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Lead Stories: Monday, December 1, 2008

Moonlighting at the Marathon, Petrova Takes on Honolulu

Posted December 8th, 2007 at 8:30 AM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Marathons, Track & Field

Last August 27th Tatyana Petrova demonstrated that she belongs in the top echelon of world athletics when she earned a silver medal in the 3000m steeplechase at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics. It was a run she made with confidence, and her performance put USD 30,000 in prize money in her bank account.

But on Sunday, she’ll be taking on a completely different challenge, one she admits she may not be entirely ready for: the 35th edition of the Honolulu Marathon.
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Daegu, Moscow to host 2011, 2013 IAAF World Champs

Posted March 27th, 2007 at 12:22 PM by Adam Jacobs

Section: News & Results

Daegu, South Korea, and Moscow were selected to host the 2011 and 2013 editions of the World Athletics Championships, the IAAF announced on the final day of the IAAF Council Meeting in Mombasa, Kenya.

The bids by South Korea’s third largest city and the Russian capital beat back the bids presented by Brisbane, Australia, and Barcelona, Spain.

Kim Bum-Il, the Mayor of Daegu who served as the Marketing Director for the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, said the biggest challenge facing his city will also be their primary goal, which is to create “a new athletics culture in the emerging countries.”
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Big marathon debuts in Tokyo on Sunday

Posted February 16th, 2007 at 12:00 PM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Marathons

Some of the world’s oldest and most important marathons are held in Japan, like the Fukuoka Marathon which was held for the 60th time last September and featured a blazing run by Haile Gebrselassie.

But that race had a only 303 finishers, and is emblematic of the elitist status which marathons occupy in Japan. In fact, there are no large mass marathons in Japan. The largest, known to Race Results Weekly, is the Tsukuba Marathon which had 9708 finishers last year, roughly one fourth the total finishers of the ING New York City Marathon, the world’s largest with 37,866 in 2006. The largest marathon in the world in terms of Japanese participants is not in Japan, but rather in the United States. The Honolulu Marathon had 17,905 entrants from Japan in 2006 out of a total of 28,635.

But all of that will change on Sunday as the Tokyo Marathon for 2007 will, for the first time, permit recreational runners to enter.
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IAAF reaches blockbuster (and sorely needed) broadcast deal

Posted November 18th, 2006 at 12:00 PM by Jenna Sumara

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Olympics

IAAF International Association of Athletics Foundation running track cross country association The International Association of Athletics Foundation (IAAF) announced a deal on Sunday that will provide a marked increase in broadcast coverage for its premier global competitions and the IAAF World Championships in Athletics (including Osaka 2007 and Berlin 2009). This increase will be accessible through agreements with free-to-air, cable and Internet TV.

This is an important, although long-overdue step. Competitive running will always be held back from gaining the type of public following that it deserves (and can achieve) unless it is embraced and featured by the media. Read the rest of this entry »

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