Quote Of The Day

"It's Going To Be Very Tricky."

- Kenyan Alfred Kirwa Yego on defending his Worlds 800m title. The 800m races are going to be some of the most wide-open events of the entire championships. By the way, the World Champiosnhips start August 15th and will be shown on Vs. for 9 days, ending with the women's marathon and men's 800m on August 23rd.

IAAF World Junior Athletics Championships - Day 1Freshman NCAA Champ German Fernandez Gets Some Tougher Competition
*3:54 British Miler James Brewer To Run For Cal Berkeley Next Year Brewer clocked the 3:54 at Crystal Palace a few weeks ago. Quite the land for Tony Sandoval and Cal.
*James Brewer Added To GBR's 1,500m Worlds Team Thanks To 3:54 Mile Conversion

SCHUMANN/LEICHTATHLETIK: OLYMPISCHE SPIELE SYDNEY 2000 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.

US Athletes Preparing For Worlds - Latest On Rupp

*Galen Rupp Bugged By Sore Hip - Now Back And Ready To Roll A 20-mile training run caused some inflammation for Rupp, but treatment has him feeling better and he's heading for altitude in St. Moritz, better late than never.
*Excellent Interview With US World Marathoner Matt Gabrielson Gabrielson talks about the challenges he's faced running his first two marathons and why he thinks he can run 2:12 in Berlin. Plus read about the Berlin course, the Team USA preparations earlier in the year in Colorado Springs, and Matt's take on his shot at the 10k this year.
*Interview With Amy Begley, Who Defeated Shalane Flanagan At USAs This Year She gives a sample training week under Coach Salazar.

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

USA Track and Field National Championships 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.

Adidas Track Classic 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.

International News Leading Up To Worlds

Sports News - January 23, 2009 *Alfred Kirwa Yego On Defending His 800m Title: "It's Going To Be Very Tricky." It's so tricky that only Billy Konchellah and Wilson Kipketer have ever repeated.
*Watch Out For Veronica Campbell-Brown In Berlin If anyone can beat Allyson Felix at 200m, it's VCB.
*Swede Triple Jumper Christian Olsson Decides To Bag Worlds For 2009 The Olympic and 3-time World champion just isn't back to full form yet. The Swedes are really banged up this year.
*South African Worlds Team Led By Godfrey Mokoena, Caster Semenya And Mbulaeni Mulaudzi All 3 big-time medal contenders.
*Ariane Friedrich Excited To Go For High Jump Gold In Front Of Berlin Crowd Friedrich almost tied the world record 2.09m the last time she jumped in Berlin. She also beat Blanka Vlašić.

Drug News Follow-Ups

*LA Times' David Wharton Paints A More Complete Picture Of The 1984 LA Steroid Scene It's hard to believe that was 25 years ago.
*Wait A Minute: Jamaican 5 Still On Berlin Roster For Now
*Sheikh Mohamed Banned From Endurance Horse Racing For 6 Months An embarrassing blip for the most powerful/rich man in the horse industry.

Peter Snell Article - Kiwi Great Now Resides In Texas

Lornah Kiplagat And Patrick Makau Out Of NYC Half Makau says he has lost his competitive edge.

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

Other News

Marathon News

From The UK

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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:

Maggie Vessey 1:57.84!

Adidas Track Classic 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.

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