Sport of athletics

Greek pole-vault champion Kostas Filippidis improved his own national record to win silver at the European Indoor Championships in Belgrade on Friday.

Filippidis cleared 5.85 meters, matching his two Polish rivals who finished first and third on a different number of efforts in the final.

His previous national record was 5.84 m. from February 2016.

A simple Ethiopian athletics camp which is attracting elite runners from around the world has opened its doors to state-run Anadolu Agency. 

Olympic gold medalist Mo Farah is just one of the top-tier competitors using the facilities at Yaya Africa Athletics Village near the rural town of Sululta, 12 kilometers north of the capital Addis Ababa.

BELGRADE - The 30th anniversary Belgrade Marathon will be held on April 22, 2017, featuring ten of the world's greatest athletics legends as promoters, the organisers announced on Tuesday.

The 30th Belgrade Marathon will be held on April 22, featuring ten of the world's greatest athletics legends as promoters, the organizers announced on Tuesday.

European Athletics, track and field's supreme authority in Europe, has included the Athens Street Pole Vault meeting, that takes place the Greek capital every summer, in the list of the Special Premium events for next year.

The well-organized international event will be held for a fifth time in Athens on June 1, 2017. Just like in 2015 and 2016, it will be hosted at Syntagma Square.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed on Thursday that Greek triple jumper Pigi Devetzi is being stripped of the bronze medal she won at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

"Reanalysis of Devetzi's samples from Beijing 2008 resulted in a positive test for the prohibited substance stanozolol," said the IOC.

Kenya's Luka Rotich Lobuwan won the 34th Athens Marathon on Sunday in two hours, 12 minutes and 49 seconds for the grueling 42-kilometer course.

The 28-year-old Lobuwan was followed across the line by eight of his countrymen with second place going to Benson Kipruto, who clocked 2:13.24 and Bernard Kitur in third at 2:13.32.

In an all-time record of participants from 105 countries, the 34th Athens Marathon began this morning, with 50,000 registered athletes who will race in different course lengths throughout the day.

On his cell phone, Abdallah shows me a video of Ghada Shouaa, a retired Syrian heptathlete who won her country's first and, so far, only Olympic gold medal in the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Nearly 250 marathon and long distance runners will take part in the 34th Athens Authentic Marathon, scheduled to take place on Sunday, November 13.