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ATHLETICS

Mo Farah to make farewell appearance at Zurich track event

Four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah will delay his impending track retirement by a few days to compete at the Zurich Diamond League final, organizers said on Friday.

Mo Farah to make farewell appearance at Zurich track event
Photo: Jewel Samad/AFP
The British five-time world champion had originally been due to bow out at home in London after next month's world championships from August 4th-13th.
   
He then agreed to run the 3,000-metres at the Birmingham Diamond League event on August 20th but Zurich organizers say he will now also compete in Switzerland on August 24th.
   
“Prior to switching to longer distances and the road, Mo Farah plans to return to Zurich for a farewell appearance,” said organizers in a statement.
   
“Letzigrund Stadium is where he broke the 13-minute barrier in the men's 5,000m as the first British athlete in 2010, and it is where he was crowned double European champion four years later.
   
“Now, he plans to bid the track farewell in the legendary arena.”
   
The Somali-born 34-year-old, who will turn his attentions to road racing and the marathon once he hangs up his track spikes, will aim for a 5,000m and 10,000m double in London.
   
But having qualified for the Diamond League final, Farah will end his track career with a 5,000m race in Zurich.
   
In London, he is aiming for an unprecedented third consecutive double at the worlds in the two longest track distances, having also achieved the feat in the last two Olympics.
   
Also a five-time European champion, Farah has not been beaten in a major track championship since the world indoor championships in March 2012.
   
He is one of Britain's greatest ever track athletes and the most successful in terms of gold medals won.

SPORT

Nuns on the run: Vatican launches its first athletics team

Faster, higher...holier. The newly-formed Vatican Athletics team, which is aiming to compete in international competitions, including the Olympics, was officially launched on Thursday after reaching a bilateral agreement with the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI).

Nuns on the run: Vatican launches its first athletics team
Priests take part in a fun run in front of St Peter's in 2013. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

So far there are 60 members of Vatican Athletics — the first Sports Association constituted in the Holy See — which includes nuns, priests, Swiss Guards and other workers.

Monsignor Melchor José Sánchez de Toca y Alameda, president of Vatican Athletics, said at the launch that the Olympic Games were “the dream but not in the short term”.

“The dream that we have often had is to see the Holy See flag among the delegations at the opening of the Olympic Games,” he said. But in the immediate future Vatican Athletics would like to be present at smaller competitions such as the Mediterranean Games.

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Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) president Giovanni Malago praised the latest initiative at the Holy See, which already has football and cricket teams.

“It will be necessary to affiliate with other federations,” he told Vatican News. “I'm sure this will happen, today we have started a courageous and winning start up.”

The CONI agreement allows the team to take part in national and internationally sanctioned events and to have access to Italian national coaching and medical facilities.

Team members wearing navy track suits with the Holy See's crossed keys seal were present at the launch. The youngest athlete is a 19-year-old Swiss guard, and the oldest a 62-year-old professor of the Vatican Apostolic Library.


Priests play football by the Vatican as part of the Clericus Cup. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

Two young Muslim asylum seekers, Jallow Buba, a 20-year-old Gambian, and Anszou Cissè, a 19-year-old Senegalese, have also been registered as honorary members.

Vatican pharmacist and runner Michela Ciprietti said she welcomed the initiative as “sport is the means of bringing people together.”

The team's first official event will be the Corsa di Miguel on January 20th, a 10km race in Rome honouring Miguel Sanchez, an Argentine distance runner who disappeared during the country's dictatorship.