byLarry EderLilya Shobukhova has run the 5,000 meters in 14:23.75. She finished sixth in the Olympic 5,000 meters in a sleep and kick race. She trains with former Boston marathon winner. And now, her marathon debut is in London in 2009…..
EME NEWS (SEP 30, 2008)
Shobukhova plans marathon debut
MOSCOW (RUS): European 5000 m record holder Lilya Shobukhova (30, 14:23.75) of Russia who was sixth at Olympic Games at the distance announced her marathon debut for next year in London on April 26. She herself confirmed that for All-Sport. “I m switching from next year from track to road. It will be tough for debut with one of the best marathons in the world but I m in one training group with Galina Bogomolova and I can learn from her a lot,” she was quoted. Her longest races so far were three half-marathons winning two of them (last year in Praha 1:11:14 and this year in Philadelphia 1:10:21 and she was also last year 25th at World Championships in Udine 1:11:35).
Final Groupings
LAUSANNE (SUI): The final groupings for the inaugural European Team Championships have now been finalised and the venue of the SPAR European Team Championship Super League has been confirmed as Leira, Portugal. This exciting new event aims to introduce some of the most innovative competition changes to the sport of athletics, in order to make the competition more intense, more media friendly and more relevant. Informs European Athletics. The competition will consist of the standard 20 track and field events for both men and women, meaning that 40 different results will combine to see an overall winning team crowned Champions of Europe. This exciting event will take place on the weekend of June 20-21, 2009 and the remaining three league event venues are expected to be confirmed following the European Athletics Convention on the 16-18 October. For First League the candidate to stage the event is Bergen, Norway for Second League Banska Bystrica, Slovakia.
The divisions for the 2009 European Team Championships are as follows:
Super League:
Russia, Great Britain, Poland, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Ukraine, Greece, Sweden, Czech Republic, Portugal
First League:
Belarus, Slovenia, Romania, Turkey, Belgium, Hungary, Netherlands, Finland, Estonia, Switzerland, Serbia, Norway
Second League:
Ireland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Austria, Cyprus
Third League:
Moldova, Israel, Denmark, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Iceland, Luxembourg, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Montenegro, Armenia, AASSE, Albania, Andorra, FYR of Macedonia
OTHER NEWS
DUBLIN (IRL): Sonia O’Sullivan has cast a doubt over whether the Romanian Gabriela Szabo who beat her to the Olympic gold medal in the 5000 m at Sydney in 2000 was using banned performance-enhancing drugs or not. O’Sullivan admits in her autobiography, Sonia, My Story, to be published on Thursday that she did not know when she raced who was on drugs and who was not. In the book, produced with the help of the Irish Times’ award winning sportswriter Tom Humphries, O’Sullivan writes: “The cheats? Are they laughing at us? I supposed they must be. You can’t think much about it. You have to close it off and get on with it. People make the point to me that, from Barcelona onwards, they can find cheats in my races; when they subtract them from the equation, I should have got this and that medal. Even Gabriela Szabo had her controversy. In 2003 a car belonging to her was pulled in and found to have EPO (Erythropoietin) in the boot. She denied all knowledge, but her career was a bit up-and-down after that. It’s not for me to wonder any more.” Szabo retired from athletics in 2005 amid health problems and a decline in her performance, citing exhaustion. She is now the vice-president of the Romanian Athletics Federation.
LONDON (GBR): A new survey published claims that Chinese brands emerged as the biggest winners of the Olympic marketing race and commercial sponsors due to the largely positive coverage they received across the international media. Informs insidethegames.com. An analysis of 14,500 print media editorials over two years carried out shows that in addition to the expected positive media exposure in China (60 per cent positive), Chinese brands also managed to succeed internationally. Although Chinese brands had a lower share of voice, their coverage in international media was 17 per cent more favourable than articles mentioning global brands. The survey revealed that sponsors achieved three times as many positive media articles than negative during the Games period. Overall, more than 14,500 English-language press articles in the last two years were acquired which co-mentioned the Beijing Olympics and at least one of its sponsors and partner brands. Analysis showed official sponsors were more likely to be featured in media coverage, with two thirds of articles in top tier press mentioning official sponsors.
Among the biggest winners was Chinese computer company Lenovo, which has been a brand only since 2005, when the company – which sold computers under the Legend nameplate – purchased IBM’s global personal computer operations for $1.75 billion (£990 million).Lenovo’s chief executive William Amelio believes that the Olympics is a good for high-tech firms to be associated with, claiming that Sony’s rise began after Tokyo in 1964 and Samsung’s when Seoul hosted the 1988 Games.
AMSTERDAM (NED): Benjamin Limo, the 2005 world 5000m champion, will make his marathon debut in Amsterdam on Oct 19. The race will also feature two previous winners in Robert Cheboror and Solomon Bushendich, plus another fine Kenyan runner, Paul Kirui the world half-marathon champion 2004 with PB of 2:06:44.
MOSCOW (RUS): Silver Olympic medalist 1996 and Olympian 2000 and 2008 Russian walker Ilya Markov ended his international career. He married end of August in Poland and will continue to live in this country. Informs All-Sport as it was confirmed by his coach the all-time great Robert Korzeniowski. At age of 36 he still managed to qualify for Beijing, but due to problems with breathing ended only 17th.
PARIS (FRA): French Federation informs about the change of date of National Championships. The latest dates are July 23-25 in Angers what is a week earlier than originally planned (July 31 – Aug 2).
NAIROBI (KEN): East Standard informs that former World 800m champion, Billy Konchellah and retired two-lap runner, Stephen Ole Marai, were elected unopposed as secretary and treasurer of Athletics Kenya (AK) Narok South sub-branch. Paul Keriako was re-elected chairman also unopposed in Saturday’s polls. Konchellah won the 800m World titles in 1987 and 1991 and his son is current world class 800 m runner Yusuf Saad Kamel of Bahrain. Marai had a personal best of 1:44.84 over the distance.
KINGSTON (JAM): Jamaica has already started preparations to ensure a successful IAAF World Athletics Champion-ships next year in Berlin, Germany. Trevor ‘TC’ Campbell, an executive of the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA), recently visited Berlin to view facilities. In an interview with The Gleaner this week JAAA president Howard Aris said Campbell’s visit was upon the invitation of the IAAFs. On the visit, Aris said, Campbell “looked at accommodation, the stadium, training facilities and the logistics of getting around … transportation and the athletes’ village. They also showed him some possible training venues for camps,” said Aris. Like all major championships, a training camp is being planned, but details are not available. “We are looking at a training camp as we are accustomed to, even though this time most of our athletes will be in Europe, so acclimatisation won’t be a major issue,” he said. Informs The Gleaner.
MADRID (ESP): Spanish Athletics Federation published the ranking of its meetings with Barcelona European Athletics Permit meeting beeing the best on the points scale with 83 280 just before Madrid IAAF Grand Prix 83 152. Next in order is Zaragoza European Athletics Premium meet achieving 80 071 points. In the three years average clearly the best is Madrid (83 199) before Zaragoza (80 766) and Jerez (79 731) as the Barcelona meet was not held in 2006 and 2007.
RIO NEWS
AUSTRALIA: Mark Tucker has been added to the team to represent Australia in the upcoming IAAF/CAIXA World Half Marathon Championships on October 12 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. This is the second time Tucker will represent Australia at this event, having previously competed in the 2003 edition in Portugal. He will join Michael Shelley in the Australian Team. Informs Athletics Australia.
RUSSIA: Russian team will consist of 4 male and 4 female runners. Experienced marathon runners will be in the stronger women team headed by Los Angeles Marathon winner and 10 000 m Beijing Olympian Tatyana Aryasova. European 10 000 m medalist Lyudmila Biktasheva, Olesya Syreva and 39-years Alina Ivanova who won in recent years Dublin and Prague Marathons (and is former world class walker) are completing the quartett. Men will have twins Anatoliy and Yevgeniy Rybakov with 34 years old Dmitriy Semenov and second from national championships in marathon Mikhail Lemayev.
LATE RESULTS
MOLINE (USA, Sep 28): Kenyan Jynocel Basweti won the Quad Cities Marathon in Illinois after 2:18:04. He won the race also back in 2006 clocking course record 2:16:36, last year winner Genna Tufa of Ethiopia was third (2:20:05). Russian Nadezhda Tuptova was best woman with 2:43:13. Informs Race Results Weekly.
OMAHA (USA, Sep 27): There were course records on both the men’s and women’s sides at road mile here with 800 m Olympian Alice Schmidt clocking 4:38.52 and South African Peter Van Der Westhuizen 3:57.40. As Race Results Weekly points out the all-time great Henry Rono (56) ran 5:55.01.
DOMAZLICE (CZE, Sep 26): At throwing meet new-Croatian Roland Varga won the discus with 60.37 beat Czech best in last years Libor Malina (60.05). Day after in Humpolec (Sep 27) Varga again won achieving 59.96 and beat Malina (56.77). At first meet junior Jakub Vadlejch (will be 18 on Oct 10) achieved very good 76.02 in javelin. His latest national junior record 76.59 is from September 18 in Praha. He is the second best javelin thrower in the world born 1990 or younger. Better is only Bobur Shokirjonov from Uzbekistan with 77.92 m.
Used with permission of Alfons Juck.
