Friday In Doha

LRC WHAT A RACE: Conseslus Kipruto Preserves Kenyan Steeplechase Streak By The Tiniest Margin Possible Kipruto was beaten, and then he wasn’t, winning by .01. The 3 Americans ran well but were left out of the medals in a historically fast final.

LRC Fabulous Friday: For One Night, Qatar Gets Its World Championship Moment A big enthusiastic crowd, a world record, a hometown here, and a legend staying on top. Veteran journalist Elliott Denman put it best, “A great night for track and field.”

Video Dalilah Muhammad 52.16 World Record To Edge Sydney McLaughlin Video of the race with post-race reaction. The only times Sydney McLaughlin lost this year, Muhammad ran the world record to beat her.

• MB: Official 2019 IAAF World Champs Day 8 (Friday) Discussion Thread – Includes talk of media 800
• MB:  52.16 WR for Dalilah Muhammad!
• MB:  Holy @#*$#@$ Kipruto Wins it by .01 Kipruto won one of the most thrilling steeplechase races in history!!

LRC Men’s 1,500 Semis: Timothy Cheruiyot, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Craig Engels And Scotland All Excel Tiny Scotland, population 5 million, has 3 finalists while Team USA has two, but Matthew Centrowitz only made the final on time.
*MB: Calling it now, Jakob wins the Gold Medal on Sunday He easily qualified for the final as Centro had to get in on time.

• Bahamas’ Steven Gardiner Wins World 400m Gold With A 43.48 National Record Columbia’s Anthony Zambrano was second (44.15) and USA’s Fred Kerley got the bronze (44.17).
• Cuba’s Yaime Perez Throws 69.17m To Win Discus Gold Two-time defending champ Sandra Perkovic was 3rd after an injury-filled season.

Salazar / NOP Updates

LRC Will NBC Ever Disclose They Are Paying A Nike Executive To Talk (Or Not Talk) About Alberto Salazar’s Doping Ban? NBC’s main distance analyst, Craig Masback, is a Nike employee. Somehow that fact still hasn’t been mentioned on air.

LRC Craig Engels Defends Himself & NOP Teammates, Responds To Jenny Simpson: “People have a moral compass besides her.” Craig Engels did not like some of Jenny Simpson’s comments from the day before, Jenny did not back down after hearing Craig’s response.

• Recommended Read Sebastian Coe’s Stance On Salazar Displays A Very British Hypocrisy The author also takes a swipe at Radcliffe.
• BBC Slammed For Impartiality Controversy After Not Informing Viewers Taht Paula Radcliffe Is Sponsored By Nike And Married To Mo Farah’s Coach Radcliffe apparently appeared to downplay Salazar’s ban.
• The Telegraph’s Ben Rumsby: “While Sir Mo Farah was not among Alberto Salazar’s guinea pigs, his legacy has been tarnished by their association”
• Cathal Dennehy Writes On Salazar Ban: “Everyone knew. … If anyone moving in the top circles of athletics tries to claim otherwise, it’s because they weren’t willing to see or they didn’t want to listen.”
• Mo Farah On Alberto Salazar: “I’m relieved that USADA has, after four years, completed their investigation into Alberto Salazar.” “I left the Nike Oregon Project in 2017 … A ruling has been made and I’m glad there has finally been a conclusion.”
  *MB: Mo Farah statement regarding Salazar ban
• IOC President Thomas Back Orders Checks On Whether All Athletes Involved With Alberto Salazar Have Been Investigated
• MB: Craig Engels Advances, Fires Back At Simpson: “Jenny is just brutal … when she gets in front of a camera, she gets on a high horse.” Simpson replies “It’s a physical contest, not a chemistry lab. [cheaters] take the joy out of seeing who is the best when you cheat.” Full interview Here
• Seb Coe Orders Athletes To Sever All Links With Alberto Salazar Coe also defended his friendship with Salazar, saying, “When you have been in the sport as long as I have, friendships and relationships can go back a long way.”
• The Guardian’s Sean Ingle: “Alberto Salazar’s Ban Leaves Mo Farah And UK Athletics With Questions To Answer” It’s not a good look for UKA officials who praised and defended Salazar in the past.
• USATF Statement On Alberto Salazar Ban “USATF has taken the steps necessary to have Mr. Salazar’s IAAF World Championships accreditation deactivated.”

More Worlds Non-Distance Coverage

• Dina Asher-Smith Wins World 200m Gold To Make History For GB Asher-Smith ran a national record of 21.88 to become GB’s first female world 200m champ. USA’s Brittany Brown took silver (22.22) and Switzerland’s Mujinga Kambundji the bronze (22.51).
• Thrilling Battle Sees Sam Kendricks Become The Second Man To Ever Repeat As World Pole Vault Champion There was a ton of drama in this vault as Kendricks relied on a clutch clearance earlier on to even stay in the competition and later, both he and Mondo Duplantis cleared 5.97m, but Kendricks won on countback. Poland’s Piotr Lisek took bronze (5.87m).
  *European Athletics Recap
• Australia’s Kelsey-Lee Barber Wins World Javelin Gold With Clutch 66.56m Final Throw
• Men’s Decathlon Day 1 Report “WR holder Kevin Mayer got off to a strong start in the defense of his title, but the fourth event threw up questions about his fitness.”
• Day 1 Women’s Heptathlon Recap GB’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson has a 96-point lead over Belgium’s Olympic champ Nafi Thiam.
• Karsten Warholm Wins 400 Hurdles Showdown With Three Of The Four Fastest Men In History Norway’s Warholm ran 47.42 to win over USA’s Rai Benjamin and Qatar’s Abderrahman Samba (48.03).
• Russia’s Mariya Lasitskene Made It A Three-Peat Of World HJ Titles, But Was Challenged By Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh Lasitskene cleared 2.04m to win on countback as Mahuchikh also cleared 2.04m, but only on her third attempt. USA’s Vashti Cunningham beat Yuliya Levchenko for bronze in the same way.
• Poland’s Pawel Fajdek Dominates Hammer Throw With 80.50m Fajdek becomes the first man to win four world hammer golds.
• Sweden’s Daniel Stahl Wins World Discus Title With 67.59m

Tuesday At Worlds

LRC Updated Donavan Brazier Ends America’s 800m Gold Medal Drought In Style, Wins With American Record Time Of 1:42.34 No American man or woman had won a global 800 gold since 1972. Brazier ended that drought in dominant fashion with an American and Championship record time of 1:42.34.
*MB: Donavan MF Brazier ends America’s 47 yr gold medal drought, Wins 800m with 1:42.34 AR!!
*MB: From 2015: I just got a text from a top HS coach: “Grant Fisher is not the best kid in Michigan.” LetsRun, meet Donavan Brazier
*MB: Donovan Brazier has become skinny after joining NOP
*MB: HASSAN , BRAZIER , KEJELCHA, are all TAINTED now 

LRC Noah Lyles’ Plan (Mostly) Comes Together As He Wins His First World Title Lyles planned to run faster but he ended up running the slowest he’s run in any 200 final all year. But it doesn’t matter as he’s the 200m world champ.

LRC Men’s Steeple Prelims: Conseslus Kipruto Looks Fantastic And Sends A Warning Shot – Discount Me At Your Own Peril Conseslus Kipruto looked fantastic and he’ll be joined in the final by all three Americans.

Salazar Gets Banned

LRC NOP Coach Alberto Salazar Gets Four-Year Doping Ban The decision doesn’t prove that Salazar doped any of his athletes. It concludes that Salazar carried out a testosterone experiment on his sons, that he misled some of his athletes on what they should tell USADA, and that he had conducted a test with L-Carnitine on NOP assistant coach Steve Magness that was over the legal limits. And it proves what many suspected, these things merit a doping ban. Plus it shows the CEO of Nike to be in the loop, and that Salazar has been fighting these charges for two years.
*Salazar Statement On “Unjust, Unethical And Highly Damaging Treatment From USADA.”

• Discuss: ALBERTO SALAZAR BANNED FROM ATHLETICS FOR FOUR YEARS FOR DOPING VIOLATIONS
• Alberto’s statement on the USADA ruling
• Where will the NOP athletes go?
•  If you’re Galen, where do you go from here?
• A picture is worth a thousand words. This pic sums up Alberto Salazar’s current status in the track and field
• Paula R on Salazar’s ban… “I think USADA were maybe trying to regain face after the Coleman fiasco..” 
• Athlete react to Alberto’s ban: almost all negative towards him
• RITZ DOPED IN NOP
• Anybody’s opinion of Salazar changed now that he’s banned for 4 years? 

Sunday In Doha

LRC Worlds Day 3: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Is The GOAT, A Record 12th Gold For Felix, Lyles Doesn’t Rule Out Sub-19 – 2019 It was mom’s night in Doha as SAFP showed she’s the GOAT and Allyson Felix added another gold to her haul. Christian Taylor turned back Will Claye again and Anzhelika Sidorova won a great pole vault over Sandi Morris.

LRC U-S-A! U-S-A! A Star-Spangled Men’s 800-Meter Final Is Set In Doha As 3 Americans Make Final Donavan Brazier cruised, Clayton Murphy made it in on time and in the final heat, Bryce Hoppel, who was running XC races a year ago, auto qualified.

LRC Christian Taylor Wins Gold Again Wearing #13 Odell Beckham Jr. Tribute Shoes Christian Taylor gave some love to OBJ.

LRC Post-Race Interviews
MB: Official 2019 Doha Worlds Day 3 Discussion Thread
MB: 800 Nation Baby!!! “Look for the sweep” – Team USA with 3 in the 800 Final

Day 2 In Doha

LRC Not A Typo: Sifan Hassan Wins 10,000 World Title With A 3:59 Final 1,500 The women’s 10,000 may have just been broken by the remarkable Sifan Hassan.
*MB: Sifan MF Hassan just closed the 10k with a 3:59.09 1500!!! 4:17.15 last 1600!!
*MB: Hassan could have paced Jenny Simpson to a 1500m SB at the end of that 10k

LRC Christian Coleman Is The New King Of The 100 Meters – And All That Comes With It After Usain Bolt‘s retirement, Coleman had to wait two years to officially take over as the king of track and field’s marquee event, but after a dominant victory tonight in 9.76, he is officially the fastest man in the world. *Video

LRC World Champ Christian Coleman Responds to Michael Johnson’s Comments: “I Don’t Necessarily Care What He Has to Say”

LRC 2019 Women’s 800 Semis: Ajee’ Wilson, Raevyn Rogers and Ce’Aira Brown All Advance To Potentially Historic Final An American woman has never won an 800-meter gold medal in the 37-year history of the IAAF World Athletics Championships. That’s likely to change in two days’ time.

LRC Men’s 800 Prelims: Nijel Amos Is A DNS As All 4 Americans Advance Once the action got underway, all of the top seeds advanced with all of the top 14 seeds advancing to tomorrow’s semifinals. All four Americans made it safely through as well.
*MB: NIJEL AMOS IS OUT OF WC

Video: Deanna Price Wins Hammer Gold

More Day 1 And General Worlds Coverage

• Guinea-Bissaui’s Braima Suncar Dabo Helps Aruba’s Jonathan Butsby Across The Finish Line During Men’s 5,000m Heats The two were wild card entries from countries that had no Worlds qualifiers and received a huge ovation as they crossed the line in a little over 18 minutes (Butsby was DQed for receiving assistance).
• Reuters: Christian Coleman Off To Hot Start As Marathoners Set To Sizzle Coleman had the fastest time in the first round of the 100m with 9.98 seconds.
• Cathal Dennehy On Having Worlds In Doha: “This event is one of the last vestiges of [Lamine] Diack’s dire reign, which can feel as hard to shake as a Sunday hangover.”
• BBC: Team Ingebrigsten – Not Your Average Norwegian Family
• IAAF Inside Athletics Podcast – World Champs Preview Includes interview with South African sprinter Akani Simbine, Jamaican TJer Shanieka Ricketts, Aussie HJer Brandon Starc and Japan HJer Naoto Tobe.

News From The IAAF

• Chinese Multinational Conglomerate Wanda Group Signs Ten Year Title Sponsor Deal With The Diamond League Th deal includes “the future organisation of an annual Diamond League meeting in China.”
• Ximena Restrepo Elected As First Female IAAF Vice President Restrepo won 1992 Olympic 400m bronze competing for Colombia.
• Asics Extends Partnership With IAAF Until 2029

Sprint / Field News

• Kevin Young Doesn’t Want To See His 400 Hurdles World Record Go Down In Doha “I want to own the record as long as I can because it makes me relevant. After someone breaks it, I go from world record holder to simply hurdles fan.”
• Sad News: US Discus Olympian Jarred Rome Dies At 42 Rome was back in his hometown in Washington for induction into the county sports hall of fame earlier in the week.
  *MB: Jarred Rome, USA National Champion, Olympian passes away
• BBC: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Talks About Motherhood, Hair And Medals After a year of motherhood, Fraser-Pryce says, “My son is exhausting but it’s something I wouldn’t trade for anything else because he’s actually made me better at what I do …”
• Will The 27-Year-Old 400 Hurdles Record Go Down In Doha? The WR is 46.78 and Karsten Warholm (46.92), Rai Benjamin (46.98) and Abderrahman Samba (46.98) all have PRs under 47 seconds.
• Grant Holloway Is Honorary “Mr. Two-Bits” At Gator Football Game It was Holloway’s job to get the crowd hyped before the game (includes video).