by Larry Eder
The European Championships are over. Barcelona is being praised for hosting such a
spectacular event! Over 240,000 fans saw seven great days of athletics! Russia,
France and England lead the medal counts, but the Euros were much more than that!
We were introduced to some new stars and some of the great showed why they are
greats. We now have three years in front of us, 2011, 2012 and 2013, with World Champs,
Euro and Olympic Champs and World Champs! A career for anyone!
August 6, in Stockholm, a remarkable race will feature Asafa Powell, Tyson Gay and Usain Bolt all running the 100 meters! Again, just like the Europeans, it comes down to the competitions, the match-ups!
Looking forward to that race on Friday!
EME NEWS (AUG 2, 2010)
Wirz praised Barcelona
BARCELONA (ESP): European Athletics President Hansjörg Wirz hailed the
Barcelona 2010
European Athletics Championships as a “fantastic success” after the
closing ceremony on Sunday night. The 20th edition of the championships
were enjoyed by crowds of up to
and over 38,000 spectators each day at the Olympic Stadium, while
millions more watched on television over the six days of competition.
“Barcelona 2010 will be remembered as one of the best European
Athletics Championships in the history of our sport,” said Wirz. “All
these moments will linger long in our memories and I am happy we
do not need to wait too long before experiencing more of these, as we
can look forward to what I’m sure will be an equally excellent
championships in Helsinki in 2012,” added Wirz. In other movement Sport
Cal website informs that European Athletics is close to new EBU deal
covering Helsinki 2012
and beyond.
Sebrle gets most of the votes
BARCELONA (ESP): Decathlon superstar Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic
and Sweden’s multiple European, Olympic and World Championships high
jump medallist Kajsa Berqvist are among the six athletes newly elected
as a members of the European Athletics Athletes Commission. Following
four days of voting during the 20th edition of the European Athletics
Championships in Barcelona, Sebrle and Berqvist came out on top of
their respective polls with 519 and 448 votes respectively. Former pole
vault world champion Rens Blom of the Netherlands (310 votes) was also
elected, while multiple European and World Championships shot put
medallist Manuel Martinez (285) was reelected. British hurdler Tasha
Danvers (271) was also voted into the commission with reigning World
Championships pole vault silver medallist Monika Pyrek (253), who
continues from the previous commission. The commission, elected every
four years, was previously chaired by Swedish High Jump star Stefan
Holm and Mikaela Ingberg of Finland. The newly elected athletes will
serve from 2010 to 2014. Triple jump world record holder Jonathan
Edwards acts as the European Athletics Council liaison.
MORE BARCELONA FLASH-BACK
BARCELONA (ESP): German discus silver winner Robert Harting played a
camera-man in the field. After his final he was joking with one big TV
camera. “I was totally exhausted and the camera still followed me. So I
wanted to show him how it is to be filmed all the time. But he remained
relaxed,” explained Harting.
BARCELONA (ESP): Russian 1500 m Anna Alminova explained after her
failure (6th): “My aim was to run my own race not thinking about other
runners. I was running in my pace and was not taking care what is
happening behind me. About 3:59 should not be a problem for me. But in
the last 150 meters my muscles did not worked as I was thinking. I just
lost all the power suddendly. But maybe it was more psychological. I
would be happy now to end my season.” Later she was re-thinking the
situation as she is confirmed for Stockholm Samsung Diamond League
meeting.
BARCELONA (ESP): Former double sprint olympic champion Valeriy Borzov
is impressed by the talented Christophe Lemaitre, but believes the
Frenchman is still some way from Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay. “He would
need to run at 9.6 level to be able to compete with them, that is still
a long way,” said Borzov at joint Helsinki 2012-AIPS reception.
BRUSSELS (BEL): Even though she finished 5th in the high jump final
Olympic champion Tia Hellebaut is very upbeat about coming back as a 2m
athlete. The young mother jumped 197 in yesterday’s final after only 10
months of training and four competitions. Her coach believes she will
be better in 2011 but will reach her peak again at the 2012 Olympic
Games in London.
BARCELONA (ESP): Irish hurdler Derval O’Rourke has slammed her
federation for a lack of support just one day after she won the silver
medal in the 100m hurdles in a national record time. O’Rourke critiqued
the financial depts the Irish athletics federation currently holds
because of law suits and the high performance structures that focus
solely on the 2016 Olympic Games. O’Rourke also publicly defended 400m
athlete David Gillick who, although being a hot favourite, did not
manage to win a medal and also did not run in the heats of the 4x400m
the following morning. An act for which he had received criticism.
LONDON (GBR): Lord Sebastian Coe feels full praise for the British
success at the European Championships should be addressed to Charles
Van Commenee who he believes has breathed new life into British
Athletics. Coe also backed the decision to hold the next European
championships in 2 years, just 26 days before the Olympic Games, even
though British head coach Charles Van Commenee has already stated he
does not expect to send a track team to the championships.
BUDAPEST (HUN): Barcelona European Championships scored in
All-Athletics.com rankings 181 460 points. It is the best multi-day
competition of the year 2010 so far. The score is slightly less than
from 2006 Championships in Goteborg (181 996), but clearly more than
2002 in Munich (180 354).
OTHER NEWS
MOSCOW (RUS): On Sunday new athletics mother is Russian 400 m runner
Tatyana Veshkurova who is Beijing relay silver medalist. The son was 56
cm and 3.5 kg. Father is fresh 4×400 male European Champion Andrey
Aksyonov.
STOCKHOLM (SWE): Special female duels for Friday´s DN Galan Samsung
Diamond League Meeting. In the 400 m world leader and US Champ Debbie
Dunn will meet with Barcelona winner Tatyana Firova from Russia. Pole
vault should see the clash of fresh Barcelona winner Svetlana Feofanova
against world leader and US record holder Jennifer Suhr. In the women
steeple African Champ Milcah Chemos is facing Barcelona gold medalist
Yuliya Zarudneva. Another confrontation after Barcelona the gold
medalist Blanka Vlasic is facing world leader Chaunte Howard-Lowe and
home only medalist from Spain Emma Green.
NAIROBI (KEN): The Tusker Athletics Meet, a one day track and field competition, will
be revived from next year as Athletics Kenya seeks to capitalise on the
enthusiasm shown by huge crowds which turned out to watch the Africa
Athletics Championships. Writes The Nation. Chairman Isaiah Kiplagat however, was cautious saying the event still
demand huge sponsorship if they are to lure the elite athletes
worldwide. The announcement was endorsed by Confederation of African Athletics
(CAA) President Hamad Malboum Kalkaba who pledged to place the meet
under the continent’s premier one day meetings to form the Africa
Golden series. Rabat, Dakar, Khartoum, Brazzaville and Mauritius are the other cities
that the Africa Golden series is held.
LONDON (GBR): The British Sports Journalists’ Association has asked for
an urgent meeting with the London Olympic organisers to discuss a
proposal to reduce the number of media seats available at some sessions
during the 2012 Olympic Games and make them available for sale to the
public. The proposal came up to avoid having empty seats at some of the
sessions. The concept has been used the Vancouver Olympic Games earlier
this year.
LUZERN (SUI): New top names announced for Spitzen Leichtathletik in
Luzern on August 8 are US double olympic sprint medalist Walter Dix at
100 m. His main rivals will be Mike Rodgers, last year US Champion,
relay world record holder Nesta Carter, Trinidad´s talent Keston
Bledman and fresh African Champion Ben Meite of Ivory Coast.
LONDON (GBR): Race Results Weekly informs that organizers of the Virgin London Marathon reported last week that the
2010 edition of their race on 25 April, raised £50.6 million (USD 80.2
million) for charity, a record figure for what is Britain’s largest
marathon. The money was raised by charity by runners, and £8.2 million
(USD 13.0 million) of the total was raised through Virgin Money
Giving. This brings the total amount raised for charity by runners since the
race began back in 1981, to a grand total of more than £506 million
(USD 801.5 million).
LOS ANGELES (USA): World Silver Medalist in pole vault Chelsea Johnson teaches X-Games Motor Cross
Champion to pole vault. That was aired at ESPN. Vide clip link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
RESULTS
TAIBON AGORDINO (ITA, Jul 31): The 19th road race at 1.108 km circuit
at 10 km was won by Kenyan Stephen Kibet in 28:36. Best Italian
Gabriele De Nard was 7th (30:20). Birhande Dibaba won the women race at
5.54 km with 18:24 (RRW).
HAVANA (CUB, Jul 17): Late addition but a good quality, new Cuban 400 m hurdles record 48.21 by Omar Cisneros at a local meet.
