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The Fight Back Against Competitor Begins... Boycott Rock N Roll Events

We Can Make a Difference: Boulder Running Company Company Cancels Rock 'N' Roll Registration Party At Their Store "That's not right (them eliminating prize money), and we wouldn't support that. This is a community-based store, and this community is involved in the elite side of the sport." -1993 World Champion in the marathon, Mark Plattjes, talking about the Boulder Running Company canceling a Rock N Roll Registration party at the BRC and instead inviting Competitor's Alan Culpepper to come discuss why Competitor would stop supporting the sport of running.

Boycott Competitor Events
LRC Editorial No, Thank You: We Don't Need Competitor Running The Vast Majority Of Big Running Events In This Country The Competitor Group (Rock N Roll Races, NFL Series) has decided it does not want to give back to the sport of running despite receiving millions in public subsidies. It's time to boycott their events and support groups that give back to the sport. It would be WAY better if a non-profit, not a private equity fund, ran the big road races in the USA, but nothing will change unless YOU get involved and vote with your feet. Don't run their events and question their expansion into your city.

People In Philly Irate By Competitor Group's Decision: "I don't think it's fair to the legacy of the people who built the event."

Big Names In The News

King Carl Is Moving Back To Houston And Is Named Volunteer Coach For University Of Houston People 30 and under, Carl Lewis was once the equivalent of Usain Bolt - the face of track and field and a total stud.

Lance Armstrong Has Returned His 2000 Olympic Medal

Administrative News

• New IOC Head Talks About Russia's Anti-Gay Laws The first call he took as IOC president was from Vladimir Putin, who seems to be involved in everything these days, but they didn't talk about the law.
• We'll Believe It When We See It: After Fielding Two Overage Athletes At African Junior Champs, Kenyan Says It Will Ban Individuals And Federations Found Guilty Of It In The Future
• Controversial Eight-Year Tenure Of Eddie McGuire On The Athletics Australia Board Is Finally Over Following His Resignation People were irate about the conflicts of interest. He's the head of Collingwood Football Club and allowed track and field to be evicted from the Olympic park so his football club could train there.
• Nigerian Govt. Rewards Blessing Okagbare For Her Two WChamps Medals (Silver LJ, Bronze 200) With $21,000 - Coach Gets $18,000 Don't third world countries have better things to spend their money on?
• Kenyans Happy That Paul Tergat Was Named To IOC Board
• Athletics Kenya Bosses Act Like All Is Fine, Less Than 48 Hours Before Deadline For Federation President Isaiah Kiplagat To Convene A New Head
• Soweto Marathon Which Was Cancelled Is Now Back On A Day Later

Big Multi Competition This Weekend In Talence

• IAAF Preview Of Talence Multis Challenge: Ashton Eaton Leads Men's Field As He And Wife Brianne Theisen Try To Become The 1st Married Couple To Win The IAAF Combined Events Challenge Olympic PV champ Renaud Lavillenie is competing in his first decathlon and hoping to break the decathlon pole vault WR of 5.76. He has to score over at least 7,000 points overall for it to count, though.
• Register Guard Article On The Newlywed Eatons Competing In Talence And Hoping To Bring Home Some Significant Prize Money They could take home 60 grand if they both win the overall series titles. Not a bad wedding present.
• Ukraine's Surprise Heptathlon World Champion Hanna Melnychenko Looking To End Her Season On A High Note At Saturday's Decaster Combined Events Challenge Melnychenko current leads the series and will face Worlds silver medalist Theisen-Eaton among others.

Other News

• Plans In Place To Bring CityGames Concept To London Next Summer The Great North CityGames are this weekend and features track and field athletes competing in the streets of major cities rather than in a stadium.
• Wounded Veterans Meeting In Boston With Amputee Victims Of The 2012 Boston Marathon Bombing
• IAAF Reacap: Chinese National Games End With Exciting TJ Contests
• Jan Paterson Named Chef De Mission For Team England For The 2014 Commonwealth Games In Glasgow

US Pro / NCAA News

• Bernie Montoya Starts At ASU With High Expectations, But Maybe Less Pressure Given He Didn't Go Sub-4 In High School We 100% think not breaking 4 was a blessing. Coach Louie Quintana says, "He (Montoya) comes with a lot of hoopla, but he's still very untapped aerobically."
• Lukas Verzbicas' Comeback Has Continued As He Won The Carlsbad Triathlon Back In July
• The Most Ridiculous Track Video You'll Watch Today: "Washed-Up" Princeton Track Alums Come Back To Race 200m At "The Race For The Hangover Cure" Formerly fit track athletes try to relive the glory days over 200 meters.
• Good Read: At 42 Years Old, Two Time US Olympian Elva Dryer Returns To The Marathon On October 6th For The US Masters Champs At Twin Cities This will be her first race in 4 years and she's hoping for something in the 2:30's (her best is 2:31:48 from 2006).
• Cory McGee Returns To Florida Trying To Catch Her Breath And Get Ready For XC After A Packed Summer Which Included NCAAs, USAs, World Champs And Racing On The European Circuit She also took online classes while traveling through Belgium, Austria and Russia.
• OSU And Arizona State Revitalizing "Dan Vs. Dave" Rivalry: Former Olympic Decathlon Bronze Medalist Dave Johnson Added As An Assistant Coach At Oregon State Johnson and Dan O'Brien were very well known decathlon rivals leading up to the 1992 Olympic Trials and now they'll coach against each other at opposing PAC-12 schools with O'Brien at AZ State.
• Can Mattie Suver Hold Her Lead In The USA Running Circuit Standings? Right now, overall points are close between her and Janet Bawcom, both of whom are hurt by the fact that they're running the NYC Marathon only 2 weeks before the US 12K Champs (a meet which is somewhat controversially worth triple points).
• Matt Tegenkamp Leads US Running Circuit Men's Standings

International News

• David Rudisha Expects To Resume Training In December It sounds like recovery has taken longer than expected as Coach Colm O'Connell "thought he would have seven weeks of training."
• Namibia Sending Its Top Athletes To Jamaica For 3-Year Program To Train And Learn From Top Sprinters
• National Olympic Committee Of Kenya Sends Stern Warning On Age Cheating Ahead Of Youth Games Team Selections
• Olympic SP Champion Tomasz Majewski And World Hammer Champ Pawel Fajdek Win For Poland On First Day Of Francophone Games In Nice, France Morocco's Hicham Bellani won the 10,000m title in 28:49.09.
• Japan's Takashi Horiguchi (2:09:16) And Hiroko Yoshitomi (2:31:28) Highlight Japanese Entries For The October 20th Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon Yoshitomi, who has avoided the corporate team track, instead working and training, is known as the "female Kawauchi."
• UKA Distance Coach John Nuttall Leaving For New Position In Qatar

Marathon News

• Ryan Hall Blogs About His Observations After His First Few Days In Kenya "I would say that the biggest lesson I have learned from my first few days here in Kenya is the importance of training with others. ... I will be much more proactive in seeking out training partners and groups to train with, even if it means starting my own."
  Discuss: Ryan Hall Training In Kenya
• Podcast With Jason Hartmann Talking About His Prep For The NYC Marathon And Competitor Group Cutting Elite Athlete Funding
• Boston Marathon Registration Now Open
• The Soweto Marathon In South Africa Has Been Cancelled With Organizers Blaming Athletics SA As Their Infighting Lost Them Sponsors

Sunday NFL Track Action

The Historically Super-Fast Rieti Was Sunday:
*Rieti: Ben True Impresses In 3k (2nd To Soi, Beats Ndiku), Dix 9.99, Semenya Sub-2:00, Kiplagat, Cronje, Willis, Torrence Run Fast In 1,500 (Results) Walter Dix went sub-10 for the first time in 2013, Caster Semenya went sub-2:00 for the 1st time in 2013, the men's 1,500m had the first 9 set seasonal bests or PRs, led by Silas Kiplagat, a national record by Johan Cronje of S. Africa and faster times by Nick Willis and David Torrence, and (most impressively) Ben True finishing 2nd to Edwin Soi at 3,000m.
*IAAF Full Meet Recap
*Semenya After Her 1:58.92: "That's awesome. The race went according to plan."
*Jamaican Observer: 4 Jamaicans Win In Rieti
MB: Ben True 7:36.59, Emily Infeld 8:41.43

Minnesota: Ben Blankenship And Gabriele Anderson Shatter Course Records At Minnesota Mile Blankenship ran 3:52.7 to win over defending champ Craig Miller (3:53.1); Nate Brannen was 5th (3:55.0) and Matt Elliot 8th (3:58.6). For the women, Anderson ran 4:21.3 to win over Heather Kampf (4:27.1); Jamie Cheever was 6th (4:43.0).
*Team USA Minnesota Article With Quotes From Anderson
*Bring Back The Mile Article

Other Sunday Results

• Kenyans Daniel Chebii (27:35) And Josephine Jepkoech (32:00) Win Prague Road 10k; Emily Chebet Loses Chebii won a close race over Ethiopia's Kinde Atanaw and just missed Philemon Limo's CR by one second. Jepkoech was the surprise winner over World XC Champ Emily Chebet (32:01) with GB's Gemma Steel in 3rd (32:08).
• Kenya's Kiplimo Kimutai And Alice Chelangay Win Buenos Aires Half Marathon In 1:02:51 And 1:13:20
• Germany's Eleni Gebrehiwot Wins Muenster Marathon In Horrible, Rainy Conditions, Taking 5 Minutes Off The CR With 2:29:13 It was a 3-minute PR for Gebrehiwot. Kenya's Evans Kipkorir Taiget won the men's race in 2:15:56.
• 2011 RAK Half Marathon Champion Leonard Kipkoech Runs 44:31 To Win Jaramogi Oginga Odinga 15K In Kenya Pascalia Chepkorir won for the women in 51:27.94.
• World Mountain Running Champs - *Results: Finland Dominates (PDF)
  *IAAF Recap Of World Mountain Running Champs USA's 2011 champion Max King was a DNF.
  *Race Report Via Storify
  *Start Lists (Excel) *Race Preview (Translated)
• Kenya's Shadrack Kemboi And South Africa's Mapaseka Makhanya Win Gauteng Marathon In 2:14:02 And 2:37:06
• Chinese National Games Begin With Asian PV Record Of 4.65 By Li Ling

Potential Mary Cain XC Rival Out For Season: 2012 Foot Locker Girls Champ Anna Rohrer Has Broken Bone In Foot And Is Out For The Year Rohrer, who had opened her season with an incredible 16:52, will be missed.
MB: 2012 Footlocker Champ Anna Roher: Out For The Season

Post-Brussels News

• Bolt's #1 Goal For 2014? To Stay Injury-Free "I know I have to be more focused on staying in shape. ... The older you get the harder it is to come back from injury."
• Renaud Lavillenie's 5.96m Win Was One Of 7 European Victories In Brussels DL Finale

Kenyan Daniel Kitonyi Wins 5,000 And 10,000 At Japan's 82nd National University Track And Field Championships

2013 Worlds Special Section

Say It Ain't So

LRC Patrick Makau Withdraws From 2013 BMW Berlin Marathon With Knee Injury Less than a week after Makau said his training was going great and he was hoping to run 2:02, Makau is now out with a knee injury. We just wish when runners spoke to the press, they gave the whole picture.

Saturday - Great North CityGames *WatchLive For Free On USATF.tv (8:00 - 9:30am ET Or BBC 1-2:30pm England Time)

• Start Lists And Results Kiprop vs. Manzano, Heath, Gregson and Birgen in men's mile, England vs. Obiri and Chemos in women's mile.
• Christine Ohuruogu Is A Headliner But Having To Drop Down To 150m
• Great North CityGames Preview: Another matchup to watch is Sally Pearson versus Porter, Harper and Wells.
• Paralympic Gold Medallist Jonnie Peacock Repeats Call For DL To Include More Disability Events At Its Meets Memo to Peacock: Do you except the Premiere League to have wheelchair soccer? That being said, this weekend's Great North CityGames includes Paralympic events, as did the Manchester CityGames in May.

Two Truly Incredible Halves On Sunday - BUPA Great North Run *On Live On BBC Sunday At 4am ET

• Men's Preview: Bekele, Haile Or Mo At 13.1? If the 40-year-old Haile wins, Mo and Kenenisa should be embarrassed.
• Video: Mo Farah "Confident" As He Takes On Kenenisa Bekele And Haile Gebrselassie This Weekend European
• Athletics: Mo Farah Has Reached A Crossroad In His Career - Stay On Track Or Go To The Roads (Marathon)
• Fujiwara And Kawauchi Lead Seven-Strong Japanese Contingent At Great North Run
  
  
• Women's Preview: Dibaba Vs. Defar 2013 Round Two Dibaba says she lost in Zürich because it took her 22 hours to get there and her back was stiff. Will it be different on Sunday?
• Another Women's Preview: Defar Or Dibaba?
  
  
• Lots Of Big Action This Weekend Plan Your Weekend Thanks To Jesse Squire's "Best Weekend Matchups"

More News From The UK: Rules Tweaked For 2013-14 Edition Of British Athletics Cross Challenge

The 5th Ave Mile Is Next Weekend

World Championships Silver Medalists Nick Symmonds And Jenny Simpson Lead Fields For NYRR Fifth Avenue Mile Men's field has Bernard Lagat, Nick Willis, David Torrence, Will Leer, Leo Manzano and Evan Jager, while the women's also includes Shannon Rowbury, Gabriele Anderson and Morgan Uceny.

Is Speedgolf The Next Olympic Sport?

• Bernard Lagat And Nick Willis Competing In The Speedgolf World Championships In Oregon On October 26th And 27th Speedgolf is exactly what it sounds like: You play a round of golf as fast as you can and lowest score (shots + time) wins. Willis' best performances is a very impressive round of 79 in only 43 minutes.
• Spikes-Magazine Q&A With Lagat About His Upcoming Speedgolf Debut Lagat's best regular golf score is 89 and he says, "As a runner, the thing that golf has allowed me to work on is my patience, which is something I don't normally have much of. I always have to be quick, quick, quick after I hit the ball. Even when I'm playing golf it's intense. I have that competitive instinct."

Other Distance News

• World-Famous Marathon Coach Renato Canova Named Head Distance Coach For Chinese Athletics Federation Canova: "It is a very exciting project. The excitement likely comes in the form of being able to mold an almost non-existent Chinese middle and long distance program." What will this mean for all the top Kenyan marathoners he coaches?
• This Would Have Been Untimely News If Madrid Had Won 2020 Bid: Spanish Distance Runners Alberto Lozano, Sergio Sanchez And Angel Mullera Test Positive Sanchez is the European indoor 3k record holder and Mullera was 11th in the steeple in Moscow.
• Two-Time World Marathon Champion Abel Kirui Competing In Eldoret Kimbilio Hospice Charity Marathon On October 13th
• SA's 1,500 World Bronze Medalist Johan Cronje Says He Fellow South African Track Athletes Are Lazy And Not Willing To Move Up In Distance "An athlete is running the 800m (when) he should be training for the 1,500m. And the 1,500m athletes should be training for the 5,000m, and the 400m athletes should be training for the 800m. It's easy for the 800m athlete to go and run 400m because he has speed, but he's too lazy to go and train and do the hard work to be a real decent 800m athlete."
• Big Three Highlight Field For October 20th Amsterdam Marathon Defending champion Wilson Chebet (2:05:27) faces 2010 winner Getu Feleke (2:04:50) and Bernard Koech (2:04:53).
• Ethiopia's 2:06 Man Seboka Dibaba Tola Hoping To Break The CR At Next Month's Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon He faces Moroccan Abderrahime Bouramdane (2:07:33) and defending champ Sahle Betona Warga.
• Mandy Ortiz Named USATF Athlete Of The Week For Winning The Women's Junior Title At The World Mountain Running Champs Last Weekend

Who Will Bid In 2024?

• Italian Prime Minister Wants To Bid For 2024 Olympics And Paralympics Rome put forward a bid for the 2020 Games before pulling out of the race due to financial concerns.
• After Losing 2020 Bid, Madrid Mayor Rules Out Bid For 2024 Games

Big IOC News

• Alan Abrahamson: German Thomas Bach Elected To Succeed Jacques Rogge As IOC President Abrahamson tells you what it all means, including the relevancy of Vladimir Putin to the Olympic movement.
  *The Guardian On Bach  Sergey Bubka didn't get the job.
  *NY Times Article *IAAF
• USOC Head Larry Probst Gets Elected To IOC This is big news to get the US some clout within the IOC.
• Former Marathon WR Holder Paul Tergat Elected As An IOC Committee Member
• Bach "Addresses" Russia's Anti-Gay Law More of the same, as he said, "Today we cannot enter into discussion about all the details ... You will see that we will follow our values in the Olympic charter. ... We have assurances from the highest authorities in Russia ..."

Drug Talk And One More Reason To Like Asbel Kiprop

• Asbel Kiprop Voices His Support For A Four-Year Minimum Ban For Drug Cheats Kiprop: "I have no problem with it. I win clean and this vice need to be cleaned from our sport. Athletes must work hard and I believe when they have longer periods out, they will miss a lot and also learn their lesson." Remember that Kiprop was elevated to to 1,500 gold in the 2008 Games when Moroccan-Bahraini Rashid Ramzi tested positive.
• Good Read: Disgraced US Sprinter Tim Montogmery, Who Was Banned For Doping In The Balco Scandal And Later Went To Prison For Check Fraud And Heroin, Is Turning His Life Around As A Coach/Family Man He talks about his doping past, time in prison, and transformation since getting out. He says he'd like for his kids to go to school and hear that their father is known for something besides PEDs and prison.
• Montgomery On Usain Bolt: "I pray that he's clean. I pray. If he goes down, it's gonna set track and field back big time."

Saturday Free Streaming: USATF.tv To Broadcast North CityGames On Saturday Morning For Free Go here Saturday from 8:00-9:30 a.m. ET to watch for free. Athletes competing include Leo Manzano, David Oliver, Aries Merritt, Ryan Wilson and Dawn Harper.

4,000 Sign Up For Boston Marathon On First Day Of Registration This number is almost 2,000 ahead of where they were last year after day 1.

Hard-Hitting Journalism From Running Times: The Jury Is Still Out on Running Skirts

News From The Top Distance Runner And Sprinter In The Sport

• Usain Bolt Ignored Coach Glen Mills' Advice To Give Up Sex And Going To Parties "If I had followed Coach's advice though, I would have driven myself insane. I knew that every now and then I had to live fast."
• Bolt Reveals He Wanted To Quit His Sprinting Career After Being Booed By His Home Fans For Pulling Out Of A Race Back When He Was Only 19 "By the time I'd reached the sidelines, everybody in the bleachers was cat-calling me. Man they looked annoyed. Some people were even shouting, cussing ... 'What the hell is this?' I thought, feeling sick - seriously sick."
• Good Read: Mo Farah Responds To Drug Talk, Saying He Is "100 Percent Clean" And He Never Goes "Outside The System" In this article, Farah talks about getting tested, about leaving his family for so long his daughter didn't recognize him and maybe eventually taking a shot at Kenenisa Bekele's 5k/10k WRs.
• Video: Mo Farah "Confident" As He Takes On Kenenisa Bekele And Haile Gebrselassie At The Great North Run Half Marathon This Weekend
• European Athletics: Mo Farah Has Reached A Crossroad In His Career - Stay On Track Or Go To The Roads (Marathon)

Random US News

• Friday: 3:57 Miler Jack Bolas Attempting To Become The First Person To Run A Sub-4 Minute Mile On Alaskan Soil
• Parents And Athletes Protest Virginia High School's Decision To Bar Cross-Country Runners From Running On The Roads The school is probably being overprotective, but if the kids are running on trails instead of pavement, then they're better off in the long run as far as injury prevention goes.
• Nebraska's Trevor Vidlak And William And Mary's Elaina Balouris Are USTFCCCA XC Athletes Of The Week

International News

• Turkish Prime Minister Calls IOC Rejection Unfair "Both Tokyo and Madrid have hosted the games before; Istanbul hasn't. It hasn't been fair."
• After Adjusting For Wind, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce's 10.72 In Brussels Was Actually Equal To Her Best 100m Ever Adjusted for wind and altitude, it converted to a 10.70.
• Welsh 60-Year-Old Martin Rees Sets Age Group 10k WR At 32:48

IOC News: Billy Mills Gets His Wish

• Tokyo Will Host 2020 Olympics They beat out Istanbul in the final after Istanbul edged Madrid in a tie breaker in the semifinals.
• Alan Abrahamson: Here's How Tokyo Won Abrahamson gives you the details of Tokyo's successful bid. Why did they win? Well, they are the "safe bet" and it didn't hurt they have $4.5 billion sitting in the bank waiting to be spent on the Olympics and a Japanese athlete has never tested positive for a PED at the Olympics.
  *Video: Tokyo Soil Samples Would Be Considered Nuclear Waste In The US
  *InsideTheGames: How Tokyo 2020 Won Its Olympics And Paralympic Bid Despite Fukushima
  *Seb Coe Writes In The Telegraph: "Tokyo 2020 organising committee must get out of the blocks quickly if they want a successful Games."
  *NY Times: Madrid And Istanbul Respond Differently To Rejection By Olympics There was great sadness in Madrid, while many in Istanbul celebrated.
  *Middle East Press: Syrian War Hurt Istanbul's Olympic Bid
  *NY Times: For 2020 Olympics, I.O.C. Picks Tokyo, Considered Safe Choice
  *Pre-Decision News: Hersh: IOC hotel lobby walls have ears but rarely hear the truth
  *Message Board: It's Never Too Soon To Start Speculating: MB: Tokyo 2020: Who are the US Medal Prospects?
  
  
• Wrestling Wins IOC Vote For 2020 Olympic Games As expected, wrestling defeated baseball/softball and squash for a spot in the 2020 Summer Games as expected.
  *USA Today: Wrestling Will Get Makeover Before Rio Olympics
  *NY Times: Wrestling, With Revamped Rules, Returns To Summer Games New York Times
  *USA Today Columnist: Welcome back wrestling, sorry softball He points out how he feels the IOC is hypocritical at times and says, "As the saying goes, the last amateurs left in Olympic sports are the people running them."
  
  
• Thomas Bach's "Favorite" Status To Become The Next IOC President Could Be Hurt By Claims That He Cheated Back When He Was An Olympic Champion Fencer
• IOC President Jacques Rogge: Olympians To Be Warned Not to Protest Anti-Gay Law in Sochi 2014
• Sochi Organizing Committee President Asks IOC To Help "stop complaints and speculations" On Anti-Gay Law Issue

Marathon News

• Makau Says His Training Has Been Going Well As He Gets Ready For WR Attempt "I have not been in the best of forms in recent marathon races but my training has been going well for the last three months."
• Boston Marathon Registration Begins Monday - Will Include Extra 9,000 Spots To Accommodate Those Who Couldn't Finish This Year