by Larry EderYesterday, it was the 10k World Record attempt at the Pre Classic. Now, Meseret Defar is going to attempt to break her own 5,000 meter record, also at the Pre
classsic, right after Bekele’s 10,000 meter attempt! More details on that to follow!
EME NEWS (MAY 14, 2008)
GAY AT VAN DAMME
BRUSSELS (BEL): Osaka sprints World champion Tyson Gay agreed to compete at Van Damme Memorial in Brussels which will be the last meeting of AF Golden League series on September 5. It is his second this years European outing confirmed after Paris Gaz de France meet on July 18.
DIBABA IN PARIS AND DEFAR IN EUGENE
PARIS/EUGENE (FRA/USA): Ethiopian distance running stars are having their first outdoor meetings confirmed. World Athlete of The Year 2007 and 5000 m world and Olympic champion Meseret Defar will try to break her own world record at Prefontaine Classic in Eugene on June 8. After Kenenisa Bekele at 10 000 m this will be already the second global mark breaking try at the meeting. The competition will be also held in the morning. The aim is to improve the 14:16.63 from Bislett Games last year. „Meseret is focusing on running fast at the Prefontaine Classic,” said her representative Mark Wetmore. „Her training is geared toward that race.” To help establish a fast pace, Olga Komyagina of Russia will fly in for the meet. She paced also her world record in Oslo last year.
Her rival and world champion at 10 000 m Tirunesh Dibaba is confirmed for Paris 4th leg of AF Golden League at 5000 m. But she might compete earlier at some other occasion.
SALADINO TO COMPETE ON SUNDAY
RIO DE JANEIRO (BRA): Long Jump world champion Irving Saladino is to open his summer season at Sunday´s GP Rio Caixa in Rio De Janeiro (Area Permit Meeting). It was confirmed by his coach Nelio Moura. The event will be held in Stadio de Barros which is part of famous Maracana complex. In women long jump home stars (also coached by Moura) Maurren Higa Maggi and Keila Costa also confirmed their presence.
FRIEDRICH TO OPEN ON MAY 24
ZWEIBRUCKEN (GER): German 202 cm indoors high jumper Ariane Friedrich will start her season in Zweibrucken on May 24th. The event was declared German qualification meeting for the Olympic Games and the U20 World Championships in Bydgoszcz (Poland) and will therefore present also another two metres jumper Daniela Rath as well as Annett Engel and Kimberly Jeß. International competition comes from Ireland´s Deirdre Ryan and supposedly French (and former German) Melanie Skotnik.
BAALA WILL RUN THIS WEEKEND
PARIS (FRA) Double European 1500 m champion Mehdi Baala will make his season debut at the French interclubs final over the week-end. He some time ago already announced his participation at SPAR Europan Cup in Annecy on June 22.
PROVISIONAL KENYAN OLYMPIC TEAM
NAIROBI (KEN) – The Kenyan federation has selected a provisional team of 120 athletes and 20 coaches to go into residential training camp at Chepkoilel Campus in Eldoret and prepare for the Olympic Games Trials. They were supposed to be held early July, now reports are coming with new date 14-15 June. If confirmed that could affect all early big meetings (including Golden League in Berlin and Oslo) in USA and Europe. Marathoners and Japanese based-runners are exempt from the camp but will have to take part to the Trials. Athletes are expected to report to the camp by May 20 with the risk of being axed from the team if they don’t.
Leading names in the provisional squad
400m – Ezra Sambu, Thomas Musembi and Mark Mutai
800m – David Rudisha, Alfred Kirwa, Jackson Kivuva
1500m – Asbel Kiprop, Alex Kipchirchir, Daniel Kipchirchir Komen, Gideon
Gatimba, Edward Kibet
5000m – Isaac Songok, Leonard Komon, Joseph Ebuya, Augustine Choge
10000m – Sammy Kitwara, Hosea Macharinyang, Moses Masai, Micah Kogo, Patrick
Makau + pre-selected Japan-based runners Gideon Ngatunyi, Martin Irungu,
Josephat Ndambiri
3000m steeplechase – Richard Matelong Paul Kipsiele Koech, Michael Kipyego,
Brimin Kipruto
Women
800m – Janeth Jepkosgei, Pamela Chelimo
1500m – Viola Chebet, Margaret Wangare
5000m – Vivian Cheruiyot, Veronica Nyaruai, Pauline Korkwang + US based
Sally Kipyego and Japan-based Evelyn Wambui
3000m steeplechase – Ruth Bosibori
FROM EUROPEAN ATHLETICS
LAUSANNE (SUI): Interesting news from European Athletics background. In future the 10 000 m European Cup will be staged end of May or early June. The current date is in April. The traditional European Athletics Calendar Conference held in October will be renamed to European Athletics Convention. For this year the dates are Oct 16-18 in Amsterdam and among new features is the „European Athletics Awards Night.”
MEETINGS
LOUGHBOROUGH (GBR): Commonwealth 1500m champion Lisa Dobriskey heads a strong Loughborough team making final preparations for the University’s annual international athletics (LIA) this Sunday. She is joined by a host of Loughborough’s high achievers, including World Junior 100m Champion Harry Aikines-Aryeetey (during last weekend improved to 10.18), 400 m European Indoor Champion David Gillick of Ireland, 2007 National Indoor 1500 m Champion Chris Warburton, World Indoor silver medallist Jeanette Kwakye and many of Britain’s top ranked throwers.
DAKAR (SEN) – More than 170 athletes from 30 countries are expected to take part the Dakar IAAF Grand Prix meet on Saturday 17 May. Jamaican Clement Cambpell will head the men’s sprints while Mali’s Khadiatou Camara will try to confirm her 22.70 at 200 m from the African Championships in Addis-Ababa at the beginning of the months. African champions Ali Nagmeldin of Sudan and Ndiss Kaba Badji of Senegal will be the favourites of the 400m and the triple jump respectively. Silver and bronze medallist from Addis Abderahmane Hammadi of Algeria and Ibrahima Maiga of Mali will face each other in the 400m hurdles while Germany’s Alexander Straub and Jeremy Scott of the United States are expected in the pole vault. In Long improved Slovak Jana Veldakova (672 this year) will face South African record holder Karen Mey.
BAMAKO (MLI) – Heavy rains, unusual at this time of the year have forced organisers to call off the Bamako CAA Grand Prix that was supposed to be held on Tuesday 13. The athletes wil try to compete on Wednesday, weather allowing.
KONIGS WUSTERHAUSEN (GER): Olympic hammer throw champion Szymon Ziolkowski from Poland is the most famous name on the starting lists of the meeting in Koenigs Wusterhausen on May 27h. He will face the Germans Markus Esser and Karsten Kobs. The organizers also announced Britain´s Chris Baillie, second of the Commonwealth Games 110m hurdles final and German 1500m champion Carsten Schlangen who will run the 1000m. The women´s pole vault is well-staffed with German indoors champion Julia Hutter, Martina Strutz and their opponents from Sweden, Maria Rendin, and Norway´s Catrine Larsasen. The specific features of the meeting in Konigs Wusterhausen are the wild cards for the Golden League meeting in Berlin five days later. They will be given to the winners in the men´s 110m hurdle race and discus and to the winners in the women´s 800m race and high jump.
OTHER NEWS
MELBOURNE (AUS): Retired Oceanian heptathlon record holder Jane Flemming (43) who also won 1990 Commonwealth long jump and heptathlon gave birth to twin boys, James and Samuel, on May 12. Informs Athletics International. Her best from 1990 is 6695 points.
AMSTERDAM (NED): Dutch heptathlete Karin Ruckstuhl (27) will miss the Olympics due to hernia surgery. She will be out for about 5 months. At European Championships 2006 she won silver and scored national record 6423 points.
SAN FRANCISCO (USA): Part parade, part fashion show, and part road race, the 97th ING Bay to Breakers returns to the streets of San Francisco on Sunday, and organizers expect some 70,000 runners and walkers (about half of them unregistered) to take part. Informs Race Results Weekly. Athletes will chase 74,000 USD prize money purse, including a special 25,000 USD ING Battle to the Breakers bonus which will be awarded to the first athlete to cross the finish line. That could be a man or it could be a woman; women are given a four minute and 40 second headstart based on the difference between the male (33:42) and female (38:22) course records. The women’s field is led by Kenyans Lineth Chepkurui, who won the Lilac Bloomsday Run (also a 12-K) on May 4, and the versatile Rose Kosgei, who won the Medtronic TC 1 Mile in Minneapolis last Thursday. Not surprisingly, Kenyans are prominent the men’s field. Road racing veteran John Korir, who won the Bay to Breakers in 2007, is entered along with Julius Koskei, a brother of three-time champion James Koskei. Haron Lagat, the former Texas Tech athlete, and Samuel Ndereba, one of Catherine Ndereba’s brothers, are also entered.
WIEN (AUT): Miss Austria Marina Schneider wants to try to achieve the standard for World Junior Championships in heptathlon at Vienna „Jedermann Zehnkampf” on May 24-25. This is an event with open decathlon for public. Schneider improved recently in High Jump to good 177 cm.
PRETORIA (RSA): The famous ultra-distance marathon, Comrades Marathon, which is usually held in June – 15 June this year – will be moved to May in the next two years (24 May in 2009 and 30 May in 2010) to accomodate next year’s Confederation Cup and the 2010 World Cup.
MANCHESTER (GBR): The BUPA Great Manchester Run held this Sunday at the fastest 10-K course in Great Britain will see also world marathon champion, Luke Kibet of Kenya; seven-time European cross country champion, Sergey Lebid of Ukraine; and former European 10,000m champion, Chema Martinez of Spain. Also competing fresh Austrian 10 000 m track record holder Gunther Weidlinger, European track medalist Juan Carlos de la Ossa of Spain and Swedish steeple record holder Mustafa Mohamed. The record-standard course has produced some of the fastest road 10-K’s in history, including Kenyan Micah Kogo’s 27:21 course record from last year, the fastest 10-K ever run on British soil. Informs Race Results Weekly.
ROSTOCK (GER): German javelin thrower Mark Frank (PB 84.88 from 2005) has to give up his Olympic dreams due to ellbow problems that still persist despite two operations. The 30-year-old winner of the European Cup is suffering from injuries for the third season and plans to come back in 2009.
MONTE CARLO: A three-day trip to the prestigious annual Herculis track and field meeting, one of the 25 fixtures of the IAAF World Athletics Tour 2008, is the motivational reward which is on offer to those children lucky enough to be picked from a draw of winning national youth athletes submitted by IAAF Member Federations that are participating in the 2008 IAAF World Athletics Day. The IAAF’s annual worldwide festival of youth, which was inaugurated in 1996, has always been held on a designated weekend each year. However, while the coming weekend of Saturday 17 & Sunday 18 May is the preferred time for the IAAF’s Member Federations to celebrate the IAAF World Athletics Day, in an effort to aid the greatest possible number of the participants this year Federations have been given the option of holding their celebration at any time in the month of May if it suits their arrangements better. In total, 147 of the 213 IAAF Member Federations have informed the sport’s world governing body that they will be taking part in this year’s project.
MIAMI (USA): Total Sports Management developed a partnership for their more than 40 professional athletes with Miami based Arluck Promotions, a creative marketing firm that establishes strategic partnerships between elite athletes, companies and not-for-profits who strive to enrich the community. „Arluck Promotions has positioned itself as a major player in the marketing and promotions arena,” said Mark Block President of Johnson City, Tennessee based Total Sports. “We are excited about the opportunities this unique relationship will bring to our list of world-class athletes.” Arluck will have exclusive marketing rights for the international cast of athletes including; Xavier “X-man” Carter who is expected to qualify for the 200 m for Team USA at the Olympics or sprinters Melisa Barber and Carmelita Jeter.
BALTIMORE (USA): Management company World Express Athletic Management has decided in interesting move no longer represent or work with US sprinter Mickey Grimes (31, best 9.99 at 100 m). The company „cannot associate itself or support an athlete with a prior doping suspension for illegal performance enhancing drugs. We have deleted Grimes from our entry lists and website,” it says in an information. Grimes served a doping ban in 2004-2006.
RESULTS
MOSCOW (RUS, May 14): During opening day of first open track competition in Moscow steeple world record holder Gulnara Samitova started the year with solid 4:09.58 at 1500 m. 38 years old Vyacheslav Shabunin achieved 5:07.74 at 2000 m. Women shot put registered 18.30 by Atlanta 1996 medalist Irina Khudoroshkina (39) and 18.25 by Osaka finalist Ana Omarova.
OBERGHAUSTETT (GER, May 12): World University Games winner 2007 Alexander Straub started his summer campaign with good 562 cm in Pole Vault.
BARQUISIMETO (VEN, May 11): Another improvement for talented youth long jumper Jamal Bowen (17) of Panama. He equalled the South American junior record with 797 (+1.4). The same mark was achieved by Brazilian Thiago Dias in 2002. Bowen´s countrymate and world champion Irving Saladino had as 19 years old 751 cm.
—
EME NEWS is proudly sponsored by Shooting Star Media, Inc., publishers of American Track & Field, Athletes Only, California Track & Running News, Coaching Athletics Quarterly, Missouri Runner & Triathlete, Latinos Corriendo and Fast Forward. For more information, please click on www.shootingstarmediainc.com or www.runblogrun.com
EME NEWS is news service relating to the sport of athletics. It is published on daily basis with additional updates, as required. Copyright is held by Alfons Juck, Perinvest SK, a.s., Krikova 10, 82107 Bratislava, Slovakia. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The redistribution and/or direct reproduction of material from EME NEWS is prohibited unless permission is given by c Perinvest SK (such as being included in a subscription agreement).Email to respond: ajuck@rainside.sk
