WHEN CLOUDY, bet on human: One of the innovative events for June’s IWC meet in Hengelo will feature Dutch 400 recordholder Lisanne de Witte racing a solar car over 300m…
Florida’s Tom Jones Memorial saw an interesting bit of history this year, as Olympic gold medalist Christian Taylor—who has been part of the Gainesville scene on and off since he trained there as a Gator ’09–11—triple jumped at his “home” field for the first time……
Organizers of the Chicago Marathon have announced the event raised $22.7 million for charity last year…
The Great Stirling XCountry race, which has been on the world stage for 10 years and drawn U.S. national teams, is closing shop. Organizers say, “The cost of staging this event is increasing at the same time as commercial revenue is declining and the reality is, the event is no longer economically viable for us to stage.”…
The Cayman Invitational, originally scheduled for June 1, has been canceled because of financial difficulties…
The Jamaica International has also been canceled…
The organizers of the half-marathon in Trieste have banned African runners. They say their controversial move is to draw attention to the “trade in high-worth” African runners, and their resulting exploitation…
The challenge of winning every World Marathon Major—something that Eliud Kipchoge said is on his bucket list—could get a bit harder as China’s Chengdu Marathon has applied for membership in the WMM fold…
The PRRO road circuit crowned its champions at the Lilac Bloomsday 12K in Spokane, with Gabriel Geay of Tanzania (34:50) and Rosemary Wanjiru of Kenya (39:06) both claiming $7000. They split an additional $10K in bonus money…
Win an island! At Finland’s Paavo Nurmi Games (Turku, June 11), any man who can break the meet record in the discus or the javelin will win the deed to a nearby island. The discus mark of 232-10 (70.98) was set by Mac Wilkins in ’80. The javelin mark of 305-5 (93.09) was set by Aki Parviainen in ’99…
More fine tuning of the Olympic site-selection process may be in the works as IOC head Thomas Bach told the Australian Olympic Committee the current system “creates too many losers.” The Aussies are preparing to put forth Brisbane as a candidate for the ’32 Games…
And an IOC working group is recommending that bids for future Olympics and Paralympics be accepted from multiple cities, regions, or even countries as a means of making the process more inviting by sharing the expense and organizational burden of hosting a Games…
Florida A&M has been banned from post-season participation in a number of sports, including track, for the next 2 years after an NCAA investigation found that the school “lacked control” over the athlete-certification process…
This year, for the first time, the Brooks PR high school invitational, set for June 15 in Seattle, will feature pro 1500 races. The races will be set up to target World Champs standards…
Michael Rotich, who was team manager of the Kenyan Olympic team in Rio, has been banned for 10 years by the IAAF for taking bribes to tip off athletes about drug tests. He was also fined $19,000…
The adidas Boost Boston Games (June 15-16) will be moving a few blocks west to Copley Square. This year’s meet will introduce 600m road races, as well as putting the elite and high school miles onto a road course.
The name game: throwing the javelin this season for the Air Force Academy is Parker Spearman…
Concerns are being raised in Nairobi that preparations for the ’20 World Junior (U20) Championships in Kenya are not going as planned. “We realize that we are getting extremely late in putting things in place for the Nairobi competition,” says Barnaba Korir, a member of the local organizing committee. “If you look at the IAAF timeline, all aspects of our planning are in the red.”…
Time-staggered start gates were used for the first time on humans at the Dynamic New Athletics meet in Minsk in May. “We are very pleased with the results of today’s test event,” said the VP of European Athletics, Libor Varhaník…
French prosecutors have finally recommended that former IAAF president Lamine Diack and his son Papa Massata Diack stand trial on charges related to corruption and money laundering…
Prosecutors in France have also filed preliminary charges against Yousef al-Obaidly, a top Qatari businessman, in connection with suspected bribery in Doha’s pursuit of the ’17 World Championships. He was a senior official of a Qatari firm that paid $3.5 million to a company controlled by Papa Massata Diack in the days before the 2011 vote on the World Champs site.
Dale Greig, the first woman known to run a marathon on a certified course, passed away from cancer on May 12, at age 81. The British runner set her World Record of 3:27:25 in 1964…
Christopher Taylor, the 19-year-old Jamaican sprint sensation, will be joining coach Rana Reider at his Florida training camp. The World Youth champion in ’15 has PRs of 10.11, 20.35 and 44.88…
Two-time Olympic shot putter Joachim Olsen of Denmark is running for parliamentary election… and advertising on a major online porn site. “You have to be where the voters are,” said the center-right politician…
In Vienna in May organizers are hoping to see a “World Record” in handbag throwing. Men will be throwing the 2kg (4.4lb) handbag and the women 1kg (2.2lb). The current men’s record, apparently, is 151-7 (46.20) by Germany’s Stefan Koopmann. No word on if designer implements are allowed. □
