March 2019

Track and Field Contents Writers of P. 1 President’s Message America P. 2 Leading Books of 2018 (Founded June 7, 1973) P. 3 2019 TAFWA Awards P. 4 Caster Semenya’s Challenge of the IAAF’s Testosterone Proposals Will Shape the Future of Sport No PRESIDENT Matter the Verdict Jack Pfeifer P. 5 Sports Doping, Criminals and Corporate Sponsors 2199 NW Everett St. #601 P. 6 Why the is the Best in the Nation Portland, Oregon 97210 Office/home: 917-579- P. 7 Opinion: NJ Needs Modern Indoor Track Arena. How about the Meadowlands? 5392. Email: P. 8 Board of Directors’ Motives Questioned as Vin Lananna Bids to Regain His Presidency of USA Track [email protected] & Field P. 11 Ed Cheserek Runs On SECRETARY- P. 13 USATF Athlete Selection Procedures for the 2009 IAAF World Championships TREASURER Tom Casacky P. 15 Why is Doping in the NFL Viewed as Less Important Than in Olympic Sport? P.O. Box 4288 P. 16 New Certificate From the International Olympic Committee for Sports Pharmacists Napa, CA 94558 P. 16 Refugee Team to Compete in Trials, Eye World Cross Country Phone: 818-321-3234 P. 17 Duplantis Incorporated: Family Dynasty United Again in Track and Baseball at LSU Email: [email protected] P. 21 Tyring to Get on Track: Vermont Athletes May Soon Find Themselves Without an Indoor Facility P. 22 Podium Finish Could Be the Catalyst - Praught-Leer: Jamaican Distance Events Could Match Sprints FAST Dave Johnson in Near Future Email: P. 23 Is There a Right and a Wrong Way to Celebrate Sporting Success? [email protected] P. 24 Paying Students to Play Would Ruin College Sports Phone: 215-898-6145 P. 25 San Franciso State Reintroduces Men’s Track & Field P. 26 Paris Organizers Propose Breakdancing for 2024 Olympic Games WEBMASTER Michael McLaughlin P. 27 National Scholastic Athletics Foundation Statement Regarding Transgender Policy Email: P. 28 The Glamorous Existence of the World’s Greatest Shot-Putters [email protected] P. 30 USATF’s Ousted Vin Lananna Alleges Pressure to Warp Bylaws, Extend Terms Phone: 815-529-8454 P. 31 Romanian Becomes Second Shot Put Gold Medalist at 2016 World U20 Championships Stripped of Title After Positive Test NEWSLETTER EDITOR Shawn Price P. 32 Partial Fixtures List Email: [email protected] Phone: 979-661-0731 President’s Message - March 2019 AAU, TAC, USATF … In his attempt to reclaim the position to which he was elected, presidency of the US- ATF, Vin Lananna, assisted by attorneys, has filed a grievance. There are two articles – one by Ken Goe, the other by Ken Stone -- in this month’s Newsletter detailing shocking details of the alleged ways in which the USATF leadership attempted to extort Lananna into an arrangement in which they would allow him to return to the position to which he was elected in exchange for looking the other way on actual governance. The Amateur Athletic Union was around for a century before being forced to give up its control of in the United States, ending a long and sordid chapter. That gave birth to The Athletics Congress, which quickly followed a similar path, bringing us the USATF. When one reads these latest charges, it may be time to wonder what the new acronym will be. Hyperandrogenism The South African Caster Semenya and her team continue to challenge all rulings against her. This has become a fierce international political debate, one that is now spilling over into transgender arguments as well. Last weekend, for example, two transgender runners finished 1-2 in a race in the Connecticut high school state meet. They were competing in the girls’ division. Where does this go? (Just today, I filled out a municipal online questionnaire. Under gender, I was given the options of Male, Fe- male, Trans and Other.) Two items appear in this month’s newsletter – one an analysis of the Semenya situation, the other a state- ment from the group NSAF on its current policy on transgender athletes, showing the tricky situation meet sponsors and governing bodies find themselves in. Housecleaning Two months remain for nominations for this year’s TAFWA Awards. Deadline is May 1. Awards will be pre- sented June 7 at NCAA Champs in Austin at Breakfast co-hosted by the University of Texas Club. It is time to pay your dues of $30 for 2019 if you haven’t already done so. Send by Paypal or check to Treasurer Tom Casacky. Procedures for selecting the U.S. team to the 2019 Worlds appear in this issue. TAFWA Membership Dues for 2019 TAFWA dues for 2019 will remain at $30, and will buy you a series of excellent newsletters, the 2019 FAST Annual, and privileged entry to special TAFWA social events at the NCAA Championships in Austin (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]. Leading Books of 2018 Born to Run: The Leon Coleman Story, By Leon Coleman. Track in the Forest: The Creation of a Legendary 1968 US Coleman was 4th in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics in the Olympic Team, By Bob Burns. The story of the legendary Olympic 110-hurdles. Ruminations on life and coaching. Self-published. Trials in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

When Running Made History, By Roger Robinson. A com- American Miler: The Life and Times of Glenn Cunningham, pilation of significant distance running moments since 1948. Dedi- By Paul J. Kiell. Biography of the famous miler. cated to his wife, Katherine Switzer. Alma Richards: Olympian, By Larry R. Gerlach. A Utah native, A Hurdler’s Hurdler: The Life of Rodney Milburn, by Steven Richards set the Olympic record for the high jump in the 1912 McGill. Milburn was the 1972 Olympic champion in the 110-hur- Games. dles. The Wizard of Foz: Dick Fosbury’s One-Man High-Jump The Inside Track, By Tom Courtney. Courtney was a Fordham Revolution, By Bob Welch and Dick Fosbury. Welch is a former grad and the 1956 Olympic champion in the 800. Autobiography, columnist for the Eugene Register-Guard. self-published. Let Your Mind Run: A Memoir of My Thinking My Way To Vic- The Incomplete Book of Running, By Peter Sagal. Sagal is the tory, By Deena Kastor and Michelle Hamilton. host of NPR’s “Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me!’ and a columnist for Run- ner’s World. Never Missed. Lessons Learned from Forty-Five Years of Running Without Missing a Day, By Mark Covert with Chris University of Nike, By Joshua Hunt. The story of the Univer- Covert. Mark competed in the 1972 Olympic Trials. sity of Oregon’s relationship to one of its most famous graduates, , and Knight’s company. Do Not Worry, It Is Only Pain, By Michael Sharp. Ralph Doubell’s biography. The coaching mind of Franz Stampfl, and the The Sky’s the Limit: The Joe Dial Story, by Doug Eaton with tireless work ethic of Doubell, the 1968 Olympic 800 champion. Joe Dial. Eliud Kipchoge. History’s Fastest Marathoner. An insight Tigerbelle: The Wyomia Tyus Story, By Wyomia Tyus and into the Kenyan life that shapes history, By Max Inglis Fox. Avail- Elizabeth Terzakis. able through Kindle.

Endure – Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Hu- Expected in 2019 man Performance, By Alex Hutchinson. Amazing Racers: The Story of America’s Greatest Running Team and Their Groundbreaking Coach, By Marc Bloom. The The Irish-American Athletic Club of New York: The Rise and remarkable story of the girls from Fayetteville-Manlius. Fall of the Winged Fists 1898-1917, By Patrick B. Redmond. Originally published in 2015. TAFWA will run a monthly list of the leading books published on the Varsity Seven: An American Rift Valley, By Peter Hawkins. sport, compiled by Kim Spir, of Portland. Spokane’s “Rift Valley.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 2 - March 2019 2019 TAFWA Awards Recognizing excellence in track & field journalism, announcing, photography, film & video, blogging, broadcasting and books in 2018 as well as ongoing cooperation with the media.

General information: These awards will be presented June 2019 in Austin for work in 2018 unless otherwise noted. Self-nominations are allowed. Please include nominee’s name, address, e-mail address and phone.

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

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

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

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: May 1 Note: This award will recognize outstanding achievement in film or video on track & field or running during 2018 Criteria: contact Nancy Beffa for details. •Submissions are judged on innovation, impact and content •Entries must have been released, televised or copyrighted in 2018 •Must be at least 25 minutes in length •Submit 5 DVD copies of the film or a link to the work online.

Adam Jacobs Blogging Award For excellence in online personal writing on track and field, cross country or running in 2018 Award Chair: Paul Merca ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1

Armory Foundation Book Award For the leading book published in 2018 on track and field, cross country or running Award Chair: Peter Walsh ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1 Note: Please submit three copies of the book for review to Peter Walsh, Coogan’s Restaurant, 4015 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10032

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

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

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 3 - March 2019 Caster Semenya’s challenge of the IAAF’s testosterone pro- posals will shape the future of sport no matter the verdict By Felix Keith | City A.M. | http://www.cityam.com/273914/caster-semenyas-challenge-iaafs-testoster- one-proposals No matter what is decided over the next month, case promises to be a landmark one regardless. Caster Semenya is set to shape the future of sport. Is the IAAF trying to impose “barbaric, dangerous Semenya may be just one athlete and her case at the and discriminatory” rules, as tennis trailblazer Bil- Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) may be focused lie Jean King says? Or is it acting “in the interests of solely on her own issue, but the South African’s fate is protecting female athletes’ rights and competition”, as sure to have far-reaching consequences. world marathon record holder Paula Radcliffe believes? The Olympic 800m champion will know by 26 March One of the problems with drawing conclusions on whether her challenge to proposals to limit testos- such a nuanced issue is that the scientific basis behind terone in female middle-distance runners has been the IAAF’s argument, which it was confident would successful with CAS or not. “stand up to challenge” in court, is far from a matter of Track and field’s governing body the IAAF wants to universal consensus. make Semenya, who has a condition called hyperan- IAAF lawyer Jonathan Taylor said “more than 100 drogenism which means she produces more testoster- records at national, continental and world level” have one than most women, take medication to reduce her been set by female DSD athletes, who can have inter- levels. nal testes. The precise extent of the advantage from in- It says increased testosterone gives Semenya an creased muscle size, strength and haemoglobin levels, unfair advantage over her competitors and the rule however, was opposed by scientists giving evidence on changes are needed to create “a level playing field”. Semenya’s behalf. “This standard is necessary to ensure fair competi- What further complicates matters is the question tion for all women,” the IAAF said in a statement at of how the CAS ruling on Semenya will affect trans- the start of the CAS hearing in Lausanne, Switzerland, gender athletes. If she wins, some fear it could set a last week. “Indeed, without it, we risk losing the next precedent and bolster the case of transgender athletes generation of female athletes, since they will see no taking hormones in order to compete in women’s path to success in our sport.” sport. If the regulations are imposed and Semenya choses Tennis legend Martina Navratilova was accused of not to take medication to lower her testosterone, the “transphobia” and expelled from LGBTQ group Athlete IAAF says she would still be able to race at distances of Ally after airing her concerns in a Sunday Times col- less than 400m or more than a mile, or could compete umn. in men’s or mixed gender competitions. She argued: “A man can decide to be female, take Semenya’s legal team argues that the 28-year-old, hormones if required by whatever sporting organisa- whose condition is also referred to as differences in tion, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small sex development (DSD), is “unquestionably a woman” fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to and should be free to run against other women with- making babies. It’s insane and it’s cheating.” out restriction because “her genetic gift should be While it’s important to make the distinction be- celebrated not discriminated against”. tween transgender athletes and those like Semenya “The IAAF’s regulations do not empower anyone,” who were born with biological differences, the issue Semenya’s lawyers said in a statement. “Rather, they is just one example of the multi-faceted debates next represent yet another flawed and hurtful attempt to month’s ruling will undoubtedly trigger. police the sex of female athletes.” The International Olympic Committee is understood After a week of hearing both sides of the complex to be waiting on the case’s conclusion before announc- issue and evidence for and against the IAAF’s proposed ing its own testosterone limits for transgender ath- rules – as well as accusations of underhand tactics out- letes ahead of next year’s Toyko Olympics. side the courtroom – CAS has retired to make its deci- Meanwhile, athletes of varying backgrounds and sion, which it described as “one of the most pivotal” in from all sports will be waiting to see how the decision the organisation’s 35-year history. affects their own careers. In the long-term, there are While the primary concern is for Semenya’s future, even suggestions from some scientists that the catego- the grand scale of the issue at hand, which deals with ries of competition in athletics could be sub-divided, gender, biology, identity and the parameters of sport, as they are in the Paralympics, to accommodate diver- means her case will undoubtedly have ramifications sity in biological make-ups. beyond just her. For now, though, the speculation and debate will She may be simply fighting for her rights to contin- rage on until CAS decides Semenya’s future – and pos- ue to ply her trade and she may not have asked to be sibly that of sport as a whole. at the centre of a hugely divisive issue, but Semenya’s TAFWA Newsletter - Page 4 - March 2019 Sports Doping, Criminals And Corporate Sponsors By Alexandra Wrage | Forbes | https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandrawrage/2019/02/28/sports-dop- ing-criminals-and-corporate-sponsors/#7dc304e848c1 Five athletes were arrested in Austria yesterday. The criminal doping ring at the heart of the scandal was ap- parently led by a sports doctor arrested at roughly the same time in Germany. The arrests made a sham of the Nordic World Ski Championships for the clean competitors, but this is only the most recent—not the most egre- gious—example of sports fraud. Corporate sponsors need to decide whether they’re going to be part of a solution in a sports world marred by cheating and criminality . They have an opportunity to leverage their considerable influence to support clean competition. Business and sports have long been intertwined. Tobacco cards featured baseball stars in the 1870s. Adi Das- sler provided spikes free of charge to Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics. But it wasn’t until the late 1970s and early 1980s that corporations started integrating sports into their overall marketing efforts. In 1978, Coca-Cola committed at least US$8 million to become FIFA’s first brand partner, making them an exclusive worldwide sponsor. Today we have college football bowl games named after Chick-fil-A, Allstate, and Northwestern Mutual, among others. Professional players from soccer to golf wear the logos of their sponsors. Corporations sponsor large events for enhanced name recognition and, presumably, positive press. And the sports benefit from these sponsorships. In the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, corporate sponsorships account- ed for more than 40% of Olympic revenues. But it’s the Sochi Olympics that are permanently tainted by widespread, state-sponsored doping. The Russian government, with support from its Federal Security Service, conspired to commit fraud on the public, providing banned drugs to Russian athletes to improve their performance and tampering with urine samples to produce clean tests. The state-run Russian doping program was organized by Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, who led the drug-testing laboratory for the entire Sochi Olympics. Rodchenkov became a whistle-blower, revealing to New York Times reporters details of the elaborate sample-switching scheme—a program he ran for decades and then perfected and deployed for the 2014 Games. After an investigation led by Canadian attorney Richard McLaren concluded “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the Russian sports ministry was involved in a scheme to cover up doping, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recommended banning Russia from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) rejected WADA’s recommendation, instead shifting the burden of vetting Russian Olympic candidates to each sport’s international federation. In the end, 278 Russian athletes were cleared to compete in Rio. After additional post-Olympics investigations, the IOC banned the entire Rus- sian Olympic team from the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang—though, in a compromise, Russian athletes with no previous violations were allowed to compete as “Olympic Athletes from Russia” (OAR). In the wake of these insipid sanctions, the U.S. Congress has jumped into the fray. The Rodchenkov Anti- Doping Act was introduced in January in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate with bipartisan support. If passed, the act will criminalize doping fraud conspiracies, provide restitution to victims of these conspiracies, protect whistle-blowers from retaliation and establish coordination between WADA and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. It’s surprising that corporations have been slower to act than Congress. Opposing illegal doping should be an easy call. Corporations can use their significant leverage as sponsors to drive change. It’s in their interest to do so to avoid reputational damage-by-association and to preserve their marketing investment. The 2012 London Olympics featured 121 positive doping tests, tainting dozens of medals, 29 of which were ultimately revoked. That’s not a good look for corporate sponsors. Sponsorship agreements should in every case have provisions that claw back funding for events tainted by doping. That would motivate the organizers to take enforcement seriously. And backing an anti-doping initiative like the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act is a natural fit for brands that want their names associated with corporate ethics, clean competition and fair play. There’s a clear alignment of interests here. It’s time for corporate sponsors to step forward.

Alexandra Wrage is the founder and president of TRACE, an organization committed to increasing com- mercial transparency and bolstering good governance.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 5 - March 2019 Why the Bowerman Track Club Is the Best in the Nation By Martin Fritz Huber | Outside https://www.outsideonline.com/2389371/bowerman-track-club-nations-best-running-team Thanks to its dominant women’s squad, the BTC has sup- as a runner, even if it occasionally broke you. As Quigley planted the Oregon Project. writes, “When you can’t finish a Jerry workout, you’re still I’m not the first person to point it out, but it’s increas- doing way better than any workout you’ve ever done before ingly evident that Bill Belichick is pro football’s version of joining the group.” coach Alberto Salazar. Both men have a By the time the 2016 Olympics rolled around, that group reputation for being cagey, shrewd, successful, and, possibly, expanded its roster to include eight women—seven of a little bit shady. They both have an aura of glowering seri- whom qualified for the Games. Since then, a number of ousness, which might be why it’s weird to see them smile. these women have had professional breakthroughs that While watching a post-game interview with Belichick have launched them into the stratosphere of world-class after the Patriots win on Sunday, I was reminded of the running. In 2018, , who eviscerated the one time I saw a jubilant Salazar in the wild. It was the competition with her finishing speed at last weekend’s penultimate night of the Rio Olympic Games and I had just cross-country championships, set a new national record in witnessed Oregon Project runners Mo Farah and Matthew the 5,000-meters and won a Diamond League 1,500. Mean- Centrowitz kick their way to gold medal glory in the 5,000 while, steeplechaser , who had previously and 1,500-meters, respectively. Salazar was celebrating with been overshadowed by her rival Emma Coburn, also set a his entourage. No wonder. It was 2016, and the Oregon national record when she ran 9:00.85 last summer in Mo- Project was the most prestigious running club in the land. naco (only six women have ever run faster). Lest we forget, That status now seems in jeopardy, to put it mildly. As the in 2017 BTC matriarch won the New York club continues to be under investigation for alleged doping City Marathon, becoming the first American woman to do violations, a number of prominent athletes (including Farah so in 40 years. and Centrowitz) have left the Oregon Project. Meanwhile, There are currently eleven women on the BTC (which has the Bowerman Track Club, which is also based out of Nike’s roughly the same number of professional men), and one world HQ in Beaverton, Oregon, is suddenly overflowing could argue that the squad has the top American athlete with talent. The team is led by former University of Wiscon- in every competitive distance from the 1,500 up to the sin coach , who among other accolades, marathon. was USATF’s Coach of the Year in 2017. On the men’s side, there has also been a recent develop- “BTC is arguably THE program for The right ment which suggests a shifting balance of power among now,” Mario Fraioli wrote in a recent issue of his running top American clubs. A year after his Olympic triumph in newsletter The Morning Shakeout. 2016, Matthew Centrowitz relocated from Oregon to the When you are able to beat BTC athletes, Northern Arizo- East Coast to train on his own. Last November, Centrowitz na Elite coach Ben Rosario said in an email, “you’re beating finally confirmed that he had left the Oregon Project, only the premier group in the country. I would agree that that’s to announce in January that he would be competing for what they’ve become, at least in terms of performance.” BTC. It seemed like trolling, par excellence. Even though By and large, this “premier” status comes from the he expressed gratitude to his former coach, there was still increasingly impressive performances of BTC professional something impressively in-your-face about Centrowitz women. At last weekend’s USATF Cross Country Champion- bailing on Salazar and joining forces with longtime Salazar ships, for instance, BTC took five out of the top seven spots nemesis Jerry Schumacher. (In case you don’t know: Salazar in the women’s open division. The cross-country champs and Schumacher are not the best of friends.) aren’t typically a high stakes event on the annual USATF Then again, Centrowitz has always been a in-your- calendar, but this year’s race was unusually stacked. The fact face type of guy. Among other things, it will be interesting that BTC women were nonetheless able to dominate felt like to see how he gets on with Olympic silver-medalist and resi- an affirmation of what most running fans in this country dent BTC nice boy . (When he’s not tearing it up already know: the “Bowerman Babes,” as they have branded on the track, Jager has the air of someone who might spend themselves, are on fire right now. his free time volunteering at his local church, or scrubbing It wasn’t always like this. When she joined in 2009, the schmutz off an injured baby seal.) Shalane Flanagan was the only woman on the team. In early As for the Oregon Project, it should be stated that, de- 2015, BTC’s professional squad still only had two female spite losing a few big names since the club’s 2016 high-wa- members, after 10,000-meter specialist joined ter mark, Salazar’s crew is not short on heavy hitters. New in 2012. Word soon got out, however. pickups include Dutch-Ethiopian runner Sifan Hassan, who “All of the Bowerman babes have one thing in common,” is probably one of the few women in the world right now BTC steeplechaser wrote in a piece for who’s capable of outkicking Houlihan in a distance race; and Tempo Journal. “We all chose the Bowerman Track Club. Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha, who will try to break the indoor We did not get recruited.” The appeal seems to have come mile world record at this weekend’s . This is from a growing awareness that BTC was a place to evolve no B team. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 6 - March 2019 But if there’s any lesson in the recent surge of BTC ath- role. If you want to attract and retain top runners, it pays to letes, it’s that talent only counts for so much. Ideally, your actively cultivate an image of being on the up and up. training group will also provide an environment where top BTC appears to have figured that out. “Inside the ‘bubble’ athletes actually want to stick around. Farah ostensibly left that is made up of American professional distance runners the OP because he wanted to move back to England with his and coaches, [BTC] are seen as a group that does it right,” family, and Centrowitz never publicly claimed to have any Rosario said in his email. “Meaning that we believe they are beef with the club. It’s difficult to imagine, however, that 100% clean. So to see them have such success helps all of us the allegations of potential misdeeds by Salazar didn’t play a who also do it the right way. We know it’s possible.” Opinion: NJ needs modern indoor track arena. How about the Meadowlands? By Silvio Laccetti | Special to The North Jersey Record|https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/ contributors/2019/02/05/nj-needs-modern-indoor-track-arena-how-meadowlands/2780721002/ The American Dream complex in the NJ Meadowlands will have everything, or so it seems from a recent article in The Record. Dreams are fulfilled with -- among other things -- shops and restaurants, a Nickelodeon Universe theme park, an indoor snow park, a water park, and a 10-story, free-fall attraction. Visitors can dream on in a performing arts theater, an aquarium and even a hockey rink. However, as is, this mega center does not fulfill the dreams of thousands of high school track and field par- ticipants who desperately need a new venue. Our state does have an indoor track in Toms River, the Bennett Center, or “The Bubble,” as it is called by runners. What’s wrong with that? Everything! An elite Jersey track star, now in college, says “… it is probably one of the worst tracks in the U.S.” It’s a Germ Dome, say others, who complain of getting “the dome cough” after competing there. Again, citing the elite runner, the layout is terrible. Athletes are packed inside the 200-meter oval with hundreds of other people. There is no walking space, no place to do warm-ups out of the cold. Seating is totally inadequate. Moreover, there are no bathrooms in the Germ Dome, just a few Portajohns placed outside in the freezing cold. Still, throughout February, sectionals, groups and The Meet of Champions will be contested there. The Bubble’s performance-related difficulties are highlighted in another recent northjersey.com story about Luis -Per alta, of Passaic High, one of NJ’s super-star runners and a national gold medalist. The Bubble track is not banked; it’s a flat track which produces slower times. Peralta said he will not defend his state title. According to the article, Peralta wants to run faster and has an ambitious schedule of prestigious national events ahead, for which even fractions of time matter for qualification. Peralta admits he might have considered running in the state races if the meets were held either at Ocean Breeze Arena (in Staten Island) or the New York Armory (Manhattan). Both have banked tracks that allow faster times. “I just want to run fast,” Peralta told The Record. As it is, too many of our premier events must be contested either at Ocean Breeze or the Armory. This season at the Ar- mory we have: The Bergen County Championships, (48 schools), the Hudson County Invitational (16 schools); The Bergen County Relays (41 schools). The December Spiked Shoe Holiday Classic had 48 of 51 teams from New Jersey. At Ocean Breeze Arena, the story is similar. The Morris County Invitational has some 40 teams from all over Jersey. The Morris County Championships draws 26 teams. The Ocean Breeze Freedom games hosted 27 teams from all over NJ, along with many other teams in the Northeast. Now, much can be said for the attraction and excitement for track and field athletes to test their skills in such a storied venue, as is the New York Armory. For major, national events, like the Millrose Games or the New Balance Nationals, that’s fine. But for county and league championships wouldn’t it better to do them locally, in a first-class arena, with plenty of parking? So, where to build this new facility? We don’t have to. The vacant ex-Izod Center, can be repurposed to fill the bill. This venue can become profitable again if we think creatively. The arena could become the East Coast Olympic training center, drawing world class athletes for competitions Re-configuration of the upper level could include sports-themed shops and restaurants, corporate offices, and athletic halls of fame. Just steps away from the largest entertainment center in the world, that synergy can make the new arena a destination in and of itself. In this scenario, there are plenty of events, and lots of revenues. Lately, our state has produced a wonder crop of track and field athletes. Let’s provide infrastructure and other support for NJ to become a continually dominant player at the national level of this sport. As one source close to the issue told me, “the track and field community really doesn’t ask for much, nor do we ever get much of quality -- like other sports do.” New Jersey, we know what should be done. Complete this dream. Do it!

Silvio Laccetti is a syndicated columnist and a retired professor of history from Stevens Tech. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 7 - March 2019 Board of Directors’ motives questioned as Vin Lananna bids to regain his presidency of USA Track & Field By Ken Goe | The Oregonian |https://www.oregonlive.com/sports/2019/02/board-of-directors-motives- questioned-as-vin-lananna-bids-to-regain-his-presidency-of-usa-track-field.html USA Track & Field president Vin Lananna hopes to end a controversial year in limbo later this month when the USATF board of directors considers whether to bring him back from temporary administrative leave. The board placed Lananna on leave in February 2018 after The New York Times published a story Jan. 31 citing leaked grand jury subpoenas. The Times reported Eugene organizers for the 2021 World Outdoor Track & Field Championships had been contacted by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a global corruption investigation into international athletic events. At the time of the successful bid for the World Outdoor Championships, Lananna was president TrackTown USA, the local organizing committee in Eugene. In a statement, the board of directors said Lananna’s temporary leave would last until the DOJ investigation “is resolved.” Critics of the decision say there is no indication Lananna is a target of the investigation, and the decision is a way for the board to go around the will of a membership that had repudiated the board’s leadership when it elected Lananna by acclamation. Curt Clausen, an attorney and Olympic race walker, was a member of the USATF board last year. He says he voted against the decision to put Lananna on leave. “More than anything, it seemed to me that this was a continuation of an over yearlong process, that began even before Vin Lananna was elected president, to discredit him personally,” Clausen says. “It was to ensure his presidency and the election by the membership didn’t work.”

AT ODDS The USATF board, as led by former chairman Steve Miller and ex-president and board chair Stephanie Hight- ower, has been at odds with the organization’s membership in at least several high-profile instances. • At the USATF annual meeting in 2014, delegates voted 392-70 to recommend that Bob Hersh be nominated for re-election to the governing council of the International Association of Athletics Federations, the ruling body of world track and field. At the time, Hersh was an IAAF senior vice president. The board instead voted to 11-1 to nominate Hightower, USATF president from 2008-16. Becca Gillespy Peter, a blogger and activist within USATF, says the board’s decision seemed unnecessarily arbi- trary and dismissive of the will of the delegates. “The board failed to communicate to the membership why Stephanie would better represent USATF at the international level,” Peter says. “The delegates were deeply unhappy with this decision.” • In 2016, the board of directors suspended its entire Youth Executive Committee in a dispute over what kind of software should be used for registration at youth meets. The committee filed a grievance. The USATF national office responded with a lawsuit. Peter estimates total costs for USATF to settle the suit at more than $1 million. It was against this backdrop that Lananna decided in 2016 to run for the USATF presidency, a volunteer posi- tion that includes a seat on the organization’s board of directors. The president is elected to a four-year term by delegates at USATF’s annual meeting. The board of directors is made up of individuals selected by the USATF’s constituent groups, such as athletes, coaches, officials and committees governing different ages and competition disciplines, as well as three indepen- dent directors. Lananna, an associate athletic director at the , says he wants to use the presidency as a bully pulpit to rally the organization. He says he believes the next dozen years, which would include the 2021 World Outdoor Championships in Eugene and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, are a perfect time to revitalize the sport in this country. Lananna has been a successful coach at Dartmouth, Stanford and Oregon, as well as at the Olympic level. He has been an athletic administrator. He has presided over three Olympic trials for track and field and the 2016 World Indoor Championships. He says he feels he has the right background to take on the challenge. “I’ve always felt U.S. athletes need to have opportunities to compete at home to build their brands and market themselves,” Lananna says. “Here, there is an opportunity.” His was a campaign based on hope and optimism, and it went over big. Lananna ran against Olympic great Jackie Joyner-Kersee. In many ways, he also was running against the dis- TAFWA Newsletter - Page 8 - March 2019 connect between the board of directors and the membership. At that annual meeting, delegates voted to revise USATF bylaws to ensure the president also would be board chair beginning in 2018, consolidating power in the hands of a person elected by direct vote. When it became clear Lananna was on the cusp of an overwhelming victory, Joyner-Kersee withdrew and Lananna became president. “Vin is a visionary and doer,” says Jonathan Marcus, vice president of Portland Track. “He is relentless in his effort to help move the sport forward. I’m happy to follow his lead and support him 100 percent.” It wasn’t so warm and fuzzy on the board directors, already bridling about the potential change of direction Lananna represented.

USATF AND TRACKTOWN USA Clausen says the campaign against Lananna began in earnest in fall 2015, when Lananna began making noises about running. At issue then were conflicts of interest posed by Lananna, then president of TrackTown USA, the local orga- nizing committee in Eugene. This boiled into public view during an open session at a board meeting in October 2015 when Hightower noted TrackTown was past due in payments owed to USATF. Clausen remembers being surprised because the board typically retreats into executive session to discuss sensitive matters. After thinking about it, Clausen says he decided, “it was a very telling sign about the motivations around what they wanted the outcome of the presidential election to be.” Lananna won anyway. He spent the months after his election traveling around the country on a listening tour to find out what local USATF associations wanted from the national office. Inside the board directors, meanwhile, there was a continual drumbeat of comments from Miller about La- nanna’s stewardship of TrackTown and how that might conflict with his role as USATF president. Miller and USATF CEO Max Siegel both brought up the subject in stories published in the last year by The Oregonian/OregonLive. Miller, a former Nike executive and current CEO of Agassi Graf Holdings, declined to talk to The Oregonian/ OregonLive for this story. Hightower and Siegel declined interview requests through USATF spokeswoman Susan Hazzard. Interim US- ATF president and board member Mike Conley declined an interview request by email. TrackTown USA CEO Michael Reilly says comments by Miller and Siegel about TrackTown being in arrears failed to note USATF also owed TrackTown money at the same time, and the two organizations were negotiating over how to structure the reciprocal payments. “There was a period where TrackTown had multiple agreements with USA Track & Field because we were part- ners in hosting in multiple events,” Reilly says. “In some of those agreements, we had obligations to pay them. In some of them, they had obligations to pay us.” During the negotiations, Reilly says, TrackTown didn’t make any payments. When negotiations concluded, USATF got its money in full. “We absolutely honored our agreements,” Reilly says. “We always have.” That doesn’t mean Miller let the matter go. As board chair, he set the agenda. At meeting after meeting, the board found itself discussing Lananna and TrackTown. At one point, the board passed a resolution directing Lananna to recuse himself from any discussion involving Tracktown — something Lananna says he already was doing. Clausen grew weary of it. “At just about every board meeting for a year and a half, Vin was a topic of conversation, usually in executive session,” Clausen says. Clausen and Peter say the focus on Lananna’s conflicts of interest seemed overblown. “It was way out of proportion to the amount of concern that has been displayed with conflicts of interest of any other board member,” Peter says. “Our sport is not that big. A lot of people on that board, you can argue, had conflicts of interest. It usually wasn’t that big of a deal. Suddenly, it was a huge deal.” Lananna insists, and Clausen and Peter agree, he was scrupulous about leaving the room when the board dis- cussed issues that might involve a conflict of interest. In any case, Lananna says he was more interested in his big-picture vision of reigniting the sport than in the nitty-gritty of ties between TrackTown and USATF. “I hadn’t anticipated it would be so political,” Lananna says. “Of course, there always are going to be some politics. But the politics should take a back seat to trying to get the sport moving forward again.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 9 - March 2019 Lananna resigned his position with TrackTown USA last summer, which should have put those concerns to rest. By then, though, he had a bigger problem.

THE INVESTIGATION There always have been questions about the joint bid by TrackTown USA and USATF that landed the 2021 World Outdoors for Eugene. The IAAF Council bypassed its own protocol to award the bid to Eugene following a meeting between Lananna and then-IAAF president Lamine Diack, who is now facing multiple corruption charges. It’s not clear how much the Eugene bid has factored in to the global corruption investigation being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. It is clear Lananna met with DOJ investiga- tors in New York in fall 2017 and didn’t tell anybody in Eugene or at USATF about it. Lananna says he was instructed not to discuss the interview with anyone. When The New York Times story came out, he had some explaining to do. He still watches his words. “The bottom line is, I was asked to provide them information and I did,” he says. Lananna says he hasn’t met with the DOJ since, and believes he was summoned as a cooperating witness. All of this rings true to Clausen, who has represented a number of clients interviewed as part of DOJ investi- gations. “When you’re contacted by the Department of Justice in an ongoing investigation, you are told you can’t dis- close it,” Clausen says. “Somehow it became public knowledge. That was then used, in my opinion, to paint Vin into a box he can’t paint himself out of.” To Clausen and Peter, the investigation became a convenient lever for board members who wanted to sideline Lananna because they weren’t getting traction by pursuing the conflicts of interest angle. USATF bylaws state Lananna only can be removed from office by a vote of two-thirds of delegates at an annual meeting or a meeting of the membership called for that purpose. By putting him on “temporary administrative leave,”the board accomplished the same purpose while sidestep- ping the process. Clausen and Peter have other questions: • If the bid for the 2021 World Outdoor Championships is a focus of the DOJ investigation, who else at USATF has been interviewed? If others have been interviewed, should they also be unable to serve until comple- tion of the investigation? • If Lananna’s one interview with the DOJ is the only USATF involvement, doesn’t that indicate the bid is a peripheral part of what appears to be a larger investigation into global sports corruption? If Lananna has to wait for a DOJ seal of approval to be reinstated, it’s not likely ever to happen. “The DOJ is not going to confirm an investigation is over, even when it’s over,” Clausen says. “It is not a com- mon practice. I think that is why the board structured the motion that way.” It’s also a reason why Clausen says he voted against it. “If you’re named as a target of the investigation, that is a different thing,” he says. “But if anyone has that information, I’m not aware of it, and it was not disclosed when the board voted. Instead, it was this hypotheti- cal, ‘What if? What if the worst possible scenario occurs? Wouldn’t we look stupid if we didn’t suspend the presi- dent?’” Lananna says he considered taking his case to the membership at the most recent annual meeting in Decem- ber. He says he decided against it because he thought a divisive floor fight would not be a good springboard to pull the U.S. track and field community together in a bold attempt to reawaken the sport. The board turned over in December. Miller, after unsuccessfully attempting to change a USATF bylaw that limited him to two, four-year terms, is gone, a victim of the term limits. Lananna says Conley, USATF’s temporary president, promised him a fair hearing when the board meets later this month to deliberate his case. In the meantime, Lananna continues to pursue his vision of making track and field great again, even if to oth- ers it looks like a pipe dream. Reilly won’t count him out. The TrackTown CEO says Lananna has spent his working life making miracles. He turned Dartmouth into an NCAA contender. He made Stanford an NCAA men’s track champion. He led the effort that redefined the way an Olympic trials should be staged. He brought the World Indoor Champion- ships to the Oregon Convention Center. “It’s not Vin Lananna doing all these things,” Reilly says. “It’s Vin Lananna building teams of really talented people and inspiring them to go out and get it done.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 10 - March 2019 Ed Cheserek Runs On The 17-time collegiate national champion is now 25 and trying to figure out exactly who he is, and which country he will represent. By Matthew Futterman | The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/sports/ed-cheserek-immigration.html For years now, nearly a decade, Ed Cheserek’s path claim to be. seemed obvious. All this is unfolding as Cheserek evolves, trying to A gifted teenage runner from Kenya, he had be- become the runner he has always wanted to be. Like come a high school sensation at St. Benedict’s Prep in plenty of other 20-somethings, he is learning that Newark, and then a star at the University of Oregon. the path to what he wants is rarely as straight, or as A distance specialist, Cheserek could win races as long simple, as it once seemed. as 10,000 meters, or drop down and a run a sub-four- He has moved to Flagstaff, Ariz., where he trains at minute mile as needed. Cheserek won 17 national elevation alongside some of the best distance runners championships at Oregon, and when he graduated in in the world. It feels like home, he said, but his appli- 2017, he was the most decorated runner in N.C.A.A. cation for a green card has been rejected. Even receiv- history. ing a temporary work visa, something that seemed as His next move seemed clear. He would become an if it would be simple given his elite skills, has proved American citizen and represent the country in the big- difficult. His lawyer uses stronger words to describe gest distance races and the biggest competitions the the process: “arbitrary and capricious,” though he said way other runners born in Africa — Bernard Lagat, the difficulties went back to the years of the Obama Meb Keflezighi, Abdi Abdirahman — had done before presidency. him. “All I can do is just keep running until they decide It has not gone that way, not yet anyway. Instead, what they decide,” Cheserek said in a telephone inter- Cheserek, now 25 and back in New York this week to view this week. run in the Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games, is Mostly, he has been very good at that. Cheserek ran caught between two countries, trapped in a dispute the second-fastest indoor mile ever last year, finish- involving immigration law, specialized work visas and ing in 3 minutes 49.44 seconds at the David Hemery the strange question of just how elite a runner he can Valentine Invitational in , but he is certain

Edward Cheserek (13) in the men’s elite mile on Feb. 2 at a meet in Winston-Salem, N.C. Cheserek won with a time of 3 minutes 55.74 seconds on his birthday. Credit Veasey Conway for The New York Times TAFWA Newsletter - Page 11 - March 2019 his greatest successes will come in the 5,000 and the Cheserek’s current challenge is that he attended 10,000. Oregon on a student visa and was not able to obtain Just 5-foot-6 but with the chiseled physique of an a green card while he was there, Young said. After Or- undersize N.F.L. cornerback, Cheserek has a stride egon, he applied for a green card, seeking approval on that, regardless of how fast he is running, makes him the basis of his athletic accomplishments, but was told appear to float across any distance. Other than the he had not proved himself against pro runners. slightest roll of his shoulders, he is a model of what “If 17 N.C.A.A. championships won’t get you a green looks like effortless efficiency. Then in an instant, he card, nothing will,” Young said. produces his trademark burst of speed that, through- Until Cheserek has a green card, the clock cannot out college at least, almost always left his competition start ticking on the five years he has to wait before he far behind. can apply for United States citizenship. An act of Con- “He’s a kind of freakish combination of strength gress could expedite that process, but not much else. and speed,” said Stephen Haas, who has been coaching So if Cheserek, approaching his prime, wants to ap- Cheserek for the past year. pear at this year’s world championships or next year’s It is also what sets him apart. Consider Keflezighi, Olympics in Tokyo, he will have to do it running for for example, the winner of the and Bos- Kenya. (A later switch of nationality is allowed under ton and a versatile athlete who like Che- international track and field rules.) serek won national championships in cross-country In the meantime, Young has helped Cheserek obtain and at 5,000 and 10,000 meters in college. Keflezighi a P1 visa, more commonly referred to as the athlete has never broken four minutes for the mile. Mo Farah, and artist visa. It allows people who can demonstrate widely considered the world’s most versatile distance extraordinary talent to live and work in the United runner, has never run a mile faster than 3:56. States for up to five years because their professions Cheserek, though, has plenty of ground to make require the participation of the best people in the up in the longer distances before he can be consid- world. (Think of foreign-born N.B.A. stars and vir- ered world class in those events, where even his best tuoso violinists.) times are 43 seconds off the world record in the 5,000 In January 2018, the United States Citizenship and and more than two minutes behind the mark in the Immigration Services, which does not comment on 10,000. individual cases, granted Cheserek a P1 visa for only To be fair, Cheserek has yet to have a complete and one year rather than five. healthy outdoor season as a professional. Haas said An application to extend his visa is still under re- he was certain an injury-free cycle of training that view. Immigration officials have questioned whether now included 100-mile-plus weeks and faster, longer the track meets and races Cheserek was participating runs as Cheserek headed into the spring and summer in really required athletes of “international recogni- was going to produce significant breakthroughs at the tion,” as the statute states. distances Cheserek believes are his specialty. Young said the concerns about Cheserek’s schedule A glimpse of the future may have occurred at the were unfounded because the events he wanted to run Manchester Road Race in Connecticut on a frigid — which included the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, Thanksgiving morning last fall, when the runner the Millrose Games and the — known as King Cheserek at Oregon set a course record. were among the most prestigious meets in the world, He ran the 4.75-mile course in 21:16, beating Paul so of course they required the services of internation- Chelimo, the 5,000-meter silver medalist at the 2016 ally recognized athletes. Rio Olympics, and Andy Butchart, a British Olympian, Cheserek has until April 15 to file additional infor- by 30 seconds. mation. He is allowed to continue living and training So does he now prefer the roads to the track? in the United States until the case is decided, which “Roads, track, I don’t care,” Cheserek said. “Running is may take several months. running.” Until then, all he can do is run. The best result he Exactly what country he will represent is a much can hope for is the path of Lagat, who attended Wash- more complex question. Thomas Young, a Colorado ington State. Lagat began his career running for Kenya immigration lawyer who has represented many ath- but then represented the United States after gaining letes and now oversees Cheserek’s citizenship case, citizenship. said the process had become much less predictable “These athletes have a very short window of time since 2015, before President Trump was elected. to compete at the highest level internationally,” said Cheserek has said since high school that his dream Chris Lane, Cheserek’s agent. “We don’t want to is to become an American citizen and to represent the restrict Ed from accomplishing his goals, and those United States in the Olympics. It should be noted that include medals in the worlds and the Olympics.” American distance running teams are usually easier to make than Kenyan ones, though Cheserek’s indoor mile time last year set a Kenyan record. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 12 - March 2019 USATF Athlete Selection Procedures for the 2019 IAAF World Championships http://www.usatf.org/Events---Calendar/2019/IAAF-World-Outdoor-Championships/Athlete-Info/Athlete-Selection/ Track-and-Field-Athlete-Selection-Procedures.aspx Selection Event The 2019 USATF Outdoor Track & Field Championships, to be held on July 25-28, 2019 in Des Moines, Iowa, will serve as the Selec- tion Event for the 2019 IAAF World Championships. Philosophy These selection procedures are designed to enable athletes to select themselves in individual events based on place finish and having met the 2019 IAAF World Championships qualifying standard in order that USA Track & Field (“USATF”) can assemble a team that can achieve the best possible results at the 2019 IAAF World Championships.

Eligibility Criteria for the U.S. Team In order to be eligible to be a member of the Team, or an alternate, an athlete must: • Be a citizen of the United States and, under USATF and IAAF rules, be eligible to represent the USA at all levels of international competition. • Be a USA Track & Field member in good standing at the time of the selection through the end of the 2019 IAAF World Champion- ships. • Possess a valid passport that does not expire within six months of the 2019 IAAF World Championships (and must present passport at team processing when applicable). • Sign a USATF Athlete Statement of Conditions for participation, if nominated for the Team.

Other Requirements In order to be eligible to be a member of the Team, or an alternate, an athlete must achieve the applicable IAAF Qualifying Standard in a USATF, IAAF, IAAF Area, Collegiate or High School competition organized and listed on the pertinent sanctioning organization’s published calendar of events. The competition must be determined to be valid and acceptable for qualifying purposes under USATF and IAAF rules.

Track & Field Selection Criteria The following criteria will be used to select athletes for the U.S. Team for the 2019 IAAF World Championships in Athletics (“World Championships”) in individual events: • The athlete’s rank order of place finish in an event at the 2019 USATF Outdoor Track & Field Championships (the “Selection Event”). • Whether athletes have achieved the applicable IAAF qualifying standard per the entry criteria below. • Marathon, 50km and 20km Race Walk procedures are posted separately per the links below.

NOTE – Tie Break Procedure USATF may, in its discretion, enter up to four (4) competitors in each individual event for the 2019 IAAF World Championships. Up to three (3) athletes in each event will be allowed to travel with the Team and compete at the World Championships subject to the following criteria. Please note additional athletes may be entered and travel with the team per the criteria below.

Automatic Qualification: • The top three (3) finishers, in Performance Rank Order at the USATF Outdoor Track & Field Championships will automatically select themselves to the USATF team for the World Championships (the “Team”), provided that (a) each has, achieved the applicable IAAF World standard between September 7, 2018 and July 28, 2019, Please take special note that U.S. athletes must have achieved the IAAF entry standard no later than July 28, 2019, which is the final day of the Selection Event. • A reigning 2017 IAAF World Outdoor Champion who competes at the Selection Event receives an automatic wild-card bye into the World Championships for the event in which he or she is the reigning World Champion, whether or not he or she has achieved the corre- sponding entry standard. These athletes, however, are not required to compete in the same event at the selection event in which they are reigning 2017 IAAF World Champions in order to receive the wild-card bye. In events in which a USATF athlete is the reigning 2017 IAAF World Champion, USATF may, in its discretion, and subject to the applicable rules and regulations (including these Selection Procedures), enter up to five (5) athletes in the World Championships, including up to four (4) athletes who will be allowed to travel and compete with the Team at the World Championships. • A 2019 Diamond League Champion who competes at the Selection Event, in events in which the reigning World Champion is not a U.S. athlete, will receive an automatic wild-card bye into the 2019 IAAF World Championships for the event in which he or she is the 2019 Diamond League Champion, whether or not he or she has achieved the corresponding entry standard. These athletes are not required to compete in the same event at the selection event in which they are the Diamond League Champion in order to receive the wild-card bye. In events in which a U.S. athlete is the 2019 Diamond League Champion, and the reigning World Champion is not a U.S. athlete who competes in the USA Championships, USATF may, in its discretion, and subject to the applicable rules and regulations (in- cluding these Selection Procedures), enter up to five (5) athletes in the World Championships, including up to four (4) athletes who will be allowed to travel and compete with the Team at the World Championships. • A 2019 winner of the IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge, IAAF Race Walk Challenge, or IAAF Combined Events Challenge who com- petes at the Selection Event, in events in which the reigning World Champion or 2019 IAAF Diamond League winner is not a U.S. athlete, will receive an automatic wild-card bye into the 2019 IAAF World Championships for the event in which he or she is the 2019 winner TAFWA Newsletter - Page 13 - March 2019 of the IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge, IAAF Race Walk Challenge, or IAAF Combined Events Challenge, whether or not he or she has achieved the corresponding entry standard. These athletes are not required to compete in the same event at the selection event in which they are the 2019 winner of the IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge, IAAF Race Walk Challenge, or IAAF Combined Events Challenge in order to receive the wild-card bye. In events in which the 2019 winner of the IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge, IAAF Race Walk Challenge, or IAAF Combined Events Challenge and the reigning World Champion or 2019 IAAF Diamond League winner is not a U.S. athlete who competes in the USA Championships, USATF may, in its discretion, and subject to the applicable rules and regulations (including these Selection Procedures), enter up to five (5) athletes in the World Championships, including up to four (4) athletes who will be allowed to travel and compete with the Team at the World Championships.

Other Qualification: • If no U.S. athletes achieve the IAAF Qualifying Standard in a given event during the qualifying period, USATF will enter no athletes in that event, unless an athlete is exempt from qualifying because he or she is the reigning World Champion, Diamond League Cham- pion, winner of the IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge, IAAF Race Walk Challenge, or IAAF Combined Events Challenge. • In each event, the rank order of place finish at the Selection Event shall determine the eligibility of an athlete to compete or be desig- nated an alternate at the IAAF World Championships. • In some events, the IAAF may invite athletes based on the IAAF Top Performance lists in order to reach the target number of com- petitors for each event as listed by the IAAF for the 2019 IAAF World Championships. USATF shall accept any invitations extended to U.S. athletes as long as they have competed at the Selection Event. There will be no invitations through the use of the IAAF Top Perfor- mance in the 10,000m, race walk and marathon.

Marathon Selection Criteria The athlete selection procedures for the Marathon is posted here: Marathon Athlete Selection Procedures

50km and 20km Race Walk Selection Criteria The athlete selection procedures for the 50km and 20km Race Walks is posted here: Race Walk Athlete Selection Procedures

Relays For the men’s and women’s 4x100 meter and 4x400 meter relays, up to six (6) athletes may be entered as members of each relay pool. The four (4) athletes (including the alternate) entered in the respective individual events (100m and 400m) are required by IAAF rules to be included in each pool. For each relay pool, in addition to the four athletes listed above, there will be two (2) athletes selected. Selection of the two additional athletes will be done by the USATF Head Relay Coach, in consultation and cooperation with the respec- tive 2019 World Championships Head Coach or his/her designee, USATF’s Chief of Sport Performance, and one non-competing athlete selected by USATF’s Athletes Advisory Committee who has World Championship and/or Olympic experience in the 4x100m or 4x400m relays.

Mixed Relay For the 4 x400 meter mixed relay pool, two (2) additional male and two (2) additional female athletes will be selected. Selection of the four additional athletes will be done by the USATF Head Relay Coach, in consultation and cooperation with the respective 2019 World Championships Head Coach or his/her designee, USATF’s Chief of Sport Performance, and one non-competing athlete selected by US- ATF’s Athletes Advisory Committee who has World Championship and/or Olympic experience in the relays. In order to be eligible for the relay pool, an athlete must compete in the Selection Event, except in emergency situations where a waiver, based on medical or exceptional circumstances, may be given by USATF, in its sole discretion.

Other athletes may be eligible for selection to the 2019 IAAF World Championships, due to being considered to have achieved the World Championships IAAF Standard. Note, however, it is up to USATF to determine whether the following athletes are entered. This is not a bye. It is simply allowing certain athlete groups to be considered as having achieved the IAAF Qualifying Standard. • 10,000m – The top 15 athletes finishing in the senior Men’s and senior Women’s races at the 2019 IAAF World Cross Country Cham- pionships are considered to have achieved the IAAF Qualifying Standard for the 2019 IAAF World Championships. • Area Champions – 2018 NACAC Winners in all events (except the marathons). However in the case of the 10,000m, 3000mSC, Com- bined Events, Field Events and Road Events the entry will be subject to the approval of the Technical Delegates. • Marathons – the top 10 finishers at the IAAF Gold Label Marathons held in the qualification period shall be considered as having the IAAF Qualifying Standard.

Removal of Athletes An athlete who is to be nominated to the team by USATF may be removed as a nominee for any of the following reasons, as deter- mined by USATF: • Voluntary withdrawal: An athlete may choose to decline a position on the team should they become eligible by completing the neces- sary paper work during team processing at the Selection Event. Should an athlete choose to withdraw subsequent to the Selection Event, they may do so by submitting a written letter via e-mail to Kimberly Sims, Manager of International Teams at [email protected]. • Injury or illness as certified by a physician (or medical staff) approved by USATF. If an athlete refuses verification of his/her illness or injury by a physician (or medical staff) approved by USATF, his/her injury will be assumed to be disabling and he/she may be removed. • Violation of the USATF Athlete Statement of Conditions. • Involuntary Withdrawal: An Athlete who is named to the team by virtue of an error or oversight (by USATF) may be removed from the team at any time. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 14 - March 2019 Why is doping in the NFL viewed as less important than in Olympic sport? By Michael Pavitt | Inside The Games |https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1075366/michael- pavitt-why-is-doping-in-the-nfl-viewed-as-less-important-than-in-olympic-sport Julian Edelman being awarded the Most Valuable Player in tends to see fans turn a blind eye to transgressions. Whether last weekend’s Super Bowl caused a stir. And it was not related that is a doping offence or other misdemeanours off the field. to his performance during the New England Patriots 13-3 win Perhaps some of the preaching of the Olympic world has over the Los Angeles Rams. led to the idea that athletes at the Games should be held to a The majority of reaction was created by Nancy Armour’s higher standard. opinion piece in USA Today titled “Super Bowl MVP Julian Take for instance the often used Pierre de Coubertin quote Edelman shouldn’t even have been playing in the game”. “the most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win Armour highlighted that Edelman’s contribution to the but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not match was worthy of the award, but highlighted how the wide the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have receiver had missed the first four games of the NFL season for conquered but to have fought well”. a breach of their performance-enhancing substance policy. The inference of athletes competing at the Olympics should The comparison was made to Major League Baseball, where have a purity, so it is no surprise that they are treated to a falling foul of their policy would result in the player concerned higher standard, when this image has been the core of the mes- missing post-season fixtures. sage churned out by the Olympic Movement for decades. A significant about of the response to the piece was to in- The comparisons were made between the paltry four-game form Armour that her opinion - to put it politely - was wrong. ban received from a doping offence in the NFL and the often Allegations of an anti-Patriots or anti-Edelman agenda were four-year bans in Olympic sports have been highlighted by abused, as the piece neither set out to decry their achievements several. The key difference is that the NFL sanctions are consis- but highlight the weakness of the NFL’s anti-doping policies. tent with the policy agreed between the NFL and their players The main response to the piece was suggesting that doping association, whereas Olympic sports are under the World Anti- cases in the NFL “didn’t matter”. Doping Agency (WADA) Code. There were numerous fans who openly admitted they did not While there have been calls for the United States’ Anti-Dop- care about doping in the sport, offering up several defences of ing Agency and the WADA to work to bring American profes- players. sional sport under their control, the chances of this happening Aiding recovery from injury was cited repeatedly, with appear remote to nil. Edelman’s own case have been purported to come as he was Some have promoted that athletes unions have had such a battling back from a torn anterior cruciate ligament. significant say in anti-doping policy, pointing out the cracks The short nature of player’s careers was given as a reason in the WADA system where athletes could in some cases be why it could be okay to take substances to help recover. handed seemingly disproportionately long sanctions compared The difference in how doping offences were viewed in Ameri- to their transgression. can football and Olympic sport were also clear. Personally, I think it also highlights the dangers of where a “The NFL is entertainment which means put your biggest powerful athlete union can force through a weak anti-doping stars on the field,” read one tweet. policy. “It is an entertainment business. It is really only a North It certainly raises questions that players would be willing American thing. Doping is the least of its problems,” read to support a policy when a first positive test for an anabolic another. steroid could result in a four-game ban, while a second could Perhaps viewing it through the entertainment prism should see you sanctioned for 10 games. not be too surprising, after all, think of the hype that sur- Compare that to the attitude among athletes in Olympic rounds the “half-time show”. sport, where athletes have often vocally called for longer bans, The media in the Olympic world would undoubtedly put an including lifetime sanctions. athlete through the ringer had they returned from a doping If you also add into the mix that concussion and struggles ban to win a major prize in the same season. By comparison with weight at the end of their NFL players careers have been Edelman appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show - perhaps the recent topics to have been explored regarding American foot- epitome of the light entertainment genre - to have his beard ball. shaved. You would have thought that given these challenges, athlete As an outsider to the American sports, the culture seemed bodies would be in favour of bigger sanctions against the use of contrasted significantly to Olympic sport. substances which, while they could increase muscle mass and Doping appears to matter so much more in the Olympic power, could lead to bigger tackles and potentially longer-term world, with combatting doping regularly claimed by officials, damage to player’s health. athletes and fans to be the number one priority. The protection of players, including from the side effects of One response to the USA Today piece claimed the difference taking these substances, should surely a priority. was that at the Olympics athletes are “sort of representing the Ultimately if teams, sponsors and even fans are accepting of country” meaning positive tests are viewed differently. small sanctions for doping offences, the players would have to Maybe there is some merit to this view, but I would suggest be the ones for changes to be made. the tribalism associated with supporting a professional team TAFWA Newsletter - Page 15 - March 2019 New certificate from the International Olympic Committee for sports pharmacists https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/opinion/correspondence/new-certificate-from-the-international-olympic- committee-for-sports-pharmacists/20206096.article? Healthcare professionals are frequently consulted by athletes on drug use, from both clinical and anti-doping perspec- tives. The World Anti-Doping Agency Code, which is currently under review, recognises the importance of healthcare profes- sionals in helping athletes to make informed choices relating to drug use. Pharmacists, with their drug expertise, can clearly fulfil this role. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has introduced a new Certificate in Drugs in Sport to support healthcare professionals to lead on effective clinical drug use and doping prevention in athletes. The course provides healthcare professionals with the main precepts relating to drug use and misuse in sport; the inter- national rules and regulations relating to anti-doping; the role of healthcare providers in the ongoing care of athletes and in the prevention of doping in sport; and the contribution they can make at major sporting events. The part-time six-month programme is delivered and examined entirely online. The course is available to those with a relevant undergraduate degree related to healthcare or professional work in the anti-doping environment. The course com- prises 25 online lectures presented by high-profile experts in sports medicine from around the world. The emerging discipline of sports pharmacy and the IOC certificate provide career and professional development oppor- tunities for pharmacists: • In general clinical practice: pharmacists can advise athletes on the safe, effective and permissible use of drugs in sport. They can advise other individuals who participate in sport and exercise on the safe use of medicines and supplements; • With sports organisations: the pharmacist can collaborate with local and national sports clubs and associations to provide expert advice on anti-doping policies and procedures; become an educational advisor for national anti-doping organisations; work with athletes through their national or international sports federation on anti-doping policies and procedures; or become an accredited doping control officer through the National Anti-Doping Agency; • At major sporting events: pharmacists can provide expert advice at events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Some athletes see the deliberate use of prohibited substances or methods as a shortcut to improved performance, but there have been many cases in which inadvertent use of a prohibited substance has resulted in severe sanctions. Many of these cases could have been avoided if accurate, evidence-based advice had been provided by appropriately-educated health- care professionals. Sports pharmacists require the high-quality education and training provided by this IOC course to fulfil this role effectively. Further information on the IOC Certificate course can be found at: http://www.sportsoracle.com Refugee team to compete in Kenya trials, eye World Cross Country http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-02/16/c_137827272.htm NAIROBI, Feb. 16 -- Kenya’s refugee athletics team is Lokinyomo is arguably one of the most notable perfor- hopeful to make their debut show at the World Cross Coun- mances since the refugee team project, spearheaded by the try Championships in Arhus, Denmark on March 30. Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation and the Tegla Loroupe Speaking in Nairobi on Saturday, refugee team captain Training Camp for Athlete Refugees in Ngong, Kenya, made Dominic Lokinyomo Lobalu said he is looking forward to its international debut in 2016. For his part, Lokinyomo making his debut show on the global scene. was pleased, but also seemingly unfazed. Lokinyomo, initially from war-torn South Sudan, has The team of seven runners was expected to compete in been in Kenya for over a decade and trains in Ngong area Uganda back in 2017, but delay in paper work and travel near Nairobi. documents denied them the chance as Africa hosted the A week ago he competed at the Kisii cross country meet- World Cross Country for the fourth time in Kampala. ing, which is part of the national cross country circuit, and Other cities that have hosted the event in the continent finished eighth in the men’s senior race. include Mombasa, Johannesburg and Marrakech. “I want to be the first refugee to get a medal,” the IAAF President Sebastian Coe expressed his disappoint- 20-year-old said. “That’s more important than anything ment then, but looked forward to them going to Denmark else.” this year. Next week he will lead a team of seven to the Kenya “We were hoping to have the refugee team in Kampala National Cross Country Championships in Eldoret. He will but because of document difficulties it hasn’t been proved team up with other members of the refugee team, namely possible. We will be trying the possible we can to have Paulo Amotun, Simon Ayon, Pur Biel, Dominic Lokolong, that refugee team represented at the World Cross Country Ubaa Dinta and Ukuk Uthoo. Championships in Denmark,” Coe said. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 16 - March 2019 Duplantis Incorporated: family dynasty united again in track and baseball at LSU By GLENN GUILBEAU | The Advertiser | https://www.theadvertiser.com/story/sports/college/ lsu/2019/02/15/duplantis-incorporated-greg-helena-andreas-antoine-armand-and-yo/2880261002/ BATON ROUGE — It was the spring of 1988 when Bob Duplantis bumped into a friend who was a high school track coach in the area at a track meet in Lafayette. “Hey,” the coach said. “How’s your son, Greg?” Greg Duplantis of Lafayette High was and is a household name in track and field in the area and had compet- ed against this coach’s team before becoming a world class name as an All-American pole vaulter at LSU, where he competed from 1982-86 and later was a U.S. Olympic team alternate in 1996. “Great,” Bob said. “He just married a girl from Sweden.” That was on Aug. 1, 1987, and the bride was the former Helena Hedlund of Aresta, Sweden. She was a pio- neering LSU women’s athlete from 1986-89 as both a heptathlete on the LSU track team and a star on the LSU volleyball team . “Wow. I want to see their kids,” the coach said. Well, three of them have been in action at LSU this weekend. » Antoine “Twanny” Duplantis, who is the second oldest at 22 and played on the U.S. national collegiate baseball team last summer, started in right field and batted third as No. 1 LSU opened the season Friday night against Louisiana-Monroe in Alex Box Stadium. The senior from Lafayette High hit two home runs in a game for the first time in his college career - a grand slam and a two-run shot - as the Tigers won, 12-7. ... Parents Greg and Helena and grandparents Bob and Carolyn were there. » Before that, Armand “Mondo” Duplantis, the third child at 19 and an elite world class pole vaulter and fresh- man at LSU out of Lafayette High, won the pole vault at 18 feet, 7.5 inches in the LSU Twilight Indoor meet Friday at the Carl Maddox Field House across Nicholson Drive from Alex Box. ... Parents and grandparents were there. » And on Saturday, Johanna “Yo” Duplantis, the youngest and first girl at 16 who is another world class pole vaulter, competed at the Louisiana High School Athletic Association Indoor championships at the Carl Maddox Field House for Lafayette High, where she also plays soccer. ... Parents and grandparents planned on going there before catching Antoine’s 2 p.m. baseball game against Army Saturday with Yo. » Andreas “Dre” Duplantis, the oldest at 25 and a top pole vaulter at LSU from 2012-15 who earned a degree in textile, apparel and merchandise, would like to watch his three siblings, but he is in business in New York City. An All-District base- ball player at Lafayette High his sophomore year, he quit that sport to focus on pole vaulting. “He could have played college baseball, no doubt,” grandpa Bob said. “It’s going to be a busy week- end,” Helena Duplantis, a volun- teer track coach at LSU, said last week at their home in Lafayette. “It’s really neat that we live so close that we can be part of it. When I ran track at LSU, my Armand Duplantis is shown accepting the 2017 Gatorade Player of the Year award. (Photo: SCOTT CLAUSE/THE ADVERTISER) parents were in Sweden, so they TAFWA Newsletter - Page 17 - March 2019 couldn’t experience the meets. So, it’s great. We should be able to see everything.” Antoine and Armand are the first Duplantis siblings to be at LSU at the same time, as Andreas finished just before Antoine got to LSU in the fall of 2016. “That’s what’s great,” Helena said. “Toine and Mondo do so much stuff together, and I think it’s really good for Mondo to have his older brother there.” Meanwhile, Johanna is enjoying some alone time with her brothers all out of the house. “She had to grow up with three kind of bullies for brothers. She’s a very tough girl,” Mondo said at Alex Box Stadium with Antoine last week. “She’s probably the one who got it the worst,” Antoine said. “I would say she’s almost a woman already because she’s very tough — very tough for her age,” Mondo said. And Yo might get some more tough treatment from Antoine and Andreas after a blunt answer when asked which of her brothers is the best athlete. “I don’t want to dog anyone out, but I’d have to say Mondo,” she said. “Well, I just did.” Asked if she was the best overall child, “Oh yeah, for sure,” she said without hesitating. “That was an easy question,” Helena said. “She was actually the most active one. She was the one who could not just settle down on the sofa when she was little. I’d say, ‘Go watch a movie.’ She’d say, ‘No.’ She was the one who was all over the place and had the most stitches everywhere. She was the wildest one.” Antoine is the “chill” brother. Andreas is the alpha dog, and Armand may be the loud one. “Go to my Instagram. You’ll see me hit a home run,” Armand said. “They were throwing you meatballs,” Antoine retorted. “Antoine didn’t have the ‘Big Brother’ attitude, where he was trying to bully me and pick on me,” Mondo said. “He was the quiet brother. I would say Andreas, the oldest, he was more the bully type because he was great at baseball, great at pole vaulting. He could do anything, really. He was a lot stronger and bigger than us because he was older. He was more the bigger brother. Antoine was the quiet one — the chill brother.” Antoine would prey on Mondo’s competitive nature to get him to play baseball, which was the sport of choice in the Duplantis Dynasty Incorporated only for Antoine. “The only way I could get him to go throw with me or hit with me outside was to mess with him,” he said. “I’d say, ‘I like baseball way more than you.’ And he’d be like, ‘No you don’t,’ just to be competitive because he didn’t even really like baseball as much as me. He just wanted to prove me wrong.” Mondo used the same ploy to get Antoine to pole vault. “He didn’t really like to pole vault,” Mondo said. “But I was a little better than him technically at pole vaulting, so we were pretty even because physically he was a lot better because he was older. So, the only way I could get him to pole vault was, ‘Hey, I can out-jump you right now.’” But there was a time when Antoine pole vaulted higher than Mondo, and it is on video. “Mondo was not happy about that,” grandpa Bob said.

This was in the Duplantis’ backyard, which was a “Kid Cave” of the highest order with a pole vaulting pit, a trampoline, a batting cage, a tree climbing rope apparatus along with an assortment of balls, dogs and visiting neighborhood kids. Greg and Helena did not push their kids like former NFL quarterback Todd Marinovich’s dad, Marv, who trained him as a toddler on. They just made everything available in the backyard of the home that Bob left his son Greg. The Duplantis’ still lives there in Greenbriar Estates in Lafayette. “It was a playground back there. You had everything. Everything a kid could want,” Mondo said. And the remnants remain. Johanna was practicing on the rope just last week. “You can use that for pole vault drills and how to turn above the poll,” Antoine said. “Pretty much all of our friends at least tried pole vaulting. There aren’t a lot of people that have a pole vaulting pit in their backyard.” There was and is also a vacant lot next to the Duplantis’ home that basically extended the Kid Cave. “We always had a bunch of kids come over,” said Mondo, who had his sixth birthday in that lot on November of 2005 with special guest appearances by the Lafayette Little League team that played in the World Series the previous summer in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Andreas Duplantis was on that team along with Andrew Stevenson, who went on to start in center field at LSU from 2013-15, and Jace and Brenn Conrad, whose dad Mike coached that team. They went on to play at Louisiana-Lafayette. “That was Mondo’s birthday wish,” grandpa Bob said. “They all played baseball in the lot. They all pole vaulted in the backyard - or tried to pole vault.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 18 - March 2019 Lafayette native Bill Franques, who has been LSU’s sports information director and Alex Box Stadium’s an- nouncer since the late 1980s, is familiar with the Duplantis’ neighborhood in Greenbriar. “Antoine’s grandfather, Bob, and Antoine’s dad, Greg, lived across the street from my grandparents when I was a kid,” Franques said. “And I lived not too far from there, maybe a mile. Then Greg and I were at LSU at about the same time. It was great growing up in Lafayette and great to see the Duplantis legacy continue here at LSU.” And the Duplantis’ backyard was a field for all seasons. “It was really the perfect kind of setting that we grew up in because we had this backyard that we could pretty much do everything,” Mondo said. “We could pole vault. We could play baseball. We could jump around. And then we had this big ole field next door. So we’d play rag ball, or football, soccer, anything, any type of ball that we could get our hands on.” Greg Duplantis, who is an attorney in Lafayette like his father Bob before him, would hold casual track meets. “But it wasn’t that organized when we were growing up,” Mondo said. “We weren’t training, per se. We were just messing around. We were doing all kinds of sports. We were just having a great time competing against ev- erybody in the neighborhood. It wasn’t like some crazy thing where we were just like in a military camp as kids. We did what we wanted to do, and our dad never really pushed us. We just loved competing.” Yet, the results continue to be world class. “Anything we wanted to do, we pretty much had available in the backyard,” Mondo said. “Lafayette has been a great place to raise kids,” Helena said. “One of the best places in Louisiana to have a family.” And now Antoine and Mondo are together again in a larger backyard called LSU, where their parents com- peted, where older brother Andreas competed, and where Yo competed Saturday, and will perhaps in the near future for LSU. “It’s great,” Mondo said. “Maybe it wasn’t exactly how Twanny wanted it to turn out after last year, but for me and for him, it’s going to be a great year.” Antoine thought he would turn pro after his junior year of baseball in 2018, but he was not drafted until the 19th round and decided to return for his senior season. He will get another chance at the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, where LSU reached the title series in 2017 before losing to Florida. And he gets another year in the bigger backyard. “I have no regrets about coming back,” Antoine said. “I’m so glad I’m back, and I get to spend this year with Mondo and another year with this program. He seems to have it more figured out than I did when I was a fresh- man. I feel like everything was going a million miles an hour when I was a freshman. So, it’s nice to just show him the ropes.” So far, though, none of the historic oaks at LSU have climbing ropes attached. “To be able to spend this last year with my brother before he’s just traveling around all the time playing minor league ball,” Mondo said, “I think it’s good to get this before that.” LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri is just glad Antoine did not join the family business of pole vaulting. Du- plantis as of Saturday before the Army game was just 83 hits from breaking the SEC hits record of former LSU first baseman Eddy Furniss, who had 352 from 1995-98. Duplantis has 272 career hits, though Mississippi State senior Jake Mangum entered the season ahead at 275. Duplantis has been the model of consistency at the plate with 89 hits as a freshman, 90 as a sophomore and 89 as a junior. “Not only is Antoine a consistent hitter, he’s a consistent baseball player,” Mainieri said. “He’s consistent in everything he does. How can you ask for more out of a player?” He could be asked if he is the best athlete in his family. “I do kid him and say he’s the sixth best athlete in his family,” Mainieri said. “But he’s my favorite athlete in his family.” Grandpa Bob Duplantis, meanwhile, stays away from the best family member question. “I’m not allowed to say,” he said.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 19 - March 2019 Kemoy Campbell and the Crisis of Runners’ Healthcare By Martin Fritz Huber | Outside | https://www.outsideonline.com/2390208/runners-healthcare-kemoy-campbell If a pro runner gets hurt during competition, should meet organizers foot the bill?

At last weekend’s Millrose Games in New York City, Kemoy Campbell, a 28-year-old Jamaican distance runner who is sponsored by Reebok, collapsed during the men’s 3000-meters. Campbell, who was participating in the race as a paceset- ter, stepped off the track at about the 1000-meter mark and immediately fell to the ground and lost consciousness. As Sports Illustrated has reported, Campbell was given chest compressions by EMT staff and treated with a defibrillator on scene. Eventually, he was transported to New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Hospital, where, according to Sports Illustrated, he was placed in a medically induced coma for 48 hours. (Ray Flynn, Campbell’s agent, has called this part of the story into question.) On Wednesday morning, Campbell posted an emotional update to his Instagram account signaling that he was recovering.

Meanwhile, Campbell’s family has started a GoFundMe campaign to help cover his mounting medical costs. An initial target goal of $100,000 was subsequently increased to $200,000. To help offset the financial burden, Reebok President Matt O’Toole issued a statement to Sports Illustrated, noting that “Kemoy is an important part of the Reebok family,” and that the company would be contributing $50,000 to help him with his medical expenses. (No specific information about Campbell’s medical bills has been made public.) When this announcement hit the running Twittersphere, responses were mixed. On the one hand, Reebok was praised for their donation. Others wondered why, if Campbell was such an important part of the “Reebok family,” the company hadn’t provided him with health insurance.

This is a good question. And it’s a reminder of the degree to which pro runner contracts are a closely guarded industry secret, which, needless to say, does not benefit the athletes. While runner salaries occasionally become the topic of public speculation, the subject of health insurance comes up less frequently. But when your chosen profession requires subjecting your body to intense physical strain over many years, health insurance is hardly a trivial issue.

In response to Twitter queries about Reebok, Jesse Williams, who until recently was a Sports Marketing Manager for Brooks, noted that, in his experience, it was uncommon for track athletes to receive health insurance from their sponsor. Williams added that, while some high-profile athletes might have a special arrangement, for the most part, pro runners are essentially considered independent contractors and hence responsible for their own health coverage. When I asked Nick Symmonds, a retired 800-meter runner, to corroborate this, he echoed Williams’s claim, though he mentioned that some elite running clubs offer health insurance as a perk to get top athletes to compete for them. Symmonds, for example, ben- efited from this when he competed for the and then for the Brooks Beasts.

Campbell doesn’t appear to have been so lucky. When I texted Flynn, his agent, to ask whether Campbell had health in- surance, he replied that Campbell only had “very basic” coverage and that he would likely “incur substantial medical costs.”

Considering that Campbell collapsed during an official meet, I wondered whether the event organizers, in this case the Armory Foundation, shouldn’t also be obligated to share some of the financial burden. A spokesperson for the New York Road Runners (the title sponsor for the Millrose Games) referred me to USA Track and Field, because the meet is a USATF- sanctioned event.

“All USATF athletes would indeed receive the Participant Accident (PA) coverage,” Susan Hazzard, USATF’s Director of Communications informed me in an email. “Unfortunately, Mr. Campbell was not a USATF athlete. When elite USATF ath- letes compete (regardless of location), USATF provides them with medical coverage to cover these type of circumstances,” Hazzard wrote, adding that USATF wishes Campbell a full recovery.

Other major track meets around the world appear to take a different approach. When I reached out to the IAAF to ask about who would be liable if an athlete had a medical emergency at an IAAF-sanctioned event, Nicole Jeffery, the Head of Communications, replied that at all IAAF events, “meeting organisers must take out insurance to cover any incidents for all athletes, regardless of their event or role in the competition.”

It will be of little consolation to him, but had Campbell been hospitalized at, say, a Diamond League meet in Europe, it seems that he wouldn’t be liable for his medical bills. Of course, even if he were, those bills would likely only be a fraction of the cost that they are here.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 20 - March 2019 Trying to get on track: Vt. athletes may soon find themselves without an indoor facility By Josh Weinreb|Valley News | https://www.vnews.com/Indoor-Track-Faces-Facility-Shortage-Next-Season-23465723 A facility shortage for Vermont’s high school indoor track teams for both practices and regular-season meets, competing against and the nearly 500 student-athletes who participate every winter Lebanon, Hanover and other New Hampshire indoor track teams. is nothing new. The state has just three facilities within its borders, Southern Vermont teams use Williams College’s Herbert S. Towne all part of universities and two — Middlebury College’s Virtue Field House in Williamstown, Mass. Thetford, Hartford and others Field House and Norwich University’s Shapiro Field House — have gone as far as Plymouth State University in Plymouth, N.H., that are unavailable to the Vermont Indoor Track Association for for regular season meets in the past. varsity use. “It will definitely be different if something doesn’t pan out The University of Vermont’s Gardner-Collins Indoor Track in for us,” Perry said. “I’d have 25 to 30 kids not doing anything (in Burlington is the only in-state facility currently in use by the Ver- the winter). I’d try and be proactive, just have a weight-training mont Principals Association, the state’s governing body for varsity season. That would help all the spring sports. That’s how I would athletics. UVM will hold the state indoor track and field state meet handle it (if the indoor track season was canceled).” on Saturday beginning at noon. This year, the VPA has made several changes to the state meet in But its future use by high school athletes came into question an attempt to speed up the process. The pole vault has been nixed earlier this winter. UVM is set to begin construction on a $95 from states; the triple jump will be cut next year. million athletic facility, a project that will renovate both Gutterson “They’re cutting back,” Buttrey said. “It’s honestly a nightmare.” Field House and Patrick Gymnasium, as well as update a fitness Divisions I and II will also compete in the same events at the and wellness center. Gardner-Collins is connected to the school’s same time, with no more than 12 athletes per division per event. athletic complex. “We want (the state meet) in Vermont,” Johnson said. “It Some indoor track coaches and high school athletic directors doesn’t mean we go to UVM. If we ask again at Middlebury we’ll fear the renovation would mean one fewer facility for use next likely get the same answer. We’ll try everything.” winter, forcing all meets — including the state championship — out of state. A few things to watch for from Upper Valley teams and indi- “We’ve been told next season is still up in the air,” said Hartford vidual athletes at Saturday’s meet: head coach Mike Perry. “I just don’t know what else we can do. … • Hartford’s girls are young, deep and talented, trying to do bet- If we had more facilites, things may not be as strenuous. We’re ter than their second-place finish a year ago. very lucky here, with Oxbow, Springfield and Thetford, we go to Kennedy Mullen will get the call in the triple jump, long jump, Dartmouth all December. We’re really lucky to have that in our 300 and 600; Mullen is the top-seeded D-II athlete in all of her backyard.” events and could give Essex’s Lizzie Martell, in D-I, a run for her Added Thetford head coach Charlie Buttrey: “We were (previ- money in the 300 and 600. Eleanor Hinckley (high jump, long ously) told there would be no indoor track at UVM. We have a hard jump, 55), Gretchen Josselyn (55 hurdles) and Bethany Davis enough time (finding facilities for meets). We have a little bit more (1,000 and 3,000) are also going for important points as the Canes insight now.” try to gain ground on two-time D-II champion Rice. Bob Johnson, the VPA’s associate executive director, said this week that the UVM construction project will not affect varsity in- • The D-II boys team race could come down to a competition door track’s use of the facility for regular-season meets. A location between Thetford’s distance specialists and Oxbow’s field and for the state meet next season, however, is still up in the air. short-distance athletes. “We still have a facility shortage,” Johnson said. For the Panthers, a title would be its first in school history since Middlebury Virtue Field House was built in 2015 and houses organizing its varsity indoor track program two years ago. Knute a 200-meter track with nine 60-meter sprint lanes and dedicated Linehan is highly ranked in the long jump, triple jump and 300 jumping and vaulting areas for field events. It also houses Mc- and could steal some points from Oxbow’s jumpers. But Thetford’s Cormick Field, a 21,000-square-foot turf surface inside the oval, strength is distance running, coming off of a cross country cham- making it an ideal host for varsity indoor track meets due to its pionship win in the fall. Owen Deffner (1,500, 3,000), Tad Darrah size. Johnson said the facility is unavailable to outside groups. (1,000, 3,000) and Ian Spelman (3,000) are all highly seeded. Thet- Norwich’s Shapiro Fieldhouse was built in 1987 and is a ford’s 4x800 team also set a D-II state record earlier this season 50,000-square-foot multipurpose facility with a 200-meter indoor and could propel them to a title. track. The VPA last hosted the state meet there in 2016, an event Jarret Rock and the Oxbow boys have other ideas, of course. that ended well after midnight. Johnson said Norwich has since Rock is the top ranked D-II athlete in the long jump and ranked priced itself out of consideration. second in the 55. Timothy Hodges could give O’s important points “The Norwich meets, they always ran over our time limit,” Perry in the triple jump and 55 hurdles, and Oxbow’s 4x200 relay team is said. “The cadets were waiting to get on the track.” ranked first in D-II and third overall. UVM’s Gardner-Collins Indoor Track was last renovated in 1998 and is a complementary facility to the Gucciardi Fitness Center. • Hartford senior Abayomi Lowe holds the D-II record in both At 160 meters, the track is smaller than the others but has still the 55 and 300 and is still the runner to beat in both events. He’s hosted the state meet for the last three seasons. 0.03 seconds off from the top seed in the 300 and a full 1½ sec- “We only have three facilities,” Johnson said on Thursday. onds from the overall state record. Saturday will be his final indoor “UVM’s track is going to be available for the regular season. … The meet before New Englands. only other option is, do we want to do a Vermont state champion- Aaron Mitchell will be in the mix for Hartford in the 600 and ship meet out of state? That would be a public relations nightmare. the long jump. The Canes’ 4x400 relay team — with Lowe as its … Going out of state, that’s a tough one to sell.” anchor – should be fun to watch. Several out-of-state facilities already are used by Vermont’s in- Thetford’s girls will be led by sophomore Layla Hanissian in the door track teams. Thetford, Hartford, Oxbow, Woodstock, Sharon 1,000. Oxbow’s girls feature sophomore Kelly Daigle in the shot and Windsor all use Dartmouth College’s Leverone Field House put. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 21 - March 2019 Podium finish could be the catalyst - Praught-Leer: Jamaican distance events could match sprints in near future By Akino Ming | Jamaica Gleaner | http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/sports/20190217/podium-finish- could-be-catalyst-praught-leer-long-and-middle-distances-could

Aisha Praught-Leer believes that in the near future, Jamaica will start to enjoy the same amount of success in the long- and middle-distance races as it is currently hav- ing in the sprints and field events.

And the cham- pion in the women’s steeple- chase told The Sunday Gleaner that a podium finish for one of the country’s champions for distance running over the next two seasons could be the catalyst.

“I know that if I were to win a medal at the IAAF World Championships or the Olympic Games it would provide valida- tion for everyone that this is an outlet that is possible and that we can win medals in these events,” she explained. “If we can Photo by Gladstone Taylor strike that possibility in people’s minds, then it can happen. We are seeing it in the field events with our throw- ers, and I think we can do it in the distance events too.”

Praught- Leer, Natoya Goule and Kemoy Campbell have been breaking down doors for Jamaica’s long- and middle-distance running in recent years.

The 29-year-old Praught-Leer and Goule created history when they won medals in their respective events at the Commonwealth Games last year.

They both went on to lower their national records in the 3000m and 800m to 9:1409 and 1:56.15, respectively, last summer.

“Something that I would like to see before the end of my lifetime is Jamaica fielding a full team at a champion- ship. And that means filling out the 800m to the 5000m with three men and women, and I know it is a stretch, but I believe that it can happen,” she said.

She is also making steps to inspire the next generation of Jamaican runners to take up the longer races, as she is now lending her support to Hydel High School middle-distance programme.

“I was with Hydel this past week and the girls train really hard. They have what it takes and hopefully, if my- self, Natoya and Kemoy can perform well, then they will have someone to look up to,” she explained. “It is really powerful when you can see yourself on the stage. If you can look up and see this person who looks like me doing this, I think it tells one that I can do it, too.”

Praught-Leer also believes that she is inching closer to a top-three finish at a global championships.

“I do believe I am getting closer to the top five. I am not an overnight success kind of a person. I believe in making incremental jumps over time. Based on my training last year, I think that I am really moving forward. I felt like I never express to the fullest what I was capable of doing last year.

“And this year, I think I am making progress again. I was really surprised by how easily training came back for me this year,” she said. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 22 - March 2019 Is there a right and a wrong way to celebrate sporting success? By Mike Rowbottom | Inside The Games | https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1075688/mike-row- bottom-is-there-a-right-and-a-wrong-way-to-celebrate-sporting-success The outstanding athletics performance of an outstanding Barega, already world junior 5,000m champion and world weekend of indoor action came at the Müller Indoor Grand Prix indoor 3,000m silver medallist behind Kejelcha at the age of 18, in Birmingham on Saturday (February 16) as Ethiopia’s Samuel would go on to win the 2018 IAAF Diamond League 5,000m title Tefera broke the world indoor record set by Morocco’s in Brussels in a Diamond League record of 12:43.02. Hicham El Guerrouj in 1997. The immediate reaction had been one of anger as he remon- On the same track where he won a surprise world indoor 1500m strated with and pushed his older rival. But in Monaco Barega told title last year, the 19-year-old upstaged his 21-year-old compatriot me, with a little smile, that Kejelcha was his friend and that he had Yomif Kejelcha, whose attempt on the world mark had been billed forgiven him. after coming within 0.01 second of El Guerrouj’s world mile mark “He told me that it was not on purpose and that he was just try- in last week’s meeting at the Millrose Games in New York City. ing to grab what he could to survive from the fall,” he said. After tracking Kejelcha to the bell, at which point the older ath- Getting back to Tefera - one hugely experienced observer of the lete gave one tell-tale look backwards, Tefera moved past him on sport noted that he was “completely spent” by the efforts he had the outside before finishing comfortably clear in 3min 31.04sec, just put in on the track. 0.14 seconds inside El Guerrouj’s 22-year-old record. But should he still have shown more emotion? It’s an emotive So far, so fantastic. But it was Tefera’s immediate reaction - or issue, for sure. apparent lack of it - that caught the attention of numerous observ- Personally I hate the obligatory knee-sliding celebrations of ers. Steve Cram, commentating for BBC TV, hazarded a guess that many footballers after scoring goals. I also disliked the kind of pre- Tefera was not immediately aware he had broken the record. arranged, orchestrated and crowing celebrations put together by, After glancing down at the digital clock, he slowed to a walk, for instance, victorious United States sprint relay teams in years his face entirely impassive. “He looks as if he couldn’t care less,” past. Personally I prefer to see whatever naturally occurs - even if said Cram, incredulously. “Tefera is thinking, ‘What’s all the fuss that is not a wide smile. about? I’ve just beaten Kejelcha’. Come on, give us a smile!” The classic example occurred at last year’s European Athletics Tefera’s later comment - “I can’t believe that. I’m delighted with Championships in Berlin where Russia’s double world high jump the outcome and to have the world record is a special feeling” - champion Mariya Lasitskene added European gold to the silver she contained some of the enthusiasm one might have expected to see had won four years earlier - and could not have looked less happy at or close to the finishing line. Does it matter? about it. It certainly mattered to another frequent television commenta- The Authorised Neutral Athlete won on countback from Bulgar- tor, Eurosport’s Tim Hutchings, the former world cross country, ia’s Mirela Demireva, who had gambled on passing at 1.96 metres European and Commonwealth medallist who finished fourth in and 1.98m, during which heights all other opposition disappeared, the 1984 Olympic 5,000m. and returned to match Lasitskene’s clearance of 2.00m, equalling “Fab WR by Tefera,” Hutchings tweeted. “But as Crammy her personal best, at her third attempt. pointed out politely on BBC, zero awareness of what he’d achieved. But there were no celebrations for the new champion, whose As @sebcoe mentioned recently, the athletes need to connect with face was dark as she resumed her seat, punching the canopy along- the fans. Sadly, no smile (even at the win?) no celebration, nothing side it before flinging down her bag and slumping in her seat with #LostOpportunity #Teach”. head in hands Hutchings added: “Kejelcha would have danced an entire lap. “I won but I am upset,” Lasitskene said. No personal criticism of Tefera, but he’s an @iaaforg World Indoor “We expected much better jumps and much higher result. Champion? Where was the joy? #Teach”. “If you want to congratulate me, it is okay, but I cannot cel- Jeroen Deen, a physiotherapist who works regularly with ebrate after this event,” Ethiopian athletes, responded: “Why is the standard of celebration That reaction drew widespread criticism. It was certainly hard to and giving interviews set by western commercial laws? Knowing recall a more disgruntled winner of a major gold. It was hard not Samuel he was overjoyed, but also good friend to Yomif, out of to think - if this is what’s she’s like when she wins, what can she be respect you keep it down, like a transferred soccer player scoring like when she loses? against his old club...” But that frankly frowning figure is not who Lasitskene mostly The soccer note is presumably referencing Kejelcha’s move is. At Diamond League events over the past two years, at pre- last year to work with Alberto Salazar as part of the Nike Oregon programme press conferences, she always seems to have a smile Project. hovering, and when she does let that smile arrive it’s broad and It’s an interesting parallel to a recognised if unspoken code that genuine. exists in football. This had its most memorable example back in I put the question of the non-smiling win to her in Zurich last 1974 when Denis Law, that most excitable of players, produced ab- September ahead of the first of the IAAF Diamond League finals. solutely no reaction after back-heeling a goal for Manchester City “As you can see,” she replied, “in my life I am not so serious, I against Manchester United, for whom he had had many glorious can laugh and I enjoy life. But when I come to compete I become years, and who were doomed for relegation. very serious, and I am thinking only about jumps, and concentrat- To be honest, it is sometimes difficult to understand some of ing on that. the emotional dynamics that exist between Ethiopian runners. “You talk about what happened in Berlin - that I was not happy On the eve of the International Association of Athletics Federa- to win with 2.00 metres. All the best jumpers came to compete in tions (IAAF) Athlete of the Year Awards in Monaco at the end of Berlin. I wanted to show my best result, but it was not correct for last year I asked another young and extraordinarily talented Ethio- me.” pian athlete, Selemon Barega, whether he had any hard feelings Earlier, she had commented: “My motivation is always to jump about Kejelcha, who had blatantly hauled him to the ground as higher than I have. Maybe it looks easy when I jump 2.00 metres, he moved past him in the final straight of the 5,000m at the IAAF but it is not like that. It is a really hard job, but I like it.” Diamond League meeting in Lausanne. Can you really argue with that? TAFWA Newsletter - Page 23 - March 2019 Paying Students to Play Would Ruin College Sports OPINION | By Cody J. McDavis | The New York Times | https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/opinion/pay-college-athletes.html When the Duke University basketball star Zion Williamson injured his knee in a freak accident in a game on Wednesday, it reignited a debate over whether student-athletes competing as amateurs on college campuses should instead become paid professionals. If Williamson and other elite players like him are going to risk their professional futures by playing college sports, many wonder, shouldn’t they be financially compensated?

Paying student-athletes might sound like a fairer way to treat students who generate so much money and attention for their colleges (not to mention the television networks that broadcast their games). But paying ath- letes would distort the economics of college sports in a way that would hurt the broader community of student- athletes, universities, fans and alumni. A handful of big sports programs would pay top dollar for a select few athletes, while almost every other college would get caught up in a bidding war it couldn’t afford.

The 30 largest universities in the country each routinely generate annual revenues exceeding $100 million from sports, but according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, most of those revenues are spent covering operating expenses for the school’s athletic programs and paying tuition for their student-athletes. The majority of Division I colleges in the N.C.A.A. operate at a loss. In fact, among the roughly 350 athletic depart- ments in the N.C.A.A.’s Division I, only about 24 schools have generated more revenue than expenses in recent years. The nation’s top five conferences made over $6 billion in 2015, billions more than all other schools com- bined, according to an ESPN analysis of N.C.A.A. data.

For the have-not universities, however, to continue operating means relying on millions of dollars in debt, funding from their main campus and student fees. Even with that help, some of the major athletic departments are struggling. A recent N.C.A.A. study determined that only about 20 of the 1,000 or so college sports pro- grams in the nation were profitable. What is going to happen when the competition to offer students money is supercharged?

A federal judge in Northern California, Claudia Wilken, will soon decide if student-athletes should instead be paid more like professionals. At the moment, thanks in part to the pressure exerted by a 2015 ruling by Judge Wilken, top N.C.A.A. athletes can receive scholarships totaling tens of thousands of dollars for tuition, room, board and stipends, as well as cost-of-attendance compensation. But the association still sets a ceiling on those benefits, and a group of Division I basketball and football players is awaiting Judge Wilken’s ruling on whether that ceiling should effectively be lifted.

If the plaintiffs in this case are successful, the arms race for top athletes may have no limit. The top 25 or so schools will pay because they can afford to. The remaining 325 or so will be forced to make a decision: not pay their athletes (and risk losing top talent to schools that do) or find a way to pay.

We have already had a preview of what happens when schools are put in this position. In August 2015, after the N.C.A.A. began allowing Division I universities to adopt “cost of attendance” stipends, North Dakota State University announced that it would offer such stipends in 16 sports, resulting in a new $600,000 annual ex- pense to be paid by the athletic department. The school’s rival, the University of North Dakota, followed suit six days later. What happened? The University of North Dakota cut five teams over the next two years to help pay for the added expense.

The University of Wyoming, too, announced that it would offer stipends to its student-athletes in 2015, resulting in a new expected annual cost of $700,000 to the athletic department. A year later, calls were being made for a reduction in the athletic department because of budgetary concerns. (Those cuts almost certainly would have been made, had it not been for a $4 million subsidy from the state government.)

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 24 - March 2019 Gene Smith, the athletic director at Ohio State University, has said that if the N.C.A.A. pay ceiling were lifted and he were pushed to pay basketball and football student-athletes more than their full-ride scholarship packag- es, he would not expect to maintain the same number of sports. The chancellor at the University of Wisconsin, Rebecca Blank, has also said that her school would consider cutting sports programs altogether.

Forcing the N.C.A.A. to pay student-athletes would undermine opportunities for the vast majority of them. It would create a winner-take-all system in which only a handful of top recruits would get a paycheck on top of earning a diploma debt-free.

Similar problems would arise in the case of so-called third-party payments, in which student-athletes could be paid for things like endorsements. Major brands like Nike would pay top football and basketball talent at the biggest schools, while student-athletes in other sports or at smaller programs would be ignored. Currently, corporate funds go to athletic departments and are generally distributed among all sports; with third-party pay- ments, those funds could instead mostly go directly to a few student-athletes, starving the rest.

I am not opposed to young athletes who decide they would prefer to be paid cash to play sports. For those who think that a free education is insufficient as compensation for playing sports, there are other options: The National Basketball Association’s developmental league, for instance, offers $125,000 contracts to top high- school talent. Such athletes can also pursue a career playing for other domestic or overseas professional leagues.

Millions of student-athletes devote their sweat, blood and tears to sports. Some play football and basketball; others swim, run cross-country, play soccer or compete as gymnasts. Only a fraction of them generate money for their schools. We must ensure that the N.C.A.A. is able to preserve its commitment to all of them.

Cody J. McDavis is a student at the U.C.L.A. School of Law who played basketball for the University of Northern Colorado from 2012 to 2015.

San Francisco State Reintroduces Men’s Track & Field https://sfstategators.com/news/2019/2/20/san-francisco-state-reintroduces-mens-track-field.aspx#.XG346SNVNTM.facebook SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco State Director of Athletics Stephanie Shrieve-Hawkins announced today that San Francisco State will bring back men’s track & field and that the team will begin competition immedi- ately this season. “We have such a rich history and tradition of track & field and cross country here at San Francisco State,” said Shrieve-Hawkins, “It is exciting for the men’s cross country student-athletes to have this opportunity to com- pete in the spring track meets in distance events. This not only adds to their training and success in their events, but contributes to attracting a diverse population to our campus. This step in the inclusion of the male runners under the Track and Field umbrella is an organic piece to the growth of the overall program.” The men’s track & field team returns after boasting decades of success from 1931 to 2004. The Golden Gators won 10 conference championships, including the 1998 NCAC Championship in the conference’s final year be- fore SF State joined the CCAA. SF State made 21 NCAA Championship appearances, and finished 13th in 1963, which was the best team result in program history. Bob Parker won the individual NCAA National Champion- ship in javelin in 1974 and Steve Koel followed in 1986 with another individual championship in javelin. Koel was inducted in to the San Francisco State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2011. The Gators will open up the season this Friday, February 22 at the East Bay Quad Meet at Chabot College. The CCAA Championships kick off on May 2 in La Jolla, California, and the NCAA National Championships will be from May 23-25 in Kingsville, Texas. “I’d like to thank President Wong and Stephanie for recognizing the value of having a men’s track team,” said Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Tom Lyons. “We will draw more student-athletes to the campus and it will enable our men’s cross country student-athletes to have a spring season. I’m happy for the men to get this opportunity to represent SF State in track & field this year and beyond. Friday will be a big deal for both teams and all the men and women who have put on a track & field uniform here in the past.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 25 - March 2019 Russia’s Sergei Chernyshev won breaking gold at the 2018 Youth Olympics. (Photo by Getty Images) Paris organizers propose breakdancing for 2024 Olympic Games Samindra Kunti | AIPS Media | http://www.aipsmedia.com/index.html?page=artdetail&art=25220 LAUSANNE, February 21, 2019 - Will breakdancing feature at the Olympic Games in the near future? The organisers of the 2024 Paris Olympics are adamant: they have invited breakdancing to be a part of the Olympic programme in five years. That move may not excite Olympic purists, but fits with the movement’s bid to modernise the Games and reel in younger audiences. IOC decision - The French organizers have also retained skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing for their 2024 event. Those sports will feature for the first time at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The IOC will still need to ratify the inclusion, but the acrobatic style of street dance, typically set to hip-hop or funk music, was a popular inclusion, in the form of battles or duels, during the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires. Popularity in France - Paris’s rationale for the proposal is partly rooted in the popularity of breakdancing in France. Paris 2024 said it was an ‘urban, universal and popular sport with more than a million BBoys and BGirls in France. We pro- pose to bring the breakdance and its famous battles at the Paris 2024 Games for the first time in the history of the Games.’ Younger audiences - The IOC previously welcomed Paris’s endeavours to reach younger audiences. “We are pleased to see that Paris 2024’s proposal for new sports to the Olympic programme is very much in line with the reforms of Olympic Agenda 2020, which is striving to make the Olympic programme gender-balanced, more youth-focused and more urban,” the statement said. The IOC will make a final decision in December 2020 following the Tokyo Games. Squash out - The move of Paris organizers to opt for breakdancing will come as a big blow to squash, a sport that had held high hopes of being included. Squash campaigned unsuccessfully as did billiard sports and chess. In a joint statement, the World Squash Federation and the Professional Squash Association said: ‘We truly believe squash could seamlessly inte- grate into the Olympic programme with minimal costs and an optimised pool of participants.’ ‘Our unique interactive glass court would allow squash to bring a lot of additional excitement and spectacular action to any iconic monument of the host city or shed a new light on less known urban areas, while also helping to engage young people in the sport from day one of the preparations and well beyond the Olympic Games.’ Karate out - Karate also misses out after a maiden inclusion in the Tokyo programme. Paris organisers didn’t retain the martial arts sport. ‘We believed that we had met all the requirements and that we had the perfect conditions to be added to the sports programme; however, we have learned today that our dream will not be coming true,’ said World Karate Federa- tion Antonio Espinos. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 26 - March 2019 PRESS RELEASE National Scholastic Athletics Foundation Statement Regarding Transgender Policy

February 25, 2019 – Different states have adopted different approaches to the eligibility of transgender girls in public education-based sport, based on their particular goals for their co- and extra-curricular events. The National Scholastic Athletics Foundation (NSAF) is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated in part to staging national-level elite development events and to providing equal competitive opportunities to girls and boys. We are also a member organization of USA Track & Field and so subject to its rules. Even though our organization’s goals are often different from those of public school sports, we are committed to including transgender athletes in our events who have met our requirements so that we can ensure to the extent possible fair competition for all entrants.

Recognizing the rapidly changing landscape and the different approaches adopted across the country, the NSAF began work on its transgender policy in Spring 2018. It was finalized in Fall 2018. Because our focus is elite development sport, harmonization of our rules with those of our sport’s national governing body, USA Track & Field, was and remains an additional priority.

Pre-pubescent transgender girls are eligible for NSAF competitions based on their affirmed gender. Consistent with USATF rules and IOC guidelines, post-pubescent transgender girls are eligible for NSAF competitions based on their affirmed gender once they have completed a year’s course of gender affirming hormones. Gender affirming surgery may also satisfy the policy requirements but is not required.

For further information on the NSAF’s Transgender Policy please visit our website.

About the National Scholastic Athletics Foundation, Inc. The National Scholastic Athletics Foundation, Inc. (NSAF) is a non-profit, tax-exempt 501 c (3) organization founded in 1990 with the mission of supporting high school and junior-aged track and field athletes in the US. The NSAF conducts national high school competitions, including the New Balance Nationals Indoor and Outdoor; clinics and event-specific development projects as well as various grant programs totaling over $250,000 annually. For more information about the NSAF, please visit NationalScholastic.org.

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TAFWA Newsletter - Page 27 - March 2019 The Glamorous Existence of the World’s Greatest Shot-Putters Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs can heave a 16-pound ball farther than just about anyone else. Meanwhile, their lives have become track and field’s version of a buddy flick. By Lindsay Crouse | The New York Times | https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/sports/shot-put-ryan-crouser- joe-kovacs.html

Kovacs, left, and Crouser, right, shared one of their many meals at Coogan’s restaurant and bar in Washington Heights this month. Credit Benjamin Norman for The New York Times Every time Ryan Crouser flies for work, he braces for inches. questions. Don’t worry, he tells security: the five-inch Crouser and Kovacs’s domination of shot-put is one sphere filled with 16 pounds of steel pellets checked of the lesser known stories in track and field, a sport into his reinforced luggage is just his shot. that does not have to worry about overexposure. Shot- That rarely helps. It seems that like most people, put at the elite level is an often thankless job, with employees of the Transportation Security Administra- most of the suffering and little of the glory common tion do not know much about the shot-put, the track to other professional sports. The athletes’ work is and field event Crouser has come to dominate. grueling, and doesn’t make them rich. It barely makes “You can’t really blame them, but our bags get pulled them famous, even in their hometowns in Oregon and every flight,” said Crouser, who flew to New York for Pennsylvania. the second time in a month last week to compete in It has, though, made each of them a friend as they the U.S.A. Track & Field indoor championships. There, travel the world, someone with whom they can bond as usual, he competed with his friend and rival Joe over their absurd intake of food, their rare moments Kovacs. in the spotlight and the simplicity of their sport. The two are the reigning Olympic gold and silver “You don’t have to worry about the implement or medalists in the shot-put. For the unfamiliar: That’s the elements or even a team,” said Crouser, who is the event in which gigantic athletes sheathed in span- 6-foot-8 and about 320 pounds. “It almost gets addict- dex heave palm-size spheres the weight of bowling ing to measure your progress so accurately. All that balls — full of steel, lead or tungsten — as far as they matters is pure power.” can. Crouser got the best of Kovacs again at the indoor Crouser and Kovacs are embarking on an 18-month championships on Saturday in Staten Island, putting globe-trotting journey that will most likely take them his shot 72 feet 10 3/4 inches to Kovacs’s 70 feet 2 1/2 to the 2019 world championships in Doha, Qatar, TAFWA Newsletter - Page 28 - March 2019 and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, where they hope to pound of meat, measured after cooking. successfully defend their titles — or, in Kovacs’s case, Looking more like linebackers and lumberjacks than swap places with Crouser on the podium. the runners they hang out with can lead to indigni- Being the best in the United States these days ties. When shot-putters win, there are no water cooler generally means being the best in the world, whether showers. Instead, after his victory at the Millrose their fellow Americans notice or not. They took first Games, Crouser received a bouquet of white flowers and second place at the Millrose Games this month in that was smaller than one of his arms. And most team- Manhattan, before repeating at the national indoor mates are not exactly on the 5,000-calorie regimen. championships last weekend in Staten Island. “Sometimes when we travel, the meals will be ca- So how does one become good at shot-put? Start by tered to runners: salad and a premade plate with half a learning math. chicken breast and a quarter cup of rice,” Crouser said. “There’s not much more to throwing a shot than “We tell them, ‘We need like eight of these.’” launching a cannon ball,” Kovacs, who has a finance So Crouser and Kovacs will head out together for a degree from Penn State, explained in a recent inter- second dinner. And then sometimes a third. view. “When the ball comes out, the angle and velocity Weighing more than twice as much as some of their is just a physics problem. If you can put the velocity teammates can have its benefits. When traveling, they behind it, you’re going to have a good throw.” have to fit on the plane somehow. “My shoulder will (Shot-putters might be the only athletes in the hang out the aisle and bang every time the beverage world who refer to themselves seriously as “human cart comes by,” said Crouser, whose shoulders measure cannons.”) a seat and a half wide in coach. “So I find a seat by a The athletes keep their eyes wide open as they push distance runner.” Forget sitting next to each other — the ball forward, and are able to estimate their throw’s picture preteens in car seats. distance within a foot. The common “spin” technique There are other adjustments to make outside the uses rotational momentum for power rather than the track. Rare is the men’s wear brand that outfits a man more traditional and linear “glide” approach. Each with a waist-to-thigh ratio of Popeye. release produces a bellow. “I have to buy huge pants to fit my quads in them, A good throw begins in the athletes’ legs. But to and then use a belt to cinch it all together,” said deliver the ball, they need arms that are strong — and Kovacs, whose waist is 38 and whose thighs are, well, limber. That’s why professional shot-putters spend enormous. “I’ve blown out the quads of so many every week doing gymnastics. The critical move is pants.” a “giant,” in which the men leap up and rotate their It’s not all hard work. Crouser discovered one day 300-pound bodies around the high bar, which bends that he wielded a sledgehammer with a lot of power, under the strain. Those workouts supplement hefty too. So he started a video series built around smash- weight sessions in which they bench press more than ing things. That mostly involved a progressive holiday 500 pounds and squat 700. When he wants a chal- theme featuring canned pumpkin, a Christmas orna- lenge, Crouser follows his girlfriend to yoga. ment and a snow globe, with an audience engagement Once they’re done, the work isn’t over. That’s when strategy of asking viewers to suggest future targets. it is time to eat. He called it, “Gettin’ Smashed With Ryan Crouser.” Both men eat so much food — at least five full meals (The title is literal; like Kovacs, Crouser rarely drinks.) a day, no fewer than 1,000 calories at each — that it After the Millrose Games, in a booth at a restau- becomes a chore. rant near the track, they ingested the last of the day’s “I don’t even like food anymore,” Crouser said. “Each 5,000-calorie allotment and held court for the tiny but one of my meals is half of what a normal person eats passionate cohort that identifies as fans of shot-put. in a day. And I do that five times. If I ever feel hungry Some sent plastic cups of beer that the athletes polite- during the day that means I’m not doing my job. So ly allowed to pile up on the table. Others approached I eat all the time. Sometimes before another meal I’ll for autographs of the meet book’s cover, which fea- stare at it for a while, like, ‘This again.’” tured a picture of Kovacs. “Wow, your entire auto- His girlfriend becomes angry at him for pushing graph fits over your biceps,” one admirer observed. food around on his plate. So he’ll take shortcuts, like It had been a good day: Organizers showcased their eating a large pizza with three meat toppings from event in the center of the track. Domino’s. He chases every meal with 16 ounces of “It’s been cool because these days we go to random milk. “It’s an easy way to get calories,” he said. “Now places and we throw shot, like on a main street or by that I think about it, that’s actually a lot of milk.” a monument, and people seem really into it, they con- (Eighty ounces, or more than half a gallon.) nect,” Crouser said. “There are few professional sports Kovacs, who is 5-11 but roughly 300 pounds, starts events where you can just go hang out with the win- every day with a carton of scrambled eggs. (“When ners and talk to them after. you’re eating a dozen eggs at once, they’ve got to be “With us, you can.” scrambled,” he explained.) Dinner is no less than a TAFWA Newsletter - Page 29 - March 2019 USATF’s Ousted Vin Lananna Alleges Pressure to Warp Bylaws, Extend Terms By Ken Stone | Times of San Diego | https://timesofsandiego.com/sports/2019/02/25/usatfs-ousted- president-alleges-pressure-to-warp-bylaws-extend-terms/ Five months after the USA Track & Field board of directors put elected President Vin Lananna on “temporary administrative leave,” the former Oregon and Olympic track coach was given a chance to have his volunteer job back. But according to a grievance with track’s governing body filed Feb. 14, the offer from then-board Chairman Steven Miller in July 2018 had several catches. “Tellingly, the offer of reinstatement … came with preconditions, including a demand for Mr. Lananna’s pledge of loyalty to Mr. Miller as board chair and to incumbent USATF leadership, including a promise to ac- tively support bylaws changes,” says the grievance demanding his reinstatement and payment of his legal fees. Such bylaw changes would have: • Extended the term of Miller as board chair through 2021. • Elevated Mike Conley to permanent vice chair and extended his term as a director through 2021. • And lengthened Lananna’s own term as president into 2021, “beyond the [four-year] term for which he was elected by the membership.” “The proposal would essentially vitiate the 2020 election for these key leadership positions,” says the 33-page grievance signed by attorneys Mark Lambert of Palo Alto and David Greifinger of Pacific Palisades. But the lawyers say Lananna, 66, rejected the offer “as an affront” to the membership that elected him at the 2016 annual meeting in Orlando. Miller then responded with a “tirade of ad hominem attacks,” the grievance alleges. “In short, the former chair [Miller] and the board were happy to have Mr. Lananna serve as president if he would kowtow to them instead of representing the membership that elected him, and advance their self-interested motives to retain control over USATF.” The grievance was obtained Monday night by the Oregonian newspaper in Portland and Times of San Diego. On Tuesday, USATF spokeswoman Susan Hazzard said in response to questions: “USATF feels that it is pru- dent to follow the dispute resolution process prescribed by USATF Bylaws. To protect the integrity of process and the parties involved, we refrain from commenting on specifics.“ Exhibits in the grievance also shed new light on Lananna’s contacts with the U.S. Department of Justice in its probe of how Eugene, Oregon, was awarded the 2021 IAAF world outdoor track and field championships. Two weeks ago, in a letter to acting USATF president and board chair Conley, Lananna lawyer Martin J. Wein- stein wrote that an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York first came to Lananna’s attention in July 2017 when he was served a grand jury subpoena for testimony and documents. “This is a routine mechanism by which witnesses are asked for testimony or documents or both,” Weinstein wrote. “Immediately upon service of the subpoena, we contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office on behalf of Vin and pledged his and our full cooperation with the investigation.” Lananna’s obligations under the subpoena were suspended, however, “and Vin was never called to testify” before a grand jury, the lawyer wrote. But on Oct. 10, 2017, Lananna was interviewed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn — where he an- swered every question posed to him, said the letter. “Following the interview, in February 2018, we produced on Vin’s behalf a small number of documents to fur- ther aid the U.S. Attorney’s Office in its investigation. Since that time, Vin has had no substantive contact with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and nothing further has been requested of him,” said Weinstein — a Washington- based attorney who once worked for the commissioner of Major League Baseball in its case against betting-on- baseball player and manager Pete Rose. Weinstein closed his note to Conley by calling Lananna’s conduct in pursuit of the 2021 IAAF World Champi- onship for Eugene “entirely appropriate, totally above board, and with no hint of any wrongdoing whatsoever.” Moreover, the grievance notes that the February 2018 board resolution removing him from office falsely characterizes “the award of the 2021 World Championships to TrackTown USA,” which Lananna then led as president. “In fact, USATF CEO Max Siegel and then USATF President Stephanie Hightower (USATF’s then representa- tive to the IAAF) signed the application documents” seeking the IAAF world meet, the grievance says. “USATF actively and publicly promoted the bid, and after the controversial award to Doha for 2019, USATF continued its advocacy for bringing the 2021 World Championships to Eugene.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 30 - March 2019 Thus, it argued, the investigation and Lananna’s cooperation with it didn’t harm his ability to fulfill his du- ties and complete his term as USATF president. (Lananna, still an associate athletic director at the Unversity of Oregon, resigned from TrackTown USA in mid-July 2018.) The track community began to react late Monday night. On letsrun.com, site co-founder Weldon Johnson noted that the grievance shows Lananna entered into a secret agreement with Miller, board member Jeff Porter and Conley that was “never disclosed to membership (and maybe even the rest of the Board). Lananna agreed as long as he held a role with TrackTown USA he would agrees ‘to never act as immediate supervisor of the CEO,’” Max Siegel. Johnson added: “So the agreement hints at the board wanting to protect Max Siegel from some oversight from Lananna. … [I] would love to see what people think of Miller’s alleged offer to Lananna and the secret agreement Lananna signed. Shouldn’t the agreement have been made public if the USATF president is giving up some of his duties? My first take on that is all parties are at fault on that one.” Besides being reinstated and recovering his lawyer costs, Lananna demands that every member of the USATF board sign a published statement “acknowledging the invalidity of the February 2018 resolution [and] apologiz- ing to Mr. Lananna and the membership for the board’s unjustified action against Mr. Lananna in his capacity as USATF president.” The grievance alleges the board broke USATF bylaws, operation regulations and even Virginia law (since US- ATF is incorporated in that state). Such USATF rules explicitly lay out how a president can be removed — only for “good cause” by a two-thirds vote of membership, the grievance says. “On its face, and in light of the history of antagonism between certain board members, the chairman and the CEO on the one hand, and Mr. Lananna in his role as president on the other hand, the February 2018 resolution constitutes an unauthorized and unlawful attempt by the 2018 board to discipline and punish Mr. Lananna and to ostracize him from his legitimate presidency,” the filing says. “The board has no such power.” The grievance also reveals that the USATF board, in a July 2018 meeting, considered restoring Lananna to the presidency. In a vote on whether to keep Lananna’s “temporary administrative leave” in place, eight board members voted yes, four voted to rescind it and two abstained, said the grievance. It didn’t say who cast what vote. Romanian becomes second shot put gold medalist at 2016 World U20 Championships stripped of title after positive test By Duncan Mackey | Inside The Games | https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1076133/romanian-be- comes-second-shot-put-gold-medallist-at-2016-world-u20-championships-stripped-of-title-after-positive-test Romania’s 2016 World U20 Championships shot put champion Andrei Toader has been stripped of his gold medal after it was revealed he had failed a drugs test before the event had started. He is the second “winner” of this event in Bydgoszcz in Poland to be disqualified following a positive doping test. Toader had originally finished as the runner-up behind Poland’s Konrad Bukowiecki, who had thrown 23.34 metres to set a world junior record. He was disqualified and stripped of his gold medal, however, when he tested positive afterwards for the stimulant hige- namine. The gold medal then passed to Toader, who had finished second with a throw of 22.30m. It has now been revealed, however, in the latest list of athletes sanctioned by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) that Toader had tested positive in May of that year and he has received a backdated four-year ban starting on May 9 that is due to end on May 10 next year. The gold medal is now set to pass the United States’ Bronson Osborn, who had originally finished third, with Sweden’s Wictor Petersson being promoted to silver and another American, Adrian Piperi, to bronze. A total of 25 athletes have been sanctioned according to the new list published by the AIU. The list includes four Kenyans, three Russians and two each from India, Nigeria and Ukraine. The Kenyans include Daniel Kipchirchir Komen and . Kipchirchir Komen, a double International Association of Athletics Federations World Indoor Championships 1500 metres medallist, receives a four-year ban after testing positive in 2017. He will, however, keep his silver medals from Moscow in 2006 and Valencia in 2008. Wangui, the Commonwealth Games 10,000 gold medallist, has been officially suspended for two years after testing posi- tive for the banned narcotic morphine in April 2018. To read the full list of athletes sanctioned this month by the AIU click here. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 31 - March 2019 Partial Fixtures List 2019 March 1-3 European Indoor Championships, , Scotland March 8-9 NCAA Division I Indoor Championships, Birmingham, Alabama NCAA Division II Indoor Championships, Pittsburg, Kansas NCAA Division III Indoor Championships, Boston, March 27-30 Texas Relays, Austin, Texas March 30 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, Aarhus, Denmark April 15 Boston Marathon April 24-27 Drake Relays, Des Moines, Iowa April 25-27 Penn Relays, Philadelphia April 28 London Marathon May 11-12 IAAF World Relays, Yokohama, Japan May 23-25 NCAA Division I East Preliminary Rounds, Jacksonville, Florida NCAA Division I West Preliminary Rounds, Sacramento, California NCAA Division II Championships, Kingsville, Texas NCAA Division III Championships, Geneva, Ohio June 5-8 NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships, Austin, Texas June 30 Prefontaine Classic, Stanford, California June 23-28 European Games, Minsk, Belarus July 25-28 USATF Championships, Des Moines, Iowa Aug. 6-10 Pan-American Games, Lima, Peru (tentative dates for track and field) Aug. 9-11 European Team Championships, Bydgoszcz, Poland Sept. 9-10 Europe vs. USA, Minsk, Belarus Sept. 27-Oct. 6 IAAF World Championships, Doha, Qatar Nov. 3 New York City Marathon Nov. 23 NCAA Division I Cross Country, Terre Haute, Indiana NCAA Division II Cross Country, Sacramento, California NCAA Division III Cross Country, Louisville, Kentucky

2020 Feb. 29 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Marathon, Atlanta, Georgia March 13-14 NCAA Division I Indoor Championships, Albuquerque, New Mexico NCAA Divsion II Indoor Championships, Birmingham, Alabama NCAA Division III Indoor Championships, Geneva, Ohio 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 10-13 NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships, Austin, Texas June 19-28 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Track & Field, Eugene, Oregon July 7-12 IAAF World U20 Championships, Nairobi, Kenya July 24 - Aug 9 Olympic Games, Tokyo, Japan (Track & Field dates: July 31 - August 8) 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 Aug. 6-15 IAAF World Championships, Eugene, Oregon

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 32 - March 2019