July 05, 2017 Homepage Archive

The TrackTown Summer Series Championship is in NYC On Thursday Schedule, entries, results TV information (9-11 pm ET on ESPN)

LRC 2017 TrackTown Summer Series New York Preview: Robby Andrews Goes for Standard Again; Paul Chelimo, Emma Coburn, Drew Windle Headling Distance Fields The TrackTown Summer Series championship is Thursday in New York at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island. It will be broadcast on ESPN from 9-11 pm ET. Will Robby Andrews, Craig Engels or Cristian Soratos get the 1500 standard? Which team – the New York Empire, Philadelphia Force, Portland Pulse or San Francisco Surge – will win the title and give their athletes $1000.
*MB: TrackTown Summer Series Championship is Thursday in NYC (and on ESPN) – Official Discussion Thread
*MB: Anyone want to trade a TrackTown Summer Series t-shirt? The poster hates his or her Philadelphia Force shirt.
*Projected Team Scores and Event By Event Results Via TFN

Fans/Athletes React To The TrackTown Summer Series

Ken Goe:TrackTown Summer Series Very Popular With The Athletes, But What About The Fans? Multiple athletes said how thankful they were for the chance to compete at home in the US, but it remains to be seen if the series will make track any more popular.
Oregon Public Broadcasting Talks To Fans After The Second Summer TrackSeries Meet In Portland The meet offered a chance for fans to get up close and personal with the athletes.

TrackTown Summer Series Portland ResultsVideo Replay *Live Thread

LRC Portland Recap: Robby Andrews Drops Out As Ben Blankenship Wins A Thriller Over Merber And Engels, Windle Keeps Rolling The men’s 1,500m didn’t get the Worlds qualifying standard but it was three abreast racing down the homestretch. Drew Windle continued his good form in the 800 and Stephanie Garcia won the 3,000m.
Discuss:Robby Andrews just dropped out with 350 to go

Ken Goe Recap Of Portland:Surprise, Ben Blankenship Wins The 1,500 At The TrackTown Summer Series

Robby Andrews Post-Race Interview:“I’d be lying if (I said) there’s no pressure to get the world championships standard.” Plus news he’s been staying with Clayton Murphy.

Saturday Paris Diamond League *Results

LRC Paris Recap: Sifan Hassan Beats Faith Kipyegon, Ronald Kwemoi And Omar McLeod Lose For First Time, Nijel Amos Is Back? The World Championships picture may be getting a little bit clearer after Paris and Sifan Hassan may be your new favorite. Get up to speed on everything in Paris.

Paris Discussion: Live Paris Diamond League Thread
Kwemoi not so impressive in Paris Edris outkicked him for win in 3,000.
Is Ben MF True the stockiest elite distance runner of all time? True took lead in 3,000 and got 6th in 7:35.
Can a sprint expert explain all the false starts in Paris?

Drug News: Some Ajee Wilson Follow-Ups

Bicycling.com: Don’t Believe That Story That Says EPO Doesn’t Help Athletes
Deadspin:“The Curious Case Of Ajee Wilson’s Positive Drug Test” Wilson’s positive test for Zeranol generated a lot of questions. If this substance is so commonly used with livestock, why aren’t there more positive tests and why is Zeranol (an estrogen) even on the banned list in the first place? Sarah Barker tries to answer some of these questions.
Athletics Illustrated:Ajee Wilson’s Positive Test; Something Other Than Beef Smells Rancid HereChristopher Kelsall takes a much more skeptical look at Wilson’s failed test and feels that USADA’s/Wilson’s story “doesn’t pass the smell test.”
WADA Revokes Accreditation Of Two Drug-Testing Laboratories In South Africa And Kazakhstan

More British News

Good Read:Legendary BBC Commentator (And Runner) Brendan Foster Is Retiring From Announcing: “I’ve loved it, but you have to get out at the right time.” Foster talks about some of his favorite memories from his 37 years of commentating. He also talks about how it’s “bloody horrible commentating on people who you know have doped and you can’t say.”

BBC:How Annie Conway Went From A Weekend Fun Runner To A World Champion Conway picked up running in her late 20s to stay in shape with her husband, but 8 years later she was the World Long Distance Mountain Running Champion.
UK Athletics Chairman Ed Warner Calls For UK Sport To Be Scrapped Warner claims governing bodies have been “thrown off a cliff” by UK sport after 11 sports were left without lottery funding for the 2020 Olympic cycle.
Images Released Of What Stadium Would Look Like if Birmingham Awarded 2022 Commonwealth Games

Week That Was – USA & Kenyan Trials In The Books

LRC WTW: The Winners And Losers From USAs + Ronald Kwemoi Breaks The 1,500 WR* and Mo Farah Breathes Easy Plus everything you need to know about the Kenyan Trials and a rarity on LetsRun.com – ultra running news.

2017 Lausanne Is Thursday Schedule, Entries, Results TV & Streaming

LRC2017 Athletissima Lausanne Preview: Centro Returns To The Diamond League; Dibaba Runs The Mile; Hassan Faces Niyonsaba Over 800 Meters Matthew Centrowitz will toe the line in a DL 1,500 for the first time in 2 years.
*MB: Official 2017 Lausanne DL Discussion Thread – How Will Centro Do In His 1st DL Race in 2 Years?

In Lausanne On Thurday, Wayde van Niekerk Will Run His 1st 400 Since His World Record How low will he go?

Links That Make The Cut

With Shin Splint Problem A Thing Of The Past, Nick Willis Is Itching To Win His First-Ever World Champs Medal In London
Japan Running News Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary It’s a great resource for sure. It’s most popular article ever is one we hadn’t even read: Last-Placer Named Winner After Entire Rest Of Field Disqualified
Runner’s Tribe Looks At The Training Of “5-Time World Cross-Country Champ” Paul Tergat
South Africa Wins 17 Medals At African Junior Champs Sprinter Clarence Munyai impressed with a 20.22 in the 200. Ethiopia dominated the medal standings with 38.
Runner’s World Podcast On What It Takes To Maintain A 20+ Year Running Streak
Tone Deaf: IOC Officialy Says 2028 Olympic Host Better Not Ask For More Money As They’ll Save $50-100 Million By Not Having To Bid

News From The UK

Brits Think That Football (Soccer), Not Track And Field, Is The Sport They Have The Least Amount Of Confidence In 36% of Brits don’t trust football at all. This survey shows us that doping scandals alone aren’t why track struggles for popularity.
Eilidh Doyle Know The 400H Will Be Loaded At Worlds And Will Treat Every Race Like Final
Great Britain Tops Medal Table With Huge Haul At World Transplant Games

2017 Canadian Track And Field Championships Have Begun *Schedule, Results And Streaming Info

*MB: Official 2017 Canadian Champs Discussion Thread

US Sprint / Jumps News

Interesting:US Pole Vault Champ Sam Kendricks And Renaud Lavillenie Joke About How Kendricks Always Comes In At Opening Height At the Paris DL, Kendricks started at 5.37m while Lavillenie came in at 5.62m. Kendricks: “I came all the way to Paris, I trained all these years to pole vault, why not take a few extra jumps?”
USA’s Sprint Hurdlers React To Sydney McLaughlin Moving Down To The 100H For Next Year Both Nia Ali and Lolo Jones sent out joking tweets to McLaughlin.
101-Year-Old Sprinter Sets Age Group Record For 100-Yard Dash Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins covered 100 yards in 39.62 seconds.
Fred Kerley And Raevyn Rogers Win Bowerman Award Fan Vote Both votes were pretty close as Kerley took 40.8% of the vote to Christian Coleman‘s 38.8% and Rogers had 35.5% to Keturah Orji‘s 33.0% and Maggie Ewen‘s 31.5%.

British Champs *Results

Final Day Recap Of British Champs: Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake Runs 20.18 In LSU Vest, Chris O’Hare Beats Kerr In 1,500 First race for Mitchell-Blake in UK since he was 13.

Day 1: Dina Asher-Smith Finishes 6th In 100 But Revives London Hopes A lot of stars didn’t compete, but Morgan Lake jumped 1.96 and Reece Prescod won the 100 (Chijindu Ujah ran 9.98 in the prelims but didn’t run the finals).

ohuruogo Olympic & World Champ Christine Ohuruogu Runs 54.41, Doesn’t Make 400 Finals At British Champs, Says She’s OK If That’s Her Last Race What a career.

Chijindu Ujah Or Adam Gemili Will Likely Be Left Off British 100m Team After They Both Don’t Run Trials Final

Sprint/Field News

Distance News / Upcoming Action

Recommended Read:Profile On Former Irish Olympic Miler And Current Agent Ray Flynn Looking Back At When He Broke 3:50 In The Dream Mile In Oslo Flynn ran 3:49.77 to set the still-standing Irish record and says that is the race he is “… most proud of. … I didn’t win any Olympic medals, but I think I got as much out of myself as I could.”
Sunday:Robby Andrews Going For The 1,500 World Standard At TrackTown Summer Series Meet At Mt. Hood Community College In Oregon Andrews has until July 21st to run the 3:36.0 standard. There won’t be any rabbits in this one though, so he’ll have to hope for a fast pace or set it himself.
Recommended Read #2:The Oregonian: “No Mystery About Ben Blankenship’s Race Plan Sunday At Mt. Hood – He Will Run To Win” “I would rather be last every time for 100 times to give myself a chance to win once.”
Sunday:Kenneth Mungara Chasing A Hatrick At The Gold Coast Marathon In Australia He’ll face Yuki Kawauchi, whom he only beat by 1 second last year. Abebech Afework (2:23:33) leads the women’s race.
July 4:Bernard Lagat, Chris Derrick, Leonard Korir And Shadrack Kipchirchir Lead Field For Peachtree Road Race The women’s race has Jordan Hasay, Neely Gracey and Aliphine Tuliamuk.
MB:Craig Engels to NOP… BTC, OTC go home DEVASTATED

TrackTown Summer Series Results Watch On Demand

LRC Hannah Fields Wins 1,500 In 4:05.30 With Nearly 6-Second PR To Highlight TrackTown Summer Series Meet #1 Paul Chelimo toyed with the field in the 3,000m, Cooper Teare gave sub-4 another crack, Steven Solomon showed he may be on his way back, and Brittney Reese was upset.

Discussion: tracktown summer series June 29, 2017 Stanford University
Hannah Fields…Wow!!!!
Copper Teare Attempting Sub 4 Tonight! He came up short with 4:01.92.
OK, why does Paul Chelimo keep touching his face?

Distance News: Steve Spence’s Streak Survives

55-Year-Old Former US Olympian Steve Spence Runs 4:55 To Extend His Streak Of Sub-5 Minute Miles To 42 Years “I try to keep it fun, but it’s starting to become a little stressful because of the expectations I have of myself. Each year it gets a little harder. I have to train more. A few years ago, I could just go out and do it.”
*MB:BREAKING! Steve Spence runs 4:55 and continues his sub5 steak to 42 years.
Good Read:IAAF Profile: Yuki Kawauchi Is Running His 70th Career Marathon On Sunday At The Gold Coast Marathon Kawauchi with his prolific racing and full-time job “defies categorization” as a normal elite runner.
UK’s Laura Muir Still Wants To Do 1,500/5,000 Double At World Champs Despite Foot Injury BA performance director Neil Black was quoted saying that she had “a one percent” chance of doubling up in London, but Muir tweeted in response, “Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
Recommended Read:Daily Mail Profile On Laura Muir, Who Says She Rather Have Gone For The Win In Rio And Lose A Medal Than Play It Safe And Finish Third Muir is very blue collar compared to some athletes as she says she talks about how hardly takes any supplements and hates using pain killers and said she tried a sports psychologist, but it wasn’t for her.
*MB:Laura Muir shades Jenny Simpson (Olympics)
The Guardian:Mo Farah Vows To Stick With Alberto Salazar But Also Eyes Return To UK Farah denied previous reports that he was leaving Salazar when he moves up to the marathon, but he has apparently been looking at houses in the UK.

A Victory For Women’s Sports

IAAF:Leveling The Playing Field In Female Sport: New Research Published In The British Journal Of Sports Medicine Supports Hyperandrogenism RegulationsThe study found that female athletes with high testosterone levels can have a 1.8% to 4.5% competitive advantage. The IAAF will use this new research in their CAS case to reinstate the suspended hyperandrogenism rules.
The Guardian:“Caster Semenya Could Be Forced To Undertake Hormone Therapy For Future Olympics” Unfortunately the regulations wouldn’t be reinstated in time for 2017 Worlds.
Joanna Harper:“Using Testosterone To Categorize Male And Female Athletes Isn’t Perfect, But It’s The Best Solution We Have” Harper, a gender-in-sport expert who has written for LRC, evaluates the new study and what it means for hyperandrogenic athletes.

European News

Darren Campbell And Goldie Sayers Claim British Athletics Is “Killing The Sport” They criticized British Athletics for letting all the top athletes skip the meet which created terrible attendance numbers.
Birmingham 2022 Promises Full Stadiums For Commonwealth Games After Low Crowds At UK Athletics Trials TV commentator Tim Hutchings called the lack of attendance “disgraceful” and criticized top stars for not competing.
Weekend Euro Round-Up:Lea Sprunger Smashes 27-Year-Old Swiss 400 Record With 51.09 On Sunday At the Belgian National Championships, the Borlee brothers went 1-3, separated by .59.
French Olympic Silver Medalist Discus Thrower Melina Robert-Michon Talks About The Challenge Of Coming Back After Giving Birth To Her Daughter She trained up until she was 8 months pregnant and started up again two months after giving birth, but still struggled to get back to her top form and couldn’t even lift the bar without any weight on it her first gym session back.
IAAF Approves Application For Russian Racewalker Klavdiia Afanaseva To Compete As A Neutral Athlete That brings the total of Russians eligible to compete to 25.
BBC:GB’s David King Expects More After Sealing 110H World Spot King said he doesn’t “want to be one of these athletes that just go out at the heats.”
IAAF:Former Greek Olympic Committee President Minos Kyriakou Has Died

July 4th Action

Hasay-Flanagan-ErdmannA-USAout13 Peachtree On The 4th: Hasay And Marielle Hall Square Off, Derrick Joins Field Racing Lagat, Korir, & Kipchirchir A great American race. Wejo totally apologies for totally butchering who was in this race. Molly Huddle was never running and Shalane Flanagan withdrew.

US Pros For AJC Peachtree, Dan O’Brien, Gail Devers Involved In 48-Hour Treadmill Challenge To Save Olympic Warmup Track In Atlanta

Jamie Nieto Being Honored At Redondo Beach 4th Of July 5K, He Recently Took 200 Steps without A Walker High jumper was paralyzed from neck down while doing a back flip.

Sunday News Of Note

Gold Coast: Takuya Noguchi Runs 2-Minute PR To Win Gold Coast Marathon In 2:08:59 And Beat 43-Year-Old Mungara (2:09:04) And Kawauchi (2:09:18), Abebech Bekele Runs CR (2:25:34) Kawauchi was doing this race as training for next month’s World Champs.

Jarrion Lawson Ready For Long Jump And 4 X 100 At World Championships

USA Hosting News

Alan Abrahamson Celebrates That The 2020 Trials Are Coming To LA “Follow the logic. Eugene as the base but, you know, get it out of Eugene.”
Ken Goe Criticizes USATF For Announcing The 2020 Trials Decision The Day Before The First Summer Track Series Meet “
Register-Guard:“It’s Hard To Picture The Olympic Trials Anywhere But Eugene”
TV Analyst Dwight Stones Says Track Has Been A “Hard Sell For Track And Field” Talking about an adidas-sponsored meet held in the LA area he said, “It couldn’t draw flies.”
A Critical Review Of NBC’s Final Day Of Coverage At USAs Not surprisingly, there is much that can be improved.
The Oregonian’s Ken Goe Writes That He Doesn’t Think His Editors Would Let Him Publish A Story Like The BBC’s FBI/Eugene Allegations Without Indicating A Source The IAAF, USATF/TrackTown officials all say they haven’t heard anything about an investigation.

Distance News

Recommended Read:Ed Caesar: “The Epic Untold Story Of Nike’s (Almost) Perfect Marathon From the special shoe development which started in 2014 all the way through Eliud Kipchoge‘s near miss, Caesar tells the inside story behind the Breaking2 project. A great read with lots of interesting insights like the fact that Kipchoge couldn’t sleep the night before the attempt he was so nervous and that the shoe designers joked that it would be “great” if their shoes were banned – “Just by opening an orange box you have an advantage? That’s the holy grail.”
Mo Farah Admits He Still Has “A Lot More Work” To Do To Be Prepared To Defend His World Titles In London Farah said Ostrava was “OK, but not great” and showed he’s a bit rusty.
European Indoor 1,500 Champ Marcin Lewandowski Gives Shares His Tips For Sport And Life “Unless you are David Rudisha you need to see what is happening during a race. You need to be smart, you need to think during a race and be alive to the tactical variables.”
Trailer For New Boston Marathon Bombing Movie Starring Jake Gyllenhaal Is Out You might be thinking to yourself, “Didn’t this already come out?” Well, that’s because there were two other Boston movies out earlier this year (the movie “Patriot’s Day” starring Mark Wahlberg and “Boston: The Documentary” narrated by Matt Damon).
Gabriele Grunewald Launches Her Own Website