Four provincial athletics bodies have told national president Leonard Chuene and his board to resign by Wednesday or face criminal charges for fraud and failing to release the organisation’s annual financial statements.

The bodies, which have previously objected to the manner in which the Athletics SA (ASA) boss and his executive had handled the Caster Semenya affair, have added to their list of grievances the board’s defiance to the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc).

The bodies said in a statement issued early on Tuesday morning that the ASA board had defied their own council – the federation’s most important decision-making structure – which in September had agreed that they would adhere to the findings of a Sascoc inquiry.

The ASA board was suspended last week, but they have since refused to go arguing that Sascoc was not entitled to take that action.

“The board of ASA is now not happy with the outcome and seeks to contest it through legal means. The ASA Board does not have the mandate of all its member provinces to engage in any legal proceedings against Sascoc.”

The four unions – Western Province, Eastern Province, Boland and Free State – said further that attempts to get the annual report from ASA general manager Molatelo Malehopo had failed.

They warned that if the ASA board had not resigned by noon on Wednesday, “criminal charges shall be laid against each individual member of the ASA board for various breaches of the Companies Act, including the failure to provide members with financial statements despite a direct request”.

“Criminal charges will be laid against each individual member of the ASA board for fraud, for intentionally lying to the members of ASA (in September), with the intention of causing them to act to their prejudice or potential prejudice.”

The four unions are also threatening to lay charges against the board members with ASA’s disciplinary committee for bringing the sport into disrepute and for violating ASA’s constitution.

They added: “A Special General Meeting of ASA will be called to consider a motion of impeachment against each individual member of the ASA Board.”
Sourced via timeslive.co.za

Popularity: 1% [?]

• Sprinters left out of World Class Performance Programme
• Jenny Meadows and David Greene handed increased funding

Mark Lewis-Francis, a 100 metres relay gold medallist at the 2004 Olympics, and the Welsh 200m runner Christian Malcolm have had their lottery funding withdrawn by UK Athletics.

Lewis-Francis, a member of the gold-medal winning 100m quartet in Athens, is not among the athletes invited on to the world-class performance programme (WCPP) for the 2009-10 season. The 27-year-old, a former world junior champion, missed the entire 2008 season, including the Beijing Olympics, with an achilles tendon injury. He was not selected for the World Athletics Championships in Berlin in August.

There is also no place on the funding programme for Malcolm, 30, who finished fifth in the Olympic 200m final in 2004 and again in 2008, but the Wigan runner Jenny Meadows has been rewarded for her 800m bronze medal in Berlin by having her funding upgraded from development to podium level.

Swansea’s David Greene has also had his funding increased as a result of reaching the 400m hurdles final at the world championships, while the 110m hurdler Andy Turner is back on the WCPP after an impressive season.

“I am delighted to be back on the world class performance programme,” said Turner. “Last year was a difficult time for me, but it was the wake-up call I needed.

“I definitely over-competed last year and that experience and the impact it had injury-wise made me realise just what a blessing lottery funding is by allowing us to peak for the big events and perform where it counts. I am looking forward to embarking on a winter of tough training and repaying the faith shown in my ability in 2010.”

Another high hurdler, William Sharman, is handed podium-level funding after a stunning and unexpected fourth place in the final in Berlin. Charlene Thomas, the surprise winner of the 1500m at the UK championships, and Jodie Williams, the teenager who won the sprint double at the world youth championships, are handed development funding.

“The criteria and selection process has been redeveloped to be much clearer and more transparent for all involved and I am confident it has produced a crop of athletes who will deliver to the aims of the programme, namely success on the global stage,” Charles van Commenee, UKA’s head coach, said.

“What is really significant is that the number of podium athletes has increased dramatically, these athletes are put on to this level of funding as a direct result of their performances over the last 18 months, which clearly demonstrates increased levels of world-class performance – a clear indication of the impact our lottery funding is having.

“To have such a strong set of athletes on the programme really pays testimony to the depth of talent we have within the UK. With these athletes available for international team selection, 2010 with World Indoors, European Team Championships and European Championships is certainly something to look forward to where we can build on the progress of 2009.”

Peter Eriksson, the Paralympic head coach, added: “As with our Olympic counterparts, the Paralympic WCPP is about winning medals on the global stage and our criteria reflects that. I have no doubt that the athletes brought on to the 2009-10 WCPP programme will take us in the right direction and produce better performances.

“2009 has been an exciting year for the Paralympic Programme. We have created strategy, built a grassroots scheme and developed a performance pathway supported, thanks to the lottery playing general public, with significant funding, and this will take us to 2012 and beyond.”
Sourced via guardian.co.uk

Popularity: 1% [?]

We are looking for your nominations for the best looking sport babes in the world. The nominations can include sport babes from around the globe, from any country, from any sporting code-the more the merrier.

Nominations close on 30 September 2009.

Send your nominations to to us by filling out the form below. You may nominate up to 3 athletes per time.

Popularity: 44% [?]

South African runner Caster Semenya, who is undergoing gender testing after questions arose about her muscular build and deep voice, returns home Tuesday to celebrations after her 800-meter win at the world championships.

South Africans have rallied behind the 18-year-old, who is not accused of trying to cheat but of perhaps unknowingly having a medical condition that blurs her gender and gives her an unfair advantage over other female runners.

The governing African National Congress party, unions and other groups were urging their members to come to the airport Tuesday morning to greet Semenya at a rally.

“I’ll be there,” Semenya’s father, Jacob, told The Associated Press Monday. He said his daughter would then return to university in Pretoria.

Jacob Semenya said it was not clear when his daughter would visit the family’s village in northern South Africa. But Sammy Molofo, an ANC Youth League leader in the area where the runner grew up, said a weekend homecoming celebration was being planned there.

President Jacob Zuma was to meet Semenya and the two other South African medalists, men’s 800-meter champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi and men’s long jump runner-up Kgotso Mokoena at the presidential guest house in Pretoria. According to a statement from his office Monday, Zuma wants “to congratulate them on their sterling performance in Berlin.”

COSATU, the country’s main trade union federation, said Tuesday’s welcome would be for the whole team, but “especially Caster, who has been the victim of such a despicable campaign by international athletics officials to discredit her magnificent achievement by maliciously raising unfounded questions about her gender.”

Semenya’s family and friends say there is no doubt she is a woman. But it is not always easy to get a clear-cut answer from scientists on the question in some cases.

The IAAF, track and field’s governing body, will decide Semenya’s case according to whether her “conditions … accord no advantage over other females” after consulting a gynecologist, an endocrinologist, a psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and a gender expert. Her genes and physiology as well as how she sees herself and how she is seen by her community could play a role in their determination.

South Africans have been outraged not just that questions have been raised, but that they have been made public.

On Sunday, Lamine Diack, the IAAF president, said the affair was handled badly.

“I deeply regret that confidentiality was breached in this case and that the IAAF were forced into a position of having to confirm that gender testing was being carried out on this young athlete,” Diack told reporters in Berlin. “It is a regrettable matter and I have requested an internal inquiry to ensure that procedures are tightened up and this never happens again.”
Sourced via washingtonpost.com

Popularity: 2% [?]

South Africa’s Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, the oldest man in the men’s field won the 800m in 1:45.29. Off at a slow pace, partly due to ten men contesting the final, Mulaudzi made the break on the final bend, and hung on to beat fast finishing defending champion Alfred Yego of Kenya, who took silver, and 1500 metres winner, Yusuf Saad Kamel of Bahrain, who took bronze, though both ran 1:45.45. Mulaudzi emphasised his advantage with a dip finish worthy of a sprinter, then crashed to the ground whence he issued an enormous victory roar.

Sourced via iaaf.org

Popularity: 6% [?]

Khotso Mokoena rocketed into the the silver winning position at the Berlin World Championships. After great success after winning a silver medal at last years Olympic Games in Beijing.

Mokoena’s jump of 8.47m was just short of the eventual winning distance of 8.54m by Dwight Phillips, the twice former champion and Olympic gold medalist 2004.

I am sure Khotso Mokoena will now have his target set on the next World Championships for world success.

Popularity: 6% [?]

After the first false start, the men’s 200m field shot off into the distance. Usain Bolt looked dominant from the word go. Bolt looked liked a bullet and led the field through the line and a set a new World Record with a surreal time of 19.19sec.

Usain Bolt now has two World Records for the 100m and 200m sprints along with the World Titles to go with it.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Sourced via youtube.com

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• 18-year-old athlete clocks year’s fastest time
• ‘She is female’ insist South African officials

The world of athletics was hit by controversy tonightafter a female South African athlete who won the 800m final at the world championships was asked to take a gender verification test to prove she is a woman.

Caster Semenya, an 18-year-old who had never competed outside of Africa, before this week aroused suspicions when she posted the fastest 800m time in the world this year, winning gold at the African junior championships.

Tonight she won the gold medal in Berlin in 1 minute 55.45 seconds, the best in the world this year, beating Janeth Jepkosgei, the defending champion, by 2.45 seconds. The British runner Jenny Meadows won the bronze medal.

Semanya, from Polokwane, Limpopo province, possesses an unusually developed muscular frame and a deep voice and has clocked times which belie her youth – tonight’s winning time is more than three-quarters of a second faster than Kelly Holmes’s career best.

Nick Davies, a spokesman for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), confirmed today that the test was requested after Semenya’s run last month amid fears she should not be allowed to run as a woman. “In the case of this athlete, following her breakthrough in the African junior championships, the gossip was starting to build up,” said Davies.

Davies described the tests necessary to determine the gender of an athlete as “an extremely complex procedure” involving medics, scientists, gynaecologists and psychologists, the outcome of which is not expected for several weeks. “The situation today is that we do not have any conclusive evidence that she should not be allowed to run,” he said.

“It would be wrong today to take a decision to withdraw an athlete. This is a medical condition. It is nothing that she has done. There is a need to make sure rules are followed. We are more concerned for the person and not to make this as something that is humiliating.”

The world championships end on Sunday and Davies was unable to say whether any retrospective action could be taken to strip Semenya of her gold medal were she subsequently to be revealed as male. “I can’t say that if X happens in the future that we will, for example, retroactively strip results. It’s legally very complex,” said Davies.

“If there’s a problem and it turns out that there’s been a fraud, that someone has changed sex, then obviously it would be much easier to strip results. However, if it’s a natural thing and the athlete has always thought she’s a woman or been a woman, it’s not exactly cheating.”

Molatelo Malehopo, the general manager of Athletics South Africa, reacted angrily to the rumours. “She is a female,” said Malehopo. “We are completely sure about that and we wouldn’t have entered her into the female competition if we had any doubts. We have not been absent-minded, we are very sure of her gender. We are aware of the claims that have been made but our aim at the moment is to prepare Caster for the race this evening. We have not started testing and we have no plans to do.” Bloggers on some South African websites are condemning the allegations as offensive, and even racist.

Semenya’s previous personal best, set in 2008, was almost eight seconds slower than her best time this year. At last year’s world junior championships, she failed to progress further than the heats, finishing in seventh place with a time of 2:11.98.
Sourced via guardian.co.uk

Popularity: 6% [?]

The recently crowned African junior champion, Caster Semenya of South Africa, won the world title in Berlin yesterday with a world leading time of 1.55.45.

Semenya tracked Janeth Jepkosgei through a torrid first 200 metres in 26.81sec, and a 400m in 56.83. Semenya took over as the leader and made the race her own. She destroyed a quality field with pure speed and strength.

Controversy still shrouds the recently crowned womans 800m World Champion as a few questions have risen around  her gender. According to recent reports, she will undergo a gender test to see whether she is a female or not.

Hopefully Athletics South Africa have done their homework and that all is in order for the 18 year old Semenya.

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