IAAF Doha Super GP - What An Unreal Opening Meet!!! *Results

LRC Live Blog *Watch Meet On Demand At Universalsports.com *If you watch online, see this viewer's guide so you can fast-forward to your events.

IAAF Recap Of Sensational Meet That Produced 13 World Leads!
The 2009 pro season got underway in unbelivable fashion as the first big 1,500 of the year produced two times that surpassed the yearly lead from 2008 as Haron Keitany and Augustin Choge changed the lead 3 times in the last 10 meters. Keitany forgot to lean and Choge got the win. The men's 3k was unreal as 6 guys, including Saif Shaheen, ran sub-7:33 but the winner in dominating fashion in 7:28.37 was Olympic 5k silver medallist Eliud Kipchoge. And the men's 800 may have been even better as the dual between the 19-year-old sensations lived up to the hype. (Soon-to-be) Olympic 1,500m champ Asbel Kiprop ran 1:43.16 but LOST to Abubaker Kaki's wire-to-wire 1:43.09.  2004 Olympic champ Ezekiel Kemboi threw it down with a sub-8 steeple to start the year (sick). Plus Travis Padgett won the men's 100, Allyson Felix the women's 400, and more.
*More Post-Race Links: *After Opening With 7:58 Steeple, Kemboi Sets His Sights on Shaheen's 7:53 WR
*Vlasic Is Spectacular Yet Again
She had a good attempt at the WR
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Given His 1:43 Opener, Can Olympic 1,500 Champ Kiprop Get 1k World Record?
*Steph Twell Runs 4:11 in 1,500

Osaka GP Is Saturday: *Start Lists/Results
*Sprint Action To Be Big As Jeremy Wariner & Kerron Clement To Compete Clement will have his hands full with Kenji Narisako and Olympic bronze medallist David Neville will race against Wariner.
*AP Preview Of Osaka: Wariner Confident

USA Today Profile of Shelby Greany Who Just Set Girls National 2k Steeple Record
*LRC MB Thread: Greany Set 2k Steeple Record

Interesting Read British Columnist Rick Broadbent Is Depressed About Being Injured And He Takes His Wrath Out On The Classic "Chariots of Fire." After calling it "rubbish," he gives you his list of 10 running films.
*Meanwhile, Broadbent Gives Huge, Huge Props To Chris McDougal's New Book "Born To Run" Calling It A "Brilliant New Book."

World XC Champ Florence Kiplagat Oozes Class in 1,500 At Athletics Kenya Event We're not sure why the paper calls her win an "upset." Far from it.

Thanks To USATF's Support Next Year's California Relays Is Supposedly Going To Be The Best Meet in California In 20 To 25 Years Apparently the adidas Track Classic may be combined with this meet.

Cuban TJ, LJ, And Jav Start To Highlight Sunday's Brazlian Meet

Pre-Race Doha News
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Focus Is On Shaheen & Men's 3k In Doha
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Saif Shaheen: "I never got any money" to come to Qatar Not sure if we believe him, but the world record holder in the steeple says he switched allegience to Qatar from Kenya as it's a more open society.
*Shaheen Returns To Action Aiming To Return To Top Form
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Extensive IAAF Preview Of The First Major International Outdoor Meet Of 2009: Doha
*Double Olympic Jav Champ Andreas Thorkildsen Calls For Lifetime Bans For Drug Cheats
*Lots Of Carribean Medallists, Led By Kerron Stewart, Will Compete
*Allyson Felix Hoping To Remain Unbeaten In Doha - But She'll Have Her Hands Full The 400 also includes Beijing 400m silver medallist Shericka Williams and Worlds silver medallist Nicola Sanders.
*Heading Into Doha, 100m Bronze Medallist Lolo Jones Pleased With Season-Opening Form
She opened with a sub-13.00 for the 1st time at Kansas relays.

adidas Track Classic Is Next Weekend In LA: HSers Jordan Hasay And Reggie Wyatt To Run!

World Championship Marathon News: Paula And Kara To Run!

Kara Goucher Decides To Run Berlin WC Marathon Post-Boston word was Kara Goucher was going to try to start a family with husband Adam - keeping her out of running for a while - but this Track and Field News exclusive says she now plans otherwise.
Paula To Run Berlin WC Marathon Kara will have company as Paula Radcliffe will make her return from foot surgery to remove a bunion. Paula is really fired up about getting back to training and racing on a healthy body, even saying she can break her world record.
*Paula Says She Still Can Break Her World Record
*Radcliffe's Marathon Announcement All Over The British Press

Interesting Articles On Doping

*Good News, Bad News Heading Into the Giro d'Italia One of the contestants has already been booted but cycling fans seem to be excited about gradually ridding the sport of cheats.
*Long, Interesting Read On The Dilemma Caught Dopers Face
*USA Today On Freezing Blood Samples To Test Later Having your samples frozen to be tested later seems like a great deterrent and it's taking place more and more commonly.

Tergat Running Berlin Big 25 This Weekend

USA 25km Champs Are Coming Up May 9th's race in Michigan will feature a bunch of Team USA Minnesota runners.

Patrick Ivuti, Other Stud Marathoners To Battle In Prague Marathon Sunday

Big Meets Will Start Experimenting With Video Technology For The Horizontal Jumps

PAC 10 Schools Dealing With Falling Endowments - Slashing Staff And Programs

Athletes Still Pushing For Cross-Country In the Winter Olympics

New Book Born To Run That Bill Rodgers Calls "Nonstop Fun To Read" Is Out Today There is a book signing Tuesday night in NY and Thursday in Boston. It was written by LRC fan Chris McDougal. *MB Thread On Book Here

Oregon News

*Agent Ray Flynn, Part Of The World Record Irish 4 x Mile From 1985, Wishes The Ducks Luck
*Galen Rupp Focused On Not Only The 4 x Mile But Also Another Team NCAA Title
*Eugene's Register Guard On Matt Centro's Welcome At Practice And The Upcoming 4 x Mile

Remarkable Stories From This Weekend's Marathons In Pittsburgh And Cincinnati

*Cop Jumps In Moving Vehicle To Stop It From Plowing Over Marathon Runners
*Man Taken To The Hospital Near The End Of His Marathon Drives Back And Finishes

Top Performers Getting Notice

*USATF Follows Rojo In Naming Chris Derrick Their Athlete Of The Week Derrick was Rojo's collegiate athlete of the week while Tim Nelson was his performer of the meet with his 10k World "A" Standard Performance.
*LaShawn Merritt Is USA Today's Olympic Athlete Of The Week

Oregon News: 4 x Mile Record Attempt Is On *Live Video 8:30pm western

Can the Ducks get a 4xMile record? It's up the crowd.
*Lananna Is Fed Up Other Teams Won't Show But Ducks Will Run Lananna: "It’s a go. We’re going for it. I don't care. I’m fed up with all this jerking around." Salazar's Nike Portland group isn't showing. Centrowitz seemingly predicts a 16-flat while Wheating's math ads up to 15:45.
*Ron Bellamy: "Now is not the time for Track Town to rest on its laurels."
Pac 10 Multi Event Starts Saturday
*Oregon's Heptathletes Are Poised To Challenge For The PAC 10 Throne
*Oregon's Ashton Eaton Is Rapidly Becoming The U.S.'s Best Young Decathlete
*YahooSports Does Fairly Long Profile of Jordan Hasay

25km Races
*US 25k Champs Are Saturday
*Paul Tergat Slips & Falls & Has To Pull Out of Sunday's BIG 25 Road Race in Berlin He'll be replaced by world marathon champ Luke Kibet.

Japanese WChamps Marathon Goals: "One medal and two-other top 8 finishes."

USAIN BOLT NEWS

Bolt Back in Training Reports "Slight Discomfort" After 10 Minutes Of Wind Sprints
*Usain Bolt's 150m Street Race Participation Next Week Is Up in Air He'll be there for sure, whether he runs is touch and go.
*Jamaican Column: Bolt "is ideal to model Louis Vuitton menswear, pink shirts, Calvin Klein boxers and Gillette." Scroll down to see this guy's future plans for Bolt off the track.
*Chambers Reiterates: "It's All About Project Bolt." Nice to see cnn giving track some love with story and video interview.

Shannon Rowbury, David Torrence Win US Medtronic Road Miles 4:00 for Torrence got him $14,000 as they rounded up his time but gave him the $10k sub-4 bonus. Somehow Rowbury didn't break 4:28 (4:34), so no 10k for her. Race videos on the right of our homepage with more coverage at Flotrack.

Meet HS Decathlon Record Holder Curtis Beach The guy is an freak in that he comes to the decathlon from a mid-d background. He almost ran at NTN last fall. USA Today made a big deal of the fact that he's going to Duke. "In the end, it was a clear first choice even though on the surface it looks terrible because historically they haven't been a great track program."

Recommended Read: Universal Sports: Talking Worlds With Kara Goucher Goucher talks about her decision not to run London, wanting a "do-over for Boston," and her decision to put off starting her family life for another 4 months. Goucher: "My initial reaction was that I wanted a do-over for Boston, basically. I had to make sure I was making this choice not as a do-over because that was the wrong reason to do it. I started to think about running a championship marathon, which is very different than New York or Boston, going to run a flat course, and going to represent the U.S., which is something I love to do."

A Brief Chat With Chanelle Price The OT finalist as a HSer seems ready to go after a rocky start (stress fracture) to college.

Japanese Marathon WChamp Team Announced Their best medal hope is Atsushi Sato, who finished DFL at the Olympics but ahead of Ritz & Meb in London.

Sprint News

*Usain Bolt To Put On Spikes On Friday For 1st Time Since Accident - Manchester Street Race People Are Optimistic He Can Compete Next Week
*Michael Johnson: Bolt Will Find This Season Much Harder We agree. Getting to the top is the easy part. Staying there is tough.
*Marlon Devonish Back In Street Race For some idiot reason, he pulled out last week to focus on the track. A 10.11 guy should relish the opportunity to get paid and race Bolt in such a fun environment.
*Veronica Campbell-Brown To Doug Logan: Show Me The Money Money will be a big factor if US vs. Jamaica takes place.
*Robles Has Been Training In Ecuador
*Liu Xiang To Travel To Quake Region & "Run" For Students

2009's First Sub-27:00s Happened In Japan

*Ken Nakamura's Recap Of A Record-Setting Meet In Japan
*More On The Shizuoka International Meet Where 2 Kenyans Broke 27:00 - From Brett Larner

Interesting Marathon News

*Recommended Read:  A Brief Chat With Pittsburgh Marathon Champion Kristin Price
*Great Story: Eugene Marathon Champion Brought A Buddy To Rabbit And He Ran 2:18
*Professor In Korea Who Offered Improved Grades To Students Who Ran Marathon Sued Successfully For $40Gs After One Student Dies This goes under the header: "We couldn't make this one up."

Brits Rejoice While Kiwis ... Olympic Champion Valerie Vili Considering Switching Nationalities To Great Britain Her father is British. Funds seem to be the main issue ... it's sad an Olympic champion has this problem.

The Daily Bolt Report

*Toronto Meet Organizers Paying Big For Bolt, Banking On Him Being Healthy And Ready To Compete
*Bolt To Resume Training This Week

Lots Of Female Athletes In The News

*Star Heptathlete Dobrynskya On Her Preparations For The Outdoor Season
*Olympic Silver Winner Kerron Stewart Running Well After Improving Her Start

Remarkable Quotes From May 6, 2009

1. "We won three golds in 2008, but the funding still isn't that flash." - Valerie Vili, who is considering switching her allegiance to Great Britain to secure more funding.

2. "We just decided it was what I needed for my professional career. So I submitted my name to USATF and I have been selected so I'm doing it. I'm going to run the marathon in Berlin." - Kara Goucher, who will be running Berlin.

3. "I remember going to Font-Romeu for the first time and it opened my eyes to how hard athletes from other countries were working. You train in a group and you have that support network. We definitely need to do more of it. We have to build up the squad system." - Paula Radcliffe, who also says she can break her world record still.

4. "You know what? I don't know. I think any place can be [a good place to train]. Everybody talks about how 'you need to go to altitude, you need to go here, you need to go there,' and quite personally, I think it's where you're comfortable at. I feel really comfortable here in my job. Everyone at work and my boss is so supportive of my running. We have a nice national forest to run in, with trails and softer surfaces. There are sidewalks to run on. I mean, I can't complain. The weather I love, 'cause I like the warm weather. It's ideal for me, maybe not for someone else." - Kristin Price, winner of the Pittsburgh Marathon this weekend, in a great interview with Runner's World.

5. “Your endurance gets stronger as you get older. Maybe you need an extra day’s recovery in between hard sessions but I think mental toughness and maturity comes to the fore a bit, and your heart’s more in it.” - Paula Radcliffe on the same day she announced she will run the Berlin World Championships marathon.

Conference Action Coming This Weekend

*Heps Hepstrack.com is Certainly The Best Conference Website in The Country.
*PSAC Outdoor Championships
*More Here

USATF Medtronic Road Mile David Torrence Wins $14,000

Shannon Rowbury Wins USATF Road Mile