Russian Doping Scandal: WADA Calls For International Russian Ban *PDF of Richard McLaren’s Full Report

• Washington Post: WADA Recommends Banning Russia From Olympics After Investigation Reveals Far-Reaching Doping Program The latest report by Richard McLaren found “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the Russian government ran a widespread doping system for years in multiple summer and winter Olympic sports with hundreds of elites positive doping results covered-up, some with help from the FSB (successor of the KGB). *Full WADA Statement
• Here Are The Key Points From Richard McLaren’s Russian Doping Report A rundown of the most important info that came out of the 97-page report.
  *Full 97-Page Report By Richard McLaren
• *The Guardian: Five Things We Learned From WADA’s Report Russian doping cover-ups go back to at least 2010 when Russia sought to improve on their “abysmal” Winter Games medal tally. 577 athlete profiles were cover-up including 139 from track and field. *The Telegraph *BBC
• IAAF Statement The IAAF will seek further info on the 139 track cases mentioned in the report.
• IOC Promises “The Toughest Sanctions Available”; Will Have A Telephone Conference Today Will they have the guts to ban Russia? Will Thomas Bach go against his long-time friend Putin?
• CAS Hearing For Russian Track Athletes Is Today With Verdict Expect Thursday
• Russian President Vladimir Putin Issues StatementPutin called the WADA report “a dangerous relapse of politics’ interference into sports.”
  *Putin Says Olympic Movement On “Verge Of Splitting” As Of Results Of McLaren Report So Russia and not-Russia?
• WADA Calls For Russians In Rio Only As An “Exceptional Entry” With “Strict Criteria” And Under A Neutral Flag WADA also wants Russian government officials denied access to international compeitions including Rio.
• Russian State-Owned Sport Channel Airing Documentary Claiming Russian Athletes Are Victims Of A Political Smear Campaign As you would expect, based on the review, the film is laughably inaccurate. Includes an interview with banned 800 runner Ekaterina Poistogova crying through tears about her suspension and blaming it for her divorce.
• McLaren Says Russia Used A “Disappearing Positive Methodology”
• The Telegraph‘s Olvier Brown: “Russia committed the ultimate crime, and now they must face the ultimate punishment”

2016 World Junior (U20) Championships Start Today *Live Results, Schedule, Startlists

• Ato Boldon Is Excited And Nervous To Be At World Juniors As A Coach Boldon says being there as a coach for Trinidad and Tobago’s Khalifa St Fort is more stressful than an Olympic final.
• Alexa Efraimson, Kate Murphy, Christina Aragon, Noah Lyles, Michael Norman And Candace Hill Lead Team USA
  *More USATF Info
• Bydgoszcz A Big Stepping Stone On Botswana 400m Runner Baboloki Thebe’s Road To Rio
• Press Conference Highlights
• A Look Back At Some Classic Moments From Other Major Championships Hosted By Poland

Get Your Tickets: Rio 2016 Will Release New Batch Of 100,000 Olympic Tickets Thursday

Doping News: Latest WADA Russian Scandal Report

• Video: Press Conference: Richard McLaren Presents His Report On Sochi 2014 Doping Allegations McLaren has confirmed there were Russian state-sponsored doping cover-ups and that dirty athlete samples in Sochi were replaced with clean ones as was alleged in the NY times report from May.
  *Discussion Thread

• Should This Drug Usain Bolt, Paula Radcliffe And Kenenisa Bekele All Used Be Banned? The drug Actovegin (or “calf’s blood”) used by famous German doctor “Healing Hans” is legal, but should it be? Other athletes who’ve used it include Meseret Defar, Patrick Makau, Maurice Greene, Michael Jordan. *Discuss
• Abeba Aregawi Won’t Be Selected For Sweden’s Olympic Team Despite Having Her Doping Suspension Lifted
• Russia Holds Its Breath As They Prepare For Release Of Richard McLaren’s Report *BBC
• WADA Board Member Nenad Lalovic Feels Leaked USADA Letter Weakens McLaren’s Report

Interesting Read: Washington Post: “A Less Glamorous Side Of Olympic Life: Peeing In A Cup Under Watchful Eyes” A in-depth look at the  post-race and out-of-competition athlete testing process.

More Countries Name Their Olympic Squads: Dibaba Sisters Will Run One Event Each

• Ethiopia Announces Their Olympic Team: Genzebe Dibaba In 1,500; Tirunesh Dibaba In 10K Almaz Ayana will go for gold in both the 5K and 10K while Tirunesh is an alternate in the 5K.
  *Kenenisa Bekele Officially Left Off Ethiopian Olympic Team
• Italy Names Their Olympic Squad: World Indoor Champ And Gold Medal Favorite Gianmarco Tamberi Will Miss Rio With Ruptured Ankle Ligament Tamberi will need surgery and miss the rest of the season.
• Defending Olympic Champion Renaud Lavillenie Leads French Team For Rio

Mid-Distance News

• 2016 TrackTown Classic Results: World Silver Medalist Melissa Bishop Breaks Her Own National Record With 1:57.43 Win US Olympian Chrishuna Williams was 3rd in 2:02.41 as Duane Solomon won the men’s race in 1:45.51. A lot of US sprinters competed as well.
  *MB: Melissa Bishop runs new Canadian record- 1:57.43 at Tracktown Canada NTL meet!
• Elite Fields Released: Drew Hunter Will Make His Professional Debut At The Sir Walter Miler On August 5th In Raleigh, NC This race has provided great atmosphere in the past and looks to again as Hunter faces Olympic Trials finalists Kyle Merber, Colby Alexander, Johnny Gregorek, Cory Leslie and more. Women’s field has Morgan Uceny, Sara Vaughn, Stephanie Brown, Nicole Tully, Heather Kampf.
• Alexi Pappas And Andrew Wheating Star In Funny Series Of Short Films About Elite Runners Pappas does a short Q&A on the film series (called “Speed Goggles”) which she made with her partner, Jeremy Teicher.
  *MB: Pappas+Wheating<3 in the times
• Spikes “Did You Know” Interview With Melissa Bishop Bishop actually started out as a 100/200 sprinter and ran at World Youth Champs in the 400.
• Heather Kampf Runs 2:01.26 To Finish 3rd In Italian Meet Kampf went out in the 1,500 semis at the Trials, saying she lost fitness due to a calf injury.
• Former Euro 800 Champ Jenny Meadows Retires After Failing To Make UK Olympic Squad A previous article said she was racing the London DL, but that was apparently incorrect.

Random But Interesting

• Anti-Obesity Campaign In Portugal Featured A Moving Food Truck Which Required Exercise As The Form Of Payment You didn’t need to pay any money, but if you wanted a cheeseburger for example, you had to walk 5.4 kilometers or run 4.2.
  *Video The anti obesity ad (English subtitles) is good for a laugh.
• Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg Reaches His Running Goal Of 365 Miles This Year 5 Months Early Zuckerberg says he’ll keep running and is able to go for a 20-mile run and run a 5:53 mile.
• Protester Attempts To Put Out Rio 2016 Olympic Flame With Fire Extinguisher (includes video) He got in one spray before police grabbed him, but wasn’t able to put out the flame.
• Can Being A Runner Save You Money On Life Insurance? That’s What A Recent Facebook Advertisement Is Claiming The truth is probably more that being a runner provides other health benefits (good weight, blood pressure, etc.) which lower your health insurance cost.

More From The Trials

• Cornell’s Olympic Trials Champion Rudy Winkler Leads US Hammer Throwers Added To Olympic Team No US throwers had the qualifying standard, but all of the top three from the Trials received IAAF invites.
• Recommended Read: Meet Rochelle Kanuho, Who Was A Surprising 7th In The 10,000 At The Olympic Trials Kanuho had a rough upbringing with a single mom who abandoned her after she graduated high school, but stayed tough and made huge jumps in her running at every level, going from 16:12 to 15:25 her first year as a pro.
• Runners World Profile On Clayton Murphy, Who Grew Up Raising “Show Pigs” On An Ohio Farm His dad was mad when Murphy quit basketball since that was “the sport” in Ohio, but it didn’t take long for him to see the light.

UK News

• The Telegraph: 42-Year-Old Mom And 5-Time Olympian Jo Pavey Talks About Balancing Training With Parenting Pavey says back when she was breastfeeding, she had to run “wearing two or three crop tops to support my lopsided boobs – one emptied from the last feed, the other full in readiness for the next.”
• GB Hurdler Rhys Williams Appeals Against Omissions From Rio Team Williams hit the IAAF standard, but failed to win automatic selection at the British Trials.
• Jo Pavey Never Believed She’d Be Competing At This Age; Says Her Teammates Have Started Calling Her “Granny” Pavey says she never thought she’d even be competing at London 2012 when she was 38.
  *The Telegraph: “Meet Jo Pavey, The 42-Year-Old Mom On The Way To Her Fifth Olympics”
• Officials Hoping Olympians Can Help “Heal Rift Caused By Brexit” By Winning Medals In Rio

More From The Trials

• Video: Sydney McLaughlin Gives Emotional Speech After Winning Gatorade Female Athlete Of The Year Award
  *Video Interview With McLaughlin
  *More Interviews From Gatorade National Athlete Of The Year Ceremony: *Drew Hunter On Going Pro Hunter’s has several races lined up for this summer. *Katie Rainsberger *OT 200 5th Placer Michael Norman
• Recommended Read: Andrew Wheating Reflects On The Trials And His Future After finishing 12th in the final, Wheating said, “I don’t quite have the strength and I clearly don’t have the speed.” He’ll finish the outdoor season and everything past that is a “question mark.”
  *MB: Andrew Wheating was a 3:30 1500 runner when he visited the LRC forums – Now he’s stuck at 3:38. Please come back!!
• Allyson Felix Says Injuries Hampering Training Cost Her An Olympic 200m Spot “For me I feel so grateful to have made this team at all as two months ago I was not walking at all.”

Sprint Stuff

• Michael Johnson Guarantees He’d Beat Usain Bolt “I win every day. Every time we line up, I win. Guaranteed.”
• Andre De Grasse Might Be Rich, But He’s Carefully Budgeting For The Future De Grasse reportedly signed an $11.25 million deal with Puma, but he puts most of the money into savings and gets a monthly allowance to spend.
• Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Overcame A Childhood Of Poverty To Achieve World Dominance If she wins the 100 in Rio she’ll be the first woman to win it three times.
• IAAF First Impressions Q&A With Sub-13 Second 110 Hurdler Orlando Ortega Ortega still has the very first pair of spikes he bought from 10 years ago.

Latest Russian Doping Scandal Updates

• Russia’s Darya Klishina Branded A “Traitor” Over Her Plan To Compete Under Neutral Flag In Rio One popular Kremlin journalist even compared Klishina’s action to the Soviets who collaborated with the Nazis in WWII. Wow.
  *Klishina Facebook Post: “I would like to thank IAAF for its expert decision.”
• Yelena Isinbayeva Still Counting On CAS Reversing The Russian Ban Isinbayeva: “IAAF’s statement is nothing, a big nothing, which stinks.”
• Travis Tygart Says Russia Should Be Banned From Rio If Sochi 2014 Doping Claims Are Proven True WADA’s investigation, led by Richard McLaren, will publish its report on July 18.
• Maria Sharapova Will Definitely Miss Rio Games As Her Appeal Of Her 2-Year Ban Won’t Be Until September

More Countries Name Their Olympic Teams

• Australia Names 61 Athletes For Rio: Team Combines Youth And Experience
  *Patrick Tiernan And Sudanese-Born Peter Bol Added To Aussie Olympic Squad
• Jo Pavey Expects To Be Selected For GB Rio Olympic Squad Over Kate Avery Pavey didn’t finish in the top 2 at their 10K Trials, but ran the fastest time by a Brit at Euros (37 seconds faster than Avery’s time).
• UK’s Top 400 Hurdler Considered Retirement And Battled Mental Health Issues Ahead Of Rio Qualification After going through a period dealing with injuries and suicidal thoughts, Jack Green is doing well and has run some of the fastest times of his career.
• Team GB Shooting For A Higher Medal Target In Rio Than London 2012 They predict 47 and 79 medals from this summer’s Games, up from the 40 to 70 they anticipated from London (where they won 65).
• Discus Thrower Jason Morgan Appealing To CAS Over Exclusion From Jamaican Olympic Team
• Irish Race Walker Rob Heffernan Will Become First Irish Athlete To Compete At Five Successive Olympic Games
• Throwers Robert Harding And Christina Schwanitz Headline Germany’s Rio Olympic Team
• IAAF Release Rio 2016 World Ranking Lists These lists will determine which athletes who don’t have a qualifying standard will receive invites to Rio.
• IAAF Publishes Rio 2016 Statistics Handbook PDF available for free download.

Team USA Named For Rio

• Full US Olympic Track And Field Squad Released – Five Individual Gold Medalists, 84 First-Time Olympians Are On The Team More will join Team USA once the IAAF extends invitations to those without the standard in the field events.
• Team USA: By The Numbers 4 team members are representing the USA for a 4th time – Allyson Felix, Shalane Flanagan, Meb Keflezighi and Chaunté Lowe.

Jamaica’s Olympic Track Squad Is Released

• Usain Bolt Named To Jamaican Olympic Squad For 100 And 200m *Full Jamaican Squad
• Aisha Praught, Will Leer’s Fiance, Makes Team Despite Not Running The 1,500 Trials She had a good excuse – they were cancelled as there weren’t enough entrants.
• Jamaica Leaves Off National Record Holder In Discus, Jason Morgan They feel that he only throws well at an obscure early season meet in the US every year.
• JAAA Defends Morgan’s Omission From Olympic Team

The Final Day – The 2016 Olympic Trials *Live Results *Schedule/Entries *Video Interviews *Race Videos *TV/Streaming Information *RW Prediction Contest

LRC Abbey D’Agostino Is An Olympian – Emily Infield And Molly Huddle Will Only Race The 10,000 In Rio

M1,500 Matthew Centrowitz Delivers Again As Ben Blankenship Gets Revenge By Edging Leo Manzano For Final Olympic Spot (article updated) Centrowitz (3:34.09) took down the U.S. championship record in a fast race as Robby Andrews took second (3:34.88). Just as in 2015, it was Blankenship and Manzano battling to the finish, with Blankenship turning the tables for third in 3:36.18 to Manzano’s 3:36.62.

LRC W1,500 Women’s 1,500m: Jenny Simpson Wins Convincingly, Rowbury 2nd, And Brenda Martinez Makes It To Rio (article update) The real drama here was for third. Brenda Martinez got the storybook ending she wanted as former world #1 Morgan Uceny came up just short in her own bid for redemption.

LRC W5,000 Molly Huddle Completes 10k/5k Double; Shelby Houlihan, Kim Conley, Abbey D’Agostino Going To Rio (article updated) Huddle was dominant as Houlihan and Conley took 2-3. Huddle and 4th placer Emily Infeld are only doing the 10K, so 5th placer D’Agostino gets a ticket to Rio.
*NBC Article

LRC 12 Minutes With Matt Centrowitz After He Won Olympic Trials 1,500

• MB: Official Day 10 – Final Day – Live Trials Discussion Thread
• Brenda Martinez makes it!
• Will Ben Blankenship get DQ’d? The results are now final.
• Rowbury and Simpson look really uncomfortable around each other
• Ben Blankenship TROLLS Manzano down home stretch for 3rd!

Previous Trials News

LRC Take The Tour: What’s It Like To Make Team USA? The sad truth is not everyone can achieve their Olympic dreams, but at least now you can get a glimpse of what it would be like to make Team USA.

LRC US Olympic Trials Women’s 1,500 Preview: Simpson & Rowbury Should (Probably) Make It? Who Will Emerge In The Battle For Third? Brenda Martinez is doubling back from the 800. Morgan Uceny is the defending Trials champ. Cory McGee made the World Indoors team. Which one will step up? And how will 4:07 HS junior Kate Murphy fare against the pros?

LRC US Olympic Trials Men’s 1,500 Preview: Can Anyone Stop Centro? And Will Anyone Else Get The Standard? Only five guys – Matthew Centrowitz, Kyle Merber, Ben Blankenship, Robby Andrews and Leo Manzano – have the Olympic standard. Unless someone runs faster than 3:36.20 this week, three of those five will be your team to Rio.

LRC US Olympic Trials Men’s 5,000 Final Preview: Who Will Close Best In A Wide-Open Race? Ryan Hill is the defending champ but bombed in his only race outdoors. Galen Rupp looked shaky in the prelims. Ben True, Hassan Mead and Eric Jenkins all struggled in the 10k. Bernard Lagat is 41 years old. This race is full of question marks, which makes for a compelling final.