From Over The Weekend
Deriba Merga Dominates Bogota Half Marathon As WR Holder Tadese Drops Out The race belonged to the 2009 Boston champ from the get-go.
Kenya Thrilled By Turnout At African Champs And Hopes To Host Other Meets In Future
African Champs *Results
Kenya Elated: Kenya Exceeds All Expectations With 25 Medals At African
Champs Ten golds, including five in a 2-hour period on the final
day, helped the host nation dominate the medal count. Nigeria was second
with 18 medals.
Sunday: New Tactics, Same Result: Kiprop = The Best In The World The Olympic champ Asbel Kiprop showed that he is still the best in the world as he used yo-yo tactics to dispatch a slew of talented challengers on Sunday. Instead of putting himself too far back as he did at last year's World Champs, Kiprop hammered to the front and towed the field through 53.65 before backing off and
hammering things home in 54.38
as Silas Kiplagat failed to medal. Former USA Today writer Dick Patrick reports from Kenya.
*IAAF Recap Of Final Day Of African Champs In addition to the 1,500m, there was the 5k final, which Kenya swept. Vincent Yato appeared to have the gold but slipped on the infield grass in the final 10 meters, letting Edwin Soi get the win. Another sold-out crowd at the Champs surprised Kenyan officials.
Saturday: Ethiopia Finally Wins Gold As Tirunesh Dibaba Remains Undefeated At 10k Thanks to a final lap of 61, the Olympic champ had no problems with world champ and hometown favorite Linet Masai, who finished 3rd.
Interesting Read Kenyan Officials
Are Stunned By Large Crowds Just like in America, the Kenyans are great at track but the public normally doesn't support it, but more than 30,000 were in the stands on Saturday.
Friday: David Rudisha Runs 1:42.84 (At Altitude!) To Crown Himself King At 2010 African Champs Rudisha's run was a negative split. Simply amazing. One of our favorite journalists, Dick Patrick, is in Nairobi with the report. Blessing Okagbare completed the 100m-long jump double to go with her NCAA double in the same events.
More Friday Action:
*Kaki:
"I Don't Fear Rudisha." Kaki says he't not afraid of Rudisha and that
the duo will square off in Stockholm next week. Our take ... he should be
fearful of him and likely is. Stockholm next Friday will also see a Bolt-Powell-Gay showdown.
*Richard Mateelong Leads Kenyan 1-2 In Steeple At African Champs
CAC Games Conclude With Jamaica Dominant
Gebre Gebremariam And Werknesh Kidane Added To 2010 Falmouth Road Race
Doug Binder Has The Scoop
- Galen Rupp Is Pumped For Next Friday's 5k In Stockholm & Is Hoping To Be 5th American Under 13:00 In Last Calendar Year Rupp: "(The workouts) are going a lot better than they were before I went over to Gateshead. I'm excited to go back and get another crack at it."
- Bowerman 5K Was Never In Alan Webb's Plans
Bolt Says 9.4 Is Possible But Focuses On Repeating As Olympic Champ To Cement His Legend Status Bolt says he may also foray into the long jump so his presence in the sprints won't become boring.
Two Recommended Reads
1) Alan Webb's Primed To Start Comeback On August 14th After a brief racing stint in Europe, both he and Galen Rupp will be getting married.
2) Andrew Wheating: "Oh Crap, I got fourth (in Monaco)." A great brief chat with the US star, who says it's all about winning for him. Sadly, a "family priority" in mid August may prevent him from contintuing to race.
Another Interesting Read
Man Blogs About Drinking 13 Beers While Running 13 Miles At SF Half Marathon No, he didn't die in the process.
More African Champs *Results
Thursday: Vivian Cheruiyot Dispatches Meseret Defar & 5 Others In Final Lap Of Women's 5k 7 women were in contention heading into the final lap, but Cheruiyot destroyed Defar and Diamond League leader Ejigu over the final 400.
IAAF Recap Of Day 2: In the men's 100, Ivorian Ben Youssef Meite pulled off a stunner. *Kenyan Stars Of Past Are In Stands Enjoying The Action
*All Kenyans Make 800 Final
*Two Kenyan 400 Guys Make Final
via ActionPixsWednesday: Wilson Kiprop
Wins 10,000m To Give Kenya Its First Gold At African Champs Sileshi Sihine was no match for Kiprop on the opening day of the African Champs in Kenya. Kiprop, a marathoner doing marathon training, is coached by LetsRun.com message board poster Renato Canova, who has posted about Kiprop's win. He did his last long run 7 days ago.
*Famed Coach Renato Canova Posts About The Win And Training Of His Marathoner Wilson Kiprop In The 10k He also has some info on Mo Farah's training.
*Video Highlights Of Men's 10,000m At 2010 African Champs
*World 5k Champ Vivian Cheruiyot Going For First Women's Gold Today For Kenya
More: Kaki Drops Out Of Showdown With Rudisha In 800m At African Champs Kaki a week ago had said he may not run. So it looks like he was just ducking Rudisha.
Andrew Wheating Signs With ... Nike Wheating says he is excited to stay in Eugene. And his recent performances likely got him a ton more money. The only question we have is couldn't he have stayed in Eugene if he signed with someone else? Seems like a good result for Wheating and Nike.
Discuss: Wheating Signs With ... Nike
More $$$ News: South Carolina Hurlder Johnny Dutch Gives Up A Year Of Eligibility To Turn Pro
It's Official August 6th
Bolt vs. Gay vs. Powell @ 100m The matchup we've all been waiting for is a little over a week away. Also, Meseret Defar will be going for a World 5k record.
CAC Champs *Results
The Only Must-Read In The Industry
LRC The Week That Was We start our weekly recap by analyzing the magnificent men's 1,500 in Monaco. Then we talk about Alysia Johnson and Lauren Fleshman before educating our viewers on the "Myth of Prodigy and Why It Matters," which then causes us to give a warning to Jordan Hasay fans with a little help from famed author Malcolm Gladwell. We then praise Robby Andrews and Cas Loxsom and Emily Sisson. Plus we talk about the Taliban, Charles van Commenee and much more.
Thanks To LetsRun.com Community
LRC Kevin McDermott Recovering From Paralysis 1 year ago, Sean McDermott appealed to the LetsRun community for support for his paralyzed brother Kevin, a former runner at Duke. Over 250 LRC readers donated and Sean wrote to thank us and point us to a video of Kevin's recovery process.
American News
- Recommended Read #1 Molly Huddle Talks With Upstate NY Paper About Her Spike In Success In 2010 She ran her 14:51 PR on her dad's bday.
- Recommended Read #2 Extensive Interview With Horace Ashenfelter, 1952 Olympic Steeple Champion And WR Holder In 8:45 Employee #1 was fascinated that he could have been a WR holder 60 years ago.
- Recommended Read #3 Interview With Chris Solinsky Where He Talks About His Training
- Hayward Hosting "Competition Not Conflict" Carnival Centered Around Track And Field
- NASA Satellite Project Astrophysicist Runs 2:23, Setting New San Francisco Marathon Record
- Justin Gatlin To Return To Action August 3rd In Estonia He'll also race August 8th.
Ritzenheins have 2nd child - the next prodigy is a boy (Ritz's other child is a 3-year-old girl).
2 Years Until London - British News
- Seb Coe Makes Passionate Call To Londoners To Make 2012 Olympics Their Own By Volunteering And Planning Ahead
- Statistician Argues That Van Commenee Is Hurting British Athletics By Denying 31 Athletes Chance To Compete In Barcelona UK Athletics boss Van Commenee had really difficult standards to make the team that resulted in about 31 athletes not going to Euros despite having the qualifying time.
- Michael Johnson Tells Brits They Need To Live Like Hermits To Win Gold At Home MJ: "You have to be in a bubble."
Interesting Random Running Writing
- Quinnipiac Running Teams Factor In Judge's Title IX Decisions Athletic powerhouse Quinnipiac is drawing criticism for skewing their Title IX numbers by claiming cheerleaders are athletes and claiming 3-sport women's runners should count for 3 sports. Ridiculous.
*Boards: Quinnipac Title IX Decision - Officials Refuse To Offer Condoms Directly To Athletes At World Youth Olympics
- Brett Larner Of JapanRunningNews Writes About Runners Using Accupuncture
Castelbuono
Tadese
Overwhelms Strong Field And Wanjiru In Castelbuono Wanjiru dropped out with breathing problems. This race is definitely our type of road race. 36 runners total and the town loves it and comes out to watch. Running as a spectator sport ... amazing.
Pre-Race: Italy's Smallest Road Race Packs The Biggest Punch With Only 36 Entrants, Including Wanjiru, Cheruiyot, Kwambai And Tadese Read the details about the race - definitely the most interesting elite road race in Europe.
Justin Gatlin's Comeback Starts Tuesday & Everyone Is Talking About It
- Recommended Read: Sports Illustrated: From Heaven To Hell And Back Amazingly, Gatlin seems to be fine financially as he's still driving a Maserati.
- The Telegraph: "Good, bad, indifferent, guilty or not, I have served my time."
- Reuters: Gatlin Nervous But Thinks He's Ready To "Easily" Go Sub-10 Four years removed from the sport and with a lifetime best of 9.85, a sub-10 probably won't be as easy as that.
- AP: Gatlin Ready For Comeback