Chicago is Back
Wanjiru to Run Chicago If any of you thought the Bank of America Chicago Marathon was on the decline with Bank of America owning it and the financial mess we're in, think again. They signed up the World's top marathoner Sammy Wanjiru on Tuesday. they already announced Deena Kastor. It is expected Ryan Hall will be running NY in the fall. Duncan Kibet and Haile Gebrselassie will square off in Berlin.
*Message board thread
Recommended Read: Taller Athletes Are Going To Dominate Speed Events This study from Duke University basically says we'll see more and more tall athletes winning in track and swimming. We think it makes sense. As training methods improve and are spread all over the world, it was just a matter of time before 6'5" 100m "freaks
of nature" came to be.
*More On Size Of Athletes From Canada's National Post
*World's Top Athletes Have Become Taller In The Last Century
Non-Running Related Stuff That Caught Our Eye
- Was Alberto Contador's Climb On Sunday The Best In The History Of The Tour? Science of Sport does it again with an amazing analysis leading us to believe Contador's smackdown of Le Tour was the best climb in Tour history. Science Of Sport's Initial Reaction From Sunday
- The Calorie Delusion: Why Food Labels Are Wrong Food scientists have been giving us terrible advice for a long time. According to new studies, counting calories is basically pointless. The difference between crunchy and mushy food may be more important.
- Best TV Idea We've Seen In A While: Shaq Vs... Big Ben, Michael Phelps and Serena Williams get to kick Diesel's *ss at their sports. It's his way of getting in shape for the NBA season. If only reality tv had been invented when John Kruk was playing.
Men's 100m All Over The Press Thanks To Bolt And Gay
*London 100m Will Feature 7 Runners With Sub-10 PBs That's gotta be a record for a non-World Championships or non-Olympics race.
Recommended Read: What Bolt Brings To A Meet People are willing to pay to see Bolt because he is becoming a one man spectacle unlike any other. Just as we turned on the Paris meet on Friday, Bolt was getting a standing ovation while walking on the track for 100m in his hoodie.
Recommended Read: Tyson Gay and Usain Bolt Talk About Their Rivalry Gay basically says half the battle is convincing himself he can run faster than any man ever has.
*Tyson
Gay Adopts "9.5 Mentality" To Beat Bolt
*Jamaica Observer Has Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell Cartoon We're loving the 100m hype. It seems like everyone is pumped to see the World Championships 100m like it's an old-school heavyweight boxing match.
*Is Simeon Williamson Ready To Beat One Of The
Big Boys In
The 100m? He beat Dwain Chambers in one race but Williamson is a long way off from the top of the food chain.
What Are The Rest Of The Pros Up To?
- Tirunesh Dibaba To Compete In London Grand Prix 5,000m She pulled out of her last race, and this one is slated to be her final tune-up for Worlds.
- Jelimo Is Back With 1:59.59 In Heusden
- Robles Continues Season On Monday In Greece
- Oscar Pistorius Giving Up On Worlds
LRC: Golden League Paris Recap
*Results Paris was a great meet highlighted by Bernard Lagat squaring off with Kenenisa Bekele in the 3,000m, where the Ethiopian showed he's just too strong off a fast pace. Other remarkable performances came from Sanya Richards, Usain Bolt and the surprises of the meet Anna Willard and Dexter Faulk. There's much more to talk about so read our recap, see the photos and watch video of the top races. *Official LRC Thread Here *Video Of Willard's Win, Bolt's 9.77 *Flotrack Interviews, including Khadevis Robinson.
*Bolt Sends Out Worlds Warning With Stormy 9.79 *"It Was Like Flying," Says Bolt
*Kerron Stewart Very Confident As Win Streak Continues Stewart has been as dominant as Bolt lately but nobody seems to notice.
*Great Article On USA's Dexter Faulk As He Gets The Biggest Hurdles Win Of His Career One of the best stories of the summer is the emergence of Dexter Faulk.
*Wariner
Finding Form Again Thanks To Clyde Hart Will Coach Hart mentor the men's and women's 400m champion in Berlin this summer? It hinges on Wariner getting fitter.
Super Sanya And The Women's 400m
Sanya Richards won in Paris by over a second and looks unbeatable. Even more impressive is her career record 37th sub-50 clocking. Still only 24, she broke a tie with Marita Koch of East Germany, whom you can read about here.
*Sanya Richards Not Taking Ohuruogu Or Jamaica's Shericka Williams Lightly For Worlds It's hard to believe Sanya Richards has broken 50 seconds more times than any woman in history, is only 24, yet has no international championships to her name. This year she might get the Golden Jackpot and Worlds individual gold.
Ohuruogu To Miss Paris AND London With Hamstring Injury We're used to Ohuruogu missing doping tests, but not the big meets.
*Olympic Champ Might Miss Berlin, Too
21-Year-Old 4:08 1,500 Meter Runner Nikki Hamblin Switching Nationality From GBR To NZL
Kara Goucher To Use Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon In Chicago On August 2nd As Final Prep For Worlds
Liu Xiang Now Training In Spikes
Athletics Kenya Conotinues To Embarrass Assert Itself
1 Day Later: Agent Volker Wagner Is Banned And As A Result, Luke Kibet Can't Run In London Grand Prix
LRC Report #2 From Ethiopia: Sihine Optimistic For 10k As Ethiopian Federation Is Excited About Chances For 1,500 & Steeple Success In 2009 Recently, the Ethiopians have ruled the 5k and 10k. In 2009, they are hoping to rule the 1,500 as well and maybe even add some hardware in the steeple.
LetsRun.com Goes Global LRC's Ethiopian Correspondent: Double Olympic Champ Tirunesh Dibaba Back In Training - Optimistic About Chances In Berlin Yes, that's right. We now have an Ethiopian correspondent who periodically is going to give us insight on the stars from Ethiopia. In his first piece, he catches up with Dibaba at practice and also sees Sihine, Defar and others. Article + photos.
LRC The Week That Was This week in our weekly recap we give praise to Jerry Schumacher's boys and US women's 800 runners but have to heap scorn on Canada for totally screwing Nate
Brannen (good news Athletics Canada DOES accept mile conversions. We were wrong) and some on the US men's 800 meter runners. Along the way, we give you a math lesson, remind you that Kenyans are people, too and try to get to the bottom of the Kenyan 10k controversy by actually making calls across the globe. Plus of course we don't forget the incredible action in Paris: Willard's 800m win, Bolt's run in the rain and Bekele over Lagat.
Today: Flanders Cup in Ghent Maggie Vessey Will go for sub 2:00 again in this lowkey meet
*Women's Startlist *Meet website *The meet may be live on the net at 12 eastern depending on the internet connection
Hel-Lo! Lolo Jones Runs World-Leading 12.47 In Greece Where did this come from? Lolo has been getting beat down all over Europe but she caught a good one in Rethymno. She wasn't the only one as this recap points out: Great Meet Recap From Rethymno - Ivory Williams Runs 9.93
*USATF Press Release On Greece Meet
Streaky Athletes
- Blog On Edwin Moses - A Champion To Look Up To 122 meet win streak. Will that streak ever be broken by another elite?
- Olympic Champion Steven Hooker On His Injury Comeback And Usain Bolt Hooker had won 9 meets in a row spanning almost a calendar year before losing last week.
LRC's Heusden Distance Recap *Results
*LRC Thread Matt Tegenkamp got his A standard in the 5,000m with a smooth 13:07.97 2nd-place finish that boosted Evan Jager onto the USA Worlds 5,000m squad. Teg is officially back in top form with his fastest time since 2007.
*Tegenkamp Talks About Opening in 13:07.97 with some windy conditions (plus video of race)
*American 5,000m Teams Now Set
*Berlin A & B Standards
Article About The Boilermaker And Distance Running Hall Of Fame In Utica The Boilermaker is one of the most fun road races in the country. This article mentions how the US Distance Running Hall of Fame, located in Utica, is situated under a highway overpass in the seedy section of town. "Not exactly Cooperstown" pretty much sums it up. How do you know your sport isn't very popular? When the hall of fame is under I90 in Utica.
Washington's Kendra Schaaf Breaks Two Canadian Junior Meet Records UW's rising senior broke the 1,500m and ,3000m meet records.
Weekend Results That Perhaps 12 Of You Care About
- Zaragoza Recap And Results American Dwight Phillips runs 10.14 for 5th in the 100m with about a 4m/sec tailwind. Zeitia clears 2.01m in the HJ.
- Results And Recap Of Abuja Meet In Nigeria Africa's top 400m runner of all-time, Congo's Gary Kikaya, runs 45-low.
Oregon's Jordan McNamara Breaks 4 In Eugene All-Comers Meet This kid is having an unbelievable season.
Weekend News From Around The World
- High Jumper Andrei Silnov Will Miss Worlds After Olympic Win His countryman Ivan Ukhov should win in his absence.
- Article On British Miler Lisa Dobriskey
- Kenya's "Standard" Recaps Paris Meet - Concerned About Kenyan Steeple Dominance The Kenyans just had their most successful Olympics ever and won a ton of medals at the World Youth Games.
7 Dopers Suspended By IAAF Reason to celebrate this weekend. Our sport actually punishes cheaters!
Looking Ahead To DN Galan In Swedish Capital
*Gay/Powell To Race Next Friday In Stockholm
*Asafa Powell & Usain Bolt To Race On July 24th (LRC Founders Day)
Elites In The News
- Recommended Listen: NPR's Marketplace Highlights 2009 1-Second Boston Marathon Champion Salina Kosgei This is a really interesting look at what life is like for Kosgei, who spent a dozen years toiling as a mid-distance runner before finding success in the marathon. NPR's journalist, charged with investigating running as a profession, spent 4 days with Kosgei in Kenya. Find out what it's like to go from a very good runner to a Boston Champion.
- Geoffrey Mutai Blasts 27:39 Road 10k In The Netherlands Holy cow, that's fast.
- Dayron Robles To Race David Oliver And David Payne In London Grand Prix We're interested in Oliver's return to see if he can match the world #1.
- "I think I quit three times this year; I was so frustrated." - US Vaulter Toby Stevenson, 2004 Olympic silver winner. Toby is one of the best American vaulters of all time and is finally finding himself healthy.
UNC Announces Peter Watson As New XC Head Coach Watson was coaching Auburn's team before the move to Chapel Hill. LRC Boards: *UNC Officially Announces New Coach
Liege: *Results *US Women's 5k Team Set as Julie Culley Gets B Standard Culley is going to Berlin as Bizarri has called it a season. In other action, Lopez Lomong ran 1:46 and C. Smith 1:47. Geena Gall came up short in the 800 in her quest for a sub-2:00 (Gall doesn't need the sub-2:00 to go to Worlds but if she does get it, it means there is no chance Vessey goes) as she loses to Brenda Martinez.
Lucerne *Results (link fixed) *Nick Symmonds Struggles In Men's 800 - 4th in 1:46.60 In the women's 1,500 Lisa Dobriskey ran 4:08 to win 1,500 over Morgan Uceny, second in 4:09. *Oscar P Runs 47.07
Penny Wise, Pound Foolish?
Walter Dix Finally Resolves His Dispute With Agent Kimberly Holland How much money did Dix miss out on as a result of this dispute? We imagine a ton.
Embarrassing
NY Times Investigates: Many College Athletes Left With Huge Medical Bills As Colleges Drop The Ball
Duncan Kibet Talks Big About Getting The WR In Berlin "I will stand a high chance of attaining the feat (sub-2:03:59) if Haile Gebrselassie goes for the world record ... Whether I win or not, I need the time and Haile is my only challenger."
Jerry's Boys Go to the Masses
Pretty Cool 5 Minute Video
Wisconsin to Worlds
In Case You Were Gone This Weekend
LRC: Golden League Paris Recap *Results Paris was a great meet highlighted by Bernard Lagat squaring off with Kenenisa Bekele in the 3,000m, where the Ethiopian showed he's just too strong off a fast pace. Other remarkable performances came from Sanya Richards, Usain Bolt and the surprises of the meet Anna Willard and Dexter Faulk. There's much more to talk about so read our recap, see the photos and watch video of the top races *Official LRC Thread Here*Video Of Willard's Win, Bolt's 9.77
Bolt's 9.79 In Paris
Anna Willard's 800m Win
Tyson Gay 9.77 Over Powell's 9.88
Usain Bolt 19.59 In The Rain!
Ireland's Thomas Chamney After A Big 1500m PR In Heusden
Great Resource For Kids
Carol Goodrow's Kids Running Log Your kids run a half mile, fill out the paper log, mail it in and get a free bookmark via Carol and USATF. Plus, there are a couple of good books for kid runners which we reviewed here and here.