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

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"

More News

Humorous Take On Monaco 5k: Rupp And Solinsky Suffering From Rare Disorder

Cross-Country Is Coming
*Peoria Illinois Hosts Summer XC Event Under the Lights
*DyeStat HS XC Pre-Season Top 25 Rankings

News From Africa

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).

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."

UK Trials Day 1 *Full Results

Other UK News:

French Athletes Trained To Fight With Their Heads? The Monaco 1,500 incident was "eerily reminiscent" of when French midfielder Zinedine Zidane head butted Italy's Marco Materazzi at the World Cup final.

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

World Champs Are 30 Days Away

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

Worlds Are Coming Soon ... And LRC Will Be There

Not Your Normal Boring Reads

Geoffrey Mutai Wins In Castelbuono He ran 29:05 to finish over a minute ahead of NYC Marathon champ Gebre Gebremariam in 2nd (30:13) and Mathew Kisorio 3rd (30:14). London Marathon champ Emmanuel Mutai finished sixth in 30:48 and Ryan Hall was supposed to race this, but his blog says he's currently in Switzerland.
*Highlights Video
*Top 10 Results

Upcoming: Gebre Gebremariam Returning To Defend Title At Beach To Beacon 10k Sam Chelanga will also be in the field. US marathon record holder Deena Kastor and twice Olympic silver medallist Catherine Ndereba in women's field.

London Diamond League Is August 5th And 6th *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 match-ups 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 3000m, men's 5000m, 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.

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

Janeth Jepkosgei In The News

World Champs News

Random Elite News

Bureaucratic-Related News

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

Other International News
*
Vivian Cheruiyot: 14 minutes Can Be Broken Next Year, "And It Will Be Me" IAAF
*After All That Talk About A "Strict 'A' Standard Policy," Ireland Is Considering Letting "B" Athletes Go To London Most countries do bring one athlete per event with the "B" standard, so no reason why they shouldn't.
*GB Comes Down Harder Than Anyone On Dopers, But Now Make A Hypocritical Move They are "forcing" discus thrower Lawrence Okoye to work under Olympic drugs cheat Vesteinn Hafsteinsson.
*Nick Willis' Medal Chances At World Champs Are Looking Good He's always been good in a tactical race and he's comfortable in a fast one, too.
*James Evans Elected President Of SA Athletics

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

Stockholm On The Boards:

Looking Ahead To World Champs

News Coming Out Of Europe

Injuries, Injuries

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

Professor Attributes Jamaica's Wealth Of Fast Sprinters To A Diet Of "Yam And Bananas"

Russian Vera Sokolova's 20K Racewalking WR Ratified By The IAAF In related news, Guinness World Records ratifies records for largest tonsils removed and most nails filed in 8 hours.

The Olympics Are 1 Year Away *NBC Video

US News

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.

Silas Kiplagat Outlasts Nick Willis (More Stockholm Coverage And Video Here)

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Kenia Sinclair Stays Undefeated, American Women Struggle

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)

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)

Great Deals

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