Oscar Pistorius draws crowds where ever he goes. RBR has spoken to Mr. Pistorius and finds him to be a very humble, straight talking athlete. Oscar inspires athletes and fans. His chase of the 400 meter standard captivated the world. TIME magazine, on of the most influential publications in print and digital (follow them on twitter, great reads), named to Top 100 Most influential.

Oscar Pistorius,  2011 Milano, photo by PhotoRun.net

PISTORIUS
AMONG TOP 100 IN THE WORLD

NEW YORK
(USA): Paralympic star sprinter Oscar Pistorius was named among the 100 most
influential people in the world by the Time magazine. He is the only name from
athletics in the list, from sports for example Lionel Messi and Nenad Djokovic
are included. But the mixture has singer Adele, british royal celebrity Pippa
Middleton, also the likes of financier Warren Buffett or US Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernake to popular entertainer Beyonce.

VCB
TO BEGIN ON SATURDAY

GAINESVILLE
(USA): Another top name competing at Tom Jones Memorial Meet on Saturday in
Florida will be the reigning olympic and world gold medalist at the 200 m
Veronica Campbell-Brown of Jamaica. She then plans for Kingston and Shanghai,
in this cases most probably the 100 m races and next 200 m in Europe at 51st
Golden Spike of Ostrava in the Czech Republic on May 25.

BRITISH
SELECTION

LONDON
(GBR): Only one spot remains on the British team for a woman to run this
summer’s Olympic Marathon here, yet five still hope to claim it. Four of them–Claire
Hallissey, Liz Yelling, Louise Damen and Freya Murray–will compete in Sunday’s
Virgin London Marathon, while the fifth, Jo Pavey, will watch on television.
All will be hoping for the best. Pavey, 38, a veteran of three Olympic
Games, ran two solid marathons last year and provisionally holds the third team
berth behind Paula Radcliffe and Mara Yamauchi who have already been selected.
At the London Marathon last April in her debut at the distance, Pavey clocked
2:28:24, then came back to run 2:28:42 in New York last November on a much
tougher course. However, Pavey can lose her spot to one of the four women
running here on Sunday should they surpass her time from London. Each of them
would have to run a personal best to do so. Informs David Martin. In other
story insidethegames informs that Paula Radcliffe may not take up her place in
the London 2012 marathon unless she is in top condition, her childhood friend
and potential team-mate, Liz Yelling, revealed.

IAAF
VISITED MOSCOW

MOSCOW
(RUS): IAAF Coordination commission visited Moscow in preparation for the World
Championships 2013. The visit ended succesfully with the IAAF Vice President
Sergey Bubka stating the LOC work goes on right pace with experience with
numerous international events in the past. For official transport with athletes
„green line” will be opened in the Moscow streets which are known for lot of
traffic. In total 4100 participants from 212 countries (among them 2300
athletes) are expected into the Russian main city. On the eve of the event IAAF
Congress will be held. Tickets programme will start one year before the event.

OTHER NEWS

KINGSTON
(JAM): Continuing a 20-year tradition, LIME, the biggest support of
Jamaican Track & Field, has provided a sponsorship package valued at
close to 2.3 million JAD to support the 23 teams from local schools who will be
competing in this year’s Penn Relays.

ATHENS
(GRE): Greek Athletics is starting its activities this weekend despite
economical difficulties and provisional suspension of the SEGAS. Club
Championships will be held at all usual places in the country as in the past.
From Athens to Crete, from Corfu to Rhodos and also in Thessaloniki and
Larissa.

VITORIA
(ESP): The 1992 and 1996 US Olympic triple jump trialist Dmitry Piterman (48,
PB 16.45) has been order by a court in the Spanish city of Vitoria to pay
the local soccer club Alavés 6.8 million euros. He was found guilty of
financial negligence and deliberate mismanagement which ultimately resulted in
the team going bankrupt in 2007. Piterman, who now lives in Piedmont near
Oakland and won the 45+ triple jump title at the 2011 WMA World Masters Outdoor
Track & Field Championships with a leap of 13.88m, has also been
disqualified from running a business in Spain for 15 years. The 2001 UEFA
Cup finalists, who now languish in Spanish soccer’s third tier, sued Piterman –
the club’s president and largest shareholder between 2004 and 2007 – after an
economically disastrous three years in which the club accrued debts of around
25 million euros. Piterman had previous owned several other soccer clubs in
Spain after becoming a property developer there in the early 1990s.

AMSTERDAM
(NED): Dutch heptathlete Jolanda Keizer announced she is ending her athletics
career at the age of 27. Keizer managed a promising 9 th place at the
Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 (her PB 6370 from that competition) and is the
2009 European indoor silver medalist in the pentathlon. Injuries have prevented
Keizer from competing since 2009 and the Sweden based athlete now decided she
has lost her battle against injuries and is returning home to The Netherlands
reports losseveter.nl.

BRUSSELS
(BEL): Belgian decathlete Thomas Van der Plaetsen has confirmed his
participation for the IAAF World Challenge meeting of Gotzis on May 26 and 27.
Van der Plaetsen is soon returning from a two-month training camp in South
Africa and will compete in local meetings before heading to Götzis, where he hopes
to qualify for the London Olympic Games. The 21-year old also confirmed the
European championships in Helsinki are high on his priority list.

KINGSTON
(JAM) : Jamaican 400m athlete Davita Prendergast (50.86 PB last year) has
signed a two year edorsement deal with shoe company Puma announces her
agency WAFEL Sports Management. Prendergast was part of last year’s world
championships silver medal winning 4x400m relay team.

BERLIN
(GER): Former discus champion Lars Riedel has become the public’s favorite for
the German dance show ‘let’s dance’. Even though Riedel received the least
amount of points from the judges, the audience at home supported Riedel and his
partner securing him a place in the 7th round of the show reports
leichtathletik.de.

MADRID
(ESP): IAAF reports that no less than 12 000 runners will gather on Sunday to
take part in the 35th ‘Rock’n’Roll Madrid Marathon’. This event is an IAAF
Silver Label Road Race and has attracted a number of fine specialists over
the 42.195km distance. In the men’s section, there will be a numerous crop
of Kenyan representatives led by the defending champion Moses Arusei, who broke
the course record in 2011 thanks to a 2:10:58 time. The most recent
sub-2:10 time among entrants was posted by Ethiopia’s Hailu Abebe thanks to a 2:09:52
for second in Reims last year. The women’s competition includes a six-athlete
group with career bests in the 2:27-2:32 region headed by Russia’s Natalya
Volgina (2:27:32), who took the Dusseldorf Marathon in 2:30:47 two years.

HAVANA
(CUB): Cuba’s Olympic 110m hurdles champion Dayron Robles said to AFP that he
is now injury-free and will start his build-up to the London Games in Ecuador.
Robles, the world record holder, hurt his back in a training accident in
Spain in March which ruled him out of the indoor world championships in
Istanbul where he would have defended his title.”I am completely recovered from
my injury and I am going to Guayaquil in Ecuador for two weeks starting
from Friday where I will be working on my technique,” the 25-year-old
said. Robles plans to open his season on May 1 in Martinique, then to run in
Ponce at IAAF World Challenge meet in Puerto Rico on May 12. He plans also his
first US trip to Pre Classic in Eugene and adidas Grand Prix in New York.

LONDON
(GBR): British sprinter Dwain Chambers and cyclist David Millar are likely to
be free to compete for Team GB in London this summer, after British Olympic
Association insiders privately conceded defeat in their legal battle to retain
its lifetime doping ban. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is next week
expected to reject the BOA’s appeal against the decision of the World
Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to rule its lifetime ban for „serious” doping
offences non-compliant with its global code, writes The Guardian.

LONDON
(GBR): Daley Thompson’s gold medal-winning decathlon performance from the 1984
Los Angeles Olympics has been voted as athletics fans’ favourite Games
performance from over the last 60 years, according to an online poll by UK
Athletics (UKA). In second place was Kelly Holmes’ emotional achievement in
earning an Olympic gold medal in the 800 meters at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Holmes added 1,500m gold in Athens, an achievement which also gave her third
place in the online survey, and made her, overall, the recipient of the most
votes writes Insidethegames.

LONDON
(GBR): After different exchanges of views one thing looks clear. Former world champion
Bershawn Jackson who leads the current world lists with 48.49 at the 400 m
hurdles will clash for first time this year with 2011 World winner Dai Greene
in Rome at Golden Gala Samsung Diamond League on May 31. Both runners confirmed
that. Their head-to-head situation is 10:3 in favor of the US runner.

GEORGE
TOWN (CAY): Women´s 100 m hurdles race at the new Cayman Invitational on May 9
should see a small USA vs Jamaica duel. For US running will be Ginnie
Crawford, Damu Cherry and Queen Harrison with indoor national champion Kristi
Castlin. On the Jamaican saide veterans Vonnette Dixon and Delloreen Ennis.

SAO
PAULO (BRA): Pole vault world champion Fabiana Murer will clash at Brazilian
meetings on May 16 in Sao Paulo and May 20 in Rio de Janeiro with Cuban record
holder Yarisley Silva. The Cuban improved outdoors to 475 last year and this
indoor to national undercover mark of 472.

RESULTS

LAWRENCE
(USA, Apr 19): Former US Indoor champion Janay De Loach won the downtown long
jumping at Kansas Relays with 661 (+0.5).

WALNUT
(USA, Apr 19): First day of MtSAC Relays saw 13:22 5 k runner Evan Jager
debuting with good 8:26.14 in the steeple and Kenyan Stephen Sambu winning the
10 000 m in 28:06.16. Jamaican Korene Hinds won the women steeple in world
leading 9:42.27.

AZUSA
(USA, Apr 19): Grenada national record holder Kurt Felix won the decathlon at
the Cal Invitational / Mt Sac Relays Combined Events with 7792 points. Annet
Fleming of Germany improved to 5851 to win the heptathlon.

CHULA
VISTA (USA, Apr 19): Great men discus at the OTC Pre Olympic series meet.
Croatian Martin Maric won with personal best and world leading 66.53 ahead of
Dutch duo Rutger Smith 66.33 and Erik Cadee 66.10. Fourth place for 2002
European champion Robert Fazekas from Hungary 64.94. Former US world champion
Brad Walker cleared 572 in the pole vault. Jade Nicholls of Great Britain was
the best in women discus (60.51). It was only her second ever 60+ result.

CHANGZHOU
(CHN, Apr 20): Solid girls javelin during first day of Chinese Junior Championships.
Li Shiying improved to 57.52 m. From Tilastopaja.

VILNIUS
(LTU, Apr 19): Lithuania´s discus hero Virgilijus Alekna opened his season with
65.72 at a local meet.

NOTE

LONDON
(GBR): Ken Nakamura notes that Lucy Wangui Kabuu DNF at 2007 Osaka before
finishing second in 2012 Dubai in 2:19:34 and Florence Kiplagat DNF in 2011
Boston before winning 2011 Berlin with 2:19:44 when speaking about number of
marathons for both London favorites.