Jon Gault Says Goodbye to Rio

LRC 7 Final Thoughts on Rio: Team USA Crushed It, How American Distance Runners Stack Up to the Sprinters, Jumpers & Throwers and the Most Exciting Race of the Olympics

And with Good Reason Lausanne Diamond League is Thursday

LRC Lausanne DL Preview: Centro vs. Kiprop vs. Souleiman in a Loaded 1k, Olympic Silver Medallists Hellen Obiri & Genzebe Dibaba Battle over 3k, Plus a Fast Women’s 800 We hope you have recovered from the Olympics as on Thursday, Lausanne will serve up a few tasty matchups at the crossover distances of 1000 and 3000 met

Post Rio Kenyan / Ethiopian News

• Asbel Kiprop Posts On Facebook Asking People To Stop Ripping Him For His Poor Tactics
• Another Kenyan Mess As Kenyan Officials Were Selling Olympic Kits And Other Resources Meant For Athletes Nike provided 1900 kits, but the 52 athletes only received one kit for racing and one for training while the rest was sold on the Kenyan market.
• Update: Feyisa Lilesa Will Not Return To Ethiopia, But Doesn’t Know Where To Go His agent, Federico Rosa says Lilesa didn’t plan his protest or plan to go to another country. His wife and children are still back in Ethiopia.
• Video: Bicycle-Riding Spectator Gets Totally Psyched About Catching Eliud Kipchoge’s Hat
  *MB: Funny video: bicyclist catches Kichoge’s hat as he throws it off
• Kenenisa Bekele Disappointed With Ethiopia’s Rio Games Results Bekele called the results “shocking” and blamed the federation and team selectors.
• Olympic Steeple Champ Conseslus Kipruto Wants To Go For The WR At Brussels DL Meet On September 8th

Sprints, Jumps And Throws

• Yohan Blake Ready To Assume The Mantle From Usain Bolt Although Blake says he thinks he can convince Bolt to come back for Tokyo 2020.
• Wayde van Niekerk Calling It A Season After Achieving The “Goals Set For 2016” An Olympic gold and WR – not a bad way to end the year.
• New Zealand Herald: 11 Things To Know About PV Bronze Medalist Eliza McCartney She was childhood friends with singer Lorde and her boyfriend is a “kiteboarder.”
• Family Worried As Jenn Suhr Still Not Over Her Respiratory Illness
• Jessica Ennis-Hill Will Retire After 2017 Worlds That’s the headline anyway, but a quote from Ennis-Hill says she could just retire now.
• Poland’s Piotr Malachowski Is Auctioning Off His Olympic Silver Medal To Raise Money For A 3-Year-Old With Cancer
• GB Men’s 4 X 400 Will Use Olympic DQ As Motivation For London 2017 Worlds
• IAAF First Impressions Q&A With TJ Olympic Champ Caterine Ibarguen Ibarguen played volleyball for 8 years until she was 20, but eventually quit to focus on track.

Rio 2016 Legal News

• Irish IOC Member Patrick Hickey Could Spend Three Months In Rio Jail Before Ticket Scandal Court Case
• Federal Investigation Opened Into Possible Improper Use Of Public Money By Rio 2016 There are claims that $185 million of undisclosed funding was used by the government.
• USA Today: Rio Police Might Have Been Guilty As Well In The Ryan Lochte Scandal Apparently the cops “extorted” the swimmers at gunpoint into giving money for “property damage.” *2nd Article
  *One Of The Other Swimmers Speaks After Having To Pay A $10,500 Fine To Leave Rio He says he never issued any false statements.
  *Speedo And Ralph Lauren Among Sponsors To Drop Swimmer Lochte Following Rio 2016 Antics

More Post-Olympic Distance News

• Mo Farah Plans To End His Track Career After London 2017 Worlds But Could Do The Olympic Marathon At Tokyo 2020
• Wesley Korir Says Fluids Mix-Up At With Stanley Biwott At 30K Caused Their DNFs Korir said Biwott’s drink caused him “serious stomach problems” and lashed out on Twitter, saying, “The Kenyan officials can’t even get water handling right!!! Very pissed off right now!!!”
  *2nd Article With Quotes From Biwott
  *MB: Korir blames DNF on fluid mixup
• RRW: Alan Webb Says Matt Centrowitz’s Gold Represents Century Of Dedication Webb heaps a lot of praise on Centro saying that he thinks he can get the American mile record and “it wouldn’t be bittersweet” to lose it.
• Abbey D’Agostino And New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin Receive Fair Play Awards For Sportsmanship During Women’s 5,000m Heats
• Bernard Lagat Shared A Suite In The Olympic Village With Ashton Eaton And Kerron Clement And Said Ben Blankenship Was The Only One To Rag On Him For His Age Lagat: “I was going for dinner, and I was a little late and Ben was like, ‘Dude. It’s past your bedtime.’ I told him, ‘Thank you, Ben.’ What a clown. I love it.”

Track Season Isn’t Over Yet

• The Diamond League Starts Back Up On Thursday: Lausanne Provisional Entry Lists We still have four DL meets to go.
• MB: Lausanne 1000m Thursday … Kiprop, Centro, Kiplagat, Souleiman
• September 1st: 14 Olympic Champions Will Compete At The Zurich Diamond League Meet Ruth Jebet in the steeple, Faith Kipyegon in the 1,500, Caster Semenya in the 800.

Rio Olympics *Full Schedule / Results *TV & Streaming *Running Warehouse Prediction Contest

LRC  Matt Centrowitz Goes Wire-To-Wire To Win USA’s First Men’s 1,500m Gold In 108 Years final Centro used tactical brilliance and a 50.62 last lap to earn America’s first gold medal in the men’s 1,500 in since 1908. Defending champ Taoufik Makhloufi was silver as Nick Willis got his second Olympic medal in third. Asbel Kiprop only 6th; USA’s Ben Blankenship was 8th.

LRC Men’s 5,000: Mo Farah Completes The “Double Double” As A Slew Of DQs And Reinstatements Cause Silver And Bronze Medal Pandemonium final Farah cemented his place in Olympic history by joining Lasse Viren as the only man in history to pull off the 5K/10K double at two Olympic Games.

LRC Paul Chelimo Proves Everyone Wrong (Including LetsRun.com) Once Again To Win The U.S.’s First Olympic 5,000 Medal In 52 Years

LRC Caster Semenya Delivers Gold As Women’s 800 Favorite, Francine Niyonsaba And Margaret Wambui Go 2-3 As Melissa Bishop Sets Canadian Record In 4th final Semenya’s terrific 2016 campaign continued after she fought off a spirited challenge from the Oregon Track Club’s Francine Niyonsaba.

Saturday Night OTB:

• MATT MF CENTROWITZ
• Paul Chelimo Wins Silver, DQed And Then Reinstated
• CHELIMO DQ’ed Bernard MF Lagat BRONZE age 41! insane Lagat finished 6th, but DQs for Chelimo, Edris and Ahmed temporarily gave him the bronze.
• WHY IS NBC TELLING CHELIMO LIVE HE LOST HIS SILVER?!?
• Intersex clean sweep in the 800!
• Melissa Bishop wins the women’s 800m!!!
• The DQ’s Need to stop!!!
• Torrence goes home devastated! DFL!!!
• MB: Official Day 9 Rio Live Discussion Thread – Men’s 1500 and 5000 finals. Women’s 800

4 X 100 Action: Bolt Completes The Triple Triple

LRC Dennis Mitchell’s Days As Relay Coach Have To Be Numbered Now: USA’s 50% Failure Rate Continues As Men Get DQed, Women Win Gold With #2 Time Ever The Jamaicans admitted they practiced twice all year and still kicked American butt. They also laughed and said the American crack under the pressure.

LRC What A Great Vault Competition: Sandi Morris Almost Wins Gold On Final Vault Then Talk Turns To Isinbayeva’s Retirement And Russian Doping Aftermath Plus video of the final vault.

Tim Layden Recaps Usain Bolt’s Final Olympic Race, The US Men’s 6th Straight 4 X 1 Failure And The Women’s Triumph

More Coverage / MB Talk:

• The Guardian: Hope Springs For Young GB Women’s 4 X 100 Squad After They Break NR To Get Olympic Bronze
• MB: Did anyone else tear up as Bolt pulled away from the field on that final leg?
• MB: Dennis Mitchell should be fired
• MB: Gatlin very classy for a guy that found out on live TV that his team got DQd.
• MB: USA goes home DEVASTATED in the 4X100
• MB: why the hell was Brommel on the anchor?!!

Non-4 X 100 Friday Action

Hammer: Tajikistan’s Dilshod Nazarov Gets Surprise Victory In Men’s Hammer Poland’s Pawl Fajdek was the HUGE favorite, but crashed out in the rounds. Nazarov won with 78.68m, the first winning throw under 80m since 1984, to win his country’s first Olympic gold ever.

M4 X 4: GB Men Appeal Against 4 X 400 DQ As The Reasoning Behind It Is Still Unclear They posted the third-fastest qualification time behind Jamaica and the US.

Dreams Do Become Reality

LRC Kate Grace’s “Dream, Dream” Season Now Includes the Dream Of A Medal In The Olympic Final Kate’s “dream, dream” goal heading into the season was making the Olympic final. Now it’s time to dream for a medal.

LRC After 15 Years, Nate Brannen Finally Gets His Shot At Olympic Glory Nate making the final and his love of the sport is proof Dreams do Become Reality.

LRC Team USA Has Been Crushing It At The Olympics; Can They Get To Five Mid-D/Distance Medals For The First Time In 92 Years? It’s been a great meet for Team USA but could get even better.

Thursday Non-Distance

Tim Layden’s Thursday Recap: Usain Bolt Reigns Again In Closing Act Of His Individual Olympic Career Bolt was entertaining as always as de Grasse got silver, Ryan Crouser led a 1-2 in the shot, Ashton Eaton was challenged but got gold, Dalilah Muhammad led a US 1-3 in the hurdles as the US continued to up its game.

LRC Ryan Crouser’s Got A PhD (And Gold Medal) In The Shot Put Crouser threw the shot 4 feet further than he did a year ago thanks to being able to focus on it being done with his masters in finance.

• Kerron Clement Wins 400 Hurdles Gold For USA This was actually the US’s first win in a men’s track event for these Olympics.
• The Oregonian: “Showing Grace Under Pressure, Ashton Eaton Repeats Decathlon Gold” This wasn’t the usual easy win for Eaton as he was challenged by France’s Kevin Mayer, who had the meet of his life and actually took the lead during the 9th event (the javelin).
• Dalilah Muhammad Wins Team USA’s First-Ever Women’s 400 Hurdles Olympic Gold US women had had five Olympic silvers and two bronze, but never a gold.

• NPR: A Surprising Theory About The Success Of Bolt And Other Jamaican Sprinters A Harvard professor thinks Jamaican public health initiatives started in the 1920s paved the way for their sprinting success.
• BBC: USA Women’s 4 X 100 Get It Right The Second Time, Running The Fastest Time Of The Day In Their Solo Time Trial The other shock was a bad handoff with Dafne Schippers costing the Netherlands a spot in the final. Team USA was the fastest in qualifying on the men’s side as well.
  *LRC The First Olympic Relay Race With One Team? USA Women Drop The Baton After Colliding With Brazil But Successfully Protest
  *The Guardian: USA Women’s 4 X 100 Qualify In Solo Run-Off After Baton Blunder
• IAAF: Sara Kolak Throws PR Of 66.18m To Set Croatian Record And Win Olympic Javelin Gold
• The Telegraph: GB’s Adam Gemili Misses Out On Olympic 200m Bronze By “Heartbreaking” Three Thousandths Of A Second Gemili and France’s Christophe Lemaitre recorded an identical time of 20.12.
• Good Read: USA Today: Ryan Crouser Has Been Practicing For This Since Childhood As a kid, Crouser used to go and throw around in the sand in his grandfather’s backyard.
• Usain Bolt Hopes Now He Can Be In The Same “Bracket” As Muhammad Ali And Pele “I don’t need to prove anything else. What else can I do to prove to the world I am the greatest?”
• Usain Bolt Kisses Goodbye (Literally) To The Rio Track “I was just saying goodbye, this is my last individual event at the Olympics.”
• NY Times: 100? 200? Doesn’t Matter. They Still Can’t Catch Usain Bolt.
• AP: Ashton Eaton Gets Olympic Record, But It’s Bolt’s Night

Rio Wednesday

LRC Brianna Rollins, Nia Ali And Kristi Castlin Go 1-2-3 In The 100 Hurdles For The U.S. Women’s First-Ever Olympic Track & Field Sweep Even without WR holder Keni Harrison, the US still went 1-2-3. Team USA also went 1-2 in the long jump as Tianna Bartoletta beat Brittney Reese by 2 cm. Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson completed the coveted sprint double by winning the 200 in 21.78 over Dafne Schippers and Tori Bowie.
*MB: USA just went 1-2-3-4-7 in the women’s 100m hurdles
*MB: Elaine Thompson! double 100/200 CHAMP!

LRC GATLIN OUT OF 200m *Discuss
*MB: Usain bolt just jogged a 19.78!! Can we see a sub-19 tomorrow?

LRC Final Evan Jager Wins Silver As Kenya’s Dominance In The Steeplechase Continues As Conseslus Kipruto Wins Gold, Ezekiel Kemboi Wins Bronze Gets DQed And Retires What a race. Ezekiel Kemboi‘s dominance of the men’s 3,000 steeplechase (and his career) has come to an end. America’s 32-year medal drought in the event has ended as well. The Olympic record is gone as well.

Update: LRC Olympic Debacle: The French Have Forgotten What The Olympics Are Supposed To Be About – Ezekiel Kemboi DQed From Men’s Steeple After Protest

Administrative

• IAAF Choose French Buisnessman Olivier Gers As New CEO
  *InsideTheGames Article Gers was chosen from more than 200 candidates after a 6-month search.
• Yelena Isinbayeva Still Be Hoping To Be Elected To IOC Athletes’ Commission When The Results Are Announced Tomorrow She is one of 24 candidates running for 4 places. She might be a tough sell as when arriving in Rio, she said, “I never will agree with the fact that they banned me, I will never forgive that.”

Tuesday In Rio Was Fantastic

LRC: Jenny Simpson Wins America’s First Women’s 1,500 Olympic Medal As Faith Kipyegon Upsets World Record Holder Genzebe Dibaba updated Dibaba made a big move with 2 laps to go, but Kipyegon tracked her the whole way and blew her away in the final 100m. Simpson ran a measured effort to move up in the last lap to take the bronze and almost catch Dibaba in the final meters. Shannon Rowbury was a close 4th.

Video Of Women’s 1,500m Final For US, UK And Canadian Visitors

LRC Genzebe Dibaba Addresses Drug Allegations About Her Coach Jama Aden: “I Am Crystal Clean From Doping” Not that we’d expect a different response, but the questions have to be asked.

M100 Hurdles: Devon Allen Is 5th In Hurdles Final Omar McLeod got the win.
High Jump: Derek Drouin Wins
Hurdle Semis: High Schooler Sydney McLaughlin’s Olympics Come To An End 
Men: Irish Record For Thomas Barr As Kerron Clement Tries To Regain Old Glory

MBOARD CHATTER:

• Faith Kipyegon GOLD. Dibaba Silver. Simpson Bronze 
• Congratulations Jenny Simpson: First American woman to win a medal in the 1500 at the Olympics!!
• Bob Costas talking about Dibaba / Aden drug bust on NBC
• Is Dibaba off the drugs? 
• Why didn’t Muir push the pace?
• 2016 Rio Olympics: Official Day 5 Live Discussion Thread

Best Outside Links

Best Of Web:
Tim Layden: U.S.’s Jenny Simpson Won’t Let Half-Empty Rio Stadium Dull Historic Olympic Moment
New Yorker Malcolm Gladwell Chat #1: Caster Semenya & The Logic Of Olympic Competition
New Yorker Malcolm Gladwell Chat #2: The Brilliance Of Usain Bolt, Mo Farah, & Wayde Van Niekerk
Evening Standard: Caster Semenya Prepares For 800m Olympics Victory And The Storm That Will Follow

Monday In Rio

LRC M800 Final: King David’s Reign Continues: David Rudisha Becomes First Man In 52 Years To Repeat As Olympic 800m Champion, American Clayton Murphy Snags Bronze Rudisha has become the first man since 1964 to repeat as Olympic 800 champ.

LRC Unbelievable: Clayton Murphy Goes From 1:56 800m Runner To Olympic Bronze Medalist Talking World Record In Four Years What an amazing journey for Clayton Murphy.

Murphy Mania On The Message Board

• 2016 Rio Olympics: Official Day 4 Live Discussion Thread 
• CLAYTON MF MURPHY – Murphy runs 1:42.93 to take Olympic broze behind Rudisha and Makhloufi 
• Clayton Murphy will win the gold medal in 2020 
• Official Clayton Murphy Apology Thread 
• Clayton Murphy Better than Nick Symmonds in 1 RACE!!!
• Nick Symmonds – thoughts? 
• Berian……wtf? 
• RUDISHA WILL LOSE – IT IS DOWNPOURING 
• News Guy on KNBC in LA just said Berian is an 800 millimeter runner 

LRC  Shaunae Miller Dives At Line And Wins 400m Gold Medal – Prevents Allyson Felix From Becoming First Woman With 5 Olympic Gold Medals In Track And Field What a finish. This is what the Olympics is all about.

LRC Brazil’s Thiago Braz da Silva Upsets Renaud Lavillenie For Pole Vault Gold And Sets The Olympic Record (6.03m) In Front Of Delirious Rio Crowd

LRC Emma Coburn Wins America’s 1st-Ever Women’s Steeplechase Medal In Style As Bahrain’s Ruth Jebet Claims Gold In Near World Record (updated and final) Jebet missed the world record by less than a second as Coburn broke the American record in winning bronze.
*MB: Coburn for bronze!

LRC Men’s Steeple Prelims: Evan Jager And Hillary Bor Win Their Heats As All Three Americans Advance To The Olympic Final for the First Time Since 1936 A great day for the Americans.

LRC A New, More Relaxed Evan Jager Heads To His Second Olympic Final With A Medal On His Mind

LRC Two-Time Olympic Champion Veronica Campbell-Brown Of Jamaica Shockingly Eliminated In First Round Of Women’s 200 Meters Five women entered the 2016 Olympics with a chance to win three individual Olympic titles in the same event and now four of them have failed. VCB was just third in her heat in 22.97; it took 22.94 to make it on time.

Anita Wlodarczyk Breaks Hammer WR – Wins Gold
*Video Of The Monster Throw

Full Rio Coverage In 2016 Rio Special Section

Russian Doping: Klishina Cleared To Compete, Stepanovs Forced To Flee Again

• Russian Long Jumper Darya Klishina Cleared To Compete On Tuesday After CAS Rules In Her Favor In IAAF Ban Klishina was originally the sole Russian track athlete in Rio, but then the IAAF banned her as well after new information emerged. However, Klishina was successful in her appeal to CAS so will compete.
• Russian Whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova Says She Fears For Her Life After Hackers Found Her Location Through WADA Athlete Whereabouts Program Stepanova and husband Vitaly have been forced to relocate again and she says, “If something happens to us then you should know that it is not an accident.”
• Russian Paralympic Committee To Find Out August 22nd If They Will Stay Banned From Rio Unlike the IOC, the IPC issued a blanket ban on Russian from the Paralympics, but Russia has launched an appeal to CAS.
• Stepanova Believes IOC Stance Against Her Will Discourage Future Whistleblowers And Accuses Thomas Bach Of Only Trying To Serve Himself *2nd Article
• IOC Medical Director Richard Budgett Says He Feels “Shocked And Betrayed” By Allegations Of Russian Doping During Sochi 2014 Budgett says much stricter security measures have been put in place in the Rio anti-doping lab.

Rio Saturday – Men’s 10K

LRC  Mo-nificent: Mo Farah Survives Fall & Repeats As Olympic 10,000-Meter Champion updated with post-race comments Farah survived a fall, some team tactics from the Africans and a brave final effort by Tanui, but came out on top once again. 27:05.17 over Tanui’s 27:05.64 as Tamirat Tola held off Yigrem Demelash for the bronze. Galen Rupp was 5th; Geoffrey Kamworor was a non-factor in the end, finishing 11th. Recap and analysis to come. Video Highlights

Post-Race Reaction From Galen Rupp, Zane Robertson (Kiwi Record), Mo Ahmed (Last Place), And More

MB: Mo Farah Defends His Olympic 10,000 Title, Blowing By Paul Tanui In The Final Meters 

• More OTB: Mo GOAT run
• Rupp just tripped Mo
• RUPP goes home DEVASTATED
• KAMROWOR GOES HOME DEVASTATED
• OK OK did anyone else see that? Rupp & Salazar greeting Mo, Salazar definitely doesn’t coach Mo anymore.
• How many RUPP threads will be created?!?

More Outside Rio Coverage

• Britain’s “Super Saturday” Becomes “Satisfactory Saturday” As Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis-Hill And Greg Rutherford Take Gold, Silver And Bronze
• Jeff Henderson: “Carl Lewis can’t say much now that I’ve won Olympic gold.” Lewis has often been critical of current US athletes and the long jump in particular.
• Farah: “I’ve won an Olympic gold for three of my children. Now I’d like to win the 5,000m gold for my little boy.”
• The Guardian: How Nafissatou Thiam Beat The Odds To Claim Heptathlon Gold Brianne Theisen-Eaton took bronze.
• Greg Rutherford Says LJ Bronze Is A “Bitter Pill” “If you’d told me 10 years ago I would be gutted with an Olympic bronze, I’d have told you not to be so stupid.” *2nd Article
• Register-Guard: “Spill Doesn’t Slow Mo” Some quotes from Farah and Rupp about Farah’s fall.
• Christoph Harting Wins Dramatic Discus Final Christoph is the brother of 2012 Olympic champ Robert Harting, who didn’t make the final here in Rio.
• Recommended Read: NY Times: “The Eatons, Competing For Different Countries, Are On The Same Team” The Eaton’s each have their own tubs in the garage labeled”Ashton’s Trophies” and “Bri’s Trophies.”
• Jessica Ennis-Hill Facing “Tough Decision” On Whether Or Not To Retire A home World Championships in London next year would be hard for her to pass up. *2nd Article
• Hungary’s Anita Marton Won First European Olympic Medal With Shot Put Bronze

More Rio Saturday 

LRC Women’s Steeple Prelims: Emma Coburn’s Medal Chances Go Up As All Three Americans Make The Final updated with quotes from Coburn We’ve got you covered if you decided to sleep in on a Saturday morning.

Saturday Preview LRC Day 2 Friends And Family Preview

*Mo Farah Would Be “Devastated” If He Left Rio Without Winning Two More Gold Medals Farah on life changing 2012: “I couldn’t go outside. I wore a hoodie and sunglasses to see my family. … I couldn’t be Mo walking down the street any more.”
*Jos Hermens In Wall Street Journal: “Mo is lucky there’s not an athlete like (Geb or Tergat) that he has to compete against.”

More Rio

LRC LetsRun.com Goes To Rio: Tanks, The Most Powerful Man In Rio That You’ve Never Heard Of, Brazilian “Queueing” And Fiji! Jon Gault recounts LRC day 1 on the ground and his first Olympic experience.