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Fun story from Front Office Sports about how 40-year-old Molly Huddle, a two-time Olympian, five-time American Record setter from the 5,000 m to the Half Marathon and who ran (but did not finish) the 2020 and 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials, carbs up for races:
A full box of 16 Rice Krispies Treats!
That’s 272 carbs in a carton, as well as 1,440 calories, from Rice Krispies, corn syrup, fructose, vegetable oil and a total of 128 grams of sugar. A common daily intake is about 2,000 calories a day, with 225-325 carbs; Huddle gets it all in one box! (They’re $4.96 on sale at Walmart.)
Should a warning be posted; do not eat a whole box unless you are a professional runner? What’s next? Mike & Ike?
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Now you know the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games organizers are getting serious. They are advertising for a Head of Doping Control:
“The Head of DOP is responsible for delivering a robust, efficient, secure, and comprehensive doping control program,” coordinating primarily with the International Testing Agency, World Anti-Doping Agency, U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and the International Federations.
The position requires a “minimum of 8+ years of experience in anti-doping operations,” with a salary range of $126,000 to $170,000.
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The Hamas-Israel war has bled into sports with calls to ban Israeli football teams and boycott other events. In Italy, some members of the left-wing Partito Democratico proposed that Israel be banned from all sports competitions by the International Olympic Committee, FIFA and UEFA.
The ruling, right-wing Fratella d’Italia (FdI)’s Chamber of Deputies head of culture, Federico Mollicone, parried, “We believe that sport – until it becomes petty international propaganda – should be a tool for unity, not division, a key to peace and sharing amid the violence of global conflicts,” adding:
“We don’t understand why there hasn’t been the same outcry for Iran, which has already qualified for the next World Cup, given that it supports terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East with the declared goal of destroying the State of Israel. We don’t understand why there hasn’t been a call to ban Chinese athletes, who dominate the medal table at every Olympic Games, due to the severe persecution of the Uighurs or in Tibet, or why the same request hasn’t been made for all the military dictatorships around the world that openly kidnap, kill, and persecute minorities and opponents.”
★★★ Olympic 100 m champ Noah Lyles of the U.S. lost to Jamaica’s silver medalist Kishane Thompson, 9.87 to 9.90 at the Diamond League Silesia on Saturday, but you wouldn’t know it from their comments afterwards:
● Lyles: “It is a great stepping stone. I needed to see a sub-10. I needed to see winning, beating people, I took out some really big heads today, people who run 9.7 and 9.8. I am getting the confidence. It makes me really excited for not only today but also for next week and Tokyo. The more I run, the better I am getting. I get more excited each day and it is working. I need to keep competing. I think I we will see some really good races in Lausanne.”
● Thompson: “My race today was not so good, not so bad. I enjoyed competition against Noah today. It is all about execution: I had problems with that, but I am finding it. The key is to find the momentum in the race and to maintain it till the end. Nobody is perfect, but I am working on improving my strengths and improving on my weaknesses. Paris last year was a big learning factor. I learned it is me against myself.”
On Monday, the Lausanne Diamond League organizers said that Thompson would not run and further reports have him skipping everything until the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in a month.
★★★ Two-time Olympic gold medalist Mel Stewart, a co-founder of the impactful SwimSwam.com news site, pulled no punches in a lengthy editorial about Olympic icon Michael Phelps’ letter about the future of U.S. swimming and USA Swimming. The bottom line:
“In my opinion, Michael was far, far too nice, controlled even. …
“To be 100% clear so everyone understands this, Michael’s letter was not nor has it ever been about the swimmers or any single meet. It was 100% about leadership – specifically, the USA Swimming Board of Directors.”
Stewart details the inside-the-sport issues of national coach payments, club issues, board performance and what he thinks are the key performance indicators: membership growth, new revenues and national-team performance. And a lot more.
★★ Phelps, now 40, can still haul. At the end of a swim-training session with members of the NFL Baltimore Ravens, Phelps dove off the blocks and swam an underwater 25-yard (Free) in 9.98 … without much effort.
The world best is fellow American Michael Andrew’s 8.56 in May of this year, but 9.98 underwater? At 40? Wow. Wow!
★★ American Pommel Horse star Stephen Nedoroscik – the 2021 World Champion and who clinched the U.S. men’s Team, bronze in Paris – had a busy off-season on “Dancing With the Stars” and only got back to training in April. Now 26, he finished fifth at the USA Gymnastics nationals in New Orleans, but says it’s only the first step in his return:
“I’ve always told myself, ‘I want to be done with the sport when my body is done with the sport,’ and I’m still getting better. I feel like I’d be doing myself a dishonor to not see how far I could go.”
And what about LA28: “I’m going to continue going. L.A. would be amazing, so I want to shoot for that.”
★ The most underrated performance of the weekend was a startling Japanese 110 m hurdles record of 12.92 (+0.6) for Rachid Muratake at the Athlete Night Games in Fukui on Saturday. That makes him no. 2 on the 2025 world list, took 0.12 off his prior best and puts him in position to win Japan’s first-ever medal in the event, in either the Olympic Games or World Championships!
In front of a home crowd, he could win the whole thing!
★ The North American, Central American and Caribbean (NACAC) Championship drew a huge, 50-member U.S. team to Freeport (BAH), with 16 wins in an event most U.S. competitors had previously ignored.
The difference: the timing of the meet, moved from early June to mid-August, was perfectly placed for late qualification and world-ranking-points for the World Athletics Championships, whose qualifying deadline is 24 August. This could be a real boost for the meet, possibly making it a fixture in World Athletics Championships years, after the first World Athletics-mandated national championships window and the qualifying deadline.
★ The Chicago Marathon announced that 2024 winner John Korir (KEN) will return for the 12 October 2025 race, with an eye toward a sub-2:01 time. Translation: the 2:00:35 world record by the late Kelvin Kiptum (KEN) from the 2023 Chicago Marathon is being targeted.
Korir won in 2:02:44 last year, moving him to no. 8 all-time. He will be challenged by countryman Timothy Kiplagat (2:02:55 in Tokyo in 2024), with six others who have run faster than 2:04:30. Conner Mantz will target the American Record of 2:05:38 by Khalid Khannouchi from 2002.
★ Los Angeles City Council member Tim McOsker got his way with the LA28 organizers, romping and stomping that if the SailGP pro sailing circuit found San Pedro – the Port of Los Angeles, in his district – good enough to hold events there in 2024 and 2025, the Port should have Olympic events too.
He won the point and San Pedro will host boat events, while board events will remain in Long Beach. But SailGP has moved on, announcing its 2026 schedule with only one U.S. event – in New York – and skipping both San Pedro and San Francisco.
★ Interesting new event for climbing at the Chengdu World Games, with not just the regular, one-on-one Speed events on a 15 m wall, but two new concepts, a relay and a Speed 4 format, which places four climbing walls side-by-side for four-at-a-time action.
Indonesia’s World Champion Desak Made Rita Kusuma Dewi won the women’s title in 6.35, but said afterwards, “competing on a four-lane wall is more difficult, as it requires more concentration.” China’s Jianguo Long took the men’s gold in 4.74 seconds.
(Special Thanks to Mike Navarro of J.R. Navarro & Associates for efforts on the “Scene & Heard” graphic!)
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