London 2012 Olympics: injured triple jumper Nathan Douglas out of Games - Daily Telegraph
England suffered a spike to her Achilles when competing in Hengelo but has been advised not to race until next month’s Aviva London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace.
"I'm disappointed to miss the Olympic trials,” she said. “Last year I won there and it was the start of an incredible season.
"But I have to be sensible. If I run too early it could ruin my season so I have to take a risk that my early-season form and multiple ‘A’ standards will be enough to gain selection.
“I'm in a tough event with strong competition but I know I'm selectable as things stand now and I know I can compete at the highest level if given the chance."
Douglas and England also join compatriots Jenny Meadows and Jeanette Kwakye on the injury list, who confirmed on Wednesday that they too would be missing the trials.
Meadows, the 2009 world 800 metres bronze medallist, said: "I’m gutted to be missing out on the trials but we always knew it would be a race against time to be fit enough.
“Every day of my recovery is like a week, so the extra few days ahead of Helsinki will make a big difference to the injury and ensure I am able to go out and compete and demonstrate my fitness ahead of selection for London 2012."
Kwakye, the former world indoor silver medallist, has also pulled out of the trials due to an Achilles and ankle injury and, worryingly, will not make a decision on whether she will go to Helsinki until after this weekend.
“We will reassess the injury on Monday in relation to the European Championships,” said Kwakye. "I am eligible for selection for the Games and am still determined to be fit and ready for competing in my own backyard in Stratford."
London 2012: Diagnosis boost for Sanya Richards-Ross - BBC News
Five years ago, Sanya Richards-Ross emerged from the US national trials beaten, confused and diagnosed.
The reigning Female World Athlete of the Year, Richards-Ross went to Indianapolis as most experts' first name on the American team sheet for the 2007 World Championships. But the US trials are notoriously tense, and favourites do falter, particularly when they are not in peak condition.
That was certainly the case for Richards-Ross. What was unusual - and frightening for the Jamaican-born sprinter herself - was the nature of her problem.
This was no muscle strain, the world's best 400m runner was covered in skin lesions, her joints ached and the inside of her mouth was so ulcerated that it hurt to drink water. To make matters worse, a deep fatigue set in as she progressed from the qualifying round to semi-final to final.
Richards-Ross on Ohuruogu
I think it's a rivalry. Christine Ohuruogu won the big one. If I won 10 and she's won one, she's won the one that matters the most - I think that carries enough weight to make it a rivalry. She's a very talented athlete and shows up when it counts. That puts a lot of pressure on everybody else in the field as you never know what race she's going to come with. I'm looking forward to racing her again and I know she's looking forward to it too - it will be great for the fans.
That she managed to come fourth, missing qualification for the individual event by one place, is a testament to her consistency over the one-lap distance. But Richards-Ross could not wait to get out of the trials and find out why she was afflicted with these mysterious symptoms.
A new doctor provided the answer, treatment started and things improved. As a result, she was able to take her place in the 4x400m team at the Worlds, adding a second relay gold to the one claimed as an 18-year-old in 2003.
Richards-Ross was running fast again but she was now officially a Behcets syndrome sufferer.
A rare, chronic disease that involves the inflammation of blood vessels all over the body, Behcets can cause serious skin problems, arthritis and meningitis: it can also affect memory, speech and movement.
Richards-Ross never made much of her struggles with it - she wore long sleeves and body make-up when the lesions appeared - but she would occasionally be too tired to train.
Despite this, she did not want to use the condition as an excuse for her failures to turn season-long domination of the 400m into individual gold medals at the year's biggest championships: those 2007 Worlds, the 2008 Olympics and again at the Worlds in 2011.
"As an athlete you never want to blame anything other than saying you didn't execute well on that day," the 27-year-old told me in Dallas last month.
"But if there was ever a time when it affected my performance it was at (the trials) in 2007, I just didn't feel right. I got worse from round to round and I left straight after to see a doctor because I felt so bad. That's when I got diagnosed.
"But after that I felt I had it pretty much under control. There might have been a few times when I couldn't prepare as well as I might have but for the most part it was just not executing on the day, the pressure, or wanting it too badly. I blame those things more than the disease."
There was one other reason why Richards-Ross was reluctant to blame Behcets: she did not believe she really had it.
As a leading light in track and field, and being married to NFL star Aaron Ross, Richards-Ross was arguably the most famous American afflicted with the disease, so she was often approached by other sufferers.
"A lot of people with Behcets reached out to me, and when we talked about our symptoms I felt I didn't have what they had," she explained.
"And the more research I did, the more I thought 'this can't be right, it doesn't fit'.
"So I kept searching until this year I started working with a new doctor, and he doesn't think I have it.
"He thinks it's a treatable skin disease and I've been doing a lot better. I don't get the fatigue or joint pains nearly as much and the lesions and ulcers are better too.
"I'm excited that it's behind me, but it was definitely a tough time."
To say Richards-Ross is "doing a lot better" on the track is hard to measure until we see how she deals with the extra demands that a major championship places on body and mind. The 27-year-old has been churning out world-leading times since 2005 but only had one individual gold medal to show for it - the 2009 Worlds - before this season.
And while few current athletes have won so many one-off races on the annual circuit, it is defeats to the likes of Bahamas' Tonique Williams-Darling at the 2005 Worlds, Britain's Christine Ohuruogu at the 2008 Olympics and last year's seventh-place finish in Daegu that stand out.
This year's Richards-Ross does look different, though.
Once again, she tops the time charts for 400m, but she is also quickest over 200m, setting a personal best of 22.09 in New York earlier this month.
And she added another individual gold medal to her tally in March, winning the 400m at the World Indoors. This revealed a new approach to a championship season, as she had not even run an indoor 400m for the previous six campaigns.
So, one of sport's most dominant athletes looks set, once more, to translate her undeniable class into something truly memorable. She will return to the US national trials on Sunday, once again looking to establish herself as the best in the world this summer. This time, however, she is healthy.
The women's 400m race at London 2012 could be the most delayed coronation in recent track and field history.
London stung by U.S. attack on bank regulation record - The Guardian
London trader and wife jailed for insider dealing - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - A British trader and his wife who helped fund a lavish lifestyle from illegal share dealing, were jailed on Wednesday in a landmark case pursued by prosecutors on both sides of the Atlantic.
James Sanders, who owned and was a director of now-defunct brokerage Blue Index, his wife Miranda and James Swallow, a Blue Index co-director, had last month pleaded guilty to a combined 18 counts of insider dealing between October 2006 and February 2008.
James Sanders, dubbed by Judge Peregrine Simon as "the driving force behind the criminality", was jailed for a record four years. Miranda Sanders - who was tipped off about imminent U.S. takeovers by her sister in America - was jailed for 10 months, as was Swallow.
The striking, sharply-dressed couple, who are both in their mid thirties and have two young children, saw their sentences cut by 25 percent after pleading guilty, although James initially argued his trades were legitimate stock picks.
They held hands while judge Peregrine Simon read out the case against them and kissed after sentencing. Miranda turned to smile and nod encouragingly at a woman in the court room's public gallery, who burst into tears on sentencing.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA), which brought the UK prosecution, said the three scooped almost 2.0 million pounds in profits from illegal share dealings, while Blue Index clients made around 10.2 million - a precursor to the Sanders' couple selling the business for around 8.0 million.
The FSA, which only started prosecuting notoriously tricky insider dealing cases in 2007 after being criticised for its "light touch" approach to regulation, had pushed for three custodial sentences despite the couple's young family.
"This was a case of systematic abuse by approved people of their privileged position in the market - we are determined to stamp out such abuse," said Tracey McDermott, acting head of enforcement at the Financial Services Authority (FSA).
"No doubt as they prepare to spend their first night behind bars, they will be reflecting on the consequences of their greed. Others, who might be tempted to do the same, should be in no doubt about our continued commitment to use all of the tools at our disposal to tackle those who abuse the market."
NAILED
The FSA was first alerted to possible insider dealing after spotting unusually heavy trade in U.S.-listed staffing services company Kronos ahead of its takeover by private equity house Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners in 2007.
Calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), its U.S. peer, the regulator eventually pieced together the links between the Sanders couple and Miranda's San Francisco-based sister and brother-in-law, an M&A partner at accountancy firm Deloitte, "Annie and Arnie" McClellan.
In a tortuous case that involved trawling through 26 million emails and 800,000 phone calls recorded on Blue Index's office lines, regulators focused on dealings in five takeover targets: Kronos, Per Se, aQuantive, ChoicePoint and Getty Images.
McDermott told a journalist briefing there were "whoops of joy" in the FSA's offices when in one recorded telephone call, James Sanders' father Tim asks: "Is this not insider dealing?" James answers: "No, not really. Well ...". When his father laughs and says: "Try proving it", James says: "Yes, exactly".
A consummate trader, James Sanders told a newspaper in 2008 his mantra was: "Buy at the point of maximum fear" after snapping up a 5 million pound property in London's exclusive Kensington district for a 22 percent discount at the height of the credit crunch.
The FSA found what they called his "life plan" in his kitchen, in which he documented his plans to pay off his mortgages and luxury cars and resign from Blue Index by placing one 200,000 pound tip a year.
In a scribbled account, he put aside 100,000 pounds for a "car fund" and 50,000 for a watch, clothes, holidays and wine.
Blue Index was a specialist brokerage of contracts for differences (CFD), a tax-efficient trade that allows dealers to speculate on short-term price fluctuations of assets such as stocks by buying a percentage of their value, or "margin".
The FSA said the insider in the case was Miranda's brother-in-law Arnold McClellan, a senior partner at the San Francisco branch of Deloitte. It said Miranda's sister Annabel or Arnold leaked privileged, price-sensitive information to the British couple about U.S. securities listed in New York.
James Sanders then disclosed information to James Swallow and encouraged Blue Index clients to trade in those stocks.
Annabel McClellan has already been jailed for 11 months without parole and fined $1.0 million after being pursued by the SEC, Department of Justice (DoJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). No charges were brought against Arnold, who has now retired.
James Sanders, meanwhile, has been forced to park the Ferrari and has been disqualified as a director for five years. The court will decide on confiscation orders at a later date.
The FSA, which said it spent "millions" on pursuing the Blue Index case, is prosecuting 11 others for insider dealing - an offence that carries a maximum jail term of 7 years in the UK.
"This case really does demonstrate the FSA's determination to deliver criminal prosecutions for insider dealing," said Tim Dolan, a lawyer at Pinsent Masons.
"While the FSA have still brought relatively few criminal actions, and have not always been successful, results like this should go some way to deterring insider dealing in the future."
(Editing by Douwe Miedema and Jon Loades-Carter)
Drive across Sweden marks centenary - harboroughmail.co.uk
A VINTAGE car enthusiast took part in 1,000km drive across Sweden in a 100-year-old Vauxhall.
Andrew Duerden, of Great Glen, took part in the event which saw the Vauxhall Prince Henry model driven from Gothenburg to Stockholm and back to mark the centenary of the Swedish Reliability Trial.
Mr Duerden, who is Vauxhall’s archivist, shared the driving with Alisdaire Lockhart, the owner of the car.
Kay Mordza, of the Swedish Vauxhall Owners Club, who arranged the journey, partnered them on the event.
Mr Duerden said: “The car never missed a beat and averaged over 40mph for the entire event, cruising at 55mph on open roads, and achieving 30miles per gallon.”
The journey traced the route taken by Percy Kidner in 1912.
Driving the same Prince Henry vehicle, Kidner, who was Vauxhall’s managing director, was the fastest entrant in the event. He even incurred penalty points by arriving too early at checkpoints.
The 2012 team were able to visit many of the points from the original route during their journey.
Mr Duerden said the team’s long and painstaking reconstruction of the car to the same specification as the 1912 vehicle paid dividends during the event, with a reliable and speedy performance. He also paid testament to Kidner’s 1912 endeavours.
“We were lucky to have decent, asphalt roads and good weather. Kidner had snow covered surfaces with extremely chilly conditions which make his achievements even more astonishing.”
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