2016 Brussels is Fri. *Schedule & entries *TV & Streaming

LRC Man Versus Machine Grudge Match: 1:43 800 Runner Nicholas Kipkoech Will Race a Solar-Powered Car Over 600 Meters in Brussels on FridayWhen a solar powered car with a top speed of 68 mph races a Kenyan 800 stud, who had the edge? We’ll find out on Friday.

LRCMeet Preview: World Record Attempts in the Men’s Steeple & Women’s 5K, Evan Jager Goes for Sub-8:00, Rowbury Goes For The 5k AR, A Stacked Men’s 1500 & Caster Semenya in the 400Conseslus Kipruto and Almaz Ayana will go for the world records. Can Shannon Rowbury follow up her Zürich win with an AR in the 5,000? Plus Kiprop vs. Makhloufi in the 1500, Clayton Murphy in the 800 and Elaine Thompson vs. Dafne Schippers in the 100.

A Legend Waves Goodbye to the Track

LRC Bernard Lagat Has Run His Final Track Race – What an Amazing Career it Was A track legend is done with the track (but not the roads).

Sprints Jumps And Throws

• Recommended Read:New British Book Tells The Stories Of Olympians Who Died Fighting In World War I GB hammer thrower Alfred Flaxman was among those who used his athletic skill in war as he could throw bombs over 75 yards.
• Valerie Adams Pokes Fun At Her Husband With Picture On Instagram The caption read “When your wife’s biceps are bigger than yours.”
• Surprise Audi Sports Car Waiting For Wayde Van Niekerk When He Returns To South Africa It isn’t to keep though as his sponsor, Audi, is loaning it to him for a year with the option of extending.
• Jamaica Fills “Lion’s Share” Of List Of World Sprint Records For Each Lane *Full List Published By T&F News USA and Jamaica dominate most of the slots.
• NZ Herald Writer Thinks 19-Year-Old Olympic Pole Vault Bronze Medalist Eliza McCartney Is The Most Marketable New Zealand Athlete Her agent says she has at least 30 commercial sponsorship opportunities.

The Paralympic Opening Ceremony Is Today At 4:30PM ET (NBC Broadcast At 7PM)

• IOC President Will Miss Opening Ceremony Of Paralympic Games For First Time In 32-YearsThomas Bach will instead go to the mourning ceremony for the former West Germany President, but some see this as a sign of tension between the IOC and IPC over the Russian ban.
• GB Head Paralympic Head Coach Calls Russia’s Ban An Opportunity For British Athletes “Every other nation will be looking at it the same as us. In their misfortune someone else will benefit from it.”
• The Guardian: Five Australian Paralymics To Watch In Rio
  *Athletics’ Weekly’s “Paralympians To Watch” List
• Paralyzed Woman To Compete Great North Run Half-Marathon In A “Bionic Suit”Claire Lomas plans to complete the half by doing 3-miles a day.

Distance News

• Chris Solinsky Promoted To Head Distance Coach At William & Mary
• He’s Not Hanging ‘Em Up Anytime Soon:Nick Willis Plans To Continue On Through Tokyo 2020 Olympics After becoming the oldest ever medalist in the Olympic 1500, he’ll likely focus on the 5000 in 2020 when he’ll be 37.
• Clayton Murphy Throws Out First Pitch At Cleveland Indians Game
• MileSplit: Will The Nation’s Best XC Prep Not Race Foot Locker This Year?Casey Clinger is the favorite heading into this year, but his Foot Locker regional meet is the same weekend as his team hopes to compete at NXN.

Paralympic News

• Brazil Government Bailout Saves Rio Paralympics From Last Minute Budget Shortfall IPC president Philip Craven said, “This is the worst situation that we’ve ever found ourselves in at Paralympic movement.”
• Court Turns Down 10 Russian Athletes’ Appeals To Overturn Rio Paralympic Ban
• Spanish Paralympians Have $400 Stolen From Room At Rio Athlete’s Village The thieves posed as cleaning staff to sneak into the rooms.
• IPC Expecting Rio 2016 Paralympic Tickets To Sell Out As Sales Reach 1.5 Million That’s a big swing after they had only sold 12% last month, although another source said they are hoping to sell 2 million of the 2.5 million available.

Other Weekend Action *Berlin ISTAF Results

• World Junior Champ Rodgers Kwemoi And Olympic 4th Placer Alice Aprot Win The Tilburg 10 Mile/10K Kwemoi won the 10 mile in 46:04 as former World marathon champ Abel Kirui was 5th and Aprot ran 31:34.
• IAAF:David Rudisha (1:43) and Caster Semenya (1:55) Keep Winning At Berlin ISTAF Bernard Lagat was 2nd behind Augustine Choge in the 3K as the throws highlighted the meet with Michelle Carter beating Valerie Adams in the SP and Johannes Vetter won a deep men’s jav as Christina Obergfoll the women’s in her last competition before retirement. *Discuss
• Brit Julia Machin Equals Women’s 45-Age-Group High Jump World Record With 1.65m

Sprinters And Field Eventers News

• Recommended Read:Olympic 400H Champ Dalilah Muhammad Is A True Symbol Of Progress For Muslim Women While Muslim women competing in sports while fully covered were celebrated as progress, Muhammad is a practicing Muslim who competed uncovered and got little attention for it.
• Good Read:Ashton Eaton Ponders Life After Retirement From Track And Field Eaton has been very reflective about his last Olympics, but doesn’t yet know what he wants to do after track. He hasn’t committed to doing 2017 Worlds and apparently Brianne Theisen-Eaton will also soon retire.
• USain Bolt’s Sister Is Angry At The Media For Calling Him A Womanizer And Wants Him To Be Left Alone
• Ivana Spanovic Says Winning The Diamond League Trophy Means More To Her Than Her Olympic Bronze While she’s proud of her bronze, she was disappointed to not win silver or gold in Rio. We imagine the $40,000 prize for the DL is a factor as well.
• Jenn Suhr Has Had To Cancel The Rest Of Her Competitive Season As She Still Isn’t Recovered From Her Illness
• Sydney McLaughlin Reflects On Rio In a 3-part video interview McLaughlin talks about the possibility of going pro, competing at the Olympics and how things have changed since returning to the US.

Distance News

• Never Too Old To Chase The Dream:34-Year-Old Singapore 10-Minute Steepler Quits His Job As A PE Teacher To TrainMuhammad Shah Feroz has already taken 17 seconds off his PB to run 9:42 and wants to break the 9:11 national record.
• Extensive Q&A With Aussie Steepler Genevieve LaCaze LaCaze talks about her training, doing the steeple/5K double in Rio and how she dropped her steeple PB from 9:33 to 9:14 this year to set an Oceania record.
• Kip Keino Facing Pressure To Resign Over Kenyan Olympic Committee Rio Disaster
• Little Rest For Molly Huddle As She’s Already Back In Hard Training For Her Marathon Debut At NYC
• Laura Muir Did Not At All Expect Her National Record Breaking 3:55 In Zurich As She Was Tired From Rio/Traveling

First Big NCAA XC Meet Is Next Weekend

• Looking Ahead To What The Biggest Meets Of This NCAA XC Season Will Be A list of the biggest meets of the season along with which schools will be there.
• NCAA XC Champs History Not On The Side Of Top-Ranked Syracuse Men While Syracuse is favored for returning 4 of their top 5, historically, when there is a close finish like between Syracuse and Colorado last year, it is the runner-up who does better the next year.
• Analysis Of Past NCAA XC Champs Points Towards New Mexico Women Dominating Again Historically, teams that dominate as much as New Mexico did last year always finish 1st or 2nd the next year.

The Latest Usain Bolt Updates

• Usain Bolt Battled A Serious Infection When He Completed The “Triple Triple” In Rio No, it wasn’t Zika. Bolt had an infection caused by a painful abscess in one of his teeth.
• Bolt’s Rio Fling Says He Was “An Olympic Champion In The Bedroom” She also said he took a break to take a phone call from his mom.
• Bolt Wants To End His Career On A High Note Next Year And His Motivation To Get Through It “Will Be All For The Fans”

Today’s Doping Headlines

• Arrest Her For Selling Stolen Goods: Cuban Drug Cheat Yarelys Barrios Ordered To Return Her 2008 Olympic Discus Silver, But She Already Sold It On Ebay She was caught in doping re-tests, but beat the IOC to it by selling her medal in June for $11,655.
• IPC Will Not Allow Russians To Compete At The Paralympics As Neutrals As More Than 175 Appeals Dismissed A group not complaining about all the doping bans is the lawyers. Reportedly, 34 new lawsuits have been filed against CAS.
• Indian Wrestler Refuses To Accept Upgraded 2012 Silver Medal In Honor Of The Late Russian Let’s be real; he was probably doping too.
• Qatar Sprinter Samuel Francis Caught In 2008 Doping Re-Tests

2017 And 2019 World Relays Will Be Held In The Bahamas

HS News

• IAAF Cancels World Youth Championships – Event Will No Longer Be Held After 2017 Champs In Kenya (link fixed)
• DyeStat’s Individual Girls XC Pre-Season Top 100
• DyeStat’s Individual Boys XC Pre-Season Top 100

Sprints And Throws

• Justin Gatlin Says He’s “Hungry For Next Year” Gatlin is looking forward to 2017 Worlds in spite of the fact that “the Uk media has not been the most kind” to him.
• A Look Back At The Second-Oldest T&F Record:The Men’s Hammer World Record Turned 30 Years Old Yesterday In 1986, the Soviet Union’s Yuri Sedykh threw 86.74m. Only one other person has ever thrown over 86m.
• The Michael Jordan Of T&F, Usain Bolt Will Be As Marketable In Retirement As He Is Today An interesting thought – Bolt would take an estimated $18 million pay cut if he became the highest paid NFL wide receiver after retiring.
• IAAF First Impressions Q&A With Tajikistan Hammer Thrower Dilshod Nazarov In Rio, Nazarov won Tajikistan’s first ever Olympic gold.

Assorted Olympic News

• Survey Says More Than Half Of Rome Residents Support The 2024 Olympic Bid Only 36.2 percent said they were against it.
• Rio 2016 Paralympic Torch Will Be Lit Up “Virtually” With Hashtags From The Internet
• Arrested Irish IOC Member Released From Rio Maximum Security Prison To Go Under House Arrest

The Power Of Gold: After Four Decades Without Electricity, Faith Kipyegon’s Home Village In Kenya Gets Power For The First Time Thanks To Her Olympic Gold Medal Her father pleaded to the Kenyan president to give him power so he could watch his daughter compete.