Commonwealth Games Track Action Starts Tomorrow *Schedule

• Wales’ 400 Hurdler And Team Co-Captain Rhys Williams Out Of CGs For Failing A Drug Test This is the second Welsh athlete to test positive in the lead-up to the CGs as did 800 runner Gareth Warburton.
  *Former CG Medalist Christian Malcolm Defends Rhys Williams, Saying “He is always someone who’s been anti-drugs.” Are there any pros who are publicly pro-drugs?
• Recommended Read:England’s Steve Way Used To Weigh 230 Pounds And Smoke 20 Cigarettes A Day; Now He’s A 2:16 Marathoner Way started running just go lose weight and get healthy, but got faster and faster and qualified for the CGs by being the 3rd Brit in London. Also, he’s 40 years old and works a 9-to-5 job while putting in 130-mile weeks.
• Profile On England 2:31 Marathoner Alyson Dixon, Who’s In The Shape Of Her Life After Coming Back From Running 2011 Worlds With 3 Broken Bones In Her Foot
• England’s Richard Kilty Hoping To “Shock” People In 100 As He Did When He Won The World Indoor 60
• Athletics Weekly Previews
  *Men: *Distance *Sprints *Jumps *Throws *Multis/Relays
  *Women: *Distance *Sprints *Jumps *Throws *Multis/Relays

Ritz / Webb Updates

• Dathan Ritzenhein Hopes To Race Within The Next Month As He Is Training At 85% As He Comes Back From His Sports Hernia He made the move back to his home state of Michigan last month. He says he won’t do a fall marathon, but probably a 10K or half.
• Good Read:Alan Webb Talks About His “Dream Goal” Of Making The Olympics In The Triathlon And Explains The Process To Get There Some good stuff here from Webb and his wife about his tri training and his mile AR.

Get Your Friday Started Right With Some Good Reads

• Alan Webb Is Having A Smooth Transition To The Triathlon And Is Enjoying The Process Last week Webb finished 2nd at a race, only steps behind a Canadian Olympian. He and his coach say the transition is going very well and they’re excited about how much room for improvement he still has.
• RR: New York Times Article On The WR Setting “Peerless And Seemingly Ageless” 90+-Year-Old Relay Team From US Masters Champs Good read on the five men who set 90+ age records in the 4 x 100, 4 x 400, 4 x 800. Two of them were war vets and went ashore at Normandy on D-Day. On getting the record, Roy Englert said, “We all just managed to stay alive longer than everybody else.”
• Interesting Q&A With Retired Professional Pacer Matt Scherer Talking about what pacers get paid, he said at a DL race a rabbit will get paid about the same as what the guys finishing 3rd-5th make. Not a bad deal.

Day 1 Of Commonwealth Games In The Books

• Not Farah Certified:Mo Farah Pulls Out Of Commonwealth Games He’ll focus on getting ready for the European Championships, which is much easier to win given the fact there are no Kenyans. “My body is telling me it’s not ready to race yet.”
  *MB Talk
  *Steve Cram Blames London Marathon For Farah’s Non-Existent Track Season
• Kenyan columnists reminisces about fact that Commonwealth Games corruption has been going on since at least 1982 He’s got an interesting story involving Kip Keino and the men’s 10,000 debacle from 1982.
• Usain Bolt And His Coach Glen Mills Say They Think He Can Still Run Faster If He Can Just Stay Injury Free Bolt says he may limit sponsor appearances next year so he can focus more on training.
• England’s Brownlee Brothers (Alistair And Johnathan) Dominate Triathlon As English Cycling (With Former Tour Winner Bradley Wiggins) Loses To Australia
• Rundown Of Day 1 Of Competition No track action until Sunday.
• Interesting Read From NY Times:Commonwealth Games: More Than A Colonial Vestige “The event may seem irrelevant for the unaffiliated, but not for the athletes from the 71 participating delegations.” Still, the NY Times says the future of the event is uncertain.
• Video Highlights From Opening Ceremony
  *“Doctor Who” Actor John Barrowman Applauded For “Wonderful” Opening Ceremony Gay Kiss

• Saturday:Heather Kampf To Defend Ryan Shay Mile Title In Three-Peat Attempt She faces 4:09 1,500 runner Amanda Eccleston. 3:38 1,500 runner Rob Finnerty vs.Daniel Stockberger (3:39) in the men’s race.
• Sunday: World Half Marathon Championships Gold Medalists Gladys Cherono And Geoffrey Kipsang Lead Fields For Sunday’s Bogota International Half Marathon
• August 1: Heather Kampf Eyes Three-Peat At GNC Live Well Liberty Mile Vs. Gabe Grunewald, Sarah Brown, Stephanie Brown And Lauren Penny
• August 17: Meb Keflezighi To Race At New Balance Falmouth Road Race

Study Finds 5-Hour Energy Shots Improve Your Mood, But Not Mental Performance; They Also Increase Your Blood Pressure

Previous World Junior News

MB:Official 2014 World Junior Discussion Thread

Day 2: LRC Women’s 5,000: Ethiopians Alemitu Heroye & Alemitu Hawi Go 1-2 And Crush The Field Heroye and Hawi used a 4:45 second 1,600 to break the field and ran away with this one, finishing 33 seconds ahead of the bronze medallist, Agnes Jebet Tirop of Kenya. Maggie Schmaedick of the USA & Oregon was 12th and missed her PR by less than a second.

100m:Upsets Take Place In Men’s And Women’s 100: HSer Kendal Williams, An FSU Commit, Beats NCAA Champ Trayvon Bromell Of Baylor As USA Goes 1-2 In Men’s 100 ; Great Britian’s Dina Asher-Smith Crushes Field And USA’s Kaylin Whitney, Who Got Bronze Williams was the only person in the field to set a PR into the headwind as he ran 10.21 to Bromell’s 10.28. Japan’s Yoshihide Kiryu was third in 10.34. On the girls side, the .16 margin of victory was the 2nd biggest in history as Whitney, who ran 11.10 at the US Trials, only ran 11.46. Asher-Smith, with a 11.14 PR, is no slouch.
*LA Daily News *IAAF Men’s Recap *IAAF Women’s Recap

Multis: Decathlon: Jiri Sykora Becomes 1st Czech Male Athlete To Win Gold, Does So With Championship Record Of 8135 Points
*After Totally Blowing It On Day 2 At World Youths Last Year, Great Britain’s Morgan Lake Turns A 2013 Failure Into A 2014 Heptathlon Title

Day 1: LRC M 10k: Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei Comes Back In The Final Lap To Win 1st Gold Of Games Over Kenya’s Elvis Cheboi Cheptegei, whose 27:56 PR was 34 seconds better than anyone else in the field, did all of the work after taking the lead from Japan’s Keisuke Nakatani just after four miles and he was rewarded with the victory. Ethiopia’s Tsegaye Mekonnen, who won the Dubai Marathon in 2:04 in January, was listed on the entries when they came out on Sunday but did not start. *RRW*IAAF
*MB:Kenyan press quotes David Monti saying of men’s 10k winner, “Is he (Cheptegei) really under 19?”
*Cool stuff: After Officials Recognized A Girl Was Falsely DQed In Girls 100, She Was Allowed To Run All By Herself After Boys 10k And Put Up 2nd-Fastest Time Of Meet