US Action Was Led By 2016 USATF Road 5k Champs *Results

RRW Ryan Hill (With a Kick) and Aliphine Tuliamuk (Thanks to a 4:43 Opening Mile) Win USATF 5k Champs at CVS Downtown 5k in Providence Jordan Hasay 3rd.

• 2016 GNC Live Well Liberty Miles Ben Blankenship (4:02) and Heather Kampf (4:33) win$30,000 was handed out to American runners.
• Karl Meltzer beaks Scott Jurek’s Appalachian Trail record with less than 10 hours to spare

International Action

• World Jr Triathlon Champs Missouri HS Sr & 9:03 3200 runner Austin Hindman wins the World Junior Triathlon Title The girl’s winner was Taylor Knibb who is a freshman at Cornell. She’ll be running xc for the Big Red this fall.
• Copenhagen Half: 22-year old Kenyan James Mwangi Wangari runs #2 half marathon time of year – 59:07 – to win in Copenhagen Ethiopia’s Hiwot Gebrekidan Gebremaryam, a 21-year old who ran a 2:34 marathon debut in Dubai this year, won the women’s race in 68:00.
• Czech Half: Barselius Kipyego rocks 59:15 half-marathon in Czech Republic. Peres Jepchirchir (whalf champ) wins women’s race in 67:24
• Dam tot Damloop 10 Miler Edwin Kiptoo (45:25) and Alice Aprot (51:59) win 
• Cape Town Marathon: Ethiopia’s Asefa Negewo sets South African all-comers record by winning Sanlam Cape Town marathon in 2:08:42 The previous fasteset in SA was 2:09;50. The women’s race was won in just 2:36:13.
• Sydney Marathon Tomohiro Tanigawa (2:12:13) and Makda Harun (2:32:22) Win Blackmores Sydney Marathon The men’s winner came on late to win whereas the women’s winner led from start to finish.
• Beijing Marathon: Ethiopians Mekuant Ayenew (2:11:09) and Meseret Mengistu (2:25:56) win 
• Multis: Oleksiy Kasyanov of Ukraine (8077) and Nadine Broersen of the Netherlands (6377) win decathlon and heptathlon competitions at the Talence Decastar Both competitions were won by less than 10 points.

Good Reads

• Russia’s Putin on WADA leaks: “It seems as if healthy athletes are taking drugs legally that are prohibited for others,”
• Interesting link: Read all 293 Q&As that have been featured in Track and Field News since 1973 Pretty cool link. You can read all 3,868 that LetsRun.com has on youtube here.
• Fascinating Scientific Study: How Much Do Heavy Shoes Slow You Down? Every 100 grams hurts you by .78% but cushioning helps you by 3-4%.

Sprint / Jump /Throw News

• SAFP might be coached by Stephen Francis in 2017 after all Francis, “From what I’m hearing, it looks as if things are not as clear cut as they were before,”
• Olympic medalist Joe Kovacs gets hero’s welcome when he returns to Lehigh Valley
• Christian Taylor returns to his old elementary gold to share his Olympic gold
• Arsenal star Hector Bellerin has challenged Usain Bolt to a sprint and is waiting to hear back He might be able to beat him at 40m. “It’s not me you have to ask, I’ve been waiting for that phone call from Jamaica… I challenged him a while ago and he said maybe after Rio.”

Doping I: The WADA Hack / TUEs

• MB: Fancy Bear Day 3 Hack Release Includes A Bunch Of Swimmers And Rowers; No Track Athletes
• Mo Farah Might Be One Of The Next Athletes To Have His TUE Information Leaked, But He Isn’t Worried Farah says he’s only ever had one TUE (a drip when he collapsed in Park City, Utah in 2014), but revealed he uses an inhaler for asthma which he was prescribed in 2009 and swapped to a different one after moving to Alberto Salazar.
• Athletics Weekly Looks At Robert Harting And Michelle Carter’s TUE Record Harting: “Me and the medical staff are fine with the leaked content. We don’t hide anything. Go transparency!”
• Vladimir Putin: “It seems as if healthy athletes are taking drugs legally that are prohibited for others…”
• Good Read: The Telegraph: “Hackers Have Raised Questions Of Morality Over Therapeutic Drug Use” While some TUEs are innocent, others are in the grey area and have “stirred a debate about whether athletes are pushing the moral boundaries while honouring the legal ones.”
• Richard McLaren Believes TUEs Are Open To Abuse And Specifically Names ADHD Medication As A Possible Offender McLaren also criticizes the IOC reaction (or non-reaction) to his report and contrasts how the IPC immediately contacted him while he’s never heard anything from top IOC officials.
• The Telegraph: “Russian Rage Over Doping Points To A New Cold War” Oliver Brown writes that there was a “jaw-dropping exchange” between the Russian Embassy in London and a UK journalist after the embassy tweeted about doping “double standards”.
• WADA Statement On Most Recent Fancy Bear Hack Release
• GB’s Former Tour De France Winner Bradley Wiggins Allegedly Caught Lying In His Autobiography In his autobiography he says he’s “never had an injection” besides vaccinations, but his data shows at least three, all shortly before some of his biggest races.
• GB Sailing Gold Medalist Saskia Clark: “I am not ashamed of getting a TUE, but the system is open to abuse.”
• IOC Vow To Speak With Russian Authorities About Helping WADA Respond To Cyber-Attacks

More Paralympic News

Road Race Disasters

• Boston Marathon Won’t Accept Adjusted For Train Delay At The Via Marathon (includes video) An unexpected train derailed many runners’ BQ qualifying attempt.
  *MB: Train stops marathon at Lehigh Valley
• NYRR Settle In Lawsuit Over Lottery Entry Fees They will pay out $2.1 million in credits to runners who payed a lottery fee and the race drawing will be free for the next 3-years although entry fees are going up to $295.

Interesting Paralympic News

• Paralympic Repair Shop With Technicians From 29 Countries Are Making 100+ Free Repairs A Day In Rio Wheelchairs, carbon fiber legs, you name it, they fix it.
• There’s A Secret Inside The Rio Paralympic Medals Each medal has tiny steel balls inside so they make noise when you shake them. Gold has the most balls so is the loudest. The medals are also engraved with Braille for visually impaired athletes.
• How Is The UK’s Paralympic Medal Tally Compare With London 2012? Like the Rio Olympic team, the GB paralympic team has won more medals than when they hosted in 2012.

Feyisa Lilesa Continues His Protest From The US

• Recommended Read #1: Feyisa Lilesa Talks About The Internal Conflict He Faced When Deciding To Make His Protest In Rio And Speaking To His Family Since On training runs before Rio Lilesa was afraid he’d be attacked by authorities and whenever there was a knock on his door, he always ran to the roof to check before opening it.
• RR #2: Feyisa Lilesa Writes Powerful Op-Ed In Washington Post Lilesa talks about the oppression the Oromo people face in Ethiopia and explains why he is afraid to go back. *Discuss
• Video/Audio: Feyisa Lilesa Speaks At Press Conference In Washington DC Lilesa is going to train in New Mexico and said he doesn’t currently plan to run for the United States as he hopes to eventually run for Ethiopia again when things improve.
• AP article Lilesa: “If I would’ve taken my medal and went back to Ethiopia, that would’ve been the biggest regret of my life. I wanted to be a voice for a story that wasn’t getting any coverage.”