OSAKA — News and notes from Day 8 of the 2007 IAAF World Athletics Championships.

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You don't expect to see a marathon runner competing backward. Doesn't make sense, eh?

But that's what occurred last September in the Oberland Half Marathon in the Bavaria region of Germany.

Liechtenstein's Kerstin Metzler-Mennenga, set a world record for "retro-running," completing the 21-km race in 2 hours, 15 minutes, 38 seconds.

OK, but why would she do this?

"I started running backward a few years ago after I had some Achilles tendon complaints," Metzler-Mennenga said recently. "It seemed to work and I could run backwards quite naturally.

"I have fun doing it and it adds a bit of diversity to my training. I've also noticed that I have been injury free since I started running backwards."

Metzler-Mennega, who holds Liechtenstein's national women's record in the marathon (2:52.14 in April's Hamburg Marathon) will compete in the traditional way in Sunday's marathon, running in the same direction as the rest of the pack.

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Yamazaki fails to finish due to official's error in 50-km walk

OSAKA (Kyodo) Organizers were left with egg on their collective faces Saturday after Japanese athlete Yuki Yamazaki was mistakenly guided into the stadium toward the finish with one lap remaining in the men's 50-kilometer walk at the athletics world championships.

The blunder came one day after Russian Olga Kaniskina and her teammate Tatyana Shemyakina made similar errors, leaving Nagai Stadium ahead of schedule on the direction of a flag-waving official before getting back on track to finish 1-2 in the women's 20-km walk.

But it was cruel and unusual punishment for Yamazaki, who slumped exhausted to the track believing he had finished the race in fifth and booked a spot in next year's Beijing Olympics as the top-place Japanese athlete after making the rounds through Nagai parkland.

"I thought something was strange when I was being led in," Yamazaki said. "But I was delirious and didn't know. I might not have come in the top eight, but I wasn't even given a ranking and it's not like I was disqualified for an illegal mode of progression, so I'm very upset."

Yamazaki had even higher expectations of himself, hoping to be in contention for the title. In the oppressive Osaka heat, he began to slow after the 35-km mark but still had an outside chance to finish in the top eight to book an automatic berth to Beijing.

Drained from the race, Yamazaki had lost count of his number of laps, but it was the official's fatal error that left everyone dumbfounded, including the cheering crowd who were convinced the scoreboard result was actually real.

"This was really unexpected," said Japanese team leader Keisuke Sawaki, hinting that measures were being considered to make an exception for Yamazaki to be allowed to compete in Beijing.

"We want to consider having a change in the interpretation (of the rules) for a tentative berth. We want to ask about our legal options," he said.

IAAF General Secretary Pierre Weiss expressed his embarrassment over the official's mistake. "It is regrettable, but these things can happen. Please don't make hara-kiri tonight," Weiss said.

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BY THE NUMBERS: through Friday, 19 countries had more gold medals than Japan. That means 19 countries have won at least one. These are the nations with exactly one gold: Jamaica, Cuba, England, China, Belarus, Czech Republic, Sweden, the Bahamas, Portugal, New Zealand, Australia, Estonia, Ecuador and Panama. . . . Last Sunday's night attendance, listed at 26,000, was the highest total for any of the sessions at Nagai Stadium. Friday's and Saturday's day session figures of 10,000 apiece were the lowest.

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AN ATHLETE'S PERSPECTIVE: Blanka Vlasic, a Croatian high jumper explained the reason she likes to participate in individual sports this way: "I was very stubborn, and I don't like group sports. I like to work alone. When I make a mistake, I make it on my own. I'm guilty of that.

"And when I win, it's all mine."

Vlasic advance to the high jump final. She cleared the horizontal bar at the 1.94-meter height in Friday's qualifying.

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PARTING THOUGHTS: It's this writer's notion that the decathlon would attract more interest from fans if all of the events were staged on one day rather than two.

There's a somewhat awkward break in the action before the second day's events start up.

It's another idea that a new exhibition event should be added to the mix at every world championships. How about these races for starters: the 800-meter hurdles, the 10,000 steeplechase and, for comic relief, the medicine ball — or beach ball — toss?