LetsJump.com

• Recommended Read: Vice Sports: “The Five-Buck Bump Of Cocaine That Destroyed An Olympic Dream” Eric Thompson was a HJ prodigy with a full-ride to Arkansas and an Olympic dream, but five dollars of cocaine and some bad luck completely changed his life.
• Recommended Read #2: Former High Jumper Jamie Nieto Is Fighting Back From Paralysis To Walk On His Wedding Day Another nice article and video on Nieto, this time from The Sacramento Bee.
  *Previously: 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.
• Friday: Charlotte Street Pole Vault Is On Friday; Sandi Morris Highlights If you’re going to be near Charlotte, NC on Friday you should check it out.
• RIP: New Mexico Mourns The Passing Of 1965 Long And Triple Jump NCAA Champ Clarence Robinson
• Former Ivy League Triple Jump Champ Nadia Chika Eke Appeals To Ghana For Financial Support She won the 2016 African Champs for Ghana and wants to be able to travel to more meets.

Doping / Corruption

• USA Today: “Feds Don’t Want Lance Armstrong To Say ‘Everybody Was Doing It'” The US Justice Department is trying to prevent Armstrong from “putting the entire sport of cycling on trial,” by discussing the history of drugs in the sport.
• IAAF Council Member Frankie Fredericks Provisionally Suspended Pending Ethics Investigation He allegedly received payments from Papa Massata Diack days before voting on the 2016 Olympics. *IAAF Statement

Big Pub For Sydney M

Crossover Star: Sydney McLaughlin Is On The Cover Of Sports Illustrated The amount of money she’s going to make when she goes pro will be insane.

Speaking Of Covers: Kirby Lee Is A Track And Field Legend Behind The Camera

The Olympic Channel Has Launched In The US

• LRC USA Olympic TV Channel Launched In The US On Saturday Learn what will be on it. It’s a partnership between the USOC, IOC, and NBC which will have archival Olympic footage, original programming and some live events that otherwise might not have been on TV.
• Peter Ueberroth Isn’t Gloating Even Though He Tried To Start An Olympic Channel In 2009
• Where Does The IOC Spend Its Money? Read This To Find Out

Previous WU18 And EuropeanU23 Championship News

• IAAF Day 3: Kenya’s George Manangoi Crushes 1,500 Field, Jamaica’s De’Jour Russell Wins 110H In 13.04, Cuba’s Jordan Diaz Wins TJ With Ridiculous 17.30m Diaz is now 7th in the world in 2017 and he’s just 16. Video Of Jump
• Winner Of Boys 1,500 At World U18s Is The Younger Brother Of 2015 WC Silver Medalist Elijah Manangoi
• Antonio Watson Wins WU18 Title In 46.59
• Spikes Recaps The 1st Half Of The World U18 Championships
• With Ethiopia Favored, It Looks Like Kenya May Lose Boys 800 Final For First Time Since 2009
• IAAF Day 2 Recap: Thrilling LJ Showdown Highlights As Cuba Goes 1-2 Maikel Y. Vidal won with a world U18 lead of 7.88m.
• Day 2 Morning Recap Ethiopia’s Selemon Barega led the way with 7:55.

• Europeans: 21-Year-Old Ojie Edoburun (GBR) Sprints To European U23 100m Title In 10.14
• Ireland’s/Villanova’s Penn Relays Hero Síofra Cléirigh-Buttner Is Ready For European U23s We still can’t believe she didn’t make the NCAA final as we thought she’d contend for the title.

Distance News

• Interesting Read: Cam Levins Opens Up About Doping Allegations, His Decision To Leave NOP And His Relationship With Alberto Salazar Levins had a “pretty good” relationship with Salazar, although not as personal as he has with his former college coach Eric Houle. Levins said the doping allegations were tough, but weren’t why he left the and he has “the utmost faith” that his former teammates are clean.
• Drew Windle Has Been Mirroring Dave Wottle’s And Nick Symmonds’ Come-From-Behind Racing Style However, Windle clarifies that’s not his “trademark style or anything,” just what has worked for him lately.
• 2008 Olympian Amy Begley Finishes Second In W30-39 800m At USATF Masters Championships Begley ran 2:36.79, finishing behind Lisa Edwards (2:35.57). Another highlight: 92-year-old Mary Norckauer, who is running 12 events. She won the W90 800 in 7:31 and still has 11 events to go. *Live Results
• Scottish Runner Saves Drowning Woman Who Fell Off Bridge, Then Finishes Run A bystander said, “She could easily have died if he hadn’t taken action. Afterwards, he just put his hat on and jogged off … as if nothing had happened.”
• Podcast Q&A: Carrie Tollefson Interviews Former US Marathon Great Dick Beardsley Beardsley talks about his struggle with addiction, his passion for the sport, and moving back to Minnesota to open a bed and breakfast.

Upcoming Distance Action

• August 20: Mo Farah’s Last Track Race Will Be At The Birmingham Diamond League “I’m really looking forward to what will be my final track race … I’m sure it will be a day I remember for the rest of my life.”
• July 28: Heather Kampf And Ben Blankenship Will Defend Their Titles At the GNC Live Well Liberty Mile Blankenship faces Kyle Merber while Kampf is up against Katie Mackey and Emily Lipari.
• August 4: Deepest Women’s Field Yet Announced For 2017 Sir Walter Miler Stephanie Garcia, Heather Kampf, Emily Lipari, Nicole Tully, Katie Mackey and more.
• August 10: Deep American Fields Set For West Chester Mile And 800 The men’s race has Leo Manzano, Garrett Heath, Cristian Soratos, Kyle Merber and more while the women are lead by Katie Mackey, Emily Lipari, Lauren Johnson and Amanda Eccleston.
• September 10: Mary Keitany And Mo Farah Vs. Dathan Ritenhein Headline At Great North Run Half Marathon

Track And Field In The Real World

LRCSports Radio In Dallas Talks Track And Field: "I think the WNBA is laughing at these guys."

US Marathon News: Ritz To Brooks

RRW Three-Time Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein Has Joined The Hansons-Brooks Original Distance Project Since 180 days had passed since Ritz’s Nike contract expired, he was free to sign and he chose to go with Brooks.
*MB: Breaking: Dathan Ritzenhein has joined the Hansons-Brooks Original Distance Project

2020 US Olympic Marathon Trials Standards Announced The marathon standards stay at 2:19 and 2:45, but the half marks are quicker at 64:00 and 73:00 (dropped from 65:00 and 75:00 in 2016).
*MB: USATF Announces 2020 Olympic Trials Marathon qualifying standards

Evaluating The Sport

• Is Scrapping The Pre-2005 World Records A Good Idea? An Interesting Discussion Between Kara Goucher And Several Sports Writers The general consensus was that the new proposed criteria for WRs is good, but most are against scrapping the old marks.
• Ross Tucker Doesn’t Think The New Testosterone Study Will Be Enough For CAS To Reinstate The IAAF’s Hyperandrogenism Policy He thinks CAS will argue that the advantage hyperandrogenic women have is the same as other genetic differences (such as height in basketball), but Tucker points out that there aren’t different categories for height, while there are for sex.
• Toni Reavis Gives Props To The London Diamond League Coverage He also proposes an interesting idea to deal with the false start issue and TV – don’t re-start the race. Just let it run and DQ the false starting athlete after the race.
• Coaching Tip: “Why It’s Not Good For A Coach To Go All Braveheart In The Dressing Room”
• The Telegraph: “More People Than Ever Are Running, But Fewer Bother Taking Notice Of Elite Athletics” (You can access one free premium article a week with an account.)

2017 USAs Prediction Contest

LRC Who Won Our 2017 Running Warehouse USAs Prediction Contest? A Pro, An Olympic Trials Qualifier, A 3:40 1,500m Runner And An All-State High School Runner See who the kings and queens of LetsRun.com are. Our contest winners this time are by far the most impressive group running-wise in the history of contest winners on LRC.