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ATHLETICS

World record-holder Heidler wins German title

Hammer world record-holder Betty Heidler warmed up for next month's world athletics championships in Moscow with her ninth German title in succession on Saturday.

Published: 7 July 2013 11:41 CEST
World record-holder Heidler wins German title
Photo: Bernd Thissen/DPA

The 29-year-old threw 73.93m to win the German championships in Ulm by nearly four metres from her nearest rival, but Heidler knows she has to improve ahead of the world championships.

Heidler, the 2007 world champion, has a season best of 76.48m, behind world leader Oksana Kondrateva of Russia, who threw 77.13m at the end of last month.

The German set the world record of 79.42m in 2011 and having won gold at Osaka 2007, silver at Berlin 2009 and silver again at Daegu 2011, Heidler is bidding for her fourth straight world championship medal.

Meanwhile, 2009 world bronze medallist Ariane Friedrich withdrew from the high-jump at the German championships with a knee injury.

The 29-year-old faces a nervous wait to recover in time to clear the world championships qualification mark of 1.95m, for which she is five centimetres short.

Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium hosts the world championships from August 10th-18th.

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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).

Published: 11 January 2019 08:49 CET
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.