It's Bolt Eve... Berlin Day 1 Startlists... Updated News Below

"What I tell Maggie is always the same thing: 'It doesn't matter what the race is. I want you to focus on process. Not outcome. Just think process. And just do your very best.' The beauty of our sport is if we do our very best, you cannot be unhappy. Too many people have unrealistic goals. I know people that could go out and run a PR but because their PR was higher than that or to beat someone, they would actually be crushed. Not me. All you have to do is ask yourself one question. Did I do my very best? And that's what I want her to do."

- Greg Brock, coach of the sensation of the 2009 season for US distance fans, Maggie Vessey, talking about the importance of focusing on the process just after revealing to LetsRun.com what Vessey's personal goal for world's is. Read the article and find out lots of details about Vessey including her goal for Berlin, her secret "Connector" workout and more.

LRC Exclusive With Greg Brock: Part 2: Brock Explains His Key 'Connector' Workout, Talks About What His Goals For Vessey In Europe Were and Now What Her Goals For Berlin Are LetsRun.com caught up with Greg Brock, the coach behind the #1 story in US distance running in 2009, Maggie Vessey. Brock, a former 5th placer at the US Olympic Marathon Trials and longtime HS coach, didn't hold anything back as he shares all including key workouts and even the last workout Vessey will do prior to Berlin. Brock may be the one man in America not totally stunned by Vessey's season as in his mind, it's long overdue in some ways as he always expected Vessey to be an 800 meter star. What Brock said may surprise you but his insight is very educational and this is an absolute must read for coaches and/or true students of the sport. Part 2 of 2 appears today.

LRC: Event-By-Event World Championships Previews The best previews you'll find ... because we heart our readers.
LRC:
Worlds Events By Day Get an idea of the schedule of Worlds and don't miss your favorite events. We've got all our event previews here as well as television and internet coverage schedules.

*Recommended Reads: NY Times' Liz Robbins Interviews Ryan Hall We feel like we recommend every Ryan Hall article, but seriously this one is good, too.
*Inspiring:Ross Dammann's Wife (Sophia Hawker is her maiden name) Kicked His Butt Into Gear And He's Enjoying Running More Than Ever Really good read if you're needing your own kick in the butt.
*More On Hall: *LRC Exciting Fields Set For Sunday's NYC Half Marathon Give our mini-preview a read ... NYC half has some fascinating fields.
NYC Half Marathon Invited Athletes
*Radcliffe To Run NYC Half Marathon This Weekend, Then Decide On Worlds All eyes will be on New York this Sunday as Ryan Hall will be racing and Radcliffe will test out the wheels before Berlin.

Nuts And Bolts
FLORA London Officials Given Control Of 2012 Olympic Marathon Organization
Hey, sounds like a small thing but it's good to know the Oly marathon is in good hands.

Athlete Chatter

*Lindsey Anderson Gets Second Shot In Steeple With Willard Only Running 1500
*Kenyan Steeple Giants Kemboi And Kipsiele Koech Bury Hatchet And Get Down To Business On Sunday The steeple final is going to be fascinating with Koech involved. His teammates will not be happy if he wins.
*Kenyans Smart, Understand Importance Of Weather: "The Weather Here Suits Us, Like Kenya"

Bolt, Jamaica, Chambers And Scientists Getting Ready For Berlin

"The World Championships, that is our baby. We take care of our baby, ..." - IAAF's Pierre Weiss talking about "suggesting" to the JAAA that they let their own stars compete.
*Coach Mills On Bolt: "I'm confident that he will emulate what he did in Beijing." The most interesting quote is Mills' statement that the Berlin track likely isn't as fast as the super-fast Beijing track.
*Bolt Says Jamaican Sprint Team Not Worried About Controversy Bolt's not worried about anything ... at least not that he'll admit.
*Huge Project Studying Biomechanics To Be In Place In Berlin We know some coaches who started drooling while reading that headline.
Dwain Chambers With Some Hilarious Quotes On Usain Bolt Scaring His Competitors "His (Usain Bolt's) antics automatically sent everyone into fear in Beijing. It's a message like one of those deers that prances up and down to show how elegant they are. The rest thought they were running for second place, but Bolt didn't even think he was going to win. It's about putting fear into people. I wanted to make people quiver in their boots. Muhammad Ali did it. You need a poker face. I learnt that from watching Roger Federer - you can tell he was mad as hell but he never shows it." - Dwain Chambers, who got a lot funnier since having his life turned upside down thanks to using PEDs.

Men's 400m Showdown Highly Anticipated
Merritt/Wariner Article Shows Former Champ Hungry To Get His Top Ranking Back
Betting Odds Give Big Nod To Merritt *LRC Gives Nod To ...

USA Today Sports Cover Story: World's Fastest Humans Gay And Bolt On Collision Course The most anticipated 100m in a long time starts Saturday and ends Sunday and USA Today (thanks to Dick Patrick) once again proves it covers track way better than just about any other major paper. *USA Today Also Has Feature On Jeff Demps - The US junior record holder at 100m seems focused on football and is hoping for a big 1,000-yard season.

IAAF Announces Over 1,000 Tests Will Be Done At Worlds As Victor Conte would say, this is an enormous waste of money unless you're testing the athletes randomly year round, saving the samples, and using the most advanced tests. In 2007, they did 1,000 tests and zero athletes came up positive. The good news is they'll be saving and documenting the samples to start "biological passports" for the world's elite.

Non-Worlds Stuff You Shouldn't Miss

*Study Shows Running May Actually Help Knees "No major new internal damage in the knee joints of marathon runners was found after a 10-year interval." Despite studies showing running benefits knees, our Grandfather still wants us to quit running.
*97-55 Vote ... False Start Rule Changed! Starting in 2010, the IAAF false start rule will match the NCAA rule. Many more sprinters are going to be tossed out of races. Poll: how long until the rule is changed again: a) never b) by 2011 c) as soon as Usain Bolt gets tossed from a big meet

*Ryan Hall To Run ING Philadelphia Half On September 20th NYC Half on August 16, Philly Half on Sept. 20 and then he'll run New York in October.
*Tilahun Regassa Thread Read more about this young Ethiopian star who has risen from no-hope orphan to running phenom in just a few years More: *2:00 Video Of Regassa's Falmouth Beatdown

Interview With Canadian 10k Champ Turned Team Physiologist Scott Simpson

LRC: Spring/Summer Pro Meet Coverage We've had by far our best year of covering the professional track circuit with full recaps of most of the top pro meets from around the world. If you missed any of the action, you can read about it on this page. Or look back for reminders of some of the wacky stuff that goes on during the season.

1st Set Of Provisional Entries For Berlin Are Out

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Net: Saturday Watch Worlds Live Here Starting at 4am and 11:45am Eastern
TV: 1 - 3 pm NBC
LRC: Worlds Events By Day

Injured Stars Testing Broken Bodies

*Hooker, Torn Adductor And All, Now 70% To Compete Update your picks. Is there a button for "70% likely to win?"
*Tirunesh Dibaba Still Possible For 5k Starting Mid-Week We don't see it happening. A fit Defar will smoke her anyway.

LRC $1,000,000 World Championships Prediction Contest The World Champs are here and now that we've got you covered with our detailed event by event previews, you can enter our world famous prediction contest. All you do is pick from our list the top 3 in each running event and a couple of field events. It's very easy and even if you don't know too much, we give you a guide on the competitors. You've got until Saturday early in the AM to get your first picks in.

Saturday Finals In Berlin: Men's Shot, Women's 10k, Heptathlon Day 1
LetsRun.com Day By Day Worlds Page
LRC Previews: M SP, W 10k, HEP
*French Press Reports: Dibaba Forfait!
*Parties In Nairobi? World's Fastest Couple Dibaba And Sihine OUT Of Berlin Actually, hold on a minute, Dibaba hasn't totally ruled out the 5k.
*Ennis Hoping To Put Pressure On Heptathlon Field All the pressure is on her from the Brit media.
*Great Video Of 1936 Olympic Shot Put Nothing will get you fired up to watch the shot put like this video and commentary.

We Know You're Tired Of Bolt vs. Gay But These Quotes Are Great

*Tyson Gay: Bolt Is Funny. I Am Boring Article says a lot about quiet underdog/undercard Tyson Gay. He's basically a supporting actor in a Broadway act called "Bolt!!!"
*Chicago Tribune's Phil Hersch Is In Berlin - Writes On Bolt & Gay 100m stars Saturday, ends Sunday.
*Idiocy: Wall Street Journal And Ato Boldon Talk Of US Sprinters Stinking It Up Our favorite article of the day talks about how bad the US sprint team is. Somewhere they must have missed the part where the US sprint team is undeniably the best in the world.

Women's 400m Intriguing To Say the Least

*Pretty Funny: Super Sanya Gets A Dancing Lesson From Usain Bolt During Practice In Berlin Sanya, known for coming up short under bright lights, got a lesson in relaxation from El Señor Bolte
*Interview With 2008 Olympic and 2007 World Champion Christine Ohuruogu Ohuruogu is one tough competitor. She hasn't done quack this year but don't count her out for a MAJOR upset.
*Ohuruogu Uncertain Of Fitness But Certain Of Confidence
*WACKY: Ohuruogu And Super Sanya In Same Opening Round Heat!

WC Opinion

*Miami Herald: For Many US Stars, Berlin Offers Chance At Redemption For Olympic Disappointment
*Steve Cram Reflects On World Championships Including His 1983 Win It's hard for some former athletes to write an article without mentioning their accomplishments somewhere in the text.
*Science Of Sport's 2nd Interview With Doping Researcher Worth a read.

NWR: Non-Worlds Related

*Len Johnson Comments On IAAF Decision To Axe World XC In Half World XC is going to be every other year, the evens.
*USATF Names Cal Poly SLO Coach Terry Crawford Head Of Coaching
*Golf And Rugby Up Next For Summer Olympics In 2012 And 2016 XC in the winter Olympics?

Exciting Distance News Related To Worlds

*Must-Read For LRC Prediction Contest: Bernard Lagat Talks About His Chances In Berlin Bernard definitively fires some warning shots across the bow saying nobody, no matter their age, is tougher than him. Before we put up the Greg Brock article, we had the following quote from Lagat as our QOD: "These are young guys and I am still out there thinking, 'If you are strong enough, come and beat me. I am tough, and if you are not tough enough you know you aren't going to beat Bernard Lagat.'"
*Encouraging Profile Of Kenyan Racewalker David Kimutai Kimutai's story is definitely an inspiring one. Kenya's best racewalker says he tries to convince young Kenyans to do the racewalk but they say it's way too hard on the body.
*Article On The Next Tall Australian 5k Stud Collis Birmingham Read quotes from Aussie coach Nic Bideau, former coach of the last great 5ker from down under - Craig Mottram, who has been injured.
*Interview With Aussie Ryan Gregson - Youngest 1,500m Starter In Berlin The Aussie distance team really rocks this year with young guys like Gregson, Jeff Riseley and Birmingham.

JAAA Is A Mess - But At Least The IAAF Has Some Sense

*IAAF Slaps Sense Into JAAA - Let Your Country's Stars Compete
*MVP Stars Check In - Will They Be Shunned Or Pardoned? Turns out the IAAF had enough of the stupid power games.
*Mike Hurst: Jamaica In Drugs Backflip Remember "The Clear"? The drug responsible for the 5 positives the Jamaicans have been so quick to dismiss as "Nothing Major" was designed by the same guy who designed BALCO's.
*Jamaica Decides To Let Their World Record Setters And Olympic Gold Winners Compete More like "IAAF Decides ..."

Olympics Day 14 - Athletics New Ethiopian Site Pronounces Tirunesh Dibaba And Sileshi Sihine "Doubtful" For Worlds Possible injuries for multi-time medalists ...

Selected LRC Previews
LRC:
Women's 800m Preview
Get our take on Maggie Vessey's chances against a fascinating field including Pamela Jelimo, the Russians, and Caster Semenya.

LRC:
Men's Shot Put Preview
The Men's Shot happens on the first day. The last call for Adam Nelson? Can American Big 4 take down Olympic champ Majewski?

LRC: Women's 1,500m Preview Anna Willard and Americans get a big opportunity for a medal.

Luz Long & Jesse Owens Showed In Berlin What Humanity (And Sports) Can Be The German Long died in the war, but not before he wrote a letter urging someone to introduce his son to Owens. His son and Owens' granddaughter will hand out medals in 2009.
Another Amazing Tale Of Jesse Owens

Usain Bolt Teaches Sanya Richards A New Celebratory Dance

 

Flashback: Kiprop And Webb Lead In '07 Osaka 1,500m

From Wisconsin To Worlds - Watch Solinsky, Teg And Jager Train And Sit Around In St. Moritz

Tilahun Regassa's Fun Run At Falmouth - The Next Superstar?

LetsRun.com's Week That Was We start off with news regarding the world's best milers (Alan Webb, Asbel Kiprop and German Fernandez's new rival), head to some Kenyan semantics and finish with a look at the drug fiasco currently unfolding in Jamaica. It's our last "Week That Was" before the World Championships, so enjoy it while you ponder Bolt vs. Gay and the rest of the upcoming WC rivalries.

Men's 800m Race From Osaka Worlds

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