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Chris Chavez and Kyle Merber discuss the third day of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials live from Eugene, Oregon. We start this episode by reaffirming that we are now big throws guys. Rudy Winkler broke an American record that had stood since 1996 with his 82.71-meter heave in the men's hammer throw. Stay tuned because he will be a guest on the show later this week. Other topics discussed: – The Trayvon Bromell comeback chatter really started in April after he ran 9.8 and then improved upon that to a 9.77, which ranks as the top time in the world for 2021. He backed it all up and cruised to a 9.80 win in the men's 100m. We also discuss how Fred Kerley's big risk paid off by opting to run the 100m and 200m instead of the 400m, where he won a silver medal at worlds in 2019. – Allyson Felix's final 100 meters were a thing of beauty and landed her on her fifth U.S. Olympic team and her first as a mother. Quanera Hayes took the win in 49.78 and will be on her first Olympic team alongside with Wadeline Jonathas. – Kyle gives his hypothetical men's and women's DMR teams if it was an Olympic event. – The women's 3,000m steeplechase saw some breakthroughs with Grayson Murphy taking her respective section by gunning for the Olympic standard and bringing Courtney Wayment along with her. This certainly makes Thursday's final much more interesting. – World record holder Keni Harrison gets even sweeter redemption after missing the 2016 Olympic team. + Much more... TUNE IN AND LISTEN TO TRIALS TALK WITH CHRIS AND KYLE. Our daily podcast from the Olympic Trials is presented by Tracksmith. We’re excited to partner with Tracksmith, an independent running brand fueled by a deep love of the sport. They celebrate the amateur spirit and seek to inspire the personal pursuit of excellence. Tracksmith is pleased to be supporting 30 Olympic Trials qualifiers in Eugene, including athletes across 14 disciplines, as part of their Amateur Support Program. Check out Tracksmith's essentials for racing and training - including the Strata kits their Trials athletes are racing in this week - at Tracksmith.com/CITIUS and use code CITIUS to receive 10% off any order until the last day of the trials, June 27th.

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Chris Chavez, Kyle Merber and Nick Willis sit down with the newly minted and first-ever Tracksmith Olympian, Rachel Dincoff. In Saturday’s competition, Rachel threw the discus 60.21m to finish 3rd overall and secure her spot in Tokyo. After graduating college in 2016, where she was never a first-team All-American, Rachel made the decision to continue pursuing her childhood dream of qualifying for the Olympic Games. She had to work multiple jobs to make it happen, though on Saturday all of the sacrifices proved worth it. This conversation not only dives into her mindset and buildup at the trials but the details of her training, technique, nutrition and lifting numbers that made it all possible! TUNE IN AND LISTEN TO TRIALS TALK WITH CHRIS AND KYLE. Our daily podcast from the Olympic Trials is presented by Tracksmith. We’re excited to partner with Tracksmith, an independent running brand fueled by a deep love of the sport. They celebrate the amateur spirit and seek to inspire the personal pursuit of excellence. Tracksmith is pleased to be supporting 30 Olympic Trials qualifiers in Eugene, including athletes across 14 disciplines, as part of their Amateur Support Program. Check out Tracksmith's essentials for racing and training - including the Strata kits their Trials athletes are racing in this week - at Tracksmith.com/CITIUS and use code CITIUS to receive 10% off any order until the last day of the trials, June 27th.

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Chris Chavez, Kyle Merber and David Melly discuss the second day of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials live from Eugene, Oregon, where Sha'Crri Richardson won the women's 100m in 10.86 seconds and is now a top gold medal contender in Tokyo. We also discuss the women's discus where Valarie Allman looks to end an Olympic medal drought. We theorize on how the women's 1,500m final may shake out and much more. TUNE IN AND LISTEN TO TRIALS TALK WITH CHRIS AND KYLE. Our daily podcast from the Olympic Trials is presented by Tracksmith. We’re excited to partner with Tracksmith, an independent running brand fueled by a deep love of the sport. They celebrate the amateur spirit and seek to inspire the personal pursuit of excellence. Tracksmith is pleased to be supporting 30 Olympic Trials qualifiers in Eugene, including athletes across 14 disciplines, as part of their Amateur Support Program. Check out Tracksmith's essentials for racing and training - including the Strata kits their Trials athletes are racing in this week - at Tracksmith.com/CITIUS and use code CITIUS to receive 10% off any order until the last day of the trials, June 27th.

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Chris Chavez and Kyle Merber discuss the first day of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials live from Eugene, Oregon, where Ryan Crouser demolished the world record with a 23.37m throw to win the men's shot put. We slept on Woody Kincaid and paid the price as he won the men's 10,000m in 27:54.62. We unpack the first round of the women's 1,500m after the controversy regarding Shelby Houlihan's four-year ban, Erik Sowinski out for revenge in the men's 800m and much more. TUNE IN AND LISTEN TO TRIALS TALK WITH CHRIS AND KYLE. Our daily podcast from the Olympic Trials is presented by Tracksmith. We’re excited to partner with Tracksmith, an independent running brand fueled by a deep love of the sport. They celebrate the amateur spirit and seek to inspire the personal pursuit of excellence. Tracksmith is pleased to be supporting 30 Olympic Trials qualifiers in Eugene, including athletes across 14 disciplines, as part of their Amateur Support Program. Check out Tracksmith's essentials for racing and training - including the Strata kits their Trials athletes are racing in this week - at Tracksmith.com/CITIUS and use code CITIUS to receive 10% off any order until the last day of the trials, June 27th.

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"I feel completely devastated, lost, broken, angry, confused and betrayed by the very sport that I’ve loved and poured myself into just to see how good I was. I want to be very clear. I have never taken any performance-enhancing substances. And that includes that of which I am being accused. I believe in the sport and pushing your body to the limit just to see where the limit is. I’m not interested in cheating. I don’t do this for the accolades, money, or for people to know my name. I do this because I love it. I have so much fun doing it and it’s always the best part of my day.” On Wednesday afternoon, a virtual press conference was held by the Bowerman Track Club where it was announced Shelby Houlihan, the American record holder in the 1500 meters and 5000 meters, has been suspended for four years after testing positive for the banned substance Nandrolone. The test was taken in December 2020 and she was notified of the positive test in January by the Athletics Integrity Unit. The reason she has not raced in 2021 is that she was provisionally suspended while trying to fight the case. Upon learning of the positive test, Houlihan logged her meals and determined that the nandrolone likely came from a burrito that she consumed the night before her test. It is estimated that the test took place 10 hours after the burrito's consumption. Lawyer Paul Greene was hired and argued that pig organ meat can serve as one of the sources for Nandrolone. Because the Athletics Integrity Unit had not charged her yet, Greene and Houlihan's team called on them to charge her with a violation so she could appeal before the start of the U.S. Olympic Trials. Last week, on June 11, she learned that her appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport was unsuccessful and the four-year ban was upheld. A four-year ban knocks the 28-year-old out of the Trials, the Tokyo Olympics, the 2022 World Championships in Eugene and the 2024 Olympics in Tokyo in the prime of her career. A full decision and report from the Court of Arbitration for Sport will be published when it is finalized. What you're about to hear is the audio from the press conference and the prepared statements from Greene, Houlihan and Bowerman Track Club coaches Jerry Schumacher and Shalane Flanagan. What follows after is questions from the media present. You can read about the case in my story for Sports Illustrated: https://www.si.com/olympics/2021/06/15/shelby-houlihan-doping-ban-nandrolone-olympic-trials-positive-test-explained You can watch the statements by Houlihan, Schumacher and Flanagan on the CITIUS MAG YouTube page. Update: Here is the release from CAS that says: "Finally, the CAS Panel unanimously determined that Shelby Houlihan had failed, on the balance of probability, to establish the source of the prohibited substance"

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Valerie Constien is the United States’ third-fastest steeplechaser heading into the Olympic Trials with a personal best of 9:25. That’s also good enough for No. 14 in the world for 2021. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and now competes for the Tracksmith Amateur Support Program while being coached by Mark Wetmore and Heather Burroughs. We’ll be featuring a few more Tracksmith athletes before we kickstart our daily podcast series – Trials Talk with Chris & Kyle – live from Eugene, Oregon. Kyle Merber and I will be bringing you a show recapping the biggest performances and surprises from each day of the Trials. The women’s steeplechase will certainly be one of them. Do not sleep on Valerie for that third possible spot on the Olympic team since there’s still a few question marks around Colleen Quigley since she hasn’t raced since February or steepled since 2019. That race has gotten super interesting in recent weeks with some big performances by Valerie, Mel Lawrence, Marissa Howard and a slew of collegiate women. Get to know Valerie before she possibly shocks the country. Follow Val on Instagram here: @valerieconstien Photo by Jake Willard: Follow him @runjwill 📈 Support for this episode comes from WHOOP. WHOOP is offering 15% off with the code “CITIUS” at checkout. Go to WHOOP and enter CITIUS at checkout to save 15%. Sleep better, recover faster and run faster. Get to the start line healthy with WHOOP. https://join.whoop.com/citiusmag ✍️ FULL SHOW NOTES + MORE QUOTES ON CITIUSMAG.com HOW TO SUPPORT THE PODCAST 🎙️ Subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. 💵 Pledge any dollar amount to us on Patreon.com/CITIUSMAG 👕 Pick up merch from the CITIUS MAG store to show your support for the podcast and website. 📧 Subscribe to the CITIUS MAG Newsletter 🎥 Subscribe to the CITIUS MAG YouTube channel

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Ben Flanagan returns to the podcast! He first came on in 2018 after winning his NCAA title in the 10,000m. Now he’s a professional runner for the Reebok Boston Track Club and he’s currently quarantined in Canada before he competes at their respective Olympic Trials in Montreal later this month. We’re all fairly familiar with what it takes to make the U.S. Olympic team with a top three finish at each event but it’s a little more complex with Canada. He explains why. His personal best in the 5,000m is 13:20, which was run at the Platinum PT Qualifier put on by Tracksmith at the end of May. I was behind the mic for that race and while I saw it was a four-second personal best, he tells us why it was a much bigger deal in his hopes for Tokyo. We also catch up on life since his last podcast appearance, he’s got some nice things to say about Mason Ferlic and much more. You can watch Ben compete in the men's 5,000m on Saturday, June 26 at 8:30 p.m. ET. Athletics Canda said the event will be streamed for free on athleticscanada.tv.| Full schedule here. Pick up a copy of Don't Count Me Out by Ben Weingart here. 📈 Support for this episode comes from WHOOP. WHOOP is offering 15% off with the code “CITIUS” at checkout. Go to WHOOP and enter CITIUS at checkout to save 15%. Sleep better, recover faster and run faster. Get to the start line healthy with WHOOP. https://join.whoop.com/citiusmag ✍️ FULL SHOW NOTES + MORE QUOTES ON CITIUSMAG.com HOW TO SUPPORT THE PODCAST 🎙️ Subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. 💵 Pledge any dollar amount to us on Patreon.com/CITIUSMAG 👕 Pick up merch from the CITIUS MAG store to show your support for the podcast and website. 📧 Subscribe to the CITIUS MAG Newsletter 🎥 Subscribe to the CITIUS MAG YouTube channel

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"I have a really unique privilege of being able to do both worlds. I don't know if anyone's been able to work out with pros and do their easy runs with their high school team. It's super cool. It just works because of the circumstances of my dad being the coach and Ron (Warhurst) being the assistant coach at Skyline. I definitely wish a lot of people knew I'm not just training like a pro. I work out with those guys but I'm a high schooler and I treat running like I'm a high schooler. I just have fun with my teammates and jump in the river on runs and stuff." Hobbs Kessler is a high school senior competing for Skyline High School in Ann Arbor. He just made history this past weekend by running 3:34.36 for a new U.S. high school 1,500m record but it’s also now faster than the recent 3:34.68 NCAA record. Kessler’s time is faster than Jim Ryun’s U-20 record of 3:36.1 that was run back in 1966. And of course, this guarantees Kessler’s spot at the U.S. Olympic Trials later this month. What’s next for him? Well, he’s looking to win his first state title this weekend when he goes up against other people his age at the Michigan high school state meet. In this episode, you’ll learn more about his backstory including a better understanding of just how great of a rock climber he is, why his parents are his role models as runners, how coach Ron Warhurst plays the Yoda role in the Very Nice Track Club, the buzz about turning pro and much more. 📈 Support for this episode comes from WHOOP. WHOOP is offering 15% off with the code “CITIUS” at checkout. Go to WHOOP and enter CITIUS at checkout to save 15%. Sleep better, recover faster and run faster. Get to the start line healthy with WHOOP. https://join.whoop.com/citiusmag ✍️ FULL SHOW NOTES + MORE QUOTES ON CITIUSMAG.com HOW TO SUPPORT THE PODCAST 🎙️ Subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. 💵 Pledge any dollar amount to us on Patreon.com/CITIUSMAG 👕 Pick up merch from the CITIUS MAG store to show your support for the podcast and website. 📧 Subscribe to the CITIUS MAG Newsletter 🎥 Subscribe to the CITIUS MAG YouTube channel

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