by Larry Eder
Saturday, February 5, was a great day of track & field. From Boston, MA to Stuttgart, Germany, the tracks were humming! David Oliver hurdles 7.37, with a fine win over Dayron Robles, who hit a bunch of hurdles and was later disqualified. Andy Turner finished third! Congrats to the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, who provided some great track & field and also tremendous TV (nice job by Tim Hutchings, Lewis Johnson, Dwight Stones and Ato Boldon).
Oliver is fast 7.37
STUTTGART (GER, Feb 5) : A large number of world leading performances
marked the 25th edition of the Sparkassen Cup in Stuttgart before a
capacity crowd starting by an impressive world leading performance by
David Oliver in the 60m hurdles with 7.37 (Oliver already clocked 7.40
in the series). The highly anticipated duel with Dayron Robles didn’t
plan out as Robles started hitting hurdles and later was disqualified.
European champ Andy Turner was second in 7.63. There was also a world
leading performance in the women’s race where German Carolin Nytra
clocked 7.92 over Russian Aleksandra Antonova (7.93) and Lolo Jones
(7.94). In the 3000m 20-year old Ethiopian Alamirew Yenew clearly beat
Augustine Choge ( 7:28.00) in a new meeting record and world leading
time of 7:27.80. stepping on an indoor track for the first time Yenew
broke Daniel Komen’s 13 year old meeting record of 7:27.93 and marked
the fourth fastest performance ever. In the women’s race Kenyan Mercy
Njoroge sped to a world leading 8:50.32. Abubaker Kaki also managed to
stop the clock in a world leading time with 1:45.02 in the 800m over
Boaz Lalang (1:45.66) and European Champion Marcin Lewandowski 1:46.17.
Malte Mohr improved in front of a home crowd to a world leading 584
clearly beating Ukrainian Maksym Mazuryk (570) and third Renaud
Lavillenie (560). European triple sprint medalist Myriam Soumaré almost
managed the double with a win in the 200m (23.53) and a runner up
position in the 60m (7.23), in the 60m only Ukrainian Olesya Povh was
faster with 7.14. The men’s 1500m race was taken by Kenyan William
Biwott Tanui (3:37.14) over Silas Kiplagat (3:37.32) and Yoann Kowal
(3:38.07 European lead) while in the women’s race the victory went to
Romanian Ancuta Bobocel in 4:08.13 over French Fanjanteino Felix
(4:08.76). Mike Rodgers claimed the victory in the men’s 60m in 6.56
ahead of Commonwealth winner Lerone Clarke 6.63 and European champion
Christophe Lemaitre only fifth 6.67. In the pole vault Silke Spiegelburg
(470) managed a strong victory over Fabiana Murer (464). Greek Luis
Tsatoumas won the long jump in 808, and also the high jump went to
Greece with Konstadinos Baniotis (230). Sebastian Ernst scored home win
in 20.75 at 200 m what is European lead 2011. In non-traditional 4×100 m
Germany achieved 40.16 over mix France/GBR with Lemaitre as first
runner in 40.72.
