11th IAAF World Athletics Championships-Leveau-Agricole, Woodcock selected for the ‘Worlds’ |31 July 2007
The championships will be held from Saturday August 25 to Sunday September 2 at Nagai Stadium in Osaka City with 24 events for men and 23 for women. Some 3,200 athletes from 212 countries are to participate in the championships.
This will be Leveau-Agricole’s second participation at the ‘Worlds’ after making her debut at the eighth edition in Edmonton, Canada in 2001 when she registered a best throw of 49.40m to be ranked 21st out of 22 participants.
The two-time former Sportslady of the Year, who trained in France recently, looks to be in good shape as she registered her best ever result away from home with a distance of 56.49m to win the silver medal at the recent Ninth All-Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria.
The distance also earned her a first qualification for the Olympics and she is looking forward to compete in Beijing, China in 2008.
Leveau-Agricole, whose Seychelles record stands at 57.86m, will compete in two more competitions – the National Championship at Stad Popiler this coming week
As for Germany-based Woodcock, he finished with a no jump in Algiers as he failed to clear the bar at 2.05m in all his three attempts.
But despite his German coach, Wolfgang Ritzdorf, terming his performance inside the Stade 5-juillet in Algiers as “a disaster”, he added that “I still believe in him (Woodcock) and I know he will make it.”
“It was just a small technical fault. He could have easily cleared the bar at 2.20m if not for this mistake. He has learned to improve his run-up and he is strong physically, although he still has to work on his mental toughness,” added coach Ritzdorf who guided German Heike Henkel to winning the high jump gold medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
Also a university professor in Cologne, Ritzdorf noted that he has been approached by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to take on more African high jumpers, but has refused.
“Right now I don’t have time with all the work at the university. I have three jumpers – Kabelo Kgosiemang of Botswana, Karim Lotfiy of Egypt and William Woodcock. I don’t intend to add new jumpers to my roster or even lose anyone of them in exchange for any other jumper. The three jumpers are very good and I firmly believe in their abilities,” added coach Ritzdorf.
It is worth noting that Kabelo Kgosiemang, whose personal best in 2.30m, pocketed the high jump gold of the recent Ninth All-Africa Games by clearing 2.27m. He is also the reigning African high jump champion.
G. G.