Lots of Canadian content to follow up on below, but let's start with some updates...
After last week's huge Tour Down Under and Lance Armstrong focus, this week has way less cycling headlines. Yes, Lance did continue to attack in the last two stages, even launching off the front with 2k in the last stage (he got caught within seconds) and ended up in 29th place overall. I think Lance would consider this first stage race a success as it wasn't really an Armstrong type race (no time trials, no real mountain stages). Lance is now back in the USA training in advance of the Tour of California which starts in mid-February. The two Canadians in the field in Australia finished in 11th place (Hesjedal) and 25th place (Meier) so that was pretty good week for them as well.
Ok, Canadian stuff. First off, some bad news for Triathlon Canada. Their Head High Performance Coach for the last 4 years, Joel Filliol, is leaving Canada to become the head coach for Great Britain in advance of the 2012 Olympics. Filliol has also been Simon Whitfield's personal coach for the last few years. So now Canada must search for a new head coach to develop our next generation of Olympic triathletes. Not good. Of course, with the Olympics coming to London in 2012, Great Britain wants to put on a great showing in all sports, so hiring the best coaches is part of it. So for them to come to Canada to take our best coaches obviously speaks well to our sport development program. But their gain is our loss. And this makes two high profile Canadian coaches in the last month or so (Tyler Christopher's coach Kevin Tyler also got a new job with UK Athletics) that are leaving Canada.
Ok, lots of marathoning news this week, and even some more Canadian news. Last week I reported on Andrew Smith's impressive 2:16 marathon in Houston. However, I missed reporting that in the same race, fellow Canadian Lioudmila Kortchaguina ran 2:30:43 and finished third on the female side. Nice result, and the $7000 in prize money is not too shabby either. It is the fastest marathon by a Canadian marathoner since Kortchaguina ran 2:29 in 2006. We now have 6 Canadian women who have run 2:41 or better in the past year and a bit, so that speaks well for our chances of taking a whole team to Berlin in August for the World Championships.
Speaking of fast Canadians, Jon Brown slid under the Bike-Y radar in December. He finally got over his pre-Beijing injuries to run 2:12 in the Fukuoka Marathon. This made him the fastest Canadian of 2008, and would have qualified for Beijing except he did it about 7 months too late. The good news is that Jon Brown is obviously on the comeback trail and should hopefully have some more good results in 2009.
A few other marathon notes this week. On top of Haile Gebrselassie and Sammy Wanjiru saying last week that they are planning attempts at the men's marathon world record this year, Robert Cheruiyot stated this week that his goal for 2009 is trying to set a new world record during August's Berlin Marathon. He will be defending his Boston Marathon title in April (against Ryan Hall) before trying to reload before August's big race. This is a different race than the normal Berlin Marathon in September that Geb normally runs (the August race is part of the World Championships) and it appears that Wanjiru wants to run against Geb in September. But there will be plenty of fast guys in Berlin in August as well.
Paula Radcliffe is also planning to make the trip to Berlin in August as well. She hasn't run in the World Championships since 2005 (she skipped 2007 with injury) and plans to regain her title. But she is currently training in New Mexico at altitude to try and get ready for the London Marathon. I'm not sure if she has eased off her prediction of trying for a new women's WR in London, but she will definitely be gunning for the win. The London race will feature all 3 women's medalists from Beijing, and 5 of the top 6 finishers from that race. Plus Radcliffe. Plus real fast Ethiopians Berhane Adere and Geta Wami will be there. So this could be an epic battle.
Cool race of the week is actually being held on Tuesday. Yep, 350 lucky athletes get to run up the Empire State Building. I guess you can only run the 86 floors once a year for safety reasons, and it would be pretty cool to run all the way to the top of what used to be the world's tallest building. The amazing part is that it takes the top runners only 10 minutes to climb the 1576 steps. You have to apply to the race organizers to be considered to race the event, and last year's winners came all the way from Germany and Australia to compete.
That's all for this week...next week we will do more of the above! Have a good weekend. And go Cardinals!
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