Pre-Worlds African News – Say It Ain’t So, Kenny B

• Ethiopia Announces World Team: Kenenisa Bekele Will Not Race The Marathon Bekele was quoted saying, “I’m not fit enough to compete at the event.” Other interesting roster notes are that Genzebe Dibaba is doing the 1,500/5K double and Olympic champ/WR holder Almaz Ayana is doing the 5K/10K double despite not having raced all year. Tirunesh Dibaba is also in the 10K.
  *MB: Kenenisa Bekele OUT of 2017 World Championships marathon
• Kenya’s World 400H Champ Nicholas Bett Won’t Defend His Title Bett has withdrawn with a stress fracture in his right leg.
• Passport/Visa Problems Delayed Eunice Sum From Showing Up At Pre-Worlds Kenyan Training Camp This also kept her from racing the Monaco Diamond League meet.
• Edna Kiplagat Explains The Difference Between Time Trial And Championship Racing “For championships, you need a steady mind on the competition. You don’t strive so much for fast times and that’s why any athlete can win it.”
• Kenyan Editorial: “Cut The Circus, Give Michael Saruni His 800m Ticket To London!” AK has created some controversy by not choosing UTEP’s Saruni for the team despite him finishing 3rd at the Kenyan Trials.
  *Saruni Showed Up At Kenyan Camp As No One Informed Him He’d Been Cut Saruni had to find out from the media that he was off the team despite David Rudisha saying it should have been himself or Ferguson Rotich.
• Kenyan Men’s Marathon Team “Oozes Confidence” Ahead Of Worlds Despite The Fact That None Of Them Have Competed At A Global Championship
• Eliud Kipchoge Confident In Kenya’s World Marathoners “With combined efforts they are likely to sweep the first three places.”
• Nigeria Names Blessing Okagbare And 11 Others To London 2017 Team

Free Entertainment To Get You Through Hump Day

• Quiz: Can You Name Every Men’s 100m World Champion? It’s not as hard as you might think. *Hint 1: There have been 15 winners, but you’ll only need to know 9 names. *Hint 2: The photo.
• Amusing Videos: From Jesse Owens To Michael Phelps – The Odd History Of Man Vs. Animal Owens raced a horse in Cuba in 1936 during halftime of a soccer game.

Distance News

• Good Read: “Chris Solinsky Rechanneling Competitive Fire Into Coaching At The University Of Florida” On his time at William and Mary, rising senior Regan Rome said, “Just because he’s an accomplished runner doesn’t mean he’s going to be an accomplished coach, and he knows that. He’s ready to put in the work.”
• Good Read #2: Runner’s Tribe Q&A With Nick Symmonds About Retiring, The Financial Side Of The Sport And His Marathon Training/Goals Symmonds says he wants to break 3 hours in Honolulu as Danny Mackey say’d he’d be surprised if he ran slower than 3:15 and surprised if he ran faster than 2:45.
• Is He Vulnerable? Mo Farah: “I’m Not Quote In The Shape I’d Like To Be”
• Nijel Amos Ready To Reclaim 800m Glory At The London Olympic Stadium “I’m done with preparations race, I’m done and waiting for the World Championships.”
• Irish 800 Runner Mark English Looking Forward To Worlds After Injury-Filled Season

More Results From The Weekend

• Florida Prep Jamal Walton Qualifies For Worlds With 44.99 At Pan Am U20 Champs His time was a Cayman Islands national record and the second-fastest in American HS history.
• Adel Mechaal’s 1,500/5,000 Double Highlights Spanish National Champs Mechaal ran 3:46 and came back an hour later to take the 5,000 in 14:07.
• Armand Duplantis Breaks Championship Record With 5.65m To Win Euro U20 Champs
• Wojciech Nowicki Gets Upset Victory Over World Hammer Champ Pawel Fajdek At Polish National Championships
• IAAF Recap: Slew Of Meet Records Fall At Commonwealth Youth Games Scotland’s Erin Wallace PRed by more than 3 seconds to win the girls’ 1,500 in 4:16 as Kenya’s John Waweru took the boys’ race in 3:48.
• Two National Records Highlight Day 1 Of USATF Hershey National Junior Olympic Track Champs

The 2017 IAAF Worlds In London Start Soon

• Ridiculous: Despite Running 5-Second PRs At 3,000 And 5,000, Athletics South Africa Leaves Former Arkansas Star Dominique Scott And 12 Others Off Its Team
  
• Wayde van Niekerk Isn’t Happy That ASA Is Leaving So Many People Home “Guys work [too] hard for this type of rejection.”
  
• Chinese Team For Worlds Named And It Includes Zero Track Runners Over 200 Meters
• Seb Coe Is Honest And Says He Can’t Guarantee 2017 Worlds Will Be Clean – “People will always seek to cheat.” 
• Eilidh Doyle Wins Team GB Captain For Worlds In Vote Over Mo Farah And Greg Rutherford
• More Doping News: Mastermind Behind Russian Doping Program Says Anti-Doping Is A Joke – Says Believing In Clean Sport Is Like Believing In The Bible

Inspiring Field Event News

• Jamie Nieto Does It!!! Step By Halting Step, Nieto Walks Down Aisle With His Wife
  *MB: Congrats to Jamie Nieto!! Step by halting step, Nieto walks down aisle with his wife
• Even Though She’s Pregnant And Due In October, Valerie Adams Is Still A “Machine” And Crushing It At The Gym

The 2017 Paralympics Were A Huge Success in London *Results

• Paralympic Worlds In London Were SUPER Successful – So Successful That It Appears They’ll Go Back There In 2019 Around 280,000 tickets were sold over 10 days of competition, more than every previous World Championships combined. It’s already said that the event won’t be going to Doha in 2019 as they only sold 15,000 tickets two years ago.
  *MB: What explains the popularity of the Paralympics in the UK? 
• Mikey Brannigan Gets Beaten By 10 seconds In 5,000 (14:29 To 14:39), Settles For Silver He came up a little short for triple gold after winning the 800 and 1,500 golds.
• British Media Run 4 X 100 Blindfolded To Get A Feel For What The Paralympics Is Like – Guy Ends Up In Hospital

2017 Monaco *Compiled Results *TV & Streaming

LRC Evan Jager Crushes 8:01.29 World Leader In Monaco To Become First Non-African Man To Win A Diamond League Steeplechase & Establish Himself As The Favorite At Worlds Jager looked in total control as he demolished the field over the final lap to win by over 6 seconds.

LRC Ajee Wilson Smashes The American 800-Meter Record, Runs 1:55.61 In Monaco (updated) Wilson’s incredible run wasn’t good enough to get her a victory or a runner-up finish but she did put a scare into the Olympic gold and silver medalists Caster Semenya and Francine Niyonsaba.

LRC 2017 Herculis Recap: Usain Bolt (9.95) Is Back, Emmanuel Korir (1:43.10 800) & Elijah Manangoi (3:28.80 1,500) Rip World Leaders Bolt beat Isiah Young by .03 but looked to have more in the tank while fellow Olympic champs Matthew Centrowitz and Asbel Kiprop struggled in the 1,500. Hellen Obiri rocked the 3,000 (8:23.14) as Wayde van Niekerk was pushed hard in the 400 by Botswana’s Isaac Makwala.

*IAAF: Van Niekerk Pushed All The Way In Monaco If you thought van Niekerk was auto gold in London, Botswana’s Isaac Makwala wants you to guess again.
*IAAF: Usain Bolt Wins With Season’s Best Bolt: “It was good, I’m going in the right direction, there’s still a lot of work to do.”
*The Telegraph: “Usain Bolt Produces Season’s Best 9.95 Victory In Timely Boost Ahead Of London” On the claim that Bolt had De Grasse “booted” from Monaco, De Grasse said, “That was not true. I was never supposed to race Usain here.”

Monaco Message Board Talk:

• Official 2017 Monaco DL Discussion Thread – Oh baby what a meet
• Ajee Wilson 1:55.61!!!!! Smashed American Record!!!!
• My God. Evan MF Jager just ran his last 2 laps in 2:03 and ran 8:01 to win the men’s steeple
• Bolt 9.95 in Monaco – can he win worlds?
• Centro will be ready. 3:34 is not that bad
• Could Botswana challenge America in the 4×4?
• Semenya is a consistent sandbagger

Sprint News

• Meet Sokwakhana Zazini – The 16-Year-Old Who Has Run A 48.84 400H At Age 16
• Ireland At Long Last Has Its 1st-Ever Female Sprint Gold Medalist … She Was Born In Nigeria 
• Q&A With Irish 400 Man Brian Gregan The 27-year-old has been a 45-second man since 2011 but amazingly has never been to the Olympics. He just ran a 45.26 PR at age 27.
• Sprinter Leon Reid Makes Desperate Plea To Seb Coe Over Allegiance Switch From GB To Ireland
• Usain Bolt Likely Won’t Play Pro Football After He Retires From Track The idea that he’d ever be good enough was ridiculous.
• Athletics Weekly Takes A Look Back At The Stuttgart 1993 World Champs Britain won gold in the men’s 100 and 110H.

World Record Reset?

• Nick Symmonds Video Blog On Proposal To Scrap Pre-2005 WRs: “Why This Idea Is So Dumb” Symmonds goes on the record saying that he thinks Hicham El Guerrouj was dirty, David Rudisha is clean and that dopers should face jail time. Also, check out the comment section for some entertainment as Symmonds doesn’t hold back replying to the trolls.
• Runner’s World’s Alex Hutchinson Plays Devil’s Advocate For The World Record Reset Hutchinson addresses some of the key arguments against the proposal and concludes, “Nobody likes to take an action that victimizes someone; but we sometimes forget than inaction also has victims.”

LetsJump.com

• Reuters: Maria Lasitskene Set To Defend Her World HJ Title As A “Neutral” Lasitskene has dominated the HJ this year with 20 wins and was just 3cm off the 29-year-old WR when she cleared 2.06m in Lausanne.
• The Comeback Kid: GB Pole Vault Record Holder Holly Bradshaw Has Overcome Four Surgeries In The Past Four Years To Get Back To The Top Back, knee and two Achilles surgeries didn’t stop Bradshaw from finally PRing again to break her own 2012 NR and sit #5 in the world this year.
• SPIKES Profile: Teen Pole Vault Star Mondo Duplantis And His Parents Refuse To Set Limits As He Gets Ready To Take On The World’s Best In London Duplantis: “I don’t like to think what I’m doing is that crazy. Maybe it’s because I’m the one doing it, but I feel like other people should be able to do it, too.”
• IAAF Profile: After Rabat Victory And Finally Injury Free, Polish Pole Vaulter Pawel Wojciechowski’s Sights Set Firmly On London Wojciechowski was the 2011 World champion, but says he doesn’t remember much about winning gold and “wants a reminder in London.”

Evan Jager Talked To Us About Fancy Bears & Monaco

LRC  Q&A: Evan Jager Talks About Being Listed As “Likely Doping” In Fancy Bears Hack, The Steeplechase In Monaco … And Admits To Reading LetsRun.com To Try To Figure Out What Was Going On Jager was on the LetsRun.com Track Talk podcast for nearly an hour in his first public comments since being listed in the Fancy Bears hack. Read the highlights or listen to the whole thing. Jager revealed what he’s learned from the IAAF about why his name was on the document, he talked about his training, how he got his mind right to win Olympic silver, married life and being a homeowner. Plus, he says he had to stop reading forum posts about the hack because 50% of you were like “I know he’s been doping the whole time!”

• Best Quotes: “Honestly my first thought (if I wasn’t on the list) would have been, oh yeah, like everyone on there is doping.”
• “Naturally, I woke up and the like first thing that I did was I went to LetsRun just to figure out what exactly was going on.”
• “Everyone was looking at me like they thought I was dirty at that point in time and it was a really shitty feeling.”
• On Monaco: “I’m looking to get up to the front and go for the win.”