Clubs Sign College Grads
New Hampshire 1500 star Elinor Purrier has joined Mark Coogan’s New Balance Boston group; Karissa Schweizer has joined the Bowerman Track Club and will be trained by Jerry Schumacher; Hoka One One Northern Arizona Elite has signed Erin Clark (Colorado), Grayson Murphy (Utah), Danielle Shanahan (Loyola Marymount) and Alice Wright (New Mexico)…
Though he has turned pro, 800 star Isaiah Harris has confirmed that he will continue training with coach John Gondak at Penn State until he completes his degree next spring…
’12 Olympic long jump gold medalist Greg Rutherford of Britain says he’ll turn to track cycling when he retires…
Even with her 42 national crowns, walker Maria Michta-Coffey is a long way from walking past Ron Laird. The Hall of Fame walker has a huge lead on the male side of the sport with 63 career golds…
To mark 100 years since British women were given the right to vote, the 8 team captains at the London World Cup were all women; the U.S. team was led by, ironically, Queen Harrison…
Kenya’s Mercy Chepkorir might have been a podium threat at the World Juniors in the 3000, but a passport screwup—mistakenly listing her as a male—kept her from traveling to Finland…
Track at New Mexico survived after 4 sports were eliminated, but the men’s side still took a heavy hit, with cross country going from 16 roster spots to 10 and outdoor track going from 32 to 20…
Former Missouri assistant Carjay Lyles has filed a racial discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against head coach Brett Halter and other MU officials charging a “continuous practice of exhibiting discriminatory and demeaning behavior toward black athletes and staff members.”…
Beating The Tokyo Heat
Early starts will be the order of the day for the road events at the sure-to-be-hot ’20 Olympics. All will begin at 7 a.m. according to the tentative schedule, except for the 50K walk, which will go off at 6. That’s assuming the Games stay on the same dates. With this year’s killer heat wave roasting the Japanese capital there has been talk of moving the whole shebang to later in the year…
Will London’s World Cup be a mobile affair? The London Telegraph says that China has expressed interest in hosting a ’20 version, with the U.S. asking for ’22…
Two-time Olympic Trials LJ finalist Mikese Morse, 30, is awaiting trial on murder charges after police say he intentionally ran down a father and two sons who were riding bicycles in Tampa, killing the father and injuring the two boys. Morse’s parents said he has struggled for years with profound mental illness…
Kansas City athletes will get a cold weather boost with the opening of the Hy-Vee Arena this fall. One of its features is a 350m indoor training track…
A 13,000-acre parcel of land in eastern Ohio has been dedicated as Jesse Owens State Park…
With the IAAF no longer having a formal bidding process for the World Championships, the early sites being mentioned for ‘23 are Budapest and Barcelona. A decision could be made at a late-July Council meeting…
The ’19 European Junior (U20) Championships will be hosted by Borås, Sweden…
The Nigerian Championships—scheduled for 3 days—came to a stop on the morning of the second day because of an athlete protest about their treatment, as well as a controversy over federation politics…
Latest plans for the new Eugene track include a 4000-square-foot museum…
Forget the World Marathon Majors. Kenenisa Bekele will run the Amsterdam Marathon in October…
Stat maven Jed Brickner notes that Abderrahmane Samba’s 46.98 in the 400H is a new record for lane 5, topping the 47.02s by Edwin Moses and Rai Benjamin…
In June sprinter Andre De Grasse and hurdler Nia Ali became parents to a daughter, Yuri…
Is There Anything Syd Can’t Do?
In a recent posting on her Instagram page, Sydney McLaughlin is seen making a 2-handed, no-look backwards basketball shot… while riding a unicycle…
No secret shoes. “In the spirit of universality of athletics,” the IAAF has ruled that any and clothes or shoes used in competition must be reasonably available to all. The rule change was probably inspired by the Nike Zoom Vaporfly 4% shoes that were initially reserved for the company’s elite athletes…
But do the hyper-expensive shoes work? A detailed New York Times study suggests that the specialized high-energy-return footwear can indeed produce times 3-4% faster…
Olympic javelin champ Thomas Röhler got to try his hand at being a meet director for the Javelin Festival in Jena. He failed to use that to his advantage and ended up finishing 2nd to Andreas Hoffmann, 290-3 (88.48) to 279-5 (85.17)…
Usain Bolt’s dreams of being a pro soccer player got a 6-week extension, thanks to the Central Coast Mariners, a team based near Sydney, Australia, that is giving him a look, although many are suggesting that the sprint great’s ongoing dabbling in soccer is merely a publicity stunt…
Tom Bosworth, Commonwealth silver medalist in the 20K walk, says he will challenge Qatar’s criminalization of LGBT rights next year in Doha, even though criticizing the Emir carries a 5-year jail sentence…
File this under records we don’t keep track of: Frenchman Baptiste Boirie recently rode a skateboard to vault 20-2¾ (6.17), a centimeter higher than Renaud Lavillenie’s unwheeled global best. In real life, Boirie is an 18-6½ (5.65) vaulter. Old-timers may recall Steve Smith (the first indoor 18-footer in the vault) vaulting off a skateboard in the ’70s, although we can’t verify any heights he might have made.
The NCAA has proposed 2 rules changes which will bring the collegians in line with IAAF regulations: the relay exchange zone will expand to 30m (instead of the 10m acceleration zone followed by a 20m exchange zone); field eventers (other than vaulters) will only have 30 seconds to initiate their attempts instead of a minute…
Figures released by Tokyo organizers say the most expensive sporting tickets—at the high end, that is—for the ’20 Games will be for track at ¥130,000. Roughly speaking that’s $1163 or £888 or €993. The most expensive ducats, of course, will be for Opening and Closing: ¥300,000, which is roughly $2685/£2049/€2294. Start saving now. □
