by Larry Eder
EME NEWS (DEC 7, 2012)
Airport closure makes it tough
BUDAPEST (HUN): Unexpected difficulties on Friday but European Athletics informs that the Budapest 2012 SPAR European Cross Country Championships will be going ahead as scheduled on Sunday, despite complications created by the closure of Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport on Friday. European Athletics and LOC officials were working hard throughout today with the 35 national teams to ensure that competing athletes will arrive in time for the event. Agencies are informing that Budapest’s international airport remained closed late Friday after an electrical fault in its control tower, but was scheduled to re-open early on Saturday, airport authorities said. Outgoing flights have been suspended while incoming ones were being diverted to Bratislava in neighbouring Slovakia and to Vienna. The spokesperson said around 80 flights had been affected. Lucky team of Azerbaijan (Hayle Ibrahimov and Layes Abdulayeva) arrived early in the morning of Friday before the closure. British team landed in Vienna and was transported by bus.
Live stream from Szentendre
BUDAPEST (HUN): European Athletics announced that it will stream live the Budapest 2012 SPAR European Cross Country Championships with English-language commentaryon Sunday. The live streaming platform at http://eurovision.digotel.com/
Special medals
BUDAPEST (HUN): Medals at the 19th SPAR European Cross Country Championships will be special and made by the Hungarian Brillart Company. The medals for the best 3 athletes are 60 mm, the medallions are 50 mm. The designer, Sandor Török says: “Our aim was to create medals that will remind of the special venue of the championships (the Open Air Museum). The shape of the medals are also very different from the usual. Well, special venue with special shape.”
Another trophy for Rudisha
NAIROBI (KEN): World record holder and olympic winner David Rudisha crowned a successful year at the Sports Personality of the Year Awards that were held on Thursday evening at Carnivore where he was named the overall 2012 Sports Personality of the Year in Kenya. Rudisha beat Olympic steeple chase gold medalist Ezekiel Kemboi and Kenyan international midfielder Victor Wanyama who plies his trade with Scottish Champions Celtic. Marathon runner Mary Keitany won the Sports Woman of the Year award ahead of other long distance runners Vivian Cheruiyot and Priscah Jeptoo. Miler Faith Chepngetich won the Most Promising Sports Woman of the Year award.
E. Bett aims for a fast time
MELBOURNE (AUS): Kenyan Emmanuel Bett was the fastest man in the world over 10 000 m this year, but he was only the fourth-fastest Kenyan when it mattered most and missed the Kenyan Olympics team. The man he defeated at last year’s Melbourne Zatopek 10, Bedan Karoki, edged him out for the third of three places on the team for London. On Saturday he will compete and trying to defend his Zatopek 10 title. On Saturday night, he will have a pacemaker for the first four laps and hopes it will give him the lead-in he needs to not only win the race and defend his title, but to break the 13-year record time of 27:22.54 by Kenyan Luke Kipkosgei in 1998. A weather forecast of extreme heat followed by a thunderstorm might complicate those plans. Australian media are informing.
OTHER NEWS
LONDON (GBR): Athletics Weekly informs that Jessica Ennis received the Sportswoman of the Year award for the third time in four years at the SJA British Sports Awards. The Awards, which celebrated one of the busiest ever years for Britain’s sports journalists, saw the Olympic heptathlon champion poll two-thirds of the votes cast to hold off double sculls gold medallist Katherine Grainger and double Olympic gold medal cyclist Laura Trott. Ennis also picked up the Pat Besford Trophy for the outstanding performance of the year. Tweeting afterwards, she said: “What an brilliant afternoon at the #SJA Awards. Cannot believe I won two awards! Such an honour in such an amazing year! Thank you.” Lord Sebastian Coe got the Outstanding Contribution to Sport Trophy.
LONDON (GBR): Daily Mail website writes that the Olympic Stadium could stage top-class athletics for the first time since the London Games on the anniversary of the spectacular Opening Ceremony. The evocative opportunity to host London’s Diamond League meeting on July 26 and 27 next year has arisen because the £150million construction work required to transform the arena into a multi-sports venue is not due to start until next autumn. And Boris Johnson’s London Legacy Development Corporation want to take as much financial advantage as possible in 2013 by putting on concerts as well as athletics events. The two-day Diamond League meeting is scheduled to be held at Crystal Palace and tickets are already being sold. But UK Athletics are very interested in a possible switch to Stratford, made more likely by both venues being under Johnson’s aegis via the Greater London Authority and the LLDC.
TALLINN (EST): European indoor heptathlon champion from 2009 Mikk Pahapill is back in good training and prepares for indoor season 2013. He injured himself at World Indoors in Istanbul this March and since then struggled with scar tissue injury and missed summer 2012. Pahapill plans to compete at Tallinn International Multi-Events indoor meet to get the necessary result which could result into the invitation for the European Indoors in Goteborg.
OSLO (NOR) : Norwegian top runner Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal will not compete in the U23 race at the European Athletics cross country championships this weekend. Bjerkeli Grøvdal was among the favourites to win the title but came down with a flue and is unable to train or compete. The 22-year old confirmed her next important outing will be the IAAF World cross country championships but is first set for a warm weather training camp in South Africa.
BERLIN (GER): Former European U23 shot put champion Denise Hinrichs has again ruptured the ligaments of her left knee. Hinrichs had suffered the same injury in 2011 and used 2012 to get back in top shape. The German athlete is now facing another surgery to the damaged knee, reports leichtathletik.de.
SCARBOROUGH (TRI): Double Olympic medallist Lalonde Gordon was honoured with the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary Awards following his performance at the London Olympic Games in August. Gordon, along with sprinter Kelly-Ann Baptiste were recognized in the field of sports writes trackalerts.com.
LONDON (GBR): British Sprinter Craig Pickering, who missed out on London 2012 after undergoing back surgery earlier this year, has embarked on another Olympic mission: to win a bobsleigh medal for Britain at the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, in 2014 announces The Telegraph. “I want a fresh challenge,” said Pickering. “I’ve just been taken off athletics funding so it’s a great time to do it and I’m
hoping to make the Olympic team for Sochi and hopefully put us in the mix for a medal.”
KINGSTON (JAM): Usain Bolt has given the fraternity at the William Knibb Memorial High School in Trelawny the well-needed gift of a new Coaster bus. Bolt handed over the key to the vehicle at a ceremony on the school grounds where he received his schooling according to The Jamaica Gleaner. About his current training status Bolt said: “Right now I am in training. It’s okay, but it has been just one month into that. I am working my hardest right now and will be ready when the time comes.”
MOSCOW (RUS): Current 800m Olympic and World champion Maria Savinova informed news agency All Sport about her plans for indoor season 2013. “I have no plans to compete this winter. I just began my preparation for next summer. Most probably World University Games will not be included to my schedule” said the 27-years old Russian.
MOSCOW (RUS): Russian Anti-doping Agency (RUSADA) informs through its website about temporary removal from training camps and competitions of Russian hammer thrower Kirill Ikonnikov from November 2. Banned substance was detected in Ikonnikov’s sample A from October 8 out of competition test. The 28-years old athlete already was informed about test result and possible violation of Anti-Doping Rules. RUSADA is researching in Ikonnikov’s matter. Kirill Ikonnikov was the finalist of Daegu World Championships (6th place) and London Olympics (5th place) as well as winner of European Cup Winter Throwing 2012.
VOLGOGRAD (RUS): Five weeks have passed from knee surgery of high Jump Olympic champion 2004 Yelena Slesarenko. On December 9 Slesarenko will organize kid’s competitions in Volgograd and after that she is going to go to ATOS clinic in Germany for rehabilitation. “Doctor says that my knee’s problem is typical in sport. Crucial ligament shouldn’t prevent me from further trainings especially taking in consideration that now I have an implant. In the middle of January I plan to go to the training camp with our group. My coach Yevgeniy Zatgorulko will give me two months for individual recovery. We want to start preparation for summer season in March” said 30-years old Russian.
LONDON (GBR): Spikes magazine is asking people in a poll to name their athletics moment of 2012 on their website. In the offer is David Rudisha smashing 800m WR, Manteo Mitchell running 4x400m leg with a broken leg, Aries Merritt’s 110m Hurdles record breaker, Super Saturday feat. Mo, Jess and Greg at the London Games, Robert Harting’s Olympic victory celebration, Usain Bolt’s Olympic double-triple, US Women’s 4x100m record-breaker, Spikes’ emphatic re-launch and Felix Sanchez’s emotional podium celebration in London.
LONDON (GBR): Record numbers of women and men in UK are playing sport every week following London 2012 according to new figures in the Sport England Active People Survey revealed today. Figures show that 15.5 million people aged 16 and over are playing sport at least once a week which is 750,000 more than a year ago. The number of people taking part in sport has risen sharply in the period since the London 2012 Games got underway with particularly strong increases in Olympic sports such as cycling and sailing. Writes insidethegames.
HONOLULU (USA): They are amongst the world’s fastest marathoners, but Wilson Kipsang and Jimmy Muindi of Kenya slowed down to share some of their life experiences with hundreds of students at the St. Andrew’s Priory School, an all-girls school established here in 1867 by Queen Emma Kaleleonalani. The students filled the James C. Castle gymnasium and peppered the two athletes –plus the Kenyan Ambassador to the United States Elkanah Odembo– with questions. Kipsang, the 2012 Virgin London Marathon champion and Olympic Marathon bronze medalist, told the girls in advance of Sunday’s 40th Honolulu Marathon that they should strive for excellence as he had done in his athletics career. For Muindi, 39, who will run his 20th Honolulu Marathon on Sunday, coming to this island has become second nature for him. He had also visited the Priory several times before, and has won the race six times. Sunday’s Honolulu Marathon boasts seven Kenyan men in the elite field: Kipsang (2:03:42 PB), Nicholas Manza (2:06:34), Nicholas Chelimo (2:07:38), Patrick Ivuti (2:07:46), Muindi (2:07:50), Kiplimo Kimutai (2:11:21), and Julius Arile (2:12:13).
SULULTA (ETH): World record holder Kenenisa Bekele has built a six lane all-weather track in the picturesque district of Sululta, which lies just 25 minutes outside the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and at an altitude of 2750m. Across the road he has also constructed a 30 room hotel that will house athletes wishing to take advantage of Bekele’s ‘field of dreams’. Another 80 room hotel will be completed within the next six months. This one stands a few hundred metres away and is another part of a vision that Bekele, a three-time Olympic champion, has for supporting athletics in his native Ethiopia. The official opening will be next month in January 2013. Informs the IAAF.
LUANDA (ANG): A workshop with members of the Association of Olympic Athletes and a trip to central Huambo province for a visit to the future African training and adapted sport high competition centre, are the highlights of the agenda of the American runner Michael Johnson who is expected Monday in Luanda. Local media are informing.
MINNEAPOLIS (USA): Letsrun.com informs that the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon will crown the nation’s men’s and women’s marathon champions for the next two years. The race, which runs from downtown Minneapolis to the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, was awarded the USA Men’s and Women’s Marathon Championships for 2013 and 2014 by USA Track & Field, the governing body of the sport in the United States. Marathon organizer Twin Cities In Motion was also awarded the 2015 and 2016 USA Men’s and Women’s 1 Mile Road Championships which will take place in conjunction with the Medtronic TC 1 Mile contested on Nicollet Mall in the heart of downtown Minneapolis.
The 2013 Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon will take place Sunday, October 6. The Medtronic TC 1 Mile takes place each May. The 2013 Medtronic TC 1 Mile, set for May 9, along with the 2014 Medtronic TC 1 Mile, will still feature professional fields and prize money in continued support of post-collegiate athletes.
PORTLAND (USA): Italian coaching expert Renato Canova is the new coach of US Marathon record holder Ryan Hall. “I have been really blessed to work with many great coaches over the years, beginning with Dad when I was in high school and then Irv Ray came on board to help before I moved on to college and had the opportunity to be coached by both Vin Lanana and Andy Gerard. Then, as a professional, I learned from Terrence Mahon. Now I feel God bringing me under a new coach to learn from and work with. In my study of training I have been drawn to the training methodology of Renato Canova. His system is different than anything I’ve been exposed to in the past and his athletes are flourishing under it. So I’m very excited to begin this new season of my professional career working with Coach Canova. I find his training to be most intriguing, challenging, but most importantly fun. I am very optimistic for the year to come,” said Hall in a statement.
NASSAU (BAH): The inaugural IAAF World Relays in Nassau, Bahamas will be staged in 2014 one month later than initially announced. May 24-25 are the new dates closer to European season after the Caribbean and Asian meetings.
RESULTS
LAWRENCE (USA, Dec 6): At Bob Timmons Challenge indoor meet Big 12 top sprinter Paris Daniels improved in the 60 m to 7.32. She also won the 200 m in 23.62. Sub 10 sprinter Mark Jelks returned from a doping ban with 6.72 at 60 m and 21.68 at the 200 m wins. His best of 9.99 comes from 2008 and his ban ended
in August 2012.
