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LRC The Week That Was This week, celebrate the fact that the near 13-year-old wait for a 1:41 is over, as is the eternal wait for a white man to break 10-flat. We also tell you how Leo Manzano improved by 16 seconds in a week in the mile, we take a trip down memory lane and remember when Galen Rupp outkicked Chris Solinsky to win a 5k in 13:30 and then ponder what Rupp will run in the marathon now that he has his mentor Alberto Salazar beat at both 5k and 10k, we take a look at Alysia Johnson's first big European win and we rip Caremelita Jeter and praise Tyson Gay/rip Asafa Powell.

Feds Circling In On Lance Armstrong Even If Media Outlets Don't Agree Exactly How

• NY Daily News: Subpoena For Documents But Not Witnesseses Issued By Federal Grand Jury
• NY Times: Grand Jury Subpoenas To Witnesses Have Been Released

European News

• Russian Championships Are Underway In Hot Weather Surprisingly, Yuriy Borzakovskiy has never won an outdoor European 800m title.
• Russian Team Will Be Strong For Euros
• Will Any World Records Fall In Barcelona? It doesn't seem likely, but the European Championships do have a history of WRs.
• Carolina Kluft Back From Injuries And Ready For Barcelona
• Ohuruogu Virtually Writing Off 2010 After Injury In Order To Be Fully Ready For 2011 Worlds
• London Learns Lessons Well From Pitfalls Encountered By Previous Olympic Hosts

Study Finds Belly Buttons Are the Key To Different Races' Geographic Regions' Success In Various Sports Like they say, 97% of all statistics ... *2nd Story On Belly Buttons

Kim Smith Prepping For NYC Marathon Instead Of Commonwealth Games

More Action We Didn't Cover Monday

France: Christophe Lemaitre Follows Up 9.98 With 20.16 200m

Brasschat: Results: Molly Huddle 4:09 1500m Win, Jeff See 3:40 Win, Shannon Rowbury 2:03 800m Chris Solinsky remains the world leader at 10k as the 10k was won in 27:30.

USATF Club Champs: Recap

Random News

• Texas A&M's Curtis Mitchell Contemplating Turning Pro After His 19.99 This Past Weekend
• USA Track & Field Announces Men's 8 km Championship to Be in Carmel, IN in 2010 $20k in prize money is all it takes to get a national championship in our sport.
• Jenny Meadows Says She Can't Beat Caster Semenya If Semenya is Healthy
• Sexual Abuse Claims Against a Prominent Athletics Coach in Ireland Coach and athlete are unnamed.

NACAC U-23 Championships *Full Results

UC Irvine Sophomore Charles Jock Runs 1:45.65 To Win By 2-Plus Seconds Jock is the guy who ran a 1:46.17 in the semis at NCAAs but somehow didn't make the final. Since then, he made the USA final and now is a 1:45 man. In additional action, other collegians put up some big marks. Highlights included a 19.99 200m semi (and a 20.06w win in the finals) from Curtis Mitchell, a winning 12.98w from Ronnie Ash and a 17.42m (57-2) shot put win for Oklahoma freshman Karen Shump. On The Boards: CHARLES JOCK 1:45.6 AS COLLEGE SOPHOMORE!

Boilermaker *Results and Prize Money

Both Course Records Fall at Boilermaker 19 year old Ethiopian Lelisa Desisa (a 59:59 half guy new to the scene, he also won at Bolder Boulder,  and Ottawa 10k) got the men's record, and Edna Kiplagat (LA Marathon winner in 2:25) got Catherine Ndereba's women's record. Each picked up $7000 for their wins.

LRC 2010 KBC Nacht Recap: David Rudisha Runs 1:41.51 To Become 2nd-Fastest 800 Man In History!!! The Kenyan blitzed a 1:41.51 in the Belgium on Saturday night to become the fourth under the 1:42 barrier. You can watch the race video in our recap. In mid-d and distance action, Erin Donohue PRed in the 1,500 (4:03.91) as AJ Acosta backed up his 3:53 mile with a 3:36 1,500 and beat Lopez Lomong in the process. Plus, Tim Nelson ran well in the 5k (13:20) as Brian Olinger struggled in the steeple and Craig Mottram ran 13:36.
*Video Of Rudisha's 1:41.51 *Rudisha's Comments after Race
Discuss: 1'41.51 !!!!!!!!!!!
*Mottram On His Comeback

First White Man Breaks 10.00 France's Christophe Lemaitre became the first white man to break 10.00 as the lanky 20-year-old ran 9.98 on Thursday. We've got to give Reuters credit for mentioning his race in their headline. *Reuters Article *LRC MB: Lemaitre 9.98 *Full Speed Race Video Here *Funny Slo-Mo Video Here

Recommended Read: Great Article On Ron Warhurst's Vietnam Service

Just As Was Predicted A Few Days Ago On LRC
War Hero Ron Warhurst Retires After 36 Years At Michigan Ron had a great amount of success during his career and is probably known best for his engaging personality and for leading two white guys to Olympic medals in Brian Diemer (steeple bronze 1984) and Nick Willis (1,500 silver 2008). *2nd Message Board Thread On Ron's Retirement Here

LRC The Week In Review Report Cards For The Americans At Pre This week, instead of recapping the winners and losers from the week as a whole, we focus on one thing exclusively - the 2010 Pre Classic. And given the fact that we have been swept over by World Cup fever, we have gone ahead and given every single American participant in a mid-d or distance event a letter grade for their performance, much like soccer websites rate players on a 0-to-10 scale after a match. Agents, parents and pros, no whining. We're not trying to be rude, we're just trying to make the sport interesting.

News From Australia

• Ryan Gregson Blogs About Pre Classic B Mile Victory
• At Age Of 19, 1:47.0/3:40.8 Runner James Kaan On Comeback Trail He's run those times despite losing a huge chunk of time to have surgery to have his spleen removed.

Pre Classic *Complete Results *LRC Prediction Contest Scores *LRC  Photos *More Photos Here and Here *Videos/Recap *LRC Recap

LRC Prefontaine Recap: Wheating 3:51!!! (Wright 1:58!!!) updated
The Pre Classic was full of great performances across the board, as the meet featured an American record by David Oliver (12.90) and the first sub-13:00 on US soil, but 2010 NCAA champs Andrew Wheating and Phoebe Wright had the performances of the day at Pre from an LRC perspective. Wheating moved up throughout the Bowerman mile to get 5th in 3:51, beating all of the 2008 US Olympians in the process. Wright beat all of America's top 800 runners and skipped the 1:59s entirely as she was fourth in 1:58.22. Despite producing the first sub-13:00 on US soil, the men's 5,000 didn't live up to the hype (just as we predicted), as Chris Solinsky was well beaten in 13:08 and Matt Tegenkamp ran 13:25. Abubaker Kaki's WR attempt in the men's 1k came up short but he did get a world leader, while Nick Symmonds became #5 all-time in the US with a 2:16.35 3rd-place finish. In the "B" mile, Ryan Gregson and AJ Acosta ran 3:53 as Galen Rupp struggled with a 3:57.72. In the women's 5k, Shalane Flanagan ran 14:49.

LRC Event-By-Event Recaps With Video

Liege Belgium Meet *Full Results

• Message Board: Erin Donohue 1:59.99 Donohue claimed victory with the barrier-breaking PR.
• Alistair Cragg Runs 7:44 As Lopez Lomong DNFs In 3,000.

Caster Semenya Update

• Semenya To Compete In Low-Key Meet In Finland On Thursday The world champ recently recorded lackluster 1:35 times in a couple of 600s in practice, but will line up against a 2:03 800m runner nonetheless.
• Athletics South Africa Pledges To Help Semenya Get Ready For Commonwealth Games
• ISTAF Hoping To Land Semenya For 2011 Meet

Paris/Bolt News (Paris is Friday) *Tentative Start Lists (Check out the Clash of Titans Video Promo of the meet on the right)

Dayron Robles Withdraws From Paris Meet With Sore Legs Maybe he didn't want to get beat by David Oliver.

Bolt Confident He Will Get World-Leading 100m Time In Paris Showdown With Powell This is a former Golden League meet so you know it is top tier.  Andrew Wheating's European debut in the 800m vs KD, Nick Symmonds, and Kaki. Plus all 3 American female finalists at 1500m from worlds last year, plus Molly Huddle in 5k, Jeremy Wariner, Allyson Felix.

UK Sports Minister Proposes Tax Waiver To Get Bolt To Compete Anything to bring a Bolt-Gay-Powell clash to Crystal Palace. The ridiculous British tax code might mean that he'd have to pay Britain to compete at Crystal Palace. *Usain Bolt Tax Issue Gets Mention In NY Times

Previous:
Bolt Ready for Showdown With Asafa Powell on Friday

Britain's Stupid Tax Laws Cost Them Usain Bolt: He Pulls Out of Matchup Versus Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay
Britain tries to tax endorsement income from athletes in addition to appearance fees. So Bolt could lose money while racing in London if the UK tries to tax say 1/8th of his endorsement income.
*Bolt to Get $250,000 to Run in Paris This Friday

Usain Bolt Heading to Australia in September to Party, Enjoy the Australian Women, DJ, Oversee a Race Between Footballers, & See a Kangaroo Plus he may get $1,000,000 from Gatorade regardless if he races the footballers. The dude likes to party. At Worlds, last year, we left a party where Bolt was DJ'ing and dancing with Asafa Powell with his shirt off at 3 am. Not sure if we posted this last year, but video of Bolt-Powell dancing here.

Random/Unimportant News

• Two Ducks Are Bowerman Award Finalists Andrew Wheating and Aston Eaton join ASU's Ryan Whiting as men's finalists.
• Haile G To Make Great North Run Debut In September

Good Idea

Pat Butcher: Should Saudi Arabia Be Barred From the Olympics Until they Permit Women to Compete? We think it's a good idea. Fortunately, much of the world was outraged when South Africa treated non-whites like crap 20 years ago. Somehow however, 20 years later it's ok to treat women as second class citizens.

Diamond League #8 (Of 14) Was Saturday - Gateshead  - *Results *Live Gateshead Thread *New LRC Photos *More Photos

LRC Recap Gay Over Powell, Alysia Johnson Wins 800, Manzano Nipped By Kiprop Gateshead featured the first showdown between any of the big 3 in the sprinting world and the matchup did not disappoint, as Tyson Gay got a come-from-behind win. In the distance races, the Americans did well. Alysia Johnson won the 800 convincingly over a 1:58.4 runner and Leo Manzano, who last week lost to Asbel Kiprop by over 100m, was battling with him for the win. Ben Bruce set a PR, as did Galen Rupp (13:10) and Mo Farah. And we want to remind you a Brit ran 13:00 28 years ago.

More: Rusty Tyson Gay Defeats Asafa Powell Guardian
*New LRC Photos

Looking Back At Gateshead/Heusden

• Athletics Weekly Brief Recap Of Rushida's 1:41 His unofficial splits were 49.65 at 400 and 1:14.4 at 600.
• Idowu Winning Again After Consecutive Losses The world champion is back on track for European Champs.
• Friedrich Back From Injury - Jumps 2.02m In Heusden
• British Take On Gateshead Meet WC medalists Phillips Idowu (gold) and Lisa Dobriskey (silver) came out with victories, but Charles van Commenee says the team as a whole needs to step it up for Euro Champs.

Sadly, No One In The US Will Notice

Legend Allen Johnson Retires One of our favorites.
On The Boards: Thank You Allen Johnson

Diamond League #7 (Of 14) - Athletissima Lausanne - *Results *Lausanne Photos

LRC #1: Lausanne Recap: World Leaders All Over The Place
LRC #2: Dan Huling Impresses With Steeple PR As He Moves Up To #5 All-Time In US As Uceny Joins Top 10 In 1,500
The big news in Lausanne was the return to action for Usain Bolt in 2010 from an Achilles injury, and he ran a world-leading 9.82. Up next is a confrontation with Asafa Powell in Paris (Powell has run 9.82 unaided as well this year but also 9.71, 9.75, 9.81 wind-aided and 9.83 into the wind). However, we know the LRC faithful are most interested in the mid-d and distance action and we break down every race for you, including inspired runs by Morgan Uceny and Dan Huling, who now are both in the US top 10 all-time, as Uceny is #10 and Huling now #5.

In American distance news, steepler Dan Huling continued his steady improvement with an 8:13.29 PR (#5 all-time US - he ran 8:14.69 last year) for 4th and former Cornellian Morgan Uceny ran a 4:02.40 PR (#10 all-time US) ahead of last year's sub-four runner Christin Wurth Thomas. The distance race of the evening may have been the men's 800, as David Rudisha won again, turning back Olympic champ Mbulaeni Mulaudzi and 2007 World champ Alfred Yego, as all 3 went 1:43. Walter Dix went sub-20 in the 200, Bershawn Jackson won the 400m hurldes, Brittney Reese won the long jump and Debbie Dunn had another sub-50 clocking in the 400.

More Brief AP Recap: Vuvuzelas come to track and field and Bolt on showdown with Powell: "It's going to be something big."

On The Boards: Dan Huling 8:13 PB!
*BOLT ...just another 9.82
*BURKA 3:59.28 .... UCENY 4:02.40 (PR)
*Lausanne 1500m KEMBOI 3:31.52 World lead!

We Agree - Go Pound A Double Shot
British Researchers: Coffee Really Does Help Performance "A small increase in performance via caffeine could mean the difference between a gold medal in the Olympics and an also-ran."

Landis Spills More Beans On Lance Armstrong

Lengthy In Depth Wall Street Journal Article On Doping Allegations Landis goes into great detail on the alleged doping, talks about the team selling Trek bikes secretly to finance doping, and parties with strippers and what appeared to be cocaine.
On The Boards: Landis on Armstrong - the gory details

USATFs In Review

LRC The Week That Was In Running: 2010 USATF Nationals We go behind the results and give you our insight. We praise Galen Rupp, Lauren Fleshman and Molly Huddle, warn Chris Solinsky, talk about the men's 1,500m and in the process compare Matt Tegenkamp to Kenenisa Bekele and do much more, including telling you why Vin loves AJ and give some junior runners props (including one who beat Robby Andrews). We even discuss cross-country running in June.