Welcome To America (Officially)

LRCFour-Time NCAA Champion Sam Chelanga Became A U.S. Citizen On Friday

Sponsorship News

• Nick Symmonds Gets Huge Profile In New York Times – Nick Symmonds, A Sidelined Track Star, Continues To Break From The Pack
• Symmonds Also Gets Featured On CBS News
• Interesting Read: Is Track And Field Really A Zero-Sum Game? Does $20 Million To USATF Mean $20 Million Less To Athletes? Does more money to the federations from Nike mean less money to the athletes. John Capriotti said so 8 years ago.
• Greg Rutherford Leads Criticism Of No Union Jack On Great Britain’s World Championships Kit The flag has been replaced by the UK Athletics logo. We can only imagine the outrage in America if the American flag was replaced with the USATF logo.
• Kelly Holmes Joins Criticism Of Flag-Less British Athletics Kit
• British Athletics Loses Key Sponsor As Sainsbury’s Pulls Out They were thought to be paying £5 million per year and the deal was through 2017 but they had an opt out clause and took it.

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

Doping News: Silver For Kara And Shalane?

• Kara Goucher And Shalane Flanagan Could Be Upgraded To World And Olympic Silver After IAAF Re-Tests The Daily Mail is reporting that Turkey’s Olympic/World silver medalist Elvan Abeylegesse is among the 28 athletes caught in IAAF re-tests from 2005 and 2007 Worlds. Abeylegesse would lose three silver medals and UK’s Jo Pavey would also be upgraded to a Worlds bronze.
  *MB: Kara Goucher to be upgraded to 2007 WC silver
  *MB: “Elvan Abeylegesse excluded from WCH squad due to last minute injury.” What a coincidence!
• Recommended Read: Open Letter From Doping Expert Michael Ashenden To Seb Coe Ashenden: “Does the IAAF pursue its anti-doping mandate with the same single-minded, all-consuming dedication that athletes adopt in their pursuit of winning? Based on what I saw in the leaked database, my view is No.”
  *Article With Synopsis Of The Letter *2nd Article
• Apparently Kip Keino Doesn’t Understand How Re-Testing Of Frozen Samples Works Keino: “Why should WADA and IAAF sanction athletes for doping issues taken in 2005 and 2007 now? Surely, can’t a way be found where decisions are taken immediately after tests are done as was the case with (Canadian) Ben Johnson in 1988?”
• Tour De France Winner Chris Froome Backs Mo Farah’s Release Of Blood Data He compares it to the release of “power data” in cycling.
  *MB: Chris Froome on PEDs in athletics
• Good Video Interview: Froome Urges Track To Follow Cycling’s Lead And Invest More Money In Anti-Doping UCI spends way more as a percentage than the IAAF.
• Ireland Independent: “Sebastian Coe’s pathetic statement on IAAF revelations is worrying.”
• Seb Coe Doesn’t Want Athletes To Be Pressured To Release Their Blood Data
• WADA President Craig Reedie Is Against Banning Entire Nations For Doping

Mid-Week Results / Upcoming

• MB: Sifan Hassan Runs 3:56.33 In A Race Against Men (includes video) Apparently, she had asked to be paced to 3:52. *Results
• Today @ 6:45PM: Ford Palmer, Jack Bolas, Rachel Schneider And Ashley Higginson Highlight Fields For Inaugural Boxcar Mile In West Chester, PA The race features $8,400 in prize money for elites and a post-race party for all. *Full Fields *Twitter *Facebook *Race Website
• Sunday: RRW: Five Story Lines For Sunday’s New Balance Falmouth Road Race Defending champion Stephen Sambu and 2-time winner Micah Kogo lead men’s field that has Chris Derrick, Meb Keflezighi, Abdi Abdirahman, Sam Chelanga and Moses Kipsiro. The women are led by Amy Cragg, Diane Nukuri, Sara Hall, Neely Spence Gracey and Alexi Pappas.
• Sep. 3: Genzebe Dibaba Leads Stacked 3,000 For Zurich DL On September 3rd She’ll face Almaz Ayana, Jenny Simpson, Vivian Cheruiyot and Mercy Cherono.
• Sep. 13: Mo Farah Will Defend His Great North Run Half Marathon Title He’ll face 2014 London Marathon runner-up Stanley Biwott and South African champion Stephen Mokoka.
• Ben Payne (28:50) And Brianne Nelson (32:46) Win Portland Track Festival 10,000 *Results: Men *Women *Race Website
• USATF: World Masters Champs: USA Scores 24 Gold, 62 Overall Medals In Forst Week; Five Break World Records In Lyon

USATF And Others Respond To Nick Symmonds

USATF Statement And Data On Elite Athlete Spending: USATF Will Spend More Than 50% Of Its Budget And More Than $15 Million On Elite Athletes In 2015 USATF dismisses claims by Andrew Zimbalist and Nick Symmonds that it only spends 8% of its revenues on elites by showing you spreadsheets of where the $15 million goes. $5 million directly to the athletes, $7 million to high performance centers and $3 million for athlete costs.

• SI’s Tim Layden: “Symmonds’ Fight Against USATF About More Than Just One Runner” Layden finds it “remarkable” that Symmonds “Became more famous for not signing a piece of paper than he would ever have become for running the 800 meters.”
• Olympic Expert Alan Abrahamson Slams Symmonds: “This predicament is entirely of Symmonds’ own making.” “For Symmonds to say he was ‘left off’ the team, as he did on Twitter, is disingenuous. … A study asserts USATF distributes 8 percent of its revenues to athletes; USATF says it’s more like 50 percent; tax returns say USATF is right.”
• Lauren Fleshman: “Nike never is going to sponsor everybody. But for other sponsors to enter the economic market place, it has to be worth it.”
• Symmonds Getting Press Worldwide, Including BBC

Admin News

• Los Angeles Close To Being Officially Chosen As United States Bid City For 2024 Games
• Switzerland Announce They Will Vote Seb Coe For IAAF President

Nick Symmonds / USATF Controversy Continues To Escalate

• Athletes’ Rights Attorney Says USATF Is Wrong In Nick Symmonds Case Hogshead-Makar: “This is a clear overreach by the national governing body. … It’s a done deal. National governing bodies can’t do that.”
• Symmonds Blogs In The Huffington Post About How USATF Financially Shorts Athletes He cites a study saying USATF only gives 8% of its revenues to USATF.
• USATF Responds: Jill Geer’s Statement On Nick Symmonds Controversy She says, “USATF annually invests more than 50 percent of our total revenue directly in athlete support …”
  *Symmonds On Twitter: “I am offended by @usatf statement. Not my decision to not represent #TeamUSA at #Beijing2015. And 50% investment?? That’s a flat out lie.”
• Huffpost Q&A: Symmonds Says USATF Exploits Patriotism For Profit
• Bold Statement From Symmonds “Tomorrow I will present proof that @USATF is stealing millions of dollars from the athletes, getting rich off the hard work of #TeamUSA.”
  *USATF Catching A Lot Of Flack From Fans On Twitter
• Reuters: Symmonds’ Stance Raises Thorny Old Issue Symmonds has gotten supportive tweets from many athletes on Twitter, including Jeremy Wariner and Kara Goucher. But David Oliver tweeted, “Personally I don’t care what I have to wear in order to be at the Worlds or Olympics …”
• NY Times: “Gear Dispute Costs Nick Symmonds A Trip To Track Worlds”
• TFAA Statements On Revenue Sharing Agreements And Transparency
• LRC Sad: USATF Kicks Symmonds Off Team Instead Of Defining What An “Official” Team Function Is

Book Reviews

LRC Book Review Of Once a Runner Prequel Racing the Rain By John L. Parker, Jr. – “It works and has the potential to draw a new audience into Once a Runner.” Racing the Rain isn’t about Quenton Cassidy‘s development as a runner, but rather his development into a runner. The novel opens by introducing a second-grade Cassidy and concludes with the miler moving into his familiar room in Southeastern University’s Doobey Hall. In between, Parker’s sharp prose richly describes what it was like to grow up a middle-class baby boomer on Florida’s Gold Coast.

LRC Book Review: How to Race the Mile By Jeff Hollobaugh – “A terrific resource for younger runners.” And “… also a great read for even the expert fan.” We recommend the book, which is a comprehensive look at the mile from the 19th century to the present and is full of rich race histories.

USA Dominates NACAC Champs *Results

• Day 3: Andy Bayer / Stanley Kebenei And Ashley Higginson / Shalaya Kipp Go 1-2 In Steeple At NACAC Champs Ryan Martin and Clayton Murphy were 1-2 in the 800 as Chanelle Price (800) and Kellyn Taylor (5,000) also got gold. Overall, Team USA took home 47 medals (27 gold).
• IAAF: Jamaica’s Rasheed Dwyer Highlights With 20.12 200m Victory Javier Culson had a dominant win in the 400H.
• Day 2: Andrew Wheating (1,500) And Lopez Lomong (5,000) Lead 9 Golds For Team USA Wheating beat out US’s Daniel Winn by .35 seconds to get the gold while in the women’s 1,500, Rachel Schneider and Shelby Houlihan also went 1-2 for Team USA. Lolo Jones won the 100H in 12.63 as Barbara Pierre won the 100 (11.12).
• MB: Crazy men’s pole vault final at NACAC. Everyone, including both U.S, no-heighted except for 1 guy from El Salvador!
• IAAF Day 2
• Day 1: Team USA Earns 9 Medals After First Day Of NACAC Champs Clayton Murphy and Ryan Martin both won their 800 heats as did Chanelle Price.
• Throwers Win Gold During First Morning Session Lolo Jones had the fastest time in the heats of the 100H.
• IAAF Day 1 Recap