by Larry Eder
Usain Bolt wants to keep it relaxed in 2010. As there are no major championships for him, he will follow the mantra from the song by
Elton John, “Mellow”. Smart idea, because the body has to rest once in a while, even is you are Usain Bolt!
EME NEWS (OCT 14, 2009)
BOLT NEWS
KINGSTON (JAM): Sprinting star Usain Bolt says he will be taking things easy in a 2010 season that has no major championships on the schedule. Jamaican media are informing.
Bolt, who won both the Olympic and World Championships sprint double crowns with world record runs in Beijing in 2008 and Berlin in August of this year, said he wants to stay fresh to defend his respective titles. “I’m going to take it easy next season,†Bolt explained. “We’ll definitely win races and try to do our best. But we don’t really want to do too much, because after the upcoming season we have World Championships and the Olympics and I have to defend my titles,†he added. Anyway, the new series IAAF Diamond League hopes he will be the main face of the circuit. On the other side of planet, the Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister claims in his book that many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun Bolt in modern conditions. Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 245 during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood. The book is named “Manthropology“ with subtitle “The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male“. His conclusions about the speed of Australian aboriginals 20,000 years ago are based on a set of footprints, preserved in a fossilized claypan lake bed, of six men chasing prey. Agencies are informing.
HELSINKI THE MAIN CANDIDATE
FRANKFURT (GER): The main candidate for first European Championships in two year period in 2012 is Helsinki. This was said by EA President Hansjorg Worz in an interview with German magazine Leichtathletik. The date set for this event is June 25 – July 1, 2012. That is one month ahead of Olympic Games in London (July 27-Aug 12). In this new format of European Championships marathon and walking events will not be included. The 2014 championships will again have the full programm (main candidate Zurich, Switzerland). For 2012 also German city of Nurnberg was potentially named, but the TV situation was unclear in order to have a good bid.
JETER EYES DOHA
LOS ANGELES (USA): Fastest current female sprinter Carmelita Jeter eyes the coming indoor season with full programme. She wants to run at the meetings and attack the World Indoor Championships in Doha. Her best at 60 m from last indoor season is 7.11 and she never competed at World Indoors so far. With her speed presented after Berlin World Championships (she won a bronze there) when she was unbeaten and improved to 10.64 she can well attack the world indoor record 6.92 of Russian Irina Privalova back in 1993 and 1995. In other development her brother Eugene Jeter who is class basketball player just signed a four months contract with Spanish side Unicaja.
B. KIRUI WINS IN BELGRADE
BELGRADE (SRB, Oct 14): Boniface Kirui of Kenya won the revived Belgrade Race Through History after a cat-and-mouse struggle in the final kilometre with his compatriot Joseph Kiptoo. Writes Pat Butcher. Kirui edged the six kilometre race around the park and pathways of the Belgrade Kalemegdan Fortress in 17:15, a stride ahead of Kiptoo, who was given the same time, with another Kenyan, Moses Kangogo in third place, in 17.25. Weather conditions had threatened to disrupt the revival of the race after a ten year gap. Temperatures of 25-30C last week had plumeted to 5C at the race start at midday. Fortunately the heavy rains throughout Tuesday relented. The race was started by guest-of-honour, Paul Tergat, who had been the only ever-present in the four editions of the race last century. Five-time world cross champion and former World record holder in the marathon, Tergat is preparing for the New York City Marathon. Best European was Hungarian Barnabas Bene as 10th (17:48). More at www.globerunner.org.
GREAT FIELD WITH 15 RUNNERS HAVING SUB 2:09
FRANKFURT (GER): The men’s elite field of this year’s Commerzbank Frankfurt Marathon will see the best ever depth in the history of German city marathon running. A remarkable number of 15 athletes with personal bests of sub 2:09 have entered the race, which will start on 25th October. If weather conditions are fine a thrilling race could develop on the fast course through Germany’s financial capital. Organisers are saying in a release. At the 28th edition of Germany’s oldest city marathon organisiers expect a record entry of up to 13,000 runners. Women field is also the strongest in the history of the event. While Kenyans Rose Cheruiyot (2:25:48) and Agnes Kiprop (2:26:22) are among the favourites in the women’s race organisers now released the top names of the men’s field. Six of the athletes signed for the race have so far broken 2:08 while another nine feature personal bests of sub 2:09. Defending champion Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot will be back in Frankfurt. The Kenyan had caused one of the biggest sensations in marathon running in 2008, when he took the race at his debut clocking 2:07:21. This time still stands as his personal best, but in the meanwhile he confirmed his quality by taking fifth place at the Boston Marathon in spring. Kenyans Benjamin Kiptoo, who had won the Rome Marathon in spring with a personal best of 2:07:17, Hosea Rotich (PB: 2:07:24), Jason Mbote (2:07:37), Joseph Ngolepus (2:07:57) and William Kiplagat (2:06:50) are the others in with a PB of sub 2:08. While the three time Frankfurt winner Wilfred Kigen had to withdraw due to lack of form his cousin Wilson Kigen will come back. He placed second last year with 2:08:16. Gilbert Kirwa, who won his debut marathon in Vienna this spring with a promising 2:08:21, Yared Asmerom (Eritrea), who placed eighth in the Olympic Marathon in Beijing 2008 and fourth in the World Championships’ race in Osaka 2007, are two others to be watched. Interesting debutant will be Kenyan John Kiprotich who finished sixth in the Rotterdam Half Marathon in September, clocking a world-class time of 59:23 minutes. Carrying the European hopes in this extraordinary field is Austrian Günther Weidlinger who had run his debut in Vienna this April finishing with 2:12:39.
CONVENTION IN BUDAPEST
BUDAPEST (HUN): The traditional autumn gathering of athletics officials, organisers and other stakeholders of the sport will happen from Thursday until Saturday in Budapest. It is not longer named as Calendar Conference, but since last year it is called European Athletics Convention. It starts on Thursday with forum about One Day Meetings (EA is implementing new structure starting with 2010). On Friday the usual calendar discussion will be held with having the final dates for 2010 season ready to publish on Saturday morning. Member Federations Leaders Forum is the main topic on Saturday morning with Head Coaches Forum in the afternoon. The gathering will climax with European Athletics Awards Dinner where the awards for 2010 season will be presented. It is expected that both European Athletes of the Year will be present (Philips Idowu and Marta Dominguez along with Rising Stars Christoph Lemaitre and Karoline Grovdal). The EA Executive Committee will have its session on Thursday. Around this three days other bodies will have its meetings, for example Euromeetings, Balkan countries, so called Small countries, Nordic countries and European Club Competitions and EA Athletes Commission.
OTHER NEWS
LONDON (GBR): George Gandy who guided Lisa Dobriskey to the World Championships 1500 metres silver medal in August has been appointed national event coach for endurance at UK Athletics. Gandy will work under head of endurance Ian Stewart, as part of the new performance structure put in place by head coach Charles van Commenee. Gandy, who has over 40 years experience in the sport, has long been recognised as one of the UK’s leading coaches having worked with athletes such as Seb Coe, Jon Brown and Jack Buckner from his renowned Loughborough University coaching base. Writes David Martin.
HIROSHIMA (JPN): A week after Tokyo’s failed bid to host the 2016 Olympics, Hiroshima and Nagasaki the two atomic-bombed cities had decided to set up a joint committee to bid for the 2020 games. Hiroshima will explore the possibility of co-hosting the 2020 summer Olympic Games with Nagasaki despite a negative response from a key International Olympic Committee official. Citing the policy stated in the Olympic charter on host cities, IOC Olympic Games Executive Director Gilbert Felli said Monday in a telephone interview with Kyodo News, ‘‘It does not allow two cities to co-host the Games. At the moment, the answer is no.’’ Writes Japantoday.com.
MONTE CARLO (MON): Former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, 89, on Tuesday suffered a mild heart attack at the Grimaldi Forum, where he was attending the Sportel international sports television festival, and was taken to Princess Grace hospital in Monaco as a precaution, sources said. The news.yahoo.com said he had responded well to treatment and was set to stay in hospital for two or three days as a precaution owing to his age.
GOTZIS (AUT): The best combined events meeting in Austrian Gotzis has now also a book. It is called „Zeitsprünge – 35 Jahre Mehrkampf-Meeting Götzis“ and reviews the history of the event.
MUNCHEN (GER): Former top German middle distance runner Klaus-Peter Nabein died on Monday after battling the cancer at age of 49. He started as steeple runner and continued as middle distance runner when in 1979 he won the European Junior Championships at 800 m. He was later able to celebrate his biggest success indoors. In 1982 he won silver at 800 m and in 1987 bronze at 1500 m during European Indoor Championships. He moved later to long distances and clocked also 2:14:16 marathon best. His fastest 800 m were at 1:46.03 and 1500 m at 3:35.98.
MOSCOW (RUS): World silver medalist 2007 in the steeple Tatyana Petrova said for All-Sport that she is motivated after her team-mate Liliya Shobukhova won the Chicago Marathon. Petrova will run on November 1 New York marathon, her fifth race at the classical distance. The fastest so far 2:25:53, this year fourth in January in Dubai. “I just returned from training camp in Kislovodsk. All went well, I was able to stay there without any health problems. After I changed to coach Mikhail Kuznetsov my preparation was orientated more for marathon, although I was still competing in the summer in the steeple. I was very happy for Liliya when I saw her winning in Chicago. We are supporting each other, that is good motivation for me. I heard that the course in New York is tough, so I m not sure whether I will be able to attack my best result but I will try for the best on that day from me,†she was quoted by All-Sport. Petrova also revealed she wants return to track in summer, but not for steeple, but for example a 10 000 m race at European Championships in Barcelona will be something she would want to do.
RESULTS
ALBSTADT (GER, Oct 11): Kenyan Patrick Kimeli won here the 10 km road race in 28:54, women winner was German Simret Restle (34:11) ahead of Russian Tatyana Vilisova (34:36).
ARUSHA (TAN, Oct 11): Arusha‘s Restituta Joseph emerged victorious among women in the Mwanza Half Marathon last weekend clocking 1:13:40. Ally Juma from Mara beat a pack of over 100 runners to win the inaugural Rock City Half Marathon in the men‘s category with 1:04:01 (unconfirmed times).
KUALA LUMPUR (MAS, Oct 10-11): At International Malaysian Open Championships Suryo Wibowo of Indonesia won the 100 m in good 10.43. Solid women hurdles. Another Indonesian top athlete Dedeh Erawati posted 13.34 at 100 m hurdles and home Noraseela Mohd Khalid achieved 56.92 at 400 m hurdles.
CORRECTION
IVANO-FRANKIVSK (UKR, Oct 11): Serhiy Budza won the Ukrainian 50 km walk title in new life-time best 3:53:33 ahead of Andriy Kovenko who at age of 35 also improved to 3:58:58 (corrected times).
Special thanks to Alfons Juck, EME News.
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