The Week That Was This week's version of The Week That Was is officially dedicated to the 800 meters and Maggie Vessey. We look at 800 greats past, present and possibly future as we say goodbye to one legend and introduce another. Along the way, we also give you proof as to why German Fernandez shouldn't contemplate going pro and try to avoid ignoring Lopez Lomong. We also give out free of charge the LetsRun.com Proposal To Save All Sports.
Opinion Article From Kenya Blasts Banned Sammy Kitwara For Running Road Races This guy might be on the Athletics Kenya payroll. He argues that Kitwara - who was kicked off the Kenyan Worlds Team - would have made more money running Worlds than winning big road races in the US.
*Kenyan Ruth Bisibori Is Nation's Best Hope In Women's Steeple
Results Of Interest
*Macharia And Cheromei Win Bogota Half The most noteworthy element of this race is the absurd 8,700 ft. altitude.
*Excellent Recap Of High Quality Spanish Trials 1,500m Races 4 male Spaniards had the A standard and none of them won the men's race.
Runner's World Brief Chat with 62-Year-Old Woman Who Enters 11 Events In Upcoming World Masters Track & Field Meet In case you aren't yet feeling inadequate enough, go ahead and read the interview and get the full effect.
Top Weekend Action From Stockholm, Chicago, Mauritius And Maine
LRC: Goucher Wins Rock 'N' Roll Chicago Outright In Impressive 1:08:05 Kara Goucher looked great in her final World Championships marathon tuneup Sunday morning in Chicago. We recap the performance and give our assessment of Goucher's chances to medal in Berlin. The women's marathon is just under 3 weeks away.
Allyson Felix Is Back - 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.
*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.
Beach To Beacon Results And Recap
*Recap Of Beach To Beacon Muge and Limika win on a beautiful day.
*Full Results Ben True finished 15 seconds behind 2:04 marathoner James Kwambai.
Teenager
Caster Semenya Runs 1:56.72 World Leader In African Youth Champs Update: Was Semenya Born A Hermaphrodite? Semenya, 18, won by almost 4 seconds in a 4-second PR. Before we get ahead of ourselves, 2nd-placer Winny Chebet was defeated
by Janeth Jepkosgei and Pamela Jelimo
by 6 seconds at the Kenyan Trials.
*South African Article On Semenya
*Aussie World Championship Team Preview
*Craig Mottram Says He Still Plans To Make Last Minute Aussie Berlin Team It doesn't seem too likely at this point as Mottram says he hasn't even resumed full training as of yet.
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.
Drugs Central
*If you're up for a debate on the role of performance-enhancing drugs in sport, today is a good day to visit LetsRun.com.
*Recommended Read: Science Of Sport Interviews Dr. Bengt Kayser Drugs in sport are the topic of conversation and we found the whole interview very interesting.
*Dick Patrick Asks USATF To Explain What They Know About Unearthed 1984 US Steroid Coverup They issued a tactful response saying nobody in the USATF leadership knows/knew anything about the policies 25 years ago. *Original Article: OC Register: Secret USA Drug Testing Efforts In 1984 Yielded Dozens Of Track Positives
*IOC And WADA Hope To Track Athletes' Doctors And Physios To Prevent Drug Use This comes in response to feelings that athletes are often manipulated into taking drugs by doctors, managers, agents and physios who then face no repurcussion if the athlete tests positive.
*Jamaican Drug Hearings Delayed Monday As Athletes Request Different Panel To Hear Case This is looking like a big mess for Yohan Blake and company. The athletes will now almost certainly miss Berlin as entries were due Monday.
*Jamaican Drug Hearings Moved Back Again To Monday At least 2 of the athletes had not the money to pay the $400 fee to test their B samples. Says a lot about the sport right there.
*Jamaican Sprinters Who Tested Positive Receive Threats Need it be said that it is not acceptable to threaten these athletes?
*NRR (?) 27 Million Americans Now Take Anti-Depressants Number has doubled in past 12 years. That's, well, depressing.
Monday Morning Recommended Reads
1. OC Register: Secret USA Drug Testing Efforts In 1984 Yielded Dozens Of Track And Field Positives *LRC Message Board Thread Here
2. Excellent Article On Jessica Ennis - World #1 In The Heptathlon Fountain, Klüft, Blonska and Sotherton are all out. Ennis is the only UK athlete with a top-3 performance in the world this year.
3. Fascinating Article On The "Appalling" State Of UK Throwers GBR didn't send a single male thrower to the 2008 Olympics.
Preparing For Worlds
- 2 In Bolt Training Group Snagged In Jamaican Doping Snare
- Arata Fujiwara Says He Is Ready For 3:00/km Pace In Berlin
- Nancy Jebet Lagat Preparing To Defend 1,500m Global Title In Berlin She'll have tough competition from Maryam Jamal, Gelete Burka and the Russians and Americans.
- 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. You can watch the end of the Kenyan 1,500 trials in the video to the right.
Other News
- Ohuruogu Brought Nearly To Tears By Tour Of 2012 Olympic Track Stadium
- India Federation Refuses To Sign WADA Whereabouts Rule Again civil rights of athletes are being cited.
- NRR: Women Evolving To Be More Beautiful, Men Not So Much Beautiful women have more babies, and more of their babies are females.
Marathon News
- Yoko Shibui Wins San Francisco Marathon As Berlin "Tuneup" This happened last weekend. Only the Japanese do marathons as tuneups for marathons.
- LA Marathon Stadium To Sea Route Gets Green Light We are glad to see this.
- Nice Article On Paige Higgins Of McMillan Elite Higgins moved to Flagstaff and McMillan and this year gets to run at Worlds for the USA in the marathon. For this strong but not amazingly-talented runner, her dreams have become reality.
From The UK
- Pat Butcher On The Passing Of Roy Fowler, One Of The UK's Toughest Runners This is a history lesson and great tribute to a beloved athlete and human being.
- With 3 Years To Go Until London 2012, Seb Coe Gives Construction Update
Performance-Enhancing Drug/Apparel News
- Gert Thys, Suspended In 2006, Completely Exonerated By CAS, Awarded Prize Money And Lawyer's Fees His lawyer emailed us at LetsRun as Thys won his appeal after years of waiting.
- Jamaican Lanceford Spence Fails Drug Test And Is Denied Entry Into The US
- Jamaican Athletes' Hearing Delayed Again Until Monday
- Pope Meets World's Best Swimmers They haven't needed his blessing to set 36 world records and counting at the FINA World Championships in Rome ... all it takes is a new swimsuit. FINA has decided to ban the body suits beginning Jan. 1, 2010, but what about all of the records? Michael Phelps was unbelievable today, by the way. He's the only one setting records without the special suits.
- Science Of Sport Has Another Great Discussion Of Doping
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.
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Tyson Gay's 9.79 Smokes Field In Stockholm
In Case You Missed It
LetsRun.com Compiles Recent Junior Action From Around The World Highlights include:
- Wayne Davis Breaks Liu Xiang's Junior Hurdles Record And Curtis Beach Leads Decathlon To break Liu Xiang's 110 hurdles record is an amazing accomplishment.
- Get The Skinny On American Youth Phenoms From Junior Olympics
- McCullough Breaks Record And Wins Hammer By Over 40 Feet On Day 1
Maggie Vessey 1:57.84!
LRC: The Week That Was Of course we cover the great action at the Kenyan Champs, tell you about Kenyan stupidity, and recap the action in London where American star Anna Willard continued her fine 2009. We also give you a history lesson and go back just 2 years ago this week, when Alan Webb was on top of the running world. Plus, we've got R&R (Rupp and Ritz), free advice for race directors, and American 800m runners Symmonds and Krummenacker covered.
Kenyan Trials Highlights
Bigger Version Here
LRC: Strong Ethiopian Marathon Teams Announced - Suspense Builds As To Who Will Make Women's 10k Team Our Ethiopian correspondent Teferi Debebe reports that Ethiopia's 10k team on the women's side is not set and that the Federation may leave off a 30:11.87 runner. Unbelievable. Plus an update on the men's marathon team and a photo from training.