by Larry EderJacques Rogge has been re-elected as President of the IOC. Rogge ran unopposed. On Sunday, the Bank of America Chicago Marathon will have nearly 40,000 starters, and in Birmingham, England, the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships will have teams from over 64 countries contesting half the marathon distance…..
ROGGE RE-ELECTED
COPENHAGEN (DEN): The International Olympic Committee (IOC) re-elected IOC President Jacques Rogge (67) by an 88-1 vote today at the close of the 121st Session. After thanking the IOC members for their continued support, Rogge outlined an ambitious second-term agenda to strengthen and improve the Olympic Movement. „We have much more to do,“ he told his colleagues. Rogge said one of his top priorities is be to implement the recommendations of the recently completed XIII Congress. He also emphasised the importance of the new Youth Olympic Games, which will debut in Singapore in August, followed by the Youth Winter Olympic Games in Innsbruck in 2012. „We will be staunch allies for athletes. We will continue to lead the fight against doping, and we will establish a new independent monitoring body to combat irregular betting and match fixing. We will narrow the gap in sport between the developed and the developing worlds; and between men and women. We will redouble our efforts to place sport at the service of mankind — to inspire young and old alike; to give athletes the opportunity to lead by example; and promote the Olympic values of fair play, respect, solidarity and the pursuit of excellence,“ the president was quoted. Rogge is the first IOC President to serve under terms limits approved by the IOC Executive Board in late 1999. Presidents are restricted to an eight-year term, followed by a single four-year term. No alternative candidate stood in the secret ballot. Rogge was first elected for eight years in 2001 in Moscow. The IOC also elected two vice-presidents for four-year terms: Italy‘s Mario Pescante and Singapore‘s Ser Miang Ng, who replace Greece‘s Lambis Nikolaou and Japan‘s Chiharu Igaya. Sir Craig Reedie has become the first Briton to be elected onto the International Olympic Committee‘s (IOC) executive board for almost half a century. Reedie (also 67) beat Ireland‘s Patrick Hickey for a seat. Australian John Coates won the other available seat on the board.
RUNNING WEEKEND
This will be a truly running weekend. Nearly one week after the International Olympic Committee rejected this city‘s 2016 Olympic bid, mayor Richard M. Daley was still able to take pride in what may be Chicago‘s most important global sporting event: the Bank of America Chicago Marathon which takes place here for the 32nd time on Sunday. The race has seen four open world marathon records, three open debut world records, and too many national records to list. The event records, 2:05:42 by Khalid Khannouchi in 1999 and 2:17:18 by Paula Radcliffe in 2002, are still amongst history‘s fastest marathons. The man most responsible for the race‘s success, executive director Carey Pinkowski, is celebrating his 20th year at the helm. The city recognized his contribution to Chicago by naming the intersection of streets where the race begins, Monroe Street and Columbus Drive, Carey Pinkowski Drive. After two years of unusually hot weather, Sunday‘s race here will be cold. Writes Race Results Weekly. The race has grown to host 45,000 registered participants, including representatives from all 50 states and more than 6,000 from outside the U.S. As a result of its popularity, 1.5 million spectators annually gather along the course and in Grant Park to witness the official start and finish. Bank of America and Nike Donate 100,000 USD to Chicago Public Schools‘ Hanson Stadium Refurbishment Efforts.
Another top event is the World Half Marathon Championships in Birmingham. In women race with Paula Radcliffe beeing an absentee, the Kenyan Mary Keitany should be the obvious favourite as the current world leader. Keitany will be supported by a strong Kenyan team who will start as the pre-race favourites for the team title. The Japanese-based Philes Ongori and another gold medal candidates Peninah Arusei will help her. The Ethiopian squad will be led by the experienced Mestawat Tufa, who is staging a comeback after missing the track season through injury and is the 2008 world cross-country silver medallist. In the men race Eritrean Zersenay Tadese will be trying for his fourth consecutive gold medal. He will face strong Kenyan challenge as all of them have under one-hour mark career bests.
Leading the Kenyans will be Sammy Kitwara, who was dropped from Berlin 10 000 m team and beat Haile Gebrselassie in spring at Haague Half-Marathon. US Dathan Ritzenhein is another name to be mentioned along with Ethiopians. Europe is represented only by 13 countries. Eighth European countries are in men provisional entries (teams of Spain, France, Great Britain and Italy, individuals from Estonia, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Romania), women have little stronger European representation with 10 countries (teams from Great Britain, Italy, Romania, Russia and individuals of Denmark, France, Ireland, Portugal, Serbia and Sweden). In total 102 men from 37 countries and 64 women from 28 countries are entered. Other interesting races are Eindhoven, Graz, Carpi, Munich, Essen, Poznan and Buenos Aires marathons (also South American Championships), also the 20 km of Paris, 10 km of Berlin and 4 miles of Groningen.
OTHER NEWS
AMSTERDAM (NED): The City of Amsterdam and Netherlands Athletics Federation (KNAU) decided to bid for the European Championships in 2016 in Amsterdam Olympic Stadium. Initially they planned to bid also for 2014 but were adviced to concentrate for two years later with bigger chance. Next European Championships will be held in 2010 in Barcelona, the race is going for 2014 and also for the newly created smaller version of the championships in 2012.
COLORADO SPRINGS (USA): The U.S. Olympic Committee announced USA Cycling‘s Kristin Armstrong and track athlete Tyson Gay as the September Athletes of the Month, while the USA World Cup Baseball Team was awarded Team of the Month honors. Nearly 1,500 votes were cast by followers of the USOC‘s Twitter site. 400 m world champion Sanya Richards was number three in women vote.
MELBOURNE (AUS): Pole vault world and olympic winner Steve Hooker has been recognised for his remarkable effort in defying a serious leg injury to claim the world pole vault title by becoming the first sportsperson to win the Don Award for the second time. Informs Australian media. Hooker won the award at the Sport Australia Hall of Fame (SAHOF) function on Thursday night as the Australian athlete whose performance in the previous 12 months had the capacity to most inspire the nation. Hooker also shared The Don Award – named in honour of Sir Donald Bradman – last year with diver Matthew Mitcham after he won the Olympic pole vault title in Beijing, having four times cleared the bar at his third and final attempt. The other 2009 finalists were discus thrower Dani Samuels, tennis comeback star Jelena Dokic, legendary horse trainer Bart Cummings, Formula One driver Mark Webber and swimmer Jess Schipper.
COPENHAGEN (USA): Agencies are informing that the 2000 Olympic medals from Sydney after returned by Marion Jones will be decided on December 18. Marion Jones‘ relay teammates will learn whether they can keep their medals from the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The International Olympic Committee had hoped the Court of Arbitration for Sport would rule this month. But the CAS postponed the decision for another two months. The IOC has held off reallocating Jones‘ medals to other athletes, pending more evidence in the BALCO steroid probe and the relay appeal. IOC is also close to decide whether to disqualify five athletes (including Rashid Ramzi, winner on the track at 1500 m) who tested positive for the banned endurance booster CERA at the Beijing Games.
BELGRADE (SRB): The Belgrade Race Through History takes place next Wednesday after a ten year gap. And Paul Tergat, the only man to run all four of the spectacular races around the Belgrade Fortress will be guest of honour. Writes Pat Butcher on his blog (globerunner.org). Five-time world cross champion and former world marathon record holder, Tergat is preparing for the New York Marathon in three weeks‘ time, but is bringing two of his young Kenyan trainees to compete in Belgrade next week.. It is a seven kilometre mix of park pathways, grass and cobblestones around the legendary Kalemegdan Fortress, which stands above the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers, with a traceable history of well over 2000 years.
BERLIN (GER): ISTAF meeting director Gerhard Janetzky said that the meeting will be held either in Olympic Stadium or nowhere. He dismissed so the earlier plans to change the venue to smaller Jahn Park Stadium. As per agency article published in Leichtathletik weekly magazine he said that he plans to stage the meeting end of August or early September 2010. ISTAF is not part of new IAAF Diamond League and should be in included into the second tier, the IAAF Challenge League.
TRENTO (ITA): In Trento on Saturday the 63rd edition of Giro al Sas road race will be held. Competing ih this race will be multiple European CC Champion Sergiy Lebid of Ukraine, 2004 olympic marathon winner Stefano Baldini and another home top runner Andrea Lalli. Kenyans will be represented by Edwin Soi, Mark Bett and Joel Kimurer.
ROMA (ITA): IAAF informed the Italian Federation FIDAL about positive test (CERA) of Elisa Desco at World Mountaing Running Championships. The event was held in Campodolcino on Sep 6 and Desco was the winner. She is provisionally suspended and so also deleted from the Birmingham Half-Marathon team of Italy.
BRUSSELS (BEL): Belgian runner Anja Smolders ended her career at age of 36 as she is expecting her first child. In her career she won 32 national titles. She was fifth in junior race at World CC Championships 1992 and 10th in senior race in 2001 in Oostende. In recent years she competed in marathon and her best was 2:41:17 from 2007 as winner of Antwerp race.
ROMA (ITA): FIDAL president Franco Arese met with European long jump champion Andrew Howe who is undergoing rehabilitation process after early September surgery in Finland. Howe is doing fine and looking forward to compete in 2010. They also discussed some issues which were published by Howe after World Championships in Berlin.
FRANKFURT (GER): German athletics will have in some events a hand-over period as old stars are ending their careers and new names could emerge. In women javelin world champion Steffi Nerius goes and young Linda Stahl could be the replacement. She is European U23 Champion 2007 and was in two world championships finals 2007 and 2009. In discus goes triple world champion Franka Dietzsch and the name instead is Nadine Muller, sixth placer from Berlin. She also has European and world junior medals. Sonja Kesselschlager ends her career after more than 50 heptahtlons and the name mentioned is Julia Mächtig with junior and U23 medals. In men discus Michael Mollenbeck retires, the replacement is called Markus Munch, bronze winner at the Universiade in Berlin. Only in men´s triple jump when 1999 World Champion Charles Friedek goes, the new top name is still not known. Writes www.leichtathletik.de.
RESULTS
DAMASCUS (SYR, Oct 8): More results from Arab Championships include the excellent 45.15 at 400 m by Yusif Rabah of Sudan ahead Mohamed Khawaja of Libya with 45.35 national record. The time of Amine Laalou in the 1500 m was 3:39.89 and Hassan Mahboub of Bahrain clocked 28:16.01 at 10 000 m. Algerian Othmane Hadj Lazib clocked 13.79 to win the 110 m hurdles, his team-mate Issam Nima got the long jump gold with 810 over fresh Morrocan record holder Yahya Berrabah. Kuwaiti record holder Mohamed Al-Zankawi won the hammer as expected with solid 76.46. Halima Hachlaf of Morroco was the best in women 800 m in 2:07.17 and new Ethiopian import to Bahrain Tejitu Daba Chalchissa got a 5000/10 000 double (16:27.66 and 35:42.84). Morrocan steeple record holder Hanane Ouhadou won her event in 9:57.81. Thanks to Carole Fuchs and newspaper. A insider reports that at the event difficulties concerning the timing are beeing experienced.
CORRECTION
In my unbelievable mistake the number of world leads at Weltklasse Zurich should be four including the 100 m hurdles by Brigitte Foster-Hylton 12.46. Sorry for that and thanks to Lennart Julin.
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