Carolina Klüft travelled to Addidas Ababa Ethiopia late last month to be part of the Great Ethiopian Run—a race which UNICEF is a partner to help raise awareness and funds to fight HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia. Klüft, a UNICEF ambassador, lent her support to the fundraising project, one which helps orphans and vulnerable children through the "Dream Campaign" by raising about $11,000 for four charity homes. Klüft was there on a similar visit in the winter of 2006. Trackside, Klüft, who followed her one-week visit to Ethiopia with a training camp in Potchestrom, has again opted to skip the heptathlon, which means that the 2009 IAAF World Championships—as were the Beijing Olympics will be contested without the second-best ever in the event. Klüft will tackle the long jump event, one which she sees as a challenge.
Christian Malcolm was denied a true opportunity to earn a medal in the 200m according to Linford Christie, Malcolm's coach who is banned from any Olympic team contact for a positive drugs test late in his career. Christie claimed last week that UK Athletics and the BOA did not give Malcolm the chance to prepare as best as he possibly could. Nevertheless, UK Athletics paid Christie to coach the world and Olympic finalist in the run-up to Beijing despite the fact that Christie was prevented from accompanying the Olympic squad to either the athletes' holding camp in Macau or the Games themselves.
Christine Ohuruogu's stock continues to rise, with Lord Sebastian Coe this week naming Ouruogu, the Olympic 400m champion and defending IAAF world champion, her sporting hero of 2008. On a side note, Ohuruogu recently donated a pair of her trainers to an art work which will be a representation of the shoes which people who perished at Nazi concentration camps were made to remove before they died.
Dorcus Inzikuru, the former world steeplechase champion, refused to testify last week in a personal assault case where she was a principle witness and plaintiff against her husband and brother-in-law. Both defendants were attributed to have stated two days before their arrests that they would kill Inzikuru, with Inzikuru's husband charged with physically assaulting and harming her. The case was dismissed.
Jenn Stuczynski, the Olympic silver medalist in the pole vault, has become a Christmas ornament—a silver bulb in her local area with a picture of Stuczynski participating in the pole vault. The decorative pieces sold out, and more were on the way.
Jeremy Wariner is training and looking ahead to London 2012 according to today's Star-Telegram. "It’s a good way for me to relieve a lot of stress," he says about running. "When I’m on the track, I forget about everything else that’s going on. So it’s a good place for me to get away from things and just be me and enjoy myself."
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