Q & A With America’s Revelation For 2015

Q&AFrom Excavation Grunt To The U.S.'s Fastest Man At 1,500: Ben Blankenship Discusses His Journey And His Breakthrough 2015 Season

Distance News Of Note

• Roger Bannister’s Sub-Four Minute Mile Shoes To Be Auctioned Sadly, even though paintings go for hundreds of milions, they are only expected to fetch a max of £50,000 *MB: Roger Bannister sub-4 spikes up for auction – HOW THE HELL DID HE GO SUB 4 IN THESE!?!?
• Unhappy With His Doha Opener, Asbel Kiprop Says He’s “Back On The Drawing Board” And Will Compete In Local Kenyan Meet This Weekend The meet will be full of stars as Eunice Sum is also racing.
• Lornah Kiplagat Denies That She’s Locking Out Local Runners From Kenya From Her Track In Iten And That It Is Only For British Runners “Most of the athletes especially from Iten have been frequenting the stadium for their training and it is very malicious to say that only British athletes are allowed to train,” said Kiplagat, who added she lets top locals run for free and notes it’s a private facility and costs more than $100,000 to repair a lane.
• Profile Of Christina Aragon – The No. 5 US HSer Ever At 4:16 1,500m – Who Isn’t Even A Full-Time Runner She still does gymnastics but picked her parents well.
• Arkansas Coach Chris Bucknam Admitted Before SEC Meet, “There is no scenario for us to win it.”
• Meb Keflezighi To Make Masters Debut At Rock ‘N’ Roll San Diego Next Weekend

Mid-D News

• David Rudisha (400), Ezekiel Kemboi (Steeple), Asbel Kiprop (800), Silas Kiplagat (1,500), Nixon Chepseba (1,500) All Reportedly Competing At Kenyan Meet On Friday Eunice Sum and Janeth Jepkosgei will compete in the women’s 1,500.
• BBC Profile And Video Interview With Caster Semenya, Who Says She’s Still Determined To Become An Olympic Champion She put down suggestions that she might have intentionally lost the 2012 Olympic 800 because she feared the attention. “How can you be scared? I want to be a winner. … I cannot stop because people say ‘no, she looks like a man, this and that.’ It is their problem. Not mine.”
• Syracuse’s Justyn Knight Won The ACC 1,500 Running With One Shoe He was still able to kick to the win in 3:47.85, winning by .06 seconds.
• Own A Piece Of History: Watch That Timed Roger Bannister’s First Sub-4:00 Sold For $31,000
• Steve Cram Will Run Alongside 90 Other British Olympians At The Bupa Westminster Mile On Sunday Olympians going back to 1948 will participate, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Cram’s former mile WR of 3:46.32 (still the British record).
• Lynsey Sharp Leading A Bright Future Of Scottish Mid-D Women

Jumps And Multis

• Good Read: UK Olympic HJ Bronze Medalist Robbie Grabarz Trying To Make A Comeback After Getting Extensive Knee Surgery Last Year His first meet back at Drake Relays wasn’t great. “To come back and jump 2.16m in public is embarrassing. It’s in your face. To jump that low is tough to take, but life goes on.”
• Jessica Ennis Confirms She Will Compete In Gotzis Hypo-Meeting Heptathlon At The End Of The Month It’ll be her first heptathlon since she won 2012 Olympic gold and she is shooting for the qualifying standard for Rio 2016.
• IAAF Inside Athletics: Ato Boldon Interviews Jessica Ennis
• Georgia’s SEC Decathlon Champ Maicel Uibo And Arkansas’ Sandi Morris Are NCAA Athletes Of The Week Uibo got the highest point total in the NCAA since Ashton Eaton and Morris won the SEC PV in a new NCAA record (4.72m).
• IAAF Personal Bests Q&A With Long Jump WR Holder Mike Powell Powell says his biggest rival was Carl Lewis, his biggest regret partying too much (coming home at 3AM) and his “arch nemesis” is potato chips.
• Throws: Barbora Spotakova Vs. Christina Obergfoll Highlights Deep Women’s Javelin For Oslo DL Meet June 11th

More From The Weekend

• MB: Alan Webb 56th in Abu Dhabi Tri – 59 finished
• Mosinet Geremew (28:16) And Mamitu Daska (31:57) Win $21,000 At Bangalore’s TCS World 10K Lots of big names were entered given the huge prize money, including Emily Chebet, Feyisa Lelisa, Micah Kogo and Japhet Korir.
• Alex Korio Olotptip (29:20) And Angela Tanui (33:34) Win $25,000 At Okpekpe Road 10K In Nigeria The times were slow in the hot weather, but the competition was fierce with big money on the line. Ethiopia’s Leul Gebresilase lost by 2 seconds in the men’s race, costing him $10,000 in prize money. *IAAF Recap
• After Her Astonishing 14:14 In Shanghai, Alamaz Ayana Wants To Get Tirunesh Dibaba’s 14:11 5,000 WR “I didn’t know I was so close to the world record. I was looking at running about 14:20 …”
• Athletics Weekly Weekend Round-Up GB’s World Indoor 60m champ Richard Kilty set a a 100 PR with 10.08 in Italy.
• Joe Morris Won The 100 / 200 At The Portland Twilight Meet On Saturday In 10.37 And 21.10

Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Likely To Appeal Over Death Sentence Over Location Of The Trial The judge refused to have the trial moved out of Boston. *Judge Expected To Set Date For Tsarnaev Sentencing Hearing The jury already gave their verdict, but now the judge has to “formally sentence him to death.”

Mostly US Road Action

• Isaac Mukandi Mwangi And Jane Kibii Are Winners Of The 2015 Bay To Breakers 12K Fernando Cabada was 10th, Nick Arciniaga 11th. On the women’s side, Rachel Ward was the top American. *Results
  *Crazy Photos From BTB 2015
• Luke Puskedra Wins Rock ‘N’ Roll Portland Half Marathon In 65:10
• Megan Hogan Wins Airbnb Brooklyn Half In 1:13:33 Ethiopian Negash Abebe Duki won the men’s race in 1:05:01 over Cam Marantz (1:05:05).
• Not US – Latvia: Ethiopians Haile Tolosssa (2:12:29) And Meseret Eshetu (2:37:04) Win Lattelecom Riga Marathon

Rojo And LetsRun Get Mention In WSJ Article On The Four-Minute High-School Mile They look back 50 years ago when Jim Ryun went sub-4 in an all high school race and contrast it to Matthew Maton doing it in a pro/college race now. *Discuss

Sunday In SF: Neighbors, City Brace For Bad Behavior At Bay To Breakers One local said, “I dread it. I know it’s just one day a year. But it’s just a bunch of drunks. One whole day of belligerent drunks. It’s like a big frat party now.”

RIP: Former 800 WR Holder Nina Otkalenko, 86 She set multiple records, the fastest of which was 2:05.0 in 1955.

Tickets Costing Just $3 Announced For Rio 2016 Paralympic Games

#OpeningDay – 2015 Diamond League Season Opened In Doha *Full Results *TV / Streaming

LRC Ethiopian Hagos Gebrhiwet Takes Down Mo Farah In Doha 3,000 (updated) Reigning world youth and junior champ Yomif Kejelcha dared to take the lead from Farah late, and while he faded, Farah was defeated.

Rest Of The Meet: LRC 2015 Doha Recap: Track And Field’s Opening Day Amazes – The Rabbit Wins The Steeple, Dawit Sayeum Wins Her First DL Race, Ayanleh Souleiman Dominates, Justin Gatlin PRs + Two Triple Jumpers Over 18.00m The action in Doha was fantastic. It had a little of everything. A rabbit won the steeple, an 18-year-old the women’s 1,500 and some amazing sprint/field action. Should we do our first-ever field event black page for the triple jump?

• Profile On Cuban TJer Pedro Pablo Pichardo, Who Was Also A Boxer In His Younger Years After going 18.06m, Pichardo thinks he can get the WR of 18.29m by Jonathan Edwards from 1995.
• Pichardo Vs. Taylor Clash In Doha Is Greatest Triple Jump Competition Ever
• Jasmin Stowers Shows She’s The Real Deal In Doha (12.45 DL Record) The NCAA runner-up for LSU last year set a DL record in her first DL race.
• Doha 200m Winner Felix (21.98) Flies To Best Tine Since Olympic Triumph
• UK Headline: Mo Farah Fails To Live Up To Top Billing In Doha
• 32-Year-Old Bershawn Jackson Breaks MR In Doha 400H Jackson: “People doubted me last year … I have been in the circuit for many years, but do not forget that I started competing when I was 19 and I still have a lot to give.”
• Justin Gatlin Isn’t Bitter Towards Tyson Gay About Having To Give Up 4 X 100 Olympic Medal “[Tyson] has apologised for his actions and asked for public forgiveness. So now it’s time to move on from that.”

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