IAAF COUNCIL NEWS

MOSCOW (RUS): The IAAF Council chaired by President Lamine Diack met in Moscow at the start of a packed fortnight in the capital of the Russian Federation, highlighted by the 49th IAAF Congress (7 & 8) and the 14th of the IAAF World Championships (10 to 18). The Local Organising Committee of Moscow 2013 delivered its final progress report concerning preparations for the IAAF World Championships, Moscow 2013. Council approved the date of 1st January 2014 for the revised IAAF Code of Ethics to come into force. Approved was also the Calendar of IAAF Combined Events Challenge 2014. Then the medal design for the IAAF World Indoor Championships 2014 in Sopot, timetable for the IAAF World Race Walking Cup 2014 in Taicang, China (May 3-4), entry standards and entry system with timetable for the inaugural IAAF World Relays in Nassau (May 24-25), entry standards and principle time table for the IAAF World Junior Championships 2014 in Eugene (July 22-27) and the timetable for the IAAF Continental Cup 2014 in Marrakech (Sep 13-14). The dates for the IAAF World Youth Championships in Cali, Colombia are July 15-19, 2015. At the IAAF World Youth Championships, Donetsk 2013 in total 55 urine tests were conducted in-competition. The General Doping Control Statistics of 2013 by IAAF (as of 16.07.2013) are in total 787 In-Competition urine tests (including 382 EPO), Out-of-Competition: 929 (including 351 EPO) urine tests and Blood Samples: 864 Athlete Biological Passport pre-competition tests (including 292 European Athletics tests). Informs the IAAF.

MOSCOW TEAM NEWS

CUBA: Triple jumper Ernesto Reve will not compete in Moscow. He sustained a right thigh injury and will not recover on time for the World Champs, his coach Ricardo Ponce confirmed. The Cuban delegation is made up of 24 athletes.

BURUNDI: World leader at 800 m will not run in Moscow. French speaking media report about Francine Niyonsaba’s withdrawal from the World championships due to a muscle strain sustained in training. She competed only at 3 Diamond League meetings this summer and won all of them (Shanghai, Eugene, Paris).

KENYA: Maureen Chelagat will compete in the 400m for Kenya in Moscow after switching from the 400m Hurdles due to a lack of domestic competition in that event, reports All Africa. Chelagat says that she aims to make the final and that a medal would be “an added bonus”.

BELGIUM: Heptathlete and hurdler Sara Aerts confirmed she will compete in the 100m hurdles in Moscow. Aerts had suffered a minor hamstring injury when competing in her latest competition but now told Belgian media she will be ready to compete in Moscow.

FRANCE: Despite her recent hamstring injury the fast French hurdler Cindy Billaud will compete at the World Championships in Moscow. „I will run in any case, even with the pain,” she said for L´Équipe.

ZAMBIA: Zambia will have 3 athletes competing in Moscow, informs the Lusaka Times. Jordan Chipangama will compete in the men’s marathon, he has a 2:13:08 best from this year. Prince Mumba, who has a season’s best of 1:46.20, will run the men’s 800m. The 19 year old Yvonne Nalishuwa will compete in the women’s 100m, she has run 12.35 this year.

GHANA: The Chairman of Ghana Athletics, Professor Francis Dodoo has dismissed claims that athletics in Ghana is in decline, reports Ghana Web. Ghana are only sending 1 athlete to Moscow and recently lost their top jumper Ignatius Gaisah to a switch of national allegiance. Dodoo called 2013 a “peculiar year” for Ghana athletics and said that he believed Ghana will “come good” in time for the Rio Olympic Games. Janet Amposah, Ghana’s only representative, will compete in the women’s 200m in Moscow.

KENYA: The Kenyan World Championships squad are stranded in Kenya due to a fuel pipeline malfunction at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, reports Capital FM. The teams head coach, Sammy Rono, said that their flight has been canceled until further notice and that they were now trying to organise accommodation for the team near the airport.

OTHER MOSCOW NEWS

ABUJA (NGR): Nigerian Blessing Okagbare is rounding into great form as the World Championships approach, reports All Africa. The 24 year old beat Double Olympic Champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce while breaking the African 100m record (10.79) at the London Diamond League. Okagbare expressed her excitement at the result saying that she has been working hard and staying on top of her recovery. Okagbare’s first involvement in sports was in soccer at her high school. She moved to athletics in 2004 where she competed in the Triple Jump, Long Jump and High Jump. Her main event was the Triple Jump. After a successful Junior career she went on to study and compete for the University of Texas. Her first appearance on the Global stage as a senior came at the Beijing Olympics, where she placed 3rd in the Long Jump. She hasn’t won a medal at her last two Global championships, in Daegu and London, but is a favourite to take at least one in Moscow.

ADDIS ABABA (ETH): The Ethiopian team were given a farewell party at the Ararat Hotel in Addis Ababa, informs All Africa. The Ethiopian Athletics Federation President, Alebachew Nigusse, said that the team is well prepared and should achieve great results at the World Championships in Moscow.

MOSCOW (RUS): Jamaican Head Coach Stephen Francis isn’t very impressed by the World Championship host city, Moscow, reports the Jamaican Gleaner. Francis said that he didn’t expect Moscow to be very friendly or well organised and he hasn’t been surprised with what he has experienced so far. The Jamaican team held their first training session in Moscow today at one of the warp up tracks at the Luzhniki sporting complex.

MOSCOW (RUS): IAAF explains the in-competition anti-doping programme. „This is the third strand to the IAAF’s anti-doping strategy at the World Championships. In-competition urine tests will be carried out for the top three finishers in each event immediately after the race. In addition, some athletes will be tested by a random draw and some target testing will be done. A total of between 450-500 urine tests will be carried out during the Championships.”

MOSCOW (RUS): Red Square and Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow will set the stage as Olympic and World Championships gold medalists and World Marathon Majors (WMM) champions compete in the 2013 IAAF World Championships Marathon. The course will start and finish at Luzhniki Stadium, the site of the 1980 Olympic Games. Comprised of one loop of 7.5 kilometers and three loops of 10 kilometers, the course runs through the city center, passing many of Moscow’s famous landmarks. World Marathon Majors points are at stake in the Women’s and Men’s World Championships Marathons, to be held on August 10 and August 17, respectively. The World Championships Marathon is part of the 2012-2013 WMM Series. A change at the top of the women’s WMM Series standings is possible, as four of the top 10 in the current standings will compete in the World Championships. Defending World Championships gold medalist Edna Kiplagat will lead the Kenyans against an Ethiopian contingent that includes London Olympic Games Marathon gold medalist Tiki Gelana, Aberu Kebede and Meseret Hailu. Four of the top 10 men in the current WMM Series standings will compete in the World Championships, including an Ethiopian trio of Tsegaye Kebede, the current WMM Series leader and 2013 Virgin London Marathon champion; Lelisa Desisa and Feyisa Lilesa. London Olympic Games Marathon gold medalist Stephen Kiprotich, of Uganda, will also compete. With a top five performance in Moscow, Kebede can extend his lead prior to the fall marathon season.

BERLIN (GER): German talented jumper Sosthene Moguenara remains cool after jumping a superb 704 in her final competition before traveling to Moscow. Moguenara confirmed for leichtathletik.de she is not changing her objective of trying to reach the final and jumping consistently while in Moscow, even though she is aware that her jumping could bring her very close to the medals.

MOSCOW (RUS): The Luzhniki Stadium which will host the IAAF World Athletics Championships has a storied history as an arena that hosts many different types of events, reports spikesmag.com. It was opened in 1956 as the ‘Grand Arena of Central Lenin’ and has since hosted events such as athletics, football, music concerts and local festivals. It hosted the 1980 Olympic Games which showcased Coe and Ovetts awesome rivalry over both 800 and 1500m. The stadium has also hosted concerts by Michael Jackson in 1993 and the UEFA Champions League final in 2008 and will host the FIFA World Cup Final in 2018.

ISTANBUL (TUR): The reigning 400 m world champion and current world leader Amantle Montsho is training before Moscow in Istanbul, Turkey. It is result of the cooperation of Istanbul Olympic bid 2020, ANOC and IAAF High Performance Center in Dakar. Under the guidance of her coach Anthony Koffi she prepares for her title defence from 2011 in Daegu.

SYDNEY (AUS): The IAAF World Championships in Moscow will see the delivery of the first ever Coach Development Program as part of an Australian Flame team, with two up and coming coaches invited to join team staff as part of their ongoing professional development. Introduced to provide an opportunity for the next generation of high performance coaches to learn the rigours of international competition and the broader major championship environment, the first two coaches that are set to reap the benefits of this Australian Sports Commission backed initiative are Megan Szirom and Adam Didyk.

NOVOGORSK (RUS): Group of international media visited on Monday the Russian team training camp in Novogorsk. They spoke with Anna Chicherova, Aleksandr Shustov, Darya Klishina, Sergey Shubenkov among others.

TURKISH DOPING NEWS

ANKARA (TUR): The Turkish Athletics Federation (TAF) had banned 31 of its athletes for two years for drug violations, reports Reuters. At least three of these athletes competed at the London Olympic Games. The positive tests are “part of a concerted and much more aggressive anti-policy in Turkey” that has been in place for 6 months according to the President of Turkey’s National Olympic Committee, Ugur Erderner. Erderner said that anti-doping education programs would be run in schools and colleges to tackle the doping problem. He stated that Turkey has “zero tolerance” for doping and is committed to have young, clean athletes competing for Turkey in the future. The most known names in this list are hammer thrower Esref Apak, female hammer throwers Tuhce Sahutoglu with Kaya Kivilcim, 400 m runner Serdar Tamac, 800 m runner Yeliz Kurt. The cases of 1500 m olympic winner Asli Cakir, European hurdles champion Nevin Yanit and 400 m record holder Pinar Saka are still not finalised. The Turkish olympic commitee anti-doping commission and its scientific commitee are still analysing the situation. TAF disciplinary committee asked the mentioned scientific body to clarify the issue. The bronze winner from London at 1500 m Gamze Bulut is not part of any of this groups, she simply is not having the shape to be selected for Moscow. In her only race this year she won the European U23 title in the 5000 m.

OTHER NEWS

AMSTERDAM (NED): Dutch athletics federation KNAU announced the retirement of young decathlete Mark Jacobs. Jacobs best ranking was his 4th place at the European junior championships in 2011, but was later that year diagnosed with cancer. The young athlete continued to train and be part of the KNAU talent pool while fighting the illness and was declared fully healed mid 2012. Problems with his immune system now force him to end hi
s athletics career.

AMSTERDAM (NED): Tough times for Dutch thrower Rutger Smith who is recovering from a rupture in his Achilles tendon. Smith has lost his A-status and will no longer be financially supported by his federation.

RIO DE JANEIRO (BRA): Monday marks three years to go until the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, when over 10,500 athletes from more than 200 countries will descend on the´Marvellous City’. The Opening Ceremony, which will take place at the newly refurbished Maracana stadium, will create Olympic history as the first time that the Games will be held in South America. Writes the AIPS.

ROMA (ITA): Italian Athletics federation FIDAL announced thatSeptember 12 will be Pietro Mennea Day in athletics in the country. It is also the day of anniversary of his world record at 200 m 19.72 in 1979 in Mexico City. In 8 cities special activities will be held.

MAGDEBURG (GER): German shot putter Nadine Kleinert has a special statistical factor in her career. She was 13 times at big events beaten by doping cheats. She competed since 1995 at more than 20 international championships. „Two years is nothing, that is like a longer injury break,” she said about current length of a ban.

RESULTS

NEW DELHI (IND, Aug 5): During first day of Indian Inter-Railway Athletics Championships excellent long jumping by Prem Kumar 809 (+1.3), new national record.

NEWBURYPORT (USA, Aug 4): At the 23rd High Street Mile Pat Fullerton won with 3:58.8 meet record. Recently graduated Boston University star Katie Matthews got an easy win in the women’s race in4:37.9. From RRW.

SALINE (USA, Aug 4): At this new event, which Olympic silver medalist Nick Willis helped to organize, seven men got under four minutes, including Willis himself who got the win in his final tune-up race before the IAAF World Championships. Some 3000 people watched the race on a beautiful Michigan summer evening. Willis clocked 3:56.57 ahead of Australian Daniel Clark 3:57.40 and Miles Batty 3:58.06. Writes RRW.

OITA (JPN, Aug 3): Kenyan Rosemary Wanjiru clocked 2013 top 3000 m time for a junior 8:49.32 at Japanese HS Championships. Informs RRW.

RABAT (MAR, Jul 25): Better later then never. Fast Moroccan times at local meet. Halima Hachlaf clocked in women 800 m 1:59.38 and Amine El Manaoui improved in men race to 1:44.96.

ITEN (KEN, Aug 4): Alice Timbilil and Kiplimo Mitei were the two winners at the 4th Safaricom Iten 10km road race, informs All Africa. Timbilil, the 2005 World Cross Country Silver Medallist and former World Youth Champion in the 3000m pushed hard early on to win in 35:06. World Half Marathon bronze medallist Pascaliah Jepkorir finished 18 seconds back. Mitei made a surge at the 9km mark to run away from his only challenger Nicholos Togom and win the race in 29:40, seven seconds up on Togom.

SCHIFFLANGE (LUX, Aug 4): At International meet here Nadine Kleinert won the shot put (18.35), Kabelo Kgosiemang of Botswana cleared 225 in the high jump and Nigerian Peter Emelieze won the 100 m in 10.35 (+0.6).