Cameron Levins Southern Utah University (via athleticsillustrated.com)
"...it’s got a few hills, and there is mud; it’s the best. I am quite an advocate for "adventure” terrains, so the rougher the conditions the more I enjoy cross-country."
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Twenty-one-year-old Moncton, New Brunswick native Genevieve Lalonde, is a steeple chaser (3000msc) who will be competing for one of the top positions in the 2012 Canadian Cross Country Championships that take place on November 24th in Vancouver, BC.
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Former University of Victoria Vikes athlete Cliff Childs, who is originally from Kelowna, BC, continues to train full-time in Victoria. He has set his training plans towards competing in FISU 2013 (International University Sport Federation Championships). On October 27th he raced the BC Cross Country Championships, finishing in fourth overall and just 26 seconds behind winner Chris Winter. Childs will be competing in the Canadian Cross Country Championships, Saturday, November 24th.
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Cameron Levins’s form is coming around just in time for him to compete in the 2012 Canadian Cross Country Championships. Levins’s form was off as he suffered from an illness around the time of the Olympics, which may have been caused by a combination of a heavy training and frequent high-level racing. However, his famous big mileage training program, which included running volumes of up to 240-kms-per-week, paid great dividends.
Winner of the masters division at the BC Cross Country Championships.
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Middle-distance runner Rachel Cliff of Vancouver, BC is preparing to race the National Cross Country Championships Saturday, November 24th at nearby Jericho Beach. She is glad to be back home after being away for six years and is looking forward to competing with the top athletes. “I moved back to Vancouver this August and started a master’s Degree in Occupational and Environmental Hygiene at UBC. I grew up in Vancouver, but I did my undergrad at Guelph and then stayed an extra year and a half after that. It’s been six years since I lived on the west coast so it’s great to be back!”
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Twenty-seven year old Megan Brown of Guelph, Ontario will be competing in the Canadian Cross Country Championships. She will be looking to make the Canadian team that will compete at the North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association (NACAC) Cross Country Championships in Jamaica as well as the IAAF World Cross Country Championships that happen March 24th in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
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Nike Oregon Project athlete Simon Bairu of Regina, Saskatchewan has a monkey on his back. He has yet to complete a marathon in a satisfactory time. He has demonstrated great talent in setting the Canadian 10,000m record in the time of 27:23, won seven Canadian Cross Country Championship titles, finished 12th at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, excelled as a Wisconsin Badger in the NCAA and has run the half-marathon distance as fast as 62:08. But marathon success has so far eluded him.
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Canadian steeplechaser Chris Winter, of Vancouver, BC is aiming to do well at the 2012 Canadian Cross Country Championships that take place in his home town, just blocks from where he lives. The championships happen Saturday, November, 24th at Jericho Beach. If he does well at Nationals, then he may be off to *NACACs and potentially the 40th annual (now semi-annual) IAAF World Cross Country Championships that take place in Bydgoszcz, Poland on Sunday, the 24th of March 2013. First things first, he needs to hurdle nationals. He will have good competition having to compete with 2012 London Olympians Cameron Levins, Mo Ahmed as well as Kelly Wiebe and potentially Simon Bairu (undecided at this time) who was set to run the New York City Marathon, until it was cancelled.
Levi crossed the line first, but teammate Joel gets the win, as Levi is from Manitoba. They both represent Trinity Western University.
BC Cross Country Championships Women's Race.
Post-race interview with Natasha Fraser, winner of the BC Cross Country Championships, Saturday, October 27th.
Interviews with various youth athletes at BC Cross Country Championships, Saturday October 27th 2012
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Dave Scott-Thomas who coaches the track and field and cross-country teams at the University of Guelph and is the Director and Head Coach at 
Speed River Track Club, will be sending a few athletes to Athletics Canada's 2012 Canadian Cross Country Championships. The championships will take place Saturday, November 24th in Vancouver, BC at Jericho Beach. Scott-Thomas told Athletics Illustrated, "We’ll be sending junior teams. Of our elites, Chris Winter, who is currently training back home in Vancouver, will race. We have some very strong juniors from Speed River and the University of Guelph whom we expect to contend for places on the national team."
Maureen "Mo" de St. Croix is Co-Director of the Canadian Cross Country Championships, is an athlete, coach and board member with BC Athletics, the provincial arm of Athletics Canada, serving British Columbia.
(via athleticsillustrated.com)
North Vancouver's Jessica Smith competed in the 2012 London Olympic Games in the 800m distance. She raced the 2012 BC Cross Country Championships and will be competing in the Canadian (National) Cross Country Championships. She is interviewed here post-race at BCs.
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Steve Magness writes science-based running and training articles primarily for the website The Science of Running.
Magness recently accepted a coaching position with the University of Houston, his alma mater. Previously he was an assistant coach at Nike Oregon Project, leading up to the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Magness ran in the NCAA for Rice University and the University of Houston. Currently he coaches professional runners Jackie Areson, who has run as fast as 4:12 in the 1500m and owns a 5k personal best time of 15:14. He also coaches Sara Hall and Tommy Schmitz. Schmitz owns an 800m personal best time of 1:49 and a 1500m best of 3:39.
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University of Victoria Vikes team workout at nearby Mount Doug Park, with guest appearance by Canadian Olympian and 800m specialist Geoff Harris. Hill repeats were the order of the day of various distances.
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Hans-Joachim “Hajo” Seppelt is a freelance journalist for ARD, a nationwide German TV and radio broadcasting network located in Berlin. He is, as his bio indicates, a film author who is involved in creating features and reporting for all of the German state broadcasting institutions. At this time, he is primarily reporting for the regional WDR network with the doping editorial team (WDR in Cologne).
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Are athletics federations doing enough to support WADA in suspending athletes who test positive for performance enhancing drugs?
Athletics Kenya’s Chairman Isaiah Kiplagat, gave a one week ultimatum to all foreign athletics coaches working in Kenya without work permits to leave. Kiplagat claims that the foreign coaches are responsible for the latest spate of drug use allegations, most notably from German journalist Hajo Seppelt, who acted as a sport agent, and reported that performance enhancing drug use in Kenya is rampant by both Kenyans 
and foreign athletes training in the country.
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Ben Johnson - 30 for 30
If you have spent the last twenty-five years getting over the drama and disappointment of Ben Johnson’s world record gold medal win in the 100m at the 1988 Olympic Games and subsequent disqualification and positive test, I do not suggest watching the ESPN 30 for 30 special 9.79 which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this summer and aired on TSN this week.
Carl Lewis, who has long come off as somewhat arrogant and phony (and not exactly the best singer) shows that time has not dulled his worst attributes. Much of what was contained in the documentary was not necessarily new – the positive test by Lewis at the 1988 US Olympic Trials for a banned stimulant has long been in the public domain.
