ROBLES IS READY

HAVANA (CUB): Olympic gold medalist and world record holder Dayron Robles is quoted by AP as healthy and ready to come to Europe next week. He should compete for first time since Berlin World Championships where he pulled out. His first meets will be in Germany, on February 3 in Dusseldorf and February 6 in Stuttgart. His main is World Indoor Championships in Doha.

 

WANJIRU HM DEBUT IN USA

NEW ORLEANS (USA):  Olympic marathon gold medalist Samuel Wanjiru in his build-up towards London Marathon will run his first ever half-marathon in the USA. It will happen at the inaugural Rock ‘n’ Roll Mardi Gras Marathon & ½ Marathon on February 28.  “I’m very happy to be part of the first Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon in New Orleans,” said Wanjiru, a distance where he first set the world record in 2005, then lowered it to the current mark of 58:33 in 2007. “The race is perfect timing in my build up to the London Marathon, I know it will be very competitive and should be very fast. I’m coming to do my best and hope for a great performance.” Writes trackandfieldnews.com. It was originally planned that Wanjiru would take on Ryan Hall, but he has unfortunately been forced to pull out.

 

N. CARTER FOR INDOORS

KINGSTON (JAM): Relay olympic winner and world record holder Jamaican Nesta Carter plans his first indoor meets for this winter. He wants to run at Aviva Grand Prix in Birmingham on February 20 and qualify for World Indoor Championships in Doha. Carter opens in Jamaica already this weekend with a 100 m.  „I‘ve been running some good 60m times, me and coach talked about it and I said I would like to try so he said alright,“ Carter told the Jamaican Observer. Back in 2005 he ran as high-schooler in New York 6.87 at 60 m in his only indoor race of the career. Carter improved his 100 m PB last autumn to 9.91 in Shanghai race. Jamaican national record is 6.49 by Michael Green in 1997. Another top Jamaicans running indoor this year are Lerone Clarke and mainly relay olympic winner Michael Frater who is scheduled for Stuttgart on February 6.

 

PHILLIPS TO JUMP IN STUTTGART

STUTTGART (GER): 24th Sparkassen Cup (IAAF Indoor Permit) planned for Stuttgart on February 6 wants to confirm its status among the best indoor meetings in the world. In all 13 events world class athletes will compete. Meseret Defar runs the 3000 m with the aim to attack her own world indoor record, Russian Anna Alminova could be a tough oponent. Last year fastest woman Carmelita Jeter will be in the 60 m (she also runs in Dusseldorf on February 3). Special the women 1500 m duel of World indoor champion Gelete Burka and World outdoor champion Maryam Jamal. Lolo Jones and Priscilla Lopes-Schliep should fight for the 60 m hurdles win, in the men race Dayron Robles with David Oliver, not to underestimate Czech Petr Svoboda. World champion Anna Rogowska competes against home elite and also full of top names is men´s pole vault (Mesnil, Lavillenie and German elite). World champion Dwight Phillips will compete in his special event for first time this winter. In the men´s 60 m Michael Frater and Churandy Martina are the headliners. Tariku Bekele and Edwin Soi in Ethiopia-Kenya duel are the favorites of 3000 m. Already 6500 tickets are sold.

 

BORZAKOVSKIY VS. ISMAIL

DUSSELDORF (GER): The EA Indoor Permit, 5th PSD Bank Meeting will have on February 3 five olympic winners competing. The organizers are announcing that this years edition will be the best ever. Cuban Dayron Robles runs the 60 m hurdles, Tomasz Majewski is in shot put, Yuriy Borzakovskiy at 800 m (against Ahmed Ismail of Sudan) and Dwight Phillips in 60 m. Also olympic relay gold medalist is Bahamian Chandra Sturrup in the 60 m against US Carmelita Jeter. In women triple jump another Berlin gold medalist Yargelis Savigne of Cuba. In women 60 m hurdles reigning world indoor champion Lolo Jones of USA. Kenyans Daniel Kipchirchir Komen and Paul Kipsiele Koech are aiming for fast 5000 m. Augustin Choge is the 1500 m top name.

 

ISINBAYEVA THINKS ABOUT WR

MOSCOW (RUS): Sport-Express writes that world and olympic winner Yelena Isinbayeva is ready for her first meet of the year on February 7 at Russian Winter IAAF Permit. The paper writes, that Isinbayeva aims to improve her world indoor record 500 from last year meet in Donetsk. Interestingly none of her 27 world records was set in Russia. Isinbayeva plans only three meets in winter, after Moscow the Donetsk event on March 6 and World Indoor Championships in Doha.

 

OTHER NEWS

 

ATLANTA (USA): The Atlanta Track Club announced in the Atlanta Journal-constitution that the 55,000 entrants for the Peachtree road race will be lined up based on submitted finish times. The runners, who will line up for the race on July 4th, will be able to run their times in certified races. Previously, the starting positions of the runners were determined randomly, except for the elite athletes. Runners who do not submit a time will be placed in one of the last starting grids.

 

MONCTON (CAN): The organizing committee of the IAAF world junior championships announced the official start of the ticket sales. The championship will be staged in Moncton, Canada from July 19th- 25th 2010.

 

INDIANAPOLIS (USA): USA Track and Field announced in a press release that the VISA Championships series will see an increase in bonus money available to the athletes. The VISA championships is a series of nationally televised USATF competitions featuring the best American athletes. As of 2010 the US athlete who posts the best performance will receive a bonus of $30,000 with the first runner-up receiving a bonus of $15,000 and the second runner-up earning $5,000. Points will be given to the performance of every winning athlete according to the IAAF scoring tables of athletics, determining the top 3 performances over all. Last year winners got 25 000 USD. Last indoor winners were hurdlers Terrence Trammell and Lolo Jones. The series consists in winter of Millrose Games, Boston Reebok Indoor Games and USATF Championships.

 

KINGSTON (JAM): 800m world record holder Wilson Kipketer will be a guest lecturer at the Gibson Relays Technical corner. Kipketer will address athletes at the GC Foster College during the week leading up to the Relays and will also be a special guest of the organizers on the day of the Relays. “We were trying to get him here from last year because the president of the JAAA had indicated to us that they wanted to develop middle and long distance running and I think that we have a responsibility to assist in this direction and felt that we could get Mr Kipketer here,“ said McCook, chairman of the Gibson Relays organizer committee. „We thought that this was an opportune time since we have a technical corner each year, with the lecture geared towards an area of development needs,“ he added in the Jamaica Gleaner.

 

BUDAPEST (HUN): All-Athletics.com announced best athletes in the 2009 in new categories. Best jumpers of the year are Dwight Phillips and Blanka Vlasic, best throwers Christian Cantwell and Valerie Vili and best combined event athletes Trey Hardee and Jessica Ennis. More at www.all-athletics.com.

 

COLLEGE STATION (USA): World Youth sprint gold medalist Prezel Hardy picked Texas A&M for his collegiate career over University of Texas writes kdhnews.com. „It was probably the hardest decision I‘ve ever had to make in my life, because pretty much everybody in my family, except of my dad, have grown up big Longhorn fans,“ Hardy said. The sprinter thought about which school would help him most in his mission to compete in the 2012 Olympics and with dreams of improving his sprint time enough to crack an under-10 second flat time, Hardy said he chose A&M most of all because of its world-class coach, Pat Henry. With his decision to go to A&M Hardy foregoes a possible career in football and decided to concentrate fully on his career in track and field. The 17-years old sprinter won last summer the World Youth Championships in Italy and has a PB of 10.34.

 

AMSTERDAM (NED): Former steeple European record holder and European medalist Dutch Simon Vroemen is cleared from doping allegations. The decision of KNAU (Dutch Athletics Union) was announced by Friday. Because of the whole case Vroemen (40) missed the Olympic Games in Beijing. He asked for doping control in June 2008 in Cottbus after running olympic qualifying standard 8:12.50. Surprisingly the test was positive for metandienon. Fortunately for him scientific research has found that asthma medicine caused the positive result. Also the analysis was accompanied with irregularities. His provisional suspension since 2008 could now end, but as always the possibilty of an appeal exists. It is already second case where Vroemen was cleared. In his issue at European Championships 2006 in Sweden he used infusion what was the cause of the problem. “I m happy that my name is cleared. I always was training and competing without doping, that is now confirmed,” he was quoted.

 

BRUSSELS (BEL): Belgian media are informing that top 400 m runner Jonathan Borlee left for Tallahassee and his studies at Florida State University. His twin brother and also world class 400 m runner Kevin is there since last week. He is studying physiotherapy. Jonathan on the other side has no commitments to compete for the university and will be free to run as planned in relay for Belgium at World Indoor Championships in Doha.

 

PRAGUE (CZE): Czech walking record holder Barbora Pitakova (formerly Dibakova) gave birth to her second child a daughter Adelka. With walking coach Ivo Pitak she already has a three years old boy Matej. Father was at training camp in Italy, but after fast drive he made it on time to Prague.

 

PREVIEWS

 

Millrose Games

NEW YORK (USA): 11 Olympic medalists and 16 World Outdoor Championships medalists will compete on January 29 at the 103rd Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The first IAAF Indoor Permit meeting of 2010 will see an impressive attempt of Bernard Lagat to claim his 8th and record victory on Wanamaker Mile to better the historic mark of Eamonn Coghlan with 7 wins. Lagat, 35, who holds the third-fastest indoor mile mark in history (3:49.89, run in Fayetteville, Arkansas in 2005) will face the 2008 Olympic gold medalist Asbel Kiprop, (Deresse Mekkonnen was scheduled to run but withdrew due to visa difficulties). Two-time Olympic 200m gold medalist Veronica Campbell-Brown of Jamaica will look to capture her first Visa women‘s 60m Millrose victory since 2006. 2004 Olympic gold medalist Tim Mack will lead the field in the Fred Schmertz men‘s pole vault, where he‘ll be challenged by 2008 Olympic Games fourth-place finisher and two-time Millrose winner Derek Miles and France‘s Renaud Lavillenie (bronze in Berlin 2009). Among women, 2008 Olympic Games silver medallist, Jenn Suhr will be the favorite. Two-time Olympic silver medalist Terrence Trammell enters as the defending champ and will be challenged by 2009 World decathlon champion Trey Hardee. Reigning World 110m hurdles champion Ryan Brathwaite of Barbados, and Aries Merritt (USA) could also surprise. Canadian standout Priscilla Lopes-Schliep will be challenged by fellow Canadian Perdita Felicien, who was the 2003 World Outdoor 100m hurdles champion. From the other names, men‘s 400m hurdles champion Bershawn „Batman“ Jackson, top world´s shot putters Adam Nelson and Reese Hoffa together with Christian Cantwell, Michael Rodgers in the men‘s 60m are the biggest names of the Millrose Games, which is the first stop of USA Track & Field‘s Visa Championship Series. USATF says in a release.

 

Aviva match

GLASGOW (GBR): American sprinter, Carmelita Jeter, 30, is looking forward to her first visit to Glasgow at the Aviva International Match on January 30 at the Kelvin Hall. Jeter set her PB of 7.11s at the Aviva Grand Prix last February and now the Los Angeles-based athlete can’t wait to make her mark in front of the local crowd in Scotland. She will line up against another Berlin World Championship finalist Chandra Sturrup of the Bahamas at the first UKA Major Event of the year. The seventeen-strong GB&NI team will face tough opposition from teams representing USA, Sweden, Commonwealth Select, and Germany at the highly anticipated event which marks the beginning of the indoor season. Among others, Jessica Ennis, Lisa Dobriskey, Craig Pickering, Chris Tomlinson; Jenny Meadows and Andy Turner provide the relevant experience. In US team also to note Shawn Crawford and Lolo Jones. In Commonwealth team world 800 m champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi and Godfrey Mokoena in Long Jump.

 

Osaka women

OSAKA (JPN): Osaka International Women‘s Marathon, one of the six elite marathons in Japan this season gets rolling this Sunday Jan. 31. World Championships marathoner, Mari Ozaki is the second-fastest woman in the field by PB (behind Romanian Lidia Simon - 2:22:54, Osaka 2000) with her time of 2:23:30 from Osaka ‚03. Among the foreign elites, Marisa Barros (Portugal) and Amane Gobena (Ethiopia) look to be the most dangerous. Neither has extensive marathon experience, but each holds a 2:26 PB set last year. As usual, there is a share of first-timers lining up in Osaka as well. Ryoko Kizaki (Team Daihatsu) was a university ace before joining Team Daihatsu, while Azusa Nojiri (Team Daiichi Seimei) was a pro XC skier before becoming a teammate of Berlin World Championships silver medalist Yoshimi Ozaki a year and a half ago. Overseas viewers should be able to watch live online using Keyhole TV, japanrunningnews.blogspot.com writes.

 

Karlsruhe

KARLSRUHE (GER): The BW-Bank-meeting on January 31st promises an elite field of some of the world‘s best athletes. World long jump champion Dwight Phillips is announced to run the 60m agaist Mark Jelks and Churandy Martina. The women reigning world indoor champion Angela Williams will take on world leading Laverne Jones-Ferette. In the 3000m Ethiopian Meselech Melkamu is favorite, compatriot Gelete Burka is in the 1500m. On the men‘s side world record holder Saif Saeed Shaheen is announced to do the 3000m. In the 60m hurdles Czech world leader Petr Svoboda is the headliner with US legend Allen Johnson. The women‘s race promises the start of Lolo Jones who will come after running in Glasgow the day before. In the men‘s pole vault a very strong field is announced with French Romain Mesnil and Damiel Dossevi and top Germans. Women high jump is the highlight as Ariane Friedrich is set for another great performance. The meet has an indoor 4x100m race as the last event of the evening as Germany won the bronze last year at world championships.

 

Cinque Mulini

SAN VITORE OLONA (ITA): At the 78th cross country Cinque Mulini in Italy (IAAF Permit) pre race favourite and olympic winner Nancy Jebet Lagat from Kenya will be challenged by Scottish Stephanie Twell and Portuguese Ana Dulce Félix. In the men‘s race Ethiopian Hunegaw Mesfin and Kenyan Richard Mateelong will meet at the starting line. Belgian Atelaw Bekele, third in Dublin in the U23 race, and Ukrainian Vasyl Matviyuck will be close contenders as well writes fidal.it.

 

Australia Cup

SYDNEY (AUS): This weekend the Australian athletics tour kicks off with the annual state-versus-state Australia cup at the Australian institute of sport. In the long jump all eyes are on world championships bronze medalist Mitchell Watt. Watt is keen to get his 2010 campaign going and keeps his eyes on breaking Jai Taurima’s national record of 8m49. Sean Wroe will lead the charge for the Best of the Rest team in the 100m, in which he takes on Patrick Johnson. Joel Millburn and Ben Offereins will line up in the 400m. Tamsyn Lewis is set to compete in both the 400m and 400m hurdles.

 

Sanchez again 400 m hurdles indoor

MONDEVILLE (FRA): Dominican star Felix Sanchez runs here on Saturday his second indoor 400 m hurdles. Last Sunday he clocked 50.93 in Bordeaux. Jamaican sub 10 runner Lerone Clarke is also on the start list. French triple record holder Teddy Tamgho is another headliner. In men´s pole vault Germans Spiegelburg and Borgeling will compete with Russian Pavlov and home Clavier.

 

Kenyan Police

NAIROBI (KEN): Police will hold their inter-divisional cross country championships to select their teams for the February 20 National Trials for Bydgoszcz. At the Prisons Staff Training College in Ruiru, all eyes will be on Osaka 2007 world marathon champion, Luke Kibet, the men’s 12km defending champion and John Mwangangi, who trailed him to the tape with the pair lined-up for a sequel. While Kibet will be using the race to test his shape ahead of the road-running season, Mwangangi represents Prison’s best prospects of producing a squad member in the Kenyan team for the March 28 World Cross in Poland.

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