byLarry EderIn 1983, Rod Dixon’s pursuit of Goeff Smith on the ING NYCM course made for riveting television. This year, 25 years later, Rod ran the race with his 29 year old daughter, Emma, who ran 3:34. Rod ran 3:38….38, 377 runners started the ING New York City Marathon on a near perfect day.
NO CHANGES IN IAAF PUBLIC VOTE
MONTE CARLO: One week remains to close the votes for IAAF/IAF World Athletes of the Year 2008. In the internet public vote no changes. Still Irving Saladino leads ahead of Usain Bolt and Dayron Robles. In the women section Veronica Campbell-Brown is ahead of Melaine Walker and Valerie Vili. This vote will make 30% of the total. The rest goes to IAAF family which is voting via email.
OPREA WITH QUESTIONMARK FOR 2009
BUCURESTI (ROM): Romanian Olympic medalist in triple jump Marion Oprea (26, nicknamed ostrich) could no longer avoid the surgery intervention, one that will keep him away from the competitions for a long time. Bothered by his older problems of the left knee, Oprea decided that it is time to gather courage and get a surgery. The reason for this is that his condition, patellar tendency, could not be fixed by other means than surgery. Therefore, the World champs 2005 silver medalist chose to have this intervention done last week in Turku, Finland. Unfortunately the immediate effects will not be pleasant for Doina Anton’s trainee. He will be back in Romania on later this week and will have to walk on crutches for a month. But it doesn’t stop here. The “ostrich” could miss the competitions for the entire year 2009. That means that also his participation at World Championship in Berlin remains under questionmark.
THREE IN ONE FOR GOUCHER
NEW YORK (USA): Some interesting facts after Sunday´s ING NYC Marathon:
· winner Marilson dos Santos missed his PB only by 6 seconds
· in US living Slovak runner Katarina Janosikova surprised with 2:42:57 improvement what is third best in Slovak All-time list
· third Kara Goucher was first US female runner on the podium since 1994, achieved US debutante record and fastest US female ever at NYC Marathon
· in cold and windy weather 38 377 runners started
· New Zealand´s top runner Kim Smith pulled out between 30km and 35km, after keeping pace with the leaders early on. New Zealand legend Rod Dixon, who won the New York marathon 25 years ago, ran the event at a more leisurely pace today with his daughter Emma. At 58, his goals were more modest, but he finished in a creditable 3:38:15, with Emma Dixon almost four minutes ahead in 3:34:50. Rod Dixon’s time through 25km 2:08:39 – was close to his 1983 winning time of 2:08:59.
· Russian Lyudmila Petrova achieved new masters world record in category 40+ with 2:25:43 as second
OTHER NEWS
DUBLIN (IRL): Ireland has been told that it needs to treat London 2012 like its own Olympics as it is the closest that it will get to hosting the Games.
The plea came from Pat Hickey after he was re-elected as the president for the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) for another four-year term at its annual meeting. Informs insidethegames.com. The meeting elected 2000 Olympic 5000 metres silver medallist and former European Champion Sonia O’Sullivan to the OCI’s ruling Executive Board and she will have a big role to play in leading Ireland through to the London 2012.
ADDIS ABABA (ETH): Ethiopia’s Olympic 5000m/10000m champion Tirunesh Dibaba and two-time Olympic 10000m silver medallist Sileshi Sihine wedding lasted for nearly two weeks. Dubbed “the wedding of the millennium” to coincide with the end of Ethiopia’s millennium celebrations, the athletes contained various elements of Ethiopia’s traditional wedding ceremonies. The last part was end of last week The “Kelekel” another traditional ceremony by the family of the groom where the newly weds serve guests and the family of the bride. First surprise came from the couple’s club, the Prisons Police Sport Club, who surprised the newly weds with a gift. The club’s administers had a wedding photo of Dibaba and Sihine printed on leather and presented it at the occasion.The second surprise came from Haile Gebrselassie, who had made a big sacrifice by skipping the opportunity to start the Eurasia Marathon in Istanbul last week in order to attend their wedding. On this occasion, Gebrselassie played the piano in the honour of Dibaba and Sihine whose delight at the great man’s presence was just excellent. Informs Elshadai Negash.
DARMSTADT (GER): German long distance runner Alexander Lubina ended his top level running career. The 28 years old with 28:29.15 10 000 m best from Wattenscheid had difficulties with injuries since 2003. He always tried to overcome the problems, but the recent stress fracture was the last and he decided to quit. He will still continue to run, but only as a free-time runner.
RESULTS
NAGOYA (JPN, Nov 2): Komazawa University won the All-Japan Collegiate Ekiden Championships from Nagoya to Ise with final time 5:16:17 ahead of Waseda University (5:17:01). It was an 8 stage ekiden at 106.8 km.
PODGORICA (MNE, Nov 2): Serbian Olivera Jevtic and Moldavian Iaroslav Muschinschi won the 15th Podgorica Marathon. Muschinschi was running just week after beeing third in Istanbule with NR 2:11:43 and was again on a solid note with final time 2:14:50. It was his third win here after 2004 and 2005. He also won two times the half-marathon in Podgorica (2002 and 2003). Second and third places for Russians Vladimir Ponomaryev (2:15:17) and Aleksey Sokolov (2:19:08). First Kenyan Paul Kipngeno Korir as fourth achieved 2:21:56. Jevtic clocked 2:40:05 to win ahead of Moldavian Natalia Cerches (2:44:55) and Russian last year winner Tatyana Perepelkina (2:45:42). In Half-Marathons wins for Serbian Ana Subotic (1:16:21) and Russian Artyom Ekimov (1:07:02).
TOLEDO (ESP, Nov 2): Margarita Fuentes-Pila won the 10th road mile for women here after 5:17. Ricardo Serrano was the best at 7th Legua at 5 km (16:26) beating Morrocan Abdelhadi El Mouaziz (16:30) and Fernando Rey (16:36) with Jose Rios fourth (17:12).
SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE (ESP, Nov 2): Kenyan Jacob Yator won the 18th Half-Marathon of Santa Cruz for third time in his career after 2004 and 2007 and achieved new course record 1:02:39. Former mark of Julio Rey 1:03:33 was from 2005. Portugal had the women winner Ana Dias after 1:16:23.
ST. AUGUSTINE (TRI, Nov 2): Ugandan Nicholas Kiprono won the UWI Half-Marathon with 1:05:35 ahead of Caribbean running star Cleveland Forde of Guyana (1:08:22).
SAN FRANCISCO (USA, Nov 2): Kenyan Paul Ngugi won the San Francisco US Half-Marathon in solid 1:02:04:
GUADALAJARA (MEX, Nov 2): Kenyan wins at 10 km race here. Emmanuel Chamor clocked 29:09 and Alice Ndirangu 34:25.
Used with permission of Alfons Juck, EME News.
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