Nike Goes Political

• MB: LeBron James flies to ISTAF Berlin meet to support Caster Semenya
• MB: Nike will feature Colin Kaepernick in a new ad campaign, and pay him millions in endorsements

African Distance News

• Geoffrey Kamworor Almost Didn’t Become A Pro Runner As He Wanted To Be A Lawyer Kamworor says he “was a good student, a hard-working student”, but running eventually won out: “Running is my passion, my office. It is my daily activity that I cannot live without.”
• Short Q&A With Tirunesh Dibaba Dibaba says her favorite places in the world outside Ethiopia are NYC and London.
• MB: Sifan Hassan will be racing 10000m next season, because Alberto Salazar wants her to double 5000/10,000m at the WC and Olympics This from a recent video interview.

More Coverage From The Long Weekend

• Genzebe Dibaba Makes Mile World Record Attempt In Padua, Italy, But Falls Short With A 4:20.51 Victory The record is 4:12.56 and Dibaba went through 800 in 2:05.38 and still had a chance at 1200 with 3:12.1, but faded on the final lap. Spain’s Alvaro De Arriba beat out Erik Sowinski in the 800 with 1:45.47 while Russians Sergey Shubenkov (13.09 in the 110H) and Maria Lasitskene (1.95m in the HJ) highlighted non-distance action. USA’s English Gardner (11.11) and Michael Rodgers (10.10) won the 100m.
• NOP’s Suguru Osako Tunes Up For Chicago By Soloing A 61:01 PB At The Labor Day Half-Marathon In Redmond, WA
  *MB: Japanese runner showed up to a local half marathon today and ran 1:01
• Ryan Crouser Throws 22.09m To Win Zagreb Shot Put Crouser beat out World champ Tom Walsh (21.78m) in the street-meet event.
• European Athletics: Robert Harting Bids Farewell Where It All Began In The Berlin Olympic Stadium Estonia’s 2008 Olympic champ Gerd Kanter joked that Harting should carry on: “Robert won everything, he is Olympic champion, world champion, European champion and if he feels that it is time to quit, it is his decision. However, I am five years older than him and still here. Just kidding!”
• Mark Cullen’s ISTAF Berlin Recap And Reflections
• The Finnish Men And The Swedish Women Win Annual Finnkampen Javelin Match

Links That Meet Our Stringent Weekend Requirements

• A Look At Others Besides Conseslus Kipruto Who Have Tried To Win With One Shoe (Most Unsuccessfully) The likes of Moses Tanui, Jenny Simpson and Quincy Watts have all tried to win with one shoe in the past, none successfully.
• 1988 Olympic Decathlon Champ Christian Schenk Admits He Doped But He’ll Keep His Gold Medal Shocker: He competed for East Germany.
• HOKA Long Island Mile Is Wednesday Emily Lipari and Chris O’Hare will try to defend their titles as NCAA 10k champ Ben Flanagan looks to break 4:00 for the 1st time.

Other News That Makes The Cut

• Usain Bolt Made His Pro Soccer Debut Today on Friday He nearly had a goal in the 6-1 mismatch.
• Don’t Forget ISTAF Berlin Is Sunday – Caster Semenya And Timothy Cheruiyot Will Be There At the meet, Robert Harting and Kim Collins will also both call it a career.
  *MB: Where the heck is Centro and why isn’t he racing Timothy Cheruiyot in Berlin on Sunday? 
• Report: Bedan Karoki Wants Sub-2:05 Time In Chicago
• Asian Games Final Day Recap: Qatar Ends Meet In Style With 3:00.56 4 X 400 Meet Record Kalkidan Gezahegne completed the 5,000/1,500 double.
• NAU Coach Mike Smith Signs 5-Year Contract Extension
• Irish 400 Record Holder David Gillick Says He Thought About Killing Himself After Retiring From Track
• Q&A With Beer Mile WR Holder Corey Bellemore

Collegiate XC News

• Oregon Men Take A Hit 1:47.67 HSer Josh Hoey Turns Pro And Joins Terrence Mahon In California Instead Of Going To Oregon Why a 1:47 guy would want to go pro is beyond our comprehension.
• Oregon Women Get Better Oregon Quickly Recovers From Rainsberger And Burdon Transferring Out As Two Top-15 NCAA XC Finishers TRANSFER IN In the game of transfer musical chairs, the Ducks end up winners as 2017 NCAA XC 5th placer Weronika Pyzik and 15th placer Isabelle Brauer have announced they will follow coach Helen Lehman-Winters to UO.
• 2018 Men’s DI XC Preseason National Coaches’ Poll NAU, BYU, Portland and Stanford top the list. Not too surprising as those were the top 4 teams at NCAAs last year.
• 2018 Women’s DI XC Preseason National Coaches’ Poll New Mexico, Colorado, Stanford and Oregon top the rankings while last year’s #2 San Francisco is down in 30th.
• 2018 Women’s DI XC Preseason Regional Rankings
  *Men’s Preseason Regional Rankings

September / October Action

• October 28  2:03:46 Man Guye Adola Makes His Fall Marathon Pick And It’s … Frankfurt
• October 21 Wesley Korir’s Little Brother John Is Excited To Be Racing October’s Scotiabank Waterfront Toronto Marathon The 22-year old debuted last year in 2:09.
• September 9: 2018 New Balance 5th Avenue Mile Fields Released – Fields Include Simpson, Centrowitz And Willis, But Not Shelby Houlihan Simpson and Willis will be looking to make history as if they win it will be titles #7 and #5 respectively.
• September 16: MB: 2018 Copenhagen Half Marathon – WR Attempt – Galen Rupp confirmed as he goes for the AR! Greatest Half Marathon of all time?
• September 8: Laura Muir Will Run The Mile At Great North CityGames The men’s mile has former Olympic bronze medallist Abdelaati Iguidar vs GB’s former Euro 800m silver medallist Michael Rimmer.
• September 8: Europe Names Team For The 2018 Continental Cup Jakob Ingebrigtsen is in the 1,500 and his older brother Henrik in the 3,000. Sifan Hassan highlights the women’s distance team in the 3,000.
• Asia-Pacific Team Announced For IAAF Continental Cup Aussie distance couple Ryan Gregson and Genevieve Lacaze are both on the team.

Doping: Asbel Kiprop Situation Gets Crazier And Sadder

Asbel Kiprop Publishes Video Of Him Making Out With His Pacemaker’s Wife As He Thinks The Pacemaker Set Him Up For EPO Bust 2008 Olympic champ Asbel Kiprop has published a salacious video of him making out with his pacemaker’s wife. Those in the know think Kiprop did so in retaliation for the pacemaker setting him up for the EPO bust out of anger for the affair. The woman has sadly tried to commit suicide.

• First WADA Approved Lab In East Africa Is Set To Open In Nairobi This will be big for African testing as samples will no longer need to be transported to Europe or South Africa. This will allow for more blood tests which previously were extremely difficult.
• Athletics Integrity Unit Confirms Kipyegon Bett’s EPO Positive Not surprisingly, GB 800m runner Kyle Langford (the runner Bett beat out for world bronze by just .04) hasn’t reacted too happilly on Twitter.
• Sandi Morris About Demi Payne On Twitter: “Well, I KNEW – but now it’s no longer just a suspicion.” She and Katie Nageotte had a brief exchange where they lament losing NCAA titles/records and a world team place to Payne.