2014 Bupa Great North Run: Mo Farah And Mary Keitany Impress *Top Results *Video Highlights

• Mo Farah Is First British Winner Of Great North Run In 29 Years As Mary Keitany Breaks Paula Radcliffe’s 11-Year-Old CR In Only Her 2nd Race Back From Childbirth Farah ran 60:00 to just hold off Kenya’s Mike Kigen by less than a second. Stephen Kiprotich was 3rd (61:35). Keitany beat Radcliffe’s record by a second with 65:39 as UK’s Gemma Steel was 2nd (68:13) and Olympic marathon champ Tiki Gelana 3rd (68:45). Keitany’s time was the second fastest half marathon of all time (although the course isn’t record eligible). Tirunesh Dibaba was a DNS.

• Farah Denies “Fix” After Close Finish With Sometimes Training Partner Kigen Kigen and Farah have the same manager and train together in Kenya. Kigen was the unofficial rabbit, but both denied that Kigen let Farah win.
  *2nd Article

• Farah: “To clock 60 minutes exactly is slightly frustrating though!” … “Mike and I had chat with about 800m to go and he said for me to go but I couldn’t really drop him.”

• Meet The Great North Run’s Millionth Finisher: 51-Year-Old Tracey Cramond She finished in 38,128th place with a time of 3:02:03.

• Amantle Montsho “Investigating” How She Consumed A Banned Stimulant That She Tested Positive For At The Commonwealth Games Sounds like a ploy to get a lighter sentence. She already waived her right to a hearing at the CGs and reportedly the stimulant came from an energy drink called “Anabolic Nitro Extreme Energy Surge.”
• Forbes Columnist Argues That Indian Female Sprinter With Naturally High Testosterone Should Be Allowed To Compete 18-year-old Dutee Chand has hyperandrogenism and is therefore ineligible to compete unless she undergoes specific procedures to lower her levels to the acceptable range (many think this is what Caster Semenya is required to do).

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

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.

• 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

• China Is 1st Country 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.

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.

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

• LRC Nick Symmonds Update: 100% Healthy, Back Training And LiftingFriday 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