Actually the deal is open to KK, Youngy or others if you are in Hobart and need a room, or a home cooked meal contact me…
Yes Mike Hurst and a couple of other journalists are or seem to breathe T & F
From sprintzone
Well I say “the brilliant” young Pierre-Jean is a damn idiot. If it were as simple as counting races, why can’t he count Fasuba’s and get him within a grand canyon of his Doha PR?
Six races in one week is all it took huh genius? LOL. Well hear this: the man doing the running said he panicked and wants a shrink.
BTW, the shutdown theory isn’t novel, Pierre-Jean…we’ve said it here for years when you were over on IAAF rationalizing Fasuba’s PR. and it had not a damn thing to do with hamstrings playa–it’s a “cool” thing. Until Bolt unlearned it he brokeat 160m. Safa ain’t no different. Hamstrings, huh? LOL. Just another little Charlie groupie shoveling horse$#1t over there on snakeoil.com.
whoever on sprint zone wrote that should pull the hot poker out of his arse and cool down, just for starters. this sport has enough problems without HATERS poisoning cyberspace. And you can guarantee that who ever produced that bit of excrement has failed to achieve anything of international quality in any aspect of this sport. Poor unhappy bastard.:rolleyes:
It would do near wonders for Track and Field in Australia if Asafa came down. Last summer we had Shawn Crawford, Michelle Perry, John Moffitt and LaShawn Merritt down for a few races and they really made an awesome atmosphere at the meets. Shawn Crawford also had a free coaching/training clinic while he was in Sydney and that was great.
That’s what I love about this sport – even the superstars spend time with the “little people”.
Athletics Australia really needs to make it happen though…
I was actually hoping pierre read it. Not so much for instigating purposes, but I thought he should have a choice of defending himself. I doubt it would change either one of their opinions however.
By the way, that was just mean 
Unfortunately, what you’re referencing is simply how much of the internet IS today. On letsrun and some others, that post wouldn’t even stand out particularly. And the problem PJ would have defending himself is that the act of responding to one of those morons, just brings out MORE of them. All of those morons are very jealous of the attention that CF and PJ have gotten in the Asafa issue, and often the best thing is to just let the fungus die in it’s own waste.
It can be a nasty, cold world out there and CF.com is the exception, not the rule.
Not worth doing. Just brings out more of the same.
Apparently the author thought that, while Olu was getting smacked across the legs with a bar in Nigeria, PJ should get smacked across the head. PJ has enough to do getting visas and a decent training situation sorted out for Olu.
For those who missed the Original thread in which Charlie recommended Powell compete during the Australian season based on CF’s analysis of the Jamaican’s previous five seasons…and the news that Franno Francis is bringing his MVP squad downunder in February 2008 for a training camp and some races, both individual and relays.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22838215-5001023,00.html
By Mike Hurst
November 29, 2007 12:00am
HARD on the heels of world football’s glamour player David Beckham, the world’s fastest man Asafa Powell is also coming to Australia - to race in the Sydney Grand Prix this summer.
On the basis of pure athletic performance alone, the 100metres world record-holder has certainly already attained a higher level than Beckham and is a household name globally.
Powell has run four 100m world records but feels he must race in Australia early next year to give himself the best chance of winning Olympic gold in Beijing in August.
The Daily Telegraph made this precise observation in a story on October 4 outlining the reasons based on analysis of Powell’s last five seasons. Obviously his management now agrees.
Powell and the rest of the MVP training group - including last year’s world No.1 female 100m runner Sherone Simpson - will arrive on February 9 and be based in Melbourne.
Yet with all of his records notwithstanding, the preacher’s son has not really lived up to the name his parents gave him. Asafa means "rising to the occasion’’.
The gentle Jamaican smashed his own 100m world record with a time of 9.74sec this year but his brilliant run came a fortnight too late after he had been beaten into third at the Osaka world athletics championships.
In fact the analysis of Powell’s rollercoaster career, which was conducted by Ben Johnson’s coach Charlie Francis, showed that after the major championship in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007 Powell has run his fastest time of the year in his very next competition.
"It was not a case of Powell choking in the majors so much as a case of timing. If he can get in the number of races he needs by coming to Australia, he won’t end up short of competitions by the time he gets to Beijing,’’ Francis assessed.
Francis sent his analysis and graphs to Powell’s US track agent, Paul Doyle, for deliberation.
Determined not to let that happen again in an Olympic year, Powell’s coach Stephen "Franno’’ Francis (no relation) wants to try to duplicate their 2006 campaign which started with a series of races in Melbourne at the Commonwealth Games and ended with a pair of world record races for Powell who, like Simpson, enjoyed an undefeated season and the global No.1 ranking.
Perhaps because they raced early that year, Powell and Simpson avoided the leg injuries which plagued them this year when perhaps they went too deep into their longer, slower training runs which seems to have led to problems during their transition to faster track training.
It is expected Powell will race the 100m and possibly also a 4x100m relay at the Sydney Grand Prix at Homebush on Saturday, February 16.
Their next competition will be at the opening meet of the 2008 World Athletics Tour in Melbourne on February 21.
Coming with Powell will be two tually been more successful than him at the world championships. Fellow Jamaican Michael Frater and Trinidad’s Darrel Brown won 100m silver at the 2005 and 2003 world titles respectively.
Their presence stocks the Sydney Grand Prix 100m with the most decorated field to compete in this country since former world recordholder Maurice Greene won the Sydney Olympic title.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22840020-14822,00.html
Powell heads to Melbourne to prepare for Beijing
Scott Gullan
November 29, 2007 12:00am
THE world’s fastest man, Asafa Powell, is kicking off his Beijing Olympics campaign in Australia next year.
In a massive coup for Athletics Australia, the Jamaican world record-holder will run in the Sydney Grand Prix on February 16 and then the opening event of the World Athletics Tour in Melbourne on February 21.
Powell will base himself at Olympic Park in Melbourne for three weeks and bring with him more international stars, including 2005 world championships silver medallist Michael Frater of Jamaica, 2003 world championships silver medallist Darrel Brown of Trinidad and Tobago and the No. 1 ranked female sprinter in the world last year, Sherone Simpson of Jamaica.
The success of Powell’s previous visit to Melbourne for last year’s Commonwealth Games was a key factor in his decision to return for what shapes as the most important season of his career.
His reputation is on the line in Beijing after a self-confessed meltdown in the 100m final at this year’s world championships in Osaka where he was beaten into third behind American Tyson Gay. Apart from his Commonwealth Games 100m title, Powell has yet to claim victory in a major event.
To add to the frustration, two weeks after his Osaka debacle in the small Italian town of Rieti on September 9, the Jamaican superstar smashed his own world record, running 9.74sec, 0.03 under the mark he had set in 2005 and twice equalled last year.
Athletics Australia international liaison Maurie Plant, who orchestrated Powell’s Commonwealth Games appearance, confirmed last night the 25-year-old was looking forward to returning.
“In 2006 he came and prepared here and things went very well that year,” Plant said. "They have very good memories of a good batch of training and competition here that really set them up for the year.
“He knows that he is going to have to be at his very, very best in Beijing and I guess it is very pointed for Australia that he feels he should be down here preparing. Given the considerable choices he probably has, I think it is a feather in the cap for Australia.”
Plant predicted a sub-10sec run would be on the cards given Powell will come to town in better shape than last year, when he jogged down the straight at the MCG to win the Commonwealth Games gold medal in 10.03sec.
“I think he will run in a more focused situation,” he said. “He is a lot further advanced than that this year. I mean, since he last came here he has equalled the old world record twice and set a new one.”
The appearance of Powell should ignite the domestic season and help Athletics Australia, which is desperately searching for a major sponsor after the withdrawal of Telstra.
“This is one of the absolute pillars of sport,” Plant said. "You look at Sydney last night, they had 80,000 there to see one of the great sportsman and this guy is questionably as big a name as him (Beckham) in terms of what he has achieved. The facts are he has run faster than any other human ever.
“We think it is a huge win for the sport, the fact we are going to have an absolute superstar in town, and hopefully it can spark further improvement from our own guys like Josh Ross and Patrick Johnson.”