Sprint Stuff

• Asafa Powell Has A Chance To Make Jamaica’s World 4×100 Squad If He Can Prove His Fitness It is kind of bad luck for Powell that he isn’t going since he won the Diamond League last year so should have a wildcard spot, but Jamaica is already using their wildcard on Usain Bolt as defending champ.
• Former Oregon Sprinter Kyree King Added To Team USA World Champs Roster To Replace Christian Coleman King finished 4th in the 200 at USAs.
• Good Read: Outside Magazine: “There Will Never Be Another Usain Bolt” Martin Fritz Huber writes of Bolt’s races, “There were times when the race itself felt almost secondary—a brief interlude between the before-and-after party.”
• Usain Bolt Talks About How He Plans To Celebrate His Retirement Bolt says since he’ll be in the UK, he hopes to party with friend and Manchester United soccer player Paul Pogba.
• NBC Sports Q&A With Allyson Felix Felix talks about why she didn’t want to do the 200/400 double at Worlds and what it was like to compete at Usain Bolt‘s final Jamaican meet.

Doping News

• The Telegraph: Mo Farah Hits Out At Media For “Making Something Out Of Nothing” After Latest Fancy Bear Hack “I am sick of repeating myself year after year. … You guys just make something out of nothing … I will never, ever fail a drugs test.”
  *The Guardian: “Mo Farah Takes Media To Task Over Leak Story” Farah: “My life is not as easy as people think. … I wish you guys would understand it a bit more and write down the facts.”
• 9-Years Later: British 4×400 Relay Team Awarded Their 2008 Olympic Bronze Medals At The London DL They were upgraded to bronze when the Russian squad was caught in doping retests.
• Slovakia’s Olympic Race Walk Champion Matej Toth Will Miss Worlds Due To IAAF Doping Investigation Toth is being investigated for biological passport anomalies and claims that he pulled out of Worlds because he is too exhausted from dealing with this issue (more likely he was made to withdraw due to the investigation). *Discuss
• IAAF Approves 16 More Russians To Compete As Neutral Athletes The most notable name to be cleared was 2013 LJ world champ Aleksandr Menkov.
• NY Times: “Some Ultramarathons Now Test For Drugs” As ultra racing gets bigger and more money involved, naturally more cheats will find their way into the sport.

Canadian Champs In The Books *Results

• Andre De Grasse Wins Canadian 200 Title In Wind-Aided 19.96 After Words he gave what he estimates as “probably hundreds, maybe thousands” of autographs, including signing body parts like hands and a neck.
• Melissa Bishop Wins Her Fourth Canadian 800 Title In 2:00.26 Brandon McBride (1:45.23) won the men’s race.
• Arizona’s NCAA Champ Sage Watson Wins 400H At Canada Champs Watson ran 54.97 to break a 14-year-old MR and become the second fastest Canadian of all-time.
• Texas’ Kirema Macharia Wins Canadian 400H Title
• Mo Ahmed Wins Canadian 5,000 Title Over Justyn Knight Ahmed ran 14:02.36 to beat Knight by .80.
• Matt Hughes Rebounds From Freak Fire Hydrant Accident To Make Canadian World Team In The Steeple Hughes injured his knee when he ran into a fire hydrant back in March and only started training 6 weeks ago. But he bounced back to run 8:30 to win his 4th title and get the Worlds qualifying mark.
• Andre De Grasse Runs 10.11 To Win His Third Consecutive Canadian 100m Title De Grasse was disappointed by the slow time and said he was annoyed he couldn’t listen to music before the race as he forgot his headphones at his hotel.
• MB: Official 2017 Canadian Champs Discussion Thread

Sprints And Jumps

• Christian Coleman Will Only Run The 100 At Worlds With 48 races this year, his coach thought it’d be best to skip the 200.
• Recommended Read: 14 Years Ago, Perdita Felicien Became Canada’s First Female World Champion, Winning An Upset 100H Gold Over Jamaica’s Brigitte Foster-Hylton Felicien talks about her 2003 gold, her career and going on to become a sports journalist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation after retiring.
• Recommended Read #2: US High Jumper Jamie Nieto Trying To Defy The Doctors To Be Ready To Walk For His July Wedding Nieto suffered a spinal cord injury when doing a backflip in 2016. Doctors weren’t sure if he’d ever walk at all, but now he’s up to 130 steps without a cane or walker, which should about get him from the altar to the church door on his wedding day.
• Sweden’s Lea Sprunger Continued Her Breakout Season With A 54.29 Runner-Up Finish In Deep 400H Race At The Lausanne DL At 27, Sprunger is a “late comer” to the top tier of the T&F world as she started in the heptathlon and 200 and didn’t move to the 400H until 2015.
• LSU’s Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake Returns Home To London As Britain’s Fastest Sprinter Mitchell-Blake was born in London, but moved to Jamaica at 13 years old before coming to the US for college. Now he’s back in London to race at the Anniversary Games on Sunday.

Need A Job? Want To Make The Sport Less Corrupt?

• IAAF’s Athletics Integrity Unit Seeking Administration & Office Manager For Its Headquarters In Monaco
• IAAF Looking For An Ethical Compliance Officer/Regulatory Lawyer

Latest Fancy Bears/Anti-Doping Hack News *Read The Docs Here

Asbel Kiprop And Fellow Kenyan Stars Julius Yego, And Helah Kiprop All React To Being On IAAF Suspicious List Kiprop: “I have never boosted (my blood).” Kiprop also posted on Facebook. Discuss Here
*Kenyan Athletics President On Fancy Bears Hack: “… this information should just be treated as propaganda until otherwise confirmed.”

Latest II: Evan Jager Releases Statement On Fancy Bears Hack: “I have never and will never break or try to bend an anti-doping rule.” Jager also says, “I was incredibly shocked to see my name amongst a list of athletes believed to be ‘likely doping.'”
*Discussion: Evan Jager responds!

Mo Farah: Fancy Bears Hack Prompts Response From Olympic Champion As His Team Stresses He Has Never Failed A Blood Test
*New Fancy Bears Leak Says IAAF Cleared Mo Farah After Doping Fear

The Latest IAAF Issues Statement On Fancy Bears’ Release of Portions Of Many Athletes’ Biological Passport Data – Offers “Sincerest Apologies” To Athletes Whose Data Was Leaked And Says ABP Is A “Dynamic Process”

Other Doping News: Russian Athletics Federation Urges Dopers DQed From 2008 And 2012 Olympics To Return Medals

More Depressing News / That Latest On The Intersex Debate

• Important/Recommended Read Ross Tucker Doesn’t Think The Latest Study On Testosterone & Performance Will Be Enough For CAS To Reinstall The Hormone Therapy Requirements For Intersex Athletes “If I were a betting man, I’d say that CAS will dismiss their appeal and that the status quo will remain, much as I wish it would change,” says Tucker, who points out that CAS is looking for proof that testosterone is responsible for the entire 10-12% male/female difference in performance not the 4% that Semenya has improved since going off hormone therapy.
• Dutee Chand Agrees With Tucker “Dutee also does not believe that this (research) paper satisfies the high bar that was set for the IAAF by CAS.”

A Victory For Women’s Sports?

• IAAF: Leveling The Playing Field In Female Sport: New Research Published In The British Journal Of Sports Medicine Supports Hyperandrogenism Regulations The study found that female athletes with high testosterone levels can have a 1.8% to 4.5% competitive advantage. The IAAF will use this new research in their CAS case to reinstate the suspended hyperandrogenism rules.
• The Guardian: “Caster Semenya Could Be Forced To Undertake Hormone Therapy For Future Olympics” Unfortunately the regulations wouldn’t be reinstated in time for 2017 Worlds.
• Joanna Harper: “Using Testosterone To Categorize Male And Female Athletes Isn’t Perfect, But It’s The Best Solution We Have” Harper, a gender-in-sport expert who has written for LRC, evaluates the new study and what it means for hyperandrogenic athletes.

European News

• Darren Campbell And Goldie Sayers Claim British Athletics Is “Killing The Sport” They criticized British Athletics for letting all the top athletes skip the meet which created terrible attendance numbers.
• Birmingham 2022 Promises Full Stadiums For Commonwealth Games After Low Crowds At UK Athletics Trials TV commentator Tim Hutchings called the lack of attendance “disgraceful” and criticized top stars for not competing.
• Weekend Euro Round-Up: Lea Sprunger Smashes 27-Year-Old Swiss 400 Record With 51.09 On Sunday At the Belgian National Championships, the Borlee brothers went 1-3, separated by .59.
• French Olympic Silver Medalist Discus Thrower Melina Robert-Michon Talks About The Challenge Of Coming Back After Giving Birth To Her Daughter She trained up until she was 8 months pregnant and started up again two months after giving birth, but still struggled to get back to her top form and couldn’t even lift the bar without any weight on it her first gym session back.
• IAAF Approves Application For Russian Racewalker Klavdiia Afanaseva To Compete As A Neutral Athlete That brings the total of Russians eligible to compete to 25.
• BBC: GB’s David King Expects More After Sealing 110H World Spot King said he doesn’t “want to be one of these athletes that just go out at the heats.”
• IAAF: Former Greek Olympic Committee President Minos Kyriakou Has Died

Saturday Paris Diamond League *Results

LRC  Paris Recap: Sifan Hassan Beats Faith Kipyegon, Ronald Kwemoi And Omar McLeod Lose For First Time, Nijel Amos Is Back?  The World Championships picture may be getting a little bit clearer after Paris and Sifan Hassan may be your new favorite. Get up to speed on everything in Paris.

• Paris Discussion: Live Paris Diamond League Thread
• Kwemoi not so impressive in Paris Edris outkicked him for win in 3,000.
• Is Ben MF True the stockiest elite distance runner of all time? True took lead in 3,000 and got 6th in 7:35.
• Can a sprint expert explain all the false starts in Paris?

Drug News: Some Ajee Wilson Follow-Ups

• Bicycling.com: Don’t Believe That Story That Says EPO Doesn’t Help Athletes
• Deadspin: “The Curious Case Of Ajee Wilson’s Positive Drug Test” Wilson’s positive test for Zeranol generated a lot of questions. If this substance is so commonly used with livestock, why aren’t there more positive tests and why is Zeranol (an estrogen) even on the banned list in the first place? Sarah Barker tries to answer some of these questions.
• Athletics Illustrated: Ajee Wilson’s Positive Test; Something Other Than Beef Smells Rancid Here Christopher Kelsall takes a much more skeptical look at Wilson’s failed test and feels that USADA’s/Wilson’s story “doesn’t pass the smell test.”
• WADA Revokes Accreditation Of Two Drug-Testing Laboratories In South Africa And Kazakhstan

More British News

• Good Read: Legendary BBC Commentator (And Runner) Brendan Foster Is Retiring From Announcing: “I’ve loved it, but you have to get out at the right time.” Foster talks about some of his favorite memories from his 37 years of commentating. He also talks about how it’s “bloody horrible commentating on people who you know have doped and you can’t say.”

• BBC: How Annie Conway Went From A Weekend Fun Runner To A World Champion Conway picked up running in her late 20s to stay in shape with her husband, but 8 years later she was the World Long Distance Mountain Running Champion.
• UK Athletics Chairman Ed Warner Calls For UK Sport To Be Scrapped Warner claims governing bodies have been “thrown off a cliff” by UK sport after 11 sports were left without lottery funding for the 2020 Olympic cycle.
• Images Released Of What Stadium Would Look Like if Birmingham Awarded 2022 Commonwealth Games

Distance News: Steve Spence’s Streak Survives

• 55-Year-Old Former US Olympian Steve Spence Runs 4:55 To Extend His Streak Of Sub-5 Minute Miles To 42 Years “I try to keep it fun, but it’s starting to become a little stressful because of the expectations I have of myself. Each year it gets a little harder. I have to train more. A few years ago, I could just go out and do it.”
  *MB: BREAKING! Steve Spence runs 4:55 and continues his sub5 steak to 42 years.
• Good Read: IAAF Profile: Yuki Kawauchi Is Running His 70th Career Marathon On Sunday At The Gold Coast Marathon Kawauchi with his prolific racing and full-time job “defies categorization” as a normal elite runner.
• UK’s Laura Muir Still Wants To Do 1,500/5,000 Double At World Champs Despite Foot Injury BA performance director Neil Black was quoted saying that she had “a one percent” chance of doubling up in London, but Muir tweeted in response, “Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
• Recommended Read: Daily Mail Profile On Laura Muir, Who Says She Rather Have Gone For The Win In Rio And Lose A Medal Than Play It Safe And Finish Third Muir is very blue collar compared to some athletes as she says she talks about how hardly takes any supplements and hates using pain killers and said she tried a sports psychologist, but it wasn’t for her.
  *MB: Laura Muir shades Jenny Simpson (Olympics)
• The Guardian: Mo Farah Vows To Stick With Alberto Salazar But Also Eyes Return To UK Farah denied previous reports that he was leaving Salazar when he moves up to the marathon, but he has apparently been looking at houses in the UK.