Friday: Final Leg Of The Golden League - Memorial van Damme From Brussels *Entries *Results *Timetable *Watch Here Live Starting At 1:50pm Eastern
- Bekele Spent 4 Days At Altitude In Ethiopia Between Weltklasse and Memorial van Damme Did the great Bekele have to go back to Ethiopia to get over the fact that Ritz was gaining on him in the final laps in Zurich?
- Brussels Startlists - Teg and Solinsky In 5000m Will we see a new American record? Vote in the poll to the right.
- Bolt Running 200m - Rain And Cool Weather Again Threaten Fast Sprint Times In GL
- Big News That Should Not Go Unnoticed: Tyson Gay To Have Groin Surgery After Season Tyson Gay will run the 100m in Brussels against Asafa Powell while Usain Bolt will run the 200m.
- 4 x 1,500m World Record Attempt Taking Place In Brussels If the Kenyans send out a decent team they could smash this 32-year-old record (14:38) set by the Germans, including Wessinghage.
- Good Drama: Burka, Wurth-Thomas and Cheruiyot To Chase Sonia O'Sullivan's 2000m World Record In Brussels Gelete Burka will run her first race back from her fall in the 1500 final in Berlin. Vivian Cheruiyot will step down from 5k and go for Sonia O'Sulliavan's 5:25.36 world record from 1994. Non-Running Related Article On Sonia O'Sullivan That We Found Interesting O'Sullivan talks about how kids in Ireland don't play as much anymore because parents won't let them out of sight.
The Bolt Daily Telegraph
Track & Field First? Bolt Reportedly Receiving US $500,000 To Race In Daegu, South Korea We understand paying a top marathoner a half a mil to run twice a year, but this is rarified air for a 10-second race. Daegu is hosting the 2011 World Championships (we can't get over what a bad idea that is), so the more excitement he brings, the better.
*4 Golds In London? Bolt Says He'll Leave Event Decisions Up To Glen Mills While the headline claims Bolt will have a go at 4 gold medals in London, basically Bolt has said none of that. He does say he'd rather do the long jump than the 400m, but says preparation for 4 events will be very demanding.
*Bolt Says He Will Not Consider
Himself A Legend Until He Has Many Fast Cars There is a reason this guy is popular.
LRC Ritz Speaks USATF held
a teleconference with Dathan Ritzenhein Tuesday afternoon and we quickly give you the highlights. We tell you what Ritz had to say about new coach Alberto Salazar and what event Ritz will focus on for 2012. Plus we tell you what Ritz's next race will be. Is an American 10k record run a possibility?
More: Indy Star: Bob Kennedy Not Concerned He Isn't Record Holder Any More Kennedy says it's "the closing of one chapter and the opening of another" and for his sake let's hope it's true as the same day the record fell his wife filed papers to run for mayor of Indy. *Denver Post: Ritzenhein"
American Track Idol *Grand Rapids Press: Ritz Reaches Goal of 5k AR *Oregonian: Excerpts from Teleconfernece *USATF: More Excerpts
LRC The Week That Was This week we analyze Dathan Ritzenhein's 12:56 and try to tell
you, "I told you so." We also argue that the IAAF would catch more drug
cheats if they put the LRC community in charge and, lastly, we try not to
forget Anna Willard and/or Shannon Rowbury.
Sept. 1 Recommended Read #1: Brief Chat With Kevin Hanson About Desireé Davila Kevin Hanson, who was so excited he lost his breakfast during Desireé Davila's amazing 2:27 11th place at Worlds, takes the reader through her running history. Amazingly, only one American woman has run faster than Davila in the marathon at a younger age, and
that was Joan
Benoit. Also, every time Davila - whose boyfriend has served as her only training partner leading up to Berlin - has put on a USA jersey, she has PRed.
Sept. 1 Recommended Read #2: India's Santhi Soundarajan Was Disqualified For Being A "Man" In 2006 - Says Nobody Fought For Her Time Magazine did a great job finding Soundarajan, whose disqualification left her, in her words, "physically and mentally totally broken."
Full Zagreb Results *Blanka Vlašic Jumps 2.08m *Vlašic Message Board Thread And Video Here Her 2.08 is the 2nd-best jump ever behind the 2.09m World Record, and apparently she almost jumped 2.10m, too. 2.08m is just under 6'10". Speaking of record-breaking women ... in case you
missed it, Yelena Isinbayeva broke the women's pole vault WR 5.05m with a 5.06m (16'7") in the Weltklasse on Friday (of course, we overlooked everything but Ritz). That was the 15th time she has broken the record. *Zagreb Top Results: Cantwell 22.16m Shot Put Sets WL, Vlašic Jumps 2.08m
Oh, you were wondering about distance? Evan Jager ran 3:43 in a 3:36 race won by Belal Mansoor Ali.
Gateshead Results Gateshead was hit by rain and few of the times were fast. Lisa Dobriskey won the 1,500m easily after Erin Donohue made a move to the front with 400m to go. Americans had a great day overall, as Leo Manzano won the 1,500m, Christy Wurth-Thomas won the 800 closing in 58 over Berlin medalist Jenny Meadows, Nick Symmonds won the 800 and the sprinters did their job and picked up the winners'
paychecks in mostly really slow times. The big upset was in the 3k, where Bernard Lagat couldn't kick with Ugandan Berlin 5k 4th-placer Moses Kipsiro, as Chris Solinsky was back in 6th. Kenyan 5k world champion Vivian Cheruiyot got the better of 10k champ Linet Masai in the 3k.
*More From Gateshead: Tyson Gay Wins 100m Into Big Headwind He's having groin surgery after the season.
2 IAAF Meets Are Monday
Aviva British Grand Prix *Start Lists/Results *MBoard Thread Here
Great Women's 3k, Tyson Gay & 12 Berlin Champs Highlight Aviva British Grand Prix Plus the late addition to the meeting - Berlino!!! The women's 3k is unreal as it has the double Olympic Tirunesh Dibaba versus Kenya's 5k and 10k world champs, Vivian Cheruiyot and Linet Masai. Lots of Americans also are running, including Vessey & Willard in 800, Manzano & Lukezic in 1,500, Solinsky &
Lagat in
3k and Tyson Gay in 100.
LRC: Dathan Ritzenhein Breaks Bob Kennedy's American 5,000m Record In Zürich Amazed? So are we.
You'll Enjoy This
*LetsRun.com Homepage From 8 Years Ago HS senior Alan Webb was on the front page of the Washington Post and had just defeated Ryan Hall in a mile race, an email campaign was on to save UVA Men's track and message board posters were wondering if all the marathon courses in the '80s were short.
*How 20 Popular Websites Looked When Launched
They must have forgotten to add LetsRun.com to the world's most popular website list.
Interesting Caster Semenya Articles Continue
- Huffington Post Writer Tackles Gender In Sports - He Likens Women's Sports To The Special Olympics Or 6-Feet And Under Basketball This was the best read of the bunch.
- Caster Semenya Coached By Former East German Head Coach?
- Mike Hurst Weighs In On Caster Semenya's Coach And Doping Past As if there hasn't been enough controversy surrounding this girl, it turns out that South Africa employs the former head of East German
DopersAthletics as a track coach. And yes, he is rumored to coach Semenya. - Interesting NY Times Op Ed On Semenya and How Race, Politics, Society In South Africa Play A Complex Role In Her Story
- Rob Peters Of iAfrica On Why The Semenya Rage Is No Longer About Semenya He says it's more about political gain.
- Associated Press; South African Rape Victim Case Shows Dichotomy In Treatment Of Masculine Women While one female athlete is adored, another is swept under the rug.
- Female Writer: Media Missed An Opportunity To Embrace Diversity With Caster Semenya
Great LetsRun.com Offer 10% Off AND Free Shipping From RoadRunner Sports Click Here
Upcoming Races From The Marathon To 110m Hurdles
*Return Of The Road Warriors! Sammy Wanjiru To Race Sammy Kitwara In Sep 13 Rotterdam Half Marathon The 22-year olds get to duke it out. Yes, they would be redshirt juniors if they were in college in the US.
*Masai And Cheruiyot Headline Strong Women's Challenge 5k In Hyde Park On Sep 6 Paula Radcliffe holds the course record at 14:51.
Berlin 5k champ Vivian Cheruiyot will race 2k Friday in Brussels and then 5k Sunday in London.
*Former WR Holder Liu Xiang Could Compete In Shanghai Against Terrence Trammell It would be great to have Liu Xiang back in good form.
*New Haven 20k is on Labor Day *Elva Dryer Interview *Anthony Gallo Interview Where He Talks About Training With Jack Daniels In Flagstaff *2008 New Haven Results
*Oregon XC Kicks Off Season On Friday Several LRC voters have the Ducks at #1 but how will they do without Galen Rupp? *Oregon Releases The Most High Tech Media Guide In NCAA Running History Recruiting and media attention have been really tough for the Ducks so hopefully this will
help.
Already Happened:
USA 10km Trail Championships Were This Weekend In NC Princeton grad and steeplechaser Michael Spence won the men's 10k in just under 40 minutes. Must have been a bit of a tough course.
Recent/Upcoming Record Attempts
*Haile G To Race Duncan Kibet In Berlin On September 20 Geb has the WR at 2:03:59 and Kibet, thanks to the unbelievable Rotterdam Marathon in April '09, is the = second-fastest marathoner of all time with a 2:04:27. Maybe this will keep Rojo from blasting Geb for not racing anyone.
*World Record? Princeton's Slovenski Brothers Clear 10' Pole Vaulting Off Unicycle Then they swallow fire and walk a tightrope over a pool of sharks.
*Ritz's Blog From August 31
We Agree: Usain Bolt Says Kenenisa Bekele Deserves More Credit The great sprinter says the great distance runner deserves a lot more attention and fame.
Your Tax Dollars At Work ... Paying For Runners
*Bank Of America Spending A Fortune In Advertisements For The BoA Chicago Marathon At least our bailout money is being used to support running!
*Briton Jenny Meadows Hopes For Lottery Upgrade After World Championship 800m Medal She's been living off of 15,000 dollars of funding a year.
Rat Study Demonstrates That Runner's High Can Have Withdrawal Symptoms At least that's what the headline says. The article is confusing. We'll see if you can figure it out.
Bolt Running 200m At World Athletics Final In Greece Bolt will be running in Brussels (200m), Greece (200m), China and South Korea before, we assume, calling it a season in October.
Economists' Take On The Cost Of Running And Why Running Is Worth It Is running actually a cheap sport like everyone says it is?
American Road Race Results From The Last Weekend Of August
*Chris Thater 5k Results From Binghamton NY The locals managed to break up the Africans pretty well this year on the super-fast Thater Memorial course.
*Tesfaye Bekele Wins Spirit Of Columbus Half Marathon In 1:00:38 That's a big-time performance with some solid names behind him.
*Hood To Coast Unofficial Team Results Team Brooks Beast won in just under 17 hours.
NY Times: Are Minimalist Shoes Taking Off?
Sad News: Former NCAA Champ And Olympic Bronze Medallist David Laut Gunned Down Outside His House Checking on a noise out back, he was senselessly shot.
*Editorial: A Senseless Killing *Investigation continues
Veterans Win Hokkaido Marathon As Woman's CR Is Set (2:25:10) Daniel Njenga faded in the heat but held on for a win in 2:12 as Kiyoko Shimahara won the ladies event. *IAAF Recap
Bolt Watches Real Madrid's Opening Match, Says He Can Run Faster In 100 And 200
Recommended Read: Amazing ESPN "Outside The Lines" Article On Flo Jo, Husband Al Joyner And Their Daughter Mary Unless you're a speed reader, it might take you an hour to read, but it is a powerful story.
Get Your Waffles Out Of The Attic: Cross-Country Season Starts Soon
Recommended Read: Interview With York High School Coach Joe Newton Newton touches 'em all in this fascinating read, including Abraham Lincoln and his former houseguest Arthur Lydiard. He says he never uses a computer and the key to coaching is saying each of his 225 runners' nicknames every day at practice. If you're a coach, you should read this article.