F. SANCHEZ TWO MORE YEARS

BARCELONA (ESP): Legendary hurdler Felix Sanchez confirmed he will compete in 2013 with the aim to attack the top positions at World Championships in Moscow. One of the most emotional winners of London Games was the guest at the IAAF Centenary Gala. It will be his 8th Worlds in a row since 1999, he won in 2001 and 2003, was also second in 2007. The 35-years old Sanchez also said his last year will be 2014, in that year he plans a farewell tour at the top meetings he competed before. In London he clocked 47.63 winning time, the identical result when winning the Olympic gold in Athens 2004. It is the 6th fastest mark of the career of the Dominican Republic star.

HAILE IS READY

FUKUOKA (JPN): Sunday´s Fukuoka International Marathon will see legendary Haile Gebrselassie running his second marathon of the year and after Tokyo in February (4th in 2:08:17) again in Japan. It will be also his second Fukuoka after 2:06:52 six years ago. Legendary Haile said on his twitter: „I am heading to Fukuoka. Fukuoka has a fast course, so hopefully it will be a good performance.” And some days earlier: „ Training is going well, endurance and speed is good. Also gym work has a high quality. So looking forward to Fukuoka Marathon.” For Japan runners this will be World Champs trials providing a time under 2:08 will be registered. Other top runners are coming because they were not able to compete in New York. Strong European presence is headed by Ukrainian Dmytro Baranovskyy and Poland´s Henryk Szost. Debut of the day Kenyan Martin Mathathi with 58:56 half best, also to mention here US Mohamed Trafeh.

RUSADA CLARIFIES

MOSCOW (RUS): Russian Antidoping Agency RUSADA clarified the situation in regard to discus olympic silver medalist Darya Pishchalnikova and different reports in Russian media. RUSADA informs they performed seven tests with Pishchalnikova within their own testing programme ahead of London Games, all were negative. RUSADA also realised another test on behalf of WADA on May 20 with negative result. In October 2012 the sample from May 20 was sent per wish of WADA for another analysis in Lausanne laboratory. Here the test brought a positive result. In this terms IAAF is currently investigating a possible violation of the anti-doping rules. No other official informations are available.

LIEVIN MEET NEARLY CANCELED

LIEVIN (FRA): Bad news from Lievin. For February 12 next year scheduled traditional IAAF Indoor Permit meeting Pas-de-Calais is in danger. But this time not because of financial difficulties. It is because the construction situation. The Hall is closed since October 10 because of damages in its roof structure. The local authorities informed the hall will be opened again in Spring 2013. The organiser Jean-Pierre Watelle said he is considering to move the track to another arena but confirmed the 2013 meeting is canceled at 99.9 percent.

OTHER NEWS

LONDON (GBR): Five of the eight full-time coaches due to be appointed to the new central hub of UK Athletics at Loughborough University have been named by UK Athletics performance director Neil Black. Confirming plans to centralise resources around a single high performance institute in Loughborough – Black has outlined the shape of the performance team that will lead British athletics coaching ranks through the next Olympic cycle by naming United States coaches Rana Reider and Terrence Mahon and British talents Aston Moore, Fuzz Ahmed and Steve Fudge. „Bringing all of our very best staff together into a single centre is absolutely central to the vision for investing National Lottery and UK Sport support in order to maximise British athletics medals in future years, in particular in Rio 2016 and at the World Championships in London in 2017,” Black said. Informs insidethegames.

KYIV (UKR): After unsuccessful performance at London Olympics silver medalist from World Indoor Championships in Istanbul at 800m Natalya Lupu is aiming for the next Olympic Games in Rio. “We had made a very big mistake in our preparation for London. I had to be in my highest shape already at the National Championships in June as we have very tough competition at women’s 800 m in Ukraine. In Rio I’ll have much more experience and hope to achieve much more than Olympics semifinal,” said the 25-years old Ukrainian. Being now in the training camp in Crimea’s Yalta Lupu also informed that she isn’t going to make special preparation for coming indoor season.
“I want to save more power and energy for summer as I’ll be mostly focused on World Championships in Moscow. But it isn’t meant that I will refuse from my winter competitions. My event’s schedule will depends on my shape. Last year I didn’t prepare seriously for winter season as well but at least have got silver medal at World Indoor Championships in Istanbul.”

FRANKFURT (GER): Germany is sending for European CC Championships full teams in U23 and junior categories. The only senior will be the female runner Christiane Danner. Very strong the 1500 m olympian Corinna Harrer in the U23 category. Sabrina Mockenhaupt withdrew from the considerations. The teams – U23 boys: Fabian Clarkson, Timo Gohler, Tom Groschel, Karsten Meier, Michael Schramm and Nico Sonnenberg. In the junior boys category: Nico Matysik, Johannes Motschmann, Tilmann Petersen, Philipp Reinhardt, Kilian Schreiner, Moritz Steininger. With Harrer in the U23 girls selection included Lisa Jasert, Jannika John, Melanie Stemper, Jana Sussmann and Domenika Weiss. Junior girls team is composed by Laura Clart, Anna Gehring, Caterina Granz, Maya Rehberg, Johanna Schulz and Lisa Ziegler.

PRAHA (CZE): Six runners will represent the Czech Republic at European CC event in Budapest. Seniors Milan Kocourek and Pavla Schorna with U23 runner Jiri Homolac and junior boys Radek Karnufek with Jan Janu and one junior girl Lada Novakova.

BRATISLAVA (SVK): Slovakia is sending only one runner to nearby Budapest. For junior girls race the 17 years old Stanislava Janeckova.

DES MOINES (USA): Olympic hurdles silver winner Dawn Harper says she feels no ill will toward Des Moines native Lolo Jones. In fact, reports that the two were feuding brought Harper to tears. “It was definitely blown up, because I actually cried about it,” said Harper, who attended a news conference Wednesday at Drake University. “I was thinking to myself, ‘I never meant any harm to anyone.” Harper promoted the next Drake Relays which will big increase in prize money in 2013.

NAIROBI (KEN): Olympic gold medalists David Rudisha and Ezekiel Kemboi are among top athletes expected to be feted in this year’s Athletics Kenya Golden Awards Gala to be held Friday night at Nairobi Club. Athletics Kenya has introduced three new awards; the come-back award, corporate social responsibility award and the combined events award.

GLASGOW (GBR): Three-time Olympian and Glasgow girl Lee McConnell will run the 200 m at the British Athletics International Match on Saturday 26 January. Running for the Commonwealth Select team, McConnell will star in the first international athletics event to be held at the new state of the art 5000 seat Emirates Arena. 400m specialist McConnell, one of Scotland’s most decorated athletes of recent times with World, European and Commonwealth medals to her name, will use her vast experience as the Commonwealth side take on four countries in the unique annual format previously held at Kelvin Hall. Russia, Germany, the USA and a Great British team will also go head-to-head as points are awarded according to athlete placings across every event on the afternoon. Informs UK Athletics.

BOLZANO (ITA): The 38th edition of the International New Year’s Eve Run BOclassic in Bolzano presented Ethiopian World champion Imane Merga and Kenyan world silver winner Sylvia Kibet as the first big names. 15,000 spectators, great atmosphere and top class runners. The BOclassic is considered to be the best cast New Year’s Eve Run in the world. „Throughout Europe the crisis is noticeable, races are canceled. Nevertheless, we were able to bring some top-class runners to Bolzano,” manager of the event Gianni Demadonna says. Another star is the South Tyrolean Silvia Weissteiner. In the run-up to the men’s (10 km) and women’s (5 km) elite races, the BOclassic Ladurner amateur run over 5 km takes place on the original track.

BRUSSELS (BEL): Belgian 800m runner Jan Van den Broeck toldlosseveter.nl he is aiming for the final at the European indoor championships this winter. Van den Broeck is in good training and is adding some cross country races to his program. The youngster managed his way into the final in this year’s IAAF World Indoor championships.

AMSTERDAM (NED): Dutch athlete Susan Kuijken confirmed she is currently training very well in Australia under the guidance of Nic Bideau and will not return to Europe for the European cross country championships. After three years of not progressing her times in the 1500m, Kuijken is now aiming to return to her top form and to qualify for the IAAF World championships in Moscow. The former NCAA star from The Netherlands also does not rule out she might switch to the 5000m or road racing in the future she reported to losseveter.nl.

NEW DELHI (IND): The IOC has begun the process to derecognise the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) over the Indian government’s interference in the IOA’s imminent elections. The IOC shot off a letter to the IOA informing it that a proposal to suspend the IOA will be presented to the IOC’s executive board at its next meeting on December 4-5, unless the current situation is rectified writesyahoo.com.

LONDON (GBR): The Mirror reports that Olympic gold long jump medallist Greg Rutherford has ended his relationship with his long term girlfriend because his life has changed too much after winning Olympic gold. Rutherford was quoted “Before the Games, I’d do the odd appearance here and there, maybe once a month. Now it’s got to the point where it’s been five or six a day. It’s been absolutely manic.” As well as a busy schedule of TV appearance with stints on The Xtra Factor, Alan Carr’s Chatty Man and Channel 4’s Hotel GB, Greg has also hit the party circuit it is reported.

AUCKLAND (NZL): New Zealand athletics great Sir Peter Snell has moved to clarify comments that he was reportedly angry at the lack of opportunity offered to him by his own country. The three-time Olympic champion said comments made at a press conference during the IAAF centenary celebrations in Barcelona over the weekend were misinterpreted. Sir Peter distanced himself from a report by international news agency Reuters which ran widely in New Zealand and painted the 73-year-old as bitter that New Zealand didn’t take better advantage of his expertise when he retired in 1965 and that was why he settled in the United States.

LONDON (GBR): London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe has joined some of Britian’s top politicians in urging Prime Minister David Cameron against imposing any state ­regulation on newspapers. Coe has signed letter, along with eight former Cabinet Ministers, 23 Peers and more than 60 MPs, including all Conservative members of the Commons Media Select Committee, published in today’s edition of The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian defending free speech writes Insidethegames.

LAUSANNE (SUI): Samsung Diamond League Athletissima of Lausanne and „Swiss Olympic Volunteer” platform powered by „gaz naturel” and dedicated to volunteer’s work, rewarded their most deserving volunteers at a ceremony which was held on Wednesday at the Mövenpick Hotel (meet headquarters hotel). In protocol sector Roland Cardis after 20 years of loyalty to the meeting, in media sector Florence Juilland (10 years) and in transport department Emma Bilham (dynamism and know-how).