European Athletics – (EAA) – News – Harting and Otto clash for award

Germany is set to award its best athlete of the year with the Champion of the Year 2012 award.

'Champions' will be invited to the Greek island of Crete for a well-deserved holiday where the eventual winner will be announced.

Favourites for the athletics award include Olympic champion Robert Harting and new German pole vault record holder Bjorn Otto.

German 800m runner, Jana Hartmann, has announced that she is leaving her coach Pierre Ayadi and will be coached by Marcus Hoselmann.

Hartmann didn't manage to qualify for the European championships or the London 2012 Olympics due to health issues.

German walker Melanie Seeger confirmed that she will continue her career until the European Athletics Championships in 2014.

Seeger, who is now 35, aims to end her career on a high and will be looking to go out with a good performance in Zurich 2014.

The IAAF Combined Events Challenge meet at Gotzis announced the date for its 35th edition, which as usual will be on the last weekend of May, as May 25-26, 2013.

In the special Combined Events scoring system (using the results from the decathlon and heptathlon), Gotzis was the second highest scoring event of 2012 (118,621), only behind the Olympic Games
(120,731).

Third highest scoring was the European Athletics Championships in Helsinki (115,915), with the US Olympic Trials (112,571) and IAAF CE Challenge events Ratingen (110,007) and Kladno (109,751) coming fourth, fifth and sixth.

At the last national GP meet in Brezice, Slovenia, Barbara Spiler threw 65.62m in the hammer, while Rozle Prezelj cleared 2.14m in the high jump.

 European Athletics – (EAA) – News