Paula Radcliffe, 2011 BMW Berlin Marathon, photo by PhotoRun.net

Paula Radcliffe finished third in the BMW Berlin Marathon this past Sunday. Afterwards, she admitted that she was not really happy with the marathon, but she would take a rest and then, start training for London. Paula Radcliffe will have surgery on her left ankle this week, to remove a bone spur. After that, Radcliffe will focus on London.

I had a conversation this morning with a friend who was noting that Paula Radcliffe did pretty well in Berlin. He also made this observation: ” Paula Radcliffe can medal in London, perhaps even win. She just has to stay out of the lead for the first 35k, and then make those last seven kilometers count, like never before. ” London 2012 will be her focus.

 Patrick Makau, 2011 BMW Berlin Marathon, photo by PhotoRun.net

MAKAU LEADS WMM

BERLIN (GER): It was Kenya’s day at the BMW Berlin Marathon today as
Patrick Makau broke Haile Gebrselassie’s world record to leap to the top of the
2010/11 World Marathon Majors standings while Florence Kiplagat moved to fifth
on the women’s leaderboard as she became only the 11th women to break the 2:20
barrier. Makau leads the WMM 2010-11 with 60 points and remaining races in Chicago and New
York. Second Emmanuel Mutai has 55 and third Tsegaye
Kebede 41 ahead of Geoffrey Mutai 40 and Gebre Gebremariam 35.  Russian Liliya Shobukhova still leads the
women’s 2010/11 series with 65 points, five ahead of New York champion Edna
Kiplagat and 30 more than London winner Mary Keitany. Fourth Bezunesh Bekele
has 30 and four runners with 25 points (F. Kiplagat, Kebede, Erkesso and
Kilel).

PROOF FOR KENYANS

BERLIN (GER): If further proof were needed of the ascendancy of Kenyan
distance running over their perennial rivals, the Ethiopians, notwithstanding
the substantial inconvenience offered by the likes of Mo Farah, Bernard Lagat
and Galen Rupp on the track, and Ryan Hall on the road, then it came with this
weekend’s results from the BMW Berlin Marathon. A world record by Patrick
Makau, who won (from two colleagues) by over four minutes, while prompting the
abandonment of world record holder Haile Gebrselassie; and a first-time
marathon finish and victory for his compatriot Florence Kiplagat, who won by
two and a half minutes from, admittedly ageing luminaries as Marathon Majors’
winner Irina Mikitenko, and world record holder Paula Radcliffe. There have
been fast Kenyans in the past, notably Duncan Kibet, who ran 2.04.27 in
Rotterdam 2009, then lined up alongside Gebrselassie here in Berlin five months later, only to be blown
away. Makau is made of sterner stuff, as anyone who saw his Berlin victory last year, in a downpour,
would testify. Yesterday’s demolition job, first of Geb, then of his world
record, merely underlined Makau’s strength. But he has a racing brain to go with
it. Like many Kenyans brought up in country communities, Makau is not the most
demonstrative of characters; but as well as having the build to withstand long
fast training, he thinks tactically. His manager Zane Branson reports that,
after his first two marathons, Makau told him that his opponents could now
recognise that he tended to follow, then finish strong, telling Branson, “I’m
going to have to change that”. If there was any sense at Athletics Kenya HQ,
Makau would be inked onto a squad sheet for London 2012 right now. But, given
that ascendancy referred to earlier, at least among the men, perhaps the Kenyan
‘suits’ are waiting for better. And Makau himself did tell us post-race that he
wasn’t the only man capable of going sub-2.03. “Preparing for the Olympic
marathon would be different to the big city races such as Berlin. Firstly, there are no pacemakers so,
if I am selected, I think I would train a little differently to how I prepared
for Berlin.
Here I knew I was preparing to run against the world record holder. In the
Olympics it would be different,” Makau was quoted. Writes Pat Butcher.

LONDON LEADS

BUDAPEST (HUN): London
still leads the All-Athletics.com marathon rankings of 2011 after last weekend
with 10 728 points, Berlin is second 10 098 and
Boston third 9946. In separate men
order London has 6537 ahead of Boston
6335 and Berlin
6207. Women top three are London 6616 over Dubai 6247 and Berlin
6186.

TOUGH SELECTION

NAIROBI (KEN): Athletics Kenya said the selection of the
marathon team for next year’s London Olympics would be extremely difficult
considering the number of elite runners who have qualified. Over 50 women and
150 men, led by the new world record holder Patrick Makau, have attained the
marathon qualifying marks. But with only three places in each category up for
grabs, the Kenyan selectors conceded they will be spoilt for choice when the
final team is named next April. “It will be a stiff competition to pick the
final squad. We will have to take into account their ranking, performance and
consistency to get the best,” Athletics Kenya secretary David Okeyo told AFP.

AFRICAN CHAMPS 2014 IN MOROCCO

RABAT (MAR): As part of his official visit to Morocco, the President of
the CAA Malboum Kalkaba Hamad held talks with Minister of Youth and Sports of
Morocco Moncef Belkhayat. This interview took place in the presence of Mr
Abdeslam Ahizoune, President of the Royal Moroccan Athletics Federation and
focused on the organization of African Athletics Championships in Morocco in
2014. It was confirmed aftewards the 19th African Championships will be held in
2014 in
Morocco.
The bid to host in the same year the 2014 IAAF Intercontinental Cup offers
itself “an opportunity for Africa to host this major event on the international
calendar”, said the President of the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA),
Cameroonian Hamad Kalkaba Malboum. “The five members representing Africa in the board of the IAAF executive body will
support the Moroccan bid,” not in competition with any other country ” to convince
the other members Board to bring their choice for the second time on our
continent, “said Kalkaba Malboum. It should be remembered that Johannesburg,
South Africa
had hosted this event under its old formula (World Cup) in 1998.

RADCLIFFE FOR SURGERY

LONDON (GBR): Paula Radcliffe will undergo surgery to
remove a bone spur from her left ankle this week, before she gets her
preparations for the London Olympics fully underway. Radcliffe reached the
qualifying standard for next year’s Olympic Games with her run at the weekend’s
Berlin Marathon. While the performance was encouraging as she looks towards
next summer, she has now revealed that she will have to undergo surgery to
solve what could otherwise become a painful problem.

HAILE FOR DUBAI

BERLIN (GER): Ethiopian athletics legend Haile
Gebrselassie will not entertain thoughts of retiring and will focus instead on
qualifying for next year’s Olympics, his manager told AFP on Sunday. The
38-year-old two-time 10,000m Olympic champion failed to finish the Berlin
Marathon on Sunday and saw his world record destroyed by Kenyan Patrick Makau.
“He wants to run another marathon and this could well be in Dubai on January 27, 2012” said Hermens while he
added that Gebrselassie had suffered from breathing problems during the race
which forced him to pull out at the 35km mark.

OTHER NEWS

WIESBADEN (GER): Hammer world record holder Betty
Heidler was named Sports Woman of the Year in the Hesse
state. She won this award already for the fourth time. Michael Deyhle was voted
Coach of the Year and is also the coach of Heidler.

LONDON (GBR): The British Olympic Association (BOA)
Board of Directors have reviewed and approved the Team Members Agreement which
sets out the rules governing athletes’ conduct and obligations if selected to
represent Team GB the London 2012 Olympic Games.  The 25-page document was developed during an
extensive consultation process that lasted more than six months and included
review and input from the BOA Athletes’ Commission as well as representatives
from the National Governing Bodies, the Olympic sport team leaders and athlete
representatives/agents. It requests athletes to take part in two victory
celebrations – one two days after the Olympics Closing Ceremony on August 14 at
the O2 Arena in London and an athletes’ parade in the city on September 10 –
the day after the conclusion of the London 2012 Paralympics. There is also a
demand for all athletes to participate in one “fundraising event organised by
the BOA in the period between the end of the [London]
Games and the 2016 Games in Rio de
Janeiro.” However, two requests were dropped during
the consultation process. The first requested all team members to participate
in a major team launch on May 11 next year shortly before the start of the Olympics
and the second for them to attend a VIP sponsors’ dinners during London 2012.
Writes insidethegames.

ORLANDO (USA): US sprinting record holder
Tyson Gay has signed a deal with Abbott’s EAS Sports Nutrition brand to serve
as an ambassador for the EAS new 100% Certified program. Through the 100%
Certified program, EAS said that all its sports nutrition products are “banned
substance tested” by industry-leading, independent, laboratories and marked
with a “tested and true” seal. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Other members of Team EAS include Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals,
Danny Granger of the Indiana Pacers, golfer Charles Howell III and extreme
athletes Sam Tickle and Mark Weir.

FLAGSTAFF (USA): Former high jump world champion and Olympian Troy Kemp
of Bahamas has joined the NAU track and field coaching staff as an assistant
coach for the 2011-12 season, head coach Eric Heins announced. Kemp, who
competed for Boise State from 1987-88, comes to NAU after spending the
past 10 years coaching on the club and high school levels in Boise, Idaho.
Informs azdailysun.

EINDHOVEN (NED): Dutch marathoner Luc Krotwaar wants to
buy Lornah Kiplagat’s training center in Iten,
Kenya. Krotwaar
is aiming to construct a professional marathon team and sees the training
centre as an ideal training base to prepare for a marathon according to ed.nl.

BERLIN (GER): The Hypomeeting in Götzis was this year
again the strongest competition in the IAAF Combined events series. With a
total of 117.800 points the Hypomeeting was stonger than Ratingen (115.030) , Talence (114.684) and
Kladno (113.113).  The IAAF World
Championships scored a total of 119.104 points writes leichtathletik.de. This
scores are based on the results only. In the All-Athletics.com rankings
(results and quality of participants) from the combined events meetings Gotzis
has 10 402 ahead of Talence 10 092 and Kladno 9929 with Ratingen 9588.

PORT OF SPAIN (TRI): 1984 Olympian Ali St. Louis (52) died in
vehicular crash on Sunday night near his home in D’Abadie. St. Louis competed in the men’s 400 m heats at the 1984 Los
Angeles Olympic Games and was part of the 4x400m silver relay run at the
Central American and Caribbean Games in 1986. St. Louis was also a
IAAF Level Five Middle/Long Distance and Race Walking coach and also a starter
at track meets reports trackalerts.com.

LAUSANNE (SUI): The organizers of the European Jumps
and Hurdles Symposium, part of the European Athletics Coaching Summit Series,
have announced their line-up of international expert speakers. Peter Beek
(NED), Benke Blomkvist (SWE), Frans Bosch (NED), Torbjörn Eriksson (SWE),
Tapani Keränen (FIN), Lars Nielsen (DEN), Dan Pfaff (USA) and Gary Winckler
(USA) have all confirmed their participation in the event. The theme of the
conference is technical skills. The speakers will present their views regarding
key technical elements, how to develop and change technique and how they put
the elements into practice in the planning process reports European Athletics.

KINGSTON (JAM): Coach Glen Mills pointed out for
trackalerts.com that statements made by Asafa Powell earlier this year have
been a great motivation for Yohan Blake. Powell had spoken up about Blake
stating that ‘this is a big man thing, not a boy thing’. Mills said on KLAS
Radio: “I found it amusing. It was uncharacteristic of the gentleman, but its
part of the sport and part of what makes it interesting. I’m sure it had more
effect on Yohan than but it was a good motivating point for him to prove
himself.”

KINGSTON (JAM): Usain Bolt has finished a successful
promotional tour for his sponsor Digicel. Digicel and Usain Bolt have been
partners since 2004 and Usain has featured in all of the company’s major
campaigns during that period. This time, Usain and Digicel took their campaign
to the French West Indies islands, Martinique and Guadeloupe.
Bolt traveled to the islands and met with Digicel staff and conducted a number
of television and radio interviews.

NASSAU (BAH): Veteran sprinter Debbie
Ferguson-McKenzie is not ready to retire from the sport yet. Ferguson-McKenzie
said to The Tribune she has a lot more into her tank before she will call it
quits and is looking forward to running at least until 2013.  “If the 100 doesn’t work out, then I will
just continue to focus on the 200 and the relay. But I think the future is all
positive for me, so I might as well go for it.” Ferguson-McKenzie was quoted.

BRYANSK (RUS): Russian 1500 m champion Yekaterina
Martynova married Yevgeniy Sharmin who is also national championships medalist
in the 800 m.   

MOSCOW (RUS): IAAF informs that an IAAF delegation
led by Senior-Vice President Bob Hersh, paid a site visit to Moscow’s impressive Luzhniki stadium. The
stadium will be the venue for the 14th edition of the IAAF World Championships,
which will take place from 10 to 18 August 2013. The Luzhniki stadium is the
centre piece of the Olympic Complex of Luzhniki, which is one of the biggest
sporting complexes in the world and most famously hosted the 1980 Olympic
Games. Senior-Vice President Hersh was accompanied on the site visit by his
fellow Technical Delegates Bill Bailey and IAAF Technical Committee Chairman
Jorge Salcedo, with IAAF Competitions Director Paul Hardy and Competitions Dept
Senior Manager Carlo de Angeli composing the rest of the delegation.

STATS

BERLIN (GER): 
With WR of 2:03:38 by Makau, his top 5 average is now 2:05:07, second
behind Haile’s top 5 average of 2:04:57. Makau’s top 3 average since 2008 is
now 2:04:31, second behind Mutai’s 2:04:22 (including 2:03:02 from Boston).  Berlin’s top
10 average is now 2:04:55, ahead of Rotterdam
marathon, with the average of 2:05:07. It is now the fastest marathon in the
world under this criteria. Makau now has two sub-2:05 marathon, and four
sub-2:06 marathon, both second behind Haile Gebrselassie. Kiplagat became the
11th women to crack 2:20 for the marathon. 
As a 24 years old, Kiplagat is the youngest to crack 2:20 barrier.
Kiplagat became the third women (after Radcliffe and Sun Yingjie) to crack both
2:20 marathon and 30:30 10
000 m. Kiplagat became the second runner with sub 2:20
this year, first time more than one runner broke 2:20 in a season since
2006.  The record is three in 2003.  Mikitenko ran fastest marathon as 39 years
old. In fact, she ran fastest marathon for anyone over (but not including)
37years old.  Kari Steinn Karlsson set a
national record for Iceland
in his debut at the distance (2:17:12 ). 
He ran for UCLA. Italian steeplechaser Stefano Scaini paced his wife,
Anna Incerti, to her 2:25:32 PB. Scaini ran 2:25:46. Twenty of the top-25 women
set personal bests. Gabriela Traña set a national record of 2:38:22 for
Costarica. From Ken Nakamura and David Monti.

RESULTS

TOWNSVILLE (AUS, Sep 25): Veronica Torr of New Zealand scored good 5637 points
in heptathlon, her new personal best.

ST. PETERSBURG (RUS, Sep 25): Ukrainian Oleksandr Borisyuk
won the Kazankina road mile in 4:15.5 ahead of Aleksey Popov 4:17.8. Oksana
Belyakova as best woman achieved 4:58.0.

ST. PETERSBURG (RUS, Sep 25): Andrey Karpin won the 30 km road race from Pushkin
to St. Petersburg
in 1:34:17 ahead of Sergey Lukin 1:34:22. Top woman Lyubov Morgunova clocked
1:49:48.

KUALA LUMPUR (MAS, Sep 24): Best result at Malaysian Open
Meeting with athletes from 10 countries was the long jump 652 by Yuliya
Tarasova of Uzbekistan.

BEYROUTH (LEB, Sep 23-25): The West Asian Youth Championships were held
last weekend with athletes from 13 countries. 
Mustafa Ammar Shaheen from Iraq
semi-finalist at  World Youth 2011,
improved his PB from 53.67 to 51.58 and  
was surprising winner over silver medalist from Lille Saleh Ibrahim
Mohammad of Saudi Arabia
with 52.29 in
the 400 m
hurdles. In high jump Muammer Aissa Barshim of Qatar (brother of World Junior
Champion 2010) improved his PB  by 2 cm to 208 cm.

WREXHAM (GBR, Sep 25): Improvement in javelin at open meet here for
Mervyn Luckwell to 82.92 and then 83.52, the best by a British athlete since
2006.

NARUTO (JPN, Sep 25): Fast sprints but wind-aided from Japanese
Corporate Championships. Naoki Tsukahara posted 10.27 (+2.8) in men´s 100 m and Momoko Takahashi
11.42 (+3.2) in women´s race. Ayako Kimura was more lucky in the women 100 m hurdles with 13.25
aided by +1.7.

RAGUSA (ITA, Sep 24): Diamond Race winner Imane Merga
won the 20th Memorial Peppe Greco road race at cobblestones with 28:37.8
clearly at 10 km
ahead of Kenyans Edwin Soi (28:48.4) and Thomas Longosiwa (28:45.4). Sylvia
Kibet was the best in women 7
km in 24:35.9 ahead of Moroccan Myriam Selsouli
(24:36.8). From RRW.

BOGOTA (COL,
Sep 25): Ethiopian Belainesh Gebre competed at 5th Carrera La Mujer (12 km) as her final tune-up
before the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. 
The 2010 Honolulu Marathon winner had only Kenyan 10-K record holder
Joyce Chepkirui with her after the first of three 4 km laps, but opened up a 30
second gap after the second lap (26:56). 
She would run the rest of the race alone to record a course record
40:46. Second Chepkirui clocked 41:51 and third Emily Chebet 42:06. From RRW.

MONTREAL (CAN, Sep 25): Kenyan Luka Chelimo clocked new
course record at Marathon Oasis de Montreal with 2:13:45. Also new event best
in women category for Serkalem Biset Abrha of Ethiopia 2:33:21.

DOMAZLICE (CZE, Sep 24): Fine javelin throwing at the end of the season
by Jan Zelezny boys. Jakub Vadlejch improved his season best to 84.08 (his
second best ever) ahead of Daegu fourth placer Vitezslav Vesely (83.18) and
Petr Frydrych (79.38). Vesely also competed in Prostejov the day after and
achieved 77.64 m.

GUANAJUATO (MEX, Sep 25): Kenyan Hillary Kimaiyo won the marathon here
in 2:14:50, best woman Jessica Patricia Rodriguez achieved 2:49:01.

BEOGRAD (SRB, Sep 25): Talented European junior champion Amela Terzic
won the 12th women´s run in Beograd with
26:04.17. Second Teodora Simovic 26:57.08 and third Sonja Stolic 27:24.86.

ELDORET (KEN, Sep 25) Moses Kigen beat a strong field over 1000 runners
to win the third edition of Eldoret Peace race. The third placer from last NYC
Marathon clocked 44:10 in the 15
km. His training mate John Mutai trailed him all the way
to finish second in 44:40. In the women’s category, little known Fridah
Chelanga won in 48:16.