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Just As Was Predicted Two Days Ago On LRC
War Hero Ron Warhurst Retires After 36 Years At Michigan Ron had a great amount of success during his career and is probably known best for his engaging personality and for leading two white guys to Olympic medals in Brian Diemer (steeple bronze 1984) and Nick Willis (1,500 silver 2008). *2nd Message Board Thread On Ron's Retirement Here

LRC The Pre Classic That Was This week instead of recapping the winners and losers from the week as whole we focus on one thing exclusively - the 2010 Pre Classic. And given the fact that we have been swept over by World Cup fever, we have gone ahead and given every single American participant in a mid-d or distance event a letter grade for their performance, much like soccer websites rate players on a 0-to-10 scale after a match. Agents, parents and pros, no whining. We're not trying to be rude, we're just trying to make the sport interesting.

News From Australia

• Ryan Gregson Blogs About Pre Classic B Mile Victory
• At Age of 19, 1:47.0/3:40.8 Runner James Kaan On Comeback Trail He's run those times despite losing a huge chunk of time to have surgery to have his spleen removed.

Tyson Gay Says He's 85% Healthy We can't wait to see him or Powell race Bolt.

News From Britain

• Mark Lewis Francis On Comeback Trail Rojo and Wejo are big fans of the sprinter and don't understand why he's not a national hero in Britain since he amazingly anchored them to 4 x 100 gold with a 10.04 PR.
• Christine Ohuruogu Pulls Out Of European Champs

Year 2 Of Rock N Roll Athletics Was Wed. Night In Glasgow *Results
Version Two Of Rock N Roll Super8 Athletics Is Deemed A Success
Click on results and guess what former world champ David Krummenacker ran for 800.
London Defeats Glasgow Despite Guest Appearance For Lolo Jones On Glasgow Team Jones actually was defeated in her hurdles race.

The Beginning Of The End Of Women's Athletics? Or Did She Get Treatment?

• More On Caster Semenya Decision
• NPR: There's Belief That Semenya Got Hormone Treatment
• BBC Blogger: "I am confident that Semenya has undergone treatment for some kind of inter-sex condition."
• The Times SA: Semenya free to run again, but the guessing goes on Did she have some sort of procedure performed on her? Will she return to top form? We may never know the answer to all the questions.
• Ridiculous: ANC Youth League Says Semenya Decision Vindicates Former Athletics SA Head Leonard Chuene In reality, Chuene is a crook and a disgrace.
• Caster Semenya Runs 600m Time Trial She finishes in 95 to 98 seconds and won't run world juniors as she's unfit, but perhaps the African champs in August in Kenya.
• As Of Last Week, Semenya Was Unfit And Unmotivated To Train While She Awaited Verdict
• Jenny Meadows Is Happy To Race Against Caster Semenya (Sort Of) Britain's star says that she's happy to race Semenya on the one hand but then on the other says she is glad she got bronze at the Olympics and not silver as she'd never truly know whether she was inadvertently cheated out of a medal in Beijing. "We've got to accept that, yeah, she's a female."
• Semenya's Lawyers Are Big Winners Lawyer: "There's a reason Michael Jordan could jump as high as he could. Sports have never been about genetic equality. This whole inquiry to determine things like whether an athlete has too much or too little testosterone goes against the whole fundamental nature that sports is about different people who have different advantages."
• Caster Semenya Cleared To Compete Against Women Immediately The IAAF might have just as well arbitrarily last year with no hearing said she could compete because they released no information in conjunction with the announcement. So unless some guidelines are established separately expect them to deal with the same issue again in the future.

British News

• Complete Great Britain & Northern Ireland Squad For Europeans Announced The meet starts July 26th.
• Complete British Team Announced For World Juniors

Start List & Timetable For Saturday's Diamond League Meet In Gateshead

Pre Classic *Complete Results *LRC Prediction Contest Scores *LRC  Photos *More Photos Here and Here *Videos/Recap *LRC Recap

LRC Prefontaine Recap: Wheating 3:51!!! (Wright 1:58!!!) updated
The Pre Classic was full of great performances across the board, as the meet featured an American record by David Oliver (12.90) and the first sub-13:00 on US soil, but 2010 NCAA champs Andrew Wheating and Phoebe Wright had the performances of the day at Pre from an LRC perspective. Wheating moved up throughout the Bowerman mile to get 5th in 3:51, beating all of the 2008 US Olympians in the process. Wright beat all of America's top 800 runners and skipped the 1:59s entirely as she was fourth in 1:58.22. Despite producing the first sub-13:00 on US soil, the men's 5,000 didn't live up to the hype (just as we predicted), as Chris Solinsky was well beaten in 13:08 and Matt Tegenkamp ran 13:25. Abubaker Kaki's WR attempt in the men's 1k came up short but he did get a world leader, while Nick Symmonds became #5 all-time in the US with a 2:16.35 3rd-place finish. In the "B" mile, Ryan Gregson and AJ Acosta ran 3:53 as Galen Rupp struggled with a 3:57.72. In the women's 5k, Shalane Flanagan ran 14:49.

Post-Meet Talk From Eugene Register-Guard
*Wheating Thrilled With Mile; Kiprop Happy But Wanted More Kiprop: "I wanted to run 3:47 and break the stadium record today. I didn't do that, but I'm proud to have won."
*David Oliver Getting Into Rare Territory; Tyson Gay Seems Healthy Again US champ and new AR sharer Oliver really wants a 12.8-something instead of being stuck in those mundane 12.9s. Gay, though a little nervous and finishing second in the 200 to a sharper Walter Dix, ran a not-too-shabby 19.76 in his first race back from a short layoff. *Gay Satisfied With 19.76
*High Praise For Big-Meet Atmosphere And A Day Full Of Records At Pre E. Garry Hill of T&F News remarked, "It felt like being at a European meet, at a BIG European meet ..." Outstanding marks ruled the day, as David Oliver equalled the AR in the 110H, US all-comers records were set in the men's 1,000 and 5,000 and the women's HT, Phoebe Wright cracked the (post-college season) CR in the 800, numerous meet records and Hayward Field records were rewritten, and Andrew Wheating and AJ Acosta delighted the Duck faithful with a 3:51 school record and an impressive 3:53 in the mile races.
*Wheating Realized He Could Have Been In Contention In Bowerman Mile The double NCAA champ felt he was too tentative vs. the "big dogs" in the middle stages of his first world-class mile race and may have finished with too much left.

LRC Event-By-Event Recaps With Video
AP Recap: Dix edges Gay in 200 at Prefontaine Classic
More: Walter Dix spoils Tyson Gay's return to 200m
*Bridget Franek Rebounds From So-So USAs As Top American At Pre The multi-time PSU All-American and recent NCAA steeple champion wilted at US nationals but bounced back nicely to beat the US champ and is now #6 on the all-time US list.
*Solinsky Got Dropped In Last 800 But Fought To A Quite Respectable Time People forget how good a 13:08 is. The 10,000 AR holder gave everything he had to stay in contention as long as possible and "died" to a time that has only been run by 5 Americans other than Solinksy himself. *Message Board: Solinsky's 3-Race String Is Amazing

LRC Event-By-Event Recaps With Video
*Men's Mile Asbel Kiprop and Andrew Wheating had big days. The Olympic champ Kiprop proved yet again that he's the best miler on the planet, as he got the win in 3:49.75. NCAA 800/1,500 champ Andrew Wheating also was fantastic, moving up throughout the race to get 5th in 3:51.74!!! Lopez Lomong never was a factor but did set a small PR in 7th (3:53.18), while Bernard Lagat ran 3:54.36. Leo Manzano was awful at Pre for the 2nd straight year and ran 4:06.51.
*Men's 5,000 Tariku Bekele became the first person to break 13:00 on US soil as he ran 12:58.93. As we sort of expected, the race didn't live up to the hype from an American perspective, as Chris Solinsky was well-beaten in 7th (13:08.11) and Matt Tegenkamp ran 13:25.09.
*Women's 800 The race lived up to the hype, with Mariya Savinova lowering her world lead to 1:57.56 - a new Pre meet record - as she held of world 1,500 champ Nancy Langat (1:57.75) and Olympic and World Champs runner-up Janeth Jepkosgei (1:57.84). NCAA champ Phoebe Wright broke 2:00 for the first time in a big way to get fourth in 1:58.22. 2-time US champ Alysia Johnson PRed as well in 5th (1:58.84). Anna Pierce (1:59.42) and Maggie Vessey (1:59.90) also dipped under 2:00.
*Women's Steeple Milcah Cheiywa Chemos defeated world champion Marta Dominguez by running 9:26.70.

LRC 2010 Pre Classic Preview The meet is a great one as usual with a big emphasis on the distance races. A stacked Bowerman mile (anyone remember Asbel Kiprop's unbelievable performance last year?), a world record attempt in the 1,000m, a possible sub-13:00 by an American in the 5k, Anna Pierce putting her undefeated streak at 800m on the line, not to mention Tirunesh Dibaba and a slew of Americans in the 5k, Tyson Gay returning to action in the 200 and Debbie Dunn versus Allyson Felix at 400 are the highlights. We break down the action.

LRC Viewers' Predictions Who are you all picking in our prediction contest?

New York Times Profile On Chris Solinsky: "He fell in love with the sport, becoming a self-described 'running geek' and spending his free time reading message boards on running Web sites." Hmmm.
In case you missed it: Recommended Read: Tim Layden Of Sports Illustrated Profiles Heavyweight Inspiration Chris Solinsky

Western States 100 Miler

From 15 Minutes Behind With 22 Miles To Go, Geoff Roes Rallies To Win And Set New Course Record By 29 Minutes!!! Roes is a monster who is undefeated in 100 mile races for his life. Tracy Garneau won the women's race. *Full Results *WS Website
*N.Y. Woman Becomes First Amputee To Finish Western States 100 Race
LRC MB: *2010 Western States Thread *Koerner / Krupicka throwdown at Western States this weekend *Geoff Roes eats frozen pizza before bed. Does nutrition REALLY matter?

More Ultra News
2-Time Olympic Marathon Medalist Wainaina Wins Lake Saroma 100km Ultra In Kenyan National Record Time
Repeat Comrades Champ Stephen Muzhingi Considers Move From ZIM To RSA Citizenship

4-Time Jamaican Olympian Raymond Stewart Becomes 3rd Coach To Be Banned for Life For Doping Athletes Don't tell us there aren't drugs in all countries. *Article From Jamaica Observer
*Stewart Bewildered By Ban: "I am just looking in my email to see what's going on."

Znamenskiy Memorial Recap And Results Amine Laalou runs 1:43 for 800 and Shaheen returns to the steeple with an 8:16 runner-up finish in the Znamensky Memorial. Mariya Savinova of Russia ran a world-leading 1:58.11 to win the 800.

Nick Symmonds On Why He Was 3-Peating At USATFs: "Everyone has their own motivation and goals. For me, it's championship running. That's the reason I do this whole sport. So, I don't care if the best in the U.S. show up or the worst in the U.S. show up. Whoever is here I'll race and I want that title."

High Jumper Chaunte Howard Raises Bar On Career A good read from veteran track journalist Philip Hersh of LA Times.

Another Shock From USAs Friday: After easing up at the line in the first round and almost missing the semifinal, long-time USA force Hazel Clark missed the 800m final. 32-year-old Clark won USA outdoors in '09, '08, '06 and '05 and was top 3 in '07 and '04. Full Results Here

Diamond League #7 (Of 14) - Athletissima Lausanne - Is Thursday Afternoon *Complete Lists Of Entrants *Live Results

• IAAF Preview Of Meet - Bolt's Return Is Big Story LRC fans, please note that mid-d and distance-wise, the Americans competing are Sarah Bowman, Christin Wurth Thomas and Morgan Uceny in the 1,500 (2:30 pm EST), Jen Rhines in the 3k (2:55 pm) and then in the final event of the meet, Dan Huling may give a run at the American record in the men's steeple (3:50 pm).
• 3k: Meseret Defar Wants African Record Of 8:23.23 If she's going to run that fast, then she might as well get the (non-Chinese) WR of Gabriela Szabo (8:21.42) - a person who was never busted despite drugs being found in her car.
• 800: Mbulaeni Mulaudzi And Kenya’s David Rudisha Clash In Men's 800 Is One Of Highlights Mulaudzi is the reigning champ, whereas Rudisha is the world leader. Interesting to read that Mulaudzi says he only got serious about running at age 27.
• 400H: Switch Back To 15 Strides Has Been Key To Batman's Resurgence
• 100: Bolt Talks About His Return To Action - He can't really run turns - that's why he's running the 100m. Plus we know he doesn't want to lose to Walter Dix.
• Bolt Hoping To Be Totally Healthy In 4 Weeks
• British Journalist Ponders If Diamond League Is Working As It Debuts In Britain

Sad But True - Race Walker Is Italy's Top Entrant At World Juniors

Sprint News

• Carmelita Jeter Wants World Record In 100m On Saturday In Gateshead Apparently, she's been amazing of late in her workouts. All we can say is if anyone beats Flojo's mark, please have two wind gauges and four drug testers trackside.
• Usain Bolt Graces Cover Of Sports Section In USA Today Headline: "Two years after Beijing, Bolt still sparking excitement." The article is pretty good and lengthy and includes nice quotes from Ato Boldon, who says Bolt can run "Star Wars" times, and Tyson Gay, who says he can beat Bolt.
• Asafa Powell: "I really feel that I am in the best shape of my life, and I will be very hard to beat." We agree and think it's more likely than not that Usain Bolt loses this year.
• Usain Bolt Says 2016 Will Be His Last Olympics And Hints Since He'll Be So Bored With Breaking Records At 100m/200m That He'll Look To 400 And LJ
• Interesting Read Usain Bolt Speaks To Swiss Business School - Professor Says Business World Can Learn A Lot From Bolt
• Brit Laura Turner Eyeing British 100m Record In Greece On Wednesday Nothing to get too excited about, as the record is just 11.05

Mid-D News

• Phoebe Wright's Mother Upset Local NBC Affiliate Showed Cartoons Instead Of Pre Classic The article also says Wright has signed with Nike.
• An Interesting Brief Chat With Phoebe Wright Wright reveals she was recruited by Tennessee and had a good HS career.
• Andrew Wheating Signs With Mark Wetmore

We Agree - Go Pound A Double Shot
British Researchers: Coffee Really Does Help Performance "A small increase in performance via caffeine could mean the difference between a gold medal in the Olympics and an also-ran."

Amy Mortimer/Lisa Koll Are Running 3k In Greece On Wed  *Meet Might Be Streamed Live Here

Tuesday's Sign Of The Apocalypse: Usain Bolt Ducking Walter Dix?

Usain Bolt Switches To 100m In Lausanne Diamond League Meet On Thursday In First Race Back From Injury Bolt was supposed to run the 200 but says for health reasons he's running the 100. The 200 has featured a Bolt-Walter Dix matchup. Dix defeated Tyson Gay in Gay's first race back from injury this past weekend at Pre.
*Thursday's Lausanne Diamond League Entries

More Sprint News: Tyson Gay Takes Loss To Dix In Stride, Ready To Race Asafa Powell Next Week

Olympic 4 x 100 Gold And Silver Medalist Beverly McDonald Implicated In Doping In 2000 At Trial For Her Husband Raymond Stewart

Carmelita Jeter Returning To Gateshead This Weekend, Where She Ran 10.64 Last Year

More Weekend Action

Harry Jerome: Recap: Dylan Armstrong's Shot Put The Highlight
*Harry Jerome Results (Andrew Ellerton, Alice Schmidt Win 800s)

More Canada: Notre Dame's Jeremy Rae Wins Canadian Junior Worlds 1,500m Trial

Pregnant Duo: Paula Radcliffe Runs 45:35 10k In London At Charity Race While 7 Months Pregnant
*Kara Goucher Says Motherhood Will Give Her Better Perspective On Her Running Career Good read. This almost got quote of the day.

Sapporo Half Marathon Recap (World Marathon Champ Abel Kirui Falters)

Michael Wardian Sets World Indoor Marathon Record 2:27:21

Peachtree Road Race *Top Women's Results *Top Men's Results

Gebre Gebremariam Wins Peachtree In Sprint Finish In 27:56
Lineth Chepkurui won the women's race in 30:51 as Kim Smith was 4th 31:23.
*Ed Moran Takes Home USA 10k Title In 28:19 (10th Overall)
*55,000 People Run

Report From Day 1 Canadian Juniors *Results

Friday's Action

2010 IAAF Atletismo Madrid Track Meet Results Chaunte Lowe won the high jump (there is no high jump at Pre) and Christin Wurth-Thomas ran the 800.

Jordan Hasay Runs 4:13.85 1,500m PR In Eugene

USA Youth Champs  *NTN

Peachtree Is July 4th

• Defending Champs Sammy Kitwara And Lineth Chepkurui Headline Elite Field
• Peachtree Road Race To Feature 2nd Through 4th Finishers At USAs They will battle it out for the US road 10km title and a nice chunk of change.
• Five Others Eligible For $10,000 PRRO Bonus
• Age Breakdown Of Peachtree Runners An interesting chart.

Landis Spills More Beans On Lance Armstrong

Lengthy In Depth Wall Street Journal Article On Doping Allegations Landis goes into great detail on the alleged doping, talks about the team selling Trek bikes secretly to finance doping, and parties with strippers and what appeared to be cocaine.
On The Boards: Landis on Armstrong - the gory details

NCAA XC Nationals Would Be Run On 2km Loop At Course Where High School Champs Are Held Scroll down for this info.

Week In Review

LRC The Week That Was In Running: 2010 USATF Nationals We go behind the results and give you our insight. We praise Galen Rupp, Lauren Fleshman and Molly Huddle, warn Chris Solinsky, talk about the men's 1,500m and in the process compare Matt Tegenkamp to Kenenisa Bekele and do much more, including telling you why Vin loves AJ and give some junior runners props (including one who beat Robby Andrews). We even discuss cross-country running in June.

Reims Results (French Site)

Summary From Athletics Weekly Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad sets 2,000 steeple world best (5:10.68), world TJ champion Phillips Idowu is runner-up for 2nd meet in a row; Dayron Robles dominates hurdles in 13.09.

Africa News

Bureaucratic Woes Continue; Senior Africa Athletics Championship In Jeopardy

More National Champs From The Weekend

Kenyan Champs: Recap - Pamela Jelimo Drops Out, Janeth Jepkosgei Runs 1:58.95, Rudisha, Kiprop Win Spots for the African Champs and Commonwealth Games were on the line.
Recommended Read: Famed Coach Renato Canova's Post On Kenyan Champs With Commentary On Distance Races
*Results: Distance *Full Results

Italian Champs: Day One Summary Andrew Howe's 8.16 LJ and Antonietta Di Martino's 2.01 HJ were the top marks.

Jamaican Champs: Asafa Powell (19.97) And Shelly-Ann Fraser Win 200m At Jamaican Champs As good as the Jamaicans are in the high school ranks, they don't have a lot of depth at the pro ranks.

Trinidad & Tobago: Richard Thompson Wins 100 And 200 At Trinidad & Tobago Champs

Bahamas: Texas A&M's Demetrius Pinder Upsets World Indoor Champ Chris Brown At Bahama's Champs

Tabloid News

Jana Pittman Rawlinson May Or May Not Switch Her Allegiance To The UK Rawlinson was the World Champ for Australia at 400m hurdles in 2007. No one is certain what is going on and Rawlinson does not have a track record for consistency. She got married to UK hurdler Chris Rawlinson, then got divorced, then remarried him and perhaps even more famously got a boob job, then got it undone so the extra weight wouldn't slow her down.
Editorial: Under any flag, Jana equals drama

2010 USATFs In The Books *Results *Video *Sunday Photos *LRC Fri Photos - Thursday

LRC Sunday: Alysia Johnson Is Back, Nick Symmonds Dominates, Lomong Repeats Over Manzano And More Before David Oliver ended the meet with a spectacular 12.93 in the hurdles, there were 5 distance finals on Sunday and they did not disappoint. Alysia Johnson, who got an unheralded bronze at World indoors, captured the 800m crown, Lopez Lomong edged Leo Manzano again, Nick Symmonds dominated, Lisa Aguilera got back on top, and Dan Huling showed he's the top steepler in the US.

More: Jenn S(uhr) Shows She's Back In The Pole Vault She had American record attempts in the PV.
*Only 7,437 Attend Champs On Sunday The 4-day total of 31,000 was reportedly close to the 4-day total in Eugene 32,048. If that's the case, maybe a bunch of the fans counted are junior athletes and parents. The crowd was actually bigger (9,024) on Saturday than Sunday, despite the US soccer match going at the same time.
*Hometown Hero Lolo Jones Wins 100m Hurdles
*Wallace Spearmon's 19.77 Shows His Return from Knee Surgery Is Going Well
*Consuella Moore Caps Comeback With 200m Win
*Oregonian Recap: Nick Symmonds 3-Peats

On The Boards: David Oliver runs 12.93 and not one thread about it?
*Worst 1500 final ever