Thursday Miling

LRC Jack Bolas (3:58) And Rachel Schneider (4:31) Win Inaugural Boxcar Mile Bolas won over Ford Palmer (3:59.30) and Ashley Schneider beat out Heather Wilson (4:33.04) and Ashley Higginson (4:34.32).

Interesting To Say The Least: Q&A With Jamaican Sprinter Steve Mullings, Who 4 Years After His Lifetime Ban Is Still Shouting His Innocence Mullings contends that both times he tested positive he was sabotaged by the JAAA and JADCO and that he’s had threats on his life. He claims that JAAA/JADCO refused to do a DNA test and blocked him from a CAS hearing.

Worlds Are Coming: T-Minus 8 Days

• Coach Glen Mills And Agent Ricky Simms Both Confident Usain Bolt Can Deliver At Worlds Mills says they’ve been getting better results in training, but he would have liked Bolt to get in more races.
• USA Jumpers Chaunte Lowe (HJ) And Christina Epps (TJ) Get IAAF Invite To Compete At Worlds Without The Qualifying Standard Why did USATF seek an invitation for these two, but not shot putter Andrew Evans?
• IAAF Profile On Canada’s Long Shot Medal Hope Andre De Grasse He’s been approached to turn pro, but according to this is sticking with the NCAA.
• Greg Rutherford Criticizes “Terrible Choice” To Leave The UK Flag Off Their World Champs Uniforms Scottish steepler Eilish McColgan said, “It’s unfair for athletes not supported by UK Athletics to have to wear it. It doesn’t make any sense. Bring back the flag.”
  *More UK Athletes React Angrily
  *UKA Chief Niels de Vos Defends Unfirom “It’s not about taking the Union flag off the kit – the logo is still on the shorts and socks. It’s about promoting British Athletics.”
• Ashton Eaton And Brianne Theisen-Eaton Trying To Become The First Married Couple To Win Multi-Event Golds At The Same Championship Barring disaster, Ashton is a lock, and Brianne is #1 in 2015, but will face a challenge from the Brits.
• UKA Makes Martyn Rooney Team GB Captain After They First Made Him Appeal His Way Onto The Team You would think someone credentialed enough to be captain would have been an automatic entry (he was originally only in the relay, but not open 400). *2nd Article
• Spain Names Team Of 39 For Worlds Their captain is 45-year-old 1993 50K racewalk champion Jesus Angel Garcia. He’ll be the oldest athlete in Beijing as he makes a record 12th World Champs appearance.
• Kenyans Margaret Wambui (800) And Jacinter Shikanda (400) Get IAAF Invites To Worlds This year, the IAAF extends invites to the top athletes who didn’t get the standard in order to fill the fields at Worlds.
• Ugandan Steepler Benjamin Kiplagat Gets An IAAF Invite

Olympic News: LA 2024

• USOC Confirm Los Angeles As Choice To Bid For 2024 Olympics
• IAAF: Sergey Bubka Gets Support From Four Countries As Coe Picks Up His First African Country Paraguay, Peru, Singapore and Thailand will vote for Bubka and Ghana for Coe.
• US Predicted To Finish Top Of The Medal Table In Rio 2016 With 99 Medals (46 Gold) China and Russia are predicted 2nd and 3rd.
• IOC Official Says She Will Jump In The Water At Rio 2016 To Prove It’s Safe And Not Polluted
• Rio 2016 Calls On Taxi Drivers To Sign Up For Online English Language Courses
• British Charity Blasts UK Government For Failing To Repay Money They Claim Is Owed To Charities And Communities Used To Fund London 2012

Doping News: Major Drug Bust

Breaking: Japan Times Part III: Victor Conte Claims Flo-Jo And Jackie Joyner Kersee Tested Positive At 1988 Olympics And There Was A Huge Doping Cover-Up He names Flo-Jo, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and others as athletes whose failed drug tests were covered up. In terms of his six current athletes he thinks are doped, he names Galen Rupp, Mo Farah, Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake, Carmelita Jeter and Jason Richardson and says WADA purposely avoided re-testing samples from big names like Usain Bolt and Mo Farah. *Part I *Part II
*MB: Breaking: Victor Conte Claims Huge Doping Cover Up At The 1988 Olympics With Flo-Jo And Others; Corruption In WADA

MB: The IAAF Drops The Hammer – 28 Athletes Busted From Re-Test Of Samples From 2005 And 2007 World Champs! Track and field takes a lot of criticism for drugs but we don’t know of any other sport that goes after cheats 8-10 years after the fact. MLB (baseball) only started drug bans in 2004 and in 2005 a first ban resulted in a 10-day suspension.

• “Four Kenyan Athletes Have Been Indefinitely Banned From Malaysia Road Races Following Claims Of Failed Doping Tests” The article really isn’t clear about why these four are thought to have doped, but none are big names.
• Jamaica’s Former IAAF Anti-Doping Panel Member Dr. Herb Elliott Defends Kenya Elliott: “Many Africans, like Jamaicans, have sickle-cell trait. The blood pool in Africa is not as straight as the European one. … It doesn’t mean that they are doping; it means you have haemoglobin that looks funny.”
• UK Writer Doesn’t Think The IAAF’s 28 Drug Bans Are Necessarily A “Success Story” “For the general public it represents yet another reason not to believe what they see.” Would he have rather had them sweep it under the rug? The bans are great because it deters current athletes from cheating.
• Top Kenyans, Including Wilson Kipsang, Want Athletes With Suspicious Blood Values Named
• Scottish Steepler Eilish McColgan Blogs About Blood Values And The IAAF She and many other athletes didn’t know it, but they can actually access all their blood test results from the IAAF whereabouts system online.
• GB Olympic Distance Runner Freya Ross Explains Why She Agreed To Let The Sunday Times Publish Her Blood Data “Transparency is key to clean sport and I’m a big supporter of that.”

Jumps And Sprints

• Usain Bolt And Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Lead Jamaican Team For Worlds They’ll be sending some distance runners, too, including former NCAA All-American Kemoy Campbell (5,000), former NCAA champ Natoya Goule (800) and former US steepler Aisha Praught (steeple/1,500).
• After Racking Up Multiple Medals As A Youth, Russian Long Jumper Darya Klishina Is Hoping To Finally Finish On The Podium As A Senior Klishina is now living and training in Florida with a group that includes her US rival Tianna Bartoletta.
• Profile On Kaylin Whitney, Who At 17 Years Old Is Going To Worlds As Part Of The USA 4 X 100 Squad The high school pro has been running track since she was 7 years old.
• TJer Pedro Pablo Pichardo And PVer Yarisley Silva Lead Cuban Team For Worlds
• The Year Of The Vault: Shawn Barber And Demi Payne Win Bowerman Award Fan Vote

Other: Portland 2016 Is Less Than A year Away

• Hey Americans! Tickets On Sale For 2016 World Indoor Championships In Portland
• LA Proposes $4.1 Billion Budget If They Are Chosen As The US’s 2024 Olympics Candidate
• NCAA Athletes Racked Up 24 Medals (11 Gold) At NACAC Championships This Weekend
• USTFCCCA Coaches Hall Of Fame Class Of 2015 Announced

Distance / Mid-D News

• After A Long Hiatus From The Top, 2011 Double World Champ Vivian Cheruiyot Is Back Eyeing A Return To The Podium Cheruiyot talks about how she was disappointed not to win gold in London 2012, so decided to take a break to start her family with the long-term plan in place to be back at the top by 2016.
• NZ Herald Looks Back At John Walker’s Amazing Time Trial Run From 1975 When He Became The First Man To Run Under 3:50 It was a race that Walker almost didn’t run as the he didn’t like the Gothenburg stadium and the meet originally was running a 1,500, not the mile.
• MB: Former NCAA Indoor Mile Champion Miles Batty Officially Done With Track (Possibly Longer Races) He says he’s now moving on to med school and maybe road racing.

Doping News: IAAF To Drop “Bombshell” This Week

• London Marathon Chief Executive Nick Bitel Criticizes IAAF Over “Failure To Take Effective Action” Bitel: “What is concerning is that we’re never told these results even though we’re paying tens of thousands of pounds to get these athletes tested.”
  *Bitel “Very Concerned By Allegations” Against IAAF
• Recommended: Eight UK Athletes, Including Mo Farah, Release Their Blood Data To The Public The Sunday Times got permission to publish and graphed the “off-scores” for eight GB athletes. You can look at their values graphed in comparison to known drug cheats Liliya Shobukhova and Abderrahim Goumri. A good first step towards transparency.
  *MB: 8 UK athletes (inc. Farah) release blood test data
• IAAF Insider Reporting A “Significant” Number Of “Major” Names, Including Russian Double World Champ Tatyana Tomashova, Will Be Exposed And Stripped Of Medals Tomashova and three other Russian mid-d runners (Olga Yegorova, Yelena Soboleva and Yuliya Fomenko) were caught using someone else’s urine in 2008 and banned, but now are set to be retroactively banned from re-tests of samples from 2005 Worlds.
  *MB: Multiple Big name drug busts next week!
• The Sunday Times Says The London Marathon Was Won 7 Times In 12 Years By Athletes With Suspicious Blood Values 34 big city marathons winners (1 in 4) had suspicious values.
• Latest Conspiracy Theory: Was Banned Jamaican Sprinter Steve Mullings Sabotaged By The JAAA? Mullings received a lifetime ban after failing a second drug test in 2011, but says that he was sabotaged and even that “there are people who are plotting against my life in order to keep me silent.” Now an anonymous letter from an alleged JAAA insider is backing his claim.

Good Read: OC Register: Nike Promotes – And Undermines – US Track And Field What would Bill Bowerman or Steve Prefontaine think of Nike today? What was once “the rebel company that shook the powers that be” is now the one that takes away athletes’ rights rather than fighting for them.

Sprint Stuff

• Recommended Read: Stanford 400 Hurdler Daniel Brady Follows Family Legacy Of Overcoming Hardships Which Started With His Grandfather Surviving A Nazi Concentration Camp During WWII Despite suffering balance issues earlier in the year after going deaf in one ear, Brady made a comeback to medal for Canada at the Pan Am Junior Championships. Read about Brady’s season as well as how his inspirational grandfather survived the horrors of the Holocaust.
• US’s Pan Am Gold/Silver Medalist Sprinter Noah Lyles Might Go Pro After High School The rising senior said even if he goes to college he “likely won’t stay for very long.”
• FIFA World Cup Winner And Arsenal Midfielder Mesut Ozil Is A Track Fan His favorite events are sprints.

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

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?