– Excerpt from a University of Oregon police report filed after the 2015 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, in which Brooks Beasts Head Coach and former Nike employee Danny Mackey states that his life was threatened by Nike Global Director of Athletics John Capriotti at USAs. *Details Here
LRCPolice Report: Nike Global Director Of Athletics John Capriotti Threatened To Kill Brooks Beasts Head Coach And Former Nike Employee Danny Mackey At 2015 USAs At USAs, it was stated that people had been threatened at the meet but the details were missing – until now. LetsRun.com has obtained a police report stating that Nike’s John Capriotti threatened the life of the Brooks Beasts Danny Mackey. Witnesses interviewed by LetsRun.com support Mackey’s claim.
*MB: Nike’s Global Director of Athletics John Capriotti Threatened To Kill Brooks Beasts Head Coach Danny Mackey At 2015 USAs
LRC America’s Best Hope For A Mid-D Or Distance Gold, Ajee Wilson, Withdraws From 2015 IAAF World Championships It’s revealed that Wilson, who hasn’t raced since USAs, has been suffering from an injury since before USAs.
LRC Sad: USATF Kicks Nick Symmonds Off Team USA For Worlds Instead Of Defining What An “Official” Team Function IsBarring legal action, Team USA won’t have 800m silver medalist Nick Symmonds on it. Instead of clarifying when athletes need to wear Team USA gear at Worlds, USATF left Symmonds off the team when he didn’t sign a contract by yesterday’s deadline. Symmonds will consult an attorney on Monday and come out swinging, claiming to show how USATF “is stealing millions of dollars from the athletes.”
*Discuss
*PDF Of Contract USATF Wanted Nick To Sign Note it has the word “official” in “‘official’ team functions” in quotes. Something is official or it is not. Yet it doesn’t outline what an official team function is – bizarre.
*Darren Rovell ESPN Article
*MB Talk: BREAKING: Symmonds off World team
*MB Talk: What if Symmonds is just out of shape?
PreviousNick Symmonds Explains Why He Won’t Sign USATF’s Contract And How He Was “Bullied And Threatened” At World Indoors For Not Wearing USA Gear According to Symmonds, USATF wants to control what athletes wear to coffee.
Flotrack Throwdown:Peter Callahan Upsets Mile Field In 3:58.43 As Galen Rupp Finishes Way Back In 4th (4:00.45) Canada’s Fiona Benson dominated the women’s mile in 4:25.79, finishing almost 5 seconds in front of Gabe Grunewald (4:30.43). The 800s went to Duane Solomon (1:46.84) and Maggie Vessey (2:00.30). Deon Lendore won the 400 in 45.77 as Nick Symmonds was last in 48.53.
*MB:Stick a fork in RUPP!*Peter Callahan 3:37 1500 FTW Earlier This Week
Poland Throws Meet Recap:World Champ Pawel Fajdek Sets Hammer NR With 83.93m In non-throws action, Adam Kszczot ran 1:44.67 to beat 800m rival Marcin Lewandowski.
LRCNick Symmonds Explains Why He Won’t Sign USATF’s Contract And How He Was “Bullied And Threatened” At World Indoors For Not Wearing USA Gear According to Symmonds, USATF wants to control what athletes wear to coffee.
Before we start our World Championships previews, we thought it would be a good idea to take a step back and look big picture at what has transpired so far this year in the world of track and field. There have been a lot of amazing developments so far in 2015. We list five events that if we’d predicted them at the beginning of the year, you’d have said we were TOTALLY crazy.
Recommended / Must Read ESPN/Mike Wise: Once Lauded By Nelson Mandela, 1996 Olympic Marathon Gold Medalist Josia Thugwane Has Been Forgotten By South Africa Thugwane grew up extremely poor and illiterate. Just 5 months before the Games, he was shot in the face. In Atlanta, he won gold in marathon #19 despite having only a 2:11 PR. As for Apartheid, he understood it as follows: “The white people have money. The black people are to work [for] the white people. I don’t know whether this is wrong thing.” We are calling this a must read for anyone under 30 as they may have never heard of Thugwane.
A Look At The Training Of Steve Cram Which Enabled Him To Run 3:46.32 For The Mile – A British Record That Turned 30 Last Week The former 400m runner went for a “single peak periodization.”
Must Read: IAAF Issues Statement And Strongly Rejects Anti-Doping Allegations Of A Cover-Up – “(Both) ARD and The Sunday Times both admit that their evaluation of the data did not prove doping.” The IAAF says there is nothing close to a cover-up. The Sunday Times claims six athletes tests were covered up when in fact the IAAF says they targeted all six for most testing and banned them. Additionally, the IAAF says the data in the report isn’t a “scoop” as they themselves turned it over to scientists who used it for a study in a peer reviewed journal. Also most of the data was before 2009 when athletes couldn’t be banned as there was no Biological Passport.
*BBC On IAAF Response *Athletics Weekly Recap Of IAAF Rebuttal
5 thoughts and highlights from the Kenyan Trials as Asbel Kiprop gets in some showboating practice + some really fast times by Geoffrey Kamworor and Faith Kipyegon and a loss by David Rudisha.
Breaking:Japan Times Part III: Victor Conte Claims Flo-Jo And Jackie Joyner Kersee Tested Positive At 1988 Olympics And There Was Huge Doping Cover-Up He names Flo-Jo, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and others as athletes whose failed drug tests were covered up. In terms of his six current athletes he thinks are doped, he names Galen Rupp, Mo Farah, Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake, Carmelita Jeter and Jason Richardson and says WADA purposely avoided re-testing samples from big names like Usain Bolt and Mo Farah. *Part I*Part II
*MB: Breaking: Victor Conte Claims Huge Doping Cover Up At The 1988 Olympics With Flo-Jo And Others; Corruption In WADA
MB: The IAAF Drops The Hammer – 28 Athletes Busted From Re-Test Of Samples From 2005 And 2007 World Champs! Track and field takes a lot of criticism for drugs but we don’t know of any other sport that goes after cheats 8-10 years after the fact. MLB (baseball) only started drug bans in 2004 and in 2005 a first ban resulted in a 10-day suspension.
Good Read:OC Register: Nike Promotes – And Undermines – US Track And Field What would Bill Bowerman or Steve Prefontaine think of Nike today? What was once “the rebel company that shook the powers that be” is now the one that takes away athletes’ rights rather than fighting for them.
Nick Symmonds-USATF Controversy Makes NY Times (link fixed) USATF has screwed up again and the NY Times is now on the story. USATF wants all World Championships team members not to bring branded non-Nike gear to Worlds to wear even casually in the hotel. Nick won’t sign the contract USATF wants him to sign that does not define what a team event is. If he does not sign it by Sunday, USATF’s Jill Geer says he “will not be on the team.” Imagine if USABasketball told Lebron that he couldn’t wear Nike gear in a hotel and had to wear adidas gear. USATF is getting negative publicity once again.
*Discuss
Remembering USTFCCCA Hall Of Fame Coach Bob Timmons (1924-2015): U.S. Track & Field And Cross-Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA)Most noted for his work with Jim Ryun.
*Ryun: “He gave each athlete a different challenge. He took such a personal interest in everyone around him.”
*KU Tribute To Timmons Includes photo slide show.
*MB: Hall of Fame Coach Bob Timmons Passes Away at 91
Caster Semenya appears to be on the way back, the Brooks Beasts now have one more Diamond League win by Americans than the Nike Oregon Project and Bowerman Track Club combined, and the USA dominated World Juniors. Plus if you missed it, we've got links to the Kenyan champs and Stockholm, and we don't know what to say about the doping report yet.
Message Board Talk:Round II: New German ARD TV doping report coming out tomorrow – Kenya/Russia
USATF Statement And Data On Elite Athlete Spending: USATF Will Spend More Than 50% Of Its Budget And More Than $15 Million On Elite Athletes In 2015 USATF dismisses claims by Andrew Zimbalist and Nick Symmonds that it only spends 8% of its revenues on elites by showing you spreadsheets of where the $15 million goes. $5 million directly to the athletes, $7 million to high performance centers and $3 million for athlete costs.
LRC Book Review Of Once a Runner Prequel Racing the Rain By John L. Parker, Jr. – “It works and has the potential to draw a new audience into Once a Runner.” Racing the Rain isn’t about Quenton Cassidy‘s development as a runner, but rather his development into a runner. The novel opens by introducing a second-grade Cassidy and concludes with the miler moving into his familiar room in Southeastern University’s Doobey Hall. In between, Parker’s sharp prose richly describes what it was like to grow up a middle-class baby boomer on Florida’s Gold Coast.
LRC Book Review: How to Race the Mile By Jeff Hollobaugh – “A terrific resource for younger runners.” And “… also a great read for even the expert fan.” We recommend the book, which is a comprehensive look at the mile from the 19th century to the present and is full of rich race histories.
LRCFlexing Robby Andrews (3:57.3) And Stephanie Garica (4:28.8) Win Sir Walter Milers Robby Andrews and Stephanie Garcia tuned up for Worlds with wins in the mile in North Carolina before a raucous crowd. *Discuss
LRCThe Greatest Day In The History Of The Beer Mile As 2 Men Go Sub-5:00 And Set Possible World Records Thousands Of Miles Apart Two sub-5:00s and potential world records on the same day – halfway across the globe. *Discuss
LRCStephen Kosgei (28:28) & Wude Ayalew (31:55) Claim Titles At 2015 TD Beach To Beacon 10K; Former Oregon Standouts Eric Jenkins (28:50) & Alexi Pappas (32:56) Lead American Finishers Jenkins wasn’t content to end his season with a stroll as he was the only American man that tried to hang in the African lead pack. The battle in the women’s race was very tight for both the win and top American honors. Post-race interviews with Laura Thweatt, Alexi Pappas, Diane Nukuri, Stephen Kosgei, Moses Kipsiro, Eric Jenkins and Maksim Korolev. *Results
*RRW:Stephen Kibet, Wude Ayalew Win TB Beach To Beacon 10-K In Tactical Races
*MB:Chris Solinsky is back baby!
LRC The End Of Women’s Sports As We Know It? Is Caster Semenya The Favorite For Gold For The 2016 Olympics? The Court Of Arbitration For Sport Suspends IAAF’s Hyperandrogenism Regulations Earlier this week, hyperandrogenic Indian sprinter Dutee Chand was cleared to compete despite having super-elevated testosterone levels. More importantly, the court totally suspended the IAAF’s hyperandrogenism regulations, meaning athletes with internal testicles are free to compete as women without treatment. We break down what it means. Is this the beginning of the end for women’s sports?
LRC Investigates Lehigh Valley Got It Wrong: The Evidence Is Conclusive: Mike Rossi – The Viral Boston Marathon Dad – Is A Marathon Cheat And Should Never Have Been On The Starting Line In Boston In April, Mike Rossi gained international fame for his snarky response to a letter from his kids’ principal scolding him for taking them out of school for several days to watch Boston. A LetsRun.com investigation has revealed that Rossi’s principal was correct, the kids should never have been in Boston as the evidence is conclusive – their father didn’t legitimately qualify for the 2015 Boston Marathon. How confident are we that Rossi cut the course when he “ran” his 3:11:45 BQ qualifier at Lehigh Valley? Extremely. We’ll pay Mike Rossi $10,000 if he qualifies again in the next 12 months – and the qualifying time is 13+ minutes slower – 3:25.
*MB: Did Mike Rossi (viral marathon dad) cheat his way into Boston?
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