Tonight In Portland – The Big Friendly 3 *Free Live Stream @ 10:50PM ET

Donavan Brazier Gunning For A Fast Time And Maybe Even A Record In Today’s Portland Track Popup Meet Brazier might be trying to break his own 1:42.34 American record which he set last year at Worlds. The other events should be good as well with Craig Engels, Hassan Mead and Josh Kerr in the men’s 1,500, Shannon Rowbury in the women’s 1,500 and Brenda Martinez, Chanelle Price and Nia Akins in the women’s 800. *Meet Info
*LRC Official Thread Brazier Predictions
*MB:BTC & Portland Track Holding Separate Meets this Friday (7/31)

More Oregon News:

• Ken Goe:“Long Hours, Short Nights And Ulcers: Portland Track Defies The Coronavirus To Stage Elite Meets” Portland Track president Michael Bergmann on BTC doing their own thing: “[Jerry Schumacher] knows what we’re doing. But they’ve been pretty successful doing it their way. He has his plan. I’m not going to beg him.”
• Good Read:Portland Track’s Jeff Merrill Gives A Behind The Scenes Look At The Setup And Execution Of The Big Friendly 2 Includes a lot of great photos from the races and middle-of-nowhere setting.
• Good For Them:The Scandia Run In Oregon Is Going Ahead Despite Coronavirus The race will be following social distancing guidelines and can accommodate as many as 600 runners.

XC News

• MB: World Athletics proposes that cross country return to the 2024 Olympics as a mixed gender 4 x 2.5km race
• MB: Australia’s World XC organizing committee recommends that the  2021 World XC champs be postponed March is a LONG way off. As of now, the event is still on the calendar.
• Dartmouth XC/T&F – Barry Harwick ’77 Retires At 65 After 28 Years

Throwback Thursday #16 LRC I Was Bored, So I Watched The 2005 NCAA Cross-Country Championships After three straight runner-up finishes, Jerry Schumacher, Simon Bairu, Chris Solinsky, and the Wisconsin Badgers broke through to win their first title in 17 years. Plus a women’s race packed with future stars.

London Is Still The Last Major Left Standing

• Are They Delaying The Inevitable Or Do We Dare To Dream? London Marathon Decision Due By August 7 The decision was supposed to be made July 28th, but an announcement has been delayed another 10 days. Race director Hugh Brasher said they are coming up with “innovative ways” to socially distance the event.
• London Marathon Organizers Hopeful Of Staging Elite Race For Olympic Qualification In October With Boston, Berlin, New York and Chicago all cancelled, London could be one of the few opportunities elites will have this fall to qualify for Tokyo.

Distance Action

LRC Rhode Island High Schooler Darius Kipyego Runs U.S. #3 800 (1:48.82) Kipyego, a rising junior at St. Raphael Academy in Pawtucket, earned Pan Am U20 silver last year by running 1:49.46.

• Cory McGee, Dani Jones And Emma Coburn Become First American Trio To Run Sub-4:24 In The Same Race At Team Boss Indiana Mile McGee won in a world-leading 4:21.81 (#8 US all-time outdoors) while Tripp Hurt won the men’s race in 3:56.18 over Nick Harris (3:57.11) and Mason Ferlic (3:58.87). *Discuss *Results
• MB:Jessica Hull Runs 8:41 For 3000m In Terrible Conditions

More Dates To Cross Off Your Calendar

• Shanghai Diamond League Cancelled After Chinese Government Suspends All International Sporting Events For The Rest Of The Year Shanghai was originally rescheduled for September 19th. It is now the sixth DL meet to be completely cancelled.
• RRW: Drake Relays Officially Cancelled Drake was originally scheduled for April 22-25 and postponed without a new date when coronavirus hit. Now it’s been completely cancelled.
• RRW: Marine Corps Marathon Forced To Cancel The race was scheduled for October 25th. Runners can defer their entry to request a refund.
• Gateshead Grand Prix Cancelled Because Stadium Renovations Won’t Be Complete The meet was rescheduled for September because of coronavirus, but now it’s been cancelled all together after coronavirus restrictions delayed renovations.
• Nanjing World Athletics Continental Tour Meeting Cancelled

Olympics-Related News

• Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori Says Fans Are Essential For The Olympics Thomas Bach suggested reducing the number of fans at the Games, but Mori sais Bach’s comments were a “worst case scenario.”
• AP:From Zeus To Athens, How The Modern Olympics Came To Be The Associated Press takes a look back at some highlights from the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896.
• Japan Airlines To Give Away 100,000 Free Domestic Tickets During Postponed Tokyo 2020 Games The goal is to encourage tourism in other areas of Japan. the same incentive was offered before the Games were delayed.
• Former Assistant US Attorney Appointed USOPC Chief Ethics And Compliance Officer Holly Shick is the first to take on this new position created in response to abuse scandals.
• US Olympic And Paralympic Museum To Open On July 30th In Colorado Springs

Trail / Ultra News

• Praying For Him And His Family:Pro Trail Runner And Marathoner Tommy Rivers Puzey Battling A Rare Form Of Lung Cancer Puzey has been hospitalized since early July as doctors struggled at first to figure out what the source of respiratory problems were. There is a GoFundMe page to help him and his family with medical costs.
  *MB: Tommy Rivs in ICU?
• MB:Jim Walmsley going for Kilian Jornet’s Hardrock 100 Record, by himself July 22nd An unconfirmed report says Walmsley dropped out of the attempt.
• Kyle Curtin Sets The Unsupported FKT For The Tahoe Rim Trail He ran the 165-mile route in 41 hours and 9 minutes, the unsupported record and second fastest time ever on the trail. The women’s FKT was also broken twice with Candice Burt ending up with the unsupported record with two days, 12 hours and 47 minutes.
• British Ultra Runner James Stewart Runs FKT (Fastest Known Time) For The John Muir Way (134 Mile Coast-To-Coast Route Across Scotland) He ran 21:53:22, beating the previous record of 29:29:00.