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To the right is the earliest picture on record of the West Ham club formerly known at Thames Ironworks, from 1895.

I remember being in the Atlanta stadium and hearing how the local professional baseball team would destroy such a wonderful stadium and track facility. This was in 1996. Now, it seems like one of the two actual bidders on the 2012 Stadium post London Olympics, has the same idea!

Tradition be damned. Legacy be damned. It will be fascinating to see how this works out. The sad thing is, three years after London 2012, a potential world championships in Europe was declined, for the second time, by London.

Here is a question for us to consider on our walks, runs or workouts tonight? If the World Champs are held outside of Europe and North America for three straight World Champs, what happens to new track fans? I am all for we are the world, we are the children, and I loved both Osaka and Beijing, and will enjoy Daegu.

The issue is that track fans in US and Europe will stay up all night to watch the sport, if someone cares to show it on terrestial tv or digital. It is all sounding too much, like, to quote a philospher of American baseball, Yogi Berra, ” It is like deja vu all over again.”

TWO
BIDDERS FOR 2012 STADIUM

LONDON (GBR): The Olympic Park Legacy Company
(OPLC) will enter into final negotiations with two major bidders to take over
the Olympic Stadium after London 2012 – a consortium led by Tottenham Hotspur
with AEG and a consortium of West Ham United and the London Borough of Newham.
Writes insidethegames. Tottenham plan to make the East
London stadium an 80,000-seat venue. West Ham want to create a
60,000-capacity arena for football, athletics, concerts and community use. It
is understood that Tottenham’s controversial plan calls for the stadium to be
demolished and rebuilt and the athletics legacy to be moved to Crystal Palace.

WANJIRU
VS. MAKAU

HEERENBERG (NED): The
organizers of Wincanton Montferland Run over 15 km announced for the event
on December 5 a
super star. Olympic marathon winner Samuel Wanjiru will compete against another
top name, the world leader Patrick Makau. The course record 42:36 by legendary
Haile Gebrselassie will be under threat (42:36 in 2007). The two marathon stars
never met at the classical 42
195 m distance.

OTHER NEWS

CHIBA (JPN): Brett Larner informs on his
japan running website that the organizers of the 2010 International Chiba
Ekiden announced the entry lists for this year’s edition, scheduled as always
for November 23. The last of the great international ekidens, Chiba has in
recent years scaled down to an interesting format of mixed-gender teams, with
top men and women from 12 teams worldwide alternating stages on a six-leg,
42.195 course. Top names this year include Kenyan Wilson Kiprop, Russian Mariya
Konovalova and Australian Craig Mottram. International teams are Australia, Canada,
Czech Republic,
Italy, Kenya, Norway,
Romania, Russia and USA.

BERLIN
(GER): European 100m champion Verena Sailer was awarded the Bambi award in the
category ‘sport’ for her performances during the European Championships in Barcelona. The Bambi
awards are considered one of the most important awards in Germany and is voted by the public
writes leichtathletik.de.

NAIROBI (KEN): As from 2011 Kenyan athletes
will be subjected to doping tests in all local marathons and other races.
Kenyan Athletics stated they want to avoid the embarrassment of a positive test
by a Kenyan athlete in international races. The federation is also working on
integrating the country’s four major marathons into a grand prix with a
national jackpot prize. They added that no marathon in the country should give
out less than 200,000 shilling to the winner reports standardmedia.co.ke.

TORONTO
(CAN): It has been revealed that the athlete who got seriously ill during the
Commonwealth Games in New Delhi
was Canadian pole vaulter Gabriella Duclos-Lasnier who came down with Typhoid
fever. The athlete has spent three days in emergency when coming back to Canada but has
now resumed training. Duclos-Lasnier will prepare for the 2011 season in Italy
writes cbcsports.ca.

AUCKLAND (NZL): Super talented shot putter
Jacko Gill (15) has become the youngest North Harbour Club AIMES Awards Supreme
winner. As well as winning the Supreme Award, Gill – world junior shot put
champion – won the 2010 North Harbour Club, Millennium Institute of Sport and
Health and AUT University AIMES Award for Excellence in Sport. He received a
total of $20,000. He says he will use the money to fund a season on the
European athletics circuit in 2011, compete at the World Youth Championships in
July in France, and attend a
high-level training camp in France
with Olympic shot put gold medallist and world champion Valerie Adams.
Stuff.co.nz informs.

HELSINKI
(FIN): Barcelona pole vault participant and
national champion Eemeli Salomäki from Finland has been suspended for
three months after testing positive for a banned substance. Finnish Athletics
says Salomaki tested positive at the Joensuu Games in August for the banned
drug indapamide. His win at Joensuu Games (535) will be cancelled. Also matches
Sweden-Finland and Decanation will see his result deleted and changing the
points scoring. His personal best is 560 from last year and this year.

PREVIEWS

TORINO
(ITA): Italians Ruggero Pertile and Danilo Goffi are the top favourites for the
24th edition of the Torino Marathon on Sunday. Pertile is last year’s runner-up
here and clocked Europe’s fastest time in 2009
(2:09.53). Goffi recently withdrew from the Marathon of Venice but is convinced
he can bring a strong performance on Sunday. The Italian favorites will be
challenged by Kenyans Benson Cherono, who won the Milan Marathon in 2007, and
John Komen who won the marathon of Venice in
2009 as well as the Turin
half marathon. The women’s race will be wide open with Russian twin sisters
Olesya (2:27.37) en Yelena Nurgalieva (2:29.49) and Ethiopian Tola Geleta Fate
(2:28.58).

OEIRAS (POR): IAAF World CC
permit circuit continues on Saturday with the 12th edition of the race in
Oeiras with main favorite the world CC silver winner Teklemariam Medhin of Eritrea.
He won the first race of the series last weekend and beat world champion Kenyan
Joseph Ebuya. Other top international name will be Kenyan Edwin Soi. Home
runners will be represented by full line-up because the race is qualification
for European CC event to be staged in December in Portugal (Albufeira). Home runners
Jessica Augusto, Dulce Felix, Sara Moreira, Analia Rosa, Ana Dias among others
will face Australian Benita Willis and Kenyan Eunice Jepkorir, olympic medalist
in steeple. With help of IAAF and Portugal media.

RESULTS

GOLENIOW (POL, Nov 11):
European 800 m
champion Marcin Lewandowski won the Independence mile in 4:22 ahead of
Hungarian Barnabas Bene (4:22). In women´s race the winners was Russian Natalya
Slednikova (5:04). In the 10
km races wins for Hungarian Laszlo Toth (30:07) and
Lithuanian Rasa Drazdauskaite the Athens marathon winner recently (33:55).

WARSZAWA (POL, Nov 11): Another
Independence road race in Warszawa with 6000 participants registered at 10 km as winner Mariusz
Gizynski (29:57) and Karolina Jarzynska (33:49).

ARNAY LE DUC (FRA, Nov 11):
Burundi´s Ezechiel Nizigimana won the 43rd Cross D´Arnay le Duc at 7.85 km in 23:29. Russian
veteran Vyacheslav Shabunin was fourth (24:02). Women 5.45 km winner as Aurelie
Coulaud (19:01).

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