Week That Was

LRCCaster Semenya On Her Way Back, Katie Mackey Diamond League Champ, Hammer WR, Pan Am JRs, And Tokyo Logo Revealed

Latest Post-ARD Doping Report News

• IAAF President Lamine Diack Calls Latest Doping Allegations “A Joke” “There is a film and a newspaper who are asking questions. We are going to answer them all. But it doesn’t mean just because someone has a suspicious profile once that he was doped. … Everything that has been done in the fight against doping has been made by IAAF.” *Video With Diack
• UK Opinion Piece: “Lamine Diack is the ‘joker’ whose legacy is anything but funny.”
• Biological Passport Expert Robin Parisotto: “Some of the values in these athletes were so extreme that they were downright dangerous and the risks to their health were indisputable.”
• Irish Athletes Mark English And Mary Cullen Implore The IAAF To Act English: “It would probably confirm the suspicions that I have. I never like to talk about them too much because it often sounds like jealousy.”
• New Doping Allegations May Delay Completion Of WADA Commission Investigation Craig Reedie hoped the report on the original documentary would be finished in September, but it will likely take longer now.
• Taking The Ripple Effect Too Far? UK Sport Chief Says If The IAAF Doesn’t Deal With Doping Crisis, All UK Sports Could Lose Funding
• IOC President Thomas Bach: “If there should be cases involving results at Olympic Games, the IOC will act with zero tolerance with our usual policy.” *2nd Article

Sprints, Jumps And Throws

• UK 400 Runner Martyn Rooney Wins Individual Place For Worlds After Making Appeal To UKA He was already going in the 4 x 400, so maybe they figured they didn’t need to buy another plane ticket.
• IAAF: Marco Fassinotti And Gianmarco Tamberi Lead Italy Into Golden Age Of High Jumping Before this summer only one Italian athlete had ever won a Diamond League competition, but at the London Anniversary Games these two finished 1-2.
• IAAF Personal Bests Q&A With European Javelin Champ Antti Ruuskanen The Finn also works as a electrical engineer, sports adviser, masseur and personal trainer.His favorite pre-competition song is Survivor’s “Eye of The Tiger.”
• Cool Time-Lapse Video Of LJ Arena Construction For National Champs
• AW Weekly Round-Up

• Is This A Joke? Confronted With Hard Video Evidence Of Athletes Shooting Up With EPO, Athletics Kenya’s Response Is “We’ll Sue” “We cannot fail to point out that the documentary is an attempt to smear our runners with unwarranted suspicion as they prepare to undertake duty for their country in Beijing, China.”
• Deplorable: Russian Officials Continue To Respond With “Deny, Deny, Deny” Russia sports minister Vitaly Mutko: “This scandal doesn’t have to do with Russia, it has to do with the world system of track and field athletics.” The athletes and coach who were recorded for the documentary blame “clever editing.”
• IAAF Statement On ARD Doping Documentary “They are largely based on analysis of an IAAF Data Base of private and confidential medical data which has been obtained without consent.”
• Recommended Read: Nick Willis Shares His Thoughts On ARD Report And Doping In The Sport In General “On a shock scale of zero to 10 it’s a zero – the only surprise is that the information actually got leaked.”
  *MB: Nick Willis and John Walker say it like it is.
• Top British Star Gave Three Blood Values That Had A 1,000-1 Chance Of Being Clean Apparently the athlete told the Sunday Times, “You print it and I sue you [and] you won’t be getting any money back in future like [in the case of] Lance Armstrong – I promise you that.”
  *MB: Radcliffe possibly being outed as one of the doping British athletes
• Wada President Sir Craig Reedie: “Wada is very disturbed by these new allegations …” He said the case would be handed over to an independent commission for investigation.
  *Video Interview With Reedie
• Seb Coe: “I know that the IAAF takes these allegations extremely seriously and it will issue a robust and detailed response.”
• UK Independent Opinion Piece: “Just a fraction of cash generated by Olympics is enough to end drugs war.”
• Jessica Ennis’ Coach Toni Minichiello: “The IAAF will have to look at their internal mechanisms and examine how this has come to pass.”
• We’d Like To See This Worldwide: Former UK Sports Minister Calls On Government To Follow France, Italy And Australia’s Lead And Make Doping A Criminal Offence
• Jessica Ennis, Jenny Meadows And Other Brits React
• The Telegraph: “Only Sebastian Coe or Sergey Bubka can save damaged Athletics now.”

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  Message Board Talk: Round II: New German ARD TV doping report coming out tomorrow – Kenya/Russia

• List of Abnormal Results by Country – Russia 415, Morocco 82, Kenya 77, USA 32, Britain 12
• Anyone else actually encouraged by Times of London/ARD Doping Report?
• Leaked IAAF doping files reveal “extraordinary extent of cheating”
• New doping allegations regarding widespread corruption in Kenya and Russia

2015 Kenyan World Trials *Full Results

• MB: Geofrey Kipsang Kamworor Wins 10k In 27:11 At Altitude! David Rudisha Beaten By Ferguson Rotich, Jarius Birech Wins The Steeple + More Bernard Lagat‘s sister Violah has made the WC team.
• Geoffrey Kamworor Runs Unbelievable 27:11 At Altitude To Win 10k Kamworor says they will try to use team tactics to beat Mo Farah at Worlds.
• Ferguson Rotich Hands David Rudisha His 1st Loss Ever On Kenyan Soil, Asbel Kiprop Wins So Convincingly He Has Time To Salute Kenya’s Head Of State Eunice Sum wins 800 and mentions Ajee Wilson as someone she needs to watch out for in Beijing. Faith Kipyegon wins 1,500 over Mercy Cherono.
• Rudisha After Loss: “I am shocked by the defeat … I have not done enough speed work, though I am 90% fit … I have three weeks to fix it.”
• IAAF Recap
• Day 1: Former Double World Champ Vivian Cheruiyot Wins Kenyan World Trials 10,000 To Punch Her Ticket To Beijing Finishing one second behind Cheruiyot to secure a spot for Worlds was former NCAA champ Betsy Saina. Commonwealth champ Joyce Chepkirui was 3rd and World XC champ Agnes Tirop 5th. OTC’s Sally Kipyego was a DNF.
• David Rudisha Easily Moves Past 800 First Round At Kenyan Trials With Fastest Time Of The Day (1:44.20)

Sprint / Jump Stuff

• Sad News: Austrian Pole Vaulter Who Landed Beside Mat Is Paraplegiac 21-year-old Kira Gruenberg fell in training and broke her cervical spine. She is Austria’s NR holder at 4.45m.
• Guardian Writer Looks At Sprinter Zharnel Hughes And Asks If The Next Usain Bolt Could Be British The writer also talks about the recently released book, The Bolt Supremacy, which looks at and tries to explain the dominance of Jamaican sprinters.
• IAAF Profile On Three Athletes Who Changed Nationalities For Love Rather Than Money Former US sprinter Donald Sanford and Ukrainians Hanna Minenko (TJ) and Marharyta Dorozhon (javelin) all married Israeli athletes and now live in and compete for Israel.

• LRC 2015 Beach To Beacon Preview, Plus Updates From Eric Jenkins, Will Geoghegan, Riley Masters, Christo Landry, Abdi, And Why Uganda Trails Kenya We preview Beach to Beacon with updates from of America’s stars, including Eric Jenkins, Will Geoghegan, Riley Masters, Christo Landry and Abdi. And we explain the photo to your right.
• RRW: Americans Ready To Battle For Bragging Rights, Dedicated Purse At TD Beach To Beacon 10-K Thanks to Dunkin Donuts, we’ve got American bonus prize money for the first time.
  *Daniel Salel Confident Contender At TB Bank Beach To Beacon 10-K

2015 Stockholm DL Was Thursday *Full Results On 1 Page *TV & Streaming

LRC Souleiman Over Centro With Ease, American Women Falter In 800, SAFP Keeps Winning, Texas Tech’s Jacorian Duffield Wins HJ Souleiman got the convincing win in the 1,500 as Robby Andrews beat Centro, who quit the final 200m, no Americans went sub-2:00 in the 800, Katie Mackey won the 3k (see below), SAFP won the 100 over Tori Bowie, and Texas Tech’s Jacorian Duffield won the HJ.

LRC Katie Mackey Wins 3,000m! Say all you want about the quality of the field, but Katie Mackey did something very few American distance runners have done – win a Diamond League race, running a big PR.

• Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Wins In 10.73 But Reverses Press Conference Announcement She had announced she was going to double at Worlds, but now says, “I’m not running the 200m. I’m telling my coach he has to change his mind. The 200m is too far so I’m set for the 100m!”
• Orlando Ortega Overhauls David Oliver For 110H Win Ortega is ranked #1 in the world this year, but won’t be able to compete in Beijing because he recently switched citizenship from Cuba to Spain.
• Caterine Ibarguen Wins Triple Jump And Extends Her Unbeaten Streak To 28 Meetings
• Street Shot Put Competition Was A Hit With Locals Featuring classic rock music and sound effects, the competition attracted attention. One interviewed spectator said he had just had a terrible “Tinder” date and stopped to watch.
• Greg Rutherford Bounces Back From Disappointing Anniversary Games To Win Stockholm LJ

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  Stockholm On The Boards: Katie Mackey Wins 3000m!!

• Andrews > Centro in Sweden
• Souleiman closes in 40.63
• Matt CENTROWITZ in Stockholm DL: 3:39.29 to place ELEVENTH out of TWELVE

Random But Interesting

• And You Thought Galen Rupp Looked Goofy With His Pollen Mask: Ashton And Brianne Eaton Test Out New Nike “Cooling Hood” The headgear supposedly helps keep athletes cooler in hot conditions.
• The “Not Since Moses” 10K And 5K Has Runners Racing On The Ocean Floor In Nova Scotia The Bay of Fundy has tides that rise about 50 feet and then recede, exposing the ocean floor, allowing the race to be run at low tide.
• Jake Gyllenhaal Might Star In Boston Marathon Movie To Play Bombing Survivor Jeff Bauman The biopic, Stronger, is based off Bauman’s book documenting his recovery after the attack.

Distance News: Kiprop Reveals All

• Asbel Kiprop Talks About His Strange Tactics In The London DL Meet, Disappointment Of Missing The WR In Monaco And Doubling At Worlds He blames his tactics on being tripped, mentions Matt Centrowitz and Ben Blankenship as guys he had to worry about outkicking, and says he celebrated early because he forgot the mile starting line wasn’t the finish line.
• Q&A With Steepler Shalaya Kipp She jokes that her proudest running accomplishment is beating her boyfriend (a sub-1:50 800 guy) in a 200 sprint back to their apartment at the end of their Saturday run together.
• Mike Rutt Blogs About Going Into His “Last Offseason Ever” He was disappointed with his 2015 outdoor campaign and says next year (2016) will be his last before he retires from pro running.

Sprint Stuff

• 8th Grader Tyrese Cooper Runs 20.98 In Heats At Junior Olympics It was a national record for the 15-16 age group and would have made him the 9th fastest among all high schoolers this year.
  *USATF: Relays And Two National Records Highlight Wednesday’s Junior Olympics Action
• Indian Athletics Federation Wants Controversial Sprinter Dutee Chand To Train For 4 X 400 Rather Than The Individual 100 And 200 They think that’s her best chance to make the Olympics since she hasn’t hit the 100/200 qualifying standards for Rio.
• Opinion Piece: “Usain Bolt And (Tour De France Leader) Chris Froome Paying The Price For Their Sport’s Doping Sins”
• Allyson Felix Won’t Run The 200 At Worlds; Chooses To Focus On 400 Her coach says the 200/400 double isn’t doable with the schedule. She will also compete in both the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 relays.
• Jumps: Anthony Bailey Is USATF Athlete Of The Week After He Broke A 40-Year-Old American Age-Group Record In The TJ At US Masters Champs The 55-year-old jumped 12.76m.

IOC President Thomas Bach Wants IOC To Be Involved In Planning For New Tokyo 2020 Stadium After Original Design Was Sccrapped Due To Cost

The Beginning Of The End For Women’s Sports?

LRC The End Of Women’s Sports As We Know It? Is Caster Semenya The Favorite For Gold For The 2016 Olympics? The Court Of Arbitration For Sport Suspends IAAF’s Hyperandrogenism Regulations Earlier this week, hyperandrogenic Indian sprinter Dutee Chand was cleared to compete despite having super-elevated testosterone levels. More importantly, the court totally suspended the IAAF’s hyperandrogenism regulations, meaning athletes with internal testicles are free to compete as women without treatment. We break down what it means. Is this the beginning of the end for women’s sports?

• Dutee Chand Aims To Qualify For Rio Olympics After CAS Verdict We 100% disagree with this statement from Payoshni Mitra: “This verdict upholds the notion of gender equality in sports. … I feel this verdict will pave the way for a more inclusive, fairer sporting culture.” Letting people with internal testicles compete as women is absurd.
• Dutee Chand Will Not (For Now) Get Coveted Target Olympic Podium Funding In India

This Weekend’s Beach To Beacon 10K Is Latest Race To Join Trend Of Offering Free Photos To Race Finishers

European Maccabi Games – aka The “Jewish Olympics” – To Be Hosted In Nazi-Built Stadium

Boston 2024 LA Or Toronto 2024 News

L.A., San Fran. Look Into Possible Joint Bid For 2024 Olympics

USOC Dumps Boston 2024 Bid, Attention Shifts To LA

• Boston Native Jason Gay: Concerns About Olympic Budgets And Olympic Traffic Led To The City’s Bid Never Having A Genuine Liftoff
• LA Native Alan Abrahamson Before The Announcement: Hey, Boston 2024, It’s Not The USOC – It’s You Alan Abrahamson doesn’t hold back and accuses the Boston 2024 bid of dishonesty in this piece written before Boston was dropped. Regardless, it’s now time to move on to LA where the city council unanimously supports the bid and 70% of the population as well.
• LA Native Alan Abrahamson Before The Announcement: Ding, Dong, The Wicked Boston Bid Is Dead
• LA Times: Thank You Boston – “Boston’s sanctioned bid to put on the 2024 Olympics deflated quicker than a bag of Tom Brady footballs.”
• USA Today: “The U.S. Olympic movement has had plenty of dark days over the years, but Monday might have been the worst of all.”
• Toronto 2024? With Boston Out Of 2024 Olympics Race, An Opening For Toronto? They just did a great job of hosting Pan-Ams and are North America’s 4th largest city.
• Toronto Star Columnist: Time For Toronto To Seize The Moment On Olympic Bid
• Supporters Of Toronto Olympic Bid Face Tight Deadline

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 PR Fabienne 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

The Integrity Of The Sport Is At Stake – Mike Rossi Is A Marathon Cheat And Should Have Been DQed From The 2014 Lehigh Valley Marathon

LRC Investigates Lehigh Valley Got It Wrong: The Evidence Is Conclusive: Mike Rossi – The Viral Boston Marathon Dad – Is A Marathon Cheat And Should Never Have Been On The Starting Line In Boston In April, Mike Rossi gained international fame for his snarky response to a letter from his kids’ principal scolding him for taking them out of school for several days to watch Boston. A LetsRun.com investigation has revealed that Rossi’s principal was correct, the kids should never have been in Boston as the evidence is conclusive – their father didn’t legitimately qualify for the 2015 Boston Marathon. How confident are we that Rossi cut the course when he “ran” his 3:11:45 BQ qualifier at Lehigh Valley? Extremely. We’ll pay Mike Rossi $10,000 if he qualifies again in the next 12 months – and the qualifying time is 13+ minutes slower – 3:25.
*MB: Did Mike Rossi (viral marathon dad) cheat his way into Boston? 

Excellent Guest Column

LRC Dealing With Depression: How I Got Past Suicidal Thoughts While Running In College For a while, life didn’t feel real to Nico Composto – it existed entirely in his head. Might a fall from the 12th floor window make all the pain go away? Thankfully, Composto realized that suicide wasn’t the answer. He shares his powerful story of how he overcame suicidal thoughts out of a desire to help others.