by Larry EderIn the news today, Steve Cram notes his pleasure with the positive of Rashid Ramzi in a interview with insidethegames.com. .Plus Spain names its World Championship marathon team.
Bogdanova no heptathlon
MOSCOW (RUS): European Indoor Champion Anna Bogdanova of Russia decided not to compete this summer in heptathlon. Informs Rusathletics.com. Combined Events head coach Lev Lobodin informed that she will concentrate on individual events like long jump, hurdles and javelin. That means the European Indoor Champion from Torino will not compete in Heptathlon in Berlin at World Championships.
Doha aims for Diamond League
DOHA (QAT): Website of Qatar Athletics Federation informs that Doha, the capital of Qatar, will be part of the newly-formed IAAF Diamond League. But it also says that the final composition of the league will be confirmed at the end of the 2009 season. Discussions are going on in terms of inclusion of more meetings into the series which at the time of announcement in winter had 12 meetings. Not only Doha, but also Golden League meetings Berlin and Rome with Grand Prix meetings in Ostrava and Hengelo are beeing evaluated for possible inclusion.
Hearing dates set
MOSCOW (RUS): All-Sport informs, that CAS set the date of hearing in the case of seven Russian female athletes and their doping bans connected to tampering samples since 2007. The case is IAAF against Russian Athletics Federation and the date is June 12-13. Russian federation banned the athletes for two years starting in April/May 2007 while IAAF seeks start of the ban from the time of provisional suspension July 31, 2008. Until the result of the hearing all concerned athletes remain suspended although the original bans of Russian Federation (Yegorova, Pishchalnikova, Soboleva, Cherkasova, Fomenko) already passed. Only in case of Gulfiya Khanafayeva (May 9) and Tatyana Tomashova (May 23) it ends later.
Swedish stars no exact time-tables
ALBUFEIRA (POR): Swedish media are informing that world stars triple jumper Christian Olsson and hurdler Susanna Kallur are with the national team in training camp in Portugal. Both are working with long-term goals without any pressure with time-tables set for their return to competition. “The most important thing for me is to become fully healthy. Then I see my next steps, “says Kallur. Olsson has been in the autumn and winter slowly starting coming back to training but is also very cautious with the schedule ahead. “It’s fun to train now and I will not rush as I did last year for the summer when I began practicing without being one hundred percent prepared. I wanted to come back and defend my Olympic gold from 2004 and wanted to perhaps more than what the body wanted, “Olsson was quoted.
Jelimo in Poland
BYDGOSZCZ (POL): The 9th European Athletics Festival in Bydgoszcz (European Athletics Premium meeting) will be called this year ENEA Cup because of title sponsor. The organisers recently announced a star-studded field for the event on the stadium with blue track which hosted last year World Junior Championships. Four Olympic winners will be competing. Kenyan Pamela Jelimo at 800 m, Estonian Gerd Kanter in discus, Slovenian Primoz Kozmus in hammer and home hero Tomasz Majewski in Shot Put. At 100 m Hurdles Lolo Jones and double world champion Michelle Perry should be the head-liners. Other Olympic medalists in the start list are Piotr Malachowski in discus, Krisztian Pars in hammer and David Payne at 110 m Hurdles. Majewski will face his US rivals in Shot Put (Reese Hoffa, Christian Cantwell). Bronze medalist Richard Mateelong should be the star of 3000 m steeple.
OTHER NEWS
PARIS (FRA): French hammer olympic finalist Manuela Montebrun underwent a arthroscopic knee surgery, informs L´Equipe. She will miss one month of training.
MADRID (ESP): Five men and one woman have been selected to run marathon for Spain at World Championships in Berlin. Jose Rios, Chema Martinez, Rafael Igleasias, Pedro Nima and Ignacio Caceres are the male representatives. Alessandra Aguilar who won recently the Hamburg Marathon is the only female selected.
BRUSSELS (BEL): European indoor champion at 60 m Hurdles Eline Berings is already looking forward towards the summer. She had behind her excellent preparation and plans first important competition on June 1 in Hengelo at FBK Games. During indoor season she improved the national record to 7.92 and so could also improve at 100 m Hurdles from her 12.97 achieved in Osaka 2007.
MELBOURNE (AUS): Athletics Australia informs that five marathon runners have been added to the Australian team selected to compete at the 2009 IAAF World Championships. Beijing Olympian Lisa Weightman has been given the nod by selectors and will make her world championships debut. In addition, Martin Dent, Andrew Letherby, Mark Tucker and Scott Westcott have been selected to represent Australia at the IAAF World Marathon Cup, to be held in conjunction with the marathon at the world championships. Their inclusion increases the size of the Australian team to 44 members, with further ‘in stadium’ selections to be made ahead of the final selectors’ meeting on July 19. Selectors have also given in-form Victorian distance runner Collis Birmingham the option of competing in the 5000 m or 10 000 m in Berlin.
LONDON (GBR): Former world record holder Steve Cram claimed that he is pleased that Olympic 1500 metres champion Rashid Ramzi has tested positive for banned performance-enhancing drugs. Informs insidethegames.com. Cram writing in his Guardian column said: “Seb Coe voiced his disappointment. I couldn’t have been more delighted. Both of us and many others were far from surprised. If circumstantial evidence were permissible for positive tests then Ramzi would have been close to the top of most people’s lists. That he managed to join a celebrated group of 1500m world and Olympic champions has been a source of nagging discomfort in the past few years.”
MANCHESTER (GBR): Sprinter Marlon Devonish who already clocked 10.11 this year and is the fastest European so far has rearranged his early season schedule and rejoined the field for the 150 metres street race at Bupa Great CityGames in Manchester on May 17.Devonish who has been training and competing in the United States was on the orginal start list but later felt he preferred to stick to racing on the track after an excellent start to his season. Devonish along with fellow Briton Simeon Williamson will be waiting to hear whether they will face Olympic 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay gold medallist, Usain Bolt.
ATHENS (GRE): European 400 m Hurdles champion Periklis Iakovakis says that he is looking for a race before the European Champion Clubs Cup in Spain and preferably end of May in the Greek Military Championships at 23rd of May to make his debut. Within this week himself along with his coach they will determine which is going to be the first race of the season.
AUCKLAND (NZL): As Insidethegames.com informs, New Zealand’s Olympic shot put champion Valerie Vili has not ruled out switching allegiance and defending her title in the colours of Great Britain at the London 2012 Games.Vili, who would qualify for Team GB through her Bristol-born father, exclusively told insidethegames that she has already turned down “offers†to swap the Silver Fern for the Union Flag, but funding issues could force her to consider changing her mind. The 24-year-old is due to compete at the World Championships in Berlin in August – in a black New Zealand vest – as defending champion and would certainly be a valuable addition to a British team that lacks star quality in the field events.
BERLIN (GER): Kenyan Peninah Arusei will return to the BIG 25 Berlin as the defending champion next Sunday. The Kenyan had won the race, which famously finishes inside the Olympic Stadium, with a course record of 1:24:10 a year ago. As announced earlier Kenya’s running legend Paul Tergat will compete in this traditional 25 k race, which in 1981 was Germany’s first major international city road race. For Paul Tergat it will be the first time he will run a race in Germany since setting a world marathon record of 2:04:55 in Berlin in 2003. One who could be in with a chance is Magdaline Mukunzi (Kenya). She features a half marathon best of 68:52, which is just a little slower than Peninah Arusei. Pauline Wangui will also compete at the BIG 25 Berlin for the first time. She has shown fine form this season as well as in 2008. The Kenyan won the City Pier City Half Marathon in Den Hague in both years, clocking a personal best of 69:49 in 2008. In that year she was also second at the Berlin Half Marathon with another sub 70 minute time (69:51). Pauline Wangui clocked a personal 20 k best of 66:39 minutes two months ago, when winning the Dutch Alphen aan den Rijn race.
LAUSANNE (SUI): April is always a transitional month for European Athletics as many major cities experience the thrill of thousands of runners running major marathons while the track & field season kicks off in earnest, albeit mainly in the USA. Following this, European Athletics is pleased to announce the nominations for the European Athlete of the Month for April representing 10 countries. The voting will close on Tuesday May 12 at 12 noon. To vote click here: http://www.european-athletics.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4760&Itemid=208
ROMA (ITA): President of Italian Athletics Federation FIDAL and 1971 European champion Franco Arese was voted into the board of National Olympic Committee CONI. The last athletics representative in CONI board was Gianni Gola until 1999.
RESULTS
TONSBERG (NOR, May 5): Two national junior records for talented hammer thrower Eivind Henriksen. With senior implement 66.90 and with 6 kg 76.69 m.
SENTJURJ (SLO, May 6): Martina Ratej achieved in javelin 60.45 and missed the A-standard for Berlin only by 55 cm. She is national record holder with 63.44 from last year.
CORRECTION
CHULA VISTA (USA): Austrian federation informs that after re-measurement the national record discus throw of Gerhard Mayer from May 5 meet is 64.16 m (initially 64.20).
SAD NEWS
MOSCOW (RUS): Sergey Tikhonov reports about sudden death of former Soviet Union 100 m Hurdles champion Vera Akimova. She won the national title in 1985 and 1986 and was silver medalist at European Indoor Championships 1984. Her 100 m Hurdles best was 12.50.
Special thanks to Alfons Juck, EME News.
For more on the sport, please click http://www.american-trackandfield.com
