Sacramento Running News

It’s looking more and more likely that Sacramento will be home to the 2014 USATF National Championships.

Specifically, most events will be held at CSUS.

We’re still in the rumor phase, but we’ve been hearing the rumor since June, and local media are starting to chatter about it.

And a press conference is scheduled for this morning at Sac State.

KTXL Fox 40 ran a story last week.

The Sacramento Bee posted an on-line article last night.

Officials with the Sacramento Sports Commission declined comment, but have scheduled a joint news conference with USA Track & Field Tuesday morning for what they describe as a “major announcement.”

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait!

Cross some more off the list.

US sprinter Tyson Gay tested positive for a banned substance and is withdrawing from the World Championships.

His tearful non-apology (“Someone let me down.”) is starting to sound familiar.

More info here.

Meanwhile, Jamaican sprinters Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson have each tested positive for banned stimulants.

More on that here.

After placing 2nd behind Shalane Flanagan in the 10,000 meters at the USA National Championships, the only thing standing between Jordan Hasay and the World Championships in Moscow was a qualifying time.

Running on a high school track in Portland this evening, Hasay earned the “B” standard and came within one tantalizing second of the “A” with a 31:46.

Read more about it here.

On Saturday, Cordova High School senior Nia Dorner won the 400 meter dash in 53.0 seconds at the CIF State Track and Field Championships to become the first ever girls sprint champion in Sacramento-area, and Sac-Joaquin Section history.

Her 53.0 time was a new personal best and is currently the second fastest national time.

The current national leader in the high school 400 is Ana Holland of Regis in Aurora, Colorado, with a 52.49.

Nice!

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I can only vaguely remember my first 10K, but I am pretty certain I didn’t run it in 32 minutes. Nice!

Watch more video of 2013 Stanford Invitational on flotrack.org

Mary Cain wins!

The USA Indoor National Championships wrapped up this weekend in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the star of the show was a high school junior.

Sunday, Mary Cain became the first high school athlete to win an indoor national title since Allyson Felix won the 200 meters in 2003.

Cain’s winning time of 5:05.68 was not particularly fast, but she led from the start and the final laps were blistering fast. Treniere Moser finished second in 5:06.55. You can watch the race yourself here.

Meanwhile, Lea Wallace, a former Sacramento State standout, now running for the Sacramento Running Association’s Elite Team, finished fourth in Sunday’s women’s 800 meters event.

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Kim Conley (Photo courtesy of the SRA)

Former UC Davis standout Kim Conley, who now runs for the Sacramento Running Association’s Elite Team, ran a personal best Tuesday in the first round of the women’s 5,000 meters at this year’s Olympic Games, but failed to advance to the final.

Conley finished 12^th in the second heat with a time of 15: 14.48–well ahead of her 15:19.79 previous best set six weeks ago at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in Eugene.

Conley’s teammates Julie Culley and Molly Huddle both advanced to the final, which will be run on Friday and shown at some completely random time on NBC.

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Maybe it’s because Le Tour is underway or the Summer Olympics are on the horizon, but it seems that the news is filled with stories about doping in sports.

The first that caught my attention was a story about three top-rated Russian runners, including two European champions, who were busted via the biological passport program. These were middle distance runners Yevgeniya Zinurova and Svetlana Klyuka, and marathoner Nailya Yulamanova.

My favorite aspect of the story was that  Nailya Yulamanova had won the gold medal in the European Championship marathon only after the original winner, Zivile Balciunaite of Lithuania, had been stripped of her medal due to a doping violation.

I suppose this means that the original third-place finisher, Anna Incerti of Italy, will now–two years after the fact–be awarded the 2010 European Championship. You need an abacus to keep this straight!

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Jenny Simpson winning the 1500World Championship in 2011 (Photo by Victah Sailor/PhotoRun.net)

We at the Sacramento Running News have long enjoyed an appreciation for 1500 meter world champion  Jenny (Barringer) Simpson. The expression on Simpson’s face as she crossed the finish line in Daegu and won the 2011 World Championship stands out in my mind as one of the great images from the sport.

Her expression was a deer in the headlight look of amazement and delight.

Simpson’s post race interviews showed her to be charming and gracious–something this sport needs–showing humility and heaping praise on all the people who had helped her get to that podium.

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