Ritzenhein's in!

Dathan Ritzenhein, who was unexpectedly on the bubble in the 10,000m, has been told he will be able to run in the 10,000m. According to one of his agents, he successfully appealed and was allowed in on the basis that his qualifying time was set last year, in which his only two 10,000m races were hot weather, championship affairs--the USA Champs and the World Champs (in which he placed 9th). Allowing him in seemed like a reasonable proposal to all involved, especially since most of the automatic qualifiers achieved their times in cool weather "time trials," as opposed to the challenge of an international championship race.

And moving from reliable information to the realm of rumors, word is that one of our 800m stars (I'm not saying whom) has said that they will be running the 1500 next year in order to be competitive at the top level. No hints on whom, but if you send me money or gift certificates to Nina's Tacqueria in Battle Creek, I'll consider spilling the beans.