September 6, 2014 | LetsRun.com

2014 Memorial van Damme – Brussels DL Full Results LRC Fan Poll Results

LRC Evan Jager’s 8:04.71 Breaks American Steeplechase Record As Jairus Birech Gets First Sub-8:00 Of Year It was a tremendous race to end the Diamond League season.
Discuss: Jagerrrrr 8.04.71 – New Steeplechase American Record!!!

LRC Brenda Martinez Runs 1:58.84 To Win The DL Finale! Brenda Martinez got the huge win and Ajee Wilson likely will end 2014 as the world leader at 800.

Discuss Live: Official 2014 Brussels DL Live Discussion Thread

The Weekend’s Just Getting Started: Great North Run And Rieti On Sunday *Watch GNR Live For Free On USATF.tv

IAAF Great North Run Half Marathon Preview: Mo Farah Hopes To Be First British Winner In 30 Years Farah faces Stephen Kiprotich and Tariku Bekele. Women’s side has an amazing three-way race between Tirunesh Dibaba, Mary Keitany and Edna Kiplagat. *BBC Article
IAAF: “AthleticsRoyalty” Grace Spectacular Opening Ceremony To Recognize Millionth Finish Milestone At Great North Run Lamine Diack, Mo Farah, Haile Gebrselassie, Paula Radcliffe, Brendan Foster were all there.
Stacked Mid-D Fields Highlights Sunday’s Rieti World Challenge Meet Silas Kiplgat vs.Will Leer and Leo Manzano in the 1,500, Ayanleh Souleiman vs.Adam Kszczot and Taoufik Makloufi in the 800, Tunisia’s Olympic silver medalist Habiba Ghribi in the steeple, Belarus’ 1:58.15 woman Marina Arzamasava in the 800. *Full Entries Also a 3,000 with Lawi Lalang, Imane Merga, Thomas Longosiwa and Lopez Lomong, Ryan Hill and German Fernandez. Also Justin Gatlin vs. Asafa Powell in the 100.

Looking Ahead – 2014 Chicago Might Be Special Thanks To 2003 Rematch

Oct 12. Full Chicago Marathon Elite Field Announced, Kenenisa Bekele Won’t Have It Easy – Eliud Kipchoge Headlines List Of Challengers Kipchoge, a 12:46 5ker who famously beat Bekele for the 2003 world title at 5,000, has run three marathons, none slower than 2:05:30. Sub-2:20 women Rita Jeptoo and Florence Kiplagat lead the women’s field.

Next Week: American Stars Jenny Simpson, Mary Cain And Matthew Centrowitz To Headline NYRR Fifth Avenue Mile On Saturday, September 13 There actually are a couple of Kenyans as well this year. *Flipagram: Meet The 5th Ave. Pros

European News Of Note

European Team For IAAF Continental Cup Announced
Epic Matchup Between Caleb Ndiku And Mo Farah At Continental Cup Won’t Take Place The author seemed to think it wasn’t taking place as Ndiku is in 3,000 and Farah 5,000 but Farah isn’t in the event.
*Isiah Koech Wanted To Race Farah
Mark English Scraps Run At Irish 800 Record Of 1:44.82 Due To Hamstring Injury
UK 800 Runner Alison Leonard Blogs About Her Breakthrough 2014 Season She ran 2:02.15 at age 16 and 2:01.82 in 2000 at age 20 and hadn’t PRed since but got down to 2:00.08.

Week That Was

LRC No DQ In Zürich, Alexa Goes Pro, Taoufik PRs, Amazing Japanese Stamina And High Praise For Taco Bell Jenny Simpson won the DL in dramatic fashion, Alexa Efraimson went pro, Makhloufi PRed, a XC skier made running news, and the most amazing endurance feat of the week was in Japanese high school baseball.

US Distance News

Good Read: Meet Foot Locker Champ Grant Fisher: The Two-Sport Star Is Having A Ball Balancing Soccer And Running Only the fifth boy to ever win the US HS champs as a junior, Fisher is a BIG-time talent who still plays soccer year round. You can read our profile of Grant Fisher from June here. MB: Canadians rejoice – Grant Fisher is Canadian born – (Very good Running Times Profile)
America’s Team For IAAF Continental Cup Announced The Americans on the lucrative team in the mid-d/distance ranks include Duane and Ajee (800), Leo and Rowbury (1,500), Bernard and Grunewald (3k), Coburn and Jager (St.), and Bumby and Mackey (5k) – No Rupp or Centro.
Elite Fields For Sunday’s Minnesota Mile Are Released

Distance News: Nick Symmonds Update, Meb Looks Back, Alexi Pappas’ Movie

symmonds brooks

LRC Nick Symmonds Update: 100% Healthy, Back Training And Lifting Friday was the one year anniversary of Nick’s Zurich 800m win, and Brooks Beasts TC coach Danny Mackey wrote in with an update on Nick.
Great Read: Meb Looks Back On 10 Year Anniversary Of Athens Marathon Silver
Sounds Cool: Ken Goe Shares Some Info About Alexi Pappas’ New Film, “Tracktown,” In Which He Will Be An Extra The story centers on a fictional distance runner (played by Pappas) at the Olympic Trials. The film is currently shooting and sounds legit as it includes actors Andy Buckley(David Wallace from “The Office”) and Rachel Dratch (of “Saturday Night Live”).
Mary Cain plans to run in next week’s Fifth Avenue Mile Cain didn’t run Stockholm or Zurich as planned but Salazar says her workouts are going great.
RIP: RIP Former US Marathon Champion (Five-Time Olympic Marathon Trials Qualifier) Jane Welzel Welzel ran in the historic 1984 Olympic Marathon Trials, which was the first for women.
Hilarious Photo From New Haven 20K: Non-Athletic Spectator In Flip-Flops Runs With Men’s Lead Pack

More Brussels *Full Results

LRC Justin Gatlin Runs 9.77/19.71 To Pull Off Greatest Single-Day 100/200 Double In History Justin Gatlin had the fastest 100-200 same-day double ever as he crushed the competition in Brussels. *Video Of Both Races

LRC Taoufik Makhloufi AND Silas Kiplagat Celebrate Early As Makhloufi Wins DL Finale, Does He Silence His Critics? Kiprop, Kiplagat and Souleiman all had $40,000 reasons to win this one but Makhloufi was your winner. Galen Rupp PRed and was in the the thick of it with 200m to go, but didn’t have the wheels the last 200m.

The Rest of The Meet: A Spectacular High Jump, Jenny Simpson Wins Grudge Match Over Rowbury, Moves To #2 All-Time In US At 3,000 A WR almost fell in the HJ. Doper Mary Slaney‘s record lives to see another day. We recap all the events for you here.

More: IAAF Recap #1 Includes steeple.
*IAAF #2 Includes HJ
*IAAF #3: World leading marks in jav and SP.
Gatlin On Running 9.77 Again: “It is coming back full circle, right. So, hmmm, a little bit of bittersweet, but I am happy.” Talking about Usain Bolt, Gatlin said, “It is not just one lane on the track. I don’t want to go out there and lay down … I will go out there and push him.”
Jon Gugala: Justin Gatlin Remains Track’s Most Controversial Figure Of 2014 “In 2014, with no one else to turn to, track and field needed Justin Gatlin. That doesn’t mean that they had to like it.”
Athletics Weekly Recap

Weekend XC

Results: Edward Cheserek And Oregon Men Start The XC Season Off As Winners At The Bill Dellinger Invite Oregon won with 20 points to Michigan State’s 46. Rachele Schulist was the individual women’s winner, leading Michigan State to the team win.
USTFCCCA Weekend NCAA XC Preview

Three Great Reads

Awesome Read: A Key Part Of Seb Coe’s 1984 Olympic Preparations Were Spent Alone In American While Living With Legendary HS Coach Joe Newton Some great stuff in this article.
Recommend Read #2: Usain Bolt Makes Rare US Appearance, Does Great Q&A With NBC
*MB: Bolt is the man – Calls for lifetime bans for drug cheats, says he couldn’t have beaten Justin Gatin this year
RR#3: 2008 Olympic 800 Champ Wilfred Bungai: Trouble With Kenya Is Its Embedded Officials Wow, the first three paragraphs of this piece are GREAT. *Nairobi Branch Of AK Names Bungei As The Nandi County Chairman

Random But Interesting

Lolo Jones Will Be On “Dancing With The Stars” The season premiere is Monday Sept. 15.
Kim Smith Has Foot Surgery In Boston She’s got a great attitude about it though, “Everyone likes a comeback story, right?”
Former USATF Head Doug Logan Blogs About Rory McElroy Dumping Caroline Wozniacki Logan: “Rory, you’re an idiot!”
Let’s Hope Not – Can Excercise Cause ALS?

Olympic News

D.C. 2024 Olympic Group Launches New Website, Logo Let’s hope it doesn’t come to DC. The security and costs would be over the top.
Berlin And Hamburg Competing To Be Germany’s Bid City For 2024 or 2028 Olympic Games They both have submitted low cost bids that say it will only cost $2.63 billion.
Public Rally Planned To Show Opposition To Oslo 2022 Olympic Bid

News From The Commonwealth

Chris O’Hare Has “Fracture On The Sesamoid Bone” Looks like he’s enjoying his time off, however.
After Getting Sent Home From Worlds After Spat With Sally Pearson, Athletics Australia Coach Eric Hollingsworth Resigns His contract was set to end soon anyway.
Jessica Judd’s Coach And 1994 CG Gold Medalist And 13:10 Man Rob Denmark Has Joined The British Athletics Endurance Program As A National Institute Coach Apparently he’s a good biker nowadays.
Trinidad And Tobago Delivers On Promise To Give Javelin Gold Medalist Keshorn Walcott A New House The house is worth $393,000 and he got $157,000 in cash.

Sprint Stuff

Usain Bolt Says It Was His Dad Who Convinced Him To Be A Sprinter Instead Of A Cricket Player “My dad said because of the system in Jamaica, it would be better to take up athletics. He said, ‘You just have to run fast in athletics while it’s tougher to get into the national (cricket) team.'”
Interesting Interactive Graphic Which Shows Sprinters’ 2014 Season Bests Against Their Pre-Season PRsTori Bowie tops the chart, going from 23.99 to 22.18 in the 200 (a 7.54% improvement), while Allyson Felix is on bottom (3.00% slower than her PR). The list is only the top 10 ranked sprinters in 2014, but if Usain Bolt was on it he’d be on the bottom (4.18% slower than his PR).
IAAF Inside Athletics: Ato Boldon Interviews Jamaica’s World 200 Silver Medalist Warren Weir

Simon Bairu Announces His Retirement From Competitive Running He leaves the sport as one of Canada’s all-time bests, holding their 10,000m NR (27:23) and with a 13th place showing at World XC.

Random Stuff

Man Gropes Woman Runner Who Turns Out To Be US Marshal She ended up chasing him down, kicking him in the groin and cornering him until the cops came to arrest him.
University Of Oregon Now Offering Running Tours Of Campus Andrew Wheating is leading the first one.
Weirder Things Have Happened: Parkour Trying To Gain Recognition As An Olympic Sport
New Rules In Death Valley National Park Bar Badwater Ultramarathon From Being Held There Park officials say the new rules are for safety due to the extreme heat in Death Valley in the summertime.
Budapest Considering Bid For 2024 Olympics

More Doping News

China Is 1st Ccountry To Match IOC’s $10 Million Anti-Doping Donation It’s very sad if other rich countries don’t match.
*MB: Obama, China has pledged $10 to anti-doping, will you match?
Jamaica Doubles The Number Of Doping Control Officers On The Caribbean Island Let’s hope it didn’t go from 1 to 2.

Great North Run And CityGames Are This Weekend *Watch Live For Free On USATF.tv

Great North Run Elite Start Lists The race is on live on the BBC starting at 9:30 BST (that’s 4:30 ET).
After Racing On Friday In Brussels, Asbel Kiprop Will Race Again On Saturday In UK At Great North CityGames
Great North Run And Great NorthCity Games Will Be Broadcast For Free On USATF.tv This Weekend
Mo Farah On Sunday’s Great North Run: “Anything around 60 minutes would be good.”
Coach Gabriele Nicola Says Mary Keitany Is Ready For Great North Run Keitany is on the comeback from childbirth and Nicola will use the race to determine if she should run a marathon this fall or not.
A Look At The On-And-Off Track Career Of Bupa Great Run Founder Brendan Foster He ran 27:30 and won Olympic bronze as an athlete.
IAAF And Great North Run To Display Dramatic Opening Ceremony To Recognize 1 Millionth Finisher Milestone *The opening ceremony is now sold out.

2014 NCAA XC *All Weekend Results

Wisconsin Opens 2014 Season At Home On Friday
Oregon Hosts Bill Dellinger Invite As Well
Chris Fox Is Turning Syracuse Into A Power
LRC Top 10 Women’s Individual Preview: Abbey’s Gone, So Who Takes Over? The top returner is Emma Bates, but she will be challenged by Aisling Cuffe, Kate Avery and Shelby Houlihan up front. Can Cuffe break the Foot Locker curse? Can a freshman (Elise Cranny or Sarah Baxter) crack the top five for the first time since 2009? We sort through a wide-open women’s field as just 6 of the top 16 from NCAAs last year are back in 2014.
LRC Top 10 Men’s Individual Preview: King Ches And Then Who? Edward Cheserek is the heavy favorite but who can pull off the big upset like he did last year? Remember in recent years, people thought Lawi Lalang and Kennedy Kithuka would never lose a college XC race. Our top 10 has 5 Americans and 5 foreigners in it. Could Stanford really have three in the top 10?

Tuesday Action In Europe

Croatia: Zagreb World Challenge Results: Brenda Martinez Wins 1,500 Brenda’s fine running at the end of 2014 continued with the win in 4:05 as Gabrielle Grunewald was 4th, Brie Felnagle was 8th, and Treniere Moser 11th.
*Tom Wlash wins IAAF World SP Challenge in Zagreb over Majewski and Hoffa
IAAF Report: Local Star Sandra Perkovic Highlights Winning Discus In 65.09m Two Days After Sudden Death Of Her Coach Russia’s Sergey Shubenkov wins competitive 110H in 13.39 over Orlando Ortega; US’s Nia Ali wins 100H; Blanka Vlasic loses on countback to her countrywoman Ana Simic in HJ.
Kemar Bailey-Cole Barely Beats Asafa Powell And Mike Rodgers To Win Zagreb 100 In 10.07
Italy: IAAF Recap Of Roverto Meet: Italian 19-Year-Old Federica Del Buono Wins 1,500 In 4:05.32 Her PR at the start of the year was only 4:16. Kenya’s Cornelius Kangogo won the 5,000 (13:24.01), beating world leader Muktar Edris. Justin Gatlin won the 100 (10.07) as Barbara Pierre won the women’s (11.16). Dayron Robles won the 110H (13.29).