by Larry Eder
Top 400 m clash comes
PRETORIA (RSA): Saturdays South African Provincial Championships will see Oscar
Pistorius, Willem de Beer (Daegu 4x400m relay member, Split 43.9 in
the heat) and Jacques de Swardt (RSA Junior Champion 2010) go head
to head in the 400m. For Pistorius and De Beer it will be the first
400m of the season. De Swardt already opened with 46.50 two weeks
ago.
Additions to Dublin
DUBLIN (IRL): Top Spanish runners, Jesus Espana and Ayad Lamdassem,
will lead the European challenge against the legendary Kenenisa Bekele
in next month’s SPAR Great Ireland Run. The pair will headline the men’s
race in which top Irish runners Mark Kenneally, Linda Byrne and Ava
Hutchinson, who have all achieved the Olympic marathon qualifying
standard, will be searching for speed against their more gifted rivals
over the 10k distance. Espana, who will be defending the title he won
last year with a decisive breakaway towards the end of the race and
Lamdassem, the European Cross Country silver medallist, will be looking
to cause another upset against Bekele in the Phoenix Park on 15 April. Informs David Martin.
Ennis for Gotzis
LONDON (GBR): 2009 World champion Jessica Ennis analysing her display in
Istanbul, said: “I am disappointed but it’s not a massive setback,I’m
in better shape than I was last year, it was a PB, I’ve done some PB’s,
I’ve things I have to work on. I’m not at my limit. If I’d not scored a
PB and been below par I’d have been even more disappointed. I will use
it as motivation. You learn things from every championship you go to. I
was happy with the way I ran the 800m. That was the best I’ve ever run
it tactically, so I can take a lot from that.” With the world’s most
competitive non-championship heptathlon due to take place in Austria at
the end of May: “Gotzis will be a real good indication of how it’s going
to pan out in the summer.”
OTHER NEWS
CHARLOTTESVILLE (USA): University of Virginia junior Robby Andrews, the
reigning NCAA 800m champion, has decided to forgo his remaining
collegiate eligibility and has signed a professional management
contract. Andrews, 20, said in a telephone interview last night from
Charlottesville that moving now to the pro ranks gave him the best
chance of making the 2012 USA Olympic team. Andrews, who has a personal
best of 1:44.71 and won the bronze medal at the IAAF World Junior
Championships in 2010, said that he would remain enrolled as a student
at Virginia and would be coached by the former head coach there, Jason
Vigilante, who resigned from the university last November (Andrews had
already left the Virginia team late last month). He said that he would
continue to train with USA mile record holder Alan Webb, who is also
coached by Vigilante, but the duo would continue to use a nearby high
school track because the university’s facilities were no longer
available to them. Ray Flynn of Flynn Sports Management confirmed by
e-mail that he will represent Andrews and now has the task of trying “to
convince a shoe company to invest in a 20 year-old college kid,” as
Andrews put it. Informs Race Results Weekly.
agents. Only three agents have two gold medal winners (Mark Wetmore –
Merritt and Whiting, Maurie Plant – Pearson and Adams and Karl Sitth –
Isinbaeva and Dobrynska). EME NEWS could not identify the agent for
Brazilian long jump winner Mauro da Silva. The other winners are
represented by Renaldo Nehemiah (Gatlin), Jukka Harkonen (Brenes), Andre
Thomson (Iguider), Rene Auguin (Lavillenie), Paul Doyle (Eaton),
Sharon Richards (Richards-Ross), Jos Hermens (G. Dibaba), Robert Wagner
(Lowe), Federico Rosa (Aldama), Ricky Simms (Obiri), Mark Pryor (Reese),
Marc Corstjens (Jelimo), James Templeton (Lagat), Gianni Demadonna
(Chondrokoukis), Kimberly Holland (Claye), Claude Bryan (VCB) and
Hussein Makke (Aman).
BERLIN (GER) : World indoor silver medalist David Storl is happy with
his silver medal in Istanbul even though his throw of 21.88 was not
enough for the gold medal. Storl told leichtathletik.de that the 22
meter mark is coming closer and he could break the barrier this year. He
also added that his shot example is German shot put record holder Ulf
Timmerman and that he has still to make lots of improvement when it
comes to his strength.
happy about the results of Belgian athletes at the world indoor
championships. Belgium managed three fifth place positions for its three
athletes present at the championships, showing that there is higher
quality among the top athletes concludes Scheerlinck for sporza.be.
HENGELO (NED): Blade runner Oscar Pistorius has confirmed his
participation at the FBK-Games in Hengelo (IAAF World Challenge) on May
27. Pistorius will run his main event, the 400m, in which he has a
personal best of 45.07 confirm organizers of the FBK-Games. His previous
meet in Europe will be Golden Spike of Ostrava two days earlier.
LONDON (GBR): The BOA chairman, Lord Moynihan, has said he is
“cautiously optimistic” the court of arbitration for sport will rule the
BOA’s lifetime ban for drug cheats should remain, despite many lawyers
believing it will lose. Following four and a half hours of legal
argument in London on Monday, at which the BOA challenged the World
Anti-Doping Agency’s decision to rule it non-compliant with its global
anti-doping code, Moynihan said the hearing had gone “very well” reports
The Guardian.
BOSTON (USA): Multiple olympic and world gold medalist Carl Lewis will
be among the celebrities moving on March 15 at the second annual Let’s
Move in School Showcase. Presented by the American Alliance for Health,
Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, Let’s Move in School is a
national initiative to increase physical activity before, during and
after school alerts PR Newswire.
LAUSANNE (SUI): The IAAF has appealed in the Court of Arbitration for
Sport (CAS) against the one-year suspensions imposed by the Indian
National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) on 400m runners Mandeep Kaur and
Jauna Murmu. The IAAF is seeking an enhancement of the sanction to a
minimum two years on the two athletes, who had tested positive for
steroids, along with four other female 400m runners, last June-July.
These two had returned positive results in tests conducted by the IAAF
reports The hindu.com.
ATHENS (GRE): Government officials stayed away on Monday as Greece’s new
world indoor men’s high jump champion Dimitris Chondrokoukis returned
from Istanbul. At the request of his coach-father Kyriakos as both men
are angry at cost-cutting as Athens battles massive debts.
Chondrokoukis, whose main season target is the London Olympics,
complained about training conditions in Athens, where cash-strapped
state authorities have slashed facilities as Greece seeks to pare down
huge debts. “The conditions there are unacceptable and facilities are a
big problem. There is lack of heat in the winter and air conditioning in
the summer,” Chondrokoukis said for AFP.
ISTANBUL (TUR): Sally Pearson’s coach, Sharon Hannan, believes Pearson
will challenge the 24-year-old world record for the 100m hurdles and
claims she is a month ahead of her training schedule. Pearson’s time in
Istanbul, according to Hannan, equales to time on par with her
semi-final run at last year’s world championships, the fastest time of
anyone for the year. “I’m pretty damn happy with that off a very short
hurdles preparation,” Hannan told The Australian.
LONDON (GBR): Yamilé Aldama, Britain’s Cuban-born newly crowned world
indoor triple jump champion, has been given the official go-ahead by the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) to compete for her adopted
country at London 2012 writes Insidethegames. Aldama’s eligibility had
already been approved by the IAAF but she still needed the IOC’s ruling
Executive Board to rubberstamp it so she could compete at London 2012,
having represented Sudan at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.
JOHANNESBURG (RSA): World indoors finalist Elroy Gelant will lead the 24
member team to represent South Africa at the second CAA Africa Cross
Country Championships at Keurboom Park, Cape Town on Sunday 18 March.
Only Lebogang Phalula’s place is in question as she is currently
undergoing treatment for a knee injury. Coach JP van der Merwe confirmed
that she is still going to physiotherapy. Lebogang feels she is
responding positively to treatment and is hoping to be fit for the
championships next Sunday (18 March).
RESULTS
MELBOURNE (AUS, Mar 11): Former world indoor champion Tamsyn Manou won the Victorian Championships with 2:02.69.
PERTH (AUS, Mar 9): Solid sprints at Strive meet. Melissa Breen clocked
11.36 (+0.5) in the 100 m and Ben Offereins got 46.25 in the 400 m.
BRISBANE (AUS, Mar 10): 21-years old sprinter Andrew McCabe improved to
20.75 (+1.3) in the 200 m. Toea Wisil achieved new national record for
Papua New Guinea in the 200 m 23.46 (+1.6).
NEW YORK (USA, Mar 11): Aldrich Bailey won the 200 m at New Balance High
School meet in 21.07. He was second in the 400 m 46.59 beaten by Najee
Glass 46.57. In the 60 m winner Tevin Hester clocked 6.72.
