September 29, 2015 | LetsRun.com

Week That Was

LRCWTW: The Kid Playing In The Sandbox At Alan Webb's Practices Is Now A Phenom; How Do Meb, Deena And Sean Wade Do It At 40+; How Many Americans Have A Legitimate Shot At The 2016 US Olympic Marathon Team?

This week we start with talk about Alan Webb, Craig Virgin, Drew Hunter and "Tinman" before moving to the 2013 World Junior XC race with Matt McClintock, Craig Nowak and Malachy Schrobilgen. But we also cater to our 40+ demographic as we talk extensively about Meb, Deena and Sean Wade. Plus Eliud Kipchoge proves that the runner makes the shoe, not vice versa.

USATF And Athletes Collaborate On How To Divvy Up Nike’s Money

Alan Abrahmson Calls New USATF Revenue Distribution Plan For Athletes “A Monumental Step Forward” Max Siegel, USATF officials, and the Athletes Advisory Committee (AAC) met over the weekend and agreed on a plan that will deliver an additional $9 million to athletes over the next 5 years, seeing them paid for qualifying for and medaling at global championships.
Track and Field Athletes’ Union Issues Statement Saying We Need More Info We agree with the TFAA. How much was the Nike deal for? How much of that are athletes getting?
USATF Press Release Lays out some of the details of the new four-tier funding system. A non-medaling Tier 1 national champ would get roughly $35,000.
Nick Symmonds: “This is a HUGE step in the right direction. Thank you @usatf for compensating #TeamUSA for their hard work!”
AP: USATF Will Clarify Issue Leading To Nick Symmonds’ Boycott Max Siegel: “After the annual meeting, it will be absolutely clear what the requirements are.”
MB: Make a World Champs or Olympic Team – USATF pays you $10K Something we didn’t see yesterday is how big the pie is? How much extra money per year is USATF receiving from Nike? What % of that are athletes getting?

UK News

Rana Reider Quetions If British Athletes’ Attitudes Hold Them Back From International Success Reider accues GB athletes of having a “big fish in a small pond” mentality and not being willing to move from where they’re comfortable to where they’ll have a better training environment.
Former Sprinter Jason Gardener To Become Next President Of UK Athletics In December Gardener won 4x100m relay gold at the 2004 Olympics.
Scottish Athletics Petitioning Seb Coe To Allow Scotland To Field Its Own Teams At Some Major Meets Outside The Commonwealth Games
Olympic/World Heptathlon Champ Jessica Ennis Says She’ll Retire After 2017 Ennis talks about coming back from pregnancy to win gold in Beijing and how her life has changed since having a baby.

BMW Berlin Marathon In The Books *Results

LRC Four Thoughts On Berlin And Eliud Kipchoge’s Amazing 2:04:00 Win With His Shoe Insoles Falling Out We break down the race and the amazing performance of Eliud Kipchoge (who in case you missed it ran 2:04:00 with his insoles falling out), Matt Llano running a 2:12:28 PR, Reid Coolsaet just missing the Canadian record and Gladys Cherono joining the sub-2:20 club. *IAAF Recap *Blow-By-Blow Forum Thread

Kipchoge’s Shoes Were A New Nike Prototype Kipchoge said he tested them in Kenya, but just had bad luck on Sunday. Kipchoge still wisely said, “I think this shoe is the best shoe ever.”
Reid Coolsaet’s Entertain Blogs Explains How He Settled A Dispute On How Fast The Rabbits Should Go
Five Irish Athletes Hit Olympic Qualifying Times In Berlin
LRC Flash Photos: Photos Of The Winners And Kipchoge’s Shoes
More in Our Berlin Special Section

NCAA News This Weekend’s NCAA Results Battle Of Beantown Results

Saturday – Roy Griak: Boise State Women Dominate With 37 Points To Michigan State’s 116 Cal’s Bethan Knights dominated the individual race, beating Boise State’s Allie Ostrander by 16 seconds. *Full Results
Michigan State Men Win Over Southern Utah At Roy Griak
Colorado State’s Jefferson Abbey And Jerrell Mock Go 1-2 *Full Results
Discuss: Boise State women crushed the field
*Men’s Roy Griak 2015 – Why did everybody run so slow?
Stanford: Stanford Men And Women Both Win At Home Invite Sean McGorty won the individual race, beating an unattached Grant Fisher by 26 seconds. North Dakota’s Erin Teschuk won the women’s race. *Results
*MB: GRANT FISHER unattached 2nd at stanford invitational!
*MB: D2 Chico almost EMBARRASSES D1 Stanford
OSU: Oklahoma State Sweeps Jamboree For Sixth Consecutive Year OSU’s Cerake Geberkidane and Alabama’s Rachael Reddy were the individual winners. *Men’s Results *Women’s Results
Virginia: Cavaliers Sweep Their Home Virginia/Panorama Farms Invitational Titles *Results
Texas: Texas Sweeps At Texas A&M Invy

Friday – LRC No. 3 Syracuse Men And No. 8 Providence Women Crush Competition At 2015 Coast-To-Coast Battle In Beantown Stony Brook’s Christina Melian and Syracuse’s Justyn Knight were the individual winners. After the race, Providence coach Ray Treacy reveals that he thinks this year’s squad is better 1-5 than his 2013 title team and Syracuse coach Chris Fox reveals that superstar Justyn Knight only runs 50-60 mpw.
*RRW: Syracuse, Providence Win BC Coast-To_Coast Battle In Beantown
*MB: Coast to coast battle in bean town at franklin park…
*MB: So sick: Syracuse’s Justyn Knight ran 3:39 and 13:34 on 35 mpw

Other Assorted News

Top Ultramarathoner Sage Canaday Taking Another Stab At The Olympic Trials Marathon Standard This Fall Canaday had close misses in his two attempts to qualify for the OT this spring (2:20:02 in LA and 2:19:12 in Boston).
*Follow Canaday’s Training On Strava
Tokyo 2020 Set To Announce Which Sports Will Be Put Forward For Inclusion In Olympic Program The sports vying for inclusion are bowling, baseball/softball, karate, roller sports, sport climbing, squash, surfing and wushu.
Sad: 29-Year-Old Teacher Training For Her First Marathon Killed By Car During Run The truck crossed over from the opposite lane and struck her.

Random Odds And Ends

Judge Approves Caitlyn Jenner’s Formal Request For Name Change Jenner wanted to officially change her name and gender on her driver’s license and social security card.
Man Who Lost 260 Pounds Led 1:40 Pace Group In Half Marathon This Weekend Before dedicating himself to running, Barry Brokaw weighed 420 pounds.
Studies Find That While Body Builders’ Muscles Look Bigger, They’re Not Actually As Strong Or Powerful As Real Athletes Like Weightlifters Or Sprinters At a certain point, making a muscle bigger doesn’t lead to big strength gains.

Pro Distance News

RRW Meb Going For Masters American Half Marathon Record At RNR San Jose Half Marathon This Weekend Aliphine Tuliamuk-Bolton and Adriana Nelson lead the women’s field, while Deena Kastor will go for the American masters record (15:48 by Collen De Reuck) on Saturday.
Scottish Steepler Elish McColgan Thrilled To Be Able To Jog Again After Recovering From Ankle Surgery For The Last 9 Months “They have told me I can do seven minutes. I don’t care how short a time it is because I just want that feeling of running again. It is not the same when you are cross-training or even using an Alter-G …”
Dathan Ritzenhein Talks About His Training And Decision Not To Run A Marathon Before The Olympic Trials Ritz is focused on getting to the Trials healthy and has found he does better off intense 100-mile weeks rather than 140-150 miles a week.
Hey NYers: Nick Symmonds Hosting Free Clinic/Meet And Greet On Staten Island Sunday At 6PM

Previous NCAA Stuff

LetsRun.com’s Story On UVA Employing Suspended Doper Martin Maric As Throws Coach Goes Mainstream – Gets Picked Up By Virginia Paper – Charlottesville Paper: “UVa assistant coach embroiled in controversy.”
*Previous: LRC University Of Virginia Employing Banned Doper Martin Maric As Throws Coach; Coaches Association Honors Him As Regional Coach Of The Year

Will Rio 2016 Be Awesome? … Or A Disaster?

Rio Will Only Spend 10% Of What London Spent For Opening Ceremory But They Promise An “Original” Show
Rio Doesn’t Have Any Hotel Rooms For Olympics – People Will Need To Couch Surf The one positive is we’ll all be adding another zero to Chris Lukezic‘s net worth.
Pay For Stream Websites In the News
- Runnerspace Hires Announcer Paul Swangard
- Flotrack Will Hold Another Beer Mile In Austin In December

400 Runners In The News

IAAF Inside Athletics: Ato Boldon Interviews The Great Michael Johnson Johnson talks a lot about preparing for a life after track since pro athletes only have a short window when they can make money from their running.
Oscar Pistorius Case Will Be Heard By South Africa’s Supreme Court Of Appeal On November 3rd They will either uphold the original verdict or upgrade it to murder.
UK’s Christine Ohuruogu Blogs About Her 2015 Season The defending 400m World champ was only 8th in Beijing as she says she ran to win rather than “just get a medal” and that cost her.

Marathon News: Berlin Is Sunday

RRW Remotivated After Move Home to Michigan, Dathan Ritzenhein Ready for Olympic Marathon Trials Build-Up “I was waning on motivation a little bit and being able to be back home has just revived me. It’s been really cool.”
Eliud Kipchoge Eyeing The WR At This Weekend’s Berlin Marathon As He Faces Emmanuel Mutai And Geoffrey Mutai “The focus is on the world record and I want to do just that. I have not run under two hours and four minutes and that is my inspiration.”
Good Profile On Eritrea’s Surprise World Marathon Champion Ghirmay Ghebreslassie Ghebreslassie had to fight with his parents to run as they wanted him to focus on school. His debut marathon was last year in Chicago, where he was a pacer through 25K, but he felt good so he kept running, placing 6th in 2:09:08.
Strava Offering $1,500 Stipends To Ten Women Who Hit Olympic Marathon Trials Standard Anyone shooting for the Trials standard can apply by Friday and ten who qualify will get the money to help with travel to LA in February.
It’s Getting Tougher Than Ever To Get Into Boston After the first week of registration (for the fastest time qualifiers) only 5,000 spots remain, about 3,000 less than last year at this time.
Rock ‘N’ Roll Series Drops Denver Marathon The half marathon will continue, but not the full. Former US Olympian and RNR series vice president Alan Culpepper said it was because of difficulties with the route and road closures.

NCAA Review

LRCNCAA XC Weekend Recap: Grant Fisher Doesn't Need To Redshirt, The Boise State Women Are For Real And The NCAA 1,500 Champs Struggle

With the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown, Roy Griak Invitational and several other meets in the books, we give you four takeaways from the first major weekend of action in NCAA cross-country.

*Butler’s Erik Peterson And Stony Brook’s Christina Melian Are NCAA DI Athletes Of The Week Melian won the Battle in Beantown while Peterson won the Virginia Panorama Farms Invy.
*Movement In Updated DI Regional Rankings After First Countable Weekend

Masters Records Go Down

Meb Keflezighi Breaks U.S. Masters Half Marathon Record At Rock ‘N’ Roll San Jose Meb ran 1:03:02 to finish 2 seconds behind Jordan Chipangama as Aliphine Tuliamuk-Bolton won the women’s race (1:11:26).
*MB: Meb gets U.S. 1/2 Masters record in San Jose – 63:02
Deena Kastor Runs 15:48 at 42 to Tie Women’s Masters World Record 5K Record At Rock ‘N’ Roll San Jose
*MB: This Deserves A Ton of Praise: 42 Year Old Deena Kastor Runs 15:48
Canadian Jim Finlayson Breaks Beer Mile 40+ World Record With 5:01.24 (includes video) Very impressive for someone over 40 considering the WR is only 4:55.
*MB: Jim Finlayson runs another masters beer mile world record

High School News

Good Read: Profile On 4:02 Man Drew Hunter, Who Last Spring Became The First High Schooler To Beat Grant Fisher Since His Sophomore Year Hunter is coached by his parents Marc and Joan Hunter, who were Alan Webb‘s coaches his freshman year of high school. The family also has connections to well-known LRCer Tom Schwartz (“Tinman”), whom they get coaching advice from.
12-Year-Old Grace Ping Wins Roy Griak High School Race She won in 18:12. *Results
MileSplit Weekend Rundown

Centenarian News: If You Think You’re Too Old, Think Again

21-Year-Old UK Journalist Competes In Five Track Events To See If He Can Keep Up With Centenarian Don Pellmann Pellmann recently set five age group WRs at the Senior Olympics.
You Know Sports Are Competitive When Even 105-Year-Olds Can’t Catch A Break Japan’s Hidekichi Miyazaki recently became the oldest person to “sprint” 100m, but apparently a Polish man, Stanislaw Kowalski, had actually already run a faster time at a slightly older age (by a couple of months).

More Weekend Action

World Junior 1,500 Record Holder Ronald Kwemoi Wins Japan National Corporate Championships With A Meet Record 3:37.54
*Seito Yamamoto’s 5.70m Pole Vault Meet Record Tops Final Day Of Corporate Championships Ronald Kwemoi doubled back from his 1,500 win on Day 1 to win his 5,000 heat in 13:38.75, although he was just slower than David Njuguna in heat 2 (13:38.51).
Jonny Mellor (29:12) And Lauren Howarth (33:49) Win Great Yorkshire 10K Titles Gemma Steel was supposed to go for her 5th straight win, but was a DNS.

Olympic Bidding News

CBS Reporter Argues That USOC Still Doesn’t Understand Why Boston 2024 Bid Failed
USOC Extends CEO Scott Blackmun’s Contract Through 2020 With Option Through 2024 He’ll stay at his current contract, which pays him nearly $980,000.
Paris 2024 Leaders Launch Crowdfunding Campaign The campaign included selling $2.25 wristands as they try to raise their $67 million budget.

Masters News

Q&A With The University Of Michigan’s First Female Athlete And Coach (And 2-Time Olympian) Francie Kraker Goodridge Her husband, John, is the coach at Eastern Michigan.
Former 2:10:59 Marathoner Sean Wade Is Training For Sub-4:20 Mile At Age 50 He’s 49 now and recently ran 4:25.
Master * 2.5 Former Michigan 4 X 400 Runner And Famed Photographer Phil Balyeat Has Turned 100

Odds & Ends

Jumps And Throws

Worth A Look: Check Out Some GIFs Of Chinese HJer And World Silver Medalist Zhang Guowei Celebrating Some Of His Best Jumps Zhang could put some NFL touchdown dances to shame.
IAAF Profile On World Shot Put Bronze Medalist O’Dayne Richards: Sprints Nation Jamaica Now Making Big Waves In The Throws Richards says before his brother recruited him to throwing, he was a skinny, nerdy bookworm.
Canadian Hammer Thrower Daniel Novia Gets 3-Year, 8-Month Ban After Testing Positive For Three Banned Drugs He got a reduction from 4 years because he admitted to it and waived his right to a trial.

The Week That Was – Our Weekly Recap

LRCWTW: Craig Virgin's Insight On Drugs At Nike's Athletics West, RIP Niall O'Shaughnessy, Sarah Sumpter And Cameron Bean, And How Does Alan Webb Stack Up At Karaoke?

Last week, our sport lost three figures at way too young of an age, Craig Virgin talked about drugs at Nike's Athletics West, and the stars did some karaoke in NYC, which we compare to Alan Webb's retirement karaoke in NYC in 2014.

Study: Sitting For Long Stretches Of Time Is Also Bad For Kids After sitting for 3 hours, 9- to 12-year-old girls showed “a profound reduction in vascular function.”

Pro Distance Stuff: Berlin 2015 Is Sunday

The Eternal Bridesmaid, Emmanuel Mutai Is Going For Victory In Berlin Mutai has finished runner-up three times in London, twice in NY, once in Chicago and once in last year’s Berlin Marathon where he broke the previous WR, but still lost to Dennis Kimetto. On Sunday, he hopes to notch the second WMM victory of his career.
Five Reasons Berlin Is So Fast If the WR goes down again, it will be the sixth time in the last nine years.
RunBlogRun: Ben True And Ryan Hill Edge Closer To The Summit True and Hill talk about their 2015 seasons which saw them finish 6th and 7th at Worlds and break out from Galen Rupp‘s shadow.
Sarah Brown Talks To Runners World About Her Unexpected Pregnancy And Plans For Training And The Olympic Trials She’ll have the baby less than 15 weeks before the OT, but her husband and coach Darren Brown says, “I’ve seen her do a lot more with a lot less time.”
Oct. 18: World Marathon Champ Mare Dibaba And Bernard Koech (58:41 PR) Lead Fields For Rock ‘N’ Roll RTP Half Marathon Dibaba faces Berlin/Tokyo champ Tirfi Tsegaye while Koech is up against 2011 world 10,000 champ Ibrahim Jeilan and Alex Oloitiptip (59:28).

Doping (aka Russian) News

Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One Before: Six More Russian Racewalkers Banned After Testing Positive No, this is not an old article; these are six new suspensions. Remember in the summer when Russia said it wouldn’t send any racewalkers to Worlds to avoid “disgrace”? Well, that was because they already knew about these six suspensions.
WADA And China Sign Groundbreaking Agreement To Work To Eliminate Illegal Manufacture And Supply Of PEDs A recent investigation found that the majority of substances originated from Chinese laboratories, so WADA is attempting to stop doping at the source.

Olympic News

LA 2024 Flexes Financial Muscle By Funding Its Bid Budget Of $35 Million In A Week LA 2024 chairman Casey Wasserman: “We are funded and ready to go and looking forward to the next two years.” However, France looks to have a bigger planned budget of $68 million.
RIP: Last Surviving Priestess From The First Olympic Flame Lighting Ceremony Passes Away Maria Horss passed away at 94. She was only 14 when she took part in the first lighting of the Olympic flame for the 1936 Berlin Games.
Good: Low Budgets For Rio Opening And Closing Ceremonies A Brazilian filmmaker who is part of the team said he would be “ashamed to waste what London spent in a country where we need sanitation” and that he is “very glad we’re not spending money like crazy.” London spent $104 million.
Belgian Designer Pressing Ahead With Plagiarism Cause Against IOC Over Tokyo 2020 Logo This despite the fact that the IOC is no longer using the logo and the theater that owns it withdrew the charges.
Rio 2016 Claims Several Olympic Venues Are Approaching Completion, But Track Isn’t One Of Them
Opinion Piece: Paris 2024 Olympic Bid “Offers Certainty”

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

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?

Upcoming Road Action: Chicago Is Next Weekend

Updates Chicago Marathon Elite Field: Tsegay Kebede Out With Injury, Luke Puskedra Added Ethiopia’s Tokyo Marathon champ Berhane Dibaba (2:22:30) and Yebrqual Melese (2:23:23) have been added to the women’s field. *Discuss
Kara Goucher Racing TC 10 Mile (USATF 10 Mile Champs) This Sunday
Elite Field Announced For This Weekend’s Cardiff Half Marathon / UK Half Champs Kenya’s Boniface Kongin (62:02) defends his title while Merci Jemutai-Tanui (68:42) leads women’s race.

More International News

Former Olympic 110H Champion Dayron Robles Could Return To Compete For Cuba There has been a long standing feud between Robles and the Cuban federation.
IAAF Personal Bests Q&A With Canada’s World HJ Champion Derek Drouin Drouin says he still regrets not listening to his instincts and taking a third attempt at a bar which caused him to fracture his foot back in 2011.

Brojos And LRC Get Some Praise

LRC LetsRun.com Founders Robert And Weldon Johnson Named As Two Of “The 50 Most Influential People In Running” By Runner’s World LRC’s founders Robert Johnson and Weldon Johnson (Brojos) are among the 50 most influential people in running according to Runner’s World thanks to you. RW had high praise for the LRC audience, saying the Brojos are the “masterminds behind perhaps the most engaged online community of runners.”
*MB: The 50 Most Influential People in Running – wejo and rojo made the list!

Sprint News: The Drink Of Your Enemy Is Your Enemy

Apparently There Was A Bit Of A Dispute Between US And Jamaican Sprinters In Beijing During Worlds A JAAA media officer says the Americans complained about Jamaicans celebrating too loud and refused to drink Gatorade that had Usain Bolt‘s picture printed on it.
After Stellar Year, Andre De Grasse Had The Opportunity To Go Pro But Said “I Felt It Wasn’t My Time” “There was a lot of pressure, there was a lot of numbers. I thought to myself, ‘wow are they really offering this?’ But nothing was guaranteed … College is only a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I want to enjoy it. There’s only so far you can go in the sport … a degree is the most important thing.”

Recommended Read: Washington Post: “Running For Their Lives, Ethiopians Seek A Safer Track In Washington DC” Article follows story of Ethiopian refugees such as 18-year-old 400 NR holder Genet Lire, who used running as a means to escape political persecution in Ethiopia. They left behind their families and promising running careers to avoid jail and torture and now are struggling to survive in the US.

Pro News

Q&A With World 800 Silver Medalist Melissa Bishop Bishop says that adrenaline got her through the rounds in Beijing as she could barely sleep after breaking the Canadian NR in the semifinal.
Flashback To The 1996 Atlanta Games 200: “Michael Johnson, The Olympic Sprinter With An Inner Greek God” Today Johnson is known more for his still-standing 400 mark, but in this race he ran 19.32 to dominate the rest of the world in a new WR.
Jamaican-Trained British Sprinter Delano Williams Keeping His Options Over After A Season Of Injuries Forced Him Into The 400 His preferred event is the 200, but he missed the British Trials and ended up running on their bronze medal winning 4 x 400 at Worlds.
IAAF Profile On World Heptathlon 8th Placer Nadine Visser The 20-year-old World Junior bronze medalist was thrilled with her transition to the senior ranks in 2015.

More College XC

LRC 2015 NCAA Men’s Individual Top 10 Preview: Can Anyone Beat King Cheserek? There is a heavy, heavy favorite but behind him it’s wide open. How many can Colorado put in the top 10? Does anyone have a chance Edward Cheserek? We’ve found a potential upset winner (pics included on the right) whom we bet you’ve never heard of.

LRC 2015 NCAA Women’s Individual Top 10 Preview: Who Takes Over For Kate Avery? With no Kate Avery, the championship picture is wide open.
MB: What is your Early Season Individual NCAA Top 15

Roy Griak Minnesota Hall Of Fame Feature: Garry Bjorklund And Others Share Their Memories Bjorklund: “When I think back to my greatest memories as a runner, it is not the conference titles as an individual, nor is it the being an All-American or an Olympian … my greatest achievement is I was a part of a team coached by Roy Griak.”
Podcast Q&A With Syracuse’s 13:34 Man Justyn Knight He had a bad 2014 NCAA race, but made up for it with top 25 at World Jr. XC.
Q&A With NCAA 1,500 Champ Chad Noelle, Who Is Running XC For 1st Time Since 2013 And Hoping To Be Top 20

Be Inspired As Runners Overcome Age, Disease And Their Past

Recommended Read: For Inmates At The Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP), “The Wall” Has A Totally Different Meaning And Running Is Much “More Than Just A Race” Dedicated runners can be found everywhere, even in prison. At OSP, a 40+ year-old running club started by Steve Prefontaine and with ties to Bill Dellinger and former Athletics West coach, Dick Brown, gives new life to inmates serving long sentences for violent crimes. They train daily, run monthly races (open to the public) and help rehabilitate themselves and completely change their lives. A definite must read by Michael Heald.
Recommended Watch: Former Sub-2:30 Marathoner Michael Westphal Uses Running To Battle His Parkinson’s Disease Sometimes Westphal can barely walk, but when he runs he almost feels normal and recently qualified for Boston with a 3:32 marathon.
Centenarian Don Pellmann Breaks Five Age Group World Masters Records At The Senior Olympics Among his records, he broke the 100m record by 3 seconds with 26.99 and became the first man over 100 years old to clear a height in the high jump.

Olympic Stuff

Ooh, Burn! USOC Compares Failed Boston Olympic Bid To Seahawks’ Decision To Pass Instead Of Run The Ball At The Super Bowl USOC CEO Scott Blackmun: “But here’s the thing. Unlike the Seahawks, we have not lost the game.”
IOC Accused Of “Astonishing Omission” Of Human Rights Clause In 2024 Host City Contract The Agenda 2020 reform process called for host city contracts to have a human rights clause, but there was apparently no mention in the 2024 contract.
LA To Declare $100 Million State Of Emergency On Homelessness To Help 2024 Olympic Bid Councilman Gilbert Cedillo: “If we want to be a great city that hosts the Olympics and shows itself off to the world, we shouldn’t have 25,000 to 50,000 people sleeping on the streets.”
Video: Rome Says They’re 70 Percent Ready To Host 2024 Games
Rome’s Summer Olympics Bid Could Include Events At Colosseum, St. Peter’s Square
Boston The Sequel? Hungary Says There Are No Plans For Referendum On 2024 Olympic Bid
Japan Sports Minister To Resign Over Tokyo 2020 Stadium Fiasco

Pro News

Seb Coe Agrees With LetsRun.com – Farah Isn’t The GOAT “He is a wonderful, wonderful athlete. I’ll leave the greatest ever tag to other athletes. Mo’s progress through the ranks has been spectacular, but there are other things you need to throw into the balance: world records, times, speeds, all those things.”
Matt Llano Has Been Living At Shalane Flanagan’s House For Weeks As He Gets Ready For This Weekend’s Berlin Marathon The two became friends as both are “foodies.”
*MB: Good article on Matt Llano living and training with Shalane Flanagan as he prepares for Sunday’s Berlin Marathon
Vin Lananna Is Surprised World Indoors Hasn’t Already Sold Out “I don’t think there is enough understanding of what indoor track actually is,” Lananna says.
*MB: Vin Lananna is surprised World Indoors isn’t sold out – isn’t sure if Salazar/Rupp doping allegations are to blame
Stephen Kiprotich Says His Body Didn’t Respond To Training For Worlds But He’s Going For Repeat Gold In Rio
Sprints/Jumps Blanka Vlasic Talks About Her Amazing Silver Medal At Worlds: The Silver Medal That Felt Like Gold To Vlasic She’d only competed twice all summer due to injury and some days couldn’t even walk.
Kemar Bailey-Cole Says He Would Have Been Third At Worlds Had Hamstring Injury Not Kept Him Out He had run a 9.92 PR early in the year on LetsRun.com’s “Founders Day.”
Bob Beamon’s Words Of Wisdom Beamon talks about the need to be fully committed to your craft and be patient. In college, Beamon lost to a HSer.

Jumps And Throws

After Placing 4th At Worlds, New Zealand Shot Putter Tom Walsh Is Back To Working 8 Hours A Day As A Construction Worker Walsh: “It’s good to just kind of get away and stop thinking about training and the gym, just living like a normal guy for a while and enjoying a little bit of a break away from all the training and the pressures of travel.”
Video: Hilarious HJ Fail
IAAF Profile On Javelin Thrower Ihab Abdelrahman El Sayed, Who Won Egypt’s First-Ever World Championships Medal (Silver) Like Kenya’s Julius Yego, El Sayed beat the odds by excelling in a country with no tradition or coaching knowledge in his event.
UK Writer Argues Triple Jump Isn’t A Real Sport Because It Is “Too Contrived”
Graphic Comparison Of Christian Taylor’s 18.21m American Record Vs. Jonathan Edwards’ 18.29m WR
World Class Javelin Experts Meeting In Finland To Discus Training Methods And Need For Change

Terrible News

Recommended Read: RIP: Tribute To Former UC Davis All-American Sarah “Stump” Sumpter, Who Lost Her 5-Year Battle With Cancer Sumpter’s story was extremely inspirational as even after she was diagnosed with brain cancer and underwent surgery, she fought back to have an impressive collegiate career including multiple conference titles and All-American finish. After college, she was still training to qualify for the 2016 Marathon OT.
*MB: 25 year old former CA state champ and UC Davis standout Sarah Sumpter loses battle with cancer
Blog Post By Team USA Minnesota Runner Jon Peterson “You simply did. You led Your life in a way that exemplified what it meant to be a star athlete, a scholar, a loving friend, a fighter, a tougher than nails woman that let nothing stand in your way.”
8:32 US Steepler Cameron Bean Is Killed By Car While Running The ZAP Fitness member was hit while on a run Saturday. The driver of the car who crossed traffic to hit Cameron from behind said the sun was in her eyes and she didn’t see him.