What Makes Aspel Kiprop So Good? We Try To Tell You

LRCA Week With The World's Best Miler: An Exclusive Look At Asbel Kiprop's Last Two Workouts Before The Pre Classic

Ireland Names Their Marathon Squad For Rio

• Former Euro XC Champ Fionnuala McCormack Leads Irish Olympic Marathon Squad Then there are Lizzie Lee (2:32), Breege Connolly (2:37) and Kevin Seaward, Mick Clohisey and Paul Pollock (all in the 2:14-2:15 range).
• Heartbroken Irish Marathoner Sergiu Ciobanu Set To Appeal After “Unfair” Olympic Omission Ciobanu’s time was 24-seconds faster than Pollock’s, but he feels he was left out because he is originally from Moldova.
• Ciobanu’s Coach Jerry Kiernan Blasts Athletics Ireland Calling Decision “F***ing Bull***t”
• MB: Irish Athletics Shows Incompetence Again (marathon selection fiasco)

Almost Half The “Beijing 31” Were Russians – Anyone Surprised?

• London 2012 HJ Champion Anna Chicherova And 13 Other Russians Are Reportedly Among The 31 Athletes Caught Doping Through Beijing 2008 Re-Tests Chicherova won Olympic bronze in 2008 and World gold in 2011. USA’s Brigetta Barrett finished runner-up behind her in London 2012.
  *MB: Chicherova first name to come out from 2008 re-tests
• Yelena Isinbayeva Says She’ll Sue For “Human Rights Violations” If Russia Is Banned From Rio It is not yet clear whom she would file a lawsuit against. *2nd Article
• Russia’s New Track Federation Preisident Dmitry Shlyakhtin Thinks They Have “Between 50 And 60 Pecent” Chance Of Competing In Rio Shlyakhtin: “We have looked through our documents and made them legally sound. A mouse would not be able to slip past us now!”
• WADA Investigation Into Sochi Doping Claims To Be Competed In Time For Rio The investigation will look into whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov‘s claim that he swapped hundreds of dirty urine samples in Sochi.

UK Sprint News

• Maybe Team USA Should Give This A Try: GB Men’s 4 X 100 Has Been Working With A Sports Psychologist To Help Prevent Their DNF/DQ Streak
• We’ll Never Understand UK Athletics’ Decisions: UKA Will Prevent Martyn Rooney From Defending His European Title Because They Want Him To Focus On Training For Rio This is the guy they made appeal his way onto the World team last year (and then made him captain). Euros are a month before the Olympics, but they say that’s too close. Meanwhile, they’ve made exceptions in the past for Mo Farah and any field athlete.
• GB 110 Hurdler Andy Pozzi Smashes His PB At Loughborough International With 13.32 In the 100, CJ Ujah came out on top with a 10.06 to James Dasaolu‘s 10.16.

High School News

• MB: Utah State Record Sprint Medley Team Unjustly DQed Despite Photo Evidence Proving The Wrong Call Was Made While there is a petition process, archaic rules do not allow video or photo evidence to be considered. You can help them by emailing the Utah High School Athletic Association and politely asking them to wake up and realize it’s 2016.
  *Facebook Discussion/Photo Evidence
• DyeStat Talks To Christopher Nilsen After He Sets The HS Pole Vault Record With 18-4.75 He broke world champion Shawn Barber‘s 18-3.25 mark from 2012.
  *T&F News Profile On Nilsen Nilsen’s coach says that he is “fearless” and uses “monster poles for a high school kid.” *MileSplit Profile
• MB: Michael Slagowski Triple Wins At Idaho State Champs: 9:36, 1:49, 4:16
• MB: Deep 3,000m Race In Oregon State Championships Top 7 were under 8:30.
• MB: Aaliyah Miller Runs HS-Leading 2:06.06 With Huge Negative Split
• Sad News: Alaskan High Schooler Dies Day After Collapsing At Finish Line Of 3,200m Race
  *MB: Kid dies the next day after 3200 meter run at regionals in Alaska

Distance Action: Manchester 10K

MB: Kenenisa Bekele (28:07) And Tirunesh Dibaba (31:16) Win Manchester 10k Bekele beat Wilson Kipsang (28:15) and David McNeill (28:39) while Dibaba made a triumphant comeback, beating Edna Kiplagat by 9 seconds.

• Bekele On Not Being Selected For Ethiopia’s Rio Marathon Team: “If I represent my country I would expect to do better than others. But they didn’t give me that chance.”
  *IAAF Recap *BBC Article
  
• LRC Fast 1,500s At Windsor Open: NZ’s Hamish Carson Misses Olympic Standard Again With 3:36.65; Canada’s World 800 Silver Medalist Melissa Bishop Wins In 4:09 Carson came close again after only missing by .05 last week. Nick Willis was on rabbit duty again with Nate Brannen, Lee Emanuel and Will Leer all in the field. Bishop’s race was a solid solo PR.
  *MB: NICK Willis super fit: video
• Records Fall Despite Difficult Conditions At Mattoni Karlovy Vary Half Marathon: Abraham Akopesha (62:09) And Joyceline Jepkosgei (69:07) Win Titles *Results
• Ayele Megersa Feisa (64:22) And Caroline Lefrak (74:45) Win Airbnb Brooklyn Half Former USA marathon champ Esther Erb was a close 2nd (74:51).

Running Wild

• Toni Reavis Writes About Running With Your Dog Your dogs can be great training partners, but they might be thinking to themselves, “Why are we going so damn slow?”
• Runners World Looks Back At Some Of The Most Famous Animals To Bandit Races Dogs, elk and even bears.

LetsThrow.com

• Recommended Watch: GoPro Video Tells The Incredible Story Of Kenya’s “YouTube Man” Julius Yego Discover how Yego went from training with wooden sticks and having YouTube as a coach to being the world javelin champ.
• Poland’s WR Holder Anita Wlodarczyk Breaks Hammer Meeting Record In Ostrava With 78.54m On the men’s side, Poland’s Pawel Fajdek won, but almost saw his 14-month winning streak come to an end as he was challenged by World silver medalist Dilshod Nazarov.
• The Oregonian: “Sam Crouser Tunes Up For Olympic Trials With A Sojourn In Germany” Crouser is training with German national champ Thomas Rohler and will compete in several meets, including the German championships.

Zika Fears Cause US Swimming To Move Pre-Olympic Training Camp From Puerto Rico To Atlanta

Russian Doping Headlines

• Recommended Read: UK Opinion Piece: “IOC Must Be Brave And Throw Russia Out Of Rio 2016” The Telegraph‘s Oliver Brown argues Thomas Bach‘s “zero tolerance” policy means Russia needs to be banned, but he thinks “it will almost certainly never happen.”
• NY Times Opinion Piece: “Doping Won’t Deter Olympic Viewers. Just Watch.” The writer argues, “It’s the same reason fans can be outraged that football has left some former players with severe brain trauma yet still slip on their favorite team’s jersey and watch ‘Monday Night Football.'”
• Russian Prosecutors To “Investigate” Sochi Olympic Doping Accusations Will these be the same “investigators” that found “not a single piece of evidence” government was involved in state-supported doping?
• Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko Fires Back And Says Department Of Justice Should Investigate The US For Doping

A Steepler And Former Steepler Making Headlines

• Good Read: Jerry Schumacher Says Evan Jager Was A “Total Natural” At The Steeplechase And Compares Steepling Ability To Being Able To Do A Lay-Up In Basketball A lot of uncoordinated distance runners can’t do a lay-up, but Schumacher says Jager “can do a lay-up beautifully.”
• GB’s Eilish McColgan Is Eyeing Her Mom’s Personal Records On Her Way To Rio 2016 After 21 months away from the track with an ankle injury, Eilish recently ran PRs of 15:09 and 8:43 (her former world champ mom, Liz McColgan, ran 14:58 and 8:38).
• Jager On His Fall And 8:00 Last Year: “Paris opened my mind about what’s possible. But it also put a ton of pressure on me in a short period of time.”

More Distance Action

• MB: Australia’s Ryan Gregson Gets Rio 1,500 Standard In Physical Race In The Netherlands Gregson won the race in 3:35.78.
• July 15th: Genzebe Dibaba Will Headline Monaco DL Meet Racing Over 3,000m Will we get to witness another legendary performance?
• Patrick Wambui (28:21) Wins 10,000 On First Day Of Kanto Region University Track Championships In Japan
• Saturday: Former Boston Champ Caroline Kilel Faces Joyciline Jepkosgei (69:09) At Mattoni Karlovy Vary Half Marathon The men’s race is led by Abraham Kasongor (60:25), Mustapha El Aziz (60:39) and Simon Tesfai (61:00).

High / Long Jump News

• Ato Boldon Interviews Italy’s World Indoor HJ Champ Gianmarco Tamberi Tamberi explains that even in his late teens he wanted to play basketball, but winning a national HJ championship with no training got him to change his mind.
• “Did You Know?” Interview With GB Long Jumper Shara Proctor Proctor talks about wanting to be an acrobat, her successful high school soccer career and her fear of goats.
• Canada’s Two Time Olympic Champ Donovan Bailey Analyzes HJer Derek Drouin’s Early Season Form Drouin is the reiging World champ and Olympic bronze medalist and Bailey thinks he’s “ready to thrive” in 2016.
• Chinese High Jumper Guowei Zhang Explains The History Behind His Crazy Dancing Celebrations *Some Examples
• Marquise Goodwin Named USATF Athlete Of The Week After WLing 8.45m Long Jump His 8.45m would have been good enough to win the 2012 and 2008 Games.

Mid-D News

• A Look Back At Some Of The Best Moments From The Last 5 Years Of The Hoka One One Middle Distance Classic (AKA Oxy HP Meet) At this meet in 2013, then HSer Mary Cain broke Suzy Favor Hamilton‘s US Jr. record with a 4:04.62 victory, which remains her PR.
• Video: Carrie Tollefson Interviews Garrett Heath Heath talks about living in Seattle, racing against his brother, Elliott Heath, and his training for the Trials.
• Kyle Merber Chronicles His Love For Track And Field, Which Began With An Elementary School Assembly By 400H Olympic Champ Derrick Adkins Merber talks about the NCAA, winning World Relay gold and co-founding the Hoka One One Long Island Mile.
• Aussie Ryan Gregson Looking To Bounce Back From Disappointing Doha Fall With A Busy Schedule Of Races He’ll look to get the Olympic 1,500 standard when he lines up at the Rabat, Rome and Birmingham DL meets.
• Swarthmore Last Chance Photo Gallery And Spectator Blog Post
  *Great Instagram Post From Nick Willis

Sunday / Monday US Track Action *Results: *Portland Twilight *Swarthmore

• MB: 16-year-old Kate Murphy guns down Marielle Hall – Runs 4:14.26 at Swarthmore – #6 all-time
  *Race Video
• MB: 3:37.75 for Awad at Swarthmore. 0.01 off the NCAA lead In a race rabbited by Nick Willis, Awad got his OTrials qualifier in a race was won by David Torrence, who picked up the Olympic Games standard of 3:36.20 with a 3:36.02. Julian Mathews also got Olympic standard as Hamish Carson missed it by .05.
  *Race Video
  *Julian Matthews Clinches Kiwi Olympic Spot With 2nd Place Showing
• Portland Twilight: Kate Grace Runs 2:00.05 To Win Over Alexa Efraimson (2:00.99) Lopez Lomong, Treniere Moser and Jordan Hasay were among the other pros who competed.