Assault & Battery-Related News
- French Runners Mehdi Baala And Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad Can Compete At Worlds Yet supposedly they are suspended for 5 months, fined $2,130 and must do 50 hours of community service.
- Sammy Wanjiru's Mom Goes To Court - Case Is Extended To Allow Parties More Time To Reach Out-Of-Court Settlement
- Liz
McColgan's Amicable Divorce Gets Nasty As She's Charged With "... repeatedly punching husband and throwing his clothes out the window." She was the 1991 world 10,000 champ.
*MB: Liz McColgan Goes BAALA On Her Husband
Berlin Is 7.5 Weeks Away
LRC Paula Radcliffe Healthy And Excited For 2011 BMW Berlin Marathon Friends of LetsRun, Losse Veter, were in Belgium for the new opening of a cool place called Runners Service Lab, and Paula was there too. They talked to Paula about her preparations for Berlin. Paula talks about Berlin, her goals, London 2012, getting it right at the Olympics and even getting older.
News From Kenya
- Full Of Confidence, Vivian Cheruiyot Is Eyeing Double Gold At Worlds And Then 5,000 WR After her win last week in 14:20 with "poor weather" and "slow pacesetters," she realized she can get the WR. The crazy thing is she says she wishes Tirunesh Dibaba was in the 10,000 to raise the "level of competition."
- Nobody In Kenya Knows Where Ezekiel Kemboi Is; If He's Not At Kenyan Camp By Monday, He'll Be Kicked Off Worlds Squad We think he's probably being smart and not burning himself out by training too hard.
2010 USATF Annual Report Is Available Here We're sure there are things worth talking about, so if you find them, please email us.
Marathon News From Japan
- Two-Time World Championships Medalist Reiko Tosa Is Unretired And Making Comeback Fro London 2012 After Giving Birth
- Japanese Amateur 2:08 Marathoner Yuki Kawauchi Runs 30km Race at 5:02 Pace And Gives Result A 100% Perfect Score His other pre-World Championships races had been total disasters. The article reveals the "lone-wolf" of Japanese marathoning is getting coaching advice from the Japanese federation - maybe they are to blame?
- New World Championships Team Member Mai Ito Did 30km Run In Boulder In 95-Degree Heat To Get Ready For Worlds God, that sounds awful.
- Hiroyuki Horibata's WChampionships Training Is Going Well
Shoulda Gone To Stanford? Jordan Hasay Named USTFCCCA Indoor Scholar Athlets Of Year Thanks To Her 3.96 GPA
Carl Lewis Does Q & A With USA Today
Week That Was
LRC Week That Was: American Women's Medal Chances, Semenya's Inconsistency, The Amazing Magdalena Lewy Boulet And More We've got it all covered this week. We have emails from a scientist and a 2:23 transgender marathoner to possibly explain Caster Semenya's up-and-down season, daydream about Jenny Barringer Simpson being a world leader in two events, and praise the amazing Magdalena Lewy Boulet, while looking at her husband Richie Boulet's similar situation in 1997. We spend the majority of our time breaking down the US women's chances of medaling at the World Championships. We hate to admit it, but as good as Morgan Uceny and Shalane Flanagan are, they both face an uphill battle in grabbing a medal.
A Must Read! Sports Illustrated Takes A Great In-Depth Look At Carl Lewis' Long Jumping Prowess And His Supposed 30-Foot Jump King Carl was the Usain Bolt of his era and this article is a true treasure. We loved this quote from Carl when he was asked to compare himself to the current generation.
News From Kenya
- Sally Kipyego Excited About 1st World Championships We didn't realize Kipyego's brother Mike is an 8:08 steepler who has run 2:11 in the marathon.
- Women's Commonwealth Games Marathon Champ Irene Kosgei Added To Kenya's World Championships Squad Rotterdam champ Philis Ongori Moraa is out injured.
All We Can Say Is Wow
WADA Was On 72 Organizations Hacked Possibly By Chinese In Operation Shady Rat
*Exclusive Vanity Fair Exposé On "Operation Shady Rat"
Cornell Alumni Magazine Profiles Morgan Uceny Uceny on Worlds: "I want to be the last one standing at the end of it all." To all the skeptics who doubt her classic progression, we'd like to point out the piece includes a photo of her from her sophomore year when she was way less fit-looking and way less fast (2:06).
UK Trials *Meet Website *Results
Final Day Recap Of UK Trials: Mo Farah, Jenny Meadows Win, Perri Shakes-Drayton Completes 400, 400m Hurdles Double Mo Farah ran over a minute slower than last time out, running 14:00 as Jenny Meadows got her first UK title and 21-year-old James Shane ran 3:36 to win the UK title by an incredible 3 seconds on the last lap (he was a 3:42 guy a year ago).
- Steve Cram Impressed With 1,500m Runner James Shane At UK Trials
- Mo Farah: "I'm definitely going to concentrate on one event and put all my eggs in one basket and that is the 10k." Journalists are getting carried away with the quote but he also said, "I'm looking at definitely doing the 10,000m at the World Championships and then I will see how I'm feeling to the 5k."
- Jessica Ennis To Skip Diamond League London Event Next Week To Compete Somewhere Else Whenever they say it's not about the money, it's about the money. When Wejo was in Scotland in January, Ennis was on billboards throughout the city.
- PR In Long Jump Pleases Jessica Ennis And Her Coach
- Perri Shakes-Drayton Becomes First Brit To Complete 400-400m Hurdles Double
Day 2 and 1: - Dwain Chambers Wins 100m Euros silver medallist Mark Lewis-Francis was DQed for false start and will hope for discretionary spot.
- Ethiopia's Former World XC Champ Werknesh Kidane Wins 10k In 31:08 NZ's Kim Smith dropped out mid-race.
- Olympic 400m Champ Christine Ohuruogu Is 3rd And Will Rely On "Discretionary" Spot
Different News Of Note
It's OK In Our Minds If He Dopes: 97-Year-Old Wins 8 Golds At USATF Masters Champs He only went 3 feet in the long jump but ran 30 seconds for the 100.
Elvan Abeylegesse Gives Birth To A Baby Girl Giving birth isn't different, but translating an article from Turkish is.
Kenya 4 X 400 Team Wants Medal At Worlds
JumpRunThrow.com Interviews Charles Jock Asked why he goes out in that crazy 49-second first lap, he says, "I'm driven to do this because I don't want to have regrets if I lose, I want to know that I ran to the best of my ability and they were just better than me that day. There's probably nothing worse than losing in a slow race."
David Monti Takes A Look At Morgan Uceny's Rise To The Top Of The 1,500 Ranks The daughter of a bricklayer and bus driver knows a thing or two about hard work. She gives a lot of credit to her training partner Anna Pierce for her rise, as well as her coach.
Ryan Hall Teleconference Highlights
Ryan Hall Sees BOA Chicago Marathon To Olympic Trials 14-Week Gap As Ideal Hall also sounds like he's tired of being the rabbit: "In Boston I functioned as the pacemaker."
*Brief Chat With Ryan Hall
Rojo Gets Props In A Brief Chat With Sage Canaday What other college coach would let his athlete run a marathon in college and run the Trials the week before he qualified for NCAAs in cross? Canaday has now gone on to 2:16:52 and to write a book Running With The Hansons.
News From Europe
- Disciplinary Hearing For Mehdi Baala And Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad To Take Place On August 4
- Good Idea: 700+ European Jrs. Go To Anti-Doping Program Where A Lottery Was Held To Send Them To European Champs Last Year People need to be taught at an early age that winning at all costs is not what sports is about. Winning fairly is.
- Finland: Former Oregon Runner Zoe Buckman Wins In Europe In 4:06.06 - Just .06 From "B" Standard That's a big 2.51 PR. Craig Miller was 2nd in the men's 1,500 in 3:40.09. *Finland Results
World Champs Are 30 Days Away
- Koreans Start 30-Day Countdown To Worlds The article claims that at the last World Championships, there were 8 billion television viewers. We don't believe it. There are only 6.75 billion people on the earth.
- 132 Food Inspectors To Be On Hand In Daegu To Make Sure Food Isn't Tainted Apparently food poisoning is common in the summer in parts of Asia. Last week, a Chinese court sentenced people for selling pork tainted with a poisonous chemical.
Ryan To Run Chicago
Ryan Hall To Run Chicago Philip Hersh of the Chicago Tribune has broken the news that Hall will run this year's Bank of
America
Chicago Marathon and take on Boston runner-up Moses Mosop. Three months later, Ryan will run the Olympic Marathon Trials. The appearance fee of Ryan is so high that the Chicago/Trials double makes a lot of cents sense.
*Lornah Kiplagat To Run Amsterdam Marathon In October
Not Your Normal Boring Reads
- Alberto Probably Is Calling BMW On Thursday
Bryan Clay & Sanya Richards-Ross But Not Galen Rupp To Be Helped By BMW's Tech Gadgets BMW will help 10 athletes that are part of its BMW's Performance Team by using "the stereo-vision technology that the company tests in its automobile safety systems" on athletes. - Recommended Read US 100m Hurdles Champ Kellie Wells Is Not Afraid To Admit She Was Sexually Abused As A Child - Wants To Help Others Sexually abused for a long time before being raped as a 16-year-old by her stepfather, Wells is adamant about not hiding her past, as too many people sweep similar stories under the rug and the abuse conditions. She's hopes her track success allows her to form a foundation to help abused families. "People don't listen to the girl in fifth or sixth place who is not making teams. They listen to the person who is successful, and if I'm successful it means I can share my story with girls and boys and women who will look up to me. Your past doesn't have to dictate your future, and that's an important thing I want to stress to people. Just because something bad happened to you, that doesn't mean that is who you are."
- AJ May Be Leaving Oregon, But At Least He's Being Replaced By A Kid With Personality
Lukas V Talks About His Dream Date & Much, Much More "Anything would be perfect with the girl of my dreams but if I had to choose I would make her a really nice dinner, then we would go out to a concert (either John Mayer or Dave Matthews Band) that's at a beautiful park where afterwards we would walk around in the dark holding hands while eating ice cream. Once we have nothing more to say to each other we would just gaze at the stars and end up kissing. We would have to be in the moment to know where things go on from there ..." - Today's Sign Of The Apocalypse: Kenyan Paper Profiles Racewalker
- WSJ Feature Says British Track & Field Team Is Terrible Meanwhile, the people at Athletics Weekly, whose job it is to cover the sport for a living, are saying Britain is currently enjoying a second "golden era."'
- Meet The Mother & Daughter Sprint Combo Of Irina And Olga Lenskiy Both are at the top of their events in Israel at the same time. Mom at age 40, though, was able to beat her daughter at her specialty of 100m by the slimmest of margins - .01.
London Diamond League Is Today And Saturday *Schedule/Entry List
LRC Friday Preview: Kaki Vs. Rudisha Is On! It only took until the final Diamond League meet of the year before Worlds to get one of the marquee matchups in the sport we've been waiting for, David Rudisha
vs. Abubaker Kaki (and Nick Symmonds) at 800m. This should be a real treat. Plus Friday you've got the Jason Richardson-David Oliver rematch, Asafa Powell vs. Yohan Blake and 5 other sub-10 guys. We preview this plus the men's 3,000m, men's 5,000m, and women's 800m, which are all Friday. Saturday has much more action including a men's mile with Lagat, Manzano, Lomong, Willis and Gregson.
LRC Saturday Preview: Women's 1,500 (Rowbury Gives It A Go), Men's Mile (Lagat, Manzano, Lomong), Final Chance For Bizzarri For Worlds 5,000m Via Hastings (link fixed)
*IAAF Preview *Athletics Weekly Preview
*Press Conference Highlights: Asafa Powell & David Rudisha Confident; Mo Farah May Double David Rudisha said he thinks he can break the British all-comers record by running 1:42 but said his main focus is the world title, after which he'll try to go sub-1:41.
- Inspired By Tragedy In His Native Somalia, Mo Farah Is Very Thankful To Be A Brit Unfolding tragedy in Somalia puts life into perspective for Mo Farah. "I just want to be the best I can be," he says. "And I'll do whatever it takes to be that." Including moving his training base last year to Oregon, to the hi-tech set up of Alberto Salazar. "I could have been really comfortable where I was in Teddington, nice house, family, friends, watching the Arsenal. But if you want to win medals, then you have to do whatever is necessary," he says. "Every second counts. One, two per cent could make a difference. I went to the US to find those percentages. People say don't change when things are going well, I felt the opposite. And it's worked." *US Move Paying Off For Farah Since Feb. and his switch to Alberto, he's a perfect 10-for-10.
- Meet James Shane, The New Steve Cram?, And Man Who Has Never Run A Mile Before www.independent.co.uk Shane seemingly came out of nowhere last week to win British nationals by 3+ seconds but has been hyped since age 15 when he ran 3:52. Crazy to think he's never run a mile.
- Lisa Dobriskey Takes Off Her Clothes ... For Charity
- Inspired By Seb Coe, David Rudisha Is Pumped For Meet & Rest Of Season
- Britian's 400H And 400 Champ Perri Shakes-Drayton Has Learned Hard Works Pays Off In Athletics
- Asafa Powell Admits He's Made Too Many Mistakes At Big Meets In Past - Aiming For Gold This Year And 100 Sub-10.0s In Career
- Head Case Asafa Powell Thinks Pressure Will Be Too Much For British Athletes In 2012
- WC And Olympic LJ Silver Medallist Godfrey Mokoena Looking For Top Form
- World Junior 3,000m Steeplechase Bronze Medalist Jacob Araptany Denied Visa Into UK He would have been the 2nd-best guy in the field.
- We Didn't Put This Up: Ryan Gregson Gets Named To Australian Worlds Team They factored in he's only 20 and ran 3:31 last year. Good decision. He runs the mile Saturday in London.
- Angelo Taylor And Yohan Blake Added To This Weekend's Diamond League Meet LetsRun's preview of Day 1 of the last Diamond League meet before Worlds should be out by 12 noon. Check back soon.
- Kara Goucher Pulls Out Of London Diamond League 5k With Hip Injury She said, "No London. Heading back to Portland to be with my therapists. Still hoping for World Championships."
- UK Athletics Sticking To Their Ban On Dwain Chambers As They Won't Let Him Compete In The London DL However, they ironically asked him to do a filmed TV interview representing UKA.
Other News From The UK:
Coming Back From Injury, Former Florida State Star Hannah England Seems Stunned By Her Great 2011 Form Nonetheless, she's planning on making the World Championships final. "I'm totally surprised with how well I've been running recently. I did train hard and worked very hard in the gym and did aqua jogging and all that sort of thing, but you're never quite sure how that's going to translate on the track and luckily I pulled that off."
We 100% Disagree: Tiffany Ofili-Porter Says She's No "Plastic Brit"
We 100% Disagree: Usain Bolt: "I am serious, I believe I could be good at (soccer), I think I could compete well."
The Gouchers In The News
- Adam Goucher Not Done Yet - Hoping To Run Half Marathon This Fall And 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials Anyone who was at the 2000 Trials, where he qualified for the final only on time but made the team, knows not to count him out.
- Kara Goucher Wants To Keep 10,000 Final Honest Since She's Not Doubling
Janeth Jepkosgei In The News
- Thanks To Janeth Jepkosgei, Eunice Sum Is A Sub-2 Runner Gunning For World Champs A few years ago, she was a 2:09 girl with a daughter, but Jepkosgei came by and said it was time to train.
- Janeth Jepkosgei Feels She's In Shape To Reclaim 800 Gold Before She Moves Up To 1,500 "I am ready to bring back what I missed in Berlin two years ago and I believe I am in a very good position to do that at the moment," said Jepkosgei.
World Champs News
- Jeremy Wariner Out Of Worlds A foot injury is keeping him out, although the way he was running, he wasn't likely to medal.
- Wariner's Injury Will Hurt The US 4 X 4's Chances Of Continuing Its Winning Streak Wariner was on the teams that won in 2005, 2007 & 2009.
- Athletics Kenya Makes Some Last Minute Changes To Its Roster Rotterdam Marathon champ Philis Ongori Moraa is injured and will be replaced by Delhi Commonwealth Games champ Irene Jerotich Kosgei in the marathon.
- Even The "Plastic" Brits Still Need That "B" Standard Former Jamaica Julian Reid won the UK Trials LJ and was 2nd in the TJ, but doesn't have the "B" standard in either event, so as of now won't go to Worlds.
- Ireland's 100m Runner Trying To Join Oscar Pistorius As The 2nd Disabled Athletes Competing At World Champs Jason Smyth is a vision-impaired sprinter who has ran 10.22, which gets him the "B" standard, but is still short of the 10.18 "A" standard.
- Pole Vault Olympic Champ Steve Hooker Captains Aussie Team For Worlds Other notables are Craig Mottram (5k), Jeff Riseley (800/1,500), Ben St. Lawrence (5k/10k). *Full Roster
- Bulgaria's Ivet Lalova Could Be A Threat In The Daegu 100 As She's The First European To Go Under 11 Seconds In 6 Years Ran 10.96 at the Balkan Championships last month, ranks 7th in the world this year.
Random Elite News
- Bernard Lagat Talks About Retirement He says that if he can win gold in 2012, he'll be happy to say that's his last Olympics and maybe have one more "farewell" season after that before ending his career.
- Interview With Marty Liquori, Who Says He Isn't That Impressed With His Sub-4 HS Mile "There are dozens of African kids who have run that fast by the time they were 18 years old, so it isn't really that big of a deal worldwide. What I did in high school is just that - what I did in high school."
- Gatorade's "Inside The Edge" Video With Usain Bolt
Bureaucratic-Related News
- USOC Chief Admits He's Worried US Might Not Finish In Top 2 In Medal Counts At 2012 Olympics We aren't buying it and think he's just a) setting expectations low and/or b) angling for government funding as many of the other countries rely on heavily govt. funding.
- Ahletics Ireland Quickly Moves To Dipsel Rumor That "B" Atheltes Will Get To Go Olympics Only those with the "A" standard will be allowed to go.
- 2011 World Championships Deagu Statistics Handbook Is Now Available For Download
Top Weekend Road Action *Bogota Photos
Colombia: Geoffrey Mutai Crushes Deriba Merga, Breaks Course Record, And Wins Renault Car At 2011 Bogota Half Marathon We still think Mutai (the Boston champ) would win the Worlds 10k if there was enough money on the line. *IAAF
Recap
Bix: Silas Kipruto, Caroline Rotich Win $12,500 At Quad Cities Bix 7, Abdi 6th This is one of America's premier road races.
*Achilles Injury Kept Meb Out Of Bix
*Joan Samuelson Ran Bix
International Results
- Hungary GP: Asafa Powell Wins In 9.86 In Windy/Cold Conditions With the consistent times he's putting up, it's almost hard to call Bolt the favorite going into Worlds. Oscar Pistorius was last in the 400 in 47.47.
*Q&A With The Blade Runner - France Champs: Christophe Lemaitre Runs Wind Aided 20.08 To Win 200 Shattered NR of 20.16, but not wind-legal.
*Full Results *IAAF Recap - Japan's Yuki Kawauchi Tunes Up For WCs By Winning Kushiro Shitsugen 30K Road Race He ran 1:33:55 (5:02/mile pace).
- Steve Mullings Wins 100 In 9.93 In Italy He also went on to win the 200 in 20.22.
DN Galan Stockholm Diamond League *Results *Photos *Video
LRC Vivian Cheruiyot Sizzles, Shalane Flanagan Misses, Kenia Sinclair Stays Undefeated*, LaShawn Merritt Returns, Usain Bolt's 20.03 Win Leaves Some Questions, Silas K Wins Again And Much More Stockholm was the second-to-last Diamond League meet before Worlds
and last for many athletes competing.
Vivian Cheruiyot and Silas Kiplagat stamped their status as favorites at Worlds. Usain Bolt won by nearly half a second and we weren't that impressed. David Oliver was upset, Yelena Isinbayeva came back to form, and an Aussie became the favorites for Worlds in the long jump. The American distance runners disappointed, except for 37-year-old Magdalena Lewy Boulet, who ran a huge 50-second PR of 15:14.25 in the 5,000m.
*IAAF Recap: Vivian Cheruiyot Gets 5k NR And WL With 14:20.87
*Bolt Complains Of Back Pains On Tight Turn In Stockholm Caster Semenya runs 2:01 and says she is disappointed and worried, as she should be.
*Scientists Say Usain Bolt's Key To Success Lies Not With Foot Speed, But Foot Pressure Lets him take 41 steps in a 100m while the normal elite takes about 44.
*Yelena Isinbayeva Backs Up Her Bold Statements With A Win In Stockholm She said before the meet she was "still the best vaulter in the world" and she proved that by beating high class DL field.
*BBC Video Interview With Usain Bolt After 200m Victory
*Mitchell Watt Breaks Australian LJ Record
Injuries, Injuries
- Battling Injury Problems, Irish 400m Record Holder (44.77) David Gillick Calls It A Season - Sacks Tyson Gay's Coach Interesting to note that Tyson Gay isn't the only Lance Brauman-coached athlete struggling with injuries. He's going back to his old Irish coach.
- Olympic Medallist At 400H, Tasha Danvers, To Miss Rest Of Season With Injury
Week In Review
LRC Week That Was: American Men's Medal Chances In Daegu With less than a month until Worlds, in our weekly look at the world of track and field we look at the American men's distance medal chances in Daegu. And while our beloved Menjo won't be in Daegu, he is in the news. Plus we've got some football talk from Florida coach Will Muschamp, a Brit celebrating July 4th, and Alberto on old school and new school training.
US News
- Recommended Read Many Elite US Distance Runners Live In Flagstaff Beneath The Poverty Level Trying To Chase Their Dreams
- Q&A With UC Irvine's Charles Jock, Who Is The 3rd Man On The US's World Champs 800 Team
- Interview With Lukas Verzbicas About His Transition From Running Back To The Triathlon
- Athletics Weekly Maps Out Allyson Felix's World Champs Race Schedule With relays, she could face up to 10 races in nine days.
- Marion Jones Leads Top 10 List Of Most "Shocking" Athletes Caught Doping
Paula Speaks On Berlin (Story Here)
Poll: Vote Online For The Bowerman Award As of now, Washington State's Jeshua Anderson is winning for the men and Texas A&M's Jessica Beard for the women.
Sounds Like A Cool Job
Steve Magness Talks About Getting His Dream Job Of Working With Alberto Salazar At Nike Not sure if Magness (who ran 4:01 in high school) still wants to break 4, but he is still running and pacing Kara Goucher and even Rupp and Farah in workouts.
LaShawn Merritt Returns
Usain Bolt Runs 20.03
Monaco Photos
Train Smarter (More In The Training Forum)
LRC Contest Recap - The Greatness Of You
LRC USA Nationals Contest Recap As usual we had a couple of ringers come out on top in our contest. Our winner is in the elite of the elite of LetsRun.com, as not only has he been to watch the World Championships and Olympic Trials, he has a @runner.org email address, and a real-life wife. Our runner-up was a state champion in high school and has started a post-collegiate group in Utah.
USAs In Review
LRC 2011 USATF Women's Nationals (Distance) In Review Which event represents America's best chance for a distance medal at Worlds? It's the same event an American led the world in 2010. Still stumped? You'll have to read the
article. We break down all the action, look at the very different fates of non-qualifiers Christin Wurth-Thomas and Anna Pierce, wonder if Kara Goucher can beat Shalane at Worlds, and even talk about coach Gags' commute and the reverse LetsRun.com jinx.
LRC USA Men's Nationals In Review Wejo puts Galen Rupp's 10k performance in perspective, talks about the stellar men's 5,000m, and break down all the distance action. Plus Dathan Ritzenhein, German Fernandez,
Evan Jager and even
Xavier Carter, Adam Nelson, and Adam Goucher just to get your attention.
A Must-Watch (We're Not Sure How We Missed This) - Sammy Wanjiru's Mom Theatens Others With A Machete 2 Weeks Ago (More Here)
Train Smarter (More In The Training Forum)
- Lydiard vs magill vs malmo for summer cross country training
- Couple questions about summer training?
- Peter Snell Interview and his thoughts on Lydiard training
- Sprinter to Distance : My quest to run sub 2
Boston *Recap Analysis: *JK On The Wind *Wejo On Desiree *Rojo *London And Boston *Video Highlights
Women's World XC In Photos
Men's World XC In Photos
Train Smarter (More In The Training Forum)
- Wow, Lydiard training seems ridiculously hard
- best marathon improvement after age 40?
- How does "strength" differ from "speed" and "endurance" as a runner?
- "A runner needs a LT run every 2 to 5 days in order to not lose any aerobic ability."
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