Panama sprint find

Monday, 22 June 2009 Brazil repeats triumph at South American Championships – Day 3 report

Alonso Edward of Panana completes a sprint double at the South American Championships (Eduardo Biscayart)

The team representative of the Brazilian Confederation continued its dominance at the XLVI edition of the South American Championships that ended in Lima on June 21.

Brazil topped the medal table with 16 gold, 20 silver and 17 bronze, and collected 446 points in the general classification (204 men; 242 women). Brazil finished ahead of Colombia which collected 275 points (98; 177), and Argentina which had 138.5 (88.5; 50).

The best performance on the winning team in the closing day was provided by long jumper Keila Costa, who took the title with 6.62/0.4, ahead of Colombian Johanna Triviño (6.45/1.2), and compatriot Fernanda Gonçalves (6.27/0.0).

This is the second South American gold for the 26-year-old from Recife, after the one obtained in 2003. Costa has reached the final of the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, the 2008 World Indoor Championships in Valencia, and the past Beijing Olympic Games.

“We are pleased with the result,” said Nélio Moura, Costa’s coach, who is also the coach of both 2008 Olympic Long Jump champions, Panama’s Irving Saladino and Brazilian Maurren Maggi.

“At the end of the 2007 Keila had to switch her take-off leg from the right to the left due to an injury, so I feel we continue to make progress after the complex change,” added Moura. “Coming here, I was hoping to see some consistency in Keila’s results, and I feel this is a proof of that. The mark from today is worth to qualify to a World Championship final, so giving the time of the year where we are, I feel that’s great. Keila should be ready for the Berlin final, and there we can expect to see someone who can put up a great fight,” concluded Moura.

Costa’s next step will the “Jogos da Lusofonia” (Portuguese speaking countries’ Games), to be held in Lisboa in 12-13 July. Then the athlete will remain in Europe in preparation for the Berlin World Championships.

Race walking record for López

Colombian Luis Fernando López commenced the new era for South American race walking by taking the first title in the post-Jefferson Pérez time. López also erased one record achieved by the great Ecuadorian, who among many honours has the 1996 Olympic gold, 2008 silver, and three World Championships titles.

Thirty year-old López, ninth in the Beijing Games, walked to a track record at the 20,000m in 1:20:53.9, to cut 1 exact second from the previous best set by Pérez in Cali on 5 July 2008. López’s previous best in track was 1:23:43.2 (2005), while his best on the road is 1:20:26, also set in Lima, at the 2005 Pan American Cup.

López, born in San Juan de Pasto, Department of Nariño, is coached by former race walking athlete Luis Fernando Roso.

“We came to Lima with the goal of achieving a time close to 1:20:30, so this is not an accident,” said Roso. “We now have the responsibility of filling the vacant space left by someone as great as Jefferson Pérez, who has been a great influence for race walking in South America. He changed our approach towards training techniques and other methods of scientific support. We will try to get close to his marks, but will be very difficult to get close to all his achievements. This is a first good step, and we are now very confident heading to Berlin,” expressed Roso.

After crossing the 10,000m mark in 40:27, López had no opposition from the rest of the field. “He went solo for almost the entire race. We expected to face Ecuadorian Rolando Saquipay, but he didn’t come,” ended Roso. Chilean Yerko Araya was second with a NR of 1:23:08.2, while Ecuadorian Patricio Ortega was third with a PB of 1:23:30.9.

Edward emerges as the new sprinting star

Panama may not have a track at this moment; yet, the country keeps on producing athletics talent, and the newest jewel is [u]19-year-old sprinter Alonso Edward.[/u]

The Panama City native completed a double in Lima after winning the 200m in 20.45 (wind nil), his third time ever after the 20.34 NR set in Hutchinson, Kansas, on 23 May. On 20 June Edward had won the 100m in 10.29. Both titles are the first for Panama at those events in the history of the Championships.

[b]Edward attended the Barton Community College in Great Bend, Kansas, this past season. But the impressive results achieved there under the guidance of coach Matt Kane (10.09 NR and 9.97w at 100m on top of the 20.34 at 200m), have convinced him to drop his college eligibility and to run in the international circuit.

Edward is 1.83m tall and weighs 78Kg. He was discovered by Professor Berna, and later coached in Panama by Cecilio Woodruf.

His 200m victory came by a wide margin. Edward left Brazilians Hugo de Souza (20.92) and Bruno de Barros (20.93), in a distant second and third place.

“I will head to Europe now, to get a few more races, as we approach Berlin, but I will keep training with Matt Kane in Kansas in the future,” said Edward.[/b]
Doubles by Piedra, Silva, Lauro, González García and Melchor

Besides Edward, five other athletes obtained double victories on Sunday. Ecuadorian Bayron Piedra won the 5000m (13:56.93), to add that gold to the one at 1500m.
Uruguayan Andrés Silva took the 400m hurdles in 50.28. He also had won the 400m.
Argentina’s Germán Lauro won the Discus with a SB of 60.41, ahead of record holder Jorge Balliengo. Lauro had also won the Shot Put with a SB of 19.20 on 20 June.

Colombians Norma González and Rosibel García also had two gold medals in Lima. González, bronze medalist at 400m in the 2000 World Junior Championships, took the 200m in 23.73, after winning the 400 on 20 June. While García triumphed at 800 (2:05.21), after winning the 1500m.

Peruvian Inés Melchor was the local hero, and to the 5000m gold obtained on Saturday, she added the 10,000m one, reached with a Championship record of 33:11.79.

In the Shot Put, Chilean Natalia Ducó, the 2008 World Junior Champion, upset the eight-time-champion and South American record holder, Brazilian Elisângela Adriano. Ducó threw 17.73 in the second round, to clearly beat Adriano (16.63).

The next edition of the South American Championships will take place in Buenos Aires in 2011.

Eduardo Biscayart for the IAAF

Results

Men
200m (0.0)
1 Alonso Edward PAN 20.45
2 Hugo de Souza BRA 20.92
3 Bruno de Barros BRA 20.93

800m
1 Fabiano Peçanha BRA 1:47.82
2 Kléberson Davide BRA 1:49.33
3 Nico Herrera VEN 1:49.53
5000m
1 Bayron Piedra ECU 13:56.93
2 Mario Bazán PER 13:57.37
3 Damião de Souza BRA 13:57.94
400m hurdles
1 Andrés Silva URU 50.28
2 Raphael Fernandes BRA 50.42
3 Yeison Rivas COL 50.87
Long Jump
1 Rogério Bispo BRA 7.77/-0.8
2 Erivaldo Vieira BRA 7.61/-0.3
3 Hugo Chila ECU 7.51/-0.2
Discus
1 Germán Lauro ARG 60.41
2 Jorge Balliengo ARG 58.04
3 Ronald Julião BRA 54.97
Decathlon
1 Carlos Eduardo Chinin BRA 7474 [11.07/0.0 7.10/0.8 13.51 1.96 49.63 (3980/1) 14.88/-0.8 40.59 4.40 53.30 4:55.87
2 Oscar Mina ECU 6659 [10.92/0.0 6.44/0.7 11.86 1.96 49.67 (3757/2) 16.75/-0.8 38.82 3.50 48.04 4:58.57
3 Fernando Korniejczuk ARG [11.67/0.0 6.58/0.8 11.85 1.90 53.66 (3398/4) 15.46/-0.8 36.00 4.10 49.86 5:11.39
4x400m
1 COL (Rivas, Valoyes, Torres, Mosquera) 3:06.22
2 BRA (Ambrósio, Vasconcelos, Bargas, Vieira) 3:06.85
3 ARG (Larregle, Wilken, Deymonnaz, Jiménez) 3:11.70
20000m Walk
1 Luis Fernando López COL 1:20:53.6* AR
2 Yerko Araya CHI 1:23:08.2 NR
3 Patricio Ortega ECU 1:23:30.9

Women
200m (0.0)
1 Norma González COL 23.73
2 Thaíssa Presti BRA 23.85
3 Jennifer Padilla COL 24.23
800m
1 Rosibel García COL 2:05.21
2 Josiane Tito BRA 2:06.66
3 Christiane dos Santos BRA 2:06.72
10000m
1 Inés Melchor PER 33:11.79*
2 Cruz Nonata da Silva BRA 33:36.60
3 Sueli Silva BRA 33:47.15
400m hurdles
1 Lucimar Teodoro BRA 56.32*
2 Luciana França BRA 56.53
3 Madelene Rondón VEN 58.29
Long Jump
1 Keila Costa BRA 6.62/0.4
2 Johana Triviño COL 6.45/1.2
3 Fernanda Gonçalves BRA 6.27/0.0
Triple Jump
1 Johanna Triviño COL 14.02/-0.1
2 Caterine Ibargüen COL 13.93/0.5
3 Verónica Davis VEN 13.83/0.7
Shot Put
1 Natalia Ducó CHI 17.73
2 Elisângela Adriano BRA 16.63
3 Andréa Pereira BRA 16.16
4x400m
1 BRA (Coutinho, S. Ferreira, de Lima, Pinheiro) 3:32.69
2 COL (López, González, Padilla, Idrobo) 3:35.83
3 ECU (Caicedo, Chávez, Corozo, Jaramillo) 3:45.99

  • Championship record

Classification
1 BRA 446 pts (204 men; 242 women)
2 COL 275 (98; 177)
3 ARG 138.5 (88.5; 50)
4 ECU 111 (64; 47)
5 PER 91 (51; 40)
6 CHI 87 (42; 45)
7 VEN 73.5 (49.5; 24)
8 PAN 25 (20; 5)

Medal Table
1 BRA 16-20-17; 53
2 COL 14-9-4; 27
3 ARG 3-4-8; 15
4 ECU 3-2-6; 11
5 PER 3-1-2; 6
6= PAN, URU 2-0-0; 2
8 CHI 1-5-1; 7

My country sucked again!! Most of them terribly underperformed. A 10.21 sprinter ran something arround 10.75, the 4x100 ran an awful time, they took some athletes that didn’t have the minimum mark and didn’t take some with the required mark. I am glad for Brazil though.

Which is your country, if you are happy to reveal? And do you currently live there?

He has revealed in other posts that he’s Argentinian (unless I’ve totally forgotten).

I am Argentinean, I am staying here until October and then move to Munich. I am somehow not happy about saying it, I just feel ashamed of the current status and image the country has and all the corruption in every stage, either from the government, industry, police and… national athletics federation (CADA). If I had to ennumerate all the deals and thefts they have made with developing athlete’s money I wouldn’t stop until tomorrow. Also the idioticy people in most important charges show is overwhelming.

Hopefully you can rise above the bullshit. I’m sure everyone on this board wishes you the best. Are you moving to Munich for work/study or for athletics? Don’t feel in any way obliged to reply. It’s just that I don’t think there are many South American members here and it’s always interesting to get a different perspective on things from around the world.

Thanks.

I got an academic full ride scholarship from the German government, they are paying even the plane ticket and I don’t have to return a single penny. I will study aeronautical & space engineering. This opportunity started last year and I had never seriously thought about living outside this country, or at least attending college. After travelling arround Europe this winter I realized it’s a continent full of opportunities for young people that you can’t simply find in Argentina.

The problem with Argentina, and it’s inhabitants (that would include me), is excess of pride and lack of self critic. Many problems aren’t adressed because of excessive mediocrity found everywhere in the society and that includes me and my family and my group of friends. We were lucky enough to have a German education and we are suddenly realizing how this country is slowly sinking towards a point of no return. It’s sad but when the most inadecuate and underisable people play the most strategic roles it’s the expectable outcome.

On the other hand argentineans are good people and mostly working, but as a “mass” there are many glitches where you can clearly see the outcome of almost 90 years of educative decadence, specially in the most poor groups. But they, as a nation, are still proud of what the country was 100 years ago, when the country was a leading in terms of development and growth. I would say there is no foundation for that pride right now.

Regarding athletics, the national federation has too many dark business with the little money they recieve from the government. I believe we have about 10 synthetic tracks in the country, 5 of them being in Buenos Aires province. There is a regional sports development centre where there are 2 of these and right now they are building a third one in the very same spot, whereas 1 was enough for it’s current use and in the northern provinces there isn’t a single one. Southern provinces have no tracks at all. Two weeks a go there was a big celebration because a cynder track was opened in the north, well it’s ok and good for the sport, but they made a relatively big show of it as if it was a stadium.

Coaching is another huge problem. I know that everywhere are bad coaches, but generally there are a few coaches with deep knowledge per country. Here the “head coaches” of the most “pregious” track clubs have no idea of the effects of sprinting on the cns and are doing any type of crazy stuff for short sprinters (500m repeats on track during spp is a good example?). They look at my as if I was some kind ape when I try to explain them I am going s-l and lifting 3 times per week after sprinting. They can’t understand how I will develop my “aerobic base” with those extensive tempo runs, or why my volume is so low. They are importing cuban coaches (that are supposed to be eminences) and after having shared training sessions with the jumps guy I clearly see how out of 7 jumpers none survived the training.
On the top of that very few coaches can speak english, and if they do, I seriously doubt they will be reading anything of the level you can find in this forum. What’s more appaling is that there are still some athletes that have good performances relative to their genetic potential and it makes you wonder how far these guys would make it if they had a more scientific coaching.

Regarding your speciality, there’s nobody training for the 400 from your approach, every single quartermiler I know is doing overdistance but in a volume even greater than Hart’s system. There is a guy who runs the 200 in 20.8x but is unable to break 47 even though he trained for it and has the biotype of a quartermiler. There is talent here but it goes nowhere.

On the other hand certain track clubs are favoured and that’s why you see mediocre athletes attending international meets and good ones staying at home. It’s some kind of mafia, there have been phantom meets were an “old lady” suddenly made the minimum for the OG, she went to Beijing and barely vaulted 4.20. It’s a shame that the metropilitan federation has to obbey orders given by the argentinean one, even the ones that are obligued to organize these phantom meets will tell you “I wish it rains and hails tomorrow when that old bitch is jumping”.

There’s also lots of money that was destined to the athletes but disappeared in the way. In the last NC two hammers disappeared for ever ever during the competition! When the second track was installed here the video finish system disappeared and the track costed roughly 800.000 dollars, while it’s a mediocre rubber track, … I believe the most humillating that has happened (and is happening) is that our best promise, a youth javelin thrower (world ranked 8th) gets zero funding from the state because of a coaching conflict. Many athletes live in the local development center and this guy gets nothing even though he could clearly make it to la creme de la creme! He lives in a favela (slum), one person is privatly sponsoring him and gives him enough money to eat properly. There was a collect done in order to buy some javelin shoes for him. And I bet my ass somebody is having a nice time with this kid’s money.

Then my athletic development also gets benefitted from my move to Germany. If I had stayed here it would have been impossible for me to continue training, we lack infrastructure, to get to the university it takes arround 1h 20m and then the same for the trip back home. Add another 1h total trip time to training and it’s humanly impossible to stick to a training regime, and I am lucky enough to be able to attend university! In Munich it only takes me arround 20m to get to the university and 10m to get to the Olympic park, it’s much more doable. I hope to get quality coaching there and to be able to fulfy, at least partially, my “talent”, which isn’t anywhere near great. And secondly I hope, that in the remote case I made an international competition, not being forced to compete for Belgium if things don’t go well with my the CADA. Anyway for the moment that doesn’t represent a real worry.

Sorry if it was long but I believe you deserved a complete answer.

Congratulations. That is no small accomplishment. Part of your frustration is probably caused by being smarter than the vast majority (or all) of people who are in charge of your country’s athletics program.

My experience within Canada has shown me that in most (everyone I’ve had experience with) government funded programs/institutions, the incompetent people often rise to the top.

Good luck in your studies, your athletics, and whatever those lead you to.

Thanks! I don’t know if I am smarter than them, but what’s extremelly frustrating is that I only understand the top of the iceberg of sprint training, I know nothing in comparison to many guys in this forum but still have a more scientifical approach to training than many “top coaches” here.

Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts. You’re a good man. We learn from each other. You will inspire many I’m sure, not just on this forum.

I revive this thread to inform that the unfounded javelin thrower just made it to the world youth championship final with a NR.

His previous NR wasn’t accepted by the argentinean federation because another thrower broke this guy’s personal javelin in the very same meet (NJC).

The final is very open with him being fourth in the qualification.

Braian just finished third, missing silver by 10cm and gold medal by half a metre. He thew a NR in the process.