German 3000m steeple champion Antje Möldner will not be able to compete in 2010. That also means she will not participate in the European Championships in Barcelona. Möldner has a lymphoid cells disorder which requires long-term treatment. Her return to training will most probably be in November 2010. The German hope was 9th in the Berlin World Championships last year with a German record of 9:18.54 min.
It took Thomas Dold 10 minutes and 16 seconds to earn his record-tying fifth consecutive win in the Empire State Building Run-Up to the top of New York’s tallest building.
Grimacing as he lunged across the finish line on the 86th floor observation deck, the 25-year-old from Stuttgart (Germany) beat fellow German Matthias Jahn (10:56min) up the 1,576 steps by 40 seconds. “I’m so tired … It was quite hard,” Dold said. He is the third person to win the race five times. His only loss was a photo finish in his 2005 debut.
First women was Melissa Moon, 40, of Wellington (New Zealand) in 13 minutes 13 seconds. She finished panting, but smiling. “Oh, look at that view!” she said at the top.
The unorthodox race has been run 33 times since 1978. Competitors start in the lobby, where they take just a few strides before squeezing through a doorway and into a stairwell for the long climb.
Todays indoor athletics meeting will be broadcasted live on Eurosport from 19.10-21.00 (CET-central european time). A live online coverage can be found here.
Six olympic champions will compete in Düsseldorf; Dayron Robles, Allen Johnson, Tomasz Majewski, Chandra Sturrup, Yuriy Borzakovsky and Dwight Phillips will face strong fields.