Robert Cheruiyot, 2010 Boston Marathon victor, photo by PhotoRun.net.

After the press conference today for the Boston 2010 winners, I reminded Guy Morse, about the year that Boston had to decide whether to cancel the race due to bad weather. In Chicago. CareyPinkowski had his tough year, where he had to close the course due to terribly hot weather. Now, Dave Bedford, and his team in London are facing an Icelandic volcano.

Per CNN, it seems like the volcano may be slowing down, but this series of eruptions could affect travel in Northern Europe, Russia and Scandanavia, per CNNs weather department. Some athletes still have not gotten there. The Virgin London staff has been working to get the elite athletes to London.

Also, this coming weekend, are the Penn Relays, with USA vs. the world and the Drake Relays, two of the top track & field carnivals in the U.S. Usain Bolt is running at Penn, and that should help fill up the stands!

Good luck to our friends in London this weekend!

LONDON MARATHON PLANS TO GET THE STARS DESPITE AIR TRAVEL PROBLEMS

LONDON (GBR): London Marathon
Organizers are in tough position to organize the travel of their top names to
Sunday´s race due to difficulties of air-travel. Irina Mikitenko traveled by
train to Calais, France on Tuesday. From there she should be jetted by
a private plane to London. For the Kenyan male stars Samuel Wanjiru and
Duncan Kibet with Emmanuel Mutai a special travel plan is organised. They
should fly on Tuesday from Kenya with a stop-over in Djibouti to take
Ethiopian and Eritrean runners. They should fly to Spain and there another jet
should bring them to London.  On Monday
night the Japan-based British runner Mara Yamauchi, who came second in the race
in 2009, was halfway to Paris after driving a hire car from Madrid,
according to the Daily Telegraph newspaper. She has a reservation for
a train from the French capital on to London on Tuesday. Marathon
organisers are also monitoring the air pollution levels in London for any
change caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland, writes BBC.

US VS JAMAICA, NEARLY ALL THE BEST THERE

PHILADELPHIA (USA): Incredible
line-ups are announced for the 114th Penn Relays and mainly the 11th edition of
USA vs. World relays. 12 nations are set to compete with its teams, but most
awaited is the participation of fastest man on earth Usain Bolt. Jamaicans
announced names for two teams, it might come out that one team will be composed
by coach Glen Mills of Racers TC (except of Bolt also Blake, Forsythe, Marvin
Anderson, Kenroy Anderson) and MVP of Stephen Francis could have another one
(Powell, Frater, Carter, X. Brown) added by hurdles record holder Dwight
Thomas. USA announced its top names with national champion Mike Rodgers, olympic
medalists Walter Dix and Shawn Crawford and current 100 m world leader Ivory
Williams. In the 4×400 m it looks for clear US win with such a talent like
world gold medalists Kerron Clement and Bershawn Jackson, olympic winner Angelo
Taylor, olympic medalist David Neville. 
Men of Canada and Trinidad can be fast in the 4×100 and men of Bahamas
and Jamaica in the 4×400 m. In the women 4×100 m US will have Carmelita Jeter,
Allyson Felix and Melisa Barber but Jamaica with Shelly-Ann Fraser, Kerron
Stewart and Sherone Simpson will be tough to beat. In the 4×400 m Jamaica with
Rosemarie Whyte, Shericka Williams and Novlene Williams-Mills looks like not
having a big chance to US headed by Sanya Richards and Allyson Felix with
fresh world indoor champion Debbie Dunn. 
From other team interesting to note Australia and Kenya (with olympic
winner Asbel Kiprop and world champion Alfred Yego) men for distance medley
relay, Great Britain women for the same race with Christine Ohuruogu, Nicola
Sanders and Jemma Simpson.  

MORE TOP NAMES FOR DRAKE RELAYS

DES MOINES (USA): More top
names for 101st Drake Relays this weekend. In the men 200 m world medalist Wallace
Spearmon will make his debut here against former olympic medalist Bernard
Williams and French Martial Mbandjock. In men´s 400 m hurdles world medalist
Javier Culson of Puerto-Rico should compete with Jamaican Isa Phillips and US
Justin Gaymon. Derek Miles is the pole vault headliner, Renny Quow, best
Trinidad athlete is scheduled for 400
m. In the women high jump US Champion Chaunte
Howard-Lowe will face two strong American opposition in Canadian Nicole
Forrester and Lavern Spencer of St. Lucia. In four days 7227 athletes from 58
countries are scheduled to compete. Already previously announced were Lolo
Jones and Christian Cantwell.

FRASER FOR GATESHEAD

GATESHEAD (GBR): Reigning
women’s 100m World and Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser will be lighting up
the track when she competes at the Aviva British Grand Prix, Britain’s first
IAAF Diamond League event, at Gateshead International Stadium on Saturday 10
July. Informs IAAF. She is one of the ambassadors of the series and is
expecting to compete in all women 100
m races. First in Shanghai on May 23.

JELIMO FOR LOCAL MEETS

ELDORET (KEN): Olympic 800 m winner Pamela Jelimo is
planning two more local Kenyan meets before deciding on her international
schedule. The world junior record holder plans for Eldoret competition in two
weeks. Miler Haron Keitany was unlucky at last meet in Mumias when he was
spiked in the 800 m
heats and was not able to run the finals next day. Now he is ok with excellent
training time trial at the 800
m. Keitany who clocked last year 3:30.20 at 1500 m and won bronze in
Doha at World Indoors in March plans also fast 800 m this year.

OTHER NEWS

LONDON (GBR): The BBC is
launching a major new project that will follow 25 athletes around the
world as they prepare for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Four-time Olympic Gold
medallist Methhew Pinsent will front the multi-platform project that goes
across television, radio and the internet. The biggest name involved in the
project is triple gold medallist Usain Bolt, the project will also follow
Chicago Bulls basketball star Luol Deng, Kosovan judoka Majlinda Kelmendi;
Afghani taekwondo fighter Rohullah Nikpai and Iraqi rowers Hussein Hamza and
Nozad Haider. It will stretch across five continents and feature athletes in 20
different sports, Viewers will be given a real insight into each of the
athlete’s unique stories and very different personal circumstances while they
all work towards the same goal of Olympic success. Writes insidethegames.biz.

BARCELONA (ESP): The Barcelona
2010 organising committee has announced its agreement with ONA FM,
a sports radio station connected to the Catalan network Cadena SER. Almost
five million people listen daily to the Cadena SER network stations.

KINGSTON (JAM): Sherone
Simpson, the Olympic Games 100m silver medallist, confirmed her participation
for the Jamaica International Invitational on May 1 in Kingston.

KINGSTON (JAM): Jamaican media
are writing that world’s fastest man Usain Bolt tried his hand at the golf,
managing to hit the ball on his first swing, after he made a quick stop at
last Saturday’s final day of the Mojo6 LPGA Speedway golf tournament at Cinnamon
Hills course in Rose Hall. Bolt posed for photos with players as well as
a number of those who turned up to watch the golf.

MOSCOW (RUS): Russia named its
teams for IAAF Race Walking World Cup in May in Mexico. As already previously
announced world champions from Berlin (Borchin, Kirdyapkin and Kaniskina) are
having byes for European Championships in Barcelona and are not selected. In
the women 20 km
team former world and european junior champion Vera Sokolova is the headliner
with 2008 world junior champion Tatyana Mineyeva, 2008 world cup silver winner
Tatyana Sibileva and Lyudmila Arkhipova. In the men 20 km squad Sergey Bakulin
will compete with Denis Strelkov, Piotr Trofimov, Andrey Ruzavin and Andrey
Krivov. 50 km
team is composed of Sergey Sergachev, Yuriy Andronov, Sergey Melentyev and Ivan
Zhbanov. Junior selections – boys: Valeriy Filipchuk, Konstantin Kulagov and
Dementiy Cheparev, girls: Anna Lukyanova, Nina Okhotnikova and Svetlana
Vasilyeva.

SOFIA (BUL): Bulgarian world
indoor bronze medalist at 400
m Vania Stambolova is in preparation for summer. Her
main aim is European Championships in Barcelona and Continental Cup in Split.
She remains undecided between not only 400 m, 400 m hurdles but is also adding 200 m into her list of main
events. She is title defender in the 400 m from Goteborg 2006.  

BARCELONA (ESP):  Spanish top marathoner Chema Martinez is
delighted about the European championships marathon circuit in Barcelona.  Martinez tested some of the circuit during a 10 km Cursa Bombers last
Sunday and believes he could get the gold at this summer’s championships.
Martinez’ personal best stands at 2:08.09, he already won a European gold
medal in 2002 when winning the final of the 10 000m in Munich.

ARNHEM (NED): This year’s Papendal
Games have been cancelled due to the difficulty of finding sponsors to support
the event, the organization has announced in a press release. It’s the
second year in a row that the meet cannot take place and if the  organization is to continue the name might
change into the Arnhem Games. The Papendal Games have been staged since 1975
and once had big names such as Carl Lewis, Nelli Cooman and Rutger Smith on the
startlist.

BUDAPEST (HUN): Boston Marathon
is in latest All-Athletics.com 2010 rankings 8th, leaders are Rotterdam, Dubai
and Paris. In separated men rankings sixth place for Boston, in separate women
9th position. More at www.all-athletics.com.

RIO DE JANEIRO (BRA): Brazilian
May circuit added one more into the programme. The schedule looks now as
follows: May 16 Fortaleza, May 19 Belem, May 23 Rio de Janeiro (IAAF World
Challenge), May 26 Uberlandia and May 30 Maringa.

RESULTS

PANAMA CITY (PAN, Apr 19):
During last day of Central American Games Jonathan Williams of Belize clocked
50.53 to win the 400 m
hurdles. Best country on medals in athletics was home side Panama (13-14-15)
ahead of Costarica (10-11-5). Cuba was not participating.

DALIAN (CHN, Apr 18): Chinese
champion won the marathon here. Chen Rong clocked 2:30:09 to be the best woman.
Informs Tilastopaja.

Special thanks to Alfons Juck, EME news.

For more on the sport, please click on www.runningnetwork.

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