And So It Begins

Stockholm Loses Its Diamond League Status The IAAF is cutting down the series to 13 meets and Stockholm was one to get cut. Meet director Jan Kowalski put a positive spin on it though saying, “We now have the possibility to arrange exactly the competition we want, without being steered by directives from the Diamond League…”

Pre-Doha News *Event-By-Event Previews *Provisional Entry Lists

• Good Read: Mark English Calls For Transparency After Omission From Worlds “We don’t know anything and that’s the problem with this whole system. It’s not clear enough… The IAAF had all the information of those unqualified athletes since August 26 and they didn’t decide to share it with anyone…”
  *MB: Nick Willis isn’t only one being screwed over by the IAAF and slow runners – Mark English also won’t be going to Worlds
• Double Amputee Sprinter Blake Leeper Won’t Be Allowed To Compete At Worlds Leeper qualified for the US 4×400 squad (he was 5th in the 400m at USAs), but the IAAF says he has to prove his blades don’t give him an advantage.
• Seb Coe Won’t “Gag The Voices” Of Athletes Who Want To Protest In Doha About Homosexuality Being Illegal Coe says he hopes having worlds there could “flick the dial both socially, culturally and politically in a very positive way.” Gay race walker Tom Bosworth said “I’m not going to start running down the road with rainbow flags and demanding equality but it is certainly a stage where we can be ourselves. …hopefully countries might learn by hosting competitions like this and develop from it.”
• Bahamas Ministry Responds To Criticism Regarding Its Low Contribution To Team Bahamas There was uncertainty if the Bahamas would have enough funding to go to Doha Worlds, but it looks like they will be there.
• Mondo Duplantis Is The Youngest Pole Vaulter To Ever Go Over 6 Meters, But Says He’s Still A Student Of The Sport “You can learn from everybody …there is always room to get better.”
• IAAF Profile On US Shot Put Champion Chase Ealey Ahead Of Her First World Championships Some interesting insights like how she was sprinted in high school and almost did the multis in college and how her coach, two-time world indoor champ Ryan Whiting, helped “change the course of her career.”
• Q&A With Sam Kendricks Ahead Of Worlds Kendricks talks about winning worlds in 2017 and preparing to defend his title in Doha.
• Brief Q&A With Defending 400H World Champ Karsten Warholm Ahead Of Doha
• USTFCCCA: 25 Athletes With Ties To The Bowerman Award Are Competing In Doha This includes nine past winners and five current finalists.
• 1928 Athletes From 209 Countries Will Compete In Doha

Sprints And Jumps

• Podcast Interview With Allyson Felix On Maternity Rights And Clean Sport Felix comments on the Christian Coleman case and how she’s only missed one test in her career (taking an exam at USC).
• Noah Lyles Features In Coca-Cola’s Tokyo 2020 “6-Pack”
• Recommended Read: DyeStat Profile On Pole Vaulter Daylis Caballero Vega Who Talks About Her Journey From Cuban Defector To US Citizen Caballero Vega was part of the Cuban 2012 Olympic team, but defected at the 2013 Drake Relays. She competed for Team USA for the first time earlier this month at The Match.
• Turkey’s Ramil Guliyev Tunes Up For Doha With 20.08 Victory In The 200m At The Gloria Cup In Turkey

Seb Coe Defends The IAAF’s Position On Semenya And Other XY Athletes

• Seb Coe Defends The IAAF’s Stance On Caster Semenya Saying They Have A “Responsibility To Protect” Female Athletes “It may be in 30 years, 40 years time society takes a different view and we have other classifications, I don’t know. But at this point my responsibility was to protect two classifications and that’s what we feel we’ve done.” *2nd article
• Seb Coe On Semenya: “I hope that she does come back onto the track and I do hope that the athletes with that condition to take the medical direction that allows them to do that.”

Some Big Names Won’t Be In Doha

• MB: Genzebe Dibaba Will Miss Worlds Due To Plantar Fascia Issues A statement from her managing company said she had plantar fascitis and a partial rupture which occurred during the Zurich DL meet.
• MB: Nick Willis Misses World Championships By One Spot Due To Four “Gift Athletes” Willis didn’t have the standard, but expected to get in based on his position on the descending order list. However, four “universality athletes” (wild card athletes who get in because their country doesn’t have an athlete qualified in any event) ended up getting in ahead of him in the 1,500.
• Kenyan Trials Winner Jackline Wambui (1:58.79) Withdraws From Kenya’s World Team At The Last Minute Article also mentions that it is unclear what will happen with the men’s 5,000m squad as AK is waiting for a response from the AIU on two athletes who weren’t drug tested enough.
  *Update: Jackline Wambui out of Worlds after refusing to take testosterone level test The same goes for Linda Kageha who was on Kenya’s mixed 4×400 team.
• MB: Nick Willis isn’t only one being screwed over by the IAAF and slow runners – Mark English also won’t be going to Worlds

Non-Track News

• Nike’s “Dream Crazy” Colin Kaepernick Ad Wins An Emmy The ad was named outstanding commercial at the Creative Arts Emmys.
• Random Stat: How Much Do Tennis Players Run Per Match? On the high end, the study found David Ferrer ran around 10k during the 2015 Australian Open, while on the low end, Novak Djokovic ran only around half as much. Another analysis from the 2014 US Open saw that Caroline Wozniacki ran twice as far as Serena Williams (9.7k compared to 4.5k).

1 Rumor Turns Out To Be True

LRC Dathan Ritzenhein Withdraws From 2019 Chicago Marathon Chronic foot issues led to flare-ups in other areas, which caused the 36-year-old to withdraw ahead of the race on October 13. He still plans on racing the Olympic Trials in February.

New Balance 5th Avenue Mile Photos By Joe Hale (Click For Gallery With 362 Photos)

Assorted Distance News

• Eliud Kipchoge Thinks Geoffrey Kamworor Can Break His Marathon World Record When asked about it Kipchoge said, “Absolutely! He is the man and everything is possible if we continue to embrace great planning, preparations, camaraderie, management and coaches.”
• Podcast Interview With Parker Stinson Carrie Tollefson talks to Stinson about his buildup for next month’s Chicago Marathon, the Olympic Trials and what it’s like having Dathan Ritzenhein for a coach.
• BBC Video: Jakob Ingebrigsten And His Family Talk About Their Sibling Rivalry Oldest brother Henrik Ingebrigsten says Jakob is “super focused and selfish, but in a good way.”
• October 20: Ethiopia’s Former Dubai/Boston Champ Lemi Berhanu Hayle (2:04:33 PR) Gunning For The 2:06:52 Course Record At The Toronto Waterfront Marathon Hayle will battle the clock as well as the current CR holder Philemon Rono and last year’s winner Benson Kipruto.

More Worlds News

• Eight Defending Champions On USA’s Team For World Champs Tori Bowie, Kori Carter, Emma Coburn, Phyllis Francis, Justin Gatlin, Sam Kendricks, Brittney Reese and Christian Taylor return to defend their titles. *USATF Release
• Japan Selects Team Of 55 For Doha Worlds Yuki Kawauchi is in the marathon and three of the four sprinters who earned 4 x 100 bronze in 2017 are back, including Hakim Sani Brown.
• Brazil Sending Team Of 43 To Doha
• Germany Selects 71 Athletes For World Champs Konstanze Klosterhalfen (1,500m) highlights the distance team.
• Field Event Stars Lead Poland’s Team Of 44 For World Champs Their throwers are the ones favored to win medals, but they’ll also have two-time defending world silver medalist Adam Kszczot in the 800m.

The Japanese Marathon Grand Championship *Results

LRC Shogo Nakamura Wins WILD And THRILLING Japanese Olympic Marathon Trials As Honami Maeda Crushes Women’s Field We expected the first Marathon Grand Championship to be the most dramatic marathon of the year and the men’s race more than lived up to the hype as it had an incredible blowup, an incredible finish and much more.
*MB: The Most Dramatic Marathon of The Year is Saturday – Official 2019 Japanese Marathon Grand Championship Discussion Thread
*IAAF Recap

World Champs Start September 27th

• IAAF Will Use “Ground-Breaking Technology” For The 2019 World Champs Broadcast Their release says that they have “an array of new cameras that will provide innovative angles on the competition and behind-the-scenes pictures that have never been shown to the audience before.” For example, there will be cameras in the starting blocks.
• Former Olympic PV Champ Yelena Isinbayeva Hopes RusAF Suspension Can Be Lifted Before World Champs With reports of banned coaches still working with athletes and allegations that RusAF forged paperwork to help HJer Danil Lysenko avoid a ban, it’s not likely that Russia will be unbanned in the next two weeks.
• IAAF: State Of The Art Mondotrack Ready To Welcome Athletes At Doha 2019 Includes a cool time lapse video of the track being installed at the Khalifa Stadium.
• The IAAF Look Back At Five World Records Set At The World Championships Usain Bolt‘s 9.58 and 19.19 at Berlin 2009 is definitely one of the most memorable world champs performances.
• The IAAF Looks Back At Five Home Winners At The World Championships Japan’s Hiromi Taniguchi actually won the marathon when Tokyo hosted in 1991.
• 400 Hurdler Thomas Barr Highlights Provisional Irish World Team Only five who had the standards have been announced so far, but others who were close should also get in.

Hayward Field Construction Updates

Christian Coleman Talks And We Listen

LRC Christian Coleman Releases YouTube Video About Whereabouts Failures, Criticizes USADA & Media, Says He Has Never Failed A Test “And Never Will” Coleman ripped USADA, which he accused of trying to land a “big fish” and says the whole episode cost him at least $150,000 in earnings.
*MB: Robert Johnson is an unprofessional, irresponsible hack and an idiot … and I have no problem tell him to his face
*MB: World’s fastest man Christian Coleman faces potential whereabouts failure ban for 3 missed drug tests 

Big Collegiate News

LRC The Race For The Ages That No One Knows About: The US (NAU) And Japanese Collegiate Champs (Tokai) Just Raced Each Other In Cross-Country Last Weekend. Here’s What Happened. And the narrow 25-to-30 victory went to …
*MB: Just saw GREATEST Intl’ collegiate men’s XC race ever?

The Oregonian: Vin Lananna Opens Up About Leaving Oregon To Become Track Coach At The University Of Virginia Lananna says that he has realized he has missed coaching and working directly with athletes, but says he has no intention of resigning his USATF presidency.

MB: Vin Lananna Hired as Director of T&F/XC at University of Virginia

Better Running Shoes

LRC Top 10 Most Comfortable Running Shoes As Rated By You We got over 1,500+ shoe reviews last month and decided to do something with them. People rate shoes different ways but when we ask them what they want they often say “comfort.”