by Larry EderAs the IAAF determines who the best athlete of the year 2009 is, the Running Event, held in Austin Texas, will give indication to the 400-plus retailers and 200 plus exhibitors, who the kings and queens of performance running business are…conferences on Monday and Tuesday are followed by two days of exhibits…
EME NEWS (NOV 9, 2009)
Bolt is the favorite, non-world champion Gay included
MONTE CARLO (MON): IAAF announced five male candidates for the 2009 World Athlete of the Year award. Clearly the main favourite is worlds most popular athlete, sprint star Usain Bolt. Also shortlisted are other world champions Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, Australian pole vaulter Steven Hooker who won his event despite an injury and javelin number one Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway. The only non-world champion from Berlin who is listed is US sprinter Tyson Gay who clocked this season second fastest ever 9.69 at 100 m. Women five candidates will be announced on Tuesday. The winners of the 2009 World Athlete of the Year Awards will be announced live, on stage, during the 2009 World Athletics Gala, which will take place in Monaco, on 22 November. The IAAF Family votes which resulted to the five nominations opened on Monday 19 October, following the conclusion of the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships, and closed on Sunday 8 November. The IAAF Family vote consisted in a list of 1799 recipients including IAAF & IAF Council Members, IAAF Member Federations, IAAF Committee & Commission Members, IAAF Meeting Directors, IAAF Ambassadors, Leading Athletes, Athletes’ Representatives, IAAF Staff Members and selected members of the International Press. The winner will be based on International Athletics Foundation board decision.
European Championships 2012 to Helsinki
BARCELONA (ESP): European Athletics at its council meeting awarded on Monday the 2012 European Championships to Helsinki. This is an historic decision by which the continental event will move to two years organisation cycle. As Helsingin Sanomat informs, the TV production issue still remains open. By December 15, European Athletics, Finnish television YLE and European Broadcasting Union (EBU) should agree on covering the production costs which are estimated at 2,5 millions EURO. The dates for the event are June 27 – July 1 in the London Games Olympic year. This new European Championships will be held without marathon and walking events. For the next Championships in 2014 (full programme) and 2016 (shortened programme) main interested countries are Switzerland and Netherlands. Helsinki already hosted the Euro event in 1971 and 1994 and also twice the World Championships in 1983 and 2005.
Brathwaite plans for Doha
GREAT BEND (USA): Surprise high hurdles world champion Ryan Brathwaite of Barbados plans to run at the World Indoor Championships in Doha. He is back in training with coach Matt Kane in Kansas. Also in the group is another unexpected Berlin medal winner Alonso Edward of Panama who got silver at 200 m. Brathwaite never competed indoors outside USA, plans to run meetings in America but then wants to head to Qatar. He can meet there with Dayron Robles and Liu Xiang who are also both gunning for World Indoors. Edward on the other side will run couple of races indoors but is not planning to attend the global event in Qatar. This was confirmed by the agent of both John Regis.
Radcliffe to Ethiopia
ADDIS ABABA (ETH): British marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe will next week travel to Addis Ababa as a guest of the 2009 Great Ethiopian Run 10km which takes place on Sunday November 22. Radcliffe is likely to act as race starter for the record entry field of 33,000 alongside Ethiopian legends Haile Gebrselassie and Derartu Tulu who decisively defeated her in the recent New York Marathon. It will be Radcliffe’s first visit to Ethiopia and, as well as supporting the race, the world’s fastest ever female marathon runner will have an opportunity to renew friendships with many Ethiopian athletes.
Managers annual meeting
MADRID (ESP): The Association of Athletics Managers (AAM), a group of 31 of the leading managers representing many of the top stars in athletics, including Usain Bolt, Yelena Isinbayeva, Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell, Kenenisa Bekele and Blanka Vlasic, successfully concluded its annual meeting in Madrid last week. After addressing common issues specific to the organisation in 2010 and forward on the first day, the AAM was pleased to welcome for the 3rd time the Vice-President of the IAAF, Mr Bob Hersh, and its Special Assistant to The President, Mr Sandro Giovanelli. Both sides realise the importance of the changes in the sport that will be a result of the new IAAF Diamond League. A group representing the Diamond League presented the AAM members with the latest updates on the League, television, and initial plans for centrally-contracted athletes. The Diamond League was represented by IAAF Vice-President Hersh, Ian Stewart of the Aviva London Grand Prix and Steinar Hoen of the ExxonMobil Bislett Games. These three are the primary negotiators for the Diamond League. Enhanced cooperation and official recognition with the AAM was discussed. The AAM also received the presentation of the IAAF World Challenge from Alfons Juck of the Ostrava Meeting and Sandro Giovannelli, IAAF Special Assistant to The President. The challenges facing the new league were openly discussed as the group sought ways to bind the new league together. The AAM recognises the importance of these meets and pledged its support for the league as it develops in 2010 and beyond. It was generally agreed that this league must remain under the masthead of the IAAF. The AAM is pleased with its growing relationship with the IAAF, the Diamond League and the World Challenge members. At its final meeting, the AAM discussed ways to improve these relationships going forward. The next General assembly of the AAM will take place from the 9th to the 11th of November 2010 in Boston, USA. AAM writes in a release.
Liu Xiang and five Berlin medalists
GUANGZHOU (CHN): The 18th Asian Athletics Championships, the final major track and field meet for 2009, will start on Tuesday in Guangzhou, China and will last until Saturday. Many nations and particularly Japan, Korea and host nation, the People’s Republic of China, have entered strong teams for the five-day competition, where 582 athletes, from 38 Asian nations will compete. China has the largest team with 86 athletes, followed by three-time host Indonesia with a team of 58 competitors. The venue for the championships will be the impressive Guangdong Olympic Sports Centre, developed for the multi-sport Asian Games to be held in 12 months. Writes David Tarbotton on event website. The biggest star will be former world record holder, world and olympic winner Liu Xiang at 110 m hurdles. In total five medalists from Berlin will appear. Home athletes Xue Bai (the marathon world champion will run the 10 000 m), female shot putter Gong Lijiao, female walker Liu Hong (only five entries in total in this event), Japanese javelin thrower Yukifumi Murakami and Qatari 5000 m runner James Kwalia. Hurdles finals are on the programme on Thursday. Full championships programme is beeing staged, missing is only marathon and 50 km walk for men. Missing is also Bahraini 1500 m world champion Yusuf Saad Kamel.
Kalmadi remains
GUANGZHOU (CHN): Asian Athletic Association’s 18th general body meeting was held on Monday in chinese city Guangzhou the day before the Asian Championships will start here. The main item on the agenda was election of the office bearers for the term 2009-2013, writes Asian Athletics website. Suresh Kalmadi from India was reelected unopposed for the third consecutive term. The Indian Kalmadi was first elected in 2000 and since then has introduced many development projects in Asian Athletics including Asian All Star meet, Asian Indoor Championship and Asian Grand Prix series. Maurice Nicholas was nominated and elected as Secretary/Treasurer of Asian Athletics Association. Senior vice-president remains Dahlan Al-Hamad of Qatar. New vice-presidents are Du Zhuocai of China, Katsuyuki Tanaka of Japan, Tigor Tanjung from Indonesia and Eidy Alijani from Iran. The last vice-president Surapong Ariyamongkol from Thailand remained. Nepal, Korea and Vietnam are having new council members.The meeting was attended by IAAF President Lamine Diack and representatives of 45 countries. The day before also the Asian Athletics Council met and approved the 2010 calendar. From main continental events the 4th Asian Indoor Championships will be held in Tehran, Iran on February 24-26. Asian Grand Prix will have three meetings (June 1 in Bangkok, June 5 in Pune and June 9 in Muscat) with All Star Meet in New Delhi end of August (29-30). Another top event will be Asian Junior Championships in Hanoi, Vietnam on July 1-4.
OTHER NEWS
ATHENS (GRE): Organisers of road races around the world gathered in Marathon (Greece) on Saturday for the 3rd Marathon Symposium of the Association of International Marathons and Road Races (AIMS). AIMS and the Athens Classic Marathon are also already preparing a unique jubilee event in 2010: It will then be 2,500 years ago since the marathon was born. “In 2010 the Athens Classic Marathon will be an outstanding race. For every marathon runner it will be something special to participate in it. There could not be a more significant marathon jubilee. The race next year will be a similar highlight as the 100th Boston Marathon in 1996 or the Berlin Marathon after the fall of the wall in 1990,†explained Horst Milde, who is an AIMS Board Member and the Chairman of the Symposium. Before the afternoon session of the AIMS Symposium the marathon flame was carried by a pupils’ torch relay from Marathon Tomb to the starting point of the Athens Classic Marathon. Here another flame was lighted and two small ones in laterns handed to representatives of two international marathons: The race in Mumbai on 17th January and the Vienna City Marathon on 18th April 2010 will feature a marathon flame from Marathon. Among the key speakers at the Symposium was John Caine. He is the Special Projects Director of Nova International in Britain, which runs the Great Run races. Their most prestigious event is the Great North Run, the world’s biggest half marathon starting in Newcastle. John Caine outlined in detail the success story of charity running. In 2008 the Great Run series had a total of 170,000 runners and generated an amount of 28 million British Pounds for charity. This was only the sum collected from those official charities with which the organisers cooperate. Caine expects the annual total to go beyond 30 million this year.
MADRID (ESP): Spanish Athletics Federation RFEA plans to bid to stage the 2011 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Huelva. The region of Punta Umbria should be the place. The venue for 2010 event is in Bydgoszcz, Poland. After the 2011 edition the championships will be staged every two years.
VALENCIA (ESP): Spanish long jumper Conchi Montaner gave on July 31 birth to her daughter Alba but is now back in training with the aim to qualify for Barcelona 2010. She will not compete indoors, “I need to train, I can not waste a day,” she said in an interview published on Spanish federation website. Her best from 2005 is 692 cm. She is European Indoor 2007 silver medalist from Birmingham.
RESULTS
KOSCIAN (POL, Nov 8): Ukrainian Myhalo Iveruk won the 5th Half-Marathon here with 1:04:47 beating Michal Kaczmarek (1:04:52) and Ukrainian Oleksandr Matviychuk (1:05:06). 2:26 marathon runner and double olympian Malgorzata Sobanska was the best woman clocking 1:14:51 ahead of Volha Salevich of Belarus (1:15:55).
NAIROBI (KEN, Nov 7): Athletics Kenya Cross Country Series opener in Machakos belonged to the locals. Training partners John Mwangangi and Caleb Mwangangi swept the senior men’s and junior men’s races in style as Margaret Wangari and Jackline Chepngeno prevented what would have been a clean sweep by taking the senior and junior women’s titles. The conditions were totally different from last year’s when Nicholas Kamakya and Pauline Korikwiang battled with the elements to win on a muddy and slippery course. Wangari clocked 26:34 to clinch the senior women’s race in a brave show of tactical running that keeps her dreams of making the Kenyan team to the World Cross Country Championships in Poland off to a great start. Second Veronica Nyaruai got 26:57 and third Nahum Kipngetich 27:00. Writes IAAF. Caleb Mwangangi, silver medallist behind compatriot Gideon Mageka in the 1500m at the World Youth Championships in Bressanone was overjoyed when he won the junior race in 23:08. The senior Mwangangi was unchallenged in the men’s 12km (35:47) although later in the series he should expect stiffer opposition as Kenya’s elite runners slowly shed off their cobwebs to launch the 2010 competition season when the series moves into the Rift Valley later this month (Kericho, Nov 21). Second James Kiplimo achieved 35:49 and third Geoffrey Gikoni (36:01). Jackline Chepngeno had a one second advantage over Zeddy Chelagat (19:55).
NEGREIRA (ESP, Nov 8): Kenyan Peter Kirui won the 30th road race here after 29:23 at 10.2 km. Barnaba Sigei was second (29:32) ahead of Eritrean Goitom Kifle (29:33). Best woman in this race in La Coruna region was Filomena Costa of Portugal (34:31).
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