2018 Rabat DL Is Friday (3-5 PM ET) *Schedule, Entries & Results *TV & Streaming

LRC 2018 Rabat DL Preview: Lyles Vs. Baker Vs. Coleman In The Best 100 Of The Year; Centro & Chelimo Take Aim At First Career DL Victories The Rabat DL looks fantastic on paper. The men’s 100 is the best of the year and in the distances Matthew Centrowitz (1,500) and Paul Chelimo (3,000) both have realistic shots at their first career Diamond League victories, while Molly Huddle returns for her first Diamond League in almost a year as she runs the 5,000 against a field that includes Genzebe Dibaba and world champ Hellen Obiri. There’s also a world record attempt by Caster Semenya in the 1,000m.

Wednesday’s Pro Results / News Of Note

• 2018 Barcelona Results: American Isaiah Harris Picked Up His First Pro Win In 1:46.11 Lots of Americans were in the 1,500 as Prakel/Gregorek/Engels ran 3:37 and Drew Hunter 3:38. In the women’s 1,500, Ciara Mageean won in 4:04.13 with Marta Freitas second in a 4:04.54 PR with Americans Sara Vaughn 4th (4:05.88 SB) and Cory McGee 5th (4:06.28 PR).
• 2018 Lignano Results: Elinor Purrier PRs Again (4:07.79) As Neil Gourley Runs Massive 3+ Second PR Of 3:36.54 The other big news was Emmanuel Korir remained undefeated on the year thanks to his 44.52 meet record in the 400.
• World Half Bronze Medalist Pauline Kamulu Laps Entire Filed, Runs 30:41.85 World Lead In Japan The South Korean women’s record also fell in the race as Seul Ki Ahn ran 32:33.61.
• Interesting Read To Say The Least: Tianna Bartoletta Goes On An Epic Rant On Her Blog About Feeling Underappreciated And Undercompensated Along the way, she wonders if the huge money people like Sydney M will be getting will result in them having short careers. We don’t think so.
• CU’s Erin Clark, Utah’s Grayson Murphy And UNM’s Alice Wright Join HOKA ONE ONE NAZ Elite Colorado’s Erin Clark, Utah’s Grayson Murphy and New Mexico’s Alice Wright are all headed to Flagstaff.
• Updated Hayward Field Design IS Released (Pics) The North end is now at the street level to prevent the wind from swirling. Plus the tower has been moved.
• Track And Field News Examines What Makes Keturah Orji So Good – Talent And The Fact That She’s A Student Of The Sport
• First-Ever TCS New York City Marathon – Virtual 26.2M And 5K Launches As Part Of New York Road Runners Virtual Racing Series  For $100, you get the right to run a fake NYC Marathon (and get entry into the 2019 race).

The Inaugural Athletics World Cup Is Saturday / Sunday

• MB: Are Athletics World Cup organizers desperately hoping for an England loss today in World Cup? 
• Lots Of 2018 NCAA All-Americans And NCAA Champs Will Get 1st Big Pro Experience At Athletics World Cup The US team has 16 athletes who competed in the NCAA in 2018 on it from Maggie Ewen to Cameron Burrell to Rudy Winkler. Lots more are competing for other countries.
• Athletics World Cup Organizers Not Worried By Lack Of Stars And Ticket Fears They should be worried. With no Noah Lyles, Laura Muir, Zharnel Hughes, Justin Gatlin and with it coming on the same day as the World Cup and Wimbledon finals and between two DL meets, we’ll be amazed if this is a success. Here’s our solution – hold a Worlds every year.
• Reuters: Here’s A List Of Who Is Skipping Athletics World Cup From Renaud Lavillenie to Dina Asher-Smith, no event group seems immune.
• Thompson, Fraser-Pryce On Jamaica’s Team For Athletics World Cup
• Athletics World Cup Platinum Trophy Unveiled In London Unfortunately, the top sprint stars want cash, not a trophy.
• The Sprints At The Athletics World Cup Will Be Watered Down As The Men’s 100 In Rabat On Friday Is Loaded Noah Lyles, Ronnie Baker, Mike Rodgers and Christian Coleman will all run the 100m.

Pre-World Junior News

• Is Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo The Favorite For 10,000m Gold? Uganda’s paper thinks so but we think its Rhonex Kipruto of Kenya.
• Nigeria Fails To Get Visas – Its Entire Team Won’t Compete At World Juniors The team only included 3 athletes but did include the #3 seed in the 100, Joy Udo-Gabriel (11.42).
• Former World Champ Steve Cram Says “Brilliant” Teenager Jake Heyward Has Every Chance Of Success Heyward has made the 1,500 final.
• Kenyans, The Most Successful Country Ever At World Juniors (Thanks In Part To Age Cheating), Are Ready For World Juniors
• USATF Preview Of World Juniors
• Athletics Weekly’s Preview Of U20 Champs From A British Perspective
• Seven Jamaicans In Action On Day 1 Of World U20 Championships
• The Latest From The World U20 Championships In Tampere – Watch The Press Conference Live Or On Demand Here

2018 Canadian Champs *Free Stream *Schedule / Results

• Aaron Brown Completes 100/200 Double With 20.17 Win As De Grasse Pulls Up With Hamstring Issue In the semis, De Grasse was rolling before pulling up. “I’m not too sure what happened, I think it was just a cramp hopefully … I felt like I was about to run a fast time.”
• Andre De Grasse (10.20) Only 3rd In Canadian Champs 100m The announcers initially said Bismark Boateng was the winner in 10.16 but after several minutes Aaron Brown got the win in 10.16.
• Pre-Race: Canada’s Trivalry: Who Will End Up As Canada’s Fastest Man – Andre De Grasse, Gavin Smellie Or Aaron Brown?
• Mo Ahmed Defeats NCAA Champs Justyn Knight And Ben Flanagan For Canadian 5,000 Title The race was very tactical (14:36) just like the steeplechases and women’s 5,000 as shown below.
• Matt Hughes, Who Had The Best Seed Time By 27 Seconds, Wins Canadian Steeple Title In 8:54
• Genevieve Lalonde Wins Canadian Steeple Title In 9:49 UNM’s Charlotte Prouse, the NCAA 2nd placer, was third.
• Andrea Seccafien Wins Canadian 5,000 Title In 16:05
• NCAA Heptathlon Champ Georgia Ellenwood Of Wisco Wins Canadian Heptathlon Title
• Meet Preview
• Melissa Bishop Has Given Birth To A Baby Girl Named Corrine Chidera 
• More Canada News: MB: Cross-Canada record attempt, 7200K – 66 days. Current record by Al Howie 72 days 

Links A Human, Not An Algorithm, Found Interesting

• Semenya And Her Coach Samual Sepeng Are Both Upbeat After Her Lausanne Loss Both were happy Semenya went with the hot pace. “I’ve never chased someone like that in my whole life,” said Semenya. “I am quite amazed I could hang on till 1,300m – if I die at the last 200m it is nothing, it is something I can work on.”
• Top Pros Like Kamworor, Bekele, Kipchoge Reveal What They Dreamed About When They Last Dreamed About Running Bekele’s involved being with Donald Trump.
• Kendell Williams Picks Up First Pro Win In LJ At Klaverblad Arena Games (21 Feet (6.40m)) The 7-time NCAA champ isn’t doing the multi this year and is instead focusing on the LJ and 100H.
• Recommended Read The Brooks Beasts’ Hannah Fields Reveals She’s Been Getting Treatment For An Eating Disorder For The Last 12 Weeks Fields, who ran a PR of 4:05 for 1,500 last year, has spent up to 50 hours a week in a treatment center in Seattle.
• The Bahamas Govt. Pulls Support For World Relays, Which Are Now Looking For A New Home – Would Jamaica Make Sense?
  *MB: How could this possibly be true? Published report says Bahamas govt spent $21 million on World Relays
• Citius Podcast: The Third Time Was The Charm: Jim Walmsley Talks About Winning Western States After Two DNFs
• Katerina Stefanidi Donates Kit She Won Olympic Gold In To The New IAAF Heritage Collection
• Rai Benjamin And Michael Norman Call It A Season
• Matt Sparks Promoted To Irish Head Track And Field And Cross-Country Coach

Interesting Reads

• Brett Larner: What Countries Have Had The Best 1st Half Of 2018 In The Marathon Answer: Ethiopia is #1 for both the men and women.
  *MB: Go figure: US women’s top 10 average marathon times for 2018 trails North Korea
• Not April FoolsA Look At The Rise Of 3 World-Class Chinese Sprinters Two of them are training in Holland with Rana Reider.
  *South China Morning Post: Are American Coaches, Not Drugs, The Reason Why China Is So Good At Sprinting Now?
• Sam Kendricks’ Sportsmanship Earns NY Times Profile: “In Pole Vault, Sam Kendricks Is a Team Player” “They probably thought I seemed a little strange. I really pushed on these other guys that I wanted to be their friend and help them,” Kendricks said. “I had an undefeated season last year, but what good is victory if you can’t share it?”