2-TIME OLYMPIC 5000 MEDALIST Paul Chelimo has left Nike to sign with Kiprun, a branch of the French firm Decathlon, which is the largest sporting goods retailer in the world. While it may be a little-known brand on the pro running scene, its sales are more than New Balance and Asics combined. The move capitalizes on the Olympics being in France and Chelimo’s coming move to the marathon…
Florida is tackling a $4.1 million renovation project for its track stadium…
High-altitude track will return to Italy’s Sestriere on August 06. Set at 2010m (c6600ft), the meet will feature 100, 200, 400, 110H and long jump, with timing set up on both sides of the track to take advantage of the wind…
The USATF Foundation has announced 28 Youth Club Grants, totaling $43,320. The clubs represent 17 states…
The Foundation also awarded $4000 maternity grants to marathoner Rachel Smith and steepler Leah Falland…
As well, the Foundation awarded travel grants to 46 of the athletes bound for Poland for the World Masters Indoor…
NIL for preps? A bill in the Arkansas legislature is seeking a study period for lawmakers to decide whether high school athletes should be compensated for the use of their likeness. The report wouldn’t be due until late ’24…
Seb Coe has confirmed that he will stand for election to his third (and last possible) term as WA president in August…
More than 40 years after the men, this year the Bislett Games in Oslo will brand the women’s 4-lapper as the “Dream Mile” for the first time…
European Athletics pledged that it would donate a Euro from each ticket at the Euro Indoors to Turkish victims of the February earthquake. In the end, that meant a $21,000 donation…
The auction of Miltiádis Tentóglou’s controversial long jump spikes brought another $21,000 to the quake victims…
Sydney Olympic high jump bronze medalist Abderrahmane Hammad has been named Youth & Sports Minister by the Algerian government.
A feature documentary on the career of Carl Lewis will be the first film project for Uninterrupted, the brand created by basketball star LeBron James…
A drop in Olympic support? A recent LA Times poll showed 57% of area residents believe the ’28 Olympics will be good for Los Angeles. That’s an apparent decline from earlier polls — by other pollsters, using other groups — that typically showed Olympic support ranging from 76 to 83%…
Haile Gebrselassie credits Kenyan runners with pushing him to be his best: “Kenyans used to give me a headache and I thank them for that. Without them, do you think Haile would be here talking to Kenyan media.”…
Kentucky alum Chloe Abbott, still training for the 400 (PR 50.98), advanced to the next round on The Voice for her version of the Bee Gees’ “How Deep Is Your Love.”…
Portuguese triple jumpers Nelson Évora and Pedro Pichardo aren’t close, it would seem after Évora charged that Pichardo was “bought” from Cuba by the Portuguese federation. Responded Pichardo, “I left Cuba because of the country’s problems, everyone knows that. I was in Sweden and Benfica made me an offer like others did, clubs from other countries. I arrived in Portugal without knowing anything about your problems. I was simply focused on my career.”…
In recent Olympics, participants in the torch relay have been allowed to keep the torch they run with. In Tokyo that number hit 10,000. Paris organizers, however, say they are going to cut back on the number of torches produced for sustainability reasons. They are considering other souvenirs for the torch runners…
World Athletics and Infront have extended their media rights partnership for the World Indoor Tour through ’29. No dollar figure was made public…
Spanish miler Adel Mechaal was impressed by Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s 3:33.95 at the Euro Indoor: “I’m strong, but what I saw in the 1500 yesterday… I did 3:33 with pacemakers and LED lights… It’s just inhuman”…
Kenyan sprinter Ferdinand Omanyala made headlines with what was reported as an African Record 9.81 in a meet in Nyayo, Kenya. Then folks took a second look at the reported -4.6 wind reading; World Athletics has decided to carry the marks as “NWI”—no wind information. Other statisticians are calling it a gauge malfunction…
The National Scholastic Athletics Foundation named the late Bob Hersh the winner of its ’23 Allen Dawson Award for contributions to the sport…
USATF has announced three new board members: Tonja Buford-Bailey (Coaches Representative), Bernard Lagat (Athlete’s Advisory Committee Representative, and Kibwé Johnson (AAC alternate)…
Marathoner Sara Vaughn has launched a nonprofit, the Vaughn Childcare Fund, to help support undergraduate student-athletes. Vaughn herself, now a 2:26:23 marathoner, had the first of her four children as a Colorado undergrad…
The fact that the NCAA Indoor was broadcast behind an ESPN paywall ticked off more than a few top athletes, prime among them Noah Lyles: “This is just disgusting! I want to know who authorized this and what was the reasoning. Even if you don’t show the prelim days you can show the finals days. How many times are we going to shoot ourselves in the foot as a sport.”…
A new consumer survey on “super shoes” claims that 100% of users are happy with them, while among those who hadn’t heard of them, once the term was defined, 76% said they were interested in trying them…
’74 NCAA shot champ Jesse Stuart has been honored by Western Kentucky, as the school has retired his track jersey…
NFL star Tyreek Hill’s 6.70 dash win at the USATF Masters Championships was widely shared and criticized on social media. Second-place, though, may have had it worse. Curtis Bell, a former decathlete now assistant coaching at Central Michigan, ran the race on a lark and lost badly. “All the girls [I coach] are making fun of me,” he said. “They all want to race me now because they think they can beat me.”
Also dealing with post-race shame is Mo Farah, who placed 3rd in the parents’ 100 race at one of his children’s schools. The man who won was wearing jeans, said Farah’s wife, Tania. “We aren’t hearing the end of it.”…
Two basketball players from Brown have launched a federal lawsuit alleging that the Ivy League’s practice of not offering athletic scholarships amounts to a price-fixing agreement that denies athletes proper payment and financial aid…
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, on her trademark wigs: “It’s like my wigs are a superpower and I’m able to go into character and it’s almost like you feel invincible.”…
WA commissioned a research company to analyze media bias in how male and female athletes were represented in search engine results during and after the ’22 Worlds. While the results for track were better than what is seen in the sporting world in general, there was still a 42% female/58% male split in search returns. The discrepancy was even bigger in the throws specifically (32/68)…
Former LSU 400 star Noah Williams waded into a Twitter thread on low prize money amounts in track to say, “Imagine getting 70K for running 9 seconds. It’s a blessing. Could it be more? Yes. But in the grand scheme I feel like athletes in our sport are mostly ungrateful for what we DO get.” Replies were decidedly mixed…
Usain Bolt thinks the lack of a superstar is hurting the sport: “When I left people were looking for the next person who is going to step up and really shine and stand out. I think that’s what the sport is missing right now… If you don’t have a superstar that stands out like I did, then it’s going to be hard to draw the big crowds and draw that attention that you want.” ◻︎