by Larry Eder
Galen has praised Mo for helping him relax, and Mo has nothing but good things to say for his training partner. One thing they do, when they are not running, they talk very little about the sport. Seems to be working.
In the same week that Galen Rupp totally dominated the 10,000m in the US Trials, Mo Farah unloaded a 53.6 last lap in the European champs today, to win the 5,000 meters. The road to London for both has been a focus for nearly a year….miles to go before they sleep.
QUOTE OF THE SESSION
“I have come to Helsinki as I believe the European Championships to be an important event in the athletics calender. I´m very pleased with my race today and it was a good warm up as I consider London to be the big one and I´m looking forward to that,” by Mo Farah.
RESULT OF THE SESSION
53.6 last lap by Mohamed Farah in the 5000 m final.
SURPRISE OF THE SESSION
Ari Mannio improving his season best to be the only javelin thrower with the standard 84.31 and favorites struggled.
FAVORITE FALLS
Latvian javelin throwers Vasilevskis and Kovals out in qualification. In the high jump out for 230 jumpers Baniotis, Demyanyuk and world medalist Ioannou.
SPECTATORS
15 000 (EME guess, not official figure)
STATS (from Ken Nakamura)
WTJ qualifying : 14.77 by Saladuha in WTJ qualifying is the longest (non-wind assisted) qualifying jump in the European Championships
Decathlon SP: 16.89 by Pascal Behrenbruch is the longest SP during the Decathlon in the European Championships.
800m: 1:45.80 by Gareth Warburton is the fastest heat time at 800m in European Championships. The previous best was 1:46.12 by Nils Schumann in 1998.
5000 m: Mo Farah became the first to defend European 5000m title. He also became the first to win three medals at 5000m at European Championships. Turkey gets only second male medal at European Championships after the first in 1950.
National records: The only national senior record of the day 55.80 by Portugal´s Barbosa in women 400 m heats.
Topic: The 1990 Eurochampion Dragutin Topic at veteran age 210 in the high jump qualification. He is so the oldest ever HJ Euro participant at age of 41.
MEDALS: GBR 1-0-0, GER 0-1-0, TUR-0-0-1
AGENTS BY GOLD MEDALS: Ricky Simms 1-0-0
NON-HELSINKI NEWS
ALGER (ALG): Algerian athletics federation informed about positive doping tests by African record holder in decathlon Larbi Bouraada and top female 800 m runner Zahra Bouras. In their samples stanozolol was found. Bouraada was positive in Ratingen in Germany where he initially won the IAAF CE Challenge meet and scored new continental record 8332 points. Bouras was positive even twice at EA Meetings in France (Montreuil on June 5 and Lille on June 9). Both athletes requested the analysis of B-sample. They are provisionally suspended and will not be able to compete at African Games which started on Wednesday in Benin.
EBERSTADT (GER): A special meeting is set in Eberstadt on Sunday for German Ariane Friedrich to try to achieve the olympic standard of 195. She did not jump in Helsinki on Wednesday due to stomach problems.
LAUSANNE (SUI): AIPS informs about the idea to recognise veteran Olympic journalists and mainly German veteran journalist Gustav Schwenk who covered hif first Olympics back in 1952 in Helsinki and was present at 14 Summer Games and London will be 15th for him. The award ceremony will be celebrated August 2.
DARMSTADT (GER): German Athletics Federation announced a team of 64 athletes for the World Junior Championships in Barcelona. There are 36 boys and 28 girls. Top hopes are discus throwers Anna Ruh and Shanice Craft. Also to mention World Youth javelin champion Christin Hussong and European junior long jump champion Lena Malkus.
KINGSTON (JAM): Th disagreement involving journalists and the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) were to be resolved during a meeting involving representative of the Press Association of Jamaica, the Media Association of Jamaica and the athletics body. The issue arose out of the JAAA’s decision to charge media houses an accreditation processing fee for covering the event, restricting the number of journalists who should be accredited and a request for photographers to hand over copies of all pictures taken at the meet. Coming out of the meeting; the JAAA has agreed to review the request for accreditation processing fee and will continue dialogue with the media to arrive at a mutually beneficially agreement. The JAAA will also actively seek to put in place an additional area at the national stadium to accommodate members of the media to better allow them to serve the public. On the matter of the request for photographers to hand over their work, it was made clear that copyright and other legal considerations would prohibit such a move, hence the meeting agreed that further discussion would need to take place with the media entities so that this matter can be resolved. The PAJ has also agreed to have consultations with journalists covering the meet to ensure that they adhere to the protocol put in place by the JAAA.
KINGSTON (JAM): Jamaican Trials are starting on Thursday, men´s 100 m final is on Friday and 200 m final on Sunday. Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake and Asafa Powell’s showdown in the 100 metres tops the event. Almost as soon as they went on sale Tuesday morning, tickets for the four-day meet were sold out, especially for Friday’s men’s and women’s 100m finals. Nearly 400 athletes are set to compete for about 60 berths in London on what could be the largest Jamaican athletics delegation ever sent to an Olympics.
HAVANA (CUB): Olympic champion and world record holder in the 110-meter hurdles Dayron Robles of Cuba will travel to Spain, where he will train in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympic Games, local media reported. Trainer Santiago Antunez said Robles was recovering from a minor injury in his left leg and would meet up with fellow Cuban track and field Olympics competitors in the Spanish city of Guadalajara.
EUGENE (USA): USATF informed about the latest situation about resolving the 100 m women tie for 3rd place. USA Track & Field has consulted with the affected athletes and their support teams regarding the tiebreaker for the women’s 100 meters. USATF will finalize the tiebreaker mechanism to be used after reconvening with the athletes and their coach following Saturday night’s final of the women’s 200 meters. USATF will announce the final tiebreaker Saturday evening or Sunday morning.
RESULTS
PORTO NOVO (BEN, Jul 27): From first day of African Championships the South African domination in shot put. Burger Lambrechts 19.51 over Orazio Cremona 19.19. Egyptian Rana Taha Ibrahim surprised with hammer win 60.77 over Senegal record holder Amy Sene 59.59. World champion Amantle Montsho was the fastest in women 400 m heats 50.42. In men´s 400 m first round also fastest time for Botswana runner, Isaac Makwala 45.50. Oscar Pistorius also qualified with 46.32. In 100 m heats against the wind the fastest times for Rudy Zang Milama of Gabon 11.33 (-3.2) and Abdourahim Haroun of Chad 10.28 (-2.6). ?Murielle Ahoure of Ivory Coast was not running. Disqualified for false start Ben Meite of Ivory Coast. The men´s 10 000 m was postponed due to heavy rain.
