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Teenager Caster Semenya Runs 1:56.72 World Leader In African Youth Champs What a shock as Semenya, 18, won by almost 4 seconds in a 4-second PR.
*South African Article On Semenya
*Kenyans Evaluate Their Juniors As James Magut Runs 3:37.05 3:37 youths seem to be a dime a dozen in Kenya.
Speaking of Kenyan Milers: Haron Keitany Hungry For Gold - Must Upend Two Strong Teammates In Kiprop And Choge Keitany is a 3:30 guy and is probably Kenya's 3rd-best entrant in the Berlin 1,500m.

Tyson Gay Answers Doubters With 9.79 - LRC's Full DN Galan Recap Americans Jenny Barringer and Christin Wurth-Thomas took the 5,000m and 1,500m in impressive fashion while the USA men got a big boost in the high jump thanks to Jesse Williams. In upsets, neither Kaki nor Lagat cracked the top 2 in the 1,000m, and Steve Hooker fell to another defeat in the pole vault. Plus read about an amazing run in the 200m from Allyson Felix that truly stole the show. We recap every event from Stockholm Stadion's DN Galan.
*IAAF DN Galan Recap
*Tyson Gay Sends Another Message To Usain Bolt With 9.79 Hopefully we can help make the 2009 World Championships the most-watched track meet in a long time thanks to the Bolt/Gay rivalry.
*History Lesson - 13 Years Ago Michael Johnson Ran 19.32
*Shot Put Took Place Thursday And Olympic Champ Tomasz Majewski Wins With World Leader

Getting Ready for Friday's DN Galan *Start List *Watch Stockholm's DN Galan Live Now Until 3:45pm EST *Time Schedule (Stockholm is 6 hrs ahead of NYC) *Results

*Jenny Barringer Hoping To Break 15:00 On Friday She also says that she's not surprised that Anna Willard has dropped out of the steeple for Worlds.
*IAAF Preview Of Stockholm The last big meet prior to Worlds is going to be great. Jenny Barringer comes out of hibernation to run the 5k against a ton of competition as Bernard Lagat, Nate Brannen and Leo M clash at 1k, and Borzakovskiy and Kaki  at 800. Plus we'll find out just how hurt Tyson Gay is as he'll square off against Asafa Powell in the locale where Powell handed Bolt the only 100m loss of his life last year. Lastly, Wurth-Thomas and Rowbury versus the Olympic silver medallist Iryna Lishchynska in the 1,500.

Steph Twell Rips Alysia Johnson's Pacemaking In London The expected pace was 2:06 for 800 and yet it went out in 70. *MB Thread #1 On Johnson Pacing *MB Thread #2 On Johnson Pacing

Michael Johnson: Tyson Gay Would Have Been A Fool To Race Bolt Prior To Berlin

Embarrassing
Sporting News Leaves John McDonnell/Arthur Lydiard Off List Of 50 Greatest Coaches

Jamaica Getting Ready For Drug Hearings On 5 Sprinters

Laura Roesler Pumped To Get Nike Gear For Pan Am Jrs 22 items is a lot.

Sex & Olympics Have Often Been Bedfellows

Preview Of Saturday's Beach To Beacon 10k In Maine

News From Africa
*A Year After Missing Olympic Trials Due To Injury, David Rudisha Is Thrilled To Be Kenyan 800m Champ
*Kenya's Coach: "Nobody will double" - Plus Hopes For Having 4 x 400 Team Go Up In Smoke
*Ethiopia: Tons Of Doubles

Herculis Monaco Super GP

LRC: Maggie Vessey Stuns Herself & The World With 1:57.84 World Leader The woman who has entertained us all summer long did it again on Tuesday in Monaco with a breathtaking performance. Abubaker Kaki grabbed a big victory in the men's 800, as Nick Symmonds broke 1:44 for the first time. In women's action, one woman got the barrier she wanted as Christin Wurth-Thomas broke 2:00 for the first time, but Anna Willard failed to go sub-4:00 in the 1,500, where Maryam Yusuf Jamal stamped herself as the emphatic favorite for Worlds with a convincing win over Gelete Burka.

Lots Of Teams Finalized For World Champs

Canada - A Bad Place For Women To Live Canada To Send 31 To Berlin But Zero Mid-D Or Distance Runners On The Track Yes, zero women, but Nate Brannen does make the cut.
*French Team Finalized
*Ethiopia They still haven't made up their minds about the women's 10k.
UK Almost Twice As Good As Canada Brits To Send 60 To Berlin *Florida State's NCAA Champ Hannah England Is Left Off Team Even Though She Beat Steph Twell on Saturday *Dwain Chambers To Double *Charles van Commenee Worries About Brittle GB Squad/Wants 5 Medals *van Commenee: Brit Sprinters Aren't "Lazy" We just use the word "slow."

Doping Hearings To Commence In Jamaica For Yohan Blake, Others Phenom Yohan Blake and two others will be replaced on the Jamaican relay pools for Berlin.

Jordan Hasay Wins Pan-Am Juniors Easily In 100-Degree Heat 4:26 in 100 degree heat with 99% humidity.

Haron Lagat Survives Bad Dog Attack While Running In Texas Lagat is a great guy and we are glad he survived relatively unharmed. Employee #1 raced with him in Chicago a couple years back. He's running Beach to Beacon Saturday.

Big American Road Races This Weekend

Saturday: Beach To Beacon Article Discusses Elite Entrants 2:04:27 guy James Kwambai leads the strong list of men's entrants.
Sunday: Kara Goucher Throwing Out First Pitch In Chicago Ahead Of Sunday Half Marathon In Windy City Goucher and coach Alberto Salazar are looking for a solid effort in her Berlin World Championships marathon preparation.

Former UNC Coach Michael Wittlesley Finds Job With Kansas This is great news, as the coach of 2 consecutive NCAA champion DMR teams and a ton of distance and mid-distance all-Americans has found a job.

Andrew Lemoncello Has Decided To Give Up On Track In Favor Of Road Racing He wants to run half marathons and marathons and has bid the steeplechase adieu.

Ryan Hall To Have His Hands Full at NYC Half-Marathon In Two Weeks As Tola, Makau, Abdirahman, Ramaala, and Gharib Added To Field

2000 Olympic 800 Meter Champ Nils Schumann Calls It A Career (translated from German)

Looking Ahead To Berlin
Big Talk Jackson Kivuna Dismisses Nick Symmonds As A Rival and Says He'll Win Gold In Berlin The 2006 world junior runner-up correctly realizes there was an unexpected winner in 2007 and he hopes history repeats itself.
*Moses Kipsiro's 7:30 Win in Monaco Was A National Record The World XC silver medallist is a threat at Worlds for sure as that was his first track race of the year.
*Ohuruogu: "Everything is back on track for Berlin." She recently missed meets in London and Paris.
*Stanford's Amaechi Morton To Compete For Nigeria At Worlds Apparently his mother is Nigerian. Not even an NCAA finalist, he went to Africa for the 1st time and made the 4 x 400.

African Jrs Have Started
*Mercy Cherono's 8:45 3k Leads Kenya To Two Golds At African Jrs
*IAAF Recap Of Day 1 Of African Jrs

Recommended Reads

1) An Interview With 2:08 Retired Japanese Marathoner Takayuki Nishida The article gives great insight into the Japanese culture (work, work, work) and contrasts it to the Kenyan (it's okay to rest).
2) A Look At US HS 1k Record Holder Robby Andrews & His Dad They were following the Peter/Seb Coe model.
3) A Look At  Maggie Vessey's Incredible Journey The UCSB Cal Poly grad somehow ran a world leader. Up until her 1:57, she thought she was just getting "lucky."
4) Even Maggie Vessey's Coach Was Stunned By Her 1:57

We're Not Sure Why Honest Drug Cheats Like Dwain Chambers Are Treated Like Criminals But Unrepentant Cheats Get Fawning Press
1:55 Drug Cheat Jolanda Ceplak Returns To Competition Without drugs, she runs 2:07.

Bogota Half Marathon Preview: Ndereba on women's side, and Patrick Makau versus three-time champ Isaac Macharia.

3 Time World Snooker Champion: "I want to become an elite runner ... That's my goal eventually." He recently was 189th out of 832 in the South of England XC Champs.

Charles van Commenee: Jessica Ennis Competes On A Day Not Suited For "Pussies"

Recommended Reads

*Catching Up With Japanese 5k/1,500 Double Winner Yuichiro "Big Mouth" Ueno The guy who has a "long-standing reputation for talking big and blowing up even bigger" has finally come through in a big way and is headed to Berlin after pulling off the 1st 5k/1,500 double in 24 years. In the future, he wants the marathon world record.
*A Brief Chat With 3:35 1,500m Runner Dorian Ulrey The guy is a stud. He found out he was going to Rome on Tuesday, got there Wednesday and PRed by 4 seconds on Friday.

News From Kenya, Where The Berlin Training Camps Have Opened

Paul Kipsiele Koech Was Stunned To Be Named To Kenya's World Champs Team It's not every day that a guy who runs 8:37 at the Trials makes a World Championships team for any country in the steeple, let alone Kenya.
*After Bronzes In 2007 And 2008 In Steeple, Richard Mateelong Hopes For Gold In 2009
*After "Tying" For Bronze Last Year, Micah Kogo And Moses Masai Hoping For Better In 10k This Year