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Athletics News - 28.02. |
Birmingham News
Poland
Team of Poland lost because of flu shot putter Tomasz Majewski and female 800 m runner Silwia Ejdys.
Greece
New addition into pentathlon after Tia Hellebaut deleted her participation is the greek athlete Alena-Maria Padi who bettered her best to 4251 this winter. She was running for Greece at last years World Cup in the 4x400 m relay.
Germany
Due to flu the high jumper Eike Onnen (this indoor bettered to 230) will not travel to Birmingham. On the other hand the status of Long Jumper Christian Reif was confirmed and he will compete as www.leichtathletik.de informs.
Russia
National Federation president Valentin Balakhnichev said for russian media that he expects from his young squad 6-9 golds and in total around 20 medals to top the nations ranking. High jump title defender Anna Chicherova informed that she is totally healthy and wants to attack the medal podium. „I did not competed at the meetings recently, we saved some energy for Birmingham,“ she said. Her this season best is 198 as opposed by five 2 metres jumpers entered (Veneva, Vlasic, Hellebaut, Beitia, Di Martino), but she beat some of them in Arnstadt.
Record TV Coverage
Record number of 62 countries will recieve coverage of the European Indoor Championships. It comprises of 36 European and 5 non-European broadcasters.
Athlete of the month
EAA is offering again the Athlete of the month award. There are 15 men and 15 women as candidates for their results during February 2007. In the public vote the spanish website readers were the most active for the moment as in time of writing this EME News Sergio Gallardo and Ruth Beitia were leading the polls.
Bets
At www.athleticbet.com you can bet for the events at European Indoor Championships. For Friday finals for example at 60mHurdles men for the moment Andy Turner and Stanislav Olijars have the highest odds at 2.80. In Shot Put Joachim Olsen from Denmark is clearly leading at 1.30 and at 60 m Hurdles for women it is even clearer for Susanna Kallur from Sweden (1.05).
Outdoor News
WAT to start on Friday
IAAF World Athletics Tour (this season 23 meets) starts on Friday in Melbourne into its 2nd year. Athletes will fight for points to secure the participation in World Athletics Final later in September in Stuttgart. There are three levels of scoring – the highest by Golden League (6) and Super Grand Prix Meetings (5), second by Grand Prix (12) and third by selected Area Permit Meetings (29). In comparison to 2006 there are following changes – GP meet in Helsinki will not be staged, Athens meeting is now Grand Prix (last year Super Grand Prix) and the second British meet in the series will be in Sheffield (last year in Gateshead). There have been also discussion about inclusion of succesfull Area Permits like Rhetymno (GRE) or New York, but so far that did not happen.
The highlights in Melbourne
Men 200 (P. Norman Memorial): Crawford-P.Johnson-Ross-Steffensen, 400 m: L. Merritt-Ormrod-Wroe, 800 m: C. Rono, 1500 m: S. Korir-W. Cheruiyot-Fountain, 5000 m: Mottram-B. Songok-Marwa, 400mH: L. Garrett-Cole, LJ: Moffitt-Noffke-Lapierre, PV: Burgess-Hooker-B.Walker-Stevenson-Markov (who announced his retirement after this competition), SP: Cantwell-Martin
Wom mile: Corrigan-Lyne, 100mH: Perry-McLellan, 5000 m: B. Johnson-Fleshman-Wellings, LJ: Thompson-N. Graham, DT: Faumuina
South African series will continue in Stellenbosch
Yellow Pages Ultimate Series will continue on Friday in South Africa with fifth meet in Stellenbosch. Local fans will wait for two athletes who made the headlines in Europe. Sprinter Morne Nagel is leading the world indoor lists at 200 m with 20.63 from Leipzig and Khotso Mokoean won last Friday in Paris and registered national indoor record 818 cm. Also competing will be for example African Heptahtlon record holder Margaret Simpson from Ghana or Slovak hammer record holder Libor Charfreitag.
At Provincial Championships last weekend Anika Smit achieved 193 in High Jump, javelin thrower Justine Robbeson got 61.92 m and superb mark by double amputee (above the knees) Oscar Pistorius who clocked unbelievable 46.87 at 400 m.
Russian Winter Throws
Only now the results from Russian Winter Throw Championships are known (from Sergey Tikhonov). They were held in Feb 19-21 and the best mark came from javelin thrower Aleksander Ivanov who got 86.26 and three other 80 m throws. Igor Sukhomlinov was second (80.39) and former champion Sergey Makarov returned after injury with 78.90. Discus winner Aleksandr Borichevskiy achieved 61.64, while best junior Nikolay Serdyuk marked new russian record 62.43 with 1.75 kg implement. Hammer winner Igor Vinichenko registered 77.21 and was able to beat some of the more experienced throwers (Zagorniy, Khersontsev). European champion Darya Pishchalnikova was the best discus thrower 59.35 and world record holder Tatyana Lysenko the best in hammer 72.60, other big names also competed Gulfiya Khanafeyeva was only fifth (63.75) and second place went to Yekaterina Khorosikh (70.21). Javelin winner Mariya Abakumova got 59.30 m.
Other News
ATHENS: As www.hellenicathletes.com informs Periklis Iakovakis returned last week from his training camp in South Africa. The European Champion wants to start his season in Doha, Qatar in May at Super GP meet, but as far EME News is informed 400mH are not in the programme this year. But he can compete week earlier on May 5 as in last year in Osaka, Japan where his event is scheduled.
LONDON: During media conference call with World Marathon Majors event directors it was interesting to hear that for the moment a new member (6th marathon) is not beeing considered (Tokyo expressed the will to join the elite), that this events want to continue with the strategy to have special competition vests with names for elite runners and that a sponsor for the whole series is beeing considered. London Marathon director David Bedford also expressed his view about current status of olympic champion Mizuki Noguchi from Japan. She is responding well to her achilles problem and her entry is still valid.
SHANGHAI: Xinhua News Agency reports at its website that olympic champion and world record holder Liu Xiang started his preparation for summer season. "Liu is in superb training form and practised very hard after the Chinese lunar new year, although he did not have a good rest during the festival," said Liu's coach Sun Haiping on the website of Liu. The chinese hero is feeling that the biggest threat in future will come from young Cuban Dayron Robles. Liu will moove to Beijing in March for training behind-door (as Xinhua says) and should compete early May at Osaka Grand Prix. In July he wants to come back to Europe and mainly to Lausanne where he set last year the global mark 12.88.
Meetings
After International Indoor Meetings 2007 are over the final ranking (although unofficial) is led by Stuttgart before Birmingham and Boston. Stockholm achieved fifth position and Athens 11th from last ones. Special meetings are divided into two categories – the ones with less than 10 events but more than 3 and second group are the classical special meets (mostly jumping) with 1, 2 or 3 events.
Top 10 meets: 1. Stuttgart 36 082, 2. Birmingham 35 721, 3. Boston 35 605, 4. Karlsruhe 35 576, 5. Stockholm 35 517, 6. Moskva 35 329, 7. Dusseldorf 35 055, 8. Valencia 34 915, 9. New York 34 849, 10. Fayetteville 34 749
Special meets I top 3 (more than 3 and less than 10 events): 1. Paris 11 927, 2. Goteborg 11 781, 3. Aubiere 11 738
Special meets II top 5 (less than 4 events): 1. Arnstadt 11 740, 2. Donyetsk 11 735, 3. Banska Bystrica 11 655, 4. Bydgoszcz 11 547, 5. Bucuresti 11 493
PARIS/BERLIN: On Thursday (March 1) two Golden League Meetings are starting to sell the tickets. ISTAF in Berlin (they will have 70 years after first meet this year) is having tickets available in range from 8,50 E to 70 E. Gaz de France event in Paris is offering in different categories prices from 3 E to 40 E.
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Alfons Juck
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