More Pre News

LRC 2017 Pre Classic Friday Night Preview: Genzebe Dibaba Goes For The 5,000-Meter World Record Joan Benoit Samuelson night at Pre looks fantastic as a couple of world record holders (Ruth Jebet and Genzebe Dibaba) will be racing as will a couple of American record holders (Emma Coburn and Molly Huddle). Might some WRs and ARs fall?

• The Oregonian: “10 Jaw-Dropping Moments From 4-Decades Of The Prefontaine Classic” Distance races dominate the list including Alan Webb‘s 3:53 high school mile record.
• Mark Cullen Writes About His Encounter With Kenya’s World Javelin Champ Julius Yego At His Eugene Hotel After Last Year’s Pre Classic
• Register Guard: Brief Event-By-Event Analysis For The Pre Classic
• IAAF: Mouth-Watering 200 Clash With Elaine Thompson, Dafne Schippers And Allyson Felix Highlights
• Register Guard: 46 Athletes Who Won 58 Olympic Medals In Rio Line Up At Pre

Industry / Admin News

• A Year After Being Laid Off, Rock ‘N’ Roll Series Co-Founder Tracy Sundlun Is Still Fighting For Severance Pay The Competitor Group faces a lawsuit as they owe Sundlun over $160,000. CGI claims that Sundlun made “disparaging” statements about the company in a Times of San Diego story about his firing which violated his separation agreement.
• Vin Lananna Says The Sport Needs New Sponsors (Besides Shoe Companies) And A New Way Of Event Presentation Lananna says that even though he’s not a fan of TV shows like “American Idol” and “The Voice,” he watches them because they are popular and he looks at it “as a model for track and field.”
• New Race Sign-Up Service Suspends Registrations While Facing Industry Criticism Racepass is a service that tries to simplify the race registration process by allowing you to pay for multiple registrations at once, but some races have complained.
• USA Today: Skyrocketing Costs Put Future Olympics At Risk Given the declined interest in hosting it’s no wonder the IOC wants to lock in two cities at once for the next two Olympic cycles.
• InsideTheGames: Total Cost Of Rio 2016 Games To Be Revealed On June 14th The Rio 2016 organizers still owe $28 million in outstanding payments and one source says the total cost is likely to exceed $12 billion.
• Need A Job? IAAF Is Looking For A “Director Of Development” For Their Monaco Office

NCAA Regionals *Watch it live for free

• 2017 NCAA East Regional Live Results, Schedule, Start Lists 2016 NCAA mile champ Henry Wynne didn’t get out of the 1st round of the 1500.
  *MB: Bureaucrats strike again!! Big 10 1500 champ shows up at NCAA start line w/o his bib on – They don’t let him race!!! Update: Now the officials have tried to make up for it and placed him in the final even though he didn’t race the first round
  *Live Streaming On Watch ESPN: *Thursday *Friday *Saturday
• 2017 NCAA West Regional Live Results, Schedule, Start Lists
  *Streaming (Starts 12PM ET Thursday, 1PM ET Friday, 2PM ET Saturday)
• Register Guard: Four Ducks Qualify For NCAAs On Regionals Day 1
• For Fourth Consecutive Year Arkansas Advances Three Women’s PVers To NCAAs Includes twins Lexi and Tori Weeks.
• Texas A&M Advances 7 Throwers To NCAAs On Regionals Day 1
• Palo Alto Online: “Standford Looking To Track Success At Regionals”
• Arkansas’ Road To Nats Passes Through Austin

Doping Updates

LRC  6 Takeaways On Full USADA Report On Alberto Salazar, NOP: USADA: “It Appears Highly Likely” That 6 NOP Athletes, Including Galen Rupp And Dathan Ritzenhein, Violated Anti-Doping Rules We give you the nitty gritty on the 269-page USADA interim report on Alberto Salazar, Dr. Brown and the Nike Oregon Project, hacked by Fancy Bears and released in its entirety on Flotrack.

*Salazar Responds: The Oregonian: Alberto Salazar Issues Statement In Response To Leaked USADA Doping Report Salazar refers to the report as “baseless speculation” and states that he never used testosterone when competing nor had “dual” prescriptions or rubbed it on an athlete.

Tons Of Discussion On The Boards:

• MB: The full USADA report on Alberto Salazar has been leaked – Here it is
• MB:  Letsvote.com: Anyone associated with Salazar is tainted. YES or NO?
• MB: Salazar Responds to USADA
• MB: I feel bad for Ritz…
• MB: Let’s be clear Ritz, Galen etc are not victims, they are cheats.
• MB: Is NOP DONE or FINISHED?
• MB: USADA is screwed. I feel sorry for them.
• MB: I’m calling it right now, NOP disbans soon and the top athletes all go into hiding while still coached by Salazar.

Assorted Distance News

• Good Watch: 4-Minute Video With Matt Centrowitz Talking About Training/Racing As A Miler, Rio And What Comes Next Centro says now that his has two major championship golds, he wants to set some American records. “I have the hardware, I want the times to back it up.”
• Sunday: Wilson Kipsang Faces Dathan Ritzenhein And Bernard Lagat At The Great Manchester Run 10K Genzebe Dibaba leads the women’s race against GB’s Gemma Steel. GB’s Callum Hawkins had to pull out of the race due to illness.
• World 5,000m Silver Medalist Senbere Teferi Impresses With A 15:12 Meet Record At The Ethiopian National Championships Another highlight was unheralded Anduamlak Belhu getting a shock win in the 10,000m over World XC bronze medalist Muktar Edris as Belhu out sprinted him by .37.
• Another One From The Weekend: World 800 Silver Medalist Melissa Bishop Stepped Up In Distance To Run 4:10 For 1,500 In Canada (includes video) She won over a field that included fellow Canadian Nicole Sifuentes.
• Olympic 1,500m Champ Faith Kipyegon Shares Her Advice For Sport And Life Kipyegon’s driving tip: “In Kenya we say ‘pole pole,’ which means ‘not too quick.’ It is the best way to stay safe on the road. I like to think that I am a pretty good driver!”
• July 1: Paris Diamond League Meet Will Include An Epic Battle In The 1,500 With Almaz Ayana And Faith Kipyegon

Sprints And Jumps

• Yohan Blake Says He Could Have Gone Faster Than The 9.93 He Ran At The Jamaica Invitational Last Weekend Blake says he “shut it down” when he realized he had control of the race, but was happy with the quick time after a terrible start to his season.
• Radek Juska Smashes 29-Year-Old Czech Long Jump Record With A European-Leading 8.29m
• Good Read: Kerron Clement Reminisces About Finally Realizing His Dreams By Winning Olympic 400H Gold In Rio Clement finished second at the 2008 Olympics but says, “I just didn’t feel complete winning silver.”
• Multis: GB Heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson Says She Has Grown Up Since Leaving Home In The UK To Join A New Training Group In France Johnson-Thompson said it was hard to split with her coach of 8 years, but thinks the move has paid off as she’s done the most training and competing since she was a junior.
  *2nd Article From The Telegraph Johnson-Thompson has struggled a bit with the language barrier as she doesn’t speak French. “There’s some things that I had to sacrifice with finding the right place for me and language was one of them.”
• IAAF Inside Athletics Video: Ato Boldon Interviews Jamaica’s Double Olympic Champ Elaine Thompson
• Video: Sandi Morris Talks About The Pole Vaulters Never Ending Struggle Of Traveling With Poles
• Two World Under-20 Indoor Records Ratified By The IAAF France’s Melvin Raffin (17.14m TJ) and Ukraine’s Alina Shukh (4,535 points in the heptathlon).

LetsThrow.com

• New Zealand’s Olympic Shot Put Bronze Medalist Tiptoes Between Confidence And Cockiness As He Declares Himself “As Good If Not Better” Than Any Other Thrower In The World
• Hammer Thrower Martin Bingisser Does Podcast “Rant” He talks about several throwing related topics including doping: “We keep putting historic throwers on a pedestal when we know they doped. They’re cheaters not heroes.”
• Prep Liam Christensen Writes Thesis Paper Making A Case To Have The Javelin Throw In High School There are only 19 states that sanction the javelin with safety concerns being a major thing holding it back.
• RIP: GB Olympic Discus Thrower Philippa Roles Dies At 39 Roles competed at the 2004 and 2008 Games and is 4th on the UK all-time list.
  *Athletics Weekly: Athletes, Officials Pay Tribute To Philippa Roles
• Police Say A Moment Of Inattention Cost Wheaton College Student His Life In Hammer Throw Accident Last Month The student volunteer was distracted by two other volunteers who were goofing off during warmups.
  *MB: Student Fatally Struck by Hammer at Wheaton College Track Meet
• 1-Minute Video: Olympic Champ Michelle Carter’s Guide To The Perfect Shot Put Technique

More From The Weekend

• Philemon Cheboi And Former World Champs 5,000m 5th Placer Buze Diriba Win 2017 Bay To Breakers 12K In San Francisco Part race, part block party, it sounds like the 2017 edition (which included a kissing booth with dogs) was just as crazy as ever. *Results
  *SFGate.com: “Bay To Breakers Costumes Show Off Local Creativity, Humor At Its Finest”
  *Bleacher Report: Top Photos
• The Denver Post: 6-Foot-1 And 193’Pound Runner Isaac Green Wins 800, 1,600, 3,200, 4 X 800 At Colorado State Meet
  *MB: CO runner wins 800, 1600, 3200, 4×800 at state is 6-1 193lbs

Ultra News: Running Goes To Everest

• Spanish Ultra Runner Kilian Jornet Summits Mt. Everest; Claims Fastest Known Time He climbed the North face in 26 hours without oxygen or fixed ropes which most climbers use and take up to four days. *Discuss
• Free PDF Book: “Swift Endurance Legends The Fastest 100-Mile Ultrarunners During The 1970s, ’80s And ’90s”

Championship News

• Do You Plan On Winning A Medal At London 2017 Worlds? Here’s What It Will Look Like They’re pretty cool looking, shaped like a track with a symbol for every event.
  *London 2017 Organizers Promise The Medals Won’t Fall Apart Like The Rio 2016 Ones Are Doing
  *MB: Olympic Medals Aren’t What They Used To Be – 6 To 7 % Of Rio Olympic Medals Have Already Begun To Flake Apart
• The IOC Could Announce Decision On Whether To Award 2024 And 2028 Games Simultaneously In A Little Over 2 Weeks The IOC will discuss it when they meet in Lausanne on June 9.
• School Children Will Choose Tokyo 2020 Olympic Mascots The eventual winner won’t be decided until March 2018.

2017 Oxy USATF Distance Classic *Results

LRC Matthew Centrowitz Takes Down Mo Farah, Brenda Martinez Impresses – 2017 Oxy USATF Distance Classic Recap

A Friendly Debate – A Noted Sub-2 Optimist And Pessimist Share Their Thoughts On What Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:00:25 Means

LRC Was Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:00:25 A Monumental Step Forward In Marathoning? No, It Was Not – We Still Are 20+ Years Away From A Legitimate Sub-2 Marathon LetsRun.com co-founder Robert Johnson said four years ago that are nowhere close to a sub-2 in a legitimate race and he’s not backing down.

LRC Guest Column By Dr. Michael Joyner: Kipchoge’s Run & What Might (Or Might Not) Happen Next What does the man who famously predicted way back in 1991 that a human could run a marathon in 1:57:58 think of Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:00:25 run? Find out here.

MB: Dr. Michael Joyner and LetsRun’s Robert Johnson share their thoughts on what Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:00:25 means.

A Friendly Debate – A Noted Sub-2 Optimist And Pessimist Share Their Thoughts On What Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:00:25 Means

LRC Was Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:00:25 A Monumental Step Forward In Marathoning? No, It Was Not – We Still Are 20+ Years Away From A Legitimate Sub-2 Marathon LetsRun.com co-founder Robert Johnson said four years ago that are nowhere close to a sub-2 in a legitimate race and he’s not backing down.

LRC Guest Column By Dr. Michael Joyner: Kipchoge’s Run & What Might (Or Might Not) Happen Next What does the man who famously predicted way back in 1991 that a human could run a marathon in 1:57:58 think of Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:00:25 run? Find out here.

MB: Dr. Michael Joyner and LetsRun’s Robert Johnson share their thoughts on what Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:00:25 means.

NCAA Studs

LRC Top 10 Greatest Performers From NCAA Conference Weekend: Christian Coleman, Fred Kerley, Deajah Stevens, Grant Fisher, Dani Jones And More Shine Just another ho-hum NCAA weekend with a 9.97/19.98 double, 44.09 in the 400m, 11.05/22.09 double, 51.8-second lap in a 1,500m. Plus there was some great distance action. From Grant Fisher‘s domination of the PAC-12 1,500 to the arrival of Texas A&M’s true freshman Devin Dixon as an NCAA star (1:45 win at SECs), we’ve got the top performances from last week covered.

• LSU Sprinter Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake Becomes Just The Second Brit Ever To Have Sub-10 And Sub-20 Second PRs Mitchell-Blake ran 9.99 and 20.09 to finish second to Christian Coleman twice at SECs.
• Ken Goe: “The Ducks’ PAC-12 Title Sweep Was A Total Team Effort”
• Oregon Women Move To #1 In Post-Conference National Rankings Arkansas moved from 5th to 2nd while top-ranked Texas A&M dropped to 4th.
• Texas A&M And Florida Men Stay 1-2 In Updated NCAA Ranks
• Event-By-Event Best 10 College Marks From The Weekend