sarahbarker1 Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Sweet Life: A Van Man Shows You How To Dude It
Stephan Shay has de rigueur facial hair. He can be found in Southern California coffee shops, sometimes wearing a beanie. He’s tan. He’s fit. He wakes up to the sound of waves playing on southern California sand, and takes road trips up and down the coast....
Could A Nepalese Reality Show Help Restore Faith In Track And Field?
The real problem in track and field might not be the endemic corruption, but defeatism, the feeling that everybody’s in on it—administrators, coaches, athletes, watchdogs. The feeling that the problem is just too big to solve. There’s a nagging sense that telling the Russian federation it’s not okay...
Track Athlete Makes News By Publishing His Salary
Canadian sprinter and USC student Andre De Grasse signed a pro contract with Puma recently. There are two reasons this is big screaming news in track and field: One is that the contract is for a stratospheric amount of money, compensation of the sort top NBA picks are accustomed to but track athlete...
Ohhhhhhh, Track & Field Organizations Are Supposed To Serve Track & Field Athletes. Oops!
It has come to track and field athletes’ attention that during all those gutting workouts, dark-thirty in the morning, when the rent was due and cupboards bare, and it seemed like no one had their back—they were right. No one had their back. While they were pounding out repeat 1000s, the organizatio...
Coe's Dilemma: Does This Bribery And Corruption Make Me Look Complicit?
Back in July, when in Sebastian Coe’s telling he was as pure and innocent as a spring lamb in the #2 spot at the International Association of Athletics Federations, he was in fact mulling over whether “we” in the West (meaning the US and Europe, maybe Canada, but definitely not Mexico) were being to...
This Guy Walked Around The World With $6,000 And A Violin, And Only Had His Nuts Grabbed Once
As I understand it, a Bulgarian farm worker grabbed Andrew Siess’s nuts with his left hand while holding a gun in his right hand. He wasn’t pointing the gun at Siess, mind you, just holding it. Siess pushed him away, but the Bulgarian guy—speaking the international language of aggression—again grabb...
WADA Report: Drug Testing Works, But Bribery Works Better
The corruption at the top of track and field and the institutionalized doping miasma makes me tired. It’s supposed to. If it is ugly and confusing enough, lousy with unintelligible acronyms, most observers will just say, The hell with it, they’re all juiced to the gills, and most athletes will say, ...
Bond On The Run: A Close Look At Daniel Craig's Form
Spectre is dropping soon at a theatre near you, so it’s time to talk about Bond, James Bond. Since I don’t know good sprint form from a Moonraker, I brought in special agent Phoebe Wright for this assignment. An 800-meter professional, Wright has acted in some excellent chase scenes herself, knows w...
One Mystery And Four Other Good Stories From The New York City Marathon
Gosh, it was fun to see a woman with some healthiness about her and FIEN—who is FIEN?—printed on her bib, out front just killing it in Sunday’s New York City Marathon. And wasn’t it a marvel to watch that cheetah Wilson Kipsang loping along at 5:05 or so per mile, easy as cracking a cold one? ...
Innocent Is Independent: The Story of A Cross Country Runner
In only his second season of cross country, 18-year-old Innocent Murwanashyaka (above, middle, with some of his teammates) is so far this year undefeated. He won the St. Paul City Conference meet, covering the 5K course in 15:56, and is ranked fourth in Minnesota going into the state championship. I...
Steve Jones Raw: Starting And Finishing A Marathon Doesn't Make You A Marathoner
Every year around Chicago Marathon time, mid-October, people want to talk to Steve Jones. He’s enjoyable at other times of year but, like pumpkin spice dark chocolate toffee curry simmer sauce, seems to sell well seasonally. It could be because in two successive autumns—1984, when he set the world m...
USA! USA! We're Not As Fast As We Used To Be!
Sunday’s Chicago Marathon was a big, happy day for Americans. ...
Seven Habits Of Highly Awesome Middle School Runners
We’re trotting along, arms uptight and locked, kneecaps clanking, when one of the sixth-grade harriers pulled up short. In this group, sudden cessation of movement indicates either a haphazardly attached body part has fallen off, or the stalled vehicle has decided he hates cross country and is dropp...
There Are Officially No More Excuses For Not Running A Personal-Best Marathon
Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge proved in Sunday’s Berlin Marathon that he is the classiest human to ever lay down 26.2 miles at an average of 4:44 per. About 10 miles into the race, the insoles of his custom Nike racing flats slipped out halfway and stayed there for the remaining 16 miles, flapping like tong...
Neutering Is Not The Worst Thing That Ever Happened To This Bichon
There’s been quite a kerfluffle in Minnesota over this second-best Bichon of 2011 and 2012, Beau Lemon. The dog’s owner, John Wangsness, sued breeder Vickie Halstead, claiming that instead of having the decorated dog bred, she had the dog neutered....
Pole Vault For Dummies
In a mall, on the street, with a train, up twenty feet... Sam I am. The recent rash of wacky vault venues inspired Seuss-ism, and more successfully, a class in how to catapult one’s* body over an 18-foot high bar....
Meet The Owner Of Track's Most Brutal Event
Here’s Kenyan steeplechaser Ezekiel Kemboi after winning that 3,000-meter barrier-and-pond race at the Track and Field World Championships in Beijing. This was his seventh gold or silver World Championship performance. He’s got two Olympic golds at home in the drawer, stacks of others too, and, wond...
The IAAF's New President Is On Nike's Payroll
Brit Sebastian Coe, better known to friends and family as Lord Coe, was voted in as the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations over the only other contender, Russian Sergey Bubka. For the past eight years, Coe has been an IAAF vice-president, and also takes credit for pu...
Why Running Is A Huge Challenge For Somali Women
In June of 2013, Fadumo ran a half-marathon. Despite warm temperatures, she ran in a head scarf, long-sleeve shirt, pants and a knee-length skirt over the pants. Fadumo is Somali, and like 99 percent of Somalis, she is Muslim. She effused about how fit and healthy she felt, how proud for making it t...
Dutee Chand's Victory is Not A Victory For Fairness
The Court of Arbitration for Sports, the final word on disputes in Olympic sports, threw out the baby with the bathwater. I’m talking about the recent CAS decision to allow Indian sprinter Dutee Chand (above) to compete again. Chand was banned from competition last year because she is hyperandrogeni...