MERLENE: "I'll Be Back"

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GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Aug 9 AFP - Track legend Merlene Ottey narrowly missed out on making the final of the women’s 100m at the European championships – but vowed to keep on running.
The 46-year-old Jamaican, who is now a naturalised Slovenian, finished fifth in her heat in 11.44sec, missing the cut by just 0.03sec.
I'm sad I didn't make the final but my career continues, so see you next year,'' said the seven-time Olympian who has accrued 35 medals in major international competition. To be fair, it would have had to have been a miracle for me to have won a medal here,’’ admitted Ottey.
I gave all that I have, I ran at 110 percent. But I lack training. You saw I was pushing at the end, that is the sign that I still can run with the younger runners.
Ottey insisted that she wants to carry on her remarkable career through to next year’s world championships, and possibly beyond to the 2008 Olympics – ageing body permitting.
Seriously, if my body stays healthy I want to run next year. I was able to achieve 11.40sec after only short period of training. My aim for this season is to run sub-11.40sec, a 11.20 or 11.30sec 100m.
If I'm still running times that qualify me for championships, expect to see me there ... the worlds next year in Osaka and Beijing the year after, who knows? Running at my age is a challenge. It’s the only motivation I need.’’
Ottey, the first woman over 45 to have run under 12sec in the 100m, has clocked up 50 races over seven Olympics since her debut in Moscow in 1980, where she won bronze in the 200m.
She holds the record for having the most women’s world championships medals (14) and has won eight Olympic medals - the most by any woman in track and field history - though never that elusive gold.
She has also won a record number of medals at the indoor championships - six.
Ottey also has 57 consecutive wins in the 100m - the most consecutive wins over the blue riband event for a female, and 34 consecutive wins at 200 metres.
Jamaican Sportswoman of the year 15 times between 1979 and 1997, Ottey became a Slovenian citizen in May 2002 and said she felt quite at home in her adopted homeland, apart from the cold.
``Slovenia is a small country but very beautiful. The language has been a huge problem, and coming from Jamaica I’m not at all keen on the snowy winters.’’

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Man, she is Hotter than most 20yr olds!!

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KK your the man, what else you got hiding there???top of the class to you for that pic

my girl thinks i got merlene on the brain - gee no wonder why…

PS hey charlie when your here dont mention merlene :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

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That is a stunning achievement. With that result despite a lack of training I wonder what may happen net year. I wonder if 200m is her best chance of success. :confused:

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MERLENE SETS ANOTHER 45+ WR WITH 11.34 WIN AT SCOTTISH NATIONALS, AUG 12, 2006

Ottey, 46, defies the years and flies to 100m victory

Slovenian leads all the way to pick up her third title. Bill Melville reports

Evergreen Slovenian Merlene Ottey, fresh from the European Championships in Gothenburg, showed all her remarkable style as the 46- year-old won the Scottish 100m Championship title in Glasgow yesterday.
With Jamaican and Slovenian titles already under her belt, that was number three.

Ottey led from start to finish crossing the line three metres ahead of Scottish number one Susan Deacon as she stopped the clock at 11.34s – her fastest of the year and an over-45 world best.

If that were not enough, Ottey stamped on any suggestion that she had treated her Scots opponents with less than respect.

“I always give 100%,” she said. “Give maximum effort.”

Now Ottey expects to build on her Scottish outing to qualify for the World Championships in Japan next year.

And Fife’s 5000m title winner Andrew Lemocello, 23, could well take heart from Ottey’s athletic longevity.

He may need it if this past “wasted” season is anything to go by.

Yesterday’s Scottish win, retaining the title from what was little more than a training run in 14m34.19s, is, sadly, one of the highlights of Lemocello’s year, one which promised much that failed to materialise.

After backing out of the Commonwealth Games team due to examination pressures he missed out on European Championship selection due to, as Lemocello sees it, UK Athletics’ bungling.

Initially aiming for 3000m steeplechase selection, an injury incurred during his warm-up at the Manchester trials put Lemocello out of the race and the list of contenders.

But he was the only British athlete with a 10,000m qualifying time and he duly waited for the selectors’ telephone call in that respect. But it never came.

A week later, UK Athletics offered him a 10,000m berth based on a supposed B-qualifying time.

“They didn’t know I’d done the full qualifying time,” he said with a grimace. “It’s simple stuff like that that pisses me off.”

By then he had already started a two-week training break in preparation for the US college cross-country season and turned the questionable opportunity down.

Of course, Manchester was a last-ditch qualifying opportunity for Lemocello.

“I had run 8:34 on my own. but I had not had a race that would give me the time I needed,” he said explaining that racing on the US college circuit prevents him employing an agent.

“So I went to both Scottish and UK athletics to try and get runs in Europe but neither could help me.

“It was the same last year when I was preparing for the world championships,” Lemocello added.

And he concluded, “It’s silly things like that that get UK Athletics a bad name.”

Nineteen-year-old Nony Mordi from St Andrews was the only record breaker on this first day of action when she won the triple jump with 12.81 metres.

Two first-timers won the one-lap hurdles. Lisa Doyle, a newcomer from the flat 400m last season, took the women’s title with relative ease in 59.60s, while Pitreavie’s Francis Smith won with a sub-52 best this season

Darren Ritchie took the long jump title for the seventh time with 7.40m.

And Joann Ross, who looked capable of an international breakthrough this season until “losing my head” in the Manchester trials, won the 800m for the first time.

13 August 2006

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GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Aug 11, 2006 (AFP) - When Merlene Ottey won bronze in the 200m at the 1980 Moscow Olympics for Jamaica, who could have guessed that she would still be running competitively 26 years later?

Now a naturalised Slovenian citizen, Ottey, at the remarkable age of 46, missed out on a place in the final of the women’s 100m at the European championships by only 0.03sec.
Testament to Ottey’s boundless ambition and incredible longevity on the track, yes, but her success also highlights the dearth of decent sprinters on the contintent.

Francis Obikwelu, born in Nigeria and a Portuguese citizen only since 2001, has been the one top sprinter on show in the men’s competition.
He could afford a series of terrible starts and still destroy his rivals for double gold in the 100m (9.99sec) and 200m (20.01sec).
Michael Johnson, the US former sprinter who holds the 200m and 400m world records, said there had been only one winner in the 100m, often considered as the the blue riband event of many competitions.
Ultimately, this was a very weak final,'' the nine-time world champion told the BBC. You saw a lot of inconsistencies. A lot of people who got a good start but couldn’t transfer that into a good drive phase.
Francis Obikwelu was the class of the field. He's the only guy that you can take out of there and put into any international track 100m.'' Indeed, Obikwelu, an ethnic Ibo, was the sole European competitor to have made it to the finals of either the 2004 Olympics or the 2005 world championships, winning a silver in Athens. British former middle distance runner Steve Cram, now a pundit for BBC, said in his pre-competition column it was a given that the 100m field would never be classed as good in the absence of American sprinters. But when was it ever (good)? Even when European athletics was dominant, back in the 1970s, the sprints were never as good,’’ Cram said.
The Europeans have to be taken for what they are - third in the list of global championships, behind the Olympics and worlds but ahead of the Commonwealths and various American meets.'' Certainly the prospect of competing at an European competition was enough of a draw for Ottey, the winner of an amazing 35 medals in major international competition in her 28-year career. It’s a good feeling to be at my first outdoor European championships,’’ said the seven-time Olympian running on the same Gothenburg track where she won the 200m world title for Jamaica way back in 1995.
I'm happy to be here and be able to run. It's another chance for me to continue to race. I remember this stadium very well, but at that time I was in far better shape. It’s just a pity I am not faster now,’’ she said, not looking a day over 30 with her toned legs, pumped arms and washboard stomach.
In her first heat, Ottey beat home Maltese record holder Diane Borg by a full second. Borg is 31 years her junior.
Whether Borg will be at the world championships in Osaka next summer is a moot point. Ottey certainly still has plans.
If I'm still running times that qualify me for championships, expect to see me there... the worlds next year in Osaka and the Beijing Olympics the year after, who knows? Running at my age is a challenge. It’s the only motivation I need.’’

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She lacks training? I hope she goes back to it full time and trains with the desire of a 26 year old not a 46 year old. I would love to see her execute a great training plan because I’m curious to see what she could run. How much does age matter???