A Former Olympic Champ Hangs ‘Em Up

Australia’s 2012 Olympic 100H Champ Sally Pearson Retires, Effective ImmediatelyThe 32-year-old said that she’s had six injuries this year and doesn’t think her body would make it to Tokyo 2020. The news is surprising as she had given no indication she was considering retiring and was being announced for upcoming meets just a few days ago.

Interesting Reads

• August 2nd Is The Date Of The Women’s Olympic Marathon In Tokyo 2020 – Find Out Why Here Kinue Hitomi was Japan’s 1st ever Olympic medalist on that date in 1928 and she also died on that date in 1931. She set world records  in the 100, 200, LJ, TJ and won an Olympic silver in the 800. *Wikipedia
• Brett Larner Runs Tokyo 2020 Olympic Marathon Course Exactly 1 Year Out From Race And Finds It’s Going To Be Hot As Hell Virtually the entire run was run in 85+ heat (30+ C) with a humidity over 70%. *Video
  *How Much Does Heat Slow Your Race Pace? According to the article, 85-degree weather would be more than 6 minutes slower in a marathon than 59.
• NCAA 400m Champ Wadeline Jonathas Went All-Out In An 800 Time Trial At 1st Day Of Practice And Ran Herself Into Hospital She showed up at South Carolina as a 9-time DIII champ with a 52.81 PR and now is the NCAA DI champ and made it to Worlds and has run 50.44.
• Charlene Rendina Honors Catriona Bisset For Breaking Her Australian 800 Record After 43 Years

Track News

• TFN: Lopez Lomong Is Defying Age Conventions And Is 1st American To Win 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 At USAs
• Random, But CoolBryce Hoppel’s Dad Is The GM Of The Oakland A’s AA Team In Midland, TX His sister played for the 35-0 2016 NCAA Division 2 national championship Lubbock Christian women’s basketball team.
• Athletics Weekly Lists 10 Women To Watch At The Doha 2019 And Sydney McLaughlin Make The List But Dalilah Muhammad Doesn’t
• Three Brits Swept The 800 Medals At Euro U20s Last Month – Can They Follow In Footsteps Of Seb Coe, Steve Cram, And Steve Ovett? We’ll go with no, although 1:46.84 at 18 isn’t too shabby and Max Burgin (1:45.36 at 17) isn’t even one of the three.
• Brent Fougner Announces Retirement After 31 Years At The Helm Of The University Of Victoria Vikes Cross-Country And Track Team; Hilary Stellingwerff Steps In As Interim Head Coach
• European Team Champs Are In The Ingebrigtsens’ Hometown Next Week So All 3 Will Be Playing A Big Role Jakob is in the 1,500m with Henrik and Filip contesting the 3,000m and 5,000m respectively.
  *August 9-11: Final Entries Available For European Team Championships First League In Norway

Doping News

• Kenyan Athletes Speak Anonymously To Explain Why Hey Resort To Doping “If people stop cheating, I’ll stop. I cheat because others have cheated,” said one runner who also admitted to purposely finishing outside the top-3 if there was drug testing at a race.
  *MB: ‘I cheat because others cheat’: Kenya struggles against doping
• Premier League Soccer Player Mamadou Sakho Is Suing WADA For $16 Million Over Claims A Doping Test Damaged His Career Sakho was suspended in April 2016 for testing positive for the fat-burning substance higenamine, but the United European Football Association (UEFA) cleared Sakho saying that higenamine wasn’t explicitly on the banned list.

Multi-Event News

• IAAF Profile On Germany’s Euro U23 Decathlon Champ Niklas Kaul Kaul talks about how important it is for multi-eventers to work on their weak events because that’s where the most points can be gained.
• August 18:World And Olympic Champion Nafissatou Thiam Will Take On World Indoor Pentathlon Champ Katarina Johnson-Thompson At The Birmingham Grand Prix Long Jump

Semenya Won’t Race In Doha

Caster Semenya Out Of World Champs After Swiss Supreme Court Reverses Its Ruling That Suspended The IAAF Testosterone Rules Pending Her Appeal She said that she will continue on with her appeal despite her “disappointment” at not being able to defend her world title.

• MB: “Caster Semenya to miss World Championships after court ruling”.
• IAAF “Welcomes” Swiss Federal Tribunal’s Decision
• Caster Semenya’s Appeal Unlikely To Succeed? “The Swiss Federal Supreme Court concludes, in a first summary examination, that Caster Semenya’s appeal does not appear with high probability to be well founded.”
• NY Times: Ruling Leaves Caster Semenya With Few Good Options

Tokyo 2020 News

• Fears Grow Over Tokyo 2020 Temperatures After 11 Died And More Than 5,000 Were Taken To Hospital Due To Heat-Related Medical Issues Last Week Of those people, 52.6% were 65 and older.
• Kenya’s New Tokyo 2020 Chef De Mission Promises Every Coin Will Be Accounted For After Rio 2016 Scandal
• IAAF Marks One Year To Go Until Track Action Begins At Tokyo 2020 They give a day-by-day rundown of which finals are on each day.

Assorted Distance News

• Good Read:Canadian Steepler Matt Hughes Explains Why He Left The Bowerman Track Club Hughes says a combination of falling “out of love with running” and living long distance from his fiancee made him realize he needed to make some changes.
• Former Kenyan Marathoner Speaks Anonymously About The Health Issues Caused By His EPO Use “I feel pain in my chest, my muscles are sore and I cough a lot. All I knew, was that once you dope, you end up running well. I never knew there would be such problems.”
• World XC Silver Medalist Jacob Kiplimo Giving Up On The 5k/10k Double In Doha Due To Injury And Illness He hasn’t raced all track season so won’t be qualified in the 5,000, but automatically qualified in the 10,000 by finishing top 15 at World XC.
• Sad News:Norwegian Runner Dies After Being Struck By Lightning During Italian Ultramarathon The 44-year-old woman was between aid stations during the 75-mile race which was called off 30 minutes before the lightning strike.