Mid-D Stuff: Nick Willis’ Michigan Track Classic Is Sunday *Full Fields

• Stacked Fields Set For Sunday’s Michigan Track Classic: Nick Willis: “We’re trying to show another side of racing where it’s a spectator sport, not an event to sign up to race.” link fixed Willis has organized a great event as he faces Nate Brannen, Garrett Heath and Cory Leslie in the men’s mile. Women’s 800 has Ajee Wilson, Morgan Uceny and Kate Grace.
  *Willis Hoping To Bounce Back For A Fast Mile In Michigan After Disappointing Commonwealth Games Willis got 3rd, but was upset that his tactics put him in a spot where he had no shot to win. He’s talking fast times for this weekend.
• Great Read And Race Video: Donnie Cowart Blogs About His First Sub-4 Minute Mile, Which Came At The Sir Walter Miler After Being Sick And Vomiting For The 24 Hours Beforehand Cowart titles his blog “A 15 Year Journey To 4 Minutes” which started with a 5:29 in 8th grade, progressed to a 4:22 as a senior and a 4:04 as a college senior and now has reached a 3;58.43.
  *LRC Archive: We Called Cowart “The Happiest 4th Place Guy In History” After The Steeple At The 2012 Olympic Trials
• Good Read: Alysia Montano’s Journey As A Running Mom-To-Be During her 26th week of pregnancy she beat her husband (a sprinter) in a mile with a 5:40.
• Louis Zamperini Memorial Slideshow Photos spanning his whole life from childhood, to running in the Olympics, to war and even hugging Angelina Jolie.
  *Watch The Trailer For “Unbroken”

• UK Hepathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson Pulls Out Of European Champs With Inury Same injury that kept her out of Commonwealth Games.
• British Javelin Record Holder Goldie Sayers Named Team Captain For European Champs
• The Netherlands’ World Heptathlon Bronze Medalist Dafne Schippers Will Be Focused On The Short Sprints At Euro Champs She decided to focus on the 100/200 after she set two NRs over 2-hours at the Glasgow DL meet last month. There she ran 11.03 in the 100 and followed it up by beating Allyson Felix in the 200 with 22.34.
• European Champs Hurdles Preview
• Will Commonwealth Games Success Lead To Scottish Independence? Writer feels that success of the Games showed younger voters that Scotland is “capable of running its own affairs.”
• RIP Hungary’s 1968 Olympic Javelin Champion Angela Nemeth

US News

• Meb Keflezighi And His Wife Will Have Dinner At The White House With Barack Obama
• A Look Back At The Top 4 Memorable Performances Of Jason Hartmann’s Career Hartmann recently retired and will coach at Saginaw Valley State University, a DII school in Michigan.
• 30 Years Ago Yesterday Joan Benoit Samuelson Won The First Women’s Olympic Marathon In 2:24.52
  *Highlights Video
• A Look At Staten Island’s New $93 Million Indoor Track Set to open in October, the facility has had several construction delays, including issues caused by Hurricane Sandy.
• Camas Mayor Declares “Alexa Efraimson Appreciate Day”

Hurdling News / Sex Sells

• Eurosport Writer Upset That Australia’s “Jiggling” Hurdler Michelle Jenneke Overshadows Sally Pearson We disagree that Pearson was “overshadowed.” We read a ton about her win and dispute with the Aussie head coach. We didn’t come across anything on Jenneke and didn’t realize she actually finished 5th until reading this article.
  *LRC Archive: Michelle Jenneke , the savior of track and field
• Scottish Media: “Five Lies About Stage-Bomber Genevieve LaCaze” LaCaze’s closing ceremony antics definitely got her some attention from the Scottish media/men.
• Lolo Jones Tweets About Nightmare That She Lost Her Abs

• Wow: Robert Harting Being Sued By Fan Over Iconic “Incredible Hulk” Celebration From The London Olympics The fan says Harting insulted the German state by ripping his jersey after he won discus gold. We say Harting should sue the fan for wasting his time and money with this “nonsense.”
• IAAF Work Rest And Play Q&A With Colombian TJer Caterine Ibarguen She hasn’t lost a competition since she was 2nd at the 2012 Olympics.
• Congrats To Blogger Martin Bingisser For Making Swiss Hammer Team For Euro Champs Bingisser provides some good coverage of the often-ignored throwing events. Good luck to him in Zurich.

Usain Bolt At The Commonwealth Games *Results

• Eurosport: “What’s eating Usain? Gabby Logan row draws spotlight to Bolt’s mood swings.” Bolt called out the BBC commentator for saying that she enjoyed the Games without him. You can watch the video here. Bolt says it in a joking manner, but this columnist feels there was a serious undertone.
  *Daily Mail Article
• Bolt Still Talking About Eventually Trying To Go Sub-19 In The 200 He seems to have finally given up on breaking his 100 WR, though, as he said, “I think I’ve done enough in the 100. … I love my 200 and I want to do something special for myself. So for me, my main aim is the 200.”
• Video: Bolt Dancing To The Proclaimers “500 Miles” Before 4 X 100 Final

Commonwealth Games *Full Schedule And Results *5k Photos

The Bolt Show Delivers: Usain Bolt Anchors Jamaica To 4 X 100 Gold With A Commonwealth Games Record Of 37.58 England kept it close until Bolt blew them away in the end. Jamaica also won the women’s 4 x 100, anchored by Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, to a new CG record of 41.83.

M1,500: Kenya Goes 1-2 As James Magut Wins 1,500m Gold And Ronald Kwemoi Bags Silver Nick Willis put himself in a bad box but got bronze.
*Video Of Final Lap Of Men’s 1,500m And Results

W5,000: Mercy Cherono Wins 5,000 As England’s 40-Year-Old Jo Pavey Gets Inspirational Bronze Pavey gave birth just 10 months ago, but ran a gutsy race challenging the Kenyans with one lap to go.

Amantle Montsho Tests Positive For Stimulant Banned In Competition Discuss. The stimulant the former world 400 champ tested positive for was methylhexaneamine. BBC article here.

• More: Nick Willis Disappointed With His 1,500 Bronze, Saying He Raced Poorly Tactically Willis apologized to South Africa’s Johan Cronje, who was 4th by .05-seconds, saying, “He deserved that far more than I did … he ran a better more cagey and brave race.”
• Kenya’s Julius Yego Defies Injury To Win Historic Javelin Gold In Glasgow Yego, who says, “I gave up running to take up javelin because I was so slow,” became the first Kenyan to win a non-running CG title, competing through a groin injury he picked up in his warm-up.
• Bolt: “Even though I was cold, the reception has been warm.” Bolt spent a lot of time on his victory lap, saying, “I want to say that this new thing about selfies, they are really making these laps of honour really, really long.”
• England Takes 4 X 400 Gold In “Nail-Biting” Finish Over The Bahamas England got the baton in 2nd, but came back to win by .05.
• UK Independent: Phillips Idowu shows no sign of returning to his best The former world champ was only 5th in the TJ, won by SA’s Khotso Mokoena.
• Capital FM: Mighty Kenyans Finish With Golden Hat Trick Mercy Cherono refers to Jo Pavey as “the England lady.”
• IAAF Final Day Recap: Bolt Brings The Curtain Down On The Commonwealth Games
• Australia’s Alana Boyd Wins Pole Vault

Previous CG News: Rudisha Dethroned

LRC Nijel Amos Dethrones King David In CW Games 800m Final Nijel Amos was 5 meters behind David Rudisha, with no momentum with less than 100m to go, and he blew him away.
*Guardian: David Rudisha stays humble after Nijel Amos storms to 800m gold Amos: “I panicked a little bit in the last 100m because I checked the screen and I thought: ‘Shit, I’m in a box.’ … I was lucky because my training partner Andre, someone who really cares about me, let me out.”
*MB: Down goes Rudisha: Nijel Amos kicks past Rudisha to win Commonwealth Gold in 1:45.18
*Pre-Race MB: Brandon McBride’s big hit!

• More: Jamaica Sweeps 200 As Rasheed Dwyer Wins In 20.14 Over Warren Weir (20.26)
• Blessing Okagbare Wins 200 In 22.25 As England Goes 2-4 20-year-old Jodie Williams got the silver.
• IAAF Full Thursday Recap: SA’s Cornel Fredericks Wins 400H Over Trinidad And Tobago’s Jehue Gordon Kenya’s Eunice Sum had the fastest time in the 800 semifinal (2:01.38) as England’s Jessica Judd won the slower heat (2:02.26) and Scotland’s Lynsey Sharp and England’s Jenny Meadows made it on time. 2013 NCAA champ Natoya Goule (Jamaica) did not advance.
• Brianne Theisen Eaton Wins Heptathlon Gold For Canada
• Jamaica’s Kaliese Spencer Wins 400H As Scotland’s Child Takes “Emotional” Silver In Front Of Home Crowd
• Some Fans Complain About Shoddy Treatment Of Shot Put Valerie Adams won, but did so in front of less than half-full stadium as the SP was scheduled at the end of the night after the track finals.

Distance News Of Note

• World Half Marathon Champions Geoffrey Kipsang And Gladys Cherono Added To 2014 Berlin Marathon Fields Men’s field is stacked as it also has Chicago CR holder Dennis Kimetto, 2-time London Marathon winner Tsegaye Kebede, and 2011 London Marathon champion Emmanuel Mutai.
• Will This Person Be Mary Cain’s Nemesis For The Next Decade? Kenya’s Next Great Star? 1,500 Gold Shows Faith Kipyegon Continues To Bloom The 3-time World Jr. XC champ, who crushed Mary Cain at World Jrs in 2012 and ran 3:56 in 2013, now has her first senior medal in 2014.
• John Mayer: Jenny Simpson Embraces Emma Coburn’s Success *MB: John Mayer Profiles Boulder’s Ffastest Women (Pic)
• Athletics South Africa Reverses Course – Will Take Distance Runners To African Champs – Johan Cronje And Andre Olivier Make The Cut
• After His 1:42.53, Pierre-Ambroise Bosse Wants To Make Sure He Never Loses To A European
• 228th Street In New York City Will Be Co-Named Ted Corbitt Way To Honor Late Black Running Pioneer He was a 1952 Olympic marathoner.
• Matt Scherer Goes On NPR To Talk About Life As A Professional Rabbit The 5-minute audio can be downloaded here.

Interesting Reads

• Good Read: Toni Reavis Introduces You To The Woman Who Never Ran In HS Or College But Was 10th At Bix – Laura Batterink Scroll down as her story comes out in the second half.

• Totally Cool: China Builds Right-Angled Track Ahead Of Visit From Communist Party Leaders

• The Meteoric Rise Of Trentavis Friday Friday, the world junior 200m gold medalist, didn’t run  track as a freshman due to poor grades. As a sophomore, with little training, he ran a 48.12. Last year he ran 10.37, 20.79, and 46.97. Now he’s run 10.00 and 20.03w.
• Interesting Q&A With Michael Johnson About The Financial Side Of The Sport And How He Went From Making “$3 An Hour To $500,000 Per Race”
• After His 3:31 PR, Henrik Ingebrigtsen Is VERY Confident Heading To Europeans “I am running so fast now that I am not particularly bothered about any of the others who will be at the championships.”
• We’ve Been Saying This For Years British Columnist Says Athletes Should Publish List Of Drugs They Are On We’ve thought this for years. If you are on thyroid medication, we want to know. Let the public decide.

Previous Commonwealth Games News

• Jamaica’s Kemar Bailey-Cole Takes 100m Title As England’s Adam Gemili Claims Silver Jamaica’s Nickel Ashmeade was 3rd.
  *Telegraph Article On Gemili’s Silver
• Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare Wins 100m Gold In Championship Record Of 10.85 Jamaica went 2-3 with Veronica Campbell-Brown and Kerron Stewart.
• Inspirational: Jamaica’s Novlene Williams-Mills Fight Continues At The Commonwealth Games Once battling cancer, the 400 runner now fights for a CG medal. She said, “For the past two years to just come back on the track to do what I love to do, so to get that medal would tell all my fellow cancer survivors to never give up hope and to keep fighting.”