by Larry EderLausanne, Switzerland will host the Athletissima Lausanne tomorrow in Pontasse stadium. 17,000 people, a sell out for months now, will enjoy one of the best nights of track & field in one night in 2012. The 100 meters and 200 meters are amazing enough, but the 110m hurdles, men’s pv, women’s shot put, and some killer women’s sprints.
Athletissima: Sprinting carnival
LAUSANNE (SUI): Sold out Pontaise Stadium (17 000) should see a sprinting carnival at Athletissima mainly with Jamaicans. All stars are here, Bolt (celebrated his 26th birthday on Tuesday), Blake, Fraser-Pryce, Campbell-Brown. But something special could be expected in men´s hurdles. Also Kirani James is still ready for a fast time. Pole Vault world lead could be a possibility. On the women side not only 100 m clash, but also Savinova vs. Jelimo in the 800 m and first 15 meters of the year in women triple? Some athletes will be able to confirm Diamond Race wins.
Event by event preview
Men
100 m: Four olympic finalists, Blake for PB (so far twice 9.75, meet record is 9.72) ? Also Gay, Bailey and Thompson. Waiting for the chance Nesta Carter.
200 m: Bolt in his beloved event, but Weir, Spearmon, Ashmeade, Martina and improved Young are making it very competitive field.
400 m: All three medalists James, Santos, Gordon – Kevin Borlee wants to attack.
1500 m: Manzano as only London mile medalist against a tough field of Kenyans, interesting to see 10k medal winner Rupp here.
Steeple: Kipsiele is fresh and fights for world ranking number one, Mutai the only medalist there, young Kipruto to watch.
110mH: World record field: Merritt, Richardson, Parchment, also Oliver with Shubenkov.
HJ: Ukhov with Grabarz, also Mutaz as Eberstadt winner and Jesse Williams with chance to make it for the Games disappointment.
PV: Huge field with all olympic medalists, world lead a possibility, first 6 meters of the year (or at least meet record 592)?
DT: Hadadi and Kanter, also super veteran Alekna fighting for the top spot.
Women
100 m: First big clash after the Games with all three podium sprinters Fraser-Pryce, Jeter and Campbell-Brown.
800 m: Savinova vs. Jelimo.
3000 m: No super top names, but highly competitive field. They can go deep sub 8:40. Close to world lead.
100mH: Harper vs. Wells, but strong field can attack the olympic medalists.
400mH: Antyukh and Hejnova from London podium. Is there somebody else with late season shape?
LJ: High level field with all olympic medalists, but as usual in this event, ready for a surprise. Reese for third win here.
TJ: Revenge for the Games: Saladukha will attack Rypakova.
SP: Adams in her own field.
JT: Spotakova with German medalists (Obergfoll, Stahl) but also ready for revenge Viljoen and Abakumova.
4×100 m: Jamaica vs. Ukraine. That is the women UBS Trophy (men will be in Zurich)
B-races: Some good names included, for example Alina Talay at 100 m hurdles, Darvis Patton in the 200 m and Samantha Henry-Robinson with Marya Ryemyen in the women 100 m.
Gatlin ends the season
LINZ (AUT): US olympic medalist Justin Gatlin decided after food poisoning which did not allow him to run in Linz on Monday to end his season. He returned to USA to underwent further examinations.
Javelin stars soon mothers?
BERLIN (GER): After Maria Abakumova announced she is getting married in October, more news of the personal lifes of the world’s best javelin throwers has emerged. Christina Obergföll told German media she is thinking about children, while also newly crowned Olympic champion Barbora Spotakova, who is 31 years old just as Obergföll, admitted she is thinking about starting a family now that the Olympic year has passed.
Thorkildsen no more competitions
LAUSANNE (SUI): After finishing 10th and last at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm with a distance of 71.05m, Norwegian javelin star Andreas Thorkildsen has finally decided to end his season writes European athletics. “It’s a continuation of things I was struggling with in London,” explained Thorkildsen to Norwegian news service NTB. “I knew that things weren’t right and I did not want to drive my body any further. Now it is best I draw a line under this season and concentrate on coming back better than ever next year.”
Rudisha one more race
TUBINGEN (GER): Only one race remained in the programme of the 800 m world record holder David Rudisha for this season. As announced he will compete next week at the Weltklasse Meet in Zurich (Aug 30). From his base in Tubingen, Germany he confirmed via twitter after that he will close the competition season. In Tubingen the local people prepared a hero welcome for Rudisha when he returned from the London Games.
OTHER NEWS
LONDON (GBR): Weynay Ghebresilasie (18), who carried the Eritrean flag at the Opening Ceremony and finished 10th in his Olympic steeplechase heat in 8:37.57, has remained in Britain and is claiming asylum. UK media are informing.
LONDON (GBR): A new television channel showcasing Olympic sports, such as handball and cycling, is to be launched later this year in the hope of capitalising on the success of London 2012. Independent television production company Highflyer is finalising plans for the new round-the-clock sports channel, London Legacy, devoted to 24 minority sports’, that is due be on air in November. While the channel will initially only be available through pay-television broadcaster BSkyB, Highflyer said it is seeking wider distribution in a bid to tap into the 51.9 million people in the UK who watched at least 15 minutes of the London Games on the BBC.
NAIROBI (KEN): Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has ordered an inquiry into the country’s disappointing performance at London 2012, where the team won 11 medals, including two gold. It was actually the third best performance since Kenya made their Olympic debut at Melbourne in 1956 but represented a sharp decline from Beijing four years ago when they finished third in the athletics medals table with 14 medals, including six gold. This time Kenya’s only gold medallists were Ezekiel Kemboi, who won the 3,000 metres steeplechase, and David Rudisha, who produced arguably the performance of the whole Games by setting a world record as he claimed the 800m. Informs insidethegames.
BERLIN (GER): Olympic discus champion Robert Harting is featured in a giant Nike ‘find your greatness’ commercial in Berlin, showing him on a 50x56m picture. Harting welcomed the commercial activity and added he wants to defend his Olympic title in Rio in 2016 reports leichtathletik.de.
LONDON (GBR): Jessica Ennis told Vogue.co.uk she would love to work more in fashion and front a campaign for either Alexander McQueen or Victoria Beckham. Ennis also said she does not have a stylist, although she has been in the public eye recently since the Olympic Games.
LONDON (GBR): Britain’s double Olympic champion Mo Farah still has plenty more he would like to achieve on the track before turning his attention to competing in marathon. The 29-year-old revealed he would relish participating on the track at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow reports sportinglife.com.
AUCKLAND (NZL): Valerie Adams has decided not to pursue legal action against disgraced Belarusian shot putter Nadzeya Ostapchuk, who accused Adams of taking drugs. Adams’ manager Nick Cowan said that he had taken legal advice after Ostapchuk made the accusations, saying his first impression was that they were slanderous. “The legal advice was that it was so far-fetched and ridiculous that it would actually make a libel case difficult,” said Cowan. “The reasoning was that a libel case has to show that those statements would actually make people think Valerie had taken drugs.” Reports the New Zealand Herald.
BRUSSELS (BEL) : There will not be a duel between Bolt and Blake at the Samsung Diamond league meeting of Brussels. Bolt confirmed he will run the 100m, while Blake is set to run the 200m. This means both athletes will not face off again this season confirm Belgian media.
HANNOVER (GER): This weekend the German national combined events championships are to be staged in Hannover and although Germany’s star athletes from the European championships and the Olympic Games will not compete, the overall level is still very promising. In the men’s field Kai Kazmirek (8130) takes on Steffen Kahlert, Matthias Prey, Maximilian Gilde and Mortiz Cleve. The women’s heptathlon features Maren Schwerdtner and youngsters Kira Biesenbach and Annett Fleming announces leichtathletik.de.
THUM (GER): After some days off, Germany’s David Storl is returing to competition on August 24th at the Thum thrower days. Storl, London’s second placer, takes on the new Olympic champion Tomasz Majewski as well Ralf Bartels and Canadian Dylan Armstrong reports leichtathletik.de.
LAUSANNE (SUI): French pole vaulter Romain Mesnil had decided to hang up his spikes at the conclusion of the Olympic season, but it appears he is now having second thoughts according to what he told French sports newspaper L’Equipe. “I am going to start my professional reconversion,” he told the paper. “But at the same time, I would like to have a season where I am free from any pressure just to see where it takes me,” he said. Mesnil studied engineering and is keen to make the switch from the pole vault pit writes European Athletics.
ELMIRA (USA): Molly Huddle has returned to the U.S. after running the women’s 5000 m race in the London Olympics and confirmed she plans to continue training with the intent of preparing for the 2016 Olympics in Rio. She said she will train to compete in the womens 5000 m or the women’s 10 000 m according to wetmtv.com. Huddle is planning to return to European to run at the Brussels Diamond League meeting.
MONTE CARLO (MON): Toyota has signed an agreement with the IAAF to continue as an official partner of the IAAF World Championships beyond next year’s event in Moscow. As a result of the renewal, the Japanese car giant will support the 15th IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China in 2015 and the following edition in London, UK in 2017. Toyota’s logo will appear on women athletes’ bibs, while the company will provide the official vehicles for the Championships, including the marathon lead timing car and around 200 vehicles for athlete transportation announces sportspromedia.com.
NEW YORK (USA): Tennis player Maria Sharapova has come to defens of Lolo Jones. Jones had said the media “ripped her to shreds” when it focused on her nude pictures in ESPN the Magazine instead of her athletic prowess. “I’ve been in this business for many years and I know how this works,” Sharapova told the Daily New York news. “Everyone’s going to have a comment and that’s going to be the way things are.” She was quoted.
KINGSTON (JAM): Jamaican 400m hurdler Shevon Stoddard, female face of Puma’s Olympic campaign, told The Jamaican Observer she has not yet retired from track and field. “I am going out this upcoming season and looking forward to the World Championship. I love competing for my country and 2013 will be an exciting year on and off track,” she said and added she is planning on releasing her first single early 2013, which will be available on iTunes as well as a first music video.
LONDON (GBR): It has emerged that Somalian runner Samia Yusuf Omar, who competed in the 200 metres at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, drowned earlier this year trying to reach Europe. The 21-year-old was on a boat trying to cross to Italy from Libya in April when it sank. The head of the Somali Olympic Committee confirmed her death, although without elaborating on the details. In Beijing Yusuf Omar was roared to the finish line at those Games as she recorded a personal best time of 32.16sec.
NEW YORK (USA): Runnersworld writes that Nick Symmonds, fifth in the Olympic 800-meter final, moved up in distance and lowered his American record in the beer mile. Symmonds’ time was 5:19, he reported on Twitter. The beer miling: The event consists of drinking a beer, then running a lap, four times, with the clock running the whole time. Each beer has to be finished before starting to run the next lap. Symmonds competed under the North American rules, which specify details such as a minimum alcohol content of 5.0%, no shotgunning or other methods of drinking other than from the beer can, and a penalty fifth lap for vomiting. Symmonds was shooting for the world record of 5:09, set by Canadian Jim Finlayson in December 2007.
RESULTS
TABOR (CZE, Aug 21): At another international meet in Czech Republic Jamaican Edino Steele scored a solid double with 10.39 personal best (-0.3) and easy 46.43 400 m wins. Other top marks came from Czech athletes. Petr Frydrych got 78.64 in javelin, Jan Kudlicka cleared 564 in pole vault. Lucie Skrobakova sprinted over the hurdles in 13.05 (-0.6) and Lenka Masna won the 800 m in 2:02.08 over Tereza Capkova 2:02.77.
COPENHAGEN (DEN, Aug 21): At Copenhagen Games solid 21.05 in shot put by Canadian Dylan Armstrong, in women competition new Danish record for Trine Mulbjerg 16.15 m. Andreas Bube won the main running event the 800 m in 1:46.77 over Poland´s Marcin Lewandowski 1:47.06. Brian Gregan of Ireland (46.00 at 400 m) and Belgian Michael Bultheel (50.26 at 400 m hurdles) won their events. Kenroy Anderson of Jamaica clocked 10.30 (0.0) to win the 100 m but was faster with 10.28 (+1.0) in heats.
