Semenya Will Keep A Lower Profile In Rio

• Caster Semenya Ditches Rio 400 To Focus On 800 Well, that’s one less race that will be a complete farce in Rio.
• GB 1,500 Runner Charlie Grice Has Benefited From Training With Mo Farah In His Buildup To Rio The 3:33 man says he isn’t “ruling out a medal.”
• Long Jumper Ivana Spanovic Hoping To Win Serbia’s First Olympic Track Medal Ever She won Euros and 3 out of 4 Diamond League meets she competed in this year. However, she lost at Pre and World Indoors to Brittney Reese.
• NY Times: Former Marathon WR Holder Tegla Loroupe Gives Refugee Olympians A Lesson In Hope
  *IAAF: Loroupe Calls For An End To Malnutrition
• Aussie Team Captain Jared Tallent Pulls Out Of Rio 20K Racewalk With Hamstring Problem Tallent will still compete in the 50K racewalk, which is his main focus.

Administrative / Politics

• Yelena Isinbayeva Granted Special Permission By IOC To Stand For Election To Athletes’s Commission After Missing Entry Deadline By A Month
• Brazil Interim President Booed As Rio 2016 Declared Open
• Jessica Ennis-Hill’s Coach Toni Minichiello Denied Chance To See Her On Rio Podium Minichiello is angry as UKA booked his flight home during the heptathlon medal ceremony.
• Sergey Bubka Re-Elected To IOC Executive Board

Opening Ceremony Is Friday Night *TV Info (8pm ET)

• Embed from Getty Images

  Who Will Light The Flame? Soccer Legend Pele Says He’s Not Physically Able To Attend Opening Ceremony – So Who Will Light The Torch?

• Rio Officials Lose Key To Olympic Stadium, Have To Use Bolt Cutters To Let Press In
• Bowerman Track Club’s Betsy Saina Wants A Medal In Rio Good luck with Ayana, Cheruiyot and Dibaba.
• Medal Predictions For Kenya In Rio 4 golds, 6 silver and 7 bronze is the prediction.

US Olympic News

• Good Read A Look At How Much Every Olympic Sport Gets From The USOC Track and field is #1 for the summer Olympics at $60.9 million received from 1999-2015.
• Alan Abrahamson Criticizes President Obama For Politicizing The Olympics And Not Standing Up For Gays In Brazil Abrahamson, who thinks Obama is one of the greatest presidents in US history, is critical that the US made a big deal of how gays were treated in Russia but has said nothing about Brazil which is the deadliest place in the world for gays.
• T&F Collegians At The 2016 Rio Olympics By The Numbers 89 US collegians from 54 US programs will be in Rio.  The schools producing the most Olympians are Georgia and Texas A&M (6). Arkansas and Texas (5) and Florida State (4) aren’t too far behind.
• A Look At The Ivy Leaguers In Rio
• US Mid-D Olympians Get Love In NJ Papers: *Robby Andrews *Ajee’ Wilson
• A Look At The 4 US Olympians Born In Kenya Who Gained US Citizenship Quickly By Joining The US Army
• Catching Up With 100H Favorite Brianna Rollins 2014 and 2015 weren’t great for Rollins, who thinks God was humbling her.
• 4th Placer In 1,500 At US Trials, Amanda Eccleston, Vows To Be Back

Kenya News

LRC Goes To Kenya A Legacy Lives On: A Look At The Search For Kenyan Talent At The Aloha Zane Branson Memorial 15K The late Zane Branson was so much more than an agent to some of East Africa’s top runners. In his latest piece, Andy Arnold travels to the western Kenya to visit the race that now bears Branson’s name and tells how Zane’s messages of family and teamwork live on.

• WADA Removes Kenya From List Of “Non-Compliant” Nations “Kenya has drafted and adopted anti-doping legislation now deemed to be in line with the Code,” WADA said in a statement
• Athletics Kenya Head Views News With A Sense Of Relief
• Female Archer Shehzan Anwar To Lead Team Kenya In Opening Ceremnyn.
• Court Gives Federico Rosa His Passport Back, Allows Him To Travel To Rio For Olympics
• Asbel Kiprop Says He Wasn’t “Mentally Stable” In Monaco Due To Arrest Of Rosa But Says His Training Has Been Going Well
• Kenyans Are Very Happy With The Athlete Village In Rio
• Hyvin Kiyeng Hopes To Win Kenya’s 1st-Ever Women’s Olympic Gold In Steeple

More Olympic News

• Former NCAA Champ Genevieve LaCaze Is Focused On Making Final In Rio, Not Hijacking Opening Or Closing Ceremonies She famously highjacked Kylie Minogue‘s closing ceremonies at the CGs in 2014.
• Q&A With Genevieve LaCaze, Who Is Running Both Steeple And 5,000
• Q&A With Former Villanova Runner Sam McEntee, Who Is Running The 5,000 In Rio
• Greek Lawyer Unknowingly Qualified For Olympic Marathon He only ran 2:29 but found out he’d made the Team because if you are top 10 at IAAF gold race, it counts for the standard.
• Facebook Star Bruno Hortelano (Cornell ’13, European Champ At 200) Will Race Only 200 In Rio
• Kansas State’s Akela Jones Is A Medal Contender In Both HJ And Heptathlon For Barbados In Rio
• To Prevent Bribery Of Judges, 5 Boxing Judges Are Selected By A Computer Just 10 Minutes Before The Fight And Only 3 Count
• A Look At How The WR Has Progressed In The Olympics’ Most Iconic Event – The 100m Dash
• Caster Semenya Is One Of AFP’s 5 Women To Watch In Rio
• Full Profiles Of All 2016 Japanese Olympic Distance Runners
• Japan’s Olympic Marathon Women Talk Before Heading To Rio

More News From Japan: A Look At The Highlights From Japan’s National High School Championships From a 2:04 girls 800 to an 8:46 boys steeple, JRN has you covered.

International Distance News

• Recommended Read: Saudi Arabia Will Have Two Runners Competing In Rio As Sarah Attar Returns After Making History At London 2012 Attar finished dead last in her 800 heat in London, but she had a huge impact on Saudi Arabian women. Now, Attar has gone all-out with training for the marathon, moving to Mammoth Lakes to be coached by and train with the Kastors.
• Good Read: Mo Farah Documentary Airs Tonight On BBC At 4PM ET: Farah Talks About His Past, Family And Alberto Salazar Drug Allegations Farah says it’s tough being away from his kids “seven months of the year” and doesn’t know if he’ll ever move back to the UK even when he retires.
• Zane Robertson Discusses Death Threats And Doping In Kenya The Robertson twins now spend most of their time in Ethiopia as they don’t feel safe in Kenya. Zane says he’s “seen terrible things” and tipped off authorities on what he knows.
• Former Marathon WR Holder Tegla Loroupe Leads Refugee Olympic Team To Rio Of the 10 team members, 6 will compete in track and field.
  *RR From The Spring: “Refugee Runners: Olympics Fields Its First Team Without A Country” Meet some of the distance runners who had to flee war to make it to Rio.
• Four Years Wiser, World Silver Medalist Melissa Bishop Has High Hopes For Rio 4-years-ago Bishop somehow didn’t know she had qualified for the London Olympics until her boyfriend told her. Now she’s shooting for a medal.
• Kenya National Coach Julius Kirwa Says He Isn’t Threatened By Former Former Kenyans Now Running For The US Talking about Paul Chelimo, Shadrack Kipchirchir and Leonard Korir,Kirwa said, “Their presence is not a threat to my athletes.”
• Runner’s Tribe “Road To Rio” Interview With Patrick Tiernan Villanova Tiernan will represent Australia in the Rio 5000.
• GB’s Jo Pavey Juggles Training And Motherhood While Preparing For Her 5th Olympic Games

Russian Doping

• Former Jamaican Whistleblower Renee Anne Shirley Tweets Funny Russian Doping Cartoon
• More Jokes: Sailing Federation Reverses Course And Allows Russian Implicated In McLaren Report Into Rio Games It’s almost as if the IOC wants to go out of its way to let more dopers into the Olympics.
• European Governments Side With WADA In Blame Game Over Russian Doping WADA clearly messed up in the past, but at least they, unlike the IOC, wanted to make the right call now.

Olympic Sprint Stuff

• Usain Bolt Says The US Struggles In The 4 X 100 Because “They tend to panic.” Carl Lewis meanwhile campaigns for a coaching changes. We can definitely get behind that.
  *MB: Why does USATF insist on hiring Dennis Mitchell (who is a convicted doper and on the surface not good at his job) as relays coach?
• Sydney McLaughlin Might Be An Olympian, But She’s Still Trying To “Be A Regular Teenager” McLaughlin doesn’t yet have her driver’s license and is missing the Rio Opening Ceremony to spend her 17th birthday home with friends and family.
• Can “American Science” Help Justin Gatlin Defeat Usain Bolt In Rio Gatlin worked with a USATF biomechanist who analyzed his running form and said Gatlin’s start is “half a tenth of a second faster than anybody else on the planet.
• Allyson Felix’s Quest For History Has Turned Into A Shot At Redemption She won’t get to do the 400/200 double, but she can still try to take home two golds as she’s in the 4 x 400.
• Jamaican Olympic Team Still Not Set As Some Need To “Prove Their Fitness” Sprinter Elaine Thompson and 400 hurdler Janieve Russell are still question marks for Rio.
• Recovering Olympic 110H Bronze Medalist Hansle Parchment Leaves Jamaican Training Base, Ruled Out Of Rio Parchment had until August 8th to “prove fitness,” but apparently a miscommunication caused the JAAA to think he was withdrawing.

US Distance News

• Good Read: Jared Ward: Running Nerd, Stats Professor And Now Olympic Marathoner Ward doesn’t talk about his running in the classroom, but his students discovered his “secret” during the Olympic Trials and started a group text message thread called “Ward’s Warriors.”
• NBC 40-Second Feature On Galen Rupp, Who Says His Mom Bribed Him To Start Running With McDonald’s
• Ajee Wilson Talks To Philly.com Before Leaving For Brazil Aside from chasing a medal, Wilson plans on being a general Olympic fan by watching some other sport events in Rio.
• Colleen Quigley Launches Her Own Website At ColleenQuigley.org Quigley talks about qualifying for Rio, how she became a runner and giving up her modeling career.
• NationalLawReview.com Calls It Ironic That Boris Berian Overcame His Nike Suit Just To End Up Wearing Nike In Rio Anyway

Multi-Event News: Meet A 25-Year-Old Cancer Survivor

• Recommended Read: 25-Year-Old Belgian Decathlete Thomas Van Der Plaetsen Had To Overcome Cancer To Make It To Rio Van Der Plaetsen actually was diagnosed partially thanks to a false positive doping test. While making his dramatic comeback, his motto was, “You cannot train on self-pity.”
• Video: Ashton Eaton Talks About His Spouse/Training Partner Relationship With Brianne Theisen-Eaton The Eatons talk about both winning gold in Rio or what if one does, but not the other. He says, “If it’s her, I don’t care what happens to me.”
• Men’s Fitness Q&A With Trey Hardee, Who Failed To Make His 3rd Olympic Team, But Says He Isn’t Retiring Yet Hardee’s favorite decathlon event is the pole vault, says he has to shave before every competition and that The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Can’t Stop” is his “all-time adrenaline rev-up pick” song.
• USA Sweep Over Germany In Thorpe Cup Multi Meet In Fayetteville
• SB Nation: All Ashton Eaton Has Left To Prove Is Just How Dominant He Is Assuming he wins Rio gold, Eaton will be the first since GB’s Daley Thompson in 1980/1984 to win back-to-back Olympic decathlons.

Latest Doping News

• IOC President Thomas Bach Throws WADA Under The Bus, Blaming Them For Not Looking Into Russian Doping Earlier
• WADA President Craig Reedie Defends Release Of McLaren Report ,Saying They Acted “Without Delay” A scary quote is where Reedie admits “it was only when CBS 60 Minutes and the New York Times” published their reports that WADA could investigate. Once again, without the media, none of this would have happened.
• 13 National Anti-Doping Organizations Accuse IOC Of Putting Politics And Business Ahead Of Clean Sport The anti-doping groups, including USADA, also criticized the IOC for banning Yulia Stepanova.
  *Full Open Statement To The IOC
• Jamaican Journalist Bashes Russian Track And Field Ban Calling It “Jungle Justice”
• NY Times: “Rare Show Of Discord Between IOC And WADA Over Russian Doping Scandal”
• WADA Cancels Its Traditional Pre-Olympic Press Conference
• IOC Delay Naming The 98 Athletes Caught In Beijing 2008 And London 2012 Re-Tests Until After Rio 2016 Logistical issues or do they not want more bad publicity?
• Thomas Bach Claims He’s Had No Contact With Vladimir Putin Over Russian Doping Scandal
• The Guardian’s Sean Ingle: “The IOC Has Failed To Protect Its Honest Athletes” Ingle writes that many will “sneer at the IOC’s pledge of ‘zero tolerance'” after failing to ban Russia.
• Thomas Bach Defends Handling Of Russian Crisis At Low-Key IOC Opening Session Bach had the audacity to emphasize that “the Russian side has not been heard yet.”
• The Telegraph: Rio Olympics Plunged Into Chaos As IOC Final Ruling On Certain Athletes Might Not Be Made Until Hours Before Friday’s Opening Ceremony
• IAAF Ethics Board Will Be On Hand In Rio Just In Case

More From The Weekend: Beer Mile WR Destroyed

• Canadian Corey Bellemore Breaks Beer Mile WR For Second Time In 4 Days With A 4:34 To Win Beer Mile World Classic In London Bellemore runs for the University of Windsor and has PRs of 3:43 and 1:47.
  *MB: First overseas beer mile, Corey Bellemore runs 4.34 world record!
  *Video: Bellemore First Broke The WR 4 Days Earlier With A Solo 4:39 The previous record was 4:47 by Canadian Lewis Kent.
• Eritrea’s Petro Mamu And Austria’s Andrea Mayr Win WMRA Mountain Running World Cup US’s 2:28 marathoner Annie Bersagel was a surprise 3rd place.
• Tadese Tola (65:16) And Purity Rionoripo (71:56) Win Bogota Half Marathon
• 85-Year-Old Ed Whitlock Breaks Age Group 5,000m WR With 24:03 Just hours afterward, Whitlock ran the 6:51 in the 1,500, just missing the WR by less than a second.
• Final Day Wrap-Up: 26 Records Set At USATF Junior Olympic Championships
  *Saturday Recap

Olympic News: Opening Ceremony Is On Friday

• USA Today: Supporting Their Kids’ Olympic Dreams Lead Some Parents To Shortchange Their Retirement Savings Supporting an aspiring Olympian can be time-consuming and expensive, but often there isn’t much financial return even if the kid actually does make the Olympics.
• Videos: The Best Olympic Ads Of 2016 A cool Gillette ad featuring Ashton Eaton tops the list.
• Video: United Airlines’ Team USA Commercial Ashton Eaton features prominently.
• Is The IOC Shooting Itself In The Foot With Rule 40 Threats? Is Rule 40 enforcement having negative results by limiting Olympic engagement?
• Goldman Sachs Uses Economic Research To Predict Which Countries Will Win The Most Medals In Rio While their list sounds about right (US and China are 1-2), the methods they used were surprisingly complex.
• From Ancient Times To Present Day, Bribery Has Been Part Of The Olympic Games Corruption in sports is not a new problem and unfortunately not one we’re close to solving.
• Australian Laptops And Clothes Stolen From Rio Olympic Village During Fire Evacuation The fire might have been started intentionally as a “scam,” but it was concerning that no fire alarms went off.
• Greek Athletes Complain Of “Tragic” Conditions In Olympic Village Flooding, gas leaks and a driver that made the water polo team miss practice because he couldn’t find the training center.

1st TrackTown Summer Series

LRC 2016 TrackTown Summer Series: Colby Alexander (3:34.88) Wins A Fast 1,500, Kate Grace (4:09.92) Keeps Rolling, Melissa Bishop Wins 800 (1:59.74) As Shannon Rowbury Finally Breaks 2:00 updated 3:05 am We break down the action for you at the 1st TrackTown Summer Series meet, which was the last meet held at Hayward Field before the renovations begin.

LRC Post-Race Videos Fom 2016 Track Town Summer Series 23 videos. Matt Centrowitz, Kate Grace, Melissa Bishop, David Torrence, Erik Kynard, Brittney Reese, Emma Coburn and a ton more.

• Discussion: Holy S*@t, Centro Just Ran 1:49.3 and then 1:47.9 for 800 AFTER running 1:47.17 in the meet
• Colby MF Alexander – a guy who couldn’t even make NCAAs last year – just ran 3:34!! –
• Did someone forget to tell Gags that the Olympic Trials already took place in Eugene 3 weeks ago
• Curtis Beach beats McNamara over 800m by 4 seconds, within 0.2 of Loxsom
• NJNY MILERS ON FIRE!!!!

Russian Doping Updates

• Petition To Get Yulia Stepanova Into Rio Has More Than 70,000 Signatures You can sign it here.
  *Yulia Stepanova Again Asks IOC TO Review Her Rio Ban The IOC has rejected any review of her case and not even discussed it with its Executive board.
• NY Times: Russian Track Athletes Compete Among Themselves At “Alternate Olympics” The article says the venue looked “like a high school stadium” and athletes competed wearing bibs that said, “I run/jump/throw clean.”
  Richard McLaren Has Received A “Deluge Of Requests” For Information On Individual Athletes Since His WADA Report McLaren’s mandate has been extended so he can finish the investigation.
• Russia’s Entire Weightlifting Team Banned From Rio Over “Extremely Shocking” Anti-Doping Record Russia will appeal to CAS over the decision.
• Asics Say They Will Stop Sponsoring Russian Wrestling If There Are “Any Further Allegations Of Doping” There haven’t been enough already?
• Two Russian Swimmers Become First To File Appeals With CAS Over Rio Ban
• Russian Ping Pong Players Get A Pass To Rio *Three-Person IOC Executive Board Panel Will Make Final Decisions On Russian Athletes Competing In Rio Basically just a formality to review the athletes already approved by their individual sport federation.
• Doping Scandals Causing Tension Between IOC, WADA And Others

Random But Interesting

Would You Break Your Marathon PR If We Offered You $200,000? What About $10,000 To Come Within 30 Seconds Per Mile Of It?

LRCOne Of The Largest Cash Prizes In Road Racing History Goes Unclaimed - 48-Year-Old Pennsylvania Viral Marathon Dad, Mike Rossi, Misses Out On $200,000 Challenge To Replicate His Marathon Personal Best