K. BEKELE ON THE ROAD

DUBLIN (IRL): The 2008 double olympic medalist and world record holder Kenenisa Bekele will return to Dublin’s Phoenix Park on Sunday 14 April to defend his title in the SPAR Great Ireland Run 10km, an IAAF Silver Label Road Race. Bekele is now focusing on qualifying in the 10 000 m for the IAAF World Championships in Moscow in August. He won the SPAR Great Ireland Run last year in a stunning course record time of 27:49. This year he will face a stern test as he defends his title against current World 10,000m champion and fellow Ethiopian Ibrahim Jeilan. IAAF informs. This will be the first competition of the year for Bekele.

DIACK MEETS WITH SOBYANIN

MOSCOW (RUS): IAAF President Lamine Diack met with Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin. They spoke about the preparation for the World Championships in august. President Diack expressed his hope that all 210 member federations will take part. Also asked Moscow Mayor to reinforce the publicity around the championships in order to get full stadium. Sobyanin said that already 23 000 tickets have been sold. On Saturday and Sunday the IAAF Council will meet in Moscow.

JAMES FOR NASSAU AND PENN

MONACO (MON): World and Olympic 400 m winner Kirani James of Grenada wrote for the IAAF: “I really enjoy running indoors though, it’s really strategic. I might return to indoor running next year in time for the World Indoor Championships, but it really depends on how this season goes and what my coach says. Training over the winter has been good and consistent. I’d say I’m in good form, but we’ll find out for sure next week April 13 at the Chris Brown Bahamas Invitational, which is my first race of 2013. I’m just getting ready for that at the moment, and we’ve been working on everything – conditioning, stride length, speed.” After Bahamas he will run the 4×400 m in an all-star team together with olympic bronze medalist Lalonde Gordon of Trinidad at the Penn Relays against the USA.

CULSON AND WARINER

NEW YORK (USA): Javier Culson and Jeremy Wariner, who between the two of them own 13 Olympic and World Champioinship medals, will both return to the adidas Grand Prix next month. Culson will headline the 400 m hurdles and Wariner the flat 400 m. Previously announced athletes include David Rudisha, Jenn Suhr, Tyson Gay, Michael Tinsley, and Bianca Knight. The third stop on the international IAAF Diamond League circuit, the adidas Grand Prix is in its ninth year at Icahn Stadium, in conjunction with the Randall’s Island Sports Alliance.

OTHER NEWS

BOSTON (USA): Kenya’s Allan Kiprono and New Zealand’s Kim Smith have again committed to the three-race B.A.A. Distance Medley for 2013 which kicks off with the B.A.A. 5-K on Sunday, April 14, in Boston, the day before the 117th Boston Marathon. On the men’s side, Kiprono will face London Olympic Games silver medalist at 5000 meters Dejen Gebremeskel, three-time Olympian Alistair Cragg, 2012 B.A.A. Distance Medley runner-up Lani Rutto, six-time NCAA All-American Stephen Sambu and 2010 Commonwealth Games 10,000m silver medalist Daniel Salel. Smith will have to contend with B.A.A. 5-K course record holder Worknesh Kidane of Ethiopia, 2011 B.A.A. 5-K champion Lineth Chepkurui of Kenya, 2008 Bolder Boulder 10-K champion Millicent Kuria and 2013 Crescent City Classic champion Alice Kimutai, both also from Kenya. Informs RRW.

FRANKFURT (GER): Olympic heptathlon silver medalist Lilli Schwarzkopf still hopes to compete in summer. Because of her major achilles injury from last September first estimates said no time to be ready for Moscow. „I must be patient,” said Schwarzkopf after surgery and subsequent rehabilitation process which is still not finished.

KINGSTON (JAM): Christiantoday.com writes that star sprinter Usain Bolt is viewed as the ideal Christian to improve the church
‘s image. That’s according to hundreds of Christians who took part in a survey for Premier Christian Radio. Two thirds of participants in the C-Panel survey agreed the church needs a new image. About a fifth said they did not know, while just 14% thought the image of Christianity and the church was fine. Just under half (45%) agreed that a well-known celebrity would aid an advertising campaign to improve the image of Christianity, although a third (34%) disagreed and a fifth (21%) were unsure. Usain Bolt emerged as the favourite for this role, followed closely by Bear Grylls, Denzel Washington and David Suchet.

LONDON (GBR): The exclusive pre-sale of London Diamond League meeting will begin on April 19 at 10 am. The highly anticipated London Anniversary Games will be held at The Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

MELBOURNE (AUS): Athletics Australia is delighted to announce the induction of Noel Freeman, Dmitri Markov and Kerry Saxby-Junna to the Athletics Australia Hall of Fame. Honoured at the John Landy Lunch in Melbourne on Friday, the trio join an illustrious list that includes Betty Cuthbert, John Landy, Ron Clarke and Catherine Freeman as inductees 32 through 34 respectively. The Athletics Australia Hall of Fame was instituted in 2000 as part of the celebration of the Sydney Olympic Games and it acknowledges the wonderful careers and great feats of high performance achieved by those inducted.

BOSTON (USA): RRW informs that Olympic silver medalist Meb Keflezighi has been forced to withdraw from the 117th Boston Marathon on April 15, due to a persistent calf injury, race organizers said. The same injury had also knocked the 38 year-old, three-time Olympian from Mammoth Lakes, Calif., out of the NYC Half on March 17. Organizers also said that Kenyan Laban Korir has also withdrawn from the race on advice of his coach, Patrick Sang.

KYIV (UKR): National Olympic committee of Ukraine named Olha Saladukha best the top sports person of March. Her personal coach Anatoliy Boyko was named top coach of last month. At European indoor championships in Goteborg Saladukha won gold medal in triple jump with new national record 14.88m and world indoor lead 2013.

LONDON (GBR): Insidethegames informs that a free whereabouts App is to be introduced for smartphones by the World Anti-Doping Agency later this year. The new App is an extension of WADA’s whereabouts module (ADAMS), and will be available to more than 25,000 athletes worldwide to facilitate compliance with the anti-doping rules of their governing body or National Anti-Doping Organisation. This will be of particular interest to those athletes in a registered testing pool who have specific anti-doping responsibilities regarding the provision of whereabouts information to support out-of-competition testing, WADA officials claimed.

ZURICH (SUI): Youth trains with World Class (Jugend trainier mit Weltklasse in Zurich) programme expects this year around 1500 children and youngsters aged from 7 till 15 at 11 sites on Tuesday August 27. The traditional clinics will be staged as usual two days before the IAAF Diamond League final Weltklasse Zuruch. At each place around 100-120 kids with coaches and two international and two Swiss stars will be available.

GAINESVILLE (USA): The Olympic sprinter Bryshon Nellum of USC was given sixth year of eligibility. The 400 m runner was informed by the NCAA this week that he was eligible to compete and will participate in the Florida Relays at Gainesville. Nellum won a silver medal at the London Olympics as a member of the 4 x 400 relay team and carried the U.S. flag at the closing ceremonies.

RESULTS

SANTO DOMINGO (DOM, Apr 4): Olympic silver medalist Luguelin Santos won the 400 m at National Military Games with good 45.74.

NAKURU (KEN, Apr 5): 2008 Olympic 1500 m winner Nancy Langat was beaten at the tape by Eunice Sum of Police during the third AK meet in 4:13.1. The winner clocked 4:12.8. Boniface Mweresa of Laikipia Airbase won the 400 m in 46.2.

GAINESVILLE (USA, Apr 4): During first day of Florida Relays High School sprinter Trayvon Bormell clocked good PB 10.34 (+1.0) in his heat.

PRETORIA (RSA, Apr 5): During second day of South African U23, Junior and Youth Championships Akani Simbini clocked 10.39 (+0.1) in semifinals of the 100 m but was beaten in 10.48 (-0.2) in the finals by Henrico Bruintjies 10.44. Jacques de Swardt achieved in U23 400 semifinal 46.26. Fastest girls 100 m was 11.83 (+1.1) by youth winner Tamzin Thomas. Junior boys 100 m winner Thando Roto got 10.53 (+0.7). World junior and youth discus medalist Gerhard de Beer won the junior discus (1.75 kg) with 58.40 m.

SAD NEWS

MONACO (MON): IAAF informs about the death of Robert Stinson, its former Treasurer, and an IAAF Honorary Life Vice President since 2003, who following a long illness died in his sleep on the night of 3rd / 4th April. H. Robert H. Stinson, M.B.E (GBR – born 15 March 1931) was a solicitor by profession, and lived his life as a passionate supporter and administrator of Athletics both at national and international level. During the 1980s Stinson engaged his passion and administrative skills for the benefit of Athletics at international level, firstly as a member of the IAAF Juridical Working Group in 1981, and in 1984 was elected as IAAF Honorary Treasurer, a role on the Council which he would hold with distinction until standing down in 2003.