Where Will Rupp Be Winning The Olympic Marathon Gold?

"I have two favorites. It's going to come down to the last, last presentation. It's going to come down to the last minute."

- IOC committee member Nicole Hoevertsz from Copenhagen, where the world's leaders (Oprah) have converged to help win their country an Olympic bid in the Friday vote.

Beijing 2008 - London 2012 - XXXXX 2016 - The Decision Comes Friday

Group That Opposes Chicago's Oly. Bid Protests Ahead Of Friday's Decision*USA Today Tells You All You Need To Know About The Final Moments Of The Chicago 2016 Bid
*USA Today: IOC Agonizing Over Olympic Choice It's amazing how much ($$$) work goes into the bids.
*Detailed Info on Bid Cities This page is amazingly informative. Of course, after tomorrow, nobody will care about three of the cities, as the decision will be over.
*Website Ranks Potential 2016 Marathon Courses
*They Play, We Pay! Protestors Vent In Chicago

Latest Distance Running Interviews Are Great

Jon Rankin Will Run Internationally For Cayman Islands Running at the major global championships just became a whole lot easier for Rankin!

Nice Article On Dan Steele Who Left Oregon To Become Head Track Man At UNI

Sad News: Northern California Boy Dies After Cross-Country Race In Very Hot Weather It seems like he laid on the ground for a few minutes before bystanders noticed he was in really bad condition. Temperatures were well over 100 degrees on the day.

LRC The Week That Was What a week yet again. The off-the-track headlines dominated as we learned that running can make you smarter, Usain Bolt was or was not offered $100 million, Leonard Chuene continued to embarrass South Africa and another running-related book started to gather positive press. In terms of action, the Canadian soil marathon record fell and the milers blazed in NYC.

Edwin Soi Wins Scicli 10k Over Micah Kogo A rare tactical road race, as the course is run on 1km loops with a 300m hill run over cobblestones. On Sunday, the course was wet, meaning the opening kilometers were passed in around 3:00!

He's A Komon! Leonard Komon 27:10 Road 10k In Utrecht That's fast!

Cow Harbor 10k Race Results - Mo Trafeh And Katie McGregor Win US Only $$$ Jason Lehmkuhle was second on the men's side behind Trafeh, who made up for his narrow loss to Brett Gotcher at the New Haven 20k by picking up $3,000 in Northport, NY.

Zersenay Tadese Set To Run Birmingham World Half Marathon And Defend His Title Tadese is a 3-time winner of the event and you may recall pushed Kenenisa Bekele very hard in the Berlin 10,000m race on the track, where both men ran under 27:00.

UPSET SPECIAL! Andy Baddeley Surprises (!) And Shannon Rowbury Caps Great 2009 At 5th Avenue Mile updated Baddeley, who was injured earlier this year, won in 3:52 despite only 2.5% of LetsRun voters picking him for the win. Overwhelming favorite Bernard Lagat got 65% of the vote but came in fourth in the Big Apple behind Leo Manzano and Boaz Lalang. Shannon Rowbury (4:24) continued her excellent season on the track with a big win over Lisa Dobriskey and Sara Hall, who had a photo finish for second. *LRC PHOTOS
*5th Avenue Mile Results 15 men break 4:00!
*NYRR Coverage Page
*LRC: MBoards: 5th Avenue Mile

Ridiculous

Caster Semenya - Press Conference *South African Track Head Chuene Gets Unanimous Vote Of Confidence And Will Stay In Job  Chuene wants to know what he did wrong and says he lied about knowing about sex tests to protect Semenya. Complete BS. How does lying about the tests protect her in any way? It only protects his ass. He also has accused the whole affair of being the work of racists and for good measure said IAAF officials told Semenya to fake an injury. Someone should look into that claim, but this guy already has been shown to be a liar.
More: Is Financial Mismanagement At Athletics South Africa The Real Problem?

Kenyan News:

Derek Redmond Says Usain Bolt Will Break 400m World Record

Inside Look At Mammoth Track Club Running Times Many of our readers are interested in knowing more about the training of Ryan Hall, Jen Rhines, Deena Kastor, Anna Willard, Scotty Bauhs and the rest of Terrence Mahon's Mammoth Lakes group. This is the most informative article we've seen yet. There is a reason American distance running is improving: coaches and athletes are working full time to get better.
*LRC Message Boards: RYAN HALL ANNOUNCEMENT

*IAAF Kawasaki Super Meet Recap - Gay Wins In 10.13 The Kawasaki Super Meet brought in a few stars, including Tyson Gay, Felix Sanchez, Allyson Felix and Reese Hoffa. Times and performances were nothing to write home about but we're sure the Sake was goooood.
*LRC: Photos From The Kawasaki Meet!
*Results From Super Meet In Kawasaki Japan

*Usain Bolt Camp Dismisses Mega $$ Offer, Saying Bolt Is Still Puma Sounds like the offer is there, but Camp Bolt needed to please the current sponsors. In case you missed it, Usain Bolt was reportedly offered a $100,000,000 long term endorsement contract by a crazy Chinese company.
*Agent Ricky Simms Says Usain Bolt Is The Highest Paid Track & Field Athlete Of All Time Even Before The Latest Offer Meanwhile, most NFL punters make more per year than Bolt.

The ING New York City Women's Field Is Officially Interesting

It's Official: Mary Wittenberg Announces Paula Radcliffe Will Run ING NYC The men's field is loaded, but the women's field was just plain dull until 3-time champ Paula Radcliffe was announced.
*Yuri Kano And Mary Wittenberg Discuss Japanese Star's New York City Marathon Plans Kano: "When I think of Radcliffe I remember watching her at last year's New York. She looked like someone from another world ... I don't know how she can do that. It was amazing. To run like that ... every moment of her life must be dedicated to the marathon."

*Full ING NYC Elite Fields Men's side is insane, women's lacking star power. Thank goodness for Paula.
*Meb K Headlines Rock n Roll San Jose Half This Sunday Meb will face Luke Humphrey, Bolota Asmerom and Josh Cox. Magdalena Lewy Boulet is the clear favorite on the women's side.
*Wow: Meb K And Asmerom Join Hall, Sell, Torres, Lehmkuhle As US Elites Entered In NYC Marathon US men will get to stack up against intl. super-studs Martin Lel, Marilson Gomes Dos Santos, Hendrick Ramaala, Jaouad Gharib, Patrick Makau, Paul Tergat and James Kwambai.
*NYRR American Elite Preview

Bank Of America Chicago Marathon Is October 11 - Elite Fields 11 days until Sam Wanjiru runs his first big race in America against a very good African field. Deena Kastor and Irina Mikitenko match their sub-2:20 PRs on the fast course.

LRC Special American High School Student Travels To Addis And Trains With The Ethiopians - Entry #5 - 14:23 In this journal entry, Neb watches a young man win a sponsorship that changes his life at an Ethiopian track meet. We hope you're reading along with these journal entries, as they are fascinating.

Shocker Headlines

News From The Reggae Island

Dathan Ritzenhein Reportedly Runs Faster Than US Record For 10 Miles In A Workout
*Message board thread on his run.

Sammy Kitwara, The Man Who Fears No Runner, Will Get The Chance To Be Crowned World Champion In Birmingham Half Marathon

LRC: Check Out ALL The Photos From The 5th Avenue Mile PhotoRun.net caught photos of many of the world's top milers, who ran in one of New York's most interesting running events.
LRC Philly Distance Run Photos We are glad to see some nice photos after watching the race over the internet via the Ryan Hall-cam.

LRC Special American High School Student Travels To Addis And Trains With The Ethiopians - Entry #4 - RAB Rugby In this journal entry, Neb goes with the training group for a crazy game with no rules that can sort of be called "rugby."

Former Dartmouth HEPS XC Champ Jarrod Shoemaker Wins World Duathlon Title

Caster Semenya / Leonard Chuene Saga

Bribe$, Mascots, Robots, World Political Leaders, Public Opinion All Being Taken Into Account In Final Hours Of 2016 Olympic Decision

Forget Godzilla - Tokyo has a new threat towering over it *Video Preview Of Competing Cities For 2016 The "winner" between Rio, Madrid, Tokyo and Chicago will be announced by the IOC on Friday.
*Fox TV Ordered NOT To Run Program Where Chicagoans Voice Anti-Olympic Opinions
*Update! Obama Headed To Copenhagen With Mrs. Obama To Stump For Chicago Turns out the first man and lady will board Air Force One and make the trip to Denmark to show the IOC how much the US wants the Olympics.
*Picture, left: Giant transformer "Gundam" built for some crazy reason to help support Tokyo's bid.

Usain Bolt In New York

F1 Grand Prix of Italy - Race *Bolt Cheers On Yanks As They Sweep Sox And Lock Up AL East
*Bolt's Visit In Brooklyn's Walt Whitman College Only Fills Theater Halfway
*Some Jamaicans Don't Feel Bolt Deserves "Order Of Jamaica" Honor This writer defends Bolt's hard work and contributions.
*What Is The Second-Fastest Land Animal Behind The Cheetah? It's Not Usain Bolt

We Completely Agree: Sports Commentators Need To Not Bore Us With The Obvious

Scotiabank Toronto Marathon - Mungara Sets New Course Record

*Kenya's Kenneth Mungara Wins Toronto In CR 2:08 And Amane Gobena Wins Women's In 2:28
*Top 3 Men's Finishers Beat Canadian All-Comers Record In Cool, Rainy Toronto
*52-year-old Joan Benoit Samuelson finished 2nd in the women's half marathon in 1:22.

Friday's Action From Daegu, S Korea

Tyson Gay 9.94 Victory Over Asafa Powell Gay and Powell both continued their fine post-World Championships running, as Gay ran 9.94 for the win into a headwind. Carmelita Jeter continued running unbelievable times as she won the 100 by OVER half a second. World 1,500m champ Yusuf Kamel won the 800 and Nick Symmonds' 2009 campaign likely came to an end with a 7th-place finish. Allen Johnson was 4th in the hurdles and one has to wonder if this was the last race of his incredible career.
*Results Notice the results website has a picture of Usain Bolt on it even though he didn't run the meet.

A Nice Look At The Great Career Of Stacy Dragila The recently-retired vaulter was certainly a pioneer, as she won the first-ever women's pole vault at indoor Worlds, outdoor Worlds and the Olympics.

Upcoming Events:

NYC: World Champ Jaouad Gharib, Worlds 3rd-Fastest (James Kwambai) And Half Marathon Star Patrick Makau Added To NY Field The blurb in the NY Times has no mention of American Ryan Hall being in the field. Any concern about NY watering down its field to help Ryan Hall out is completely gone. Hall will have his hands full.