The British 10,000 Trials Were Saturday

MB:Are you ready for some craziness? Saturday night’s British 10,000 Olympic Trials was run through a bar!!

LRC The British Have Figured Out How To Make A 25-Lap Track Race Interesting – Run It Through The Middle Of A Bar The 2016 British Olympic Trials for the 10,000 are Saturday night and the competitors will run through a bar on each and every lap.
*Jo Pavey Faces Tough 10,000m Test To Realize Her Dream Of Five Olympics

Another Great Idea From The Brits: Olympic Champion Greg Rutherford Plans To Host Long Jump Event – With Field Better Than Diamond League – In His Back Yard/Garden In September He expects the athletes to get paid as well. Great idea.

The Diamond League Goes To Africa – Rabat DL Is Sunday At 12 Noon ET *Schedule, Entries, Results *TV & Streaming

LRC Rabat DL Preview: A Fast Men’s 800, The Return Of Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad And Can Francine Niyonsaba Challenge Caster Semenya? The Diamond League’s debut in Africa features some great distance match-ups. Everyone is hyping the women’s 5,000 at Pre next week but the gold (Almaz Ayana) and silver medalists (Senbere Teferi) are both in Rabat this weekend. Adam Kszczot, Amel Tuka and Nijel Amos headline the men’s 800, while MMB joins Jairus Birech and Conseslus Kipruto in the steeple. And then there is the women’s 800 where World Indoor champ Francine Niyonsaba will aim to take down Caster Semenya. Plus LaShawn Merritt in the 400 and Erik Kynard vs. Gianmarco Tamberi in the HJ.
*IAAF Preview Of Rabat: How Fast Will Almaz Ayana Run? How Far Will The Buffalo Bills’ Marquise Goodwin Jump?
*Semenya’s Coach Says She Won’t Do 400-800 Double At The Olympics
*Daily Relay: This Weekend’s Best Match-Ups
*In A Race We Weren’t Aware Of, Nick Willis Is Racing In Canada
*Dafne Schippers Is Running 200 And 4 X 100 In Hengelo On Sunday
*Dejen Gebremeskel Is In The 5,000 And Erik Sowinski In The 800 Next year, the meet will move to early June so it won’t be on the same day as Rabat.

Interesting Reads

• Interesting Read:Meet LSU’s Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake – He’s Gone From Unknown Student To Great Britain’s New Sprint Hope In The Span Of 2 Weeks Mitchell-Blake spent the first 13 years of his life in the UK but then moved to Jamaica. He had to sit out the entire 2015 season after being arrested on rape charges which were dropped before trial and has come back with a vengeance this year as he ran 19.95 at SECs.
  *MB: Britsh press calls SEC meet a “humdum college athletics meeting” – How do the SEC champs stack up vs the British? 
• Julia Webb – Alan’s Wife – Is Setting PRs By Following The LetsRun.com Model Of Running Really Easy On Her Easy Days “It was critical for me to scale back the intensity of my non-workout days, which I still have to constantly remind myself so I can have a chance at surviving the workouts.”
• Syrian Immigrant Becomes A Citizen, Runs Final 10 Miles Of Marathon With Huge American Flag Later In Day
• 100-Year-Old S. Carolina Woman Destroys 100m WR Set At Penn Relays She fell flat on her face in her first attempt but then crushed it in race #2.
• 1980 And ’84 Olympic Champ Daley Thompson Says Ashton Eaton Is A “Whole New Breed Of Athlete” – Expects Him To Break WR Again In Rio
• Rio Olympics to have 3 times more condoms than London Games and female condoms will go out this year for 1st time ever
• Wisconsin’s Kelsey Card Is Only Thrower In Collegiate History To Throw More Than 18.50 Meters In Shot, 61 Meters In The Discus And 60 Meters In Hammer
• Dude Surprises Girlfriend By Proposing In Middle Of Blue Cross Broad Street Run
• A Look At Which HS Athletes Could Make The Olympic Trials – Event By Event
• Minneapolis Marathon Is June 6th But Race Doesn’t Have A Course Or Permit

Galen, Meb, Shalane And All Olympic Marathon Medal Hopefuls – You Just Caught A Break

LRC2016 Ethiopian Olympic Marathon Team Announced - Ethiopians Leave Off World's Fastest Woman And Arguably The World's Greatest Distance Runner Ever

 Jumpers In The News

• Good Read: Greg Rutherford Fears “Arms Will Be Twisted” To Allow Russians To Compete In Rio Besides doping, Rutherford about hosting a LJ meet in his backyard this fall with his IAAF-approved pit and throws out a diss at Carl Lewis.
• Renaud Lavillenie Seeking Stockholm Diamond League Pole Vault Success On June 16th This is actually the only DL meet he’s never won as 2 years ago, his 22-meet winning streak came to an end here.
• UK HJer Isobel Pooley’s BBC Column: “I won’t waste my breath talking about doping.” She says she doesn’t “have the expertise to pass comment.” Well, we don’t think you need to be a science expert to have an opinion on whether Russia should be in Rio.
• Video Interview:Greg Rutherford Thinks Russia Should Stay Banned From Rio; Wants IOC To Re-Test More 2012 Samples
• IAAF Ratifies Vashti Cunningham’s 1.97m World Junior HJ Record

Midweek Action – 2016 IAAF Challenge Beijing *Race Videos

LRC Complete Results: 2016 IAAF World Challenge Beijing Two American men picked up wins in seasonal bests – Justin Gatlin (9.94) and Aries Merritt (13.24) – while pole vaulter Sam Kendricks was even better as he got a new PR and world lead (19’5″). Other world leaders included Majd Eddin Ghazal in the HJ (7′ 8¾”), Bin Dong in the TJ (56′ 6¾”), and Wenxiu Zhang in the women’s hammer (75.58m). Plus Ezekiel Kemboi won the steeple, Erik Sowinskialmost won the 800 and Nick Symmonds struggled in the 800.
*IAAF Recap Of Beijing: Ghazal Surprises With HJ World Lead, Kendricks Soars 19’5″; Hellen Obiri Wins 1,500, Ezekiel Kemboi Wins Steeple As Erik Sowinski Almost Wins 800
*MB: IAAF Challenge Beijing Official Thread 
*MB: Erik Sowinski 1:45:81
*Race Videos

Oxy & Ostrava Are Friday – Rabat Is Sunday – Previews Coming Soon
*MB: Trouble in NOPland? Rupp SCRATCHES the 5000m at Oxy.
*Usain Bolt Promises He’ll Run Fast On Friday In Ostrava If The Weather Is Good, Wants A 9.8 He says his tight hamstring is feeling great.

Latest Russian Doping News

• Alan Abrahmson Enraged That The US Department Of Justice Is Investigating Russian Doping Among other things, he thinks it will hurt LA’s chances in the 2024 Olympic bid.
• UK Athletics Chief Ed Warner Backs Proposal By Thomas Bach Which Would Let “Clean Russians” Compete In Rio Under The Olympic Flag If Russia Remains Banned This would kind of defeat the point as Russia is banned because doping is so widespread it’s impossible to know which athletes might be clean.
• IOC President Thomas Bach Acknowledges National Federations Can Be Banned From The Olympics, But Won’t Speculate About Russia’s Status For Rio
  *NY Times Article

Kenyan Doping Updates

• Kenyan Government Agrees To “Roadmap” To WADA Compliance Kenyan officials met at WADA HQ in Canada and director-general David Howman says they can be complaint “very quickly” if they make the necessary law amendments.
• Kenyan Olympic Committee Lashes Out At WADA For Declaring Them Non-Compliant They claim the issues were “very insignificant.” Maybe if they had met WADA’s deadline a year ago they would have had time to make changes.

Some Potentially Major Doping News

• 31 Athletes From Six Sports Could Be Banned From Rio After IOC Re-Test Of Frozen 2008 Beijing Samples The IOC target-tested 454 samples from Beijing, focusing on athletes that could be in Rio. They also re-tested 250 samples from London 2012 and those results will be announced soon.
  *MB:IOC busts 31 athletes from 2008 Olympics!
  *The Telegraph Article
• NY Times:The US Justice Department Has Started Investigation Into Russian State-Sponsored Doping In order to establish jurisdiction, prosecutors will go after those who facilitated unclean competition in the US or used the US banking system. *Discuss
• Six Arrests Made In Long-Running Investigation Into Doping In The Moroccan Athletics Federation No athlete names have been released yet.
• Maria Sharapova Meldonium Case To Be Heard By Anti-Doping Panel In London Today Some experts have predicted her ban will be 6 to 12 months rather than the max 4 years.
  *Verdict In Sharapova Meldonium Case Not Expected Until Next Month Sharapova admitted to using meldonium after it was banned and her levels are thought to be higher than the one microgram limit.
• IOC President Thomas Bach Writes Open Letter About Sochi Drug Allegations“Should the investigation prove the allegations true, it would represent a shocking new dimension in doping …”
• WADA Promises Full Public Report Into Sochi 2014 Doping Allegations

Random Running News

• Good Read:Masters Runner Fred Zalokar Shooting For Age-Group Sweep Of The World Marathon Majors 55-year-old Zalokar has won his age group at five of six WMMs with a best of 2:34 at age 50. He ran 150-mile weeks leading up to his most recent win in London.
• British Racewalker Challenges Runners To Run 5K Faster Than He Can Walk ItTom Bosworth has a walking 5K PR of 18:54, so they’ll have to run 6:05 pace to beat him. Those that beat him get free entry into the Great South Run.
• Video:Former Beer Mile WR Holder Jim Finlayson Sets Beer Two-Mile Record At 11:39 8 laps, 8 beers.

Sunday / Monday US Track Action *Results: *Portland Twilight*Swarthmore

• MB: 16-year-old Kate Murphy guns down Marielle Hall – Runs 4:14.26 at Swarthmore – #6 all-time
  *Race Video
• MB: 3:37.75 for Awad at Swarthmore. 0.01 off the NCAA lead In a race rabbited by Nick Willis, Awad got his OTrials qualifier in a race was won by David Torrence, who picked up the Olympic Games standard of 3:36.20 with a 3:36.02. Julian Mathews also got Olympic standard as Hamish Carson missed it by .05.
  *Race Video
  *Julian Matthews Clinches Kiwi Olympic Spot With 2nd Place Showing
• Portland Twilight:Kate Grace Runs 2:00.05 To Win Over Alexa Efraimson (2:00.99)Lopez Lomong, Treniere Moser and Jordan Hasay were among the other pros who competed.