Craig Virgin, OLY

@yougoofyho3 @CitiusMag Because this drug is a masking agent often used to avoid testing positive when using PED’s. They flag and ban PED’s and also the masking agents used to try to hide the PED usage. BOTH are banned. Make sense?

@CitiusMag How tf is this helping her win???

The Athletics Integrity Unit has issued a two-year ban to 40-year-old Nancy Jelagat Meto 🇰🇪 after she tested positive for Furosemide, a prohibited diuretic and masking agent, in an out-of-competition test in June 2024. Meto provided a urine sample in Iten, Kenya on June 12th, 2024. The test showed the presence of Furosemide roughly a month later. The case took nearly two years to resolve due to a jurisdictional battle between Kenyan and international authorities until the AIU took over the case. Meto ran personal bests of 1:05:21 for the half marathon and 2:19:31 when she won the 2021 Valencia Marathon. She has not competed since.

Thanks, Dan. I was down at the World Cross CountryChamps in Tallahassee and was interviewed at the pre-race press conference by several running sites. That quote was totally spontaneous by me… but I stand by it! I had several interviews that wkend and musta gotten warmed up?!?

@TheTadDaley @usatf @IAAF @WorldAthletics Finally, I was a member of Fred Lebow’s bid presentation team to the IAAF to secure the bid for the first ever World Cross Country Championships to be hosted by the USA … by New York in 1984! We did so in 1981 at the World Champs gathering in Madrid where I defended my title.

@TheTadDaley @usatf @IAAF @WorldAthletics I was in attendance the last time it was hosted in the USA… at Boston in 1992. Interesting enough… that was the year and the national vehicle that I used to announce my retirement from professional running.., and announce my candidacy for the Illinois State Senate instead.

So @usatf and @IAAF and @WorldAthletics, since this is the first WORLD XC championship in the USA in 30 years, will THE ONLY American ever to win that championship, @CraigVirgin, be in attendance? HOPE SO!

@WightmanGeoff @AthleticsWeekly And a really good man, too. He was tough as nails during the race… but a true gentleman afterwards… win or lose! There are few of those kinds of men to go around. It was a blessing in my life to know him and to be able to face him… out on the field of battle. Happy Birthday!

@WightmanGeoff @AthleticsWeekly Happy 74th birthday to my old running rival (and friend), Nick Rose! I competed against him at both the US collegiate level .. and then on the world class level. Maybe the most talented and toughest runner I ever faced. Effective from 800 m to the marathon! Truly a wide range!

It’s also a happy 74th birthday today to the runner who had maybe the longest elite career of all - Nick Rose NCAA champion Double Olympian on the track UK records on the road 2:22 marathon at 40 71 min half marathon at 50 10.00 3k at 60. An inspiration. Happy birthday.

@jgault13 On first blush, I would also suggest that they hold the team trials in early Jan & the world champs in early Feb as a fair compromise between the too early start this year & the too late March event schedule in decades past? Still workable for indoor track & April marathon races.

@jgault13 Coming from a time when World XC flourished when held on a yearly basis…I think that skipping 2027 and waiting until 2029 will just put another nail in the coffin of this great event moving forward. I also suspect that they did not have any active & interested bidders for 2027?

After some recent controversies around its Athlete of the Year award, Seb Coe says World Athletics is currently reviewing the voting process for the award to determine whether changes need to be made moving forward. letsrun.com/news/2025/12/s…

@stevemagness Amen, Steve! We can only hope?

Cross country is the best because it introduces uncertainty... It takes the best of a variety of events, from 1500 to marathon and puts them on the same course with lots of chaos. You can't watch a loaded USAs and not want XC in the Olympics. It would be perfect entertainment

@DavidWoods007 @DyeStat @IlliniTrackXC @USTFCCCA @IHSA_IL I could not have conceived what it would feel like 50 years after that memorable victory?!? 50 years was simply to long of a time to wrap my head around! But, here we are … and I am grateful to still be alive and maybe attend! So many of my top competitors are no longer with us.

@DavidWoods007 @DyeStat @IlliniTrackXC @USTFCCCA @IHSA_IL The 2025 NCAA XC Champs is at U of Missouri this year. I am trying to make last minute arrangements to attend and root on today’s generation of top college runners in a sport that I dearly love. They may not know me … but I understand better than most what they’re up against.

A Rivalry For The Ages: ⁦@CraigVirgin⁩’s 1975 NCAA Cross Country Championships win over Nick Rose. One of most memorable events I covered in 54-year journalism career. For ⁦@DyeStat⁩. ⁦@IlliniTrackXC⁩ ⁦@USTFCCCA⁩ ⁦@IHSA_IL⁩ runnerspace.com/gprofile.php?m…

@reneknottsports Craig Virgin here, Rene. Please reach back to me. By phone or email… I know you have both since you tried to reach out to me last year for your pre-Olympics package. We can talk then about “life transitions“ and “new beginnings!“ It happens to everybody if we live long enough.

So how do I start anew? The question has been consuming my every thought since about 8:45 yesterday morning. I’m open to suggestions.

@illinilegends @IlliniAthletics @perditafelicien @deebrown11 @DeronWilliams Thanks, Mike. Sadly, some of those inducted that 1st year… are no longer with us. At least physically. So glad they got the honor before passing. I, for one, am grateful to be alive and looking forward to helping induct my track & cross country teammate, Mike Durkin, in 2 wks!

Eight years ago this week - Sept. 30, 2017 - @IlliniAthletics inducted its first Hall of Fame class. The 28-person group included 16 living honorees, including Dick Butkus, @CraigVirgin , @perditafelicien, Mary Eggers Tendler, Jerry Colangelo, @deebrown11 & @DeronWilliams .

@geric99018902 Nov 1975 NCAA XC Champs at Penn State. Left WSU’s Ngeno & Kimeto in the dust and now a man to man battle to the death w/ WKY’s/Great Britain’s Nick Rose. One of the distance runners that I respected most as a fellow competitor. Nick had all the skills and was so mentally tough.

Rose, Virgin @CraigVirgin

@geric99018902 My 1st race for Nike’s 1st ever sponsored track club, Athletics West in Oct 1977. It was a local race in Eugene, OR & the 10K course was basically all within Alton Baker Park on roads & bike paths. I won the race in a time close to 28:20 but I suspect that the course was short.

@DavidWoods007 @news_gazette @IlliniTrackXC @registerguard Well, the Illini Track & Field and Cross Country Teams were the most successful team on campus back then. You were doing articles on us 3X weekly back then… and we had several individuals on the team that the public found interesting to follow. You whetted their appetite.

@CraigVirgin @news_gazette @IlliniTrackXC I took the idea from @registerguard, and @news_gazette went along with it. It's a wonder editors listened to a punk kid like me. No newspaper today would publish a special section devoted to track and field.

Reporting on this meet for @news_gazette was one of highlights of my career. Send-off for @IlliniTrackXC greats @CraigVirgin and Charlton Ehizuelen.