Athens *Results
Athens
Recap: LaShawn Merritt Runs 44.54 (Wariner A No-Show), Asbel Kiprop Runs 1:43.48 As 3 Break
1:44, Yargelis Savigne Triple Jumps 15 Meters, Jamal Sub-4 Again The 2nd sub-1:44 clocking of the year for Kiprop. This meet was hyped as a Wariner-Merritt showdown at 400 but Wariner ran at an obscure Italian meet the day before, only clocking 45.74.
Message board thread mocking Wariner's 45.74. Americans Erin Donohue (4:05.21) and Sarah Bowman (4:05.67) both prd.
Weekend Road Action We Didn't Report Monday
Utica: Men: Ridouane Harroufi Sits Back, Then Wins Utica Boilermaker
Women: Alice Timbilili Wins Women's Race At Utica Boilermaker
*5 Injured In Crash Near Boilermaker Finish Line
Crazy 8s 8k: 19-Year-Old Simon Cheprot Wins Crazy 8s 8k in 22:21 - His 2nd Big 8km Win Of The Summer Cheprot had also won a July 4th 8k In Iowa
Arizona: Rotterdam Marathon Star Duncan Kibet Wins 10 Miler In US Kibet is the guy who came out of nowhere to run 2:04:27 and win Rotterdam in one of the most exciting marathons ever. An LRC viewer wanted to point out that the article
implies that Kibet's coach is drug cheat Eddy Hellebuyck. We're not too surprised Kibet's agent is Eddy's wife Shawn (Eddy and Shawn helped Kibet's brother, Oregon star Shadrack Kiptoo in high school), but we believe Kibet's coach is Claudio Berardelli.
Arkansas Alums Are Stunned By Dick Booth's Firing World Record holder Mike Powell Former Arkansas great Mike Conley says he's "speechless," while two-time Olympian Melvin Lister said, "How do you fire one of the greatest coaches ever to coach the sport?" Booth himself said, "I was thinking how can a 27-year career
end in a five-minute
conversation? But that was it. I have to put it behind me
and get busy finding a job for next year." More: Dick Booth Let Go At Arkansas *Message Board Thread
New Zealand Olympian Resorts To Prostitution To Raise Funds For 2012 He's the head pimp for a new brothel in NZ.
Ramzi Says He's Innocent And Bahrain Says They'll Support His Appeal
Photos From Rome Golden League
World Youth Games Finish *Results *More Coverage At Nationalscholastic.org
*Texan Prezel Hardy Of 10.08w Fame As Sophomore Wins World Youth 100m
*American Youth Shot Putter Wins Gold In Record 70'
*American Brit Jodie Williams Completes 100/200 Double As Kenyans Rule Final Day By Absolutely Dominating Distance Competition Youths run 3:37 for 1,500 and 2:01 for 800. Impressive. The Kenyans got more golds and silvers than the US. We got a lot of emails by Brits claiming Jodie Williams as one of their own. Sorry for the mistake.
*Grenadian Kirani James Completes 200/400
Double He's tall and lanky, let the Usain Bolt comparisons begin.
*15-Year-Old Kenyan Wins 3k In 7:51 But Says Education Is Important To Him
*Ireland's Ciara Mageean Run 2:03 For Silver
*A Look at How Jamaica's Team Fared
3rd Golden League Meet, Golden Gala Rome *Results *Photos From Rome Golden League
LRC Recap Tyson Gay 9.77 Over Asafa Powell 9.88, Kerron Stewart 10.75, Maggie Vessey Golden League Win, Christin Wurth-Thomas 3:59.98, Dorian Ulrey "A" Standard It was a great day for the 100m sprinters and for American female distance runners. Tyson
Gay blitzed a 9.77 =AR to get the win over Asafa Powell, while Kerron Stewart ran 10.75 on the women's side. In the distance races, Christin Wurth held on to become the 2nd American sub-4:00 in 2009 (and 3rd ever without a drug conviction). 800m sensation Maggie Vessey stunned the women's
800m runners with a come-from-behind win, her second major victory in 2009. On the men's side, Arkansas stud Dorian Ulrey got a near 5-second PR to run 3:35.23 and get the World Championships "A" standard. In other action, Dwight Phillips jumped a long way in the long jump and Kenenisa Bekele and Yelena Isinbayeva stayed alive in the Golden League chase.
*Bahraini Maryam Jamal Excited By
Her Fitness After 3:56 1,500 In Rome Imagine how good the Ethiopian team would be if Jamal still ran for her native country. They'd rank 1-2 in the women's 1,500m.
*Dorian Ulrey Completes US Trio For Berlin Kids, watch what you put on Facebook - this article features comments from Ulrey's Facebook page.
*Post-Race Interviews
LRC Rome Threads: *Young Aussie Riseley 3:32.93 in Rome!!!!
*Maggie Vessey making some noise in the 800 ... could do great at Worlds
*dorian ulrey does it!
*2nd in 3:59.98 1500 in ROME!!! - holy Wurth-Thomas
*Phillips winning jump
*Dorian Ulrey in Golden Gala
News From Ethiopia And Kenya
- Meseret Defar Trying Desperately To Secure World Spot On 10,000m Team What an amazing situation. 5,000m WR holder Mesy Defar desperately wants to run the 10,000m/5,000m double in Berlin, but needs a fast time to make the Ethiopian team as her compatriots, led by Meselech Melkamu, have run 29:53, 30:11 and 30:48 this season while Defar has not broken 31. She'll go for it at the Aviva meet in UK.
- Kiprop's Newly-Won Olympic Gold Will Be Kenya's 6th - Their Highest Mark In History Asbel Kiprop will return to action in Rome on Friday vs. Augustine Choge.
- Article On Geb And Bekele's Effect On Ethiopian Youth
- 1992 Olympic Medalist Bayisa (Ethiopia) Arrested After Trying To Shoot Wife He did what untold numbers of spouses have contemplated doing in the course of human history.
Gold For Kiprop, Ramzi B Sample Positive
LRC Boards: Ramzi
B sample positive
LRC's Crackin' Recap: USAIN BOLT 19.59 MIND-BLOWER IN LAUSANNE *Results *Message Board Thread Bolt 19.59! What a meet in Switzerland as the rainy conditions couldn't stop Usain Bolt from lighting up the night with one of the greatest sprint performances of all time. His 19.59 in the rain, into a 0.9 headwind marks the 4th-fastest wind-legal run of all time. In other events, Steve Hooker and Dayron Robles returned to winning form by narrow margins, Bernard Lagat got crushed in the 800, Ethiopian mid-d star Deresse Mekonnen
smacked down Kenya's best in the 3k, Gelete Burka did the same in the 1,500, and the USA 1-2-3 sweep in the 400m Hurdles promised by Angelo Taylor looks pretty unlikely thanks to Jamaica's Isa Phillips clobbering Kerron Clement in another fine performance.
*Bolt Clocks 4th-Fastest 200m Of All Time
*Usain
Bolt To Run 100 And Relay In London Weekend Of LetsRun.com Founders Day (July 24) The London Meet has big bucks and it shows. Bolt doesn't come cheaply.
*Usain Bolt Street Race To Be Shown In England Theatres In 3D
*Bolt,
Phillips And Powell Dominate World Class Athletissima Fields Lausanne was a very, very good meet for the Jamaican sprinters. They won just about every sprint save the 100 hurdles and 110m hurdles.
*Pat Butcher Blogs About Lausanne History and Bolt's Re-Writing Of It
*Flashback: Bolt
Promising Hard Effort And Fast Time In 200m In Lausanne On July 7 He came through on that promise!
LRC Week In Review We've got it all covered: American female distance runners kicking butt in Europe, the most beautiful race we've ever seen Usain Bolt run, Tyson Gay running a pretty damn good race of his own, the track and field world still bleeding itself to death by focusing on times, and even some compassion as we give props for guys nearly getting DFL (Dorian Ulrey) and running in all-comers meets (Khadevis Robinson). Plus career advice and more.
Morocco:
Bernard Lagat Gets 3:32.56 1,500m Win In Morocco Looks like he's rounding into form at the right time.
Financial News
- Tyson Gay To Run 200 In London, Not Face Bolt Rumor on the street is USATF boss Doug Logan has the whole US 4 x 100 team running for free as well and some are worried what it means for the future. Athletes/agents feel free to email us on this to make our job easier.
- Will USOC TV Channel Kill Chicago's Olympic Chances? We seriously doubt it. As for there being a 2nd cable channel for Olympic sports, it seems like a good thing. Just as competition drives up prices for athletes, competition for sports is good as well. Although the USOC channel thinks it will get access to all the Olympic Trials for free, which does not seem to be the best solution.
- Kerron Stewart, Bekele, Sanya Richards And Isinbayeva Left In Golden League $1 Million Jackpot Chase With 3 Events To Go
- New Zealand Olympian Starts Escort Agency To Fund His 2012 Training
UK News:
- So True: New British Sprint Star Simeon Williamson: "You can be the European No. 1 and still No. 12 in the world." Times of London
- Brit Star Stephanie Twell To Run For Scotland, Not England
- Hepthathlete Jessica Ennis Is Britain's Best Chance For Gold At World Champs
- Jessica Ennis May Also Do Hurdles at World Champs
Recommended Reads:
1) A Great Q&A With LJ WR Holder Mike Powell Powell thinks it's possible his WR could fall this year but he hopes it doesn't.
2) Q&A With The Fastest Non-African Miler In The World - Jeff Riseley (link fixed)
3) Jamaican Hurdling Star Isa Phillips Is Taking Long, Meticulously-Planned Road To Success
Chick Hislop, Please Don't Click On This Link
Photo Of The Day: Think You Need Good Form To Be Good At The Steeple?
Carl Lewis Throws More Mud At Usain Bolt
UK Champs *Results *Live Video (UK Visitors Only)
*Maybe 1,500 Fans Show Up To See English Champs Day 2 The women's 1,500 was exciting as Steph Twell built up a big lead on Hannah England and Charlene Thomas only to be walked down by ...
*Exhausted Dwain Chambers Pulls Out Of 200m After Getting Beaten In 100m
*Simeon WIlliamson Smokes Dwain Chambers By Running 10.05 To 10.22 Into Headwind
*Chambers Defeat At 100m Raises Questions It certainly won't help his appearance fees if he ever gets into a meet.
*WChamps
Gold Hopefuls Philips Idowu And Jessica Ennis Perform Well
*Interesting Read: A Look At How European Under-23 Champs From 2003 Did As Pros
Recommended Read: European #1 200m Man Started Track After Being Spotted Chasing A Bus In 2006! After the bus-chasing incident, England's Jeffrey Lawal-Balogun was convinced to come out to track practice and coaches had him run a 150m. He smoked everyone despite wearing trainers and never having trained
before. Now he has a 20.38 200m PR.
*Mark Lewis-Francis Glad To Be Back Running Again As Dwain Chambers Leads 100m Qualifiers
*UK Athletics Fighting Sponsor Battle With Athletes In Money Crunch
LetsRun.com Goes Global LRC's Ethiopian Correspondent: Double Olympic Champ Tirunesh Dibaba Back In Training - Optimistic About Chances In Berlin Yes, that's right. We now have an Ethiopian correspondent who periodically is going to give us insight on the stars from Ethiopia. In his first piece, he catches up with Dibaba at practice and also sees Sihine, Defar and others. Article + photos.
Meseret Defar 29:59 10k Super-impressive effort. The "worst" runner on Ethiopia's 10k team at will be a 30:11 10ker.
LRC: "The Only Thing More Boring Than Track? Field." Our sport, with Usain Bolt's stunning 19.59 in the rain, made SportsCenter this week and a lot of you weren't happy because the highlight was accompanied with the quote above. The quote was from former University of Missouri track and field captain and Sportscenter anchor John Anderson. The problem was, many of you thought it was from SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt (SVP) and you directed your ire at him. In the end, SVP sent us a nice email clarifying things and even mentioned it on his radio show. We clean things up and discuss how boring our sport is.
Merritt vs. Wariner In Athens Monday Along With Kiprop In The 800m Finally the best 400m runners in the world will actually race one another, joined by FSU and Belgium star Jonathan Borlee, the 2009 NCAA champ. With several of the world's best half-milers injured, Asbel Kiprop might be able to pull off the 1500m/800m double in Berlin if he wanted to.
Oregon All-Comers Meet: Stephen Pifer Runs 3:38.06
Tim Layden Of Sports Illustrated Lists His Top 10 Track And Field Moments Usain Bolt is only #7, so #s 6 - 1 must be amazing.
World Games For Young People
*Kenyan Distance And Sprints Have Highlights At World Youths
*Japanese Women Sweep Half Marathon Medals At World University Games
Recommended Read: Fam On His Win-Win 5k Defeat At The USA Champs Anthony Famiglietti focuses on the process, not the result.
Recommended Read: Amazing Story Of Ultra Runner Diane Van Deren An excellent story from the New York Times on a woman whose brain surgery both strengthened and weakened her.
Brief Chat With Alberto Salazar's Newest Charge Dathan Ritzenhein Ritzenhein and family are moving again, this time to Portland to be with Salazar, where he will be focusing on the 10,000m World Championships in the short term. Quite a good read.
Rupp Named ESPN The Magazine's All-Academic NCAA Athlete Of The Year His 3.89 GPA in business administration at Oregon made him the best academic/athletic combination in the NCAA.
Semi Running-Related
- Unusual News: 67- and 81-Year-Old Couple Bought California Property To Build Themselves A Pole Vault Pit Quote: "O'Connor, 67, and her partner, Held, 81, were looking for property two years ago that would allow them to build a pole-vaulting pit near their home in Del Mar - not for their grandchildren, not for their children, but for themselves."
- Science Today: Why Trying To Suppress Thoughts Doesn't Work, Sort Of When an athlete says, "No, I'm not thinking about the championships any differently than any other race," studies show that usually they're wrong.
- USA Today Story On Fired-Up Michael Phelps At American Championships Thank God they haven't invented some track suit that makes running easier as guys are PRing by 8 seconds in 2:00 events just by wearing a buoyant suit.
World Youth Championships (16&17 Year Olds)
- Travis Smikle Of Jamaica Wins Their First Ever Throwing Medal At World Youths
- Jamaica Loves The 6-Foot Shy 17-Year-Old Discus Thrower
Jenny Barringer Huge Profile In USAToday
Excellent Article In Sports Illustrated On The Culture Of Doping In Cycling
Maggie Vessey's Win In Rome
Tyson Gay 9.77 Over Powell's 9.88
Usain Bolt 19.59 In The Rain!
The Only Must-Read In The Industry
LRC Week In Review LetsRun.com's Rojo is on vacation so Employee #1 and Wejo take a crack at recapping the week's action on their own. Without Rojo's guidance, they discuss the important issues of the day like ultra running, the paralympics, and human psychology. But they do discuss what happens to junior miling phenoms, looking at the careers of Alex Kipchirchir and Alan Webb to give guidance to the latest sensation William Biwott Tanui, (aka WBT). Plus a 12-year-old girl runs 2:06, some training advice for everyone, Jordan Hasay, the Runner of the Week, and Ryan Hall's 4:41 mile with his dog. Plus we have an email from a race director to settle once and for all whether Usain Bolt is awesome or an ass.
US Officially Names Coaches For Berlin World Champs No offense to the coaches, but we could coach the team and it would probably do as well. The coaches at a global championship largely are ceremonial. The coaching that matters most is the private coaching leading up to the Games and USATF is letting our top coaches go to Britain.
Educate Yourself On the New Star Sammy Kitwara (Story And Interview Here) Or Watch Below
Great Resource For Kids
Carol Goodrow's Kids Running Log Your kids run a half mile, fill out the paper log, mail it in and get a free bookmark via Carol and USATF. Plus, there are a couple of good books for kid runners which we reviewed here and here.
Final Week To Sign Up
LetsRun.com Summer Training 2009 Program Originally designed for high schoolers but we've opened it up to everyone.