June 19, 2020 Homepage Archive

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Archived Homepage For June 19, 2020

Quote Of The Day

“It was bar none the greatest race I have ever done in my life …

What do you have to do to win one of these things? I beat the world champion, I ran under 13 minutes, I do all of that and still this guy no one has heard of comes out and hammers me.”

– Craig Mottram talking about the 2006 Commonwealth Games men’s 5,000 final where he ran 12:58 in front of 80-100,000 fans in his home stadium but had to settle for silver. Today, on Craig Mottram’s 40th birthday, we take a look back at the race as part of our Throwback Thursday series.

MB: Time flies. Happy 40th birthday Craig Mottram. We celebrate by featuring your 2006 CG silver on Throwback Thursday.

USATF Publishes False Info On Its Own Website

LRC USATF Corrects Their Own Error; Still Unclear If Marks This Summer Will Count For Olympic Trials Qualifying USATF says its statement that marks achieved this summer would not count for Olympic Trials qualification was not “finalized” so it’s possible marks will count. At least it’s not as bad as last year, when USATF was forced to re-pick its entire Pan American Games squad because it failed to follow its own selection policy.
*MB: USATF says statement it published on its website saying you couldn’t qualify for the Trials during Covid-19 wasn’t actually true.

The AIU Says They Purposely Don’t Call Athletes?

The AIU Says Testers Are Not Obliged To Call Athletes When They Aren’t Home To Be Tested Their statement said, “the lack of any telephone call does not give the athlete a defence to the assertion of a missed test” and added that drug control officers were specifically asked not to call athletes as it “provides an opportunity for evasion or other improper conduct which can limit the efficacy of testing.”
Podcast Interview With Christian Coleman On Missed Drug Test Coleman says he wasn’t at home for the beginning of his testing window, but arrived home before the end of it. The tester says he was there the whole time. So someone is lying.

Trying To Come Back From Coronavirus

2020 High School Outdoor Track Championships Cancelled Due To Coronavirus The meet was initially postponed from June to July 30.
Beijing Cancels Sports Events As City Tightens Coronavirus Restrictions After Outbreak At Market The number of new cases there reached its highest level since March.
Runner’s World Asks Experts If It Is Safe To Run In Groups Again Experts say you can probably run with a training partner or two, but to still avoid big groups.
Last Weekend There Was A Spartan Obstacle Race With 1,000 Participants In Florida To mitigate risks, the race had less participants, a lot of available hand sanitizer and tried to keep people spaced and took out some of its staple obstacles.
IOC Survey Finds 50% Of Athletes Struggled To Stay Motivated During The Pandemic 56% of athletes were finding it hard to train effectively.
World Athletics Publishes Outbreak-Prevention Guidelines For Competition Organizers
USATF Updates Event Hosting Guidance
University Of Oregon Athletes Returned To On-Campus Facilities On A Limited Basis This Week
Some Irish Olympic Hopefuls Are Frustrated That Tracks Remain Closed Despite Coronavirus Restrictions Being Lifted

News From Oregon

Saturday:Oregon Track Club Elite And The Atlanta Track Club Will Be Going Head-To-Head In A Virtual Dual Meet The meet will be streamed on Facebook and YouTube with Tim Hutchings commentating. Those competing include Nijel Amos and Chanelle Price in the 600m.
UO Puts Finishing Touches On Hayward Field One of the last details included putting up 156 flags representing all of the countries that have been represented competing at Hayward Field.
RIP:1960 Olympian And University Of Oregon Running Great Jim Grelle Dies At Age 83 Grelle won NCAAs in 1959 running under Bill Bowerman and held the US mile record at 3:55.4 for 9 days before it was broken by Jim Ryun.
Nike Co-Founder Phil Knight Getting An Honorary Doctorate From The University Of Oregon He’ll be honored this weekend as part of the school’s virtual graduation.

Anti-Doping News

Athletes Say They Feel “Let Down” By Lack Of Drug Testing During Coronavirus Pandemic Christian Taylor made a good point when he said why did USADA have to announce that they were going to reduce testing. “I believe we still have to at least give the impression that testing is going to take place. … Why say anything at all?”
MB: Olympic Boxer Ginny Fuchs Cleared Of Doping Violation After Saying Banned Substances Were Transmitted By Sex With Her Boyfriend
Salwa Eid Naser’s Legal Representatives Denied Whereabouts Violation Charges He declined to offer more info on what her defense is. No date has been set for the hearing.

Tokyo / Commonwealth Games News

Tokyo 2020 Says 80% Of Its Olympics Venues Are Secured For 2021 Although negotiations are still ongoing for the Athletes’ Village.
*A More Pessimistic Way Of Saying It: Tokyo Olympic Organizers Have No Agreement With 20% Of Games Venues
Two-Thirds Of Tokyo Olympic Sponsors Undecided If They’ll Extend Their Contracts Past December
Tokyo Lifts Coronavirus Warning And Enters Third Stage Of Reopening
Commonwealth Games Trying To Adjust The Schedule To Make It Easier For Athletes Also Competing At Worlds And Euro Champs The track schedule has moved from seven days to five days, which might mean less rest between heats and finals or for athletes doubling.
Birmingham MP Warns Funding For Commonwealth Games “In Danger” He said that the city’s council may not be able to provide the promised funding because of financial problems caused by coronavirus. The pandemic has reportedly cost the city council $205 million.

Coronavirus Comeback?

Vin Lananna Doesn’t Know When They’ll Be Able To Host Track Meets Again; Says The Format Could Change So All The Events Aren’t At The Same Time “We’re going to have to consider not having all the events at one time. I feel we should compartmentalize track meets so they won’t be so long. If we’re interested in the jumps, you can watch the jumps. If you’re interested in the distances, you can watch the distances.”
The Oregonian Takes A “Sport-By-Sport” Look At “How Much Coronavirus Risk Is Involved In Playing” Each Sport According to some experts, contact sports (like football) and indoors sports (like basketball) were rated with a higher risk, while XC and T&F were rated to have a lower risk.
The Collegiate Fall Sports Season Is Cancelled In Canada An interesting note on eligibility. Apparently, Canadian universities count XC and track eligibility together. So even though XC is cancelled, if an athlete competes in indoor or outdoor track, they still use a year of XC eligibility.
Parkrun To Resume In New Zealand At The Beginning Of July All social distancing requirements have been removed in NZ.

Protest / Race News

Meb Keflezighi Shares His Thoughts On The Recent Protests And On Being Black In America Keflezighi says the Ahmaud Arbery story made him ask himself if he’s “really safe” when he goes out running.
Oregon Coach Robert Johnson Speaks Out About Racial Injustice Johnson encouraged his athletes to speak out on social media, talked about how he feels getting pulled over by a cop as a black man, and said if you are “being silent, you’re for this injustice.”
Sprinter Jasmine Todd Says “The overall system in the United States was created to keep black people as slaves.”
Sports Illustrated: 14 Black Track Athletes Share Their Encounters With Racism In America Raevyn Rogers talks about how she had a gun pointed at her by a police officer when there was an intruder in her building earlier this year.
IOC Athletes’ Commission To Consult With Athletes On Olympic Protests IOC president Thomas Bach said a rule banning athletes from protesting at the Olympics could be reviewed.
Seb Coe Backs Athletes’ Right To Protest Despite IOC Rules Banning Political Protests, Including Taking A Knee Coe said, “I am reluctant to discourage athletes from expressing their views and I sense that the current generation is more willing to speak out than some previous generations were.”
The Telegraph: “Black Power Pioneers Paid Dearly – They Raised A Fist And The System Punched Them Back” The writer claims that because of sponsorships, the IOC “fears a 21st-century equivalent of the Black Power protests” from 1968.

Brown Track Is Back!

MB:Brown University Reinstates Men’s Cross-Country And Track And Field Teams A letter from the university president to the Brown community stated that they realized their original decision to cut the teams would “have real and lasting implications for efforts to build and sustain diverse and inclusive communities for our students at Brown, and particularly our community of black students and alumni.”

More Black Athlete News:

IOC Confirm Athletes Face Bans For Taking Knee At Tokyo 2021 Olympics IOC says disciplinary action “will be taken on a case-by-case basis” but current guidelines are “still in place.”
GB Olympic Sprinter Chris Lambert Says Track And Field Is “As Close To A Meritocracy As Any Other Profession” He Knows, Where “Athletes Are Paid According To Their Station, Regardless Of” Race Or Gender Lambert also says, though, that success of black athletes in sports is “used to whitewash the discrimination they face” outside sports.
USOPC Chief Executive Sarah Hirshland Creating An “Athlete-Led Group” To Challenge Rules Preventing Athletes From Protesting Last year a fencer and US hammer thrower Gwen Berry were both placed on a one-year probation after staging separate podium protests at the Pan American Games.

Diack Trial Begins In Paris

Lamine Diack Trial Begins; Prosecutors Say He “Solicited $3.9 Million) In Bribes” Diack’s lawyer claimed, “The fact financial exchanges took place is not enough on its own to prove corruption.” He faces 10 years in jail if convicted.
Former IAAF Anti-Doping Chief Gabriel Dolle Tells Court That Lamine Diack Urged Him To Bend The Rules On Russian Doping Cases To Avoid A Scandal That Would Scare Off Sponsors Dolle is on trial alongside Diack for accepting bribes to cover up Russian doping.
AP Article Charged anti-doping chief Gabriel Dolle claims he was “betrayed” by Diack as he had agreed to let Russians serve suspensions “discreetly,” not for them to be allowed to compete.
Court Rejects Postponement Request As Diack Trial Starts In Paris Papa Massata‘s legal team requested a delay since they weren’t able to travel due to coronavirus restrictions.

LRC Exclusive

LRC Cross-Country In The Age Of COVID-19: What The 2020 NCAA XC Season Will Look Like … If There Is One Will there be a 2020 NCAA XC season? Jonathan Gault spoke to NCAA coaches, medical experts, and members of the NCAA’s coronavirus advisory panel to figure out if a cross-country season is feasible and what it might look like. And there is good news. “I think it is very feasible that there will be a cross-country season,” says Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security and a member of the NCAA’s coronavirus advisory panel.

A Lot Of Coleman / Naser Criticism From The UK

LRC In Christian Coleman Case, Track & Field Cannot Win No matter the outcome of the Christian Coleman saga, somebody is going to be unhappy. So it goes, as track & field suffers another self-inflicted wound.

Multiple GB Stars Call Out Christian Coleman And Salwa Eid Naser Over Missed Drug Tests Hurdler Eilidh Doyle said that even when she was in the hospital for three days having her baby, her “first thought” was “I better update my whereabouts.”
Michael Johnson Criticizes Christian Coleman Over Missed Tests Johnson tweeted, “To allow this to happen again will lead people to believe either you’re doping or you don’t take seriously the anti-doping efforts of the sport. What reason do we have to believe otherwise?”
The Telegraph: “Christian Coleman And Salwa Eid Naser Are Stretching Athletics’ Credibility To Breaking Point” The writer absolutely rips into these athletes. On Coleman he says, “Such repeat transgressions are never mere quirks of fate. They are explained only by rank stupidity or a cynical contempt for the system. Coleman is, at the very least, a diagram of hubris and self-pity.”
Christian Coleman Could Seek “Deal” That Would Let Him Compete At Tokyo 2021 Coleman said that a two-year ban would be “overkill” and he’s hoping his suspension would only be a year.

Happy 40th Birthday, Craig Mottram

Throwback Thursday #11
LRC I Was Bored, So I Watched Craig Mottram Battle Augustine Choge In Melbourne At The 2006 Commonwealth Games In honor of Craig Mottram‘s 40th birthday today, we revisit the race he called “the greatest race I have ever done in my life” – his incredible duel with Kenya’s Augustine Choge in the 2006 Commonwealth Games 5,000m final.
*MB: Time flies. Happy 40th birthday Craig Mottram. We celebrate by featuring your 2006 CG silver on Throwback Thursday

Diack Trial Updates – Will Anyone Even Serve Time For One Of The Biggest Sporting Scandals Of All-Time?

Prosecutors Request 4-Year Jail Term And $562,000 Fine For Ex-IAAF President Lamine Diack Apparently since he’s been under house arrest since 2015, the chances of him serving time inside actual prison are low. They are requesting a five-year prison sentence and equivalent fine for Papa Massata Diack, but he has refused to be extradited from Senegal so he also is unlikely to serve any jail time.
Lamine Diack Admits He Should Have Been More Vigilant As IAAF President, but Denies Knowledge Of His Son’s Actions His son, Papa Massata Diack, is alleged to have siphoned off $11.3 million in one instance alone.
AP:Paris Trial Of Diacks Exposes Dark Backdrop Of Golden Era One WADA lawyer said, “It’s like one of those American films, where the old Mafiosi sit at the back of a restaurant eating spaghetti, making or breaking lives. Mr. Diack acted like an omnipotent patriarch.”

Tokyo 2021 Talk

Don’t Vote For This Guy:Tokyo Governor Candidate Taro Yamamoto Promises To Cancel Olympics If He’s Elected Would he even have the authority to do that?
Tokyo 2020 Official Says Further Delay Of The Games Should Be An Option If The Pandemic Doesn’t Subside Pushing the games back to 2021 is already a logistical nightmare. We don’t see how they could postpone it another year and make it work.

GB News

Brendan Foster Says He Thinks It Will Be “Extremely Difficult” For The London Marathon To Go On In October They are set to decide by Sunday whether London will go ahead with its rescheduled date or completely cancel.
Scottish Mid-D Runners Laura Muir And Jemma Reekie Talk Training And Life In Lockdown The two training partners are now, at least temporarily, housemates as Reekie moved into Muir’s house during the coronavirus pandemic.
Great North Run Cancelled With Organizers Preparing For September 2021 Return
British Racewalker Tom Bosworth Talks About Receiving Homophobic Abuse From A Meet Volunteer He was allegedly told by an athletics volunteer that “f–s are not welcome” in the sport.
UK Athletes Seeks Performance Director And Olympic Head Coach In “New Era” These will be the first two significant appointments by new CEO Joanna Coates.
GB Athletes Frustrated At Not Being Able To Train At Alexander Stadium In Birmingham Due To Construction Delays Ahead Of The 2022 Commonwealth Games One hurdler complained that they have to “imagine” they have hurdles to jump over.
British Olympic Association Athletes Commission Publishes Open Letter Rejecting Racism And Discrimination

Diack Trial Updates

Lamine Diack Turns On His Son And Calls Him A “Thug” At Corruption Trial Diack threw his son Papa Massata Diack under the bus, saying that he didn’t know about a lot of the corruption his son was involved with. 87-year-old Diack was also apparently hard to understand at times and giving “confused, contradictory and uncertain testimony.”
Lamine Diack Defends Interference With Russian Doping Cases; Says Was Trying To Secure Sponsorship Deal With A Russian Bank Diack says that rather than announce all the Russian doping sanctions at once, they spread them out so it didn’t hurt their sponsorship opportunities ahead of Moscow 2013 Worlds.
Diack: “It was mainly for the financial health of the IAAF. The financial health of the IAAF had to be safeguarded and I was prepared to make that compromise.”
AP: “Corruption Trial Points To Origins Of Russian Doping Saga”

Doping News

India’s Asian 800m Champ Gomathi Marimuthu Gets 4-Year Ban After Testing Positive For Steroids Impressively, she managed to test positive in four separate samples taken from March through April 2019.
International Testing Agency Finishes Reanalysis Of Frozen Samples From 2012 London Olympics They have confirmed that they are working on more than a dozen anti-doping violation cases before the statute of limitations expires in August.

The Impossible Games Are Thursday *Results

LRCJakob Ingebrigtsen Gets European 2,000m Record, Team Norway Crushes Team Kenya, Karsten Warholm Gets Record @ Impossible Games It wasn’t the track & field we’re used to, but Ingebrigtsen (Euro 2,000m record of 4:50.04), Warholm (300m hurdles world best of 33.78), and Mondo Duplantis (5.86m PV) still entertained the track world on Thursday afternoon.
*MB: Official 2020 Impossible Games Discussion Thread – Team Cheruiyot vs Ingebrigtsen
*MB: Sondre Moen 25,000 meters at Bislet
*MB:Why is World Athletics naming an event after a convicted drug cheat

Team Cheruiyot Wants A Rematch With Team Ingebrigsten At The Kip Keino Classic In September Timothy Cheruiyot: “The track was windy and that made it difficult to move. Jakob and his teammates had good weather and their track was pretty fast and conducive.”
Sondre Moen Makes A Statement In Oslo With European 25,000m Record He ran 1:12:46.5, only a little of the world record of 1:12:25.4. He said, “In retrospect, perhaps I should have run a more evenly-paced race and maybe I could have got the world record. But my goal from the start was the area record.”
European Athletics: Karsten Warholm And Jakob Ingebrigtsen Smash Records At The Impossible Games Warholm: “It was a little funny because Leif Olav (his coach) said ‘maybe you can beat the record in half a second?’ and I said “no, are you sick to the head!” But I trained well and when he said that I had some faith and it began to sink in. It’s so beautiful.”
World Athletics Impossible Games Recap

General Track News

Athletes Including Christian Taylor And Emma Coburn Demand Answers After World Athletics Leaked Financial Info Shows They’re Losing Millions Of Dollars Each Year It’s worth noting that the same athletes who ripped World Athletics for cutting less popular events from the Diamond League are now ripping World Athletics for not making changes.
Seb Coe Set To Become An IOC Member After Being Proposed By The Executive Board Coe has committed to addressing a conflict of interest (his position at CSM Sport Entertainment) which had previously prevented him from joining.
The Start Date For The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Pushed Back 24 Hours To Give Athletes Competing At Worlds An Extra Day Of Recovery Eugene 2022 Worlds finishes on July 24th and the CWG will start July 28th.
Mid-D Runner Guy Learmonth Hopes Scottish Athletes Should “Prioritize” Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games

Today Is Impossible, Next Month We Have Inspiration

Cancelled Zurich DL Will Hold “Inspiration Games” Instead On July 9 The “meet” will see 30 stars compete against eight events at seven stadiums on three different continents. The three stadiums will be broadcast simultaneously for each event.
Zurich’s “Inspiration Games” Will Include A 150m Race Between Shaunae Miller-Uibo, Allyson Felix And Switzerland’s Mujinga Kambundji Miller-Uibo will race in Florida, Felix in California and Kambundji in Zurich.

Doping News

2010 European Champion Russian HJer Alexander Shustov Gets 4-Year Doping Ban His results from July 2013 to July 2017 have been voided.
Michael Johnson Speaks Out Over Salwa Eid Naser’s Missed Tests Johnson said she should be banned through 2022 and also advocated for increasing the ban for three missed tests to 4 years.
RUSADA Investigating 27 Possible Rule Violations In May Includes three cases where athletes may have broken conditions of their current bans.

We’ve Brought John Kellogg Out Of Retirement – Our Summer Training Program Is Back

LRCHigh Schoolers And College Runners- Train Smarter This Summer With The LetsRun.com Summer Training Program If you aren’t sure what you should be doing for summer training and want to be your best this fall, sign up for our summer training program. Get a daily training schedule, interact with our team, and be your best this fall.

Sunday’s Interesting Links

The Veil On World Athletics’ Finances Is Lifted For 1st Time Ever As Financial Data Are Leaked in 2018, World Athletics had $45 million in the bank. That’s the good news. The bad news is they were spending $20 million more per year than what they were bringing in.
*MB: World Athletics financial info leaked for 1st time ever. They’ve got $45 million in bank, but are running a $20 mil deficit
Interesting Thought: What If All The Olympics Had Been Held One Year Earlier Than They Actually Were? Would Jim Ryun, Marty Liquori, Mary Decker, Sonia O’Sullivan, Tyson Gay and Mike Powell be Olympic legends?
Catching Up With Pat Tyson, Steve Prefontaine’s Roommate And Coaching Legend, During Covid-19
RIP: 1964 Olympian Ron Larrieu, The 1st American Under 28:00 For 6 Miles And Also A Former US 3-Mile Record Holder, Has Died At 83 Larrieu, who was the older brother of 5-time Olympian Francie Larrieu-Smith, also broke the a 31-year-old US HS 3,200 record by running 9:39.
Scottish Running Legend Don Macgregor, Who Was A Surprising 7th In The 1972 Olympic Marathon, Has Died
Former World Athletics Chief Papa Diack Requests Trial Postponement As Lawyers Are Unable To Travel To Trial Due To Covid-19

Previous LRC Exclusives

LRC I Was Bored, So I Watched Joan Benoit Samuelson Win The 1984 Olympic Marathon After a runner that was “considerably heavier than the other marathoners” took an early lead, Benoit won the inaugural women’s Olympic marathon thanks to a daring early breakaway, clocking the #3 time ever (at the time) and demolishing a field of studs (Grete Waitz, Ingrid Kristiansen, Rosa Mota) to cement her status as a legend.
*MB: How hot was it really during the 1984 Olympic women’s marathon? The NY Times report on the race says it got up to “near 90” but the weather data doesn’t show that.

LRC’s Weekly Podcast 2020 Boston Marathon Cancelled, Brown Track And Field Cancelled + Guest Tyler Andrews Goes For Treadmill World Record At Chaski Challenge And HSer Joe Fast Joins The Show Listen to the best track and field running podcast on the planet and learn about the guy who may dominate the NCAA men’s 800 for years to come.

Since You Can’t Go To A Movie Theater, You Should Consider Watching This New Feature Film At Home While In Covid-19 Quarantine

LRC Sudanese Refugee Turned Olympian Guor Mading Maker’s Incredible Life Story Is Now A Feature Film: “Runner” 8 of his 9 siblings were killed in the Sudanese Civil War but Guor Maker (née Marial) somehow survived and eventually thrived despite the odds and competed in the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Marathons. Maker is the subject of a new feature-length documentary that will premiere this weekend in conjunction with World Refugee Day. *Click Here To Find Out How To Watch

Christian Coleman Could Miss Olympics After Three Missed Tests But The Drug Tester Didn’t Even Try To Call Him?

LRC World’s Fastest Man May Face An Olympic Ban For Missing Yet Another Drug Test Christian Coleman may be facing a two-year ban, but we’re not sure he should be banned as some significant questions remain about his case. The authorities ADMIT they made no attempt to call Coleman when they could not locate him.
*MB: Christian Coleman facing suspension for three missed tests

AP:Coleman Is Accusing AIU Of Making A “Purposeful Attempt” To Make Him Miss A Test For the test in question, Coleman says he was shopping for Christmas presents near his home and documents show the testers didn’t call him.

European News

2021 London Marathon Will Host The GB Olympic Trials This year’s London Marathon was supposed to be the trials before it was postponed until October due to coronavirus. UKA also said there would be no more pre-selections (2:08 man Callum Hawkins is the only man pre-selected and no women were).
Good Read:Athletics Weekly Interviews GB Sprinter Adam Gemili Gemili talks about training during the coronavirus, proving he’s not “the forgotten man” and about wanting to go into sport governance after he’s done competing.
Renaud Lavillenie Believes Mondo Duplantis Could Vault 6.25m Talking about Duplantis beating his WR this indoor season, Lavillenie said, “I knew he was a guy who was able to break my record, but I didn’t think he would do it in 2020.”
Qualifying Standards For 2021 European Athletics Indoor Championships Published

Results!!! – Keira And Raczko Are Back, Baby

MB Keira D’Amato (née Carlstrom), 35-yr old mother of two who took 10+ years off from running, runs 15:04 5K time trial If her return to prominence wasn’t cool enough, how about this? She is coached by Alan Webb‘s HS coach Scott Raczko.

Brooke Rauber Wins Mile At Desert Dream – Last Hurrah In Arizona – With A 4:48.05 Five runners went under 4:50 and eight were sub-5. *Full Meet Results
MB:HSers John Lester and Cruz Culpepper run 1:48 at Desert Dream Lester ran 1:48.26 to Culpepper’s 1:48.50.
Throwers Highlight As Track Starts Back Up In Sweden Kim Amb threw 82.96m in the javelin as the top performance of the day.

NCAA Updates

Recommended Read: Sports Illustrated:“A Collegiate Model In Crisis: The Crippling Impact Of Schools Cutting Sports” A look at how the coronavirus is impacting college sport programs, with 30 DI teams already being discontinued. Includes insights from Clayton Murphy on Akron’s men’s XC team being cut.
RR #2:Blog Post: Collegiate Spending On Track And Field Props Up The Sport Our sport relies almost exclusively on the collegiate system to develop the professional track athletes of tomorrow. Most NCAA schools support track at a financial loss. So if more and more schools start cutting track, that’s a problem for the sport as a whole.
Carl Lewis Says The Houston University Track Program Is Preparing Its Athletes For Not Coming Back Until 2021 “Every sport will be different forever. College sports will be different forever.”
Florida Governor Signs Bill That Will Allow College Athletes To Earn Money From Endorsement Deals As Soon As Next Summer California and Colorado have passed similar laws, but Florida’s will go into effect a year and a half before theirs.

Protest News

Politico:Sport Bends Rules For Black Lives Matter Protests Although the IOC has caught flack for saying they might not allow political protests at the Olympics.
English Gardner Talks About The Time She Was Put In Handcuffs For Running A Red Light She says she isn’t anti-police though and that she has “friends who are African American cops.”
NY Times Interview With Iconic Black Power Protester Tommie Smith Smith answers questions about today’s protests, Colin Kaepernick and Drew Brees.
Athletes Will Not Be Punished For Activism At The 2022 Commonwealth Games
Allyson Felix Talks About Her Decision And Experience With Protesting “It’s so important for me to use my voice and I am hopeful [for change].”
GB Olympian Colin Jackson Says IOC Has “Big Opportunity” To Make Anti-Racism Statement Jackson also talked about how it’s going to be “literally hell” for athletes in the “twilight” of their career to hold one for one extra year for Tokyo 2021.
USA Today: “Will New USOPC Athlete Group Push IOC To Change Rules?”
Gwen Berry Accuses IOC Of Hypocrisy For Celebrating Tommie Smith And John Carlos, But Punishing Her For Protesting

Throwback Thursday

LRC I Was Bored, So I Watched Eliud Kipchoge’s & Kenenisa Bekele’s Duel At 2005 World XC A duel between legends was the headliner, but did you know the future greatest marathoner in history ended up making a classic beginning runner’s mistake? 2005 World XC also featured an impressive double from Tirunesh Dibaba, an appearance from 15-year-old Aliphine Tuliamuk, and the last World XC appearances for Galen Rupp, Jenny Simpson and Dathan Ritzenhein.

Sprint Stuff

A Look Back At Michael Johnson’s Historic Double Gold At The 1996 Olympics In Golden Spikes Johnson became the first man to win the 200m and 400m at a single Olympics.
HS Sprint Star Michah Williams Commits To Oregon Williams set the Oregon state championship meet records in the 100m and 200m his sophomore year.

Previous Impossible Games News

LRC Coach Bernard Ouma Talks As The World’s Fastest Milers Timothy Cheruiyot & Elijah Manangoi Prepare For Return To Competition Against The Ingebrigtsen Brothers For the first time in his life, Bernard Ouma, coach of the last two 1,500m world champs, says he’s going into a race unprepared. But that doesn’t mean he’s conceding defeat. “I’m not saying [Team Ingebrigtsen] can’t beat us, but they have to dig deep to beat us.” Plus what does he think about breaking Hicham El Guerrouj‘s WR and learn out about the new member of Rongai Athletics Club whom Ouma says is stronger than Manangoi and Cheruiyot right now.
*MB: Official 2020 Impossible Games Discussion Thread – Team Cheruiyot vs Ingebrgigtsen

Mondo Duplantis Ahead Of The Impossible Games: “I’m just glad to be back competing.” Includes quotes from Duplantis and Renaud Lavillenie talking about the unique competition as well as Timothy Cheruiyot, Filip Ingebrigsten and more.
Two-Time World 400H Champ Karsten Warholm Shooting For The 300m Hurdle WR At The Impossible Games The record for the rarely run event was set by GB’s Chris Rawlinson in 2002.
Watch The Impossible Games Press Conference

More Actual Action

Johannes Motschmann (29:11) And Alina Reh (31:26) Win Invitation-Only Secret Road 10k In Berlin The race was not publicly announced in advance so there was no media and almost no spectators on the course. Eight men and seven women started the race.
European Silver Medalist Nikola Ogrodnikova Throws 64.22m In Javelin At Josef Odlozil Memorial Meet In Prague
*World Athletics Recap Jakub Vadlejch threw 83.78m to win the javelin and Radek Juska lept 8.03m to take the LJ. Three-time world indoor 400m champ Pavel Maslak stepped down to win the 200m (20.82).

The World’s Best 400m Runner Got Popped On Friday

Salwa Eid Naser Downplays Her Drug Suspension, Says Missing Three Drug Tests In A Year “Is Normal”

LRC 2019 World 400m Champion Salwa Eid Naser Is Busted For Missing Three Drug Tests – Her Agent Says He Had No Idea She Was Popped Until LetsRun.com Told Him Eid Naser, who last year ran the fastest 400m time since 1985, is the latest athlete represented by Juan Pineda to be suspended for a doping violation following in the footsteps of Abraham Kiptum, Robel Fsiha and Sadik Mikhou.