Distance News

• August 5: Ben True And Mary Keitany Face Super-Deep Fields As They Return To Defend Their Titles At Beach To Beacon 10K True faces a deep field that includes Stephen Sambu, Tariku Bekele, Abdi Abdirahman, Cam Levins and Dan Huling while Keitany is up against Shalane Flanagan, Jordan Hasay, Meseret Defar, Joyce Chepkirui and Wude Ayalew.
• UTEP’s Michael Saruni Cut From Kenya’s World 800 Squad After Finishing 3rd At The Kenyan Trials AK had stated they would take the top 3 across the line, but gave the spot to Ferguson Rotich, who was 4th at the Trials, but was the 2016 Diamond League winner (they invited Saruni to the 4 x 400).
• The True Olympic Dream: Shelby Houlihan May Have A Street Named After Her In Her Hometown Of Sioux City “Houlihan Run” would pay tribute to Houlihan and also “help clear up past confusion” over the current street name.
• MileSplit Q&A With 1,500 Worlds Qualifier Johnny Gregorek Gregorek talks about going from 10th to 3rd in the last lap at USAs, being part of the fastest father-son mile duo and how he’s gone from a 4:20 HS miler to a 3:53 pro.
• Carrie Tollefson Podcast Q&A With Alysia Montano They talk about food, racing during pregnancy, athlete sponsorship, and more.

Euro Under-20 Champs *Live Results *Schedule *Live Streaming Info (Available Worldwide)

• 16-Year-Old Star Jakob Ingebrigsten Going For Hat Trick At European U20 Champs He’s entered in the 1,500, 5,000 and 3,000 steeple and there is only 2 hours between the 1,500 and 5,000 final.
• MB: Jakob Ingebrigtsen: please don’t start this attitude Ingebrigsten started his celebrations pretty early as he won his 1,500 heat.
• Preview: Championship Records Poised To Fall At European U20 Championships In Grosseto, Italy
  *How To Follow Euro U20 Champs

The Pro Vs. School Debate

• Syracuse Alum And NAZ Elite Pro Martin Hehir Leaves Flagstaff To Pursue Med School Hehir blogs about the “agonizing” decision whether to pursue his dream as a doctor or pro runner. Med school was too big of an opportunity to pass up, but he’ll still continue racing for NAZ Elite in the fall.
• Recommended Read Washington Post Takes A Look At Drew Hunter’s Decision To Go Pro After His 3:36 “I was surprised,” Hunter said. “I knew 3:36 was fast and obviously really good for my age. … It shows I’m off to a good start … and it’s a good club to be in for sure. It’s exciting to know I’m on the right path.”
  *MB: Drew Hunter gets profiled in Washington Post: “When I watch NCAAs, I get a gut-wrenching feeling …” 

Olympic Politics/Bidding/Admin

• Interesting Read: InsideTheGames: “Thomas Bach Deserves Top Marks For Political Skill, But Less So For Transparency After ‘Win-Win-Win” Nick Butler gives an insightful look at the tactics Bach used to “bulldoze through plans to jointly award the 2024 and 2028 Olympics to LA and Paris.”
• UK Athletics Chief Ed Warner Urges UK Sport To Give Equal Funding To Olympic And Paralympic Sports Individual Olympic and Paralympic athletes already get equal funding. That sounds like more than enough equality to us considering the greater depth of competition in able-bodied sports.
• India Considering Bidding For The 2032 Olympics
• Brendan Foster Joins Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Bid Team
• USA Today: Ryan Lochte Cleared Of Criminal Charge Stemming From Rio Olympics Incident

International Distance News

• 2012 Olympic 1,500 Champ Taoufik Makhloufi Will Miss Worlds With Calf Injury The Rio double silver medalist hasn’t raced at all in 2017.
• Paula Radcliffe Thinks Mary Keitany Could Break Her 2:15:25 Marathon WR “[Keitany] looks like the sure candidate to set a new mark and I want to encourage her to give it a try.”
• BBC Article/Video: Laura Muir Confident Before 1,500/5,000 Double Attempt At Worlds The London 2017 schedule works really well for Muir as her focus is the 1,500 and that is first with the 5,000 heats starting three days later.
• Nairobi News: “David Rudisha Trolled For Blond Twitter Moment” Rudisha spelled the word “applaud” as “upload” on Twitter and Kenyan fans (and Asbel Kiprop) didn’t let him live it down.
  *MB: Wise guy Asbel Kiprop Strikes Again

Early Week Results

• Canada’s Crystal Emmanuel Blasts 200m National Record With 22.50 At Cork City Meet In Ireland Distance winners included Oregon alum Sam Prakel in the mile with 3:55.89 (Leo Manzano was only 6th in 4:06.98), Sheila Reid in the 3,000 (8:54) and Reid Buchanan over Collis Birmingham in the 3,000 (7:50.26 to 7:50.47). Sophie O’Sullivan (15-year-old daughter of all-time great Sonia O’Sullivan) won the junior 800m (2:13.84). *Results *Video Replay
• Sandra Perkovic Breaks Her Own Croatian Discus NR With 71.41m In Switzerland It was the best throw in the world since 1992. Switzerland’s Selina Buchel (1:59.85) and Kenya’s Job Kinyor (1:45.17) won the 800s as Aries Merritt and Jasmin Stowers took the sprint hurdles and Brittney Reese beat Russia’s Dariya Klishina in the 100.

Random / Interesting

• LA Times: Caitlyn Jenner Considering Running For US Senate In California Next Year Jenner said, “I have considered it. I like the political side of it.”
  *MB: Please God No! Caitlyn Jenner Considering A Bid For U.S. Senate In California
• New Research Shows That Usain Bolt Could Outrun A T-Rex The Tyrannosaurus Rex was previously thought to run 45 mph, but a new study says it could only go 16.5 mph. That’s about 11 mph slower than Bolt sprints.
• Police Department Warns Criminals Not To Try To Outrun Their New Deputy We guess you could try if you think you can run faster than 1:45.76. That’s the 800 PR of former PAC-12 champ, Olympic Trials qualifier and policeman Jesse Jorgensen.

From The NCAA

• Good Blog Post: “Why Not Going To The University Of Oregon Was The Best Thing That Happened To Me” Stephen F. Austin University runner Colby Mehmen explains how not going to his “dream school” helped him go from a 4:42 high school miler to a 29:34 10Ker.
• Long-Time ASU Coach Louie Quintana Named As The New Head Coach At Oregon State Quintana coached at ASU for 16 years, working his way up from grad assistant to head coach and lead 48 athletes to All-American status.
  *MB: Louie Quintana to Oregon State
• 10 Questions With New LSU Distance Coach Mark Rinker
• Amy Cragg Will Be Inducted Into Arizona State Hall Of Fame
• Three-Time World 4 X 400 Champ Jessica Beard Named To Texas A&M Hall Of Fame

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.

World Under-18 Champs Continue In Kenya & European U-23 Champs in Poland *U18 Results *Event-By-Event Recaps *Live Streaming Info (Blocked In USA) *European U-23 Results *U-23 Live Stream

Sunday:

• World U18: Double Delight For Kenya On Final Day Of World U18 Champs Ethiopia’s Selemon Barega highlighted with a 7:47 victory in the 3,000 while Kenya got wins from Leonard Kipkemboi Bett (5:32) in the 2K steeple and Jackline Wambui (2:01.46) in the 800.
  *MB: Ethiopia finally found the successor to Kenenisa & Haile – His name Selemon Barega
• Predictable: Kenya Boys Go 1-2 In 2k Steeple The winning time at altitude – 5:32.52.
• SPIKES: South Africa’s Breyton Poole Proves You Don’t Have To Be Tall To Be A Champion High Jumper (At Least At The Youth Level) The 5-foot 7-inch Poole cleared 2.24m to prove the doubters wrong. Reminiscences of Franklin Jacobs.
• European U23: Konstanze Klosterhalfen Storms To Dominant 1,500m Gold With 4:10.30 She ran her last 800 in 2:01 to win by over 3 seconds. Turkey’s Yasemin Can broke the meet record with 15:01 to complete the 5,000/10,000 double.

Saturday:

• World U18: Day 4 Recap: 50,000+ Attend World Youth Day 4 But Ethiopia Shines It’s a shame the US and so many others skipped out as most athletes will never run in front of 50,000.
• President Of Kenya Insisted Tickets Be Free And The Fans Responded
• Ethiopians Lemlem Hailu And Sindu Girma Overcome Raucous Crowd And Go 1-2 In Girls 1,500
• Ethiopia Goes 1-2 As Boys Medalists Run 1:47
  
• Shaunae Miller-Uibo’s Little Brother Got 5th In HJ With 6’11” Clearance
• European U23: Iceland’s Anita Hinriksdottir Gets Silver In 800 As Belgium’s Renee Eykens Wins Gold At Euro U-23s

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.

Track And Field In The Real World

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

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.