Pre-Worlds Distance News

• Ben True Talks About His Strategy That He Thinks Can Get Him A Medal At Worlds True is hoping for a quick race in the 13:05-13:10 range. He also talks about how he doesn’t think TUEs should be allowed.
• GB 19-Year-Old Kyle Langford Didn’t Even Know Who David Rudisha Was Two Years Ago; Now He’ll Race Him In Beijing Langford ran 1:45.78 to put himself only .01 behind Steve Ovett on the all-time junior list. He has big goals like making the final in Beijing and Rio and trying to win gold in London 2017.
• After Winning World Silver And Bronze, Matt Centrowitz Is Hoping To Finally Get Gold His last race in Stockholm was a dud as he finished 11th in 3:39, but he says he was just over-raced and is feeling better now.
• Genzebe Dibaba Happy To Finally Keep Her Indoor Success Going Into Outdoors Normally she starts strong indoors and fades outdoors, but this year has obviously been different.
• After A String Of Bad Races, Irish 800 Man Mark English Broke Through With A 1:45.49 In July And Now Is Poised For Worlds The med student realized he had a tight abductor which was cutting off blood flow to his right leg.

Seb Coe For IAAF President

• Seb Coe Elected New IAAF President He won the vote over Sergey Bubka 115 to 92.
  *MB: Seb Coe elected President of IAAF!
• Coe Promises To Create An Independent Doping Commission To Address “Conflicts And Loopholes” In The Current System Article includes quotes from Paula Radcliffe and Steve Cram about Coe and doping.
• BBC Article With Video Interview With Coe Coe addresses multiple question on doping and the perception of the IAAF. *IAAF Article
• Coe Acceptance Speech Video: “This is for me is the pinnacle. It is my sport, my passion, the thing I’ve always wanted to do.”
• UK Opinion Piece: “Seb Coe Can Conquer Cynicism Again But Misplaced War Analogies Must Go”
• The Telegraph: “The Challenges Facing The New Man” From doping to revitalizing interest, Coe has his hands full.
• Coe: “Timeline Of An Olympic Champion And Sports Administrator”
• MB: What is Seb Coe’s Salary w/ IAAF?

• USATF: Stephanie Hightower Overwhelmingly Elected To IAAF Council There are six IAAF council seats designated to be filled by women and there were ten candidates. Of the ten, Hightower received the most votes.
  *USATF Candidates Score Record Victories In IAAF Election
• Kenya: AK Head Isaiah Kiplagat Fails In His Attempt To Be Elected As An IAAF Vice President He came in last of 7 candidates (for 4 spots) and also lost his seat on the IAAF council.
  *CapitalFM: “Is Kiplagat’s race run after failed IAAF VP bid?” Kiplagat had previously said he would step down from AK if he won an IAAF vice president position.
• JAAA President Dr. Warren Blake Fails In Bid For IAAF Council Seat
• Kosovo And South Sudan Voted Into IAAF

The Lauren Johnson Story

LRC The Lauren Johnson Story: From Over 2:20 For 800 In HS To The U.S. World Championships Team At 1,500 Johnson grew up in Indiana playing basketball and didn’t take running seriously until her senior year of college. Now she’s heading to Worlds.

LRC Reacts To The Sunday Times Doping Investigation

LRC LetsRun.com’s Thoughts On The Sunday Times Doping Investigation – Including Kenyan Medalists May Be CLEANER Than Other Countries We’ve had a couple of weeks to digest the Sunday Times doping data and we share our thoughts, mainly trying to give some perspective.

LRC Three Things That Need To Be Done To Immediately Improve The Anti-Doping Fight The Sunday Times exposé has shown us there needs to be a lot more transparency in the anti-doping fight.

LRC The Good, The Bad And The Interesting From The Sunday Times Doping In Athletics Data A good read if you actually haven’t read the Sunday Times series as we try to summarize the numbers, including the longer the distance the more cheats, and New Zealand is as clean as snow.

Legal News

• Oscar Pistroius Set To Be Released From Prison On August 21st He’ll serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest.
  *Prosecutors File Appeal At South Africa’s Supreme Court; Want A 15-Year Murder Sentence The hearing will be in November.
• Tokyo 2020 Logo Designer Admits His Staff Stole Designs For A Japanese Beverage Firm Promotional Campaign However, he and the IOC still stand by the Tokyo 2020 logo, saying it was not plagiarized. This has lead to a lawsuit by a Belgian designer against the IOC.
• Lawyers Ask For New Trial Outside Boston For Marathon Bomber They say jurors in Boston were too close to the events to be impartial, especially with all the media coverage.

2015 Beijing Worlds – Get Your Picks In

LRC$200,015 LRC Running Warehouse Worlds Prediction Contest Is Here!

1,103 Days Later But Well Worth The Wait

MB: Turkey’s Asli Cakir Alptekin Stripped Of 2012 Olympic Gold In 1,500 For Doping (link fixed) Alptekin’s victory didn’t pass the “smell test.” Thankfully, after her initial DQ was overturned by the Turks, she’s agreed to accept an 8-year ban and forfeit her 2012 gold medal. That’s the good news. The bad news … the new Olympic champ is fellow Turk Gamze Bulut, who had never broken 4:18 prior to 2012 and hasn’t broken 4:07 since 2012.

2015 New Balance Falmouth *Results

LRC Stephen Sambu (32:17) & Diane Nukuri (36:47) Streak To Titles At 43rd Falmouth Road Race Americans Abdi Abdirahman, Chris Derrick and Meb Keflezighi all had the lead at one point in the men’s race but the top Americans were Sara Hall (2nd) and Sam Chelanga (4th). Derrick ended up getting trounced but thinks he’s ready to PR at 5,000. Keflezighi reveals he recently was forced to walk home in the middle of a 12-mile training run. And American marathoners, it’s time to get nervous as Chelanga reveals he may run the Trials. Post-race interviews with Americans Keflezighi, Chelanga, Derrick, and Hall.
*RRW: Stephen Sambu Is Big Winner At Falmouth; Wins Race, Countdown Bonus

2015 Worlds Start Next Saturday – Distance News *Entries Released

• David Rudisha Says Training Has Gone Well And He’s Ready For Worlds “I have already picked up power. It is not that I did not have power but it had not been activated.”
• Silas Kiplagat Has Been Getting Ready For Worlds By Studying Videos Of Hicham El Guerrouj And Noureddine Morceli
• Caleb Ndiku Knows He Can’t Let The 5,000 Turn Into A 1,500 If He’s Going To Beat Mo Farah – “The only thing that will make us defeat Farah is to highly pace the race.”
• Steepler Brimin Kipruto Thinks China Might Be lucky Spot For Him As He Won Olympic Gold There In 2008 “I remember China because of that Olympics gold medal and I believe I can repeat the feat during the World Championships.”
• Wilson Kipsang Is Confident Kenya’s Marathoners Will Rock Beijing He should be confident as the teams are loaded with him, Dennis Kimetto, Edna Kiplagat and others.
• Is He Britain’s Next Coe, Cram Or Ovett? Kyle Langford – Just 19 – Is Ready For His First Worlds The British champ ran 1:45.78 in London to get on the team.
• David McNeill Writes About Why He’s Shut Down His Season, One In Which He Missed The Worlds 27:45.00 Standard By A Cruel .01. “The human body is a lot like a computer: leave too many applications open at once for too long, and everything stops working as efficiently.”

Administrative News

• Nick Symmonds 1, USATF 0 USATF Admits To Incompetence USATF claims that senior executives had no idea a letter had been sent to all US athletes telling them to pack “ONLY” Nike gear and now says athletes can wear whatever they want in private.
• WADA Looking Into ARD Allegations, Says Nothing Before 2009 Will Be Looked At “No test data derived from the IAAF database prior to the adoption of the ABP in 2009 can be considered to be proof of doping. It would be reckless, if not libelous, to make such an allegation.”
• Sebastian Coe Keeps Racking Up Votes – Ghana Commits – Up To 38 Supporters Now Many thought Bubka would get all of Africa.
  *Coe Had Been Leading Bubka 36 To 5 In Race To Become IAAF President
• Is This Proof That Designer Of Japan 2020 Logo Copied Others?
• Japanese Runners Are Irate There Will Be No Permanent Track – Even Practice Track – In New 2020 Stadium As There Is “No Land Nearby” There is only 1 track in central Tokyo accessible to the public. Runners were hoping the Olympics would leave a 2nd.

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

• 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

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.