Marathon: Gebrselassie wins Fukuoka maratahonDec 3, 2006 (Kyodo) _ Ethiopia's Haile Gebrselassie pulled away with three kilometers remaining to win his first Fukuoka International Marathon on Sunday.
Gebrselassie, who won the Berlin race in September with the fastest time in the world this year, finished in Fukuoka just one second outside the meet record set by Japan's Atsushi Fujita six years ago. Defending champion Baranovskyy slumped to the ground clutching his leg after coming home in second in chilly conditions in southwestern Japan while Morocco's Gharib settled for third. "I am absolutely delighted to win this race today," said Gebrselassie, who has set world records on 21 occasions in his glittering career and is the two-time Olympic champion and four-time world champion at 10,000 meters. The race doubled up as a qualifier for Japanese competitors for next summer's world championships in Osaka and Wataru Okutani Atsushi Fujita and Tsuyoshi Ogata were among the leading pack but both dropped away after the 28-kilometer mark and the leading group gradually narrowed down to Gebrselassie, Okutani, Gharib and Baranovskyy. The marathon turned into a three-horse race as Okutani ran out of steam but Gebrselassie upped the pace from the 39-km points and was never challenged from that point onward. Elsewhere for Japan, Toshinari Suwa was fifth, Ogata was sixth and Fujita eighth.
Haile Gebreselassie wins Berlin marathon
Ethiopia's Haile Gebrselassie narrowly missed out on a new world record as he romped to a resounding victory in the Berlin Marathon. Gebrselassie's provisional time was two hours five minutes 56 seconds - just one second outside Paul Tergat's world record, set in Berlin in 2003. Gete Wami's win in the women's race ensured an Ethiopian double. Leading from the start, her provisional time of 2:21.33 was the fourth fastest time in the world this year. With his nearest rival nearly five minutes behind him, Gebrselassie was left to do much of the running on his own. "I'm sure this is the place set a world record, but when you're alone it's very difficult to push. You need someone to assist you," he said afterwards. "I was OK going through halfway. "I knew I had a chance of breaking the world record but the last five kilometres really hurt me and I couldn't push at all." Double Victory
Ethiopia's Gete Wami smiles after she won the women's competition of the 33rd Berlin marathon in front of the Brandenburg Gate September 24, 2006. Wami made it a double victory for Ethiopia by winning the women's race in 2:21:34, a national record. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann (GERMANY)
Bitter athletics rivalry divides Ethiopia NAIROBI, Sept 15,2006 (Reuters) - A increasingly bitter rivalry between Ethiopia's two top woman runners has divided public opinion in the African nation.
Four athletes, including Dibaba, had already secured five victories which enabled them to share a $500,000 purse. An additional $500,000 was on offer for those achieving a perfect series of sixth wins. "The public here is divided into two groups. One claims that Meseret is envious and wants to stop Dibaba no matter what. The other group claims that Dibaba got what she deserved because she does not congratulate or hug Defar when the two runners finish a race," athletics writer Elshadai Negash told Reuters by telephone from Addis Ababa. "By beating Dibaba in Berlin, Defar only did what a competitor should do, which enhanced her chances of claiming the world athlete of the year award this year." Both runners are managed by American Mark Weltmore. When they arrived in Berlin, Dibaba was one of the six contenders setting out for a perfect set of six victories in the $1 million Golden League Jackpot. She had beaten Defar in Paris and Rome, but failed spectacularly to stop her in the African championships in Mauritius in August, which the world champion attributed to ill health. One week after Mauritius, it was Dibaba's turn for revenge in the Brussels golden league meeting, where Meseret had planned to break her own world record. "Meseret was going for the world record in Brussels. I had to destabilise her racing plans by varying the pace before kicking in the last lap," the 20-year-old said on the IAAF Web site. Dibaba and Meseret have been entered in different races at the World Cup in Athens this weekend. Dibaba will run in the 3,000 and Meseret in the 5,000.
Tirunesh Dibaba seeks to share 1-million-dollar jackpot Berlin September 1, 2006 (DPA) - Pay day has almost arrived as six athletes led by 100 metres world record holder Asafa Powell seek their share of a 1-million-dollar jackpot in the sport of athletics. If none of the contenders fail at the ISTAF meet on Sunday, Powell, American 400 metres runners Sanya Richards and Jeremy Wariner as well as Ethiopian 5,000m runner Tirunesh Dibaba will have won their event at all six stops of the elite Golden League series. In addition, distance runner Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia and Panama long jumper Irving Saladino can make it five wins from six meets which make them eligible for the big money as well. Under new jackpot rules 500,000 dollars are for all five-time winners and an additional 500,000 for six-time winners. In this scenario Powell, Richard, Wariner and Dibaba would each get 208,333 dollars, Bekele and Saladino 83,333 dollars each. However, all winners must also compete at the season-ending World Athletics Final September 9/10 in Stuttgart to be eligible for the money. Five-time winners are now eligible after Russian triple jumper Tatyana Lebedeva hopped, skipped and jumped away with the full million as the only athlete to win at all stops of the 2005 edition in Oslo, Rome, Paris, Zurich, Brussels and Berlin. With no global championship staged this year, record-breaking runs and/or the jackpot became the top season priority for many athletes. Powell equalled his world record 9.77 seconds for the second in Zurich and stayed alive in Brussels as well last Friday with a stunning catch-up effort after a disastrous start. 'The jackpot wasn't even on my mind. I wanted to run fast,' insisted Powell. Dibaba, the 5,000m and 10,000m world champion from 2005, also had one narrow escape when she was almost upstaged by compatriot world record holder Meseret Defar in Paris. Wariner and Richards have dominated the 400m but Richards still faces a final threat from world and Olympic champion Tonique Williams-Darling of Jamaica - who shared the jackpot with Swedish triple jumper Christian Olsson in 2004. Richards already has a rough idea what she will do with the cheque, saying: 'I will thank my parents and invest the rest so it grows.' The half dozen contenders is also good news for Berlin organizers, who have already sold more than 40,000 tickets in the Olympic stadium. 'We have never had a field like this before. This will be great for the fans. These six athletes naturally want to compete at the ISTAF. That gives us six stories to promote and not just one,' said meet general manager Gerhard Janetzky. Not invited to Berlin are US coach Trevor Graham and his athletes after 100m world and Olympic champion Justin Gatlin became the latest Graham-athlete to fail a doping test. Marion Jones was also not welcome even before she reportedly failed a doping test for the blood doping substance EPO.
Eleven in Ethiopia’s squad for Beijing Wednesday 9 August 2006 Reigning World junior 5000m bronze medallist Tariku Bekele and Ethiopian junior cross country champion Werkitu Ayanu are the star names in Ethiopia’s final squad of eleven athletes for the 11th IAAF World Junior Championships in Beijing, China (August 15-20 2006). Two steeplechasers, a sprinter, and three middle distance runners were among those dropped from the team in the final wave of selections announced on Wednesday with the Ethiopian Athletics Federation (EAF) citing budgetary constraints for trimming the size of the squad to eleven from the initial nineteen. Tariku Bekele: third time lucky? Despite the omissions, the strength of Ethiopia’s squad remains intact with Tariku Bekele leading out a strong line-up in the distance events. The 19-year-old, who is in his final junior year, hopes to go better than his bronze and silver medal winning performances in the 10th IAAF World Junior Championships in Grosseto, Italy and the 3rd IAAF World Youth Championships in Sherbrooke, Canada a year earlier. T. Bekele will be buoyed by an encouraging season highlighted by a bronze medal winning performance at the 34th IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Fukuoka, Japan and an Ethiopian junior 5000m record of 12:53.81 at the Golden Gala (IAAF Golden League) meet in Rome. Tariku, who is Kenenisa Bekele’s younger brother, will have a strong Kenyan contingent to give him sleepless nights before the 5000m final on 19 August, but he will be wary of another emerging talent from Ethiopia’s conveyor belt of distance running in the shape of Abraham Cherkose. The 17-year-old is the reigning World Youth 3000m champion and has shown the kind of form that makes him a force to be reckoned with in Beijing this year. Apart from winning the high-profile Carlsbad 5000 road race in the US, Cherkose smashed World Youth records over the 3000m and 5000m in Lausanne and Rome. In the men’s 10,000m, Ethiopian 10,000m champion Ibrahim Jeylan is the runner to watch out for after his improved performance in the European track circuit. Jeylan claimed victory over the same distance in Hengelo, a meet where victory is now regarded as an omen of greatness for Ethiopian athletes. Dereje Tadesse takes the place of Ethiopian 10,000m bronze medallist Tadesse Tola in the 10,000m after the latter was drafted into the squad for the African Championships. African junior steeplechase silver medallist Nahom Mesfin hopes to end his junior tenure with a global medal, while Mekonnen Gebremedhin, 800m/1500m champion in the Addis Ababa Municipal Championships in April this year, lines up in the 800m. Ayanu is coming good at the right time Werkitu Ayanu has been hailed as one of Ethiopia’s most prolific junior for some time now with little more than a fourth place finish in the 2004 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Brussels to show for it all. But according to the Ethiopian Athletics Federation’s technical department head Re’eso Kedir, the 18-year-old is coming good at the right time. “Her form in training has improved dramatically in the last month,” he says. “We are expecting gold from her.” Ayanu has put on some encouraging displays in this track season including a second place finish ahead of Ejegayehou Dibaba but behind Meseret Defar in the Ethiopian championships 5000m race. In the international track circuit, she placed second and registered an encouraging sub-15 minute clocking in Meseret Defar’s 5000m World record run in New York in June. She will be joined in the 5000m in Beijing by another newcomer in Wude Ayalew. Ayalew surprised many by finishing fifth in the long race in Fukuoka and added a national 10km record in Freiburg, although the mark was later improved by Berhane Adere in the Great Manchester Run. The EAF’s budgetary problems sees Belaynesh Zemedkun, fifth in the junior race in Fukuoka, as the country’s sole representative in the 3000m with both Koreni Jelila and Genzebe Dibaba (younger sister of Tirunesh Dibaba) out of reckoning for selection. Emebet Eta’a, second in the 2005 Confidence Women First 5km run in Addis Ababa, lines up in the 1500m. Elshadai Negash for the IAAF Ethiopian team Men Women Team
Leader: Samson Baye
Tirunesh ranked world best
female athlete Monte-Carlo - After 97 weeks ranked as the best female athlete in the world, Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva has been replaced at the top of the Overall Rankings by Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia. Isinbayeva’s
streak at the top was the longest ever by any woman since the
introduction of the IAAF World Rankings in 2001. Dibaba’s rise to
the top came as a result of her winning the 5000m at the Roma
Golden Gala with 14:52.37 (1372 points) and Yelena Isinbayeva
dropping points from last season. Gay was runner up to Xavier Carter in that blisteringly swift men’s 200m in Lausanne last week. Carter ran the second fastest time ever in the world by clocking 19.63 (1454 points) and entered the Men’s 200m Event Ranking in 9th place, while Gay finished runner-up with 19.70 (1418 points), which makes him the fourth fastest in the world ever, and allows the 23-year-old to replace his compatriot Wallace Spearmon at the top. More: http://www.iaaf.org/news/Kind=512/newsId=35373.html
Ethiopia's Defar sets women's
5,000 world record
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Meseret smashes world record
April 10- Ethiopian Meseret Defar shattered the 5,000m road race world record, shared by Paula Radcliffe and Tirunesh Dibaba, with a stunning win in Carlsbad.
The Olympic 5,000m champion eclipsed the old mark by five seconds with a new time of 14 minutes and 46 seconds.
Radcliffe had set the record in 2003 with victory in the Flora Light Women's Challenge in Hyde Park before Dibaba equalled it in Carlsbad last year.
Defar's win comes one month after she defended her world indoor 3,000m crown.
Turkey's Elvan Abeylegesse is the world 5,000m world record holder on the track with a time of 14.24:68.
Turkey's Elvan Abeylegesse is the world 5,000m world record holder on the track with a time of 14.24:68.
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Berlin
Marathon winner Gebrselassie pulled ahead of two-time world champion
Jaouad Gharib and Ukrainian Dmytro Baranovskyy and went on to cross
the line at Heiwadai athletics stadium in 2 hours, 06 minutes, 52
seconds. 
The
conflict between world 5,000 metres champion Tirunesh Dibaba and
Olympic title holder Meseret Defar reached a crescendo at the world
athletics final in Berlin on September 3, when Defar denied her
compatriot a sixth successive Golden League win.
Defar
easily outpaced the field to break the mark of 14:24.68, set by Turkey's
Elvan Abeylegesse in 2004. Workitu Ayanu of Ethiopia was second to Defar in
14:50.51.