Monaco – This Year’s Version Of The Olympics – Is Friday *TV & Streaming *Schedule

LRC 2020 Monaco DL Preview: The 2020 Olympics Is Happening On Friday In Monaco What a meet! Sifan Hassan, Donavan Brazier, Noah Lyles, Joshua Cheptegei and many more stars will all compete in the best track meet of 2020 – in front of real live fans – on Friday in Monaco.

LRC World Champions Donavan Brazier & Noah Lyles Speak Ahead Of Monaco Diamond League Find out which double Brazier wants to attempt (hint: it’s not the 800/1,500), why he’d like to stay in Europe for a while, and what Lyles has been doing to get closer to Usain Bolt‘s 200m WR.

LRC Joshua Cheptegei Is Going For The 5,000 WR In Monaco – Can He Break It? Kenenisa Bekele‘s 12:37.35 WR has stood for 16+ years. the longest time for the men’s 5k record in history, but Cheptegei, the 10k & XC world champ, is 100% committed to trying to break it in Monaco on Friday. Can he do it? We break down his chances for you.

Podcast: Monaco Diamond League Preview  + Guest Ok State Coach Dave Smith on NCAA XC 2020 Believe it or not NCAA XC practice is underway and the biggest one day track meet of 2020 is here.

Monaco MB Talk

• Official 2020 Monaco DL Discussion Thread
• World Record for 5000 has 5 days left
• Monaco forecast: Too hot for 5000 WR?
• JAKOB INGEBRIGTSEN MONACO 1500M TIME PREDICTION ?
• DL Monaco entries are up 

More Monaco DL News

• Good News: BBC Signs Last Minute TV Deal To Get Diamond League Meets Live Streamed In Britain There was outrage after a a report a couple days ago that revealed World Athletics had failed to secure a British broadcaster so Brits wouldn’t be able to watch the meets live. *2nd Article
• Joshua Cheptegei’s WR Dream Still Alive After Weeks Of Arguing With The Ugandan Government To Allow International Travel
• World Athletics Preview: Global Champions And World Record Holders Head To Monaco As Diamond League Action Resumes Donavan Brazier is excited to be racing international again saying, “I didn’t realize how much I missed coming to Europe and seeing all the athletes – it’s sort of like a mini-world championships.”
• The UK Government Issued Elite Athlete Travel Exemptions Preventing Elite Athletes From Having To Quarantine
• BBC Preview: Adam Gemili Takes On World Champ Noah Lyles In Monaco

The Shoes Have Ruined The Sport

World Athletics Issues Reminder About Their Amended Shoe Rules Which Went Into Affect Two Weeks Ago The new rules set a maximum sole height limit of 25mm for track events 800m and above. This means that road shoes with a higher sole height like the Nike Vaporfly can’t be worn for track races. However, anyone who ran a time or set a record before the rule came in effect two weeks ago will be grandfathered in.
*2nd Article Cross-Country also has a maximum sole height limit of 25mm.

Monaco Diamond League Is Friday

Monaco Provisional Entry Lists There is a solid women’s 5,000m with Sifan Hassan, Hellen Obiri, Letesenbet Gidey, Shannon Rowbury and Konstanze Klosterhalfen. The men’s 1,500m should also be good with Timothy Cheruiyot, Jakob and Filip Ingebrigsten and Craig Engels. The men’s 5,000 has Joshua Cheptegei, Julien Wanders and Henrik Ingebrigsten; Soufiane El Bakkali in the steeple. Brits Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie are in the 1,000m with Raevyn Rogers and Faith Kipyegon.
*MB: DL Monaco entries are up

• World Athletics Fail: British Viewers Won’t Be Able To Watch The Diamond League Live This Year Eurosport opted not to extend its contract when it expired last year and World Athletics hasn’t secured a new British broadcaster. (The BBC can show meet highlights only.)
• NBC Sports’ Five Events To Watch At The Monaco DL Three of the five on their list are distance races.
• Meet Director Jean-Pierre Schoebel Talks About Putting On The Monaco DL Through The Covid-19 Pandemic “We’ve never worked as hard as this year. I can’t tell you how difficult the situation has been.”

OAC Full Team Revealed – Monson & Hoare Added To The Mix

LRC Full On Athletics Club Roster Announced, Led By NCAA Champs Geordie Beamish & Alicia Monson On has announced more NCAA signings this summer than every other shoe company combined. We reveal the full squad and analyze the roster, which is made up of 6 NCAA champs (4 DI) and led by Joe Klecker, Ollie Hoare, and Alicia Monson.

Covid Needs To Back Off

Olympic And World Steeplechase Champ Conseslus Kipruto Tests Positive For Coronavirus; Will Miss Monaco Diamond League Meet Kipruto says he doesn’t have any symptoms and was planning on going for the WR. *Discuss

Track Results – Last BTC Time Trial

• MB: BTC Time Trial – Mo Ahmed Runs 5:00.72 For 2,000m; Shelby Houlihan Runs 2:01.08 For 800m Over Karissa Schweizer’s 2:02.77 This one was much more tame than BTC’s previous time trials.
  *Full Results You’ll notice some bizarre results like Matt Centrowitz running 3:03 for 800m. These results are athletes fulfilling contract obligations. For more of an explanation on that, read our article here: Why Did Michael Norman Run 9.86 – And Then Races Four More Times? A Look At How COVID-19 Is Affecting Elite Track & Field Contracts
  *MB: BTC Ran The 2000m As An Elimination Race

LRC Content

LRC Running’s D-Day Podcast As London Marathon, 2020 NCAA Cross-Country Decisions Expected audio fixed Good news as the LRC crew expects the London Marathon to take place as an elite race.

LRC I Ran A Real Race With Real People, And It Was Glorious Believe it or not there is actual racing going on in a former COVID-19 hot spot – Connecticut.
Have You Run A Race Recently? Share Your Experience Here

LRC I Was Bored, So I Watched The 1993 World Championship 5,000 In one of distance running’s greatest efforts, Kenya’s Ismael Kirui ran 13:02 from the front to hold off Haile Gebrselassie and avenge his brother’s controversial Olympic defeat to Khalid Skah.

Will There Be Any College Sports This Fall?

NCAA Board Of Governors Leaves Decision On Fall NCAA Championships To Each Division D2 and D3 are already out. D1 needs to make their decision by August 21.

• NCAA Division II Cancels All 2020 Fall Championships 11 of the 23 Division II conferences had already announced they would not compete during the traditional fall season. Like DIII, these championships are cancelled, not postponed until spring.
• Division III Presidents Council Cancels Fall Championships For 2020 They considered holding the fall championships in the spring, but “found it was logistically untenable and financially prohibitive.”
  *MB: RIP D3

Sprint Stuff

• Lolo Jones Featured In HBO Sports Documentary, The Weight Of Gold; Says She’s Determined To Make It Back To The Olympics Jones is gunning for the Tokyo Olympic team, but says she doesn’t plan on trying to go back to bobsledding after missing the 2018 Games in what she called a “subjective process.”
• The Guardian: “Usain Bolt’s Talent For Speed Becomes More Apparent Now It Is Denied To US” The writer explains how he chooses to believe Bolt’s WRs are clean even at the risk of “looking like a sap in 20 years’ time.”
• Face2FaceAfrica.com: “Former Star Sprinter To Street Sweeper: Meet Jackie’s Forgotten Brother Mack Robinson”
• Mildred “Babe” Didriksen Selected As USATF Throwback Athlete Of The Week For Her 80m Hurdles American Record In 1931

RIP News

• RIP Kenyan 1972 Olympic Silver Medalist Ben Jipcho, 77 Jipcho won silver in the steeplechase, but is also credited with helping Kip Keino win 1500m gold in 1968 over Jim Ryun by acting as a pacesetter.
  *Daily Nation Says Ben Jipcho Left Behind Five Widows And More Than 30 Children His first wife said Jipcho was hard working and greatly supported the family.
  *Athletics Legend Jipcho Buried In Trans Nzoia
• Russia’s 1956 And 1960 Olympic Triple Jump Bronze Medalist Vitold Kreyer Dies At 87
• USATF Mourns Passing Of Race Walk Pioneer A.C. “Beto” Jaime, 84

High School Corner

• DyeStat Lists NCAA Conference-By-Conference Break Down On Where Each State Stands On High School Fall Sports
• From Last Week: MB: Sydney Masciarelli WORLD RECORD 1 mile w/ basketball The 2018 Foot Locker winner ran 5:08.57, not that much slower than her 4:58.62 PR (her 1,500m best is 4:34.72). 2015 World Championships runner Lauren Johnson had apparently just set the dribbling record at 5:16.36 a few weeks previously.

More Recent Results

• MB: Oliver Hoare And Joe Klecker Become The First Two Men To Go Sub-4 In Colorado Klecker posted on Instagram that he ran 3:58.4 to Hoare’s 3:56.8. Those times convert to 3:51.16 and 3:52.72 according to NCAA altitude conversions.
• Sweden’s Michaela Meijer Breaks Swedish PV Record With 4.83m On Her First Attempt
• AW Weekly Round-Up: UK Athletics Comeback Continues

The Big Friendly 3 / BTC Intrasquad IV *Results

LRC Donavan Brazier Runs 1:43.84 In His 800 Opener; Bowerman TC Breaks World, American 4 X 1,500 Records In his first 800 in 304 days, the 2019 world champ split 50.80 for the first lap and 53.04 for the 2nd.
*MB: Schweizer > Houlihan in 4 x 1500 – 4:04 vs 4:05? The BTC women’s splits appear to be 4:07 for Quigley, 4:10 for Cranny, 4:04 for Schweizer and 4:05 for Houlihan. Grant Fisher had the fastest men’s split at 3:36.

MB Discussion 

• Brazier predictions for the 800 tonight/ Official Thread Big Friendly #3 
• BTC & Portland Track Holding Separate Meets this Friday (7/31) 
• Kerr VS Engels

We Wish Them A Speedy Recovery

400m World Record Holder Wayde Van Niekerk Tests Positive For Coronavirus Van Niekerk was supposed to run the 100m and 400m at a meet in Italy, but will have to sit out and quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19. *MB: Van Niekerk Covid positive

Flagstaff Running Community Launches Run With Rivs Fundraiser For Local Legend Tommy Rivers Puzey, Who Is Battling A Rare Form Of Cancer You can participate by logging (or donating to) an endurance challenge anytime through August 9. All funds go to the Puzey family.