Haile for Tokyo, Felix for Pan Am, Chaunte for Indoors, by Alfons Juck, note by Larry Eder

EME NEWS (OCT 13, 2011)



Haile aiming for Tokyo Marathon
JOHANNESBURG (RSA): Legendary Haile Gebrselassie has announced during a
visit to South Africa that he is considering  chasing the Olympic
Marathon qualifying time in Tokyo next February. Gebrselassie who failed
to achieve it when dropping out of last month’s BMW Berlin Marathon
knows he will have to run close to two hours five minutes or even faster
if he is to be picked by the Ethiopian selectors who base their choices
on times rather than a qualification standard. The 38-year-old should
have competed in this year’s Tokyo Marathon but after a fall in training
and badly bruising both his knees he was a last minute withdrawal.
However it was strongly hinted at that time he would make amends by
competing in the 2012 race which will take place on 26 February in the
Japanese capital. His next race is Birmingham Half-Marathon on October
23.

Sanchez for 4th Pan-Am Games

SANTO DOMINGO (DOM): Headliner of Dominican Republic team for Pan Am
Games will be former olympic and world gold medalist at 400 m Hurdles
Felix Sanchez.  He competed in last three games. Was winner in 2003 and
twice fourth in 1999 and 2007.

Howard-Lowe plans indoor season

ATLANTA (USA): Full indoor season is in the plan of US high jump record holder
Chaunte Howard-Lowe. After giving birth to her second child earlier this
year she tried to qualify for Daegu. But it was too early (9th with
178). Now she is back in good training and hopes to jump at World Indoor
Championships in Istanbul. Informs her management. At last World
Indoors in Doha she won a bronze medal, her indoor best is 198 cm.
Outdoors Howard-Lowe is holder of US record with 205 cm.

Europe is behind London bid

ARONA (ESP): “I am convinced that we have to be in London in 2017 and I
am 100 percent behind UK Athletics’ efforts to bring the World
Championships back to Europe,” said European Athletics President
Hansjorg Wirz on the sidelines of the annual European Athletics
Convention in Arona, Spain, on Thursday. “Europe is the centre of the
athletics world and our athletes and fans deserve the stage London will
provide. Having supported the efforts of the authorities in London to
retain the track in the Olympic stadium, the IAAF must now follow
through by awarding the event to justify the investment and secure the
legacy of the London Games.” The bid is also supported by British
legends such as Jonathan Edwards, triple jump world record holder, Sally
Gunnell, the 1992 Olympic Games 400m hurdles champion, Steve Cram, the
1983 World Championships 1500m winner and former world mile record
holder, and Roger Black, the 1986 and 1990 European Athletics
Championships 400m gold medallist. Mo Farah, 2011 European Athlete of
the Year, recently joined 400m hurdles world champion David Greene, 2010
European Athletics Championships triple jump champion Phillips Idowu,
and Hannah England, who won the silver medal in the 1500m at the World
Championships, as an official ambassador. Informs European Athletics.
 

OTHER NEWS

NEW YORK (USA): American road running in 2012 got a $200,000 shot in the
arm today with the announcement of the new B.A.A. Distance Medley, a
Boston-based race series. Officials of the Boston Athletic Association,
the founders and organizers of the Boston Marathon, have decided to link
three of their already popular road races –the B.A.A. 5-K, B.A.A. 10-K
and B.A.A. Half-Marathon– into a series for 2012 with the overall male
and female series champions earning $100,000 each, by far the largest
“grand prix” check for a series of road or track races held exclusively
in the United States.  The 5-K is scheduled for April 15, the 10-K for
June 24, and the half-marathon for October 7. Informs RRW.

OTTAWA (CAN): The 2011 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon (STWM),
set for this Sunday October 16, will feature Canada’s top marathoners
such as Reid Coolsaet, Eric Gillis and Dylan Wykes. The IAAF Silver Road
Race Label event is for many Canadian Olympic hopefuls the race to
qualify for an Olympic spot on the Canadian team. Currently Reid
Coolsaet is the only Canadian to have dipped under Athletics Canada’s
Olympic Games qualification time running 2:11:23 at last year’s STWM.

LINZ (AUT): The outdoor meeting of Linz, Austria is returning after some
years. The Gugl Gala is scheduled for August 20 and is aiming for
European Athletics Classic Status. Last year when the outdoor version of
Gugl was held was in 2007.

BERLIN (GER): German European junior steeplechase champion Gesa
Felicitas Krause has been nominated among Germany’s top 10 best junior
athletes.  In a break-through year Felicitas Krause took victory in
Tallinn in July and then went on to become 9th at the World
Championships in Daegu clocking European junior record. The award of
junior athlete of the year will be award during a ceremony in which high
jumper Raul Spank will co-present the awards announced
leichtathletik.de.

GUADALAJARA (MEX):  United States Olympic Committee (USOC) chief
executive Scott Blackmun has claimed the only reason they approached the
Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) ruling on drug cheats was because they needed some
clarity on the laws.  Following a joint request for arbitration filed by
the IOC and the USOC, the CAS declared last week that the IOC’s rule 45
or “Osaka Rule” banning any athlete serving a suspension of six months
or more for doping violations from the subsequent Olympic Games was
“invalid and unenforceable”. “This issue was never an attack on the IOC;
it was actually the complete opposite,” Blackmun told insidethegames
here where he is part of the USOC delegation for the 2011 Pan American
Games.

LONDON (GBR): Insidethegames writes that more and more major sports
events will go to emerging markets like Qatar rather than established
nations in years to come.  That was the prediction of sports business
expert Dan Jones who said there were a whole host of nations that were
unaffected by the economic crisis. Speaking at the International Sports
Events Management (ISEM) conference here, Jones, Deloitte’s Sports
Business Group leading partner, said that traditional sports organisers
were going to have to fight even harder to secure top events and prevent
being ignored. Seven out 19 races in the Formula One calendar now took
place in emerging markets, he pointed out, compared with only three a
decade ago.

LAUSANNE (SUI): The design for the 2011 SPAR European Team Championship
in Stockholm in June has been voted as the second best design at the
Swedish Design Award in the Identity Print Profile category reports
European Athletics. Martin Reintz, the design artist for Stockholm 2011
has been involved with athletics design for a number of years. In the
past he has made inspirational designs for the DN Galan Diamond League
meeting and more notably the 2006 European Athletics Championship in
Göteborg.

INDIANAPOLIS (USA): USA Track & Field announced the release of the
competition schedule for the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Trials that will
take place June 21 to July 1. The first official U.S. Olympic Trials
event begins on the evening of Thursday June 21, with a special edition
of the men’s and women’s hammer throw at the Nike Campus in Beaverton.
Friday will be the first full day of action with a rest day on Tuesday
and Wednesday. Special community events, including an all-comers meet
hosted by the Oregon Track Club, will give fans a chance to compete at
Hayward Field’s hallowed grounds on the non-competition days. The 2012
U.S. Olympic Team Trials will be broadcast on NBC and its affiliates.

 
LONDON (GBR): British disgraced sprinter Dwain Chambers wants to run at
next year’s Olympic Games. The sprinter and his manager, Siza Agha, made
that clear during a talk they gave to the pupils at Hillview Secondary
school in Tonbridge. However,  Chambers is in a stand-off with the
British Olympic Association, which is sticking with its bylaw that bans
him and other drugs offenders from competing. Agha said that he and
Chambers were hoping an “amicable solution” can be reached, but stressed
that “the resolution which we would ideally want is that Dwain would
run in the Olympics. We make no disguise about that. Dwain would love to
run in the Olympics and I would love to see him there. I think it would
be good for British sport for that to happen” he was quoted by The
Guardian.
 

KINGSTON (JAM): Jamaican singer Nadine Sutherland has been receiving
quite of bit of buzz for her track ‘Cougar’ since Yohan Blake won the
IAAF World Championships in Daegu. The track ‘Cougar’, speaks to the
phenomenon of older women partnering with much younger men in intimate
relations.In the video, Blake along with former national footballer
Fabian Davis and male model Marlon Birbridge are the objects of
attention by cougars including Sutherland, who declares in the single
that she’s “not a Cougar, but know a lot about it.” So far, the video
for the track released last year has nearly 20,000 page views on
YouTube, reports The Jamaica Observer.

INDIANAPOLIS (USA): For the third year in a row, track and field fans
have the opportunity to help select the annual Jesse Owens Awards
winners. In the women’s category main contenders are world champions
Lashinda Demus, Allyson Felix, Carmelita Jeter, Jenny Simpson and
Brittney Reese. The men’s list is also stars studded with Walter Dix,
Ashton Eaton, Ryan Hall, Trey Hardee, Bernard Lagat, Dwight Phillips and
Jason Richardson. The honors going to the sport’s top athletes of the
year is selected by a vote from both the media and online fan
balloting.This year’s awards will be presented December 3 at the Jesse
Owens Awards and Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, held in conjunction
with USA Track & Field’s 2011 Annual Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri.

 
WASHINGTON (USA): Allyson Felix, as part of of the President’s Council
on Physical Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, will join President Barack
Obama and a Presidential Delegation to Mexico to attend the Opening
Ceremony of the XVI Pan American Games on October 14 reported the White
House in a release.
 
BELGRADE (SRB): This years edition of well known road race “Through
History” in Belgrade was not held this year due to financial and
organisational difficulties. It was planned inititaly for this week.

RESULTS


JAEN (ESP, Oct 12): European U23 steeple champion Sebastian Martos won
the 24th edition of Manuel Pancorbo road mile in 4:32.8. In the women
race first place for Ethiopian Firehiwot Goshu in 5:16.5.