IAAF Turns The Men’s 400 Into A Joke

• BBC: Wayde Van Niekerk Storms To 400m Gold In London Van Niekerk ran 43.98 to win handily over Bahamas’ Steven Gardiner (44.41) and Qatar’s Abdalelah Haroun (44.48). NCAA champ Fred Kerley was 7th.
• Totally Absurd: IAAF/British BARRED Isaac Makwala From Competing In 400 Final Because He Was Sick Public Health Britain recommends that someone with norovirus be isolated for 48 hours after diarrhea. It’s only a recommendation – not law.
• The Telegraph: “Van Niekerk’s Stunning 400m Triumph Overshadowed By Withdrawal Of Rival Isaac Makwala”
• Botswana Federation Bashes IAAF For Lack Of Communication They also claim “no medical tests” were conducted, just “generalized assumptions” based on “one symptom.” It’s also worth noting that a German TJer despite her illness.
• Van Niekerk Responds “As much as we all strive to leave with gold medals we also want to go out there and have best guys on the track with us.”
• IAAF Statement “The IAAF is very sorry … but we have to think of the welfare of all athletes.”
• The Telegraph: British Team Issued With Personal-Hygiene Guidance

More Tuesday Non-Distance Action

• Athletics Weekly: Barbora Spotakova Regains World Javelin Title A Decade Later Spotakova won her first world title in 2007, but hadn’t been on top of the podium at Worlds since.
• USA’s Dalilah Muhammad And And Kori Carter Advance To 400H Final 2015 World silver medalist Shamier Little was a distant 4th in her heat and didn’t advance.
• USA’s Deahjah Stevens And Kimberlyn Duncan Advance To 200m Semis Tori Bowie was a DNS and a USATF statement said she was recovering from her fall at the finish line of the 100m.
• If Allyson Felix Finishes Top 3 In Tomorrow’s 400 Final, She’ll Tie The Record For Most World Championships Medals The record is 14 and held by Usain Bolt and former Jamaican-born Slovenia sprinter Merlene Ottey.
• AP: Allyson Felix Relishes Rematch At Worlds After Close 400 Loss To Shaunae Miller-Uibo In Rio Felix: “I never get past losses. They just motivate me. It’s a part of my story.”

Monday Non-Distance Action

• AP: Gold For Jamaica’s Omar McLeod As He Does In The 110 Hurdles What His Countryman Couldn’t Do In The 100 McLeod ran 13.04 to win over Russian “neutral” Sergey Shubenkov and Hungary’s Balazs Baji. The USA was shut out of the medals for the first time in Worlds history as Aries Merritt finished 5th.
• Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas Dethrones Caterine Ibarguen In Fierce Triple Jump Battle The two exchanged the lead multiple times, but in the end Rojas won by the smallest of margins with 14.91m to Ibarguen’s 14.89.
• European-Athletics: Anita Wlodarczyk In A Class Of Her Own As London Basks In Her Brilliance Yet another gold for Poland’s consistent hammer thrower as she threw 77.90m to beat China’s Zheng Wang by almost 2 meters.
• Allyson Felix And Phyllis Francis Advance To Women’s 400m Final US’s Quanera Hayes went out.

Illness Epidemic Hits Worlds Hotel

• World Champs Hotel Hit By Norovirus As Athletes Forced To Withdraw Due To Illness Outbreak Multiple athletes from the same hotel, including Botswana’s Isaac Makwala, suffered gastroenteritis. This forced Makwala to withdraw from the 200m.
• Isaac Makwala Insists He’s Fit To Run The 400 After Illness Forces Him Out Of 200 Heats Apparently he said he warmed up and was ready to run the 200, but IAAF medical officials instructed (forced?) him to withdraw.
• Ireland 400H Runner Thomas Barr Was Forced To Pull Out Of Worlds With Illness He had made the semifinal, but was hit by gastroenteritis.
• Up To 3 People Hit By Virus Outbreak At London World Championships Hotel
• Reuters: Hotel Says It’s Not To Blame For Athletes’ Stomach Bug Do they think it’s a coincidence that Botswana, German, Canadian, Irish and Puerto Rican athletes staying at the same hotel all got sick?

Justin Gatlin Is The British Media’s Scapegoat

• Recommended Watch: Michael Johnson Calls Out Steve Cram Over Failure To Put Spotlight On Drug Cheats Johnson accuses the media of vilifying Gatlin when he’s far from the only past drug cheat still competing in the sport.
• The Irish Times: BBC Happy To Ignore The (British) Elephant In The Room John O’Sullivan writes that their “treatment of Gatlin is in stark contrast to the refusal to ask questions about Mo Farah [and Alberto Salazar.]”
• IAAF Denies 100m Medal Ceremony Was Moved Over Justin Gatlin Boo Fears It was originally supposed to be at 8PM when the stadium would be packed, but was moved to 6:50PM.
• The Independent: “It’s Not Good Enough For Usain Bolt To Bat Away Doping Questions” Cathal Dennehy wasn’t thrilled by Bolt’s response to a doping question at the 100m press conference.
  *MB: Most Entertaining Part of Press Conference: Usain Bolt Takes Offense at Reporters Anti-Doping Question
• MB: Was Usain Bolt’s stunning loss last night actually a great development for track as it proves Bolt is clean?
• The Independent: “Justin Gatlin is the shameless fraud who plays the system perfectly.”
• Usain Bolt Says Justin Gatlin Had “Done His Time” And Deserved 100m World Title

Beach To Beacon 10K *Results

• Mary Keitany Lowers Her Course Record For Repeat Win And Stephen Kosgei Kibet Holds Off Ben True To Reclaim Title At Beach To Beacon 10K Kosgei ran 27:55 to beat True by 1 second while Keitany won comfortably in 30:41 and Shalane Flanagan was the top American in 4th, with an identical 31:14 time as former Olympic champ Meseret Defar.
• RRW: Course Record For Mary Keitany At TD Beach To Beacon 10-K
• Pre-Race: RRW: America’s Marathon Past, Present And Future On Display At Beach To Beacon 10K

Outside Saturday Worlds Coverage – Gatlin Wins And The UK Is Pissed

• South Africa’s Luvo Manyonga Leaps To Golden Moment In London Long Jump USA’s Jarrion Lawson was a close second, leaping 8.44m to Manyonga’s 8.48m. SA’s Ruswahl Samaai took bronze.
• UK Headline: Usain Bolt Beaten In Last Solo Race As Drug Cheat Justin Gatlin Gatecrashes World 100m Final There were boos from the crowd and plenty of disdain from the British media.
• Justin Gatlin’s Medal Ceremony Moved To Avoid Booing
• Seb Coe: “Sport rarely settles upon the perfect script. Life’s just not like that.” “I’m hardly going to sit here and tell you I’m eulogistic that somebody that has served two bans in our sport would walk off with one of our glittering prizes …”
• Pat Butcher: “The Bad Guy Wins”
• Seb Coe: “The second ban, we went for an eight-year ban, which would have, in essence, been a life ban. We lost that.”
• Bolt: “London, I really appreciate the support you gave me. I’m just sorry I couldn’t deliver as I wanted.”
• Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s HJ Flop Hits Heptathlon Medal Hopes She has a 1.98m PR, but only cleared 1.80m. She did bounce back, though, with a quick 200m to put herself in 4th going into the second day.
  *Johnson-Thompson Moves Into 3rd After LJ
• IAAF Saturday Worlds Recap

LRC Betting Odds For 2017 IAAF London World Championships In Track And Field / Athletics What American man has the best odds (60%)  for gold in a mid-d/distance event? What woman has the best odds at just 9%?

Non-Worlds Distance News

• Recommended Read: The Allegiance Switching Problem In Track And Field Is Much More Serious Than You Think Ethiopian runner Lily Abdullayev says athletes are “treated like sporting slaves” and talks about how corrupt coaches and officials stole prize money and tricked her into taking dangerous drugs when she switched to Azerbaijan.
• NCAA Champions And All-Americans Marc Scott, Henry Wynne, MJ Erb And Josh Thompson Sign With KIMbia Athletics Scott and Thompson joined the Bowerman TC, Wynne the Brooks Beasts and Erb a Saucony team coached by Tim Broe.
• MB: 15-Year-Old Brandon Miller Runs 1:49.87 Freshman Class Record To Win AAU Junior Olympics 800m Miller led wire-to-wire to win by over 5 seconds. *Meet Results
• NPR Interview With Sports Writer Kate Fagan, Author Of New Book On UPenn Suicide Victim Madison Holleran Fagan’s new book is titled, “What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles And Tragic Death Of An All-American Teen.”
  *MB: Madison Holleran Story
• AP: Man Running Across US For Charity Struck By Hit-And-Run Driver In Ohio Nicholas Ashill was flown to Columbus hospital and is in “fair condition.”
• Not Your Every Day Headline: RW: Recovered From Paralysis, A Runner, His Surgeon And The Driver Who Hit Him Reunite For A Half Marathon

Olympic News

• Don’t Quit Your Day Job: The Telegraph: Former British Olympic Badminton Silver Medalist Issues Public Cry For Help As She Admits She Can’t Find A Job Or Pay The Bills Gail Emms says she lacks the credentials to find regular employment (she has a sports science degree) and has to sell belongings on eBay to pay the bills.
• Kenya Facing Olympic Ban After Government Refuse To Back Plan To Allow NOCK Elections To Take Place Things just wouldn’t feel right if Kenya wasn’t on the brink of being banned for something.
  *Premature Celebrations: NOCK Elecction Set To Finally Go Ahead After Legal Objection Dropped
• Public Poll Says LA 2028 Has 83% Support
• IPC President Hopes LA 2028 Will Help Paralympic Movement Grow In The US Paris and LA have both hosted the Olympic twice, but neither has ever hosted a Paralympics.
• Tokyo 2020 Opens Mascot Design Competition To Public Come on Japan, we know you can do better than 2012’s “walking alien penis creatures.”
• The Netherlands Not Currently Planning 2032 Olympic Bid We’ve barely decided the 2024/2028 hosts and already talk is on to 2032.
• IOC Payments To LA 2028 To Start By January 1, 2018 THe IOC will send quarterly installments of of $9 million.
• Kobe Bryant Stars In LA 2028 Promotional Video
• French President Meets With Thomas Bach After LA 2028 Announcement

The Wait Is Over

LRC $200,017 LRC Running Warehouse LetsRun.com Worlds Prediction Contest Is Here! The World Champs start Friday. It’s time to get down to business and enter our prediction contest. Easy to do even if you know very little about Worlds.

Running Form Analysis

• Interesting: Running Form Analyst Jae Gruenke Takes A Deeper Look At The Recent NY Times Article On Usain Bolt’s Unusually Asymmetrical Stride Gruenke says that the asymmetry found in Bolt is actually extremely common in distance runners, including all-time greats like Eliud Kipchoge.
• IAAF: Largest Ever Biomechanics Research Project In Athletics To Be Undertaken At London 2017 A team of 41 people will use high speed cameras and video to analyze athlete biomechanics across 17 events (including the steeplechase, 10,000 and marathon).