track-and-field Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Ethiopian Distance Runner Pulls Fellow Countryman By His Shorts After Believing He Was Tripped
The end of today’s men’s 5,000-meter race at the IAAF Diamond League meet in Lausanne, Switzerland devolved into infighting between two Ethiopians when one runner felt he was tripped and yanked his fellow citizen’s shorts in retaliation....
USC Wins National Championship On Wild 4x400 Comeback As Announcers Declare Them Dead
Coming into the 4x400 meter relay at tonight’s NCAA track and field championships, the USC women had to win to clinch a national title; otherwise, Georgia would win and pull off a rare sweep of the men’s and women’s titles. When USC mangled the handoff on the final exchange (about 2:48 into the vide...
College Runner Who Almost Burned To Death Reaches NCAA Final Two Years Later<em></em>
Probably the easiest sports story to write is one about a meteoric improvement. The Wow This Person Got A Lot Better At Sports story is one that works in every sport, honestly, but it tends to be most common in ones like running or swimming. (Stories about rapid improvements in those sports generall...
Officials Ruin Steeplechase Competition By Setting A Barrier Six Inches Too High
Wild shit happens in the steeplechase. Emma Coburn won last year’s world championship in part because one of the favorites ran around the first water jump instead of over it; a runner at the 2009 U.S. women’s championship broke her foot after one barrier was accidentally set at the men’s height; in ...
A Double Amputee Coming Off A Cocaine Suspension Is Suddenly One Of The Best Sprinters In America
Blake Leeper is a double amputee, self-described alcoholic, and coming off a two-year suspension for testing positive for cocaine that ended last year. He also may be one of the best 400-meter runners in the United States—and by extension, the world—after dominating the field with a PR of 44.42 seco...
World Champion Runner Accused Of Failing Drug Test, Has Elaborate Story About His Pee Sample
Asbel Kiprop, the best miler of the last decade, a three-time 1,500-meter world champion, and an Olympic gold medalist, reportedly tested positive for the blood-boosting drug EPO. Matt Lawton of the Daily Mail broke the story yesterday; several other outlets independently confirmed the report; and K...
The Only Point Of Track’s Dumb New Testosterone Rules Is To Make It Illegal To Be Caster Semenya<em></em>
Track and field’s international governing body announced this morning that women who compete internationally in events from 400 meters to the mile will have to maintain natural testosterone levels below a certain limit in order to be eligible to compete. (Those with more testosterone will be require...
Geoffrey Kamworor Raced Ten Miles, Then Ran A 13:01 5K<em></em><em></em>
The first three quarters or so of this weekend’s IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Valencia, Spain, were cagey and uneventful, as the runners hung out and watched each other while being buffeted by powerful gusts of wind. Then, with about six kilometers left to go, two-time defending world c...
![100-Year-Old Superhuman Orville Rogers Sets New World Record In Race Of Scootin' Grandpas [CORRECTED]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/avlhygeyirwypgkjcbmq.gif)
100-Year-Old Superhuman Orville Rogers Sets New World Record In Race Of Scootin' Grandpas [CORRECTED]
Look at this hightailin’ geezer! CORRECTION: While Orville is, in fact, a hightailin’ geezer, and certainly the man in green is also a hightailin’ geezer—perhaps the hightailin’-est geezer in the history of geezers—it turns out Orville is in white, in lane 2. It’s an impressive run, and he did indee...
Adding A Skateboard To Pole Vault Makes It Even Better<em></em>
French vaulter Baptiste Boirie gave us the highlight of the All-Star Perche pole vaulting competition this weekend, and he did it with a skateboard. He jumped 5.9 meters while using some help on his approach....
Police Say Former Olympic Runner David Torrence's Death Ruled An Accident
Olympic distance runner and American record holder David Torrence was found dead last August in his swimming pool in Scottsdale, Ariz. Today, Scottsdale police told Deadspin that Torrence’s death has officially been ruled an accident. ...
Entire Claremont Colleges Track Team Suspended After Accusation Of Assault During Nude Heist Caper
According to a report from The Student Life, the Claremont Colleges’ student newspaper, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men’s and women’s track teams have been suspended pending a university investigation into a nude theft attempt that went sideways. A police report from last weekend indicates that six s...
Christian Coleman Breaks 20-Year-Old World Record In The 60 Meters
Christian Coleman, probably best known to most American sports fans as the guy who ran a fast 40, just ran 60 meters in 6.37 seconds. That breaks a world record that fellow American Maurice Greene set at 6.39 in February of 1998, a month before Coleman’s second birthday....
Dozens Of Russian Athletes Dodge Doping Tests By Calling Out Sick
Over the weekend, 36 Russian athletes withdrew from a track-and-field competition in Siberia at the last minute following the unexpected arrival of drug testers. Many of those who chose not to participate cited illness, but an investigation is already underway and even Dmitry Shlyakhtin, the Preside...
Everything About The <i>Telegraph</i>'s Justin Gatlin Investigation Is Nuts
American sprinting star Justin Gatlin has five Olympic medals (including one gold), the fifth-fastest 100-meter time ever, the honor of beating Usain Bolt in his farewell race, and yet he’s still far more famous for his various doping bans than what he’s achieved on the track. Gatlin has been embroi...
Norovirus Outbreak Craps Up Track And Field World Championships<em></em>
This afternoon in London, South Africa’s Olympic hero Wayde van Niekerk coasted in under 44 seconds to win the 400-meter world championship with ease, letting up before he reached the finish line and still coming within a second of his own world record. He barely celebrated after he won, partially b...
Jenny Simpson Celebrates Wildly After Taking Silver At World Championships
The women’s 1500 meters headlined the fourth day of the IAAF World Championships in track and field, and it was a worthy main event for the London crowd. Great Britain’s Laura Muir led the pack through the first 800 meters at 2:17, at which point the race turned into a sprint. ...
American Justin Gatlin Rudely Spoils Usain Bolt's Final 100-Meter Race
Usurping American aggressor Justin Gatlin has vanquished the great champion Usain Bolt in Bolt’s last ever 100-meter race, at the IAAF World Track and Field Championships in London. ...
The Story Behind The Iconic Photos Of The Olympics' Dirtiest Record
When Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson faced off in the 100-meter finals at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the race to determine the world’s fastest human was the marquee event of the Games. It was America vs. Canada; the lithe Lewis against the hulking Johnson; the reigning Olympic champ against the reigning wo...
Usain Bolt Celebrates Final 100m Victory In Jamaica With Some Extremely Good Dance Moves
Usain Bolt is using a series of tuneup meets in advance of the World Championships in August as a kind of retirement tour, one that made a stop in Kingston last night. This would be Bolt’s last ever meet in Jamaica, and so, you can imagine, it was kind of a big deal. ...