The Echo rounds up all the major comings and goings after a frantic end to the January transfer window.
Stephen Emery is staying put at Loughborough despite a £40m bid from Birmingham and reported interest from St Mary's. The engineer has pledged the next 18 months to the African Violets by signing a lucrative contract extension.
Ryan McLeod will not leave Tipton after all. It had been thought that the 7:52 3k man was about to walk out on the Midlands club in a row about iPhone usage.
Linford Christie is to come out of retirement and has signed for Windsor, Slough, Eton and Hounslow. The former Olympic Champion said that he was "hugely excited" at the prospect of helping Windsor back into the Premiership. The club were unsuccessful in convincing Sally Gunnell into a similar comeback.
Newham and Essex Beagles have been fined £750,000 and banned from taking part in the summer transfer window after illegally approaching "the vast majority" of the the GB European Cross Team. They also had a £75m bid for Mo Farah rejected after they realised that they had already signed him.
Mark Lewis-Francis is a free agent after storming out of Birchfield Harriers. The European Silver Medallist was heard to say that "Mark Lewis-Francis most definitely will be running for a bigger club than this next summer". As such his £2m contract was terminated but regrettably for the sprinter no one agreed to take him.
Sale Harriers Manchester sacked their entire squad earlier this month as the new owners decided that they "could do better". However, the club were forced into an embarrassing retreat when nobody returned their emails - not even MLF - and so have re-signed the majority of the team on vastly inflated contracts.
Dave Norman caused outrage at Altrincham after handing in a written transfer request. The 5k star has now signed a 3 year contract extension after failing to agree personal terms with £25m suitors, Southend AC.
Kenenisa Bekele will have to wait to have his move to Aldershot, Farnham and District confirmed. The Ethiopian will undergo a medical later today, but the deal has been put in doubt after Mick Woods offended the athlete's entire entourage. However, AFD will be celebrating after managing to persuade Andy Vernon to sign a four year contract extension rather than opting for a big money move to Bedford & County - who were rumoured to be ready to pay the star over £200,000 a week.
Despite reports in the Echo earlier this month that they were ready to spend big, Southend have not been successful in making a single signing. It is understood that the majority of deals fell through when would-be athletes "visited Southend".
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Showing posts with label Christie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christie. Show all posts
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
Thursday, 29 July 2010
'ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN FINAL' SHOCK
The British athletics community is reeling from the revelation that "anything can happen in a final". It seems that theory was developed by top UKA boffins and has been drilled into every single athlete competing, either that or it is a competition to see how many times you can say the phrase. Alas, Echo favourite, James Dasaolu was unable to see if anything could happen as he did not manage to make the final of the 100m. Speaking shortly before the Championships, Dasaolu confidently told Phil Jones of the BBC that "firstly, I want to make the final....anything can happen in a final....firstly, I want to win a medal. In order to win a medal, I have to make the final". Right.
Further credence was given to the theory last night when Mark Lewis-Francis (self styled: MLF) stormed to a silver medal in 10.18 seconds- just 0.6s off the World Record. It was incredibly unfortunate for the BBC as they spent much of the time we all had to wait for the result pondering what colour medal Dwain Chambers might have won. Completely oblivious to the fact that Lewis-Francis had quite literally rolled his way to silver, Denise Lewis and Colin Jackson launched into a post mortem on Chambers' race: "he over strides and it cost him the race...it might even be that Bronze," opined Jackson of Chambers (who finished fifth), before confirming that Lamaitre "so certainly" won the race. In fact, so sure were Beeb producers that Lewis-Francis was not going to win a medal that they didn't even bother to put a front-on camera in his lane, thus meaning viewers were robbed of the opportunity to hear the pundits' views on his facial expressions.
"I'm so happy right about now," said Lewis-Francis of his "new beginning", before ruining his moment by deciding to speak in the third-person: "this is the new Mark Lewis-Francis". Is it? Would that be the same "new" Lewis-Francis who actually ran quicker a few years ago, won an Olympic (relay) medal and then went on to test positive for marijuana in 2005? Perhaps not. Thankfully, the BBC had wasted so long dwelling on the demise of Chambers that we weren't able to find out much about MLF's views on his medal. He did, however, state that it "was all thanks to Linford [Christie, Lewis-Francis' coach and convicted drug cheat]" before going onto say that it was also thanks to just about everyone else in the stadium.
Lewis-Francis was clearly delighted and rightly so. But he wasn't half as delighted as Steve Cram was when Chambers failed to medal: "Chambers has crumbled!" he gleefully proclaimed before continuing his pre-race love in with the victorious Frenchman. Oh well, Steve, we all agree that we shouldn't ever forgive people for their past mistakes- particularly cheats! Just like I hate people who run off and cheat on their wives when they have kids at home. I'm sure you'll agree.
Further credence was given to the theory last night when Mark Lewis-Francis (self styled: MLF) stormed to a silver medal in 10.18 seconds- just 0.6s off the World Record. It was incredibly unfortunate for the BBC as they spent much of the time we all had to wait for the result pondering what colour medal Dwain Chambers might have won. Completely oblivious to the fact that Lewis-Francis had quite literally rolled his way to silver, Denise Lewis and Colin Jackson launched into a post mortem on Chambers' race: "he over strides and it cost him the race...it might even be that Bronze," opined Jackson of Chambers (who finished fifth), before confirming that Lamaitre "so certainly" won the race. In fact, so sure were Beeb producers that Lewis-Francis was not going to win a medal that they didn't even bother to put a front-on camera in his lane, thus meaning viewers were robbed of the opportunity to hear the pundits' views on his facial expressions.
"I'm so happy right about now," said Lewis-Francis of his "new beginning", before ruining his moment by deciding to speak in the third-person: "this is the new Mark Lewis-Francis". Is it? Would that be the same "new" Lewis-Francis who actually ran quicker a few years ago, won an Olympic (relay) medal and then went on to test positive for marijuana in 2005? Perhaps not. Thankfully, the BBC had wasted so long dwelling on the demise of Chambers that we weren't able to find out much about MLF's views on his medal. He did, however, state that it "was all thanks to Linford [Christie, Lewis-Francis' coach and convicted drug cheat]" before going onto say that it was also thanks to just about everyone else in the stadium.
Lewis-Francis was clearly delighted and rightly so. But he wasn't half as delighted as Steve Cram was when Chambers failed to medal: "Chambers has crumbled!" he gleefully proclaimed before continuing his pre-race love in with the victorious Frenchman. Oh well, Steve, we all agree that we shouldn't ever forgive people for their past mistakes- particularly cheats! Just like I hate people who run off and cheat on their wives when they have kids at home. I'm sure you'll agree.
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