RALEIGH, North Carolina, Dec 3 (Reuters) – The U.S.’s recent failure to secure major international sporting events is more about governing bodies exploring new opportunities than a backlash against America, experts told Reuters on Friday.

“These bodies are more willing to go to places that haven’t had the events before in a much more proactive way,” said U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) spokesman Patrick Sandusky.

The U.S., once the glowing hosts of Olympics and other major events, missed out on the 2022 soccer World Cup on Thursday when the finals went to the tiny Gulf state of Qatar and failed to land the 2016 Summer Games which went to Rio de Janeiro.

“I honestly think it’s less about anti-U.S. and more about looking at going into new frontiers, and you’ve seen that with Rio, Sochi, the South African World Cup to a Qatar World Cup,” added Sandusky via telephone from Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Brazil will also host the 2014 World Cup while the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi has been chosen to stage that year’s Winter Games. South Africa held the World Cup this year.

WINNING TOUGH

One of the other hurdles U.S. bids have had to overcome is that American bids are all privately funded while most other countries have the full financial backing of their governments.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – The Diamond Leagues series hopes to increase its popularity by creating a new award for the top male and female athletes each season, a senior athletics official said on Wednesday.

At present the global circuit, which was introduced this year, has no overall prize, honouring instead the season leaders in each of its 32 disciplines with a trophy and $40,000.

“Thirty-two winners is a lot and we would like to find a couple to move forward,” Patrick Magyar, the vice-chairman of the 14-meeting series, told Reuters in a telephone interview from Zurich.

He said a working group would help decide what criteria should be used to determine the two top athletes. Their prizes would be in addition to the current awards.

Magyar, who is also the organiser of the prestigious Zurich meeting, said organisers were hoping to again sign the sport’s top athletes, including Jamaican world record holder Usain Bolt.

Injuries to Bolt, top distance runner Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia plus the absence of Russian pole vault queen Yelena Isinbayeva, curtailed one key objective of the circuit, head-to-head competition.

Magyar said he expected an improvement next year.

MONACO (Reuters) – Kenyan 800 meters runner David Rudisha, who set 2010′s only major world record, and world indoor high jump champion Blanka Vlasic of Croatia were named IAAF athletes of the year on Sunday.

Rudisha, 21, became the youngest winner of the honor, eclipsing 22-year-olds Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia and Usain Bolt of Jamaica.

The Kenyan twice set the 800 meters record, eventually running one minute 41.01 seconds, in a sparkling season of 12 consecutive victories.

“I knew when I broke the two world records that there was the possibility of me being becoming the athlete of the year and now it has come true,” said Rudisha, who succeeded Bolt as the male athlete of the year.

Vlasic, 27, won 18 of 20 competitions in what she called one of her most challenging seasons.

“To have such a great season under such circumstances means even more maybe than to achieve a personal best once,” Vlasic said.

She and Rudisha were being honored at the annual World Athletics Gala in Monaco on Sunday.

MONACO (Reuters) – London must honor its promise to maintain an athletics track at the 2012 Olympic Stadium, senior vice president of the IAAF and IOC member Sergei Bubka said on Saturday.

“It must be promised what was said in 2005,” Bubka told a small group of reporters outside of an International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Council meeting.

“In 2005 in Singapore (when the 2012 Games were awarded by the International Olympic Committee), London promised to us… I am speaking now as an IOC member… to deliver the legacy after the Olympic Games,” Bubka said. “It was guaranteed to us the track will remain.

“When we say something, shake the hand, it’s a deal.”

Originally, the 80,000-seater Olympic stadium was designed to be stripped down to a 25,000-capacity athletics venue after the Games but there were fears that it would become unsustainable unless a high-profile tenant was found.

Bids from Premier League soccer clubs West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur have been short-listed as the preferred tenants for the stadium after the Games although the latter, who have teamed up with entertainment giants AEG, are less keen to keep the track.

Bubka noted that Berlin’s 1936 Olympic Stadium, when renovated, had maintained a track and successfully hosted both FIFA World Cup and IAAF world championships competitions.

MONACO, Nov 20 (Reuters) – London must honour its promise to maintain an athletics track at the 2012 Olympic Stadium, senior vice president of the IAAF and IOC member Sergei Bubka said on Saturday.

“It must be promised what was said in 2005,” Bubka told a small group of reporters outside of an International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Council meeting.

“In 2005 in Singapore (when the 2012 Games were awarded by the International Olympic Committee), London promised to us… I am speaking now as an IOC member… to deliver the legacy after the Olympic Games,” Bubka said. “It was guaranteed to us the track will remain.

“When we say something, shake the hand, it’s a deal.”

Originally, the 80,000-seater Olympic stadium was designed to be stripped down to a 25,000-capacity athletics venue after the Games but there were fears that it would become unsustainable unless a high-profile tenant was found.

Bids from Premier League soccer clubs West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur have been short-listed as the preferred tenants for the stadium after the Games although the latter, who have teamed up with entertainment giants AEG, are less keen to keep the track.

Bubka noted that Berlin’s 1936 Olympic Stadium, when renovated, had maintained a track and successfully hosted both FIFA World Cup and IAAF world championships competitions.

MONACO (Reuters) – Beijing will host the 2015 world championships, the IAAF decided on Saturday, returning international athletics to the Bird’s Nest stadium Usain Bolt made famous with his lightning speed at the 2008 Olympics.

The Chinese capital was the sole bidder after London dropped out over uncertainty surrounding the future of the 2012 Olympic main stadium.

“2015 will be the most important sporting event (in China) after the 2008 Olympic Games,” Beijing vice-mayor and bid committee head Liu Jingmin said.

“It will be very significant in the promotion of sport in China,” Liu added in an interview with Reuters.

IAAF president Lamine Diack called the decision a great opportunity “to help build up our sport and the culture of athletics in a country of 1.6 billion.”

He added: “As we sometimes say, China is not a country, it’s a continent. So this is a fantastic opportunity.”

The world championships are held every two years. Beijing has proposed the week of August 29 to September 6 for the 2015 event to be staged in the 80,000-seat national stadium where Jamaica’s Bolt stunned the world in the 2008 Olympics.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – From Dallas to London, the pressure will be on backup quarterbacks this weekend as they try to revive the sagging seasons of two of the NFL’s most-decorated franchises.

Injuries to starters have prompted the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers – who have only one win each – to turn to players with little recent starting experience.

How Jon Kitna and Troy Smith play on Sunday could help define the year for the two teams, who have 10 Super Bowl championships between them.

Kitna, a journeyman of 14 NFL seasons, will be at the helm when the Cowboys (1-5) face the Jacksonville Jaguars (3-4) in Dallas.

Smith will start for the 49ers (1-6) against the Denver Broncos (2-5) at London’s Wembley Stadium.

Kitna has considerable experience, racking up 115 starts during his long career, but this will be the 38-year-old’s first at Dallas where he replaces Tony Romo, who has a broken collarbone.

“I think this guy can throw the football,” Cowboys coach Wade Phillips told reporters.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – The yards are finally beginning to come for Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson.

For the first time this season, 2009′s surprise NFL rushing leader has put together back-to-back 100-yard games.

The clincher came in an 111-yard performance on Monday that had Johnson toiling late into the Titans’ 30-3 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars.

“When you combine the yards between Javon (Ringer, who had 42) and I, I think it was a pretty good day,” Johnson, who gained an impressive 2,006 yards last season, told reporters.

“This team is a team that will eventually make plays if we don’t get away from the run.”

Running for big gains has not been an easy chore this season for Johnson, whom twice Super Bowl-winning quarterback Phil Simms calls the fastest player in the NFL.

Breakout games like Johnson’s 142 yards against the Oakland Raiders and 131 yards versus the Dallas Cowboys have shared space with a paltry 34-yard effort on September 19 that prompted the defensive-minded Pittsburgh Steelers to say the third-year player had given up.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – U.S. Olympic and world 400 metres champion LaShawn Merritt has been suspended through July 2011 after testing positive for a banned substance found in a male enhancement product, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said on Monday.

The Beijing Olympic and 2009 world gold medallist had three samples test positive for prohibited testosterone prohormones, the anti-doping agency said in a statement.

He was suspended for 21 months, beginning October 28, 2009, the date of his first sample.

Merritt had accepted a provisional suspension in April “as a result of positive drug tests caused by his use of an over-the-counter male enhancement product,” the American’s attorney, Howard Jacobs, said in a statement at the time.

The statement said Merritt had used the over-the-counter product, which contained DHEA and pregnenolone, following the 2009 season.

Merritt acknowledged again on Monday he had made a mistake and said he was appreciative the three-member arbitration panel “agreed that I have never taken any substance to gain an advantage on the track,” he said in a statement.

“I look forward to returning to competition as soon as possible and proving that my prior successes, including at the Olympic Games, were achieved honestly and fairly.”

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – Former 400 metres world champion Antonio Pettigrew died in August of an antihistamine overdose, a state autopsy report said Wednesday.

The death was ruled a suicide with “diphenhydramine toxicity” as the cause, according to the autopsy and an accompanying investigation report released by the North Carolina Chief Medical Examiner’s office.

“A lethal concentration of diphenhydramine was detected in central and peripheral blood specimens,” the autopsy said.

Pettigrew, 42, was an assistant track and field coach at the University of North Carolina and a 2000 Olympian who was stripped of his 4×400 metres relay gold medal after admitting to doping. He also was the 1991 400 metres world champion.

He was found unresponsive by friends in the back seat of his vehicle in rural central North Carolina on August 10.

An empty bottle of a sleep aid was found in the car, the investigation report said.

Diphenhydramine, an antihistamine, is often used as a sleep aid and for the treatment of allergies.