Tuesday’s Distance Updates

• Police Report Confirms That Four Ethiopian World Junior Athletes Defected From Their Home Country To Escape Civil Unrest Two of them have signed shoe contracts, one with adidas and the other with Nike.
• Paula Radcliffe Slightly Critical Of Mo Farah’s Decision To Skip Commonwealths; Hopes Does Euro Champs Radcliffe: “I was surprised he took the decision to pull straight out of the 10,000m. … I looked at the likes of David Rudisha as someone who’s not quite where he wanted to be in terms of fitness but still risked it and he acquitted himself well.”
• Coach Of NZ’s Robertson Twins, Zane And Jake, Defends Jake’s “Explosive Rant” At CGs Their coach thinks that they can eventually be world beaters and that Jake’s comments were blown up and just post-race frustration. He actually likes their anger, saying, “They’ve got a bit of tiger in them.” If you missed it, here is his rant on Nick Willis, Kenyan tactics and lapped runners.
• Race Recap: Ford Palmer Leads Three Sub-4 At Sir Walter Miler The first sub-4-minute mile that Raleigh has seen in over 40 years. Really cool pic of fans lining the whole finishing straight.
• Ireland’s Fionnuala Britton Will Make Surprise Marathon Debut At Euro Championships Four Days After She Runs The 10,000 Her coach wants to get experience racing a championship style marathon before Rio 2016.
• Geoffrey Mutai Racing Nairobi Diamond 10K On August 17th He’ll face 10K WR holder Leonard Komon among others.
• Random: Scottish Man Runs WR Of 3:46 For Marathon In Full Highland Dress

Good: UK Anti-Doping Bans Father Of Welsh Amateur Boxer For Life For Supplying Drugs To His Kids He has 5 kids involved in boxing, one is a daughter that already has a 4-year ban to her name. Good progress of anti-doping officials going after “support personnel.”

• Glasgow Drunk Driving Charges Against Indian Olympic Association Official Dropped Due To Lack Of Evidence
• 2014 Commonwealth Games By The Numbers Random stats, like there were 30,000 towels used at the Games.

IAAF Recap Of Ibero-American Championships Colombian Rafith Rodriguez won the 800 in 1:44.77.

Some States Need To Update Their High School Rule Books

• MileSplit Editorial: Time For State Associations To Evolve With Today’s High School Elites Reaction to the Iowa state association declaring their 800 record holder Kaley Ciluffo ineligible for competing in too many college meets. They also have barred World Jr. team member Stephanie Jenks from XC for the same rule.
• DyeStat’s Doug Binder: “Iowa remains stuck in the mud on this, and to its own detriment.” “… IGHSAU seems to think this is an issue of fairness or level playing fields, or something. I’d like to hear someone articulate that point because I don’t get it.”
• Local Article: Pleasant Valley Stripped Of Iowa State Team Title After Their 800 Champ Was Declared Ineligible

• RRW: Student Of The Sport, Jordan Hasay Learned Lessons At Debut 10K Hasay was happy with her result (32:21 for 4th) and learned a big advantage of road racing can be having the sub-elite men to race against when she gets dropped by the lead women.
• AJ Acosta Runs 3:58.07 To Win Spokane Summer Games Mile In Spokane, Washington; Riley Masters 2nd (3:59.07) Acosta bills himself as the “world’s fastest barista” as that is what he’s doing now outside of running to support himself financially.
• Josh McDougal Runs 14:43 For 7th Place In Road 5K In West Virginia The race was won by Cleophas Ngetich in 13:50.

US Results: TD Beach To Beacon 10K: Results *Photos; Liberty Mile: *Results

• LRC TD Beach To Beacon: Gemma Steel Edges Shalane Flanagan, Bedan Karoki Wins  link fixed Gemma Steel had the best run of her life to defeat Shalane Flanagan while Bedan Karoki defeated the fastest run ever by an American in Ben True.
• Post-Race Interviews With Flanagan, True, Steel, Jordan Hasay, Alexi Pappas, And Oregon Duck-To-Be Will Geoghegan
• Photo Gallery
• RRW Recap

North Carolina: Video And Results From Sir Walter Miler: Ford Palmer Finally Breaks 4, Winning In 3:57.61 Over Donnie Cowart (3:58.43) Heidi Gregson won the women’s race in 4:34.

Liberty Mile *Results
Jordan McNamara Edges Leo Manzano By .01, Gabriele Grunewald Wins McNamara runs 4:03 to beat Leo Manzano by less than a second with Trevor Dunbar 3rd. Gabriele Grunewald wins the women’s race in 4:32 over Heather Kampf and Sarah Brown (both 4:33).

August 17: Two-Time Falmouth Road Race Champion Micah Kogo Back To Defend His Title Against Stephen Sambu, Meb Keflezighi And Emmanuel Bett Also in the field are Chris Solinsky and Abdi Abdirahman. The women are led by Molly Huddle who faces Mary Wacera, Gemma Steel, Betsy Saina, Jordan Hasay and more. *Full Elite Fields

The Future Of American Distance Running? Alberto Salazar Shares Photos Of Galen Rupp’s Newborn Twins, Grayson And Emmie Rupp

There Was A Ton Of Drama At The 2014 Commonwealth Games

• NZ’s Jake Robertson Goes On Tirade About Nick Willis, Kenyan Team Tactics And Lapped Runners After Commonwealth Games Frustrations Robertson says that Willis tripped him in the 5,000 and that Kenyan tactics and lapped runners hindered him in the 10,000.
• Three Security Guards Were Fired For Taking Selfie With Usain Bolt
• Full Transcript From Conversation Where Bolt Allegedly Called CG “Shit”
• Guardian: “If it wasn’t for backstage drama, the Games would be dull.”
• Australian Weightlifter Ordered To Pay $673 Compensation After Headbutting Welsh Athlete
  *Aussie Team Chief Was “Disappointed” With All The Drama
• Ebola Outbreak Leaves Sierra Leone Athletes Afraid To Return Home
• Two NZ Decathletes DNF At Commonwealth Games After A Long Battle With Athletics New Zealand For Inclusion
• Namibian Runner Hospitalized After Commonwealth Games Marathon Beata Naigambo collapsed during the race, but got up to finish 11th.
• Dai Greene Defends Welsh Athletes That Got Banned For Doping Saying He Doesn’t Think They Would Cheat He was a former housemate of the 800 runner who was banned.
• 16-Year-Old Nigerian Weightlifter Stripped Of Gold Medal After Positive Doping Test Confirmed

US Road News: Meb Will Do NYC

• Meb Keflezighi To Run 2014 TCS New York City Marathon So will tennis star Caroline Wozniacki.
  *MB: Meb keflezighi’s big announcement
• Preview: The Stars Are Out In Maine: Meb, Shalane, Patrick Makau, Ben True, Jordan Hasay, Sam Chelanga – Updates From TD Beach To Beacon Joan Benoit Samuelson has brought a slew of stars to Maine this weekend and LRC has video interviews and a story on all of them.

Coaching Musical Chairs

• Ex-Columbia Coach Willy Wood Named New Head Coach At Bradley University Wood spent 20 years coaching at Columbia before stepping down after the 2014 season.
• Former La Salle And Yale Coach Daniel Ireland Named Head Coach At Columbia
• Tom Peterson Appointed Head Coach At La Salle

Not Good: Rio Doping Lab Returned Three Soccer False Positives The tests were before the lab had it’s accreditation revoked, but won’t help them in the process of getting re-accredited.

Track Talk Live Is Back!!!

Podcast: LRC A Conversation With Nick Willis – Recorded Live On Thursday The Olympic silver medalist took a break from the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland to talk about training for the 5k, whom he views as the best 1,500 runner on the planet, the difference between attitude and ability, the war on doping and how special it was to run 3:29 for 1,500. Are you a Willis fan? Be sure to get to the Michigan Track Classic on Aug 10th in Saline, MI.

Week That Was

LRCMary Cain Wins, Mo Farah Doesn't, The Gabe Jennings Of The Marathon Retires, And The Kenyan Men @ World Juniors

Sprint News

Kim Collins Breaks National Record – Indoors In July – Runs 6.48 In Czech. And at age 38.

Junior News

• Akela Jones, Barbados’ 1st-Ever World Junior Medalist, Gets Huge Ovation At Airport On Return Home The long jump champ will be doing huge damage in the NCAA for Kansas State next year.
• Japanese High School Track And Field Champs Being Streamed Live Now Through Aug. 3

More World Junior News

• Mary Cain Will Have To Defy The Odds: 28% Of WJR Gold Medalists In Distance Events Go On To Win A Medal At Senior Level *MB: Uh oh: Just 28% of WJR gold medalists in women’s distance go on to any medal at senior level 
• Performance-Wise, 2014 World Jrs Was Best Ever For USA The USA tied the marks for most medals (21) and top 8 finishes (39).
• Ethiopian Runners: 3 Found, But Question Of Asylum Still Unanswered Anyone who thought they were in danger doesn’t realize that Ethiopia is granted the 3rd most asylum requests in the US each year.
• Vin Lananna Wants A Summer Seires Of Pro Track Meets On The West Coast So Athletes Don’t Have To Travel To Europe He says most of the fields at these Euro meets are filled with Americans anyway and it could help the sport. Lananna: “It’s a pity that Ashton Eaton can walk through the airport in Portland and have no problem at all with security. And yet, he can go into Brussels and need a security guard because everybody is after him for an autograph.”

US News: RIP Torrin Lawrence

• Tragic News: Former 400m NCAA Champ Torrin Lawrence Dies In Car Accident Lawrence ran for the US in the opening round of the 4 x 400 at the World Relays two months ago, helping the team on to the final where they won gold.
  *UGA Athletics Article
  *USATF Release: Lawrence Ran A PR Of 45.32 Just 2 Weeks Ago In Belgium
• Shalane Flanagan Going For The American Record This Fall At The Berlin Marathon The record is 2:19:36 by Denna Kastor from 2006. Flanagan said they chose Berlin because it’s such a fast course and the weather at Chicago is a gamble.
• Cast Your Vote: Fan Voting For The Bowerman Award Now Open Men’s candidates are Lawi Lalang, Edward Cheserek and Deon Lendore. Women’s are Sharika Nelvis, Laura Roesler and Courtney Okolo.