Blessing Okagbare who is looking forward to taking part in her first upcoming Commonwealth Games looks to be peaking well as the Scotland Games draws closer

On Friday July 5th 2014 she took on the rest of the world with a lineup that included World and Olympic 200 meters Champion Allyson Felix of the USA and defeated her and the rest of the field running the race with a time of 22.32 seconds.  Felix was second with a time of 22.34 seconds.

Things are shaping up in the Oscar Pistorius murder trial with the latest being the paralympians teammate, who shared a room with him at the 2012 Olympics Games in London, responding about why he wanted to be moved out of the room they shared.

According to South African news caster, Arnu Foirie will be called onto the stand and he responded with a statement on his Twitter page. Fourie said in a statement that he asked to be moved to focus himself before the race of his life.

By: Editor

Monaco - There is little more than a week to go before the first starting gun fires at the 2014 IAAF World Race Walking Cup, which will be held in the Chinese city of Taicang on 3-4 May.

With no global outdoor championship this year, this is the most important event on the 2014 athletics calendar for walkers and many of the world’s top stars of the discipline will be making their way to China for the event.

Russia’s 2013 IAAF World Championships 20km race walk gold medallist Aleksandr Ivanov, Ireland’s Moscow 2013 50km winner Robert Heffernan and China’s London 2012 Olympic Games champion Chen Ding will clash in the shorter of the two senior men’s championship distances.

The senior men’s 50km race features Russia’s Mikhail Ryzhov, Australia’s tree-time Olympic medallist Jared Tallent, who took the silver and bronze medals behind Heffernan over the longer distance in Moscow last summer.

The senior women’s 20km features seven of the top 10 from Moscow, including the Russia’s Anisya Kirdyapkina and China’s Liu Hong, the silver and bronze medallist respectively.

In the junior 10km races, all eyes will be on the Czech teenage talent Anezka Drahotova, who won the European title over the same distance on the track last summer.

Nearly 400 walkers from 50 IAAF Member Federations have been entered across the five races to be contested.

Entry lists as of 24 April are now available (pdf) on the IAAF website:

http://www.iaaf.org/competitions/iaaf-world-race-walking-cup

The IAAF World Race Walking Cup is the third of the five IAAF World Athletics Series events in 2014, and this year also sees the inaugural edition of the IAAF World Relays.

By: Editor

The excitement is starting to mount with exactly one month to go until the first gun goes at the inaugural IAAF World Relays, which will be held in Nassau, The Bahamas, on 24-25 May 2014.

Although most of the expected teams have yet to make their final squad selections, it is already known that the sport’s superpowers with a baton, like Kenya, Jamaica, the USA and many European nations, will be sending their strongest men and women’s teams to contest the five disciplines on the programme of this innovative event.

Into the bargain, the host nation with its own fantastic relay tradition, is out to ensure that some medals remain in The Bahamas.

There are two big incentives for nations to send their best squads to contest the 10 events which will be staged in the newly-built 15,000-seater Thomas A Robinson Stadium, with both men and women competing in the 4x100m, 4x200m, 4x400m, 4x800m and 4x1500m.

The top eight teams in both the men’s and women’s 4x100m and 4x400m will automatically qualify for the IAAF World Championships Beijing 2015.

In addition, the top eight teams in each event will be awarded prize money with the gold medallists taking home no less than USD $50,000. In the event that a team breaks a World record in Nassau, an additional bonus of USD $50,000 will also be awarded.

Preliminary entries suggest that more than 700 athletes from 48 IAAF Member Federations will take part in Nassau.

Whetting the appetite for the forthcoming relay extravaganza, 2014 has already seen the US men set a World indoor 4x400m record and a quartet of Kenyan women running a 4x1500m faster than ever before.

Into the bargain, regardless who is in their team, Jamaican sprinters have collectively said that they will be targeting the World record in the men’s 4x200m in Nassau.

By: Editor

A set of Sierra Leonean runners are scheduled to take part in the annual Penn Relays in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania slated for the 24th – 27th April 2014.

The delegation of runners in; Michaela Kargbo, Rebecca Ansumana, Agnes Mansaray who will be joined by Matu Davies a rising sprinter who resides and trains in Nairobi, Kenya will be led by former national sprinter James Davies (Turbo Ben) as Head of Delegation to the event.

The delegation was granted a late Visa by the US embassy in Freetown and because of this; there are several constraints to their travel plans. They are looking to raise money for tickets in a few days and also assistance for a training camp that will allow them to train together for the inaugural IAAF World Relays in the Bahamas exactly a month after the Penn Relays and subsequently the Commonwealth Games in Scotland slated for July 22nd 2014.

By: Editor

Monaco - The IAAF has appointed Ato Boldon, Joanna Hayes and Jackie Joyner-Kersee as Ambassadors to the 2014 IAAF World Junior Championships, which will be held in Eugene, USA, between 22-27 July.

The trio will be very busy while in Oregon. Among their activities, they will conduct interviews with local and international media, provide their thoughts on the Championships live via various social media platforms, and be involved with the medal presentations.

They will also be doing media training for the athletes attending the Championships, including how best to present yourself via social media, and encouraging the competitors with motivational speeches and advice.

The spectators and the general public will get a chance to meet the Ambassadors in a specially constructed Fan Zone alongside the famous Hayward Field stadium.

“Being an Ambassador for this meet is the most important over all my other Ambassador duties. The World Juniors will always be a special meet for me because I won my first two World titles there, and it signalled to me that I could be a world class sprinter,” said Boldon, the 1997 IAAF World Championships 200m winner and now the host of IAAF Inside Athletics.

“Friends that I made at the World Juniors in 1992, like the USA's Amy Acuff, Great Britain's Darren Campbell and Ethiopia's Haile Gebrselassie, are all friends to this day, so the friendships have endured. Making history as the first to ever do the sprint double at that meet is also high on my list of career accomplishments,” he added.

“I am honoured to be an ambassador for the 2014 World Junior Championships. To be part of such an important event is a humbling experience for me. To witness at first hand the future stars of our sport is very exciting for me,” said Hayes, the 2004 Olympic Games 100m hurdles champion.

“One of the important things that I would like to pass on to the new generation is that the legacy you leave starts now. How do you want to be remembered? Winning medals is always a goal and a huge part of our sport, it's great to be remembered as a winner but having the respect and admiration of colleagues is also very important,” she added.

IAAF Hall of Fame member and three-time Olympic Games gold medallist Jackie Joyner-Kersee commented: “I take great pride being able to represent the IAAF as an Ambassador for the World Junior Championship this summer. My message to the next generation is a message of hope to continue to move our sport forward.”

By Editor

Monaco – The second episode of IAAF Inside Athletics is available to watch online now.

This show features an exclusive and in-depth interview with Ethiopia’s 2014 World Indoor Championships 3000m gold medallist Genzebe Dibaba, whose sensational indoor season also included world indoor records over 1500m and 3000m, as well as a world indoor best over two miles.

IAAF Inside Athletics is hosted by Trinidad and Tobago’s 1997 World 200m champion Ato Boldon, who is now an internationally respected broadcaster.

This year’s series was launched two weeks ago.

Exclusive to the IAAF, the show appears on the IAAF World Athletics Club Facebook Page.

The first episode this season received more than 87,000 views.

Fans can interact and ask questions, either on Facebook or by email to insideathletics@iaaf.org.

To watch the latest episode, ‘like’ the IAAF World Athletics Club on Facebook and click here.