Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/627675
50 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 17 JANUARY 2016 Sport ATHLETICS VOLLEYBALL Debono, Bezzina shine at the Urban Jungle – House of Sport 10k Series Valletta Race AT the crack of dawn last week- end, 250 athletes, representing 14 different nations as far f lung as Brazil, the United States and Australia were on the starting line of the Urban Jungle House of Sport 10k Race in Malta, the first of a series of three 10k Road Running Races. The challenging route along the Valletta coast, was a welcome return after an absence of almost twenty years. Although slightly different from the original one, it brought a bout of nostalgia to the 'veteran' runners and a wave of anticipation to the newer gen- eration. From the very start, it was clear that it was going to be a closely fought battle between Charlton Debono (Gozo Athletix AC), An- drew Grech (Mellieha AC) and Mark Herrera (Athleta Pembroke) with Birkirkara St. Joseph's Keith Galea hot on their heels. Run- ning neck and neck Grech and Debono for most of the race it was Debono who burst in a sprint to take first place ahead of Grech and Herrera respectively. Debo- no has been giving consistent performances and proving quite a challenge to Grech making it all more interesting for follow- ers of the athletics scene. In the females' category Lisa Bezzina, Hannah Pace and Josann Attard Pulis were the main contenders for the podium, with Bezzina leading the way throughout the race. She was followed by Star- max SC's Josann Pulis and Pem- broke Athleta's Hannah Pace. "We are very pleased with the outcome of this race, the feed- back we received from athletes has been extremely positive es- pecially in view of the fact that this is a new route", said Charles Demanuele, Race Director. "We are particularly grateful to Urban Jungle for sponsoring this event as well as the Malta Police and Transport Malta who were in- strumental in ensuring athlete's safety throughout the race. Our thanks also go to the Race Offi- cials, Marshalls, Medical crews and volunteers who made the race possible". The Urban Jungle House of Sport 10k Race Series are being supported by Go & Fun, emvigee pr & marketing and Starmax. The next Race of the Urban Jungle House of Sport 10k Se- ries will be held on Sunday 31st January and will be the Ladies Edition, starting and finishing at Tigne Point. An €8 Registra- tion fee will include a technical t-shirt and as well as a goody bag. Places are limited and registra- tions are to be effected via http:// ujr r.emv ige e.com / l ad ie s _ on ly. php. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARC STAFRACE/URBAN JUNGLE Quarter-final match in Romania for Calleja ONE of the local international Vol- leyball referees, Mr. Nello Calleja, has been appoint- ed by the European Volleyball Confed- eration (CEV) to be the first referee for the quarter-final match between Romanians Stiinta Bacau and Rus- sian outfit Dinamo Krasnodar, which will be played in Bacau, Romania, during the forth- coming week. This match will be the first leg from the Ladies' CEV Cup quarter-finals round. The sec- ond referee for this match will be Ms. Iskra Zidanic from Croatia. Host team Stiinta Bacau have qualified for this round by beating Serbians NIS Spartak Subotica in the previous qualifying round. They are currently in sixth place in the Romanian Divizia A1, with 17 points at the end of the first round of matches. Dinamo Krasnodar are the cur- rent holders of the Women's CEV Cup, this being the second level of the European club competi- tions organised by the CEV. The Russian team has proceeded to this round after beating Hungar- ians Bekescsabai RSE in the 16th- final round. They are currently in third place in the Russian Wom- en's Volleyball Super League and can boast three current national team players in their ranks, part of the Russian national team which has just qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Bolt shocked by IAAF reports, against wiping records SIXTIMES Olympic champion Usain Bolt said he felt shocked and let down by the scandal-hit IAAF, but the Jamaican sprinter was against resetting athletics world records as the sport attempts to move on from the doping crisis. Thursday's second instalment of a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report slammed the In- ternational Association of Athlet- ics Federations (IAAF), accusing its former head, Lamine Diack, of running a clique that covered up organised doping and blackmailed athletes as senior officials looked the other way. The first part of the report by independent investigator Dick Pound, a former head of WADA, in November led to athletics super- power Russia being banned from competition for state-sponsored doping. Jamaican sprint king Bolt, the biggest name in athletics with a plethora of titles, records and commercial deals, said the IAAF had failed their athletes. "When I heard it was quite shocking for me to hear that be- cause as far as I was concerned I think they were doing a good job to clean up the sport," Bolt told Reuters in Kingston after collect- ing his sixth National Sportsman of the year award. "So for me to hear something like this was quite shocking and you feel let down as an athlete to be wanting to actually help clean up the sport, and then something like this to come up about the body. "It's kind of a letdown, so hope- fully there's no such thing, but we'll see what happen (with the investigations)." Diack stepped down last year af- ter 16 years leading the IAAF and was replaced by Briton Sebastian Coe. The Senegalese is already under formal investigation in France on suspicion of corruption and money laundering linked to the conceal- ment of positive drug tests in con- cert with Russian officials and the blackmailing of the athletes to al- low them to continue to compete. The reports noted that Diack "sanctioned and appeared to have had personal knowledge of the fraud and the extortion of athletes carried out by the actions of the illegitimate governance structure he put in place". UK Athletics (UKA) released "A Manifesto for Clean Athletics" on Monday, calling for world records to be wiped clean and drug cheats to be banned for at least eight years in radical proposals aimed at her- alding in a new era for the sport. The 29-year-old Bolt, who set the 100 metre and 200m world records of 9.58 and 19.19 seconds in 2009 and shared in the 4x100m mark of 36.84secs in 2012, was against the proposal. "As far as I'm concerned it's really pointless," he said. "What's done is done, you have to just move forward and try to make the upcoming championships and Olympics and the next (world) records as best as we can and just look forward to the future," added the 11-times world championship gold medallist. "You can't worry about the past, but try to build on the future." Usain Bolt