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Lead Stories: Saturday, September 6, 2008

Mutola to Contest Fifth Olympic 800m Final

Posted August 16th, 2008 at 9:15 AM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Olympics

Competing in her sixth Olympic Games and in her final year of elite competition, Maria Mutola will compete in her fifth Olympic 800m final next Monday here in Beijing’s National Stadium, the Bird’s Nest.

In tonight’s semi-finals, Mutola survived some rough stuff on the final turn of the first heat, when Tetyana Petlyuk stumbled, extended her right hand and contacted Mutola’s chest.

“It’s very hard work to get into the final,” said Mutola after the race. “I almost fell over there. I just struggled to finish it.”
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Walker breaks AR, Mutola wins for 16th time at Nike Prefontaine Classic

Posted June 8th, 2008 at 11:34 PM by thefinalsprint.com

Section: News & Results, Track & Field

Meet records fell across all event groups, none bigger than Brad Walker’s American record in the pole vault, and Maria Mutola had a historic exit Sunday at the Nike Prefontaine Classic.

The fourth event of USATF’s Visa Championship Series, the Nike Prefontaine Classic drew a meet-record 14,221 fans to Hayward Field, site of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Track & Field June 27-July 6. They were treated to a formidable show, including no fewer than eight meet records and Walker’s AR.

The 2007 world champion, Walker looked magnificent throughout the competition. He had just one miss, at his opening height of 5.70m/18-8.25, then passed to 5.90m/19-4.25, which he cleared on his first attempt and which won the competition for him. Walker then elevated the bar to 6.04m/19-9.75. On his very first attempt, he cleared, brushing the bar just a bit, but leaving it up.
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Mutola Set for Final Prefontaine Classic Appearance

Posted May 20th, 2008 at 9:30 AM by Bob Ramsak

Section: News & Results, Track & Field

Maria Mutola will put her 15-race Prefontaine Classic win streak on the line when she makes her final appearance at the premiere U.S. meet on June 8.

Mutola, now 35, has announced that this will be her final season, and nowhere has she been a more respected fixture than at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, where she lived, attended high school and trained in the late 1980s and 1990s.

“There has never been another competitor like her,” said meet director Tom Jordan in a media release. “An Olympic gold, three world championship golds, seven world indoor gold medals– she has dominated her event like no other athlete.”
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TFS News Briefs: 2/14/2008

Posted February 14th, 2008 at 1:00 PM by Jimmie R. Markham

Section: News & Results, Marathons, Track & Field, TFS News Briefs

Three Sub 2:07 Marathoners Added To Rotterdam Marathon Entry List
Organizers of the Rotterdam Marathon have ensured another fast race in 2008 by adding three sub 2:07 marathoners to the entry list. The three runners, Robert Cheboror, William Kipsang and Joseph Riri, are Kenyans, of course. The race will be held on Sunday, April 13th, 2008.
Read more at: [IAAF]

Another Strong Women’s Field For 2008 Boston Marathon
Boston Marathon organizers have announced that thee of the top women marathoners in the world will be running in the 112th Boston Marathon to be held on April 21st, 2008, the same weekend as the US Women’s Olympic Marathon Trials. Lidiya Grigoryeva, the defending champion, will race 2006 winner Rita Jeptoo and two-time runner-up Jelena Prokopcuka.
Read more at: [Earthtimes, UK]

Maria Mutola Award Created At Pre Classic
Tom Jordan, the meet director at Eugene, Oregon’s Prefontaine Classic, has created a new award to honor the meet’s outstanding athlete. Fittingly, it will be called the Maria Mutola Outstanding Athlete Award. After all, Mutola has won the Pre Classic 800m an astonishing FIFTEEN TIMES!
Read more at: [The Register-Guard, OR]
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2008 Track & Field
Previews & Predictions:
Women’s Middle-Distance

Posted January 25th, 2008 at 5:25 PM by Jimmie R. Markham

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Olympics

Maria Mutola recently announced that she will retire at the end of the 2008 season. That’s a shame because she has been the ambassador of women’s 800m running ever since she broke on the world-class middle-distance running scene in 1991 with a time of 1:57.63. Since then she’s run between 1:55.19 and 1:58.98 a staggering 108 times. The only other woman to come even close to running that many world-class times in the 800m has been the great Cuban runner Ana Quirot, who ran between 1:54.44 and 1:58.95 a total of 72 times between 1986 and 1997. The 800m event will truly be diminished when Mutola retires.
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Kenyan woman makes history at IAAF World Championships

Posted August 28th, 2007 at 2:47 PM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Special Features, Live Race Coverage

It was at the second IAAF World Championships in Athletics in 1987 when Kenya first put a man on the top step of the podium at 800m in either a world championships or an Olympic Games. Tonight, 20 years later, a Kenyan woman has finally duplicated that feat, joining legends Billy Konchellah, Paul Ruto, Paul Ereng and William Tanui as world or Olympic 800m champions.

Janeth Jepkosgei, the Commonwealth Games champion who ran the fastest-ever time in a world championships semi-final on Sunday, saved more than enough for tonight’s final, leading wire-to-wire in 1:56.04, a new Kenyan record.

“I’m so happy about it,” said Jepkosgei who is from the village of Kapsabet but now lives in Eldoret. “I was not really expecting it.”
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Despite attempted coup Bekele retains 10,000m throne

Posted August 27th, 2007 at 8:57 PM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Track & Field

The prince saw an opportunity to take the throne, but in the end the king’s reign would continue, at least for another two years.

That was the basic scenario which played out in tonight’s much-anticipated men’s 10,000m final which capped an exciting evening of middle and long distance running at the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics at Nagai Stadium.

Sileshi Sihine, the Ethiopian who took the silver medal behind compatriot Kenenisa Bekele at both the 2004 Olympic Games and the 2005 World Championships, saw a chance to move up to the top step of the podium when Bekele fell to third place late in the race and appeared to be struggling.

A fast pace set by world cross country champion Zersenay Tadesse of Eritrea followed by an attack with three laps to go by Kenyan Martin Irungu Mathathi, set the stage for Sihine’s bid for victory. He shot ahead, opening a big gap and it looked like a gold medal move.
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Another superlative looms for Osaka-bound Ottey

Posted August 9th, 2007 at 1:49 PM by Bob Ramsak

Section: News & Results, Track & Field

As soon as she steps to the track for the opening round of the 100m on Sunday, August 26, Merlene Ottey will, yet again be making history. At 47, the Jamaican-born Slovenian sprinter will become the oldest female competitor ever at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics, after being named to the Slovenian squad for Osaka. It will be her eighth appearance at the global championships.

The record she’ll surpass is currently held by Briton Joyce Smith, who competed in the marathon at the inaugural world championships in 1983 when 45 years, 285 days old. But Ottey will most certainly be the only athlete in Osaka who also competed at those first world championships in Helsinki nearly 24 years ago, when she finished second in the 200m and fourth in the 100m for her native Jamaica. She later went on to capture world titles over the longer sprint in 1993 and 1995; in all she’s collected 10 individual and four relay medals in world championship competition, five more than the nearest competitor on the list of multiple medallists, American Jearl Miles Clark, who’s won nine.
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Wins by Jamal, Sinclair the highlights in chilly Lausanne

Posted July 11th, 2007 at 7:55 AM by Martin Kennedy

Section: News & Results, Track & Field

Running in chilly conditions that dipped below 50 degrees F (9 C.), Maryam Yusuf Jamal and Jamaican Kenia Sinclair produced the chief highlights at the Athletissima Super Grand Prix in Lausanne tonight.

After a dismal 13th place finish in Paris last Friday, Jamal was clearly trying to illustrate a point 1500. Running before a supportive hometown crowd –the 22-year-old Ethiopian-born Bahraini has been based in Lausanne since fleeing Ethiopia in 2002– Jamal cruised to a front-running victory in 4:03.61. Never seriously challenged –she had a near four second lead at the bell– Jamal easily held off the late race charge of Ukraine’s Iryna Lishchynska (4:04.27) and Russians Olga Yegorova (4:04.64) and two-time world champion Tatyana Tomashova (4:05.48).

U.S. champion Treniere Clement briefly followed Jamal and pacesetter Olga Komyagina’s solid tempo, but paid for it dearly 800 meters into the race. Fading badly over the final lap and a half, she finished 22nd in the 23 woman field.
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Prefontaine Classic: Recap of middle & long distance events

Posted June 11th, 2007 at 1:57 PM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Track & Field

If the late Steve Prefontaine was watching this meeting from above his beloved Hayward Field, he surely had a smile on his face as gutsy performances in the middle and long distance events dominated this meeting.

For the second year in a row, the meet was held in cool and sometimes rainy conditions, and that was just perfect for the rollicking two-miler which was won by Australian Craig Mottram in the fastest time every on U.S. soil. John Jefferson and Bernard Kiptum set the early pace, and Tariku Bekele and Mottram were running 1-2 when Kiptum left the track after about 2000 meters.

Bekele led out of turn-2 on the final lap, but Mottram started his long sprint with more 250 meter to go. Bekele just couldn’t answer, and the big Aussie motored to the line in a sparkling 8:03.50, blowing through Eliud Kipchoge’s U.S. all-comer’s best of 8:07.68 set at the same meet in 2005.

“It comes down to the size of your balls, really,” said Mottram on live television after the race.

Bekele ran a personal best 8:04.83, while a hard-charging Matt Tegenkamp broke Alan Webb’s U.S. best of 8:11.48 with a terrific 8:07.07 clocking. Dathan Ritzenhein nearly got under Webb’s mark, finishing in 8:11.74 in fourth place. As for Webb, he finished a disappointing 9th, surely a letdown after his commanding victory over Bernard Lagat in the Reebok Grand Prix last Saturday.
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