London 2012: Haile Gebrselassie Olympic 10,000m hopes ended - BBC News
Ethiopian two-time Olympic 10,000m champion Haile Gebrselassie has failed to qualify for this summer's Games in London after finishing seventh at the Fanny Blankers-Koen Games in Hengelo.
With the race being an official Ethiopian Olympic trial, Gebrselassie needed a top-two finish to qualify.
But the 39-year-old ran a time of 27 minutes 20.39 seconds, nearly nine seconds behind winner Tariku Bekele.
Haile Gebrselassie's medal haul
1993 World Championships: Gold (10,000m), Silver (5,000m)
1995 World Championships: Gold (10,000m)
1996 Olympic Games: Gold (10,000m)
1997 World Championships: Gold (10,000m)
1999 World Championships: Gold (10,000m)
2000 Olympic Games: Gold (10,000m)
2001 World Championships: Bronze (10,000m)
2003 World Championships: Silver (10,000m)
Elsewhere, Britain's Phillips Idowu was victorious in the triple jump.
The 33-year-old 2009 world champion won with a leap of 17.31m.
Idowu's fellow Briton Hannah England came home first in the women's 1500m in 4mins 4.05secs.
Former world-record holder Gebrselassie, who has already failed to earn a spot in the marathon for London this summer, was hoping to compete in his fifth Olympics and was in confident mood after winning the Great Manchester Run last weekend.
However, his chances of appearing are now over following a race won by Bekele in 27mins 11.70secs, just ahead of Leleisa Desisa Benti who will join him in London.
The third spot in the Ethiopian team is being held open for world-record holder Kenenisa Bekele, Tariku's brother, who has been suffering from injury problems.
"The Games in London is over for me," said Gebrselassie. "I ran a good race until the last lap. I felt good but I manifestly didn't have the speed to compete against my rivals. That's life. I am not disappointed."
Also in the Netherlands, in the 400m, Santos Luguelin of the Dominican Republic posted the second-fastest time of the year, 44.45secs, to edge out Britain's Martyn Rooney.
"Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius finished fifth in 46.35secs.
London 2012: Jessica Ennis storms to personal best and victory in Götzis - The Guardian
Sixty-one days out from the Games, there were intimations of Olympic immortality in Jessica Ennis's performance in Austria. She was so dominant that by the time it came to the 800m the only question left to ask was just how much she wanted to turn the screw on everyone else.
Before competing in Götzis, Ennis had spoken about the small psychological edge that a victory would provide. Never mind her modesty, by winning in such style she was not so much serving notice to her rivals as she was taking names and collecting dues; she is an athlete in the form of her life. Her tally of 6,906 broke Denise Lewis's British heptathlon record by 75 points, was the 17th best in history, and perhaps most importantly, surpassed the personal best of the 2011 world champion Tatyana Chernova by 26 points.
Ennis's overnight lead over Chernova was 229 points, but that margin was deceptive. One of the reasons why rivalry between the two athletes is so compelling is that the differences between them are so pronounced. Chernova is nearly 10 inches taller and 13lb heavier. Ennis has better personal bests in all four events on day one, Chernova is superior in all three on day two. If both had reproduced their average scores for the second day they would have tied on 6,770. When Chernova won the world championship in Daegu, she made up 280 points on Ennis on day two.
The defining moment of this competition came in the first discipline on the second day. Chernova's personal best in the long jump is 6.82m, 28cm beyond anything Ennis has ever managed. Ennis is an erratic long-jumper – 6.19m cost her the world indoor pentathlon title in March – and will always be under pressure in the event, forced to fret about just how many points Chernova's leap will take out of her lead. Ennis's first jump was 6.23m. Chernova surpassed that with an opener of 6.32m. Ennis, pushing herself hard, fouled her second jump, overstepping by 5cm. Chernova then improved to 6.41m. Ennis, with one jump left, was going to lose 57 points from her lead.
Under intense pressure, with Chernova prowling on the runway behind her, Ennis nailed the perfect jump with her final attempt. Her toe was hard up against the take-off board, and she flew out to 6.51m. That equalled her outdoor best. "Oh my, why do I coach?" said Ennis's coach, Toni Minichiello. He described the moment as "heart-pounding". All of a sudden the barometer switched right round. All the pressure was on Chernova. She could only manage 6.44m. Ennis ended up picking up 22 points in an event where she had expected to lose many more.
Ennis's score at that point was the best she has ever recorded after five events. And her afternoon was about to get better still. After lunch she came out for the javelin, another event where she lags a long way behind Chernova. In Daegu, it was the javelin that cost Ennis gold. In Götzis she carried the momentum from the long jump pit into the next event. In the first round she threw a new personal best of 47.11 metres. It was the first time in her career she had thrown more than 47m, and beat her previous best by 40cm.
In Daegu, Minichiello had been furious that she was forced to compete in the B javelin group along with the lesser competitors, while Chernova threw in the A group. Here Ennis was in the A group, and she thrived. In the 200m she had been running on the inside of the talented Dutch teenager Dafne Schippers, the fastest woman in the field, and had been pulled around by her.
In the javelin, being bracketed with the strongest throwers brought the best out of Ennis. Her second and third efforts were both over 44m. There was a consistency that spoke volumes about the hard work she has done over the winter.
The 251-point lead she took into the event gave her a 12.5m buffer over Chernova. In the end the Russian beat her by a little under 6m, with her first round throw of 53.21m. Ennis had a 133-point lead at the start of the 800m.
Chernova would have needed to been 9.77sec quicker over two laps to have beaten Ennis, which is tantamount to having no chance at all. Still, Chernova overtook Ennis in the final few metres of the race, just to make the point "I'm still here". Chernova won in 2min 8.94sec, six hundreths of a second ahead of Ennis, but still 132 points behind her.
The next time Ennis and Chernova go head-to-head it will be in very different circumstances, and with much more at stake. Götzis is a low-key meet, and the contrast with the Olympic stadium could hardly be stronger. Here the crowd was only 2,000 or so strong, and the small stadium is surrounded by grass banks dotted with würst vendors and schnitzel sellers. Ennis gave her post-competition press conferences while standing in a wheelie bin full of iced water.
In a little over two months from now Ennis will need to reprise her on-track feats on the biggest stage she will ever perform. If she does, her life will never be the same again.
London will continue to maintain status as global financial centre: Wootton - Nation - Thailand
London has been the world's largest financial centre for decades and it will remain so despite chaos in the euro zone, says Lord Mayor of London David Wootton.
Wootton, a lawyer by training with expertise in mergers and acquisitions, did not hide the pride that London feels for demonstrating over the centuries great ability to adapt itself to stay ahead of others, aside from openness and transparency that draws law and financial firms as well as numerous transactions to the city.
"It's open. Services are welcome to operate in the UK and a level-playing field is provided, with a single standard across the market," he said in a group interview.
The UK has been hit by the euro-zone crisis as Europe is its biggest export market. However, through the past few years, London has demonstrated its flexibility to maintain its status as a global financial centre amid two big threats - exposure of UK banks to other European banks following the euro crisis; and amendments to Europe's regulatory structure.
Despite the bleak backdrop, growth opportunities in London remain. Ahead of Olympics 2012, real estate investment is booming. In the past few years, London was also firm in basing bank executives' pay on real performance and tightening regulations to ensure the city's resilience. It is also the world's first centre outside China for yuan trading, besides being the biggest centre of Islamic finance in the Western Hemisphere.
London is ready to share its experiences with Thailand, which has long dreamed of becoming a regional financial centre.
"Britain is looking East as never before. In time, we'll be united by the forces," he said.
Wootton was in Bangkok last week, leading a delegation of British business leaders to meet Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong and Bank of Thailand Governor Prasarn Trairatvorakul as well as Thai business leaders. The mission is to present companies in London and across the United Kingdom as partners of choice to Thailand, boost bilateral trade and set the course for British companies' role in Thailand, particularly in services and construction, and Britain's part in the Public Private Partnership.
By the same token, he welcomed Thai banks, securities firms and funds to the UK as well as those in the manufacturing sector.
In the context of British investment in Thailand, he expressed concern over Thailand's foreign ownership limit, which should be lowered to allow foreign companies to become majority shareholders.
"If they are to be minorities, who's gonna put money? Over time, Thailand will see how this will be good for the country," he noted.
When the Asean Economic Community begins in 2015, he considers that the integration would make it easier to advance openness with a single set of rules, no matter where investment is poured. In this regard, Thailand has a competitive edge as it is one of the more active centres for finance. What the region first needs is central regulators. Then, they must acknowledge that rules require business openness and transparency in terms of information, security and disclosure, he said.
Despite chaos in the euro zone following its monetary integration, he did not see that as a cause of fear for Asean countries. He does not write off Europe, which "will remain the best part of the world". Moreover, he foresees more similar groupings in other parts of the world. There would be more groups of countries than indi-|viduals in the next 50 years, like what happened in the past 20 years.
"I suspect more permanent influence to groupings like those in the EU, Asean, Africa and Latin America. They are not necessarily unified, but they could be cooperating in specific partnership," he concluded.
"The EU is a lesson to be learnt. The crisis is not a structural fault. It hasn't happened because of the grouping. You have to learn from Europe's mistakes and identify what went wrong," he said, adding that much of the crisis is born out of the Hamburger crisis in 2008, which forced European countries to pump in liquidity and incur huge fiscal costs.
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Catalan 42 London 18: Dragons boost title chances after try blitz against Broncos - Daily Mail
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Title-chasing Catalan made perfect use of the home-from-home conditions at their disposal in Manchester as they ran in seven tries to see off London and cement their top-four spot.
The Perpignan-based club are no strangers to playing in red-hot sunshine and temperatures at the Etihad were distinctly Mediterranean as day two of the Magic Weekend got under way.
Trent Robinson's men had looked set for a runway victory at one stage - they led 24-0 at half-time - but were eventually made to work harder than that as London came back to within six points at one stage.
Over: Catalan Dragons Jamal Fakir scores the seventh try against London Irish
It was an admirable effort from a Broncos side currently the subject of a performance review from the club's directors.
Coach Rob Powell and his squad have struggled to make an impact so far this season, despite an influx of promising-looking Australian signings being added to an impressive pool of young talent, and understandably, all eyes were on them.
They did their best to get off to a good start, with Omari Caro denied an early try when Michael Robertson knocked-on in the build-up.
That was a half-chance, though, and nothing like the opportunity wasted by Antonio Kaufusi with seven minutes on the clock. The prop was ideally placed when Craig Gower's kick ricocheted up under the posts but, despite being a yard out, Kaufusi could still not gather the ball.
The Catalan side seemed to be doing their best to give London a leg-up, with Ben Fisher and Lopini Paea both making basic errors, neither of which were capitalised on.
And then, as if to highlight London's current fortunes, Catalan scored with their first genuine attack. Jamie O'Callaghan's ball steal gave them a penalty and Scott Dureau's reverse pass gave Paea a walk-in to the line.
A pattern quickly formed, with another London error, this time a Michael Channing knock-on, leading to Dureau sending Leon Pryce through with 14 minutes on the clock.
London were not helping themselves and, unlike the Catalans, when they made errors, they were not getting away with them. Dan Sarginson and
Craig Gower gave away penalties, as did Scott Wheeldon, with that trio of mistakes eventually leading to another try.
Sarginson went up to gather a Pryce kick but only shelled it, allowing Clint Greenshields to expertly pat the loose ball into the hands of the waiting Remi Casty who ploughed over.
London prospect Kieran Dixon then thought he had pulled a try back, only for video referee Ian Smith to find a fault in his grounding after he beat Cyrille Stacul to a Gower kick. Their misery was then compounded when Dureau's chip fell kindly for Steve Menzies who sent Pryce away for a second three minutes before the break.
With a 24-0 half-time deficit, London could have been forgiven for expecting to be on the end of a beating similar to the one handed to Widnes by Warrington yesterday but, to their credit, they started the second half well, with Kaufusi doing what he failed to do in the early stages and scoring from close in.
That was in the 42nd minute and four later, Ben Bolger put on a similar play from a Mark Bryant offload and with Shane Rodney kicking his second goal, the gap between the two was only 12 points.
It seemed as though Catalan were still in the dressing rooms and Jason Baitieri actually was when he was given a 55th-minute sin-binning for a late hit on Gower. It took London less than 60 seconds to cash in too, with Chad Randall diving in from dummy half.
A pressure-relieving penalty and a London error helped Catalan stabilise, though, and when Casty used his size to get over for a second with 17 minutes left, they had some breathing space again.
Any panic was over when Menzies touched down with 10 minutes left, before Jamal Fakir wrapped things up following a wonderful flowing move that went through Menzies before Fisher teed-up the forward.
Kiwi travellers dodge pricey London Games dates - Stuff
ROELAND VAN DEN BERGH
The London Olympics has caused a huge dip in the number of New Zealanders travelling to Britain in July as hotel prices nearly double, but airfares remain unchanged.
House of Travel retail director Brent Thomas said travel bookings to Britain for July were down 10 per cent on last year, despite every other month this year being substantially up.
It was likely people had decided not to travel at the peak of the Olympics and instead were going in June or August to avoid the higher costs and crowds.
Mr Thomas said London hotel prices were higher, but elsewhere in Britain "it was very much business as usual".
That was partly due to Britain being in recession and hotels were trying to attract travellers to fill empty rooms rather than being forced to close floors of large hotels to save costs.
"Travel over there has been hit hard by Europe and also by Americans not travelling."
Airfares have not increased despite the demand, reflecting the tough economic conditions.
Business travellers were also shying away from Britain in July to avoid paying inflated hotel prices.
Andrew Dale, head of corporate travel agency APX, said there has been a surge in bookings to Britain just before and after the Olympics. "What we have seen so far is they are either going early, or they are going to postpone their trip till after the Games."
But that reduced demand had been offset by bookings from sport teams and their families, Dale said.
Accommodation was becoming difficult to come by in London during the peak of the Games, he said.
Hotel accommodation booking website Hotels.com said the average price for a London hotel room was going for $417 a night during the Olympics, up about 93 per cent compared with last year.
Hotels.com's New Zealand and Australia marketing head Katherine Birch said prices have slipped by nearly $25 a night since March and there were still good deals available during the Olympic period, particularly at the budget end.
The most popular nights for bookings were the opening ceremony on July 27 and the first day of athletics on August 3, she said.
Birch said online searches for room by New Zealanders for London accommodation over the Olympic period was about 19 per cent higher than for the Beijing event.
Dale said sales of package deals by sister agencies United Travel and Harvey World of Travel, which are the official Olympic package deal sellers, showed that the London Olympics would be better supported by New Zealand spectators than previous events, and ahead of expectations.
People were also going to the Games and then travelling on to Europe for a longer holiday, Dale said.
For some corporate sponsors the Olympics were an opportunity to wine and dine key New Zealand customers and suppliers, Dale said.
- © Fairfax NZ News
GM's Vauxhall announces new Astra at UK plant - Yahoo Finance
LONDON (AP) -- General Motors' Vauxhall plant in northern England will build the company's top-selling Astra vehicles, the automaker said Thursday — a relief for U.K. politicians who had lobbied its American owner to keep the plant open.
The announcement comes after workers at the Ellesmere Port plant, near Liverpool, overwhelmingly backed a job deal which turned the factory into a 24-hour-a-day operation, a key cost-cutting measure pursued by parent company GM Europe.
GM Europe lost $700 million in 2011 and has been struggling to turn around its Opel and Vauxhall brands. It had been feared the company would close the Ellesmere Port facility in favor of consolidating production elsewhere — such as its headquarters in Ruesselsheim in Germany or Gliwice in Poland.
In a separate announcement, Opel said that the Ruesselsheim plant would switch to producing other models.
GM's announcement — which comes with a 125 million pound (nearly $200 million) investment and 700 extra jobs — is a break for leaders such as British Business Secretary Vince Cable, who fought to keep the British plant open.
Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking from the northern city of Manchester, called the decision "a fantastic vote of confidence."
"The U.K. government gave this its full backing. The unions supported the necessary changes. The workforce has responded magnificently. It is a British success story," he said.
Cable, who at one point traveled to the U.S. to plead the plant's case, told BBC television that no financial inducements were offered to General Motors Corp. to keep the U.K. facility open, saying the move underlined that Britain is "a good business environment for the motor industry."
Production of the new car is due to begin in 2015, with at least 160,000 vehicles scheduled to be produced every year.
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