Some Good Reads

• Recommended Read Difficult Year Now Behind Him, Belgian Decathlete Thomas van der Plaetsen Looks Ahead To Beijing And Rio Last October, Thomas van der Plaetsen was told he’d failed a doping test. In reality, he had testicular cancer. Amazingly, the World Indoor bronze medalist will be competing in Beijing.
• Recommended ReadPat Butcher’s Tribute To Zane Branson “As a manager, he was solicitous to a fault.”
• Former 4-Time 800 HS State Champ Emily Infeld Fulfills Early Promise At 10k After Nearly Quitting Sport After Series Of Injuries
• Good Q&A With Aries Merritt Which does he value more, Olympic gold or the WR?
• Good Q&A With Departing IAAF Head Lamine Diack: “I am leaving a financially stable IAAF.” Diack says his biggest regret is he hasn’t made our sport more popular in Africa.
• Andrew Wheating Talks About How His Height Is Both A Big Positive And Negative
• Column: Drug Bans Should Be For Life – Or We Might As Give Everyone Keys To The Dispensary We 100% agree with the author.

2015 Worlds In Bejing Start In Less Than 1 Month

• 2015 Beijing Will Feature Big Crowds – Already 80% Full For Morning Sessions, 90% For Evenings On Average Whether they are given away or bused in, we just want it full for TV.
• 2010 World Junior Champ Purity Kirui Is Hoping To Do Some Damage At Kenyan Trials / Worlds After Running 9:17 PR In Monaco On Limited Training The 23-year-old says she only had 3 weeks of hard training before her PR as she was finishing up college.
• Jessica Ennis-Hill Announces She Is Available For World Championships She’d said she’d only go if she thought she’d contend for a medal.
• She Won’t Be At Worlds But Hopefully Rio: 2-Time Olympic PV Champ Yelena Isinbayeva Has Started Jumping, Will Return To Competition In January
• Author Rips JAAA After Jamaican Tenns’ Dismal Showing At World Youths

Monday Morning Doping Updates

• Mo Farah Questioned For Five Hours By USADA Lawyer (Bill Bock) Who Helped Bring Down Lance Armstrong Farah agreed to meet him and afterwards said, “It went alright… It’s all good. And I’m good, good, good.”
  *Bock Also Questioning UK Athletics Head Neil Black
  *MB:Mo Farah met USADA
• InsideTheGames: “Positive doping tests declined in 2014 – but is this good news or bad news?” Are fewer people doping, or are just more people getting away with it?

International Results

• Kenya’s Stanley Biwott Runs 63:15 To Win Bogota Half Marathon Over Ethiopia’s Tadesse Tola (64:47) Ethiopia’s Amane Gobena won the women’s race in 1:13:44. 2012 Boston Marathon champ Sharon Cherop was 3rd (1:13:55).
• German Championships Recap: World PV Champ Raphael Holzdeppe Sets 5.94m PRFabienne Kohlmann won the 800 in 1:59.54 as Gesa-Felicitas Krause set a German-soil record to win the steeple in 9:32.20. *Full Results
• Yohan Blake’s 10.12 At The Morton Games Was The Fastest 100m Ever Run On Irish Soil

2015 Pan Am Games *All LRC Coverage*Results

• IAAF Final Day Report:Cuba’s Yorgelis Rodriguez Wins Pan Am Games Heptathlon Breaking The 16-Year-Old Meet Record NCAA champ Andre De Grasse lost the historic triple sprint crown (100, 200, 4 x 100) by a DQ. Canada initially won, but after a lane violation DQ, the gold went to Team USA. Canada’s Derek Drouin won the HJ in 2.37m before attempting and failing to clear 2.41m. *Toronto Sun:“Disqualification shouldn’t take shine of De Grasse”
• David Torrence Gets 5,000m Silver At Pan Am Games; Mexico’s Juan Luis Barrios Gets The Win Barrios ran 13:46.47 to beat Torrence by .13 seconds. Garrett Heath was a close 4th as Cam Levins was 5th. US’s Cory McGee finished 4th in the women’s 1,500, which was won by Colombia’s Muriel Coneo.
  *US Athlete Quotes From Torrence And Others
  *MB: Cam Levins horrible tactics gets boxed and beaten by four scrubs in last 200
  *MB:Rosa brothers, least Puerto Rican looking people ever, running for Puerto Rico
• Marquise Goodwin Makes A Pro Track/NFL Career Work As The Buffalo Bills Wide Receiver Wins LJ Silver
• Kanye West Gets Angry And Throws Microphone At Closing Ceremony Apparently there was a technical malfunction towards the end of his performance.
• USATF Tops Pan Am Games Scoring Tables With 41 Medals The US came out with 403 “points” to Canada’s 153.
  *USA Won Overall Competition As Well With 265 Medals (103 Golds) Across All Sports Canada was second with 217 (78 golds).
• Craig Leon (2:19:26) And Tim Young (2:19:34) Finish Fifth And Sixth For Team USA In Pan Am Marathon The race was won by Cuba’s Richer Perez in 2:17:04.
  *Quotes From Leon And Young Leon: “It’s crazy. I was an average high school runner, a college walk-on, and I never would have thought that this was possible. It’s a dream come true …”
  *MB: PAN AM MARATHON: US BOMBS

• IAAF:After First Day Pole Vault Postponement, Renaud Lavillenie Comes Through With Huge 6.03m Win
• IAAF:National Records For Dafne Schippers (Netherlands) And Dina Asher-Smith (UK) In 100
• David Rudisha After Losing To Nijel Amos: “I am coming back nicely, and I know in the coming races, I will be there. I am really encouraged and motivated because I lost by very few meters.”
• Mo Farah Off To Pyrenees To Compete “Heavy Weeks” Of Training Ahead Of Worlds He won’t race again before Worlds and said there “is still a little bit of work to be done.” He also lamented that he wouldn’t see his family again for 6 weeks.
• After String Of Poor Races, Ireland’s Mark English Seals His Spot On 2016 Olympic Squad With 1:45.49 Season’s Best