Saturday Night Virtual Track Meet – OTC Vs. ATC

RRW: OTC Defeats ATC At Return Of The Dual OTC won the meet with six points to one. They swept the 600m with Nijel Amos (1:17.2) and Chanelle Price (1:27.9) taking the wins.
*Watch The Full Event Replay With Commentary By Tim Hutchings
*MB: 600m TT: the carnage of Nijel Amos 
*MB: Oregon Track Club Vs. Atlanta Track Club In Virtual Dual Meet Saturday Night

• Other Action: Leroy Burrell’s 9.90 100m World Record From 1990 Named USATF’s Throwback Of The Week
• Notable Throwing And Jumps Performances Highlight As Track Resumes In Poland And Sweden

Looking Ahead

• MB: Fargo Marathon is on in August!!!!!!
• Mondo Duplantis And Daniel Stahl Will Lead Team Sweden For World Continental Meet In Karlstad On July 8th The meet will be a Sweden vs. Norway dual with ten events.
• Switzerland To Hold Pole Vaults In Downtown Lausanne Shopping Center In September Mondo Duplantis, Sam Kendricks, Sandi Morris and Katerini Stefanidi are competing.

Protest News

• Michael Johnson Wants More Athletes To Speak Out Against Racism He says he used to tell athletes it was “up to them” whether they wanted to get involved in movements, but with this one he says “you are complicit if you’re silent.”
• NCAA Bans All Championship Events In Mississippi Over State Flag With Confederate Emblem
• More Calls For IOC To Abolish Rule 50 (The Rule That Bans “Demonstration Or Political, Religious Or Racial Propaganda” At The Olympics) Last week IOC president Thomas Bach said Rule 50 could be reviewed.
• European Athletics Executive Board Backs Black Lives Matter

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.

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.

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.

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.