2017 IAAF London Worlds Start Next Friday

Fri. 4:20pm ET LRC Men’s 10,000 Preview: Geoffrey Kamworor Gets One Final Crack At Mo Farah On The Track On the 5-year anniversary of his first Olympic gold medal, Mo Farah will look to end his 10,000 career in style – with yet another gold medal. Can Geoffrey Kamworor pull off the upset?

Sat. 3:10pm ET LRC Women’s 10,000 Preview: Almaz Ayana Vs. Tirunesh Dibaba In A Battle Of Ethiopian Legends This race is fascinating on paper. Dibaba is the GOAT in the event but Ayana is the fastest and current Olympic champ. Who has the edge?

• LRC Entry Lists For 2017 World Champs Now Available Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher are listed in the marathon but they are not entered.
• Mo Farah: “I’m not quite in the shape I’d like to be at this stage but I’m moving well so I hope it’ll go well.”
• David Rudisha Is “Excited” To Return To London Where He Mesmerized The World In 2012 The article gives little insight as to whether he’s in shape or not.
• Usain Bolt Isn’t The Only Legend Retiring In 2017 – So Is Brendan Foster The former WR holder is retiring from his broadcasting career after 37 years on the job.
• BBC Televised A 45-Minute Special – Brendan Foster: A Life In Athletics – On Saturday If you missed it, you can watch it here if you have a UK IP address.
• London 2017 Is Already 50% More Popular Than Any Other Worlds In History They’ve sold 660,000 tickets already and the previous best was 417,156. More tickets have just become available as explained here.

More Worlds

• Caster Will Have Company Dutee Chand Gets Invite To Run 100m Her PR of 11.30 is just off the 11.27 standard but she got in on the descending order list.
• Chijindu Ujah Admits Psychologically It’s Hard To Beat Usain Bolt “Psychologically it’s a big thing to beat him. He’s won so many titles but you can’t be thinking about that when you line up next to him. If I can beat him now it will give me the world of confidence.”
• 6 Years Ago, David Omoregie’s Father And Sister Died Within A Month Of Each Other; Now He’s Going To Worlds In The 110H He’s a big talent as he ran 13.24 at age 20.
• Nigeria’s Ese Brume – The Commonwealth Games LJ Champ – Wants A Medal In London
• 1st 3 Nights At Worlds Will All Feature Medal Ceremonies For People Denied Medals Due To Doping One of them will go to Christine Ohuruogu, who missed a year for missing three drug tests in a year.
• TFN’s 2017 World Championships Medal Picks For Men
• TFN’s 2017 World Championships Medal Picks For Women
• Who Needs Journalists? Microsoft And IAAF Announce They Have Invented A SPIKES Bot On Skype That Will Start Working Next Week

Not Your Normal Boring Reads

• Guy Who Is Finishing 4,000-Mile Run Across America Says Running A Fast Mile Is Just As Hard “There’s a great fascination with ultras being harder than other races, but the mile is every bit as difficult as 100 miles if you apply yourself to it.” *Discuss
• Runner Logs More Than 500 Miles On Treadmill In 7 Days To Attempt World Record, But Guinness Refuses To Ratify It As Her Boyfriend Was Her Main Witness
• 10 Years And 2 Years After Their Deaths, Toni Reavis Remembers Mike Long And Zane Branson
• Profile Of Sandy Monahan, Leadville’s “Cutoff Queen” – aka The Angel Of Death … aka The Angel Of Mercy …
• What Happens When A Mid-Packer Buys Nike’s $250 Vaporfly 4% Shoe
• Gesa Krause Gives Out Some Advice On How To Succeed As A Pro Runner She says you must have motivation.
• Had It Not Been For A “Bunch Of Idiots,” Filip Ingebrigtsen Says He Would Have Broken Norwegian Record In Monaco This article has a full translation of his quotes after Monaco.
• Questions With Jim Weber, CEO, Brooks Running

Previous Worlds News

• After Meeting Anti-Doping Deadline, Kenya Finalizes Its World Championships Team Michael Saruni has been left at home with the bogus excuse of “his form is wanting” and reigning 400H champ Nicholas Bett is out with injury.
• Justin Gatlin Believes Usain Bolt Could Make A Comeback After Retirement  So do we.
• Katharina Heinig, Daughter Of 1988 Olympic Marathon Bronze Medalist Katrin Dörre-Heinig, Will Be Making Her WC Debut In London Katharina’s PR is 2:28:34.
• 3-Minute Video Highlights Of All The IAAF Diamond League Meets So Far
  
• On Her 51st Birthday, Sally Gunnell Remembers Her 1993 400H World Title And WR
• Mo Farah Will Keep Racing After Worlds: Mo Farah Will End His Track Career In $50,000 DL Finale In Zurich On August 24

Doping Updates

• Unnamed Bahamas Athlete Reportedly Tests Positive For A Banned Steroid Apparently it’s one of the Bahamas World team members, so keep an eye out for a withdrawal “due to injury” before Worlds.
• August 2: IAAF To Hear Report On Russia’s Progress Towards Reinstatement Prior To London 2017
• WADA President Craig Reedie Says Russia Is Making Progress, But They Still Have To Admit To Their Doping Past Reedie: “One of the conditions for renewed compliance is actually an admission that there was a problem and hopefully some declaration of contrition … So the Russian authorities are aware of that and we encourage them to do something about that …”

Latest Worlds Team Naming News

• MB: Ethiopian steepler Chala Beyo gets screwed over by federation and left of WC team – Punches coach and gets banned for 2 years Beyo was third at the Ethiopian Trials and is the third-fastest Ethiopian on the year but was left off their Worlds team.
• UTEP’s Michael Saruni Back In Kenya Pre-Worlds Training Camp After Getting Kicked Out For Three Days Saruni doesn’t know what event he’s running, but one report said he would run in the 4 x 400 after being cut from the 800 squad.
  *Kenyan Journalist Says The “Bright Side” Of The AK Selection Controversy Is That Kenya Has So Many Good 800 Runners To Choose From He writes, “After all, it doesn’t really matter who wins the 800m title … as long as he is Kenyan,” but we think the athletes, whose livelihood depends on running, would disagree.
• MB: 16-Year-Old Sub-4 Miler Jakob Ingebrigsten Added To Norway Team In The Steeplechase He ran 8:26 in his debut earlier this month and then won European U20 Champs.
• The Bahamas Names 21-Member Team For London
• Eliud Kipchoge Says Kenya’s Marathon Squad Will Sweep All The Medals In London
• IAAF Extends Invitations To Four Additional USATF Throwers Who Didn’t Have The Standard They include Olympic hammer throwers Rudy Winkler and Kibwe Johnson.
• Former Villanova All-American Jordan Williamsz Among 14 More Australians Added To Worlds Squad 14 more got in thanks to the IAAF invitations to fill the fields.
  *6 Villanovans Going To London
• Hammer Throwers Anita Wlodarczyk And Pawel Fajdek Lead Poland Team For Worlds Reigning 800m silver medalist Adam Kszczot also returns.
• Six More GB Athletes Get IAAF Invites To Worlds

Random But Interesting

• Good Read: 45-Year-Old Man Living Out Of His Car While Running A Marathon In All 59 US National Parks Bill Sycalik lived and worked in NYC, but left to pursue life and nature. Sycalik said, “Two things can happen in New York – you can either be fed by the energy or it can feed on you. I was not in a good space. … After that, I just decided that it [the stress] wasn’t worth it and life was too short.”
• Are Your Tattoos Affecting Your Performance? A new study shows that it’s possible the amount and saltiness of sweat changes after skin has been dyed.
• Men’s Fitness: “The Worst Sports For Your Knees, According To Science” New research found that elite runners, soccer players and weight lifters are 3-7 times more likely to suffer from osteoarthritis in their knees than elites in other sports. However, other studies have said running is actually good for your knees.

Free Entertainment To Get You Through Hump Day

• Quiz: Can You Name Every Men’s 100m World Champion? It’s not as hard as you might think. *Hint 1: There have been 15 winners, but you’ll only need to know 9 names. *Hint 2: The photo.
• Amusing Videos: From Jesse Owens To Michael Phelps – The Odd History Of Man Vs. Animal Owens raced a horse in Cuba in 1936 during halftime of a soccer game.