Quote Of The Day

"My mother didn't understand why I was running one round, and she said she's not coming."

- Tyson Gay saying yesterday he likely will only run the first round of the 100m then take a bye as a defending world champ into Berlin's World Champs. While sprint fans may wish they were at this weekend's Jamaican champs (where Usain Bolt will be running the 100 & 200), there is some hot distance action, including the men's and women's 10k finals tonight.

USATFs Start Today *Start Lists *Schedule

Olympic Decathlon Champ Bryan Clay Tweaks Hamstring, May Pull Out Of Nationals And Miss Worlds

LRC 2009 USATF Thursday Men's Preview: Rupp's Coronation Or One For Abdi's Thumb? The men's 10k final is the marquée matchup on Friday with the showdown between 4 time US champ Abdi Abdirahman (who ran 27:16 last year) and the hometown hero (and favorite in our book) NCAA superstar Galen Rupp. We break down the deep, deep men's field, which also includes Olympic silver medallist Meb Keflezighi, 2009 US leader Tim Nelson and former US champ Jorge Torres. Also on tap on Thursday is the semifinal of the men's 1,500 which, due to USATF incompetence, includes 51 people. Yes, 51 people will be eliminated down to the final in one round. We break down all the men's action.

More Men's Coverage:
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Byes Make USA Nationals Not As Interesting As Olympic Trials
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USAToday Profile On LaShawn Merritt USA Today
*DIII Star Will Leer - Fourth-Place Finish at 08 Trials Has Inspired Him For 2009
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Bolota Asmerom Back At US Champs Trying To Make A World Team

LRCs 2009 USATF Coverage: A Preview of Men's & Women's Jumps Come on; don't pretend to be surprised we have a jumps preview. World record holder in the long jump, Mike Powell, has been a message board visitor to the site for years. Remember, everyone reads LetsRun.com, no one else links to it, and that's why you love us. We actually are willing to express opinions.

Jamaican Nationals This Weekend

Jamaican Champs Preview: Bolt-Powell Showdown At Jamaican Champs, Bolt In 100 & 200 The tiny sprint nation has some great matchups on tap.
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Bolt Plans To Run Hard At Trials It's a scary thought that Bolt, who ran 9.77 the other day, said this, "I am trying to run myself into shape, so I think I will be running the 200m harder."

LRC Week In Review: Introducing Curtis Beach And Chalonda Goodman Sure, we talk about Usain Bolt, Deena Kastor and Kim Smith, but this week, two high schoolers most of you have never heard of deserve some major props. There seems to be little doubt in our minds that Beach is the best high school athlete ever by a long shot. The scary thing is the national decathlon record holder (who already beats Bryan Clay in 3 events) could perhaps be the best mid-d runner in America as well if he focused on it, as he ran 1:50.75 for 800m this past weekend to get 3rd at NON. Goodman, meanwhile, already is good enough by herself to get in the top 20 as a team at NCAAs.

Random News

Olympic Pole Vault Champ Steven Hooker Hopes To Be Ready For Worlds

Former CU, Army, Colorado State Coach Jerry Quiller Fighting Cancer With The Help Of His Former Athletes

JJ Clark Selected To Coach Tennessee Men's Program He's had great success with the women at Tennessee but some Tennessee alums (including American 10k legend Todd Williams) see this as a slap in the face to long-time Vols men's assistant George Watts. The press release from the AD says he hopes Watts has a prominent role in the new program.
*JJ Clark's Comments

Charles van Commenee Doesn't Hold Back On Giving Frank Assessment Of British Team How about this: "[People in] your sport come across as a collection of pussies."

Jamaican Track Offices Broken Into Usain Bolt's home was robbed last week as well.

For the Old Timers: Former Fourth Placer At Olympic Marathon Trials Dave Gordon Now Trying His Hand At Cycling

SPAR European Team Champs *Meet Website *Results

Germany Wins 1st European Team Champs As Spain Dominates Mid-D It was Germany, Russia, Britain & France in the top 4. The winners in the 800, 1,500, 3k, 3k steeple, and 5k were Miguel Quesada (1:47.64), Rui Silva (3:42.07), Jesús España (8:01.73), Mustafa Mohamed (8:28.09) and Mo Farah (13:43) for the men. For the women, it was Yuliya Krevsun (1:58.62), Anna Alminova (4:07.59), Gulnara Galkina-Samitova (8:46.88), Antje Möldner (9:32.65) and Dolores Checa (15:28).
*Dwain Chambers Stars As Britain Gets 3rd He won the 200 on Sunday as he stepped in for an injured teammate. Chambers: "The 200m is not my specialist event and I didn't know what I could do against these guys. This was about getting points for the team. I thought go for it and not to lose."
*IAAF Recap Of Day 1
*IAAF Recap Of 2nd Division: Belarus, Finland & Norway Do Well
*Behind Dwain Chambers Victory In 100 And New British Record In PV, Brits Off To A Good Start Chambers was disapointed with his 10.07 time.
*Former FSU Star Hannah England Runs 1:59.94
*Tim Benjamin: "I almost quit running."
 His pullout of Beijing obviously made him think about walking away altogether.
*The Independent Looks At 1st-Ever European Team Championships Controversial New Rules

Tyree Washington To Finally Be Given 2003 World Championship Gold Medal in Eugene This Week, But He's Still Bitter Washington: "I was their role model. But when I wanted to get help [in procuring the medal] from my federation, USATF, and the IAAF, they turned their backs."

Inspirational: 5 Years After Being Told She'd Never Run Again, Woman Represents Great Britain For 1st Time At 100km Ultra

Ken Goe Of Oregonian: No Doubt About It, Rupp Is Best Since Prefontaine (At Oregon)

USATF TV Friday: 8-10pm Eastern ESPN, Saturday 7:30-9:30 Eastern, Sunday 4-6pm Eastern NBC
Webcast only Thursday on FloSpace (Flotrack and Runnerspace separately and various meet websites). LRCs Rojo and Wejo may provide the commentary for some of the distance events on Runnerspace.

LRC 2009 USATF Thursday Women's Preview: Women's 10k Final: The Shalane Flanagan Show And ???
The women's 10k final is the highlight on the track. We break down the women's 10k final, where Shalane Flanagan is the heavy favorite but will be facing 2008 Olympian Amy Begley and darkhorse longshot Serena Burla. We take a look at some of the other action, including the women's discus (where Olympic champ Stephanie Brown Trafton will try to win her first national title; yes, she's got Olympic gold but 0 national titles) and women's high jump (where Amy Acuff, in her last USATF Nationals, tries to make her 8th World Champs team).

More Women's News:

RRW: Working With New Coach Jerry Schumacher, Flanagan Ready To Defend USA 10,000m Title
Flanagan, despite setting a PR at the Olympics and getting the bronze medal, changed coaches this year. She's now coach Jerry Schumacher's one and only female athlete, but it sounds like they have big plans for 2009. Remarkably, Flanagan says Schumacher has told her she has a "lot of work to do to before I become a true distance runner."
*Amy Yoder Begley Reflects On Going From Being Kara Goucher's Training Partner To Olympics Oregonian
*Jenelle Deatherage Retires

Also Today

Christine Ohuorogu Is Out Of The Meet With A Sore Throat  Edwin Soi and Eliud Kipchoge are in the 5k.

Previous USA Nationals News

Kenyan Nationals This Weekend

The Nationals are separate from next month's World Championships Trials. The Nationals will serve as the World Championships qualifier for the 10k to give athletes more recovery time.
*Olympic 1,500m Champ Nancy Lagat Says Infection Led To Her Poor Performance At Pre And In Russia
EA Standard

*Eliud Kipchoge Skipping Kenyan Nationals For Milan Meet

*Kenya's Micah Kogo Has Road 10k World Best, Now He Wants Bekele's Scalp
EA Standard

*Kenya Race Walkers, Sprinters Hoping To Hit World Champs Qualifying Marks At National Champs
EA Standard
Previous:
Linet Masai To Have Her Hands Full

Jamaica Week On Puma Running

Puma Running has got a 3-part video as Part of Jamaica Week, where they follwed a high school team from the Puma HS Nationals to Penn Relays to the Boston Street Meet. Part 1 below:


Part 2: Penn Relays
Part 3: Puma Street Meet

HS Nationals Are Over *Entries *Live Results *Live Video *Updates From Dyestat Throughout Day

Saturday: Robby Andrews Caps Great Senior Season With Win In 800
*National Decathlon Record Holder Curtis Beach Runs 1:50.75 To Get 3rd
*Nice IAAF Recap Of Meet: Chalonda Goodman Gets Meet Records In 100 (11.30) And  200 (22.94) She won them for the 3rd year in a row and will be going to UT.
*Recommended Reads On HS Stars: 1) Awesome Article On Curtis Beach In one weekend, he did two decathlons, a 4 x 800 and a 4 x 400.
2)
Jordan Hasay Named MaxPreps Female Athlete Of The Year
Friday:
Chelsey Sveinsson Breaks Jordan Hasay's SOPHOMORE RECORD!!! Wow!!!
*Trevor Dunbar Wins 2-Mile Over Freshman
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Dunbar Wins 2-Mile In 8:49
Thursday:
Solomon Haile (14:32) And Emily Sisson (16:34) Easily Win 5ks

US Nationals Poll