She’s promised to produce the full $40 million requested by the event’s organizers, said Paul Weinhold, executive di- rector of the University of Oregon Foundation and chair of Oregon 21, the Eugene-based group organizing the event. Newly obtained documents show just how difficult and delicate a task Brown faces: Skeptical lawmakers, a demand- ing international governing body and a local organizing committee desperately reliant on the state. The hoped-for $40 million represents nearly half of the event’s total expected revenue. “I am proud to have this historic event in Oregon and look forward to continuing our work together,” Brown said in an April 25 letter to Jon Ridgeon, the international federation’s chief executive. She added, “in 2020, I will work to pass legislation to provide additional funding needed.” Brown’s spokesman Charles Boyle added, “This is a significant marketing and tourism opportunity to showcase our state and Oregon businesses, and we are working with stakeholders and legislators to identify outstanding needs and make sure they are funded by March of 2020. “ The other good news for Oregon 21 is that the University of Oregon Foundation has agreed to serve as financial backstop to the event. The international governing body of the sport typically requires a local government or some other deep-pocketed entity to guarantee the event’s financial performance. Weinhold confirmed his board had settled on the agreement, adding “the foundation has the guarantee in place.” That marks a confounding change in direction for the foundation. Last year, it withdrew as the financial guarantor, to the great alarm of the international federation. Now it’s back in. Weinhold declined to explain the foundation’s change of heart. Still, plenty of hurdles remain. Organizers and state officials also must fix a tax issue. Under United States’ and Oregon law, the $7.2 million in winnings for athletes is taxable at both the state and federal level. In the past, local governments have simply for- given the tax. But for that to happen, the athlete prizes would have to increase sufficiently to cover the tax or the Oregon legislature would have to act to make the athletes exempt. And the Oregon Legislature can’t do anything about the federal tax. The Eugene championships would be the first staged in the U.S., so there’s no precedent in solving the problem. Organizers will also have to go to the legislature to solve another potential issue: The transient lodging tax increase that Brown is relying upon to raise a significant portion of the state’s contribution to the event sunsets next July. The prospect of staging the World Championships in Eugene is thrilling to many American track fans. The town is much revered by athletes, who love the educated fans who pack the stands. But this is an event normally held in London, Paris and Beijing, world capitals that can easily handle the flood of tourists. In Eugene, lodging, transportation and a host other logistical issues will be challenging. Brown and others in Salem are confident that the Legislature will be supportive enough to give Brown what she needs. That is, unless Senate President Peter Courtney’s ongoing financial concerns gain traction with other lawmak- ers. Courtney predicted an enormous wave of additional financial demands as the event comes closer -- and afterwards. “It’ll be in the hundreds of millions of dollars before it’s over,” he said. “I’m telling you right now, we don’t know how much money they’re going to need and we have no idea where the money is coming from.” Courtney added that he thinks Brown and the World Championships will carry the day, “I’ve lost,” he said. “The event is coming. I just want to know how big the tsunami is going to be.” One thing organizers don’t anticipate is a problem with attendance. Even the newly enlarged Hayward Field should be packed. But an event fan club, formed to connect with future ticket buyers, failed to meet projections. Organizers hoped to have 100,000 people signed up by the end of October. They didn’t get there and it’s unclear how close they got. Weinhold, who chairs the organizing committee, said he did not know the number. He added that the 100,000 goal was ambitious and that he’s not troubled by the shortfall. “It is going to be a great thing,” Weinhold said. “We now have a strong team in place. It’s nice to have the govern- ment’s promise.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 46 - December 2019 USATF Announces Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Coaching Staff https://www.usatf.org/news/2019/usatf-announces-olympic-games-tokyo-2020-coaching- — Rose Monday and Michael Hol- tional junior and senior teams, including the last three loway will serve as head coaches of Team USA for track IAAF World Championships and was head manager for & field, marathon and race walk at the Olympic Games the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2015 Pan Am Games. Tokyo 2020, USATF announced Wednesday. Men’s Assistant Coaches Monday is nationally known as one of the top Darryl Woodson, Sprints/Hurdles minds in middle distance and distance running. Her Darryl Woodson, is a two-time recipient of the 28-year coaching career spans across all levels from USOPC’s Order of Ikkos Award with has over 20 years high school to professional. In 2003, she was appoint- of coaching experience from the grassroots to pro- ed USATF Development Chair overseeing all events. fessional level. Woodson has served on five USATF She’s been appointed to 11 international coaching National Teams while coaching podium level athletes staffs including 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games as as- at all major championships and Olympic Games. sistant coach for women’s distance, and head coach at Stanley Redwine, Distance the 2015 Pan American Games. Entering his 20th season at Kansas, Redwine is a five-time Big 12 Coach of the Year. He has coached 21 Holloway is the men’s and women’s coach at the individual champions, 284 All-Americans, eight Olym- University of Florida and a 2016 USTFCCCA Hall of pians and 23 national championship teams between Fame inductee. Holloway led the Gators to nine NCAA his years as head coach at Kansas and Tulsa and an Division I titles, 15 titles, in assistant coach at Arkansas. addition to numerous individual NCAA and SEC cham- Nat Page, Jumps/Combined pions and All-Americans. Along with his collegiate Nat Page is in his 24th year as an assistant coach for achievements, Holloway has enjoyed a great amount the Tech track and field program. In addition of success internationally, serving as the men’s head to his work at Tech, Page founded Nat’s Athletic Train- coach of the United States’ 2013 World Champion- ing and Career Experiences in September 1993. ships Team, and as Team USA’s sprints and relays Gary Aldrich, Throws coach at the 2012 Olympics. Aldrich, currently the head coach at Carnegie Mel- lon University, has had six opportunities to coach on Women’s Assistant Coaches the international stage which included the 2017 World LaTanya Sheffield, Sprints/Hurdles Outdoor Championships in London, England, where LaTanya Sheffield is a retired Olympic hurdler and he served as men’s throws coach. American record holder. She recently served as the head coach of the women’s 2019 Pan American Games Tim Weaver, Head Manager and was a sprints and hurdles assistant coach on the A veteran of 21 International Team Staffs as a man- 2016 U.S. Olympic Team. ager, coach and team leader, Tim Weaver was a man- Megan Watson, Distance ager for the Olympic Teams in 2008, 2012 and 2016. Megan Watson M. Ed, was most recently women’s head coach of the 2018 World Indoor team. She also Combined Staff served as Team USATF’s assistant coach at the 2017 Orin Richburg, Relay Coach IAAF World Championships, leading the distance Appointed as head relay coach in 2017, Richburg is squad in London. no stranger to the international coaching scene. He Robyne Johnson, Jumps/Combined served as the head coach for the U.S. U20 track and Director of Men’s and Women’s Track & Field and field team at the 2016 IAAF World U20 Champion- Cross Country at The University of California at Berke- ships in Bydgoszcz, Poland. ley, she spent 14 years as the Director of Men’s and Manny Bautista, Event Manager Women’s Track & Field and Cross Country at Manny Bautista has served on a total of 18 National University. teams including the Olympic Games, World Indoors Sandra Fowler, Throws and Outdoors, World Cross Country, World Relays and Fowler most recently represented Team USATF as the Continental Cup. an assistant coach for throws at the 2019 IAAF World Danielle Siebert, Event Manager Championships and 2019 Pan Am Games, and was the Danielle Siebert is entering her 12th year as an asso- head women’s coach at the 2018 IAAF U20 Champion- ciate head track coach - middle distance at the Univer- ships in Tampere, Finland. sity of Maryland. Marsha Seagrave, Head Manager Seagrave is a 19-year veteran coach who has served on the Team USATF staff as a manager for 14 interna- TAFWA Newsletter - Page 47 - December 2019 Partial Fixtures List 2019 Dec. 7 NXN Nike HS Cross Country Nationals, Portland, Oregon

2020 Feb. 8 , New York City (Armory) Feb. 14-15 USATF Championships, Albuquerque, New Mexico Feb. 29 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Marathon, Atlanta, Georgia March 13-14 NCAA Division I Indoor Championships, Albuquerque, New Mexico NCAA Division II Indoor Championships, Birmingham, Alabama NCAA Division III Indoor Championships, Geneva, Ohio March 13-15 IAAF World Indoor Championships, Nanjing, China March 25-28 Texas Relays, Austin, Texas April 16-18 Mt. SAC Relays, Walnut, California April 20 April 22-25 , Des Moines, Iowa April 23-25 Penn Relays, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania May 21-23 NCAA Division II Outdoor Championships, Kingsville, Texas NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships, Rochester, New York May 28-30 NCAA Division I East Preliminary Rounds, Lexington, Kentucky NCAA Division I West Preliminary Rounds, Lawrence, Kansas June 6-7 Prefontaine Classic, Eugene, Oregon June 10-13 NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships, Austin, Texas June TBA USATF U20 Outdoor Championships, Miramar, Florida June 19-28 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Track & Field, Eugene, Oregon June 26 TAFWA Awards Breakfast, Gerlinger Hall (Oregon campus), 9 a.m. July 7-12 IAAF World U20 Championships, Nairobi, Kenya (tentative site) July 24 - Aug 9 Olympic Games, Tokyo, Japan (Track & Field dates: July 31 - August 8) Aug. 26-30 European Championships, Paris, France Nov. 21 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships, Stillwater, Oklahoma NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships, Evansville, Indiana NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

2021 March 11-12 NCAA Division I Indoor Championships, Fayetteville, Arkansas NCAA Division II Indoor Championships, Birmingham, Alabama NCAA Division III Indoor Championships, Geneva, Ohio March 20 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, Bathurst, Australia May 1-2 IAAF World Relays, Silesia, Poland May 27-29 NCAA Division II Outdoor Championships, Allendale, Michigan NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships, Geneva, Ohio May 27-29 NCAA Division I East Preliminary Rounds, Jacksonville, Florida NCAA Division I West Preliminary Rounds, College Station, Texas June 9-12 NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships, Eugene, Oregon

Aug. 6-15 IAAF World Championships, Eugene, Oregon

Nov. 20 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships, Tallahassee, Florida NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships, Tampa, Florida NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships, Louisville, Kentucky

2022 Aug. 15-21 European Championships, Munich, Germany

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 48 - December 2019