"If Usain agrees, if someone wants to organize this, I am ready."

"I have achieved everything."

- Kenenisa Bekele on racing Usain Bolt next year and his unbelievably dominant career.  

Friday: Dramatic Final Leg Of The Golden League - Memorial van Damme From Brussels *Entries *Results *Timetable *Watch Here Live Starting At 1:50pm Eastern

The Bolt Daily Telegraph

Track & Field First? Bolt Reportedly Receiving US $500,000 To Race In Daegu, South Korea We understand paying a top marathoner a half a mil to run twice a year, but this is rarified air for a 10-second race. Daegu is hosting the 2011 World Championships (we can't get over what a bad idea that is), so the more excitement he brings, the better.
*4 Golds In London? Bolt Says He'll Leave Event Decisions Up To Glen Mills While the headline claims Bolt will have a go at 4 gold medals in London, basically Bolt has said none of that. He does say he'd rather do the long jump than the 400m, but says preparation for 4 events will be very demanding.
*Bolt Says He Will Not Consider Himself A Legend Until He Has Many Fast Cars There is a reason this guy is popular.

Olympics Day 16 - AthleticsLRC Ritz Speaks USATF held a teleconference with Dathan Ritzenhein Tuesday afternoon and we quickly give you the highlights. We tell you what Ritz had to say about new coach Alberto Salazar and what event Ritz will focus on for 2012. Plus we tell you what Ritz's next race will be. Is an American 10k record run a possibility?
More: Indy Star: Bob Kennedy Not Concerned He Isn't Record Holder Any More Kennedy says it's "the closing of one chapter and the opening of another" and for his sake let's hope it's true as the same day the record fell his wife filed papers to run for mayor of Indy. *Denver Post: Ritzenhein: American Track Idol *Grand Rapids Press: Ritz Reaches Goal Of 5k AR *Oregonian: Excerpts From Teleconfernece *USATF: More Excerpts

LRC
The Week That Was
This week we analyze Dathan Ritzenhein's 12:56 and try to tell you, "I told you so." We also argue that the IAAF would catch more drug cheats if they put the LRC community in charge and, lastly, we try not to forget Anna Willard and/or Shannon Rowbury.

Sept. 1 Recommended Read #1: Brief Chat With Kevin Hanson About Desireé Davila Kevin Hanson, who was so excited he lost his breakfast during Desireé Davila's amazing 2:27 11th place at Worlds, takes the reader through her running history. Amazingly, only one American woman has run faster than Davila in the marathon at a younger age, and that was Joan Benoit. Also, every time Davila - whose boyfriend has served as her only training partner leading up to Berlin - has put on a USA jersey, she has PRed.
Sept. 1 Recommended Read #2: India's Santhi Soundarajan Was Disqualified For Being A "Man" In 2006 - Says Nobody Fought For Her Time Magazine did a great job finding Soundarajan, whose disqualification left her, in her words, "physically and mentally totally broken."

IAAF Golden League Full Zagreb Results *Blanka Vlašic Jumps 2.08m *Vlašic Message Board Thread And Video Here Her 2.08 is the 2nd-best jump ever behind the 2.09m World Record, and apparently she almost jumped 2.10m, too. 2.08m is just under 6'10". Speaking of record-breaking women ... in case you missed it, Yelena Isinbayeva broke the women's pole vault WR 5.05m with a 5.06m (16'7") in the Weltklasse on Friday (of course, we overlooked everything but Ritz). That was the 15th time she has broken the record. *Zagreb Top Results: Cantwell 22.16m Shot Put Sets WL, Vlašic Jumps 2.08m
Oh, you were wondering about distance? Evan Jager ran 3:43 in a 3:36 race won by Belal Mansoor Ali.

Gateshead Results Gateshead was hit by rain and few of the times were fast. Lisa Dobriskey won the 1,500m easily after Erin Donohue made a move to the front with 400m to go. Americans had a great day overall, as Leo Manzano won the 1,500m, Christy Wurth-Thomas won the 800 closing in 58 over Berlin medalist Jenny Meadows, Nick Symmonds won the 800 and the sprinters did their job and picked up the winners' paychecks in mostly really slow times. The big upset was in the 3k, where Bernard Lagat couldn't kick with Ugandan Berlin 5k 4th-placer Moses Kipsiro, as Chris Solinsky was back in 6th. Kenyan 5k world champion Vivian Cheruiyot got the better of 10k champ Linet Masai in the 3k.
*More From Gateshead: Tyson Gay Wins 100m Into Big Headwind He's having groin surgery after the season.

LRC: Dathan Ritzenhein Breaks Bob Kennedy's American 5,000m Record In Zürich Amazed? So are we.

12th IAAF World Athletics Championships - Day ThreeBolt Vs. Bekele Match Race In The Works When and where? We are not going to miss this. They should have it in Beaver Stadium or the Rose Bowl and see if they can sell 100,000 tickets. The most dominant sprinter and most dominant distance runner of all time are willing to run a match race at a distance between 600m and 800m in 2010. Their agents ... that may be a different story.
< 19.00 ? Bolt Says 200m Record Will Be Easier To Lower Than 100m

US Elites Hit The Road
*Elite New Haven 20k Entrants The men's field seems to be deep and even, the women's field is led by returning champion Jill Swope (Steffens) and Magdalena Boulet.
*Humphrey and Rodriguez Lead USA Team Against International Field At Rock n Roll Virginia Beach

Interesting Analysis
*CNBC Report On Manhattan Track Club Calls Them One Of The Top-10 Training Groups In The US
*Jim Hage Claims Bill Rodgers Is Most Dominant Marathoner Of All Time

*Mike Hurst Weighs In On Caster Semenya's Coach And Doping Past
*Semenya Waits In Limbo

Beijing 2008 - London 2012 - Rio 2016?
Olympic Committee Issues Vague Report That Hints At "Rio de Janeiro 2016"
What happened to the Obama magic for Chicago? We'll leave it to the Chicago political machine to "convince" the IOC to bring the OG to the US.

Jamaicans Plead Guilty To Taking Banned Substance Jamaica wanted to let them go with no punishment but now it looks like they will get a "public warning."

You'll Enjoy This
*LetsRun.com Homepage From 8 Years Ago HS senior Alan Webb was on the front page of the Washington Post and had just defeated Ryan Hall in a mile race, an email campaign was on to save UVA Men's track and message board posters were wondering if all the marathon courses in the '80s were short.
*How 20 Popular Websites Looked When Launched They must have forgotten to add LetsRun.com to the world's most popular website list.

Interesting Caster Semenya Articles Continue

Great LetsRun.com Offer 10% Off AND Free Shipping From RoadRunner Sports Click Here

Upcoming Races From The Marathon To 110m Hurdles

*Return Of The Road Warriors! Sammy Wanjiru To Race Sammy Kitwara In Sep 13 Rotterdam Half Marathon The 22-year olds get to duke it out. Yes, they would be redshirt juniors if they were in college in the US.
*Masai And Cheruiyot Headline Strong Women's Challenge 5k In Hyde Park On Sep 6 Paula Radcliffe holds the course record at 14:51. Berlin 5k champ Vivian Cheruiyot will race 2k Friday in Brussels and then 5k Sunday in London.
*Former WR Holder Liu Xiang Could Compete In Shanghai Against Terrence Trammell It would be great to have Liu Xiang back in good form.
*New Haven 20k is on Labor Day *Elva Dryer Interview *Anthony Gallo Interview Where He Talks About Training With Jack Daniels In Flagstaff *2008 New Haven Results
*Oregon XC Kicks Off Season On Friday Several LRC voters have the Ducks at #1 but how will they do without Galen Rupp? *Oregon Releases The Most High Tech Media Guide In NCAA Running History Recruiting and media attention have been really tough for the Ducks, so hopefully this will help.

Already Happened:

USA 10km Trail Championships Were This Weekend In NC
Princeton grad and steeplechaser Michael Spence won the men's 10k in just under 40 minutes. Must have been a bit of a tough course.

Recent/Upcoming Record Attempts
*Haile G To Race Duncan Kibet In Berlin On September 20 Geb has the WR at 2:03:59 and Kibet, thanks to the unbelievable Rotterdam Marathon in April '09, is the = second-fastest marathoner of all time with a 2:04:27. Maybe this will keep Rojo from blasting Geb for not racing anyone.
*World Record? Princeton's Slovenski Brothers Clear 10' Pole Vaulting Off Unicycle Then they swallow fire and walk a tightrope over a pool of sharks.
*Ritz's Blog From August 31

We Agree: Usain Bolt Says Kenenisa Bekele Deserves More Credit The great sprinter says the great distance runner deserves a lot more attention and fame.

Your Tax Dollars At Work ... Paying For Runners
*Bank Of America Spending A Fortune In Advertisements For The BoA Chicago Marathon At least our bailout money is being used to support running!
*Briton Jenny Meadows Hopes For Lottery Upgrade After World Championship 800m Medal She's been living off of 15,000 dollars of funding a year.