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RIP Dick Quax

Former 5,000 WR Holder And 1976 Olympic Silver Medalist Dick Quax Dies Quax, whose 13:12.9 WR in the 5,000 in 1977 lasted less than a year as the WR but for more than 30 as the Kiwi record, has lost his long battle to cancer at age 70. Post your memories/condolences here: MB: Dick Quax, RIP.
*John Walker, Rod Dixon And Nick Willis Remember Quax

**2018 Pre Classic Full Results TV & Streaming *34 LRC Interviews**

LRC 17-Year-Old Jakob Ingebrigtsen Runs 3:52 Mile At Prefontaine Classic, And Oh Yeah Timothy Cheruiyot Wins In 3:49 The final pro race at the original Hayward Field will long be remembered as 17-year-old Jakob Ingebrigtsen topped Alan Webb‘s legendary 3:53 from high school with a 3:52.28 clocking.
*LRC Post-Race Interviews Interviews include past and current HS stars Drew Hunter and Brodey Hasty.

LRC 2018 Pre Women’s Distance Recap: Shelby Houlihan Runs Massive 4+ Sec. PR To Shock The World, Caster Semenya And Genzebe Dibaba Continue To Roll The final Prefontaine Classic at the original Hayward Field didn’t disappoint in terms of the women’s distance events – the women’s 800, 1,500 and 5,000 all produced world-leading times.

LRC The Rest Of The Meet: Noah Lyles Runs 19.69, Ryan Crouser And Jenn Suhr Break Meet Records, And A New Steeple Star Arrives? Ronnie Baker also impressed by beating Christian Coleman (windy 9.78 to 9.84), Shaunae Miller-Uibo crushed the 400 (49.52), and Mutaz Essa Barshim (2.36) kept winning in the high jump.

Day 1 At Pre

LRC Friday Night At Pre: Emmanuel Korir Is Superman, Selemon Barega Impresses, King Ches Disappoints Emmanuel Korir has only lost once in the last two years, when he got injured at the World Champs, and he showed his dominance in a crazy race at Pre. Paul Chelimo was 2nd in the 2 mile and King Ches 15th.
*Rohler Leads German 1-2-3 Sweep In Javelin
*Kendricks Comes From Behind To Default HSer Duplantis In Tricky Pole Vault Conditions

Outside Pre Coverage

Thomas Rohler Leads Another German Clean Sweep In Eugene Rohler set a meet record with 89.88m.
IAAF: Thomas Rohler Takes Javelin Showdown At Pre
Sam Kendricks Wins Windy Pole Vault At Pre It was a rough day for WR holder Renaud Lavillenie (5th) and Olympic champ Thiago Braz (no-height) while young star Mondo Duplantis impressed in second (5.71m).

**International Distance News *World 10k Bengaluru Free Streaming @ 10:30PM ET Saturday**

World Half Marathon Champs Geoffrey Kamworor And Netsanet Gudeta Will Race For 1st Time Since World Half For $213,000 At TCS World 10k In Bengaluru On Sunday With so much money on the line, the fields are loaded. American Ryan Vail and Aussie Brett Robinson are also racing.
*TCS World 10k Bengaluru Free Worldwide Streaming The women’s elite race starts at 10:30pm ET and the men’s race at 11:20pm ET.
RIP László Tabori – History’s 3rd Sub-4 Miler Has Died In addition to going sub-4, he also had the 1,500 WR and then became a coach, guiding everyone from Boston and NYC Marathon champs to Duane Solomon.
Gelete Burka and course record holder Yemane Tsegay are the favorite for Sunday’s Scotiabank Ottawa Marathon Sara Hall is racing as well.
100 Royal Air Force Runners Smash World Record For 100 X 10km Relay They ran it in 64:36:22 and broke the old mark by 4 hours. It averages out to 6:14.3 per mile (38:45.8 per 10k).
Germany Names Marathon Team For This Summer’s European Champs In Berlin
Laura Muir Will Go After Zola Budd’s 33-Year-Old British Mile Record Of 4:17.57 At London Anniversary Games In July
Mo Farah Says He’ll Run 2019 Worlds If He Can Medal Memo to Farah: You just got 3rd at London, you can medal right now. “If there’s a chance I can win a medal for my country, I’ll do it.”
History’s 2nd-Fastest Women’s Steepler – Celliphine Chepteek Chespol – Has Missed Two Doping Tests This Year As Two Different Agents Are Claiming Her One of them is apparently in charge of telling the doping control officers where she is but he put in incorrect info.

Week That Was

LRC WTW: David Rudisha Update, Israel’s 10,000m Star, Beer At Track Meets, PRs Of The Week And Being Aroused On LetsRun.com We know what half of you will be reading.

Olympic News

German Athlete Panel Urge Thomas Bach To Change Rule 40 And Give Athletes More Money Rule 40 is the unpopular restriction on athlete advertising during the Olympic games which limits their sponsorship opportunities.
*LRC Archives: Why Can Soccer Stars Star In Commercials During The World Cup But Not Track And Field Stars During The Olympics? IOC Rule 40 Must Go!
*MB: RULE 40, is it BS?
*MB: Can someone show me where IOC Rule 40 says Athletes can’t thank their sponsors?
Japanese Man Arrested For Selling Fake Tokyo 2020 Olympic Medals

Two Recommended Reads

RR#1 Fantastic Read On Patrick Sang, Who Compares The High He Gets From Coaching To Being On Drugs He also offers his one key to coaching success, “The biggest teacher to me is the feedback mechanism from the athlete. It can take a few months, maybe even just one month, to learn that.”
RR #2 Jeff Hollobaugh Takes An In-Depth Look (4,000+ Words) At The Greatness Of The Florida Program And Head Coach Mike Holloway Holloway’s Florida men have been top 3 at NCAA for 9 straight years, winning 4 titles including the last 2. However, the women’s team is pretty good as well and for the first time in his 11 years coaching both teams, both teams won the SEC outdoor title in the same year. “It was amazing, man. Absolutely amazing.”
Also Interesting Ross Tucker Gives His Thoughts On Why Women Dropped Out Of The 2018 Boston Marathon At A Much Lower Rate Than The Men This post is from last month but we aren’t sure if we ever had it on the front page.

Sprint / Field News

Kenyan 400 Ace Maximilia Imali (51.18 PR) Will Become Kenya’s First Woman To Run A Sprint Event In A Diamond League Meet In Rome
Meet Tom Walsh’s Coach Dale Stevenson, Who Doesn’t Charge Him A Penny “The best thing we decided was I needed to get really good at asking questions, probing, and that’s probably the foundation of our relationship. We don’t have a written contract; we never will. I don’t take a cent from Tom; never will. We’re doing this because we want to and to build on some healthy foundations.”
Jamaica’s Kerron Stewart Was Emotional After Running Her Final Race In Jamaica Over The Weekend The 34-Year-Old, who won 100 silver in 2008, is calling it a career at age 34.

A Nice Sunday Profile

Recommended Read: 4 Years Ago, He Was A Failed 400m Runner, Now He’s The Best Miler In The World. How Brother Colm Inspired Manang’oi To Become World’s Top Miler In 2014, Manangoi was thrilled to be trying out for the World Relays – as a 400m man, but crushed when he finished 7th out of 8. Just three years later, he was the best miler in the world.

Non-Pre Weekend Results

Geoffrey Kamworor (28:18) And Agnes Tirop (31:19) Score Kenyan Double In Hot Conditions At Bengaluru 10k Kamworor won comfortably by 20 seconds while the women’s race was a three-way battle with Tirop beating out Senbere Teferi by 3 seconds and Caroline Kipkirui 3rd in 31:28.
Gelete Burka Sets Canadian All-Comers Record Of 2:22:17 To Win Scotiabank Ottawa Marathon Course record holder Yemane Tsegay won the men’s race in 2:08:52 after struggling with a stomach problem and rallying back from 4th to 1st. Wesley Korir‘s younger brother John had the lead in his debut but ended up 2nd.
*MB: Congratulations SARA HALL 2:26:20 on in Ottawa Marathon
England’s Alexandra Bell Breaks 2:00 For 1st Time At The British Milers’ Club Grand Prix
MB: This is how you should react to breaking 2:00.00 for the 1st time… (pic)
Andamlak Berta (27:48) And Alia Mohammed (31:36) Earn Ottawa 10k Victories 1:05 half marathoner Edith Chelimo was second in the women’s race in 31:47.
Chris O’Hare (4:04) And Melissa Courtney (4:35) Win Westminster Miles in London
Nafissatou Thiam (6,806) And Damian Warner (8,795) Claim World Leads At Hypo Meeting IAAF Combined Events Challenge Fixture In Gotzis

NCAA D1 Regionals & D2 & 3 Nationals D1 Results D1 Info D2 Info DIII Info

MB: Official 2018 NCAA D1 Regional Discussion – Talk about the big surprises, positive or negative here Erin Finn was a DNS in the women’s 10k but Anna Rohrer advanced with ease.
*Where was Erin Finn in East prelim 10k?
MB: Sydney McLaughlin hits next to last hurdle, almost goes down (video)
MB: Shania Collins runs fastest collegiate 200 ever (21.97) in downpour Of course the 5.3 tail wind helped A LOT.

Pre Classic Previews And Inside Scoop

LRC The Inside Scoop From Pre: Centro’s Thoughts On Kiprop, Jager Reveals New Racing Tactics, The Kenyans Want The Bowerman Mile To Be A 3:46 Race, And Did Nick Willis Know Kiprop Was Dirty? Plus lots of good stuff from Mutaz Essa Barshim and Christian Coleman.

LRC Previews:

LRC 2018 Bowerman Mile Preview: Centro Gets A Real Test As The World’s Best Milers Come To Eugene Oh baby we can’t wait for this race. 1) Who wins? 2) How will the Americans do? 3) Can Jakob Ingebrigsten at 17 run faster than Alan Webb did at Pre at age 18 (3:53.43)?
LRC 2018 Pre Classic Saturday Preview: Christian Coleman & Noah Lyles Lead A Cavalcade Of Stars In The Last Pro Meet At Hayward Field Plus can Evan Jager win at Pre for the first time ever and might the men’s steeple produce the first sub-8 in US history?
Listen On Demand LRC Special 2018 Pre Classic Preview Podcast How will Edward Cheserek‘s return to Hayward Field go? Who wins the stacked ____ (fill in the distance event)? Who has a brighter future? Noah Lyles or Christian Coleman? Plus a little Caster Semenya and Drew Hunter talk and discussion of Matt Centrowitz Sr.‘s thoughts on doping.
Eugene Register-Guard‘s Prefontaine Classic Event-By-Event Preview
Jeff Hollobaugh: 8 Pre Classic Events To Watch … And Then Some
IAAF Preview Of Pre The women’s 400 will feature the 3 of the top 4 from Worlds.

More Pre News

Recommended Read Wonderful Profile Of Francine Niyonsaba – Mark Rowland Calls The Woman Whom Her Oregon Track Club Teammates Affectionately Call The “Princess Of Burundi” One Of The “Toughest Athletes Mentally I’ve Ever Coached” Ken Goe‘s article reveals Niyonsaba got malaria while training with the OTC in South Africa this winter but somehow still managed to win world indoors. The OTC refused comment on the new hyperandrogenism rules.
20-Year-Old Wycliffe Kinyamal Is Ready For His 1st Race On US Soil He wants to lower his PR so low that it is “scary” to any potential challengers.
Justin Gatlin Pulls Out Of Pre With Hamstring Injury It was also announced that Christian Coleman will no longer do the 100/200 double, but just the 100.
Ken Goe: “What if you held a meet and nobody outside the stadium noticed?” Goe laments that this weekend’s Pre Classic won’t get more attention and points out that there are no track athletes on ESPN’s annual list of the 100 most famous athletes in sports.
MB: Kyle Merber drops out of pre mile field
International Mile Full Field Released – It Includes HSer Brodey Hasty + Drew Hunter
World Champ Bowie To Clash With Olympic Champion Thompson + Schippers & Ahoure In 100 At Pre
LRC Ajee Wilson Hasn’t Thought Much About New IAAF Hyperandrogenism Regulations But Is “Glad” Caster Semenya Can Still Race For Now If the IAAF’s new hyperandrogenism rules stick, Ajee Wilson may be the biggest beneficiary but that’s not something she’s thrilled about. “I definitely know that I enjoy racing with them. I’m glad that they’re allowed to race still.”

Sprint Stuff

Recommended Read: DyeStat: The Rise Of Noah Lyles And The Mom Who Helped Make It Happen Researching the steps to a pro track career, scrounging money so Lyles could travel to big meets as a high schooler, helping manage his career and his finances, and flying to Florida to do Lyles rehab walks with him, Keisha Caine-Lyles is definitely an Olympic quality mom.
GB Sprinter Zharnel Hughes Remembers The “Most Treasured Memory” Of His Career Racing Usain Bolt At The New York DL In 2015 Hughes was a surprise challenge for Bolt who only beat him with a dip at the line by .03. Hughes says his mother still has a huge portrait of that finish line photo on the wall in her house.
Olympic 400m Champ Wayde Van Niekerk Targeting July Return Van Niekerk is flying to Doha for “intensive rehabilitation” as he continues to make his way back from the knee injury he sustained during a charity rugby game.
2008 Olympic 100m Silver Medalist Kerron Stewart Got Emotional After Running Her Final Race In Jamaica This Past Weekend The 34-year-old finished second to double Olympic champ Elaine Thompson at the Jamaica Invy before announcing she was retiring at the end of the season.
Jamaican High Schooler Christopher Taylor Motivated After Beating LaShawn Merritt Over 200m At The Jamaica Invy Taylor: “I was entered against the big boys and I came out victorious. It is just motivation for me going into World Juniors.”
Jumps: World Indoor Triple Jump Silver Medalist Almir Dos Santos Talks About How He Made The Transition From High Jumper To Horizontal Jumper In 2016

Upcoming Road Action

Sunday: World Half Marathon Champ Netsanet Gudeta Leads Field For TCS World 10k Bengaluru In India Gudeta will face world 10,000 bronze medalist Agnes Tirop and world half bronze medalist Pauline Kamulu.
June 9: Mary Keitany Vs. Molly Huddle Headlines New York Mini 10k They also face Desi Linden, Betsy Saina, Aliphine Tuliamuk and Boston runner-up Sarah Sellers.
June 16: NAZ Elite’s Olympic Trials 6th Placer Kellyn Taylor Running Grandma’s Marathon Taylor says she’s looking forward to using the fitness she built up before DNFing in the tough conditions in Boston.

NCAA D1 Regionals Are This Weekend & D2 & 3 Nationals D1 Results D1 Info D2 Info DIII Info

Meet Lisa Gunnarsson – Virginia Tech’s Freshman Pole Vault Prodigy The Swede, the best youth pole vaulter in history (who has lived in 5 countries and fluently speaks 3 languages), finds track and field way easier than gymnastics, which she quit at age 12.
Trackalerts Wonders If Michael Norman, Nathon Allen And Akeem Bloomfield Might All Go Sub-44 At NCAAs If they do it would be amazing as only one collegian has ever broken 44.00 in an NCAA meet and only twice has someone run a 43 and finished third in any 400.
What Did It Take To Qualify For NCAA Prelims? 2018 was the best year ever for the men’s steeple in the West (8:57.98) and women’s 800 in the East (2:07.96) and women’s 10k in the West (34:47). 800 on up only.

More Distance News

Recommended Read: Profile On Shanghai 800 Winner Wycliffe Kinyamal Kisasy, Who Plans To “Run Under 1:43 This Year” Interestingly, Kisasy started track and field in the high jump (PR around 2.00m) and actually started running to help his jumping.
MB: Desiree Linden Kissed By Taylor Swift Live On Billboard Music Awards
*Tweet From Chris Chavez With Video
RR: The Guardian Obituary For GB Runner Bruce Tulloh Who Famously Won The 1962 European 5000 Title Barefoot Tulloh, a sub-4 barefoot miler, had a very interesting running career as he broke the record for running across the United States by 8 days, taking 65 to complete the journey and spent time living with the Tarhumara Indians (made famous by the book, Born to Run).
MB: Boston Runner-Up Sara Sellers Now Sponsored By Altra
MB: High Schooler Brodey Hasty To Run International Mile @ Pre Classic This will be Hasty’s first outdoor mile, but he ran 4:00.05 indoor at Millrose.
Haile Gebrselassie Helps Inaugurate The World Health Organization’s “Walk The Talk Health For All Challenge” In Geneva
Video: Mo Farah Leads Manchester Bombing Anniversary Moment Of Silence Tribute
Caster Semenya: “I love myself and don’t care what people think of me.” “What I think of is the love that I get from my family, the love that I get from my friends, the love that I get from my nation.”
MB: Seattle runners. Cougar attack (fatality) in Washington: Same trail as the course used for downhill marathons?

Pre Classic On The Message Board

Official 2018 Pre Classic Discussion Thread
Shelby MF Houlihan – Unreal. She runs a 28.9 final 200 to PR by 4+ seconds and win Pre in 3:59.06!!
Alan Webb move over. A high schooler just ran 3:52 at Pre!!! Jakob Ingebrigtsen 3:52.28!!! We guess to be PC, we should point out that officially Samuel Tefera is 18 and he ran 3:51.26.
NOAH MF LYLES!!!!! Can you say 19.69 wind-legal?
Unheralded Ben Kigen BLOWS AWAY Kipruto and Jager at Pre, closes in 57.89 — fastest steeple closer ever?
Evan Jager is DONE!!!
What no one noticed. Murphy takes down Centrowitz. A changing of the guard?
Centro will NOT make the 2020 olympics
Where the %#*^ is Levins?
Emmanuel Korir Gets Tripped, Nearly Falls on His Face w/ 200 to go, Still Wins 800 at Pre but takes 6 steps inside rail-DQ?
King Ches doesn’t speak to media after 15th place at Pre His coach texted us and said Cheserek had a recent calf strain.
Races like the ones tonight are the reasons nobody watches track
Dani Jones at Pre?
Centro: Willis was glad Makhloufi got silver instead of Kiprop – Did he know Kiprop was dirty?
Pre Classic 2 mile: cheserek predictions?

Previous NCAA News

MB: Florida Signs Mike Holloway to a 10-year track and field extension – Why would an AD give anyone a 10-year contract?
Brett Larner Bemoans The Fact That There Is No NCAA Type System In Japan Even though the star ekiden runners in Japan are watched on TV by 30% of the country, they pay full tuition like everyone else – $18,000 USD at current exchange rates.
Meet The 4th Seed In The West’s 1,500 – University Of Portland Runner Taryn Rawlings
The Jamaicans Are So Impressed By Sydney M That Even They Are Asking, “Will the women’s 400m hurdles soon to be track’s best event?”
Anyone Hiring? Former Auburn Star Kerron Stewart (2008 Olympic Silver In 100) Says She Wants ToBe A Coach After She Retires This Year – Emotional After Final Race In Jamaica

Spikes: Kentucky’s Jasmine Camacho-Quinn Is Flying Really High Now But She Experienced Heartache At Rio Olympics At Age 19

Random, But Interesting

Mondo Duplantis Is Getting All The Pub, But 2018 Is The Greatest Year Ever For US Boys HS Vaulting As There Are Some Other Really Good Studs As Well KC Lightfoot is #2 all-time at 18-5 and has 5 straight meets over 18 feet (5.48 m). He’s one of 4 US HSers not named Mondo over 18 feet this year.
Scientific Study Examines Whether It’s Best To Train Shot Putters With Strength-Based Training Or Power-Based Training
Leon Reid: Nothern Ireland 200m Man Has Gone From Years Of Foster Care To A CG Bronze Medal He’s got a 20.38 PR but got the medal in 20.55.
Kiwis May Use Flaming Hammer Throw To Promote Track And Field The flaming hammer throw apparently is already a thing at the Slovenksi summer camps in Maine. *Video
European 24-Hour Champs Are This Weekend – Full Preview The men’s 24-hour WR comes out to be 7:38 mile pace whereas the women’s is 8:58 mile pace.
Geleta Burka Started Off In Sports As A Star Footballer She’s now very close to being the first woman in history at sub-4:00 in the 1,500 and sub-2:20 in the marathon as her marathon PR is 2:20:45.
British Runners Celebrated 100 Years Of Women’s Suffrage At Great Manchester Run
IAAF Combined Events Challenge Meeting In Götzis Is This Weekend World and Olympic champion Nafissatou Thiam and three-time Hypo-Meeting winner Damian Warner will defend their crowns.

Doping / Corruption News

We’d Love To Be A Fly On The Wall Of That Room: Lamine Diack Cancels Planned Meeting With Seb Coe Due To Medical Reasons Diack is still on house arrest in France and had requested a meeting with Coe which was to take place in front of a judge on Friday.
Brazilian Informer Claims Payment To Lamine Diack Secured Four Votes For Rio 2016 The informer Carlos Emanuel Miranda reportedly gave testimony in a plea bargain agreement.
Two Russian Hurdlers Get 4-Year Bans For Refusing To Take A Drug Test Two javelin throwers also got doping bans for failing drug tests.
WADA Vice President Postpones Russian Doping Crisis Review After Strong Opposition From Sports Movement

Looking Ahead On The Track

June 5: Throws Will Highlight The Pavo Nurmi Games With World Champ Johannes Vetter And Olympic Champ Thomas Rohler Facing Off In The Javelin Also world champions Sandra Perkovic (discus) and Pwel Fajdek (hammer). World indoor champ Samuel Tefera is in the 1500 while recent 8:33 woman Meskerem Mamo leads the woman’s 3000.
July 5: Olympic Champ Elaine Thompson, World Champ Tori Bowie And European Champ Dafne Schippers Will Clash At Lausanne DL Meet Worlds silver medalist Marie-Josée Ta Lou is also in the 100 while world champ Karsten Warholm leads the men’s 400H with Kyron McMaster and world leader Abderrahman Samba. Sam Kendricks vs. Renaud Lavillenie and Shawn Barber in the PV.
July 20: Caster Semenya (800), Timothy Cheruiyot (1,500) And Beatrice Chepkoech (Steple) Announced For Monaco Distance Action Noah Lyles is in the 200, Mutaz Barshim in the HJ steeple, Omar McLeod in the 110H.
July 21: Slew Of Top Sprinters Added To Fields For London Anniversary Games South Africa’s Akani Simbine and USA’s Ronnie Baker join Christian Coleman and Andre De Grasse in the 100m while Kim Collins will run his final race on UK soil.