Paula Speaks

Breaking: Paula Radcliffe “Categorically Denies” Cheating After She Was Implicated In Today’s Parliamentary Hearing On The Sunday Times/ARD Doping Report “As a result of today’s Parliamentary Hearing I can no longer maintain my silence. The investigation by ARD and the Sunday Times may have been a perfectly valid enterprise if the goal was to expose cheats, their supporters, and, their infrastructures. If, however, innocent athletes, as in my case, are caught up in the desire to sensationalise and expand the story, then that goal loses a lot of credibility …”
*MB: Official: Paul Radcliffe statement *Select Committee Revisiting Radcliffe

Monday AM: New Haven 20K (US Champs) *Results

• LRC Jared Ward And Molly Huddle Win US 20K Championships Sam Chelanga in his first US championship was 2nd and Dathan Ritzenhein 3rd (said he misjudged finish). Janet Bawcom and Brianne Nelson were 2-3 for the women.
  *Nice Photo Gallery From NH Register *Race Recap From NH Register *USATF
  *Discuss
• Pre-Race Article On Molly Huddle Trying To Come Back From Premature Celebration At Worlds

Doping News

• British Parliament Holding Inquiry Into IAAF Over ARD/Sunday Times Blood Doping Reports WADA director general David Howman and Aussie anti-doping expert (from the original report) Michael Ashenden are among the listed witnesses.
• In Case You Were Curious: Current List Of WADA Banned Coaches, Agents And Other Support Personnel If you’re an athlete, you shouldn’t be associating with anyone on this list.

Beijing Leftovers

• Interesting: How Did The World Champions Celebrate Their Victories In Beijing? Some drank. Some didn’t. All were up very late.
• Fans Vote Almaz Ayana’s 5,000 Victory Over Genzebe Dibaba As The Performance Of The Championships Ashton Eaton‘s decathlon WR and Dafne Schippers‘ 200m win were voted 2nd and 3rd.
• Good Read: Martyn Rooney Missed The Birth Of His Son To Anchor The GB 4 X 400 To A Dramatic Bronze Medal “Now I can take a medal home to my baby.”
  *Rooney Joked About Naming His Son “Bird’s Nest” “I couldn’t go home without bringing something back to my wife. I’m proud of what she’s done and hopefully she’s proud of me.”
• Justin Gatlin Says That Contrary To Popular Belief, Team USA Does A Lot Of Practice With 4 X 100 Baton Passing He says there was good “synergy” between this year’s team with Tyson Gay, Mike Rodgers and Trayvon Bromell.
• Timeline/Profile On Germany’s World SP Champ Christinia Schwanitz She started as a tennis player, but first discovered her throwing talent when she beat all the boys in PE class.
• Why Did Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare Flop In Beijing? She had the second-fastest time in 2015, but was last in the final.

2015 ISATF Berlin *Full Results

• Lynsey Sharp Huge PR (1:57.71), Shannon Rowbury Just Misses Sub-2, Hassan Mead 2nd In 5k Behind Paul Kipsiele Koech (13:08) (updated with IAAF recap) 40-year-old wonder Bernard Lagat was 3rd in the 5k. Nijel Amos ran 1:43.28 to beat Adam Kszczot, Mo Aman and Taoufik Makhloufi.
• Virginia Nyambura Wins 2,000m Steeplechase In The Second-Fastest Time In History She ran 6:02.16 to just beat Beatrice Chepkoech and Worlds bronze medalist Gesa Krause (6:04.20).
• Dawn Harper Nelson Gets Redemption From Worlds By Winning Over A Field That Included The Worlds Silver Medalist In field event action, NZ’s Tom Walsh beat David Storl and the PV was a complete bust as Renaud Lavillenie no-heighted and World champ Shawn Barber only cleared 5.64m. Worlds bronze medalist Piotr Lisek got the win (5.74m).
  *MB: Shannon Rowbury just misses. Comes up .04 short from becoming 5th woman in history at sub-2 and sub-15.
  *MB: Hassan Mead 2nd, Bernard Lagat 3rd at 2015 ISTAF Berlin Meet
  *MB: Can Lagat go Sub-13 in Berlin tomorrow?

Flanagan Breaks The AR

LRCShalane Flanagan Runs 31:03 In Netherlands To Break American 10km Record!

• Matt Tegenkamp, Dathan Ritzenhein, Abdi Abdirahman And Sam Chelanga Lead Field For New Haven 20K (US Champs) Teg won this race in 2012 and 2013, but skipped last year with injuries.
• Molly Huddle Vs. Janet Bawcom Headlines Field

Assorted Distance Stuff

• Peru’s Pan Am Marathon Champ Gladys Tejeda Tests Positive
• Game Of Thrones’ Natalie Dormer Withdraws From NYC Marathon Due To A “Change In Scheduling”
• Scott Jurek Fighting State Park Citations; Case Could Go To Trial
• Pre-Season DI Men’s Individual Preview: Can Anyone Dethrone The King Edward Cheserek? The short answer, probably no.
• Pre-Season DI Women’s Individual Preview: If Iona’s Avery Repeats, She’d Have Earned It Avery will face stiff competition to defend her crown, including Sarah Disanza, Rachele Schulist, Dominque Scott and Crystal Nelson.
• Former South African Olympian Zola Budd Joins Coastal Carolina University Coaching Staff

1st Of 2 DL Finals – 2015 Weltklasse Zurich *Full Results *TV & Streaming

LRC Full Meet Recap: Asbel Reigns Supreme, Ayana Takes Down Dibaba (Again), Eunice Sum Rebounds As David Rudisha And The Steeplechase Medalists Struggle $50,000 paydays were on the line in a number of events, which helped spice up the action and prevent the athletes from succumbing to post-Worlds jet lag / hangovers. How did Evan Jager, Jenny Simpson, Shannon Rowbury, Emily Infeld, Robby Andrews and Leo the Lion do?
*MB: Official 2015 Zurich Diamond League Final Live Discussion Thread

• LaShawn Merritt Gets 400m Revenge, But Kirani James Takes Overall DL Title Merritt won in 44.18 with James 2nd (44.28) and world champ Wayde van Niekerk 3rd (44.35). Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce got the 100m win in 10.93.
• Greg Rutherford Is Now Is The LJ Olympic, World, Euro, Commonwealth And Diamond League Title Holder It was a close competition with US’s Marquis Dendy as they both jumped 8.32m, but Rutherford’s second-best jump was better.
• Mutaz Essa Barshim (HJ) And Barbora Spotakova (Javelin) Bounce Back In Zurich After Beijing Blues They both won over those who beat them in Beijing. Yarisley Silva was another World Champ who lost as Greece’s Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou beat her in the PV.
• Russia’s World Champ Sergey Shubenkov Got The 110H Win, But David Oliver Finished 2nd And Still Won The Overall DL Series
• World Champ Shawn Barber Wins Pole Vault At Zürich Train Station He set a Canadian national indoor record of 5.67m.

NCAA News: Two Big Upgrades For Oregon

• Proposed Hayward Field Renovations Set To Begin Next Summer The renovations will expand seating up to 30,000 so that Eugene can host the World Championships in 2021.
• Phil Knight Donating Money For Huge New Marcus Mariota Sports Performance Complex On UO Campus The state of the art facility would include many beneficial resources for athletes including sports science testing.
• Colleen Quigley Among NCAA Woman Of The Year Top 30 List

Aries Merritt Has Successful Kidney Transplant What he did at Worlds 4 days before a kidney transplant was amazing.

More Doping News

• Justin Gatlin And His Agent Release Letters From 2010 Which Include An Apology And Willingness To Cooperate In Combating Doping They released these letters in response to those saying Gatlin never apologized for doping or tried to make amends.
• Good Read: Paul Kimmage Rips BBC’s Former Athletes For Biased Stances When It Comes To Doping Kimmage says they unfairly vilify Justin Gatlin while giving other athletes (like UK’s Linford Christie) a pass.
• The Guardian: “Dafne Schippers’ World Championship Success Should Not Mean Instant Condemnation” A lot of questions were asked after she ran the 3rd-fastest 200 time ever (only behind FloJo and Marion Jones). On the issue of her adult acne, a Dutch writer said that both her mom and sister also have acne.
• Good Read: UK Independent: “Legacy Of Doping Means Clean Wins Meet With Distrust” Drug cheats ruin the sport for clean athletes and fans because even if the clean athletes win, they’re still under suspicion.
• The NY Times: “Tests, Near And Far, For Sebastian Coe, Track’s New Chief” Includes quote from former NYRR president Mary Wittenberg, advising Coe to ditch his connection with Nike.
• Seb Coe: “We’re more than a discussion about test tubes, blood and urine.”
• IAAF Summarizes Doping Program From Beijing Overall, 1,405 doping controls were carried out, including blood and urine tests, in and out of competition.
• Criminal Probe Into Asafa Powell And Sherone Simpson Dropped In Italy Powell, Simpson and Canadian trainer Christopher Xuereb were placed under criminal investigation two years ago when their hotel rooms were raided.
• AK President Isaiah Kiplagat Asks The Newly-Formed Anti-Doping Agency Of Kenya (ADAK) To Expedite Investigations Into The Two Sprinters Who Failed Drug Tests At Worlds Joy Zakari (400) and Fransisca Koki (400H) both failed tests at Worlds.
• Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto Warns That Harsh Measures Will Be Taken Against Doctors And Agents Doping Athletes

Olympic News – Here’s To LA 2024

• LA Officially Launches Bid To Host 2024 Games 85% of the venues are already built or planned.
• USA Today Writer: “Los Angeles Saves USOC From Another Olympic-Sized Embarrassment” She says the USOC was “dumb” to choose Boston in the first place.
• Tokyo 2020 Scraps Olympic Logo After Charges Of Plagiarism They defended the logo, but are yielding to criticism.
  *24 Hours Earlier: Tokyo 2020 Stands By Olympic Emblem Amid Plagiarism Row Ironically, they changed from the original design to avoid copyright infringement and the original design “looked nothing like the Belgian theatre logo” which is claiming plagiarism now.

More Sunday Worlds *Race Videos *Post-Race Interviews

LRC W5k Almaz Ayana Does The Unthinkable And Runs Away From Genzebe Dibaba With An 8:19 Final 3k A huge, huge upset in dominant fashion as Ethiopia swept the medals.

LRC Mare Dibaba Wins 100m Sprint For World Title, USA’s Selena Burla 10th, Reaction From Her And Esther Erb Dibaba ran 2:27:35 to Kiprop’s 2:27:36 and Eunice Kirwa‘s (Bahrain) 2:27:39. Serena Burla of the USA was still with the lead pack at 30k and finished 10th.
*Discuss

Doping Talk

• IAAF Launches Pre-Emptive Strike Against The Sunday Times The IAAF has denied the new doping scandal story about systematic blood doping among past Russian under-23 athletes.
• Racewalk World Champ Matej Toth Skipping World Cup Race Next Year In Russia To Protest Russian Doping
• The Guardian: A Thrilling Week In The Bird’s Nest, But For Seb Coe, The Hard Work Is Only Just Beginning

Friday Worlds

LRC Day 7 Recap: What Drama: Bartoletta’s Clutch Last Jump To Win The Long Jump, Ashton Eaton’s Greatest Performance Ever? Dafne Schippers Wins The Greatest Women’s 200 Ever? The action Friday night in Beijing was unreal in so many places.
*MB:  Greatest w200 ever: Netherlands Dafne Schippers runs 21.63 championship record as 3 break 22.00!!!
*MB: UnF****** Believable – Eaton 45.00 for 400! 

Thursday Worlds Distance

Bookmark This Page: Watch Worlds Without Knowing The Results If you’re looking for race videos, go here.

LRC Sifan Hassan Runs 1:58.50 And Goes Home (So Do The Americans): The Madness Of The Women’s 800 Semifinals 24 women, 10 PRs and no Americans in the final. The three women’s 800 semifinals were insane as Canada’s Melissa Bishop led all the qualifiers in 1:57.52 (a two-second PR!). Americans Molly Ludlow and Brenda Martinez went home as the final time qualifier was a ridiculous 1:58.35.

LRC Thursday AM: Souleiman OUT Of 1,500 As All 3 Americans Advance, American Women Disappoint In 5k The big news was Ayanleh Souleiman pulling up with injury in the 1,500 as Matt Centrowitz looked great in qualifying. Nicole Tully advanced for the US in the 5k but did not run great.
*Interviews With: Centro, Manzano, Andrews, Willis, Tully, Hall, D’Agostino and more in our article or on YouTube channel.

More Worlds Wednesday

LRC Kenya’s Hyvin Kiyeng Wins Wild Steeple As Emma Coburn Settles For Fifth 5 women in contention for gold with 100 to go. Coburn: “I’m bummed … I thought I could medal. I was confident that I could. … I just got to keep at it and come away with some hardware in Rio.”

LRC Marquis Dendy Talks After Failing To Make Finals In Long Jump At 2015 IAAF Worlds – Hopes Beijing Flop Will Fuel Him To Double Olympic Gold The US struggles in the sprints/jumps continued as both Marquis Dendy and Will Claye failed to make the triple jump final.

Worlds Photos Galleries: Day 1 (M10k Marathon), Day 2 (M100), Day 3 (W 10k, MSteeple), Day 4 (M800, W1500, M Long Jump) & Video (Interviews, Races)

Day 3

Day 2

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?