USATF 1 Mile Road Champs *USATF.TV Live Broadcast @ 8:10PM ET

Tonight In Des Moines: Clayton Murphy Vs Leo Manzano, Garrett Heath And Hillary Bor At USATF Road Mile Champs Shannon Rowbury leads the women’s race against Heather Kampf, Amanda Eccleston and Katie Mackey.
*BBTM Prediction Contest
*Q&A With Grand Blue Mile Race Director And Former Pro Blake Boldon

Next Month: Super Deep Field Set For Pre Classic Women’s 1500 With Seven Sub-4:00 Women The field will include Olympic champ Faith Kipyegon, Olympic silver medalist Hellen Obiri, USA’s Jenny Simpson, Shannon Rowbury, Kate Grace and GB record setter Laura Muir.

Good Read: GB Olympic 4×400 Bronze Medalist Anyika Onuora Shares How She Nearly Died From Malaria 10-Months Before The Games Anyika says she is “literally had to learn how to walk again” after being hospitalized and receiving emergency care and is “lucky to be alive.”

Drug News

• Russian Heptathlete Tatyana Chernova Officially Stripped Of Yet Another Medal, This Time The 2008 Olympic Bronze This after she’s already been stripped of her 2011 World title and 2012 Olympic bronze.
  *GB’s Kelly Sotherton Set To Be Upgraded To 2008 Heptathlon Bronze Sotherton is now a three-time Olympic medalist as she was also upgraded to 2008 4×400 bronze.
• WADA Dismisses Vitaly Mutko’s Criticism After He Claims Testing Method Would Find Steroid Turinabol “Even In Coffee” Mutko is just sore because this method was developed by former Moscow lab director and whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov and it is what brought down Tatyana Chernova.
• Russian Marathoner Albina Mayorova Gets 4-Year Drug Ban Mayorova was 8th at the 2012 Olympics.
• As Maria Sharapova Prepares To Return From Ban, WADA Gets Flack For It’s Handling Of Meldonium Bans Sports lawyer Paul Green criticized WADA’s inconsistency as only a few athletes got a significant sanction while most got off.

Big US News

Washington Post: New USATF President Vin Lananna Says He Has No Plans To Audit Max Siegel’s Spending As CEO Before and after the October expose on Siegel, many have questioned the way he conducts USATF business with lavish spending and questionable self-dealing and many were hoping there would be an investigation. However, Lananna said, “I really don’t have enough information to really have an opinion on it … Right now, my position [with Siegel] is I’m comfortable with what I’ve seen. If it comes to the point where I’m not comfortable, I will speak up.” Personally, we think it’s a huge blunder that Siegel paid out more than $20 million in commissions to the people who brought in the Nike deal. The commissions should have a) been capped and b) the deal should have been bid out.

NCAA Track Action *All NCAA Results

• NCAA 800m Stud Emmanuel Korir Of UTEP Runs 44.67!!
• Paul Ereng Raves About Korir’s 44.67 “I thought he’d run, maybe, 45.8. I didn’t expect this with that wind. He’s an 800 guy, he’s the national champion, but he’s a big talent. “He’s a big talent, a big talent. No 800 runners break 45 seconds, the best 800 runners in the world run 45.5. He’s running 44 out of blocks.”
• Penn State’s Isaiah Harris Ran 1:45.12 This Weekend At UVA For NCAA Lead
• Fred Kerley’s 44.60 Victory Breaks Meet Record At Michael Johnson Invitational And Puts Him At #1 In NCAA
• Odean Skeen (Auburn) Runs 9.98 100m!!! FASTEST IN NCAA!!!!!!!
• Kansas Relays *Results *Olympic Champ Ryan Crouser Throws 72-6.5 To Win Kansas Relays Downtown Shot Put
  
• Texas’s Chrisann Gordon Runs NCAA-Leading 400m With 50.64 At LSU Meet

• Stanford: *Results *Stanford Roommates Elise Cranny Run And Valarie Allman Set US Leads At The Cardinal Classic Cranny won in 4:11.46 over teammate Christina Aragon (4:13.43). Allman threw 64.69 in the discus. In the women’s steeple, Argentina’s Belen Casetta won in 9:56.
  *Friday Recap: Grant Fisher Wins Solid 5,000 In 13:37 Over Colorado’s Joe Klecker
  *MB: Fisher is a 5k guy

Pro Track Action

• SA Champs: Caster Semenya Completes 400/800 Double Once Again At South African National Championships Semenya won the 400 in 51.60 and came back in the 800 to take the title comfortably in 2:01.03.
  *Wayde Van Niekerk Romps To SA 200m Title With A PR Of 19.90 Seconds Van Niekerk said it was good to “get revenge” for finishing second in the 100 (to Olympic finalist Akani Simbine) in the 100m the day before.
  *IAAF Recap: Luvo Manyonga Breaks His Own National LJ Record With 8.65m (Also A World Lead)
• Akani Simbine (9.95) Beats Wayde van Niekerk (10.04) For S. African 100m Title
• Usain Bolt Says He’s Watching S. African Champs

US News

• USTFCCCA Previews This Weekend’s Big NCAA Meets *All NCAA Results
• Great Read: Toni Reavis Remembers Tom Fleming Fleming always pushed the pace in races and cashed the first $25,000 check in pro running.
• Ken Goe: “In the absence of any actionable evidence, maybe it’s reasonable to conclude he (Alberto Salazar) hasn’t cheated.”
  *MB: Wow: Ken Goe says if you believe Alberto Salazar is a doper you must also believe USADA is inept
• Toni Reavis Thinks All Of The Elites Of One Sex Should Go To Boston, The Other To London We’ve been saying this for years. Having the elite men and women finish within minutes of each other distracts the viewer.
• A Look At The Rivalry Trophies College Teams Can Win In Track And Field A pretty entertaining read for sure.
• Newton Running Reorganizes Itself And Comes Back To Life Without Its Flagship Store Good news, the company is no longer owned by private equity.
• Non-Caffeine User Took Caffeine Pills For 30 Days To See If It Helped Her Running She felt a big impact initially but feels like her body got used to it and doesn’t recommend it.
• Guy Ran 2017 Boston Marathon In 3:40 Barefoot And In A Caveman Suit
• Raevyn Rogers May Be The NCAA Record Holder In The 800 But She’s Only #3 All Time At Oregon Oregon counts any time in an Oregon uniform whereas the NCAA doesn’t count summer times.
• Who Should Light The 2024 Flame In LA? Venus And Serena?

Previous London Marathon News

• RRW: American Elites Kellyn Taylor, Laura Thweatt Ready For London Debuts The 2:28 women both will run their first marathon in over a year as Taylor last raced at the Olympic Trials and Thweat hasn’t run a marathon since her debut at NYC 2015.
• RRW: London Women Could Tackle All-Women’s World Record There was talk at the London press conference of Paula Radcliffe‘s 2:17:42 “all-women” WR as the pacemakers are targteing a 69-min. first half.
• RRW: After Dubai Disappointment, Kenenisa Bekele Optimistic For London Marathon Bekele: “Every time I’m excited when I’m running marathon.”
• Pre-London Interview With Former Two-Time World And Reigning Chicago Marathon Champ Abel Kirui Kirui says he’s going for the win and has done more speed than before Chicago to prepare for the faster course.
• Q&A With Florence Kiplagat Ahead Of The London Marathon Kiplagat talks about how she only started running in her later teen years to get a US scholarship, but that never happened.
• What British Celebrities Are Running The London Marathon? Most will probably go over the heads of non-Brits.

African Distance News

• El Guerrouj’s 2004 Olympic 1,500/5,000 Gold Makes List Of “Happy Endings In Sports” The 1,500m WR holder finally won Olympic gold in 2004 after falling on the final lap in 1996 and finishing a close runner-up in 2000.
• Athletics Weekly Profile Olympic 5,000m Silver Medalist Hellen Obiri Obiri is a versatile athlete, having won major races at 1,500 through 5,000 (indoors and out) as well as XC.
• Science Of Sport’s Ross Tucker Impressed With Boston Champ Geoffrey Kirui’s Muscle Definition Tucker wrote on Twitter that he had never seen an athlete with horizontal musculature in their quadriceps like that of Kirui’s.
• Genzebe Dibaba’s 2,000m Indoor WR (5:23.75) Ratified By The IAAF

News From The UK

• Sad News: GB’s 2008 Olympic High Jump Silver Medalist Germaine Mason Killed In Motorcycle Accident The 34-year-old was riding at the front of a convoy that included Usain Bolt when he lost control of his motorcycle (possibly trying to avoid a vehicle that had lost control).
  *MB: 2008 Olympic HJ silver medallist Germaine Mason of GB/Jamaica is killed in motorcycle accident
• Former Olympic 10K Bronze Medalist Brendan Foster To Retire As BBC Sport Commentator After London 2017
• London 2017 World Championships Mascots Unveiled Hero the Hedgehog and Whizbee the Bee were created by a 9-year-old as part of a nation wide contest.
• Jessica Ennis-Hill Receives Damehood At Buckingham Palace
• Liverpool The First British City To Officially Launch Bid For 2022 Commonwealth Games The 2022 CWG are up for grabs after Durban, South Africa was stripped of the event.