Allyson Felix, photo by PhotoRun.net

                                      Ashton Eaton, photo by PhotoRun.net

SPOTAKOVA EXPECTS A BABY

PRAHA (CZE): Just two days after being awarded the Czech Athlete of the Year 2012 the double javelin olympic winner Barbora Spotakova announced happy plans. She is pregnant and expects her first baby. That means she will miss the 2013 season including the World Championships in Moscow, but wants to be back for 2014. The baby is expected for early summer 2013 and she hopes to be back in training in autumn next year. Her many-years boyfriend Lukas Novotny will be the proud father. „Together with Lukas we are very happy and are looking forward to it. We wanted it and it is kind of a surprise that it came so fast,” admitted Spotakova. Her long time goal is Rio 2016 Olympics where she wants to achieve the same as her legendary coach Jan Zelezny, the third olympic gold.

FELIX AND EATON

INDIANAPOLIS (USA): Triple olympic sprint winner Allyson Felix and decathlon London gold medalist and world record holder Ashton Eaton were named the winners of the 2012 Jesse Owens Award. The Owens Award is presented annually to the most outstanding U.S. male and female track performers. This is Felix’s fourth time to win the award and Eaton’s first. Eaton and Felix will be presented with their awards on Saturday, December 1, at the Jesse Owens Hall of Fame Banquet. The event is held in conjunction with USA Track & Field’s 2012 Annual Meeting in Daytona Beach. The 2012 Jesse Owens Award winners were selected in balloting of members of the US track and field media, and a fan vote was held on the USATF website that comprised 10% of the total vote. More than 5500 fan votes were received. Other men’s finalists included Will Claye, Leo Manzano, Aries Merritt, Galen Rupp, Christian Taylor. Finalists for the women’s award were Carmelita Jeter, Chaunte Lowe, Brittney Reese, Sanya Richards-Ross and Jenn Suhr. Informs USATF website.

CANADIAN HURDLERS FOR INDOOR SEASON

TORONTO (CAN): Top Canadian hurdlers are looking forward to compete during the indoor season 2013 despite not having any global championships. Olympic medalist from Beijing Priscilla Lopes-Schliep with Nikkita Holder will compete in winter, the third top hurdler Phylicia George decided to run only the 60 m flat in winter. Informs their agent Kris Mychasiw. Lopes-Schliep has the best time at 60 m hurdles from the trio 7.82, Holder 8.00 and George 8.03 (she will try to improve on her 7.35 flat best).

EA INDOOR MEETS CONFIRMED

LAUSANNE (SUI): Confirmed is now the Calendar of European Athletics Indoor Permit meetings 2013 (7 events). In comparison to last season no longer in
this category Eduard Grigoryan meet in Moscow (a junior meet) and new meet in this category the Reykjavik Games in Iceland on January 19. Other events as in 2012: Jan 26 Glasgow match (Great Britain against USA, Russia, Germany and Commonwealth team). The only other full meeting in this category is the 8th PSD Bank Meeting of Dusseldorf (Feb 8), others are special events. Tallinn will stage the combined events (Feb 1-2), Banska Bystrica in Slovakia the jubilee 20th edition of the high jump meet on Feb 6, the same day Pedro´s Cup in Bydgoszcz with both pole vaults and shot put for men and on February 9 the pole vault meet Samsung Pole Vault Starts in Donetsk organised by Sergey Bubka.

OTHER NEWS

KYIV (UKR): The head of the State Service for Youth and Sports of Ukraine Ravil Safiullin said at press-conference on last Friday that former senior coach of middle distance runners Kostyantyn Stepantsov was detained by the Ukrainian Security Service. News Agency “Interfax-Ukraine” informs that Stepantsov has been staying in pre-trial prison (or detention center) for three days after what Shevchenkovskyy regional court of Kyiv considered the issue to take him into custody but let him out on bail. Stepantsov must pay a deposit of 300 thousands UAH (about 29 000 EURO) until November 13. As expected the former senior coach of UKR athletics team will get official accusation within 10 days. Stepantsov was fired from his post on October 10. The State Service of Youth and Sports of Ukraine suspects former coach of financial abuse during preparation of national athletics team for London Olympics.

DUSSELDORF (GER): The 8th PSD Bank Meeting of Dusseldorf announced its events for the next winter edition which will be held on Friday February 8. For the next edition again Eurosport transmission is prepared and ticket sales will start early December. The Arena Sportpark is usually sold out with 2000 spectators.

ROMA (ITA): For the Italian federation (FIDAL) elections two candidates are confirmed for the president position. Alfio Giomi (former Vice President and EAA Council member) and Alberto Morini (current Vice President). Franco Arese is no going due to health reasons as it was already said. The National Assembly will be held on December 2 in Milano.

LONDON (GBR): Blade runner Oscar Pistorius was awarded an honorary degree at the University of Strathclyde during a graduation ceremony at Barony Hall. Pistorius is one of five distinguished figures being honoured by the University this autumn, the others being Professor Neil Gershenfeld, Director of the Centre for Bits and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Doctor of the University), Sir Paul Nurse, the British geneticist, cell biologist and Nobel Prize Winner (Doctor of Science), Professor Anne Glover, EU Chief Scientific Advisor (Doctor of Science) and Fran Healy, lead singer of Scottish pop band Travis (Doctor of the University). Informs insidethegames. The award builds on the University’s relationship with the South African athlete, who gave the keynote speech at Strathclyde’s Sporting Prosthetics Conference last year.

COTTBUS (GER): German Meetings are having two new member meetings. ISTAF of Berlin (IAAF World Challenge) and Haldensleben. It was confirmed at the usual yearly assembly of the group. Currently the organisation has 16 member meetings. The Bureau was confirmed with Uli Hobeck (Cottbus) as president and members Ralph Hirsch (Dessau) and Thomas Neubert (Hof, pole vault). Every organiser promised to award at the meetings the „GM Nachwuchspreis” for top junior or youth result.

TORONTO (CAN): Top Canadian hurdlers are looking forward to compete during the indoor season 2013 despite not having any global championships. Olympic medalist from Beijing Priscilla Lopes-Schliep with Nikkita Holder will compete in winter, the third top hurdler Phylicia George decided to run only the 60 m flat in winter. Informs their agent Kris Mychasiw. Lopes-Schliep has the best time at 60 m hurdles from the trio 7.82, Holder 8.00 and George 8.03 (she will try to improve on her 7.35 flat best).

EDINBURGH (GBR): The BUPA Great Edinburgh Cross Country plans again a team competition for the next edition planned for January 5 next year. Three teams will fight in senior and junior races. Home Great Britain against USA and European select. The European team will be named after the European Championships in December in Hungary.

PARIS (FRA): French marathon record holder Christelle Daunay will begin training  for first time this weekend since June this year. After a fracture she will begin to run Sunday. Due to injury she missed the Olympic Games where she was qualified for 10, 000 m and marathon. Her half best is 1:08:34 from 2010, marathon national mark 2:24:22 also from 2010.

PARIS (FRA): Originally scheduled for this week the trial in the case of triple jumper Teddy Tamgho was moved for March 12 next year. Lawyers of both parties confirmed. Writes L´Équipe.

WARWICK (GBR): The University of Warwick welcomed around 250 delegates from 16 countries to the second edition of the European Sprints and Hurdles Conference at the weekend. Some of the greatest minds in sprint coaching shared their insight at the conference, which was hosted by UK Athletics and England Athletics and forms part of the European Athletics Coaching Summit Series. Renowned sprints coach Loren Seagrave, the opening keynote speaker, was in no doubt about the value of the conference and spoke in glowing terms about what he regards as „the best coach education programme in the world.” Informs European Athletics. Seagrave was followed by the first of three presentations from legendary American coach Tom Tellez, who focused on training for hurdles, addressing the issue of the approach to the first hurdle. Wigert Thunnissen, the Dutchman who coached the Netherlands to a bronze medal in the men’s 4x100m at the 2003 World Championships in Paris and recently guided the women’s sprint relay team to a new national record of 42.45 seconds, spoke with specific reference to the challenges of coaching the 4x100m relay and also started the proceedings on Sunday by speaking more generally about the Dutch approach to relays.

RESULTS

MACHAKOS (KEN, Nov 11): Jackson Limo won the Machakos half marathon in 1:02:11 ahead of African CC champion John Mwangangi 1:02:18. Nicholas Kipchichir was third in 1:02:24 while Abraham Rotich came home fourth in 1:02:43. In the women category Agnes Katunge emerged the winner after registering 1:13.41.

CORRECTION

GENT (BEL): The organizers Golazo explained more in detail why the full indoor meet was not held in 2012. „Last year we organised the high jump meet in Antverp. There we used our resources and so it was not because of finances but because of priorities that we did not organise the full meeting,” explained Marc Corstjens of Golazo.

SAD NEWS

LAGOS (NGR): One of Nigeria’s foremost track and field stars and administrators, Jimmy Omagbemi, died Monday, aged 81 years. Omagbemi, who has been living in the United States of America for several years now since retiring from the National Sports Commission (NSC), was confirmed dead from protracted illness by his former athlete son, Victor.