Athletics Africa Magazine

Top Nigerian athletes, including the World Indoor 60m champion Olusoji Fasuba have arrived at the Abuja camp of the Nigerian athletics team for tommorrow's NNPC/ExxonMobil track and field championships at the National Stadium. Athletes such as Uche Isaacs, Adetoyi Durotoye, Deji Aliu, Taiwo Ajibade and Uchenna Emedolu are expected to compete with Fasuba for the first three positions on offer for the 100m men at the Olympics. In the Women events, African champions, Damola Osayemi (100m), Ajoke Odumosu (400mH) and Toyin Augustus (100mH) and other US based athletes; Jessica Ohanaja (100mH) Brenda Toluwani Faluade (Triple Jump) are all set to contest at the trials.

Zimbabwe's Florida State University freshman Ngonidzashe Makusha has broken his national Long Jump record after soaring to a huge 8.30 metres leap - the fourth-best jump in the world this year, the best in FSU history and the best Drake Stadium has ever seen - to earn FSU the first individual crown of the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Des Moines, Iowa - USA. Makusha , who is also the NCAA indoor champion, has now surpassed the Olympics A Standard qualifying mark of 8,20m and thus receives an automatic bid to represent Zimbabwe in Beijing 2008. Read More

A new women's 5000m World Record for Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia at the IAAF Golden League meeting in Oslo, Norway.

This evening at the ExxonMobil Bislett Games , IAAF Golden League meet in Oslo, Ethiopian Double World 10,000m champion Tirunesh Dibaba has just knocked out her compatriot's, World and Olympic 5000m champion, Meseret Defar's World Record of 14:16.63, also she set at this same meeting on 15 June last year . Dibaba, virtually running alone for the last two laps after a very slow first half and badjob from the pacemakers, broke the tape in an astonishing 14:11.15.* Sudan's World Indoor champion Abubakar Kaki also set a World Junior record of 1:42.69* in the men's 800m. *(a new World Record subject to ratifications) More stories later.....

The 6ft 5in, 21-year-old Jamaican,Usain Bolt unsurprisingly nicknamed Lightning Bolt in the Caribbean, clocked 9.72 seconds at the Reebok Grand Prix in the Icahn Stadium on Randalls Island to wipe 0.02sec off the mark set only eight months ago by his compatriot, Asafa Powell.

Ever since former world 400m champion Jerome Young revealed he had failed a drugs test prior to the Sydney Olympics Games in 2000, the whole world have been waiting for the America 4x400m relay team members to return the Gold medal won and hand it over to the rightful winner Nigeria . The International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) tried to strip the team of their Olympic gold medals after Young, who was part of the team but did not run in the final, tested positive for drugs and was banned for life, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overruled the IOC and said the entire team should not be disqualified, allowing them to keep their medals. It seems common sense has finally prevailed. US anchor and world 400m record-holder Michael Johnson has decided to return the relay gold he won at the Sydney Games, after yet another team mate, this time Antonio Pettigrew admitted taking drugs - the fourth member of that team to have faile...