Mouth-Watering 200m Clash Set To Highlight Eugene Action
An all-star clash in the women’s 200m will be the headline attraction on the third stop of the IAAF Diamond League at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene over the weekend.
As always, the meeting will gather the world’s best athletes to compete in the historic surroundings of Hayward Field, with the main programme on Saturday preceded by a short Friday evening session dedicated to women’s events.
However, it is the women who will once again take centre stage on Saturday afternoon when double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson seeks to consolidate her position at the head of the IAAF Diamond League standings when facing one of the strongest 200m fields ever assembled.
Chief among her rivals is Dafne Schippers of the Netherlands, the world champion who won the Diamond Trophy over 200m last year but had to settle for silver at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Schippers started the season in promising form, but was no match for Thompson when they clashed in Doha earlier this month, the Jamaican powering to victory in 22.19 to Schippers’ 22.45.
Thompson followed that up with a 22.09 win at the IAAF World Challenge meeting in Kingston last weekend, and with a clocking of 10.78 to her name for 100m already this year – which she ran at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Shanghai on 13 May – she will prove a worthy favourite in Saturday’s contest.
However, such is the calibre of the field that 2012 Olympic 200m champion Allyson Felix is deemed an unlikely winner, despite having three world titles to her name in the event and having opened her season impressively with a clocking of 11.07 for 100m in Kingston last weekend.
Then there is the woman who denied Felix an Olympic 400m gold in such dramatic fashion in Rio last year, Shaunae Miller-Uibo, who has been in sparkling form so far this season. The 23-year-old Bahamian clocked a windy 200m time of 21.90 (3.1m/s) in Clermont last month, and couldn’t have been more impressive when winning the 400m in Shanghai in a world-leading 49.77.
It will be no surprise, however, if the fifth name we get to is the one who springs an upset. Tori Bowie claimed an Olympic bronze medal over 200m last year, and the 26-year-old has started the season in flying form, clocking 22.09 for 200m (-0.3m/s) in Gainesville last month.
The field is rounded out by a sprinter well known to those at the University of Oregon, former student Jenna Prandini, along with 2012 European 100m champion Ivet Lalova-Collio and Marie-Josee Ta Lou, who was fourth in the Olympic 200m final.
DE GRASSE, MUHAMMAD AND MCLEOD TOP THE SPRINTS BILL
Canadian 22-year-old Andre De Grasse will look to prove he is the future – and indeed the present – of sprinting when he takes on Justin Gatlin over 100m on Saturday afternoon.
De Grasse, the Olympic bronze medallist over 100m, finished just behind Gatlin in the 100m final in Rio, with just 0.02 separating them at the line. And though he endured a disappointing start to his IAAF Diamond League campaign – finishing fifth over 100m in Doha in 10.21 – he bounced back in fine style in Kingston last weekend, winning the 200m in 20.14.
Olympic 400m hurdles champion Dalilah Muhammad will be hoping to maintain her dominance in her first race of the season, but it will be a tough one as the US hurdler takes on two-time world champion Zuzana Hejnova and world leader Georganne Moline, who clocked 54.10 earlier this month. Sara Petersen and Ashley Spencer, the Olympic silver and bronze medallists respectively, will also be in opposition.
Omar McLeod is another Olympic gold medallist who will be on display. Though the men’s 110m hurdles will not be an IAAF Diamond League event here, the Jamaican will nonetheless be keen to continue his dominance over rivals such as world record-holder Aries Merritt, 2013 world champion David Oliver, Olympic bronze medallist Dimitri Bascou and European indoor champion Andrew Pozzi.
The men’s 400m is headlined by 2008 Olympic champion LaShawn Merritt, while the women’s 100m sees Tianna Bartoletta line up against world indoor champion Barbara Pierre, Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell-Brown and a host of the world’s top sprinters.
The women’s 100m hurdles will be an all-US affair, save for the presence of 2012 European champion Alina Talay of Belarus, who will have it all to do to defeat US stars Jasmin Stowers, Nia Ali and Dawn Harper Nelson, among others.
On the first evening of action at the IAAF Diamond League in Eugene, many had expected the women’s 3000m steeplechase to prove another demonstration by world record-holder Ruth Jebet, but a new star emerged in the form of Kenya’s Celliphine Chespol. The 18-year-old came back from near-disaster at the penultimate water jump to win in 8:58.78, the second-fastest run of all time and a world U20 record*.
In the non-IAAF Diamond League event, Chespol moved to the front with 600 metres remaining and appeared poised for victory, but gasps went through the crowd as she stopped suddenly after emerging from the water to fix a loose shoe. The move cost her the best part of 20 metres, with both Jebet and Kenyan compatriot Beatrice Chepkoech taking an immediate advantage.
However, Chespol recovered it steadily over the following 300 metres, then powered away down the home straight to win in convincing style, taking seven seconds off her world U20 record of 9:05.70. Chepkoech came through strongly for second in 9:00.70, with Jebet third in 9:03.52.
REESE GOES LONG
Brittney Reese unleashed a world-leading 7.01m to take victory in the women’s long jump, the first of the IAAF Diamond League events on Friday’s programme.
Reese reversed placings from the Olympic Games in Rio with gold medallist Tianna Bartoletta, whose second-round effort here of 6.83m would be her best but only prove good enough for second.
Reese, meanwhile, opened with a 6.88m to take command of the competition, but her second-round jump, the longest in the world this year, was the one which put her rivals out of sight.
“The goal was to come out and jump seven metres to see where my training was at and I feel like I’m in the right position,” she said. “I knew that kind of jump was coming.”
As important as it was for Reese to score a victory over Bartoletta, she wasn’t getting carried away with the win, aware that there are much more important competitions ahead this summer.
“We had a small rivalry over the last year but it was friendly competition,” said Reese. “Neither of us was expecting too much tonight. We wanted to go out there and put on a show for the crowd and we did. This year I want to get as close to a PR as possible and jumping seven metres on my second jump shows I’m in the right shape.”Reese will next compete at the US Championships in Sacramento, which start on June 23.
Khaladovich In Control
In the women’s javelin, the second IAAF Diamond League event of the night, Belarus’s Tatsiana Khaladovich opened her campaign with a thunderous heave of the spear, sending it hurtling through the evening sky and landing in the grass a whopping 66.30m away, the third longest throw in the world this year and just four centimetres shy of her lifetime best.
In the end, that proved more than good enough to take the win and the maximum eight IAAF Diamond League points, and she proved it was no fluke with strong throws of 65.10m in the third round and 66.02m in the fourth.
Her closest challenger was China’s Liu Shiying, who launched a best of 65.21m in the third round, but withdrew from the competition after fouling her fourth-round effort. Croatia’s Sara Kolak, the Olympic champion, proved she is likely to remain a force in 2017 with a decent effort of 64.64m in the third round, good enough for third place.
World record-holder Barbora Spotakova started in disappointing fashion, managing just 54.38m and 59.74m on her first two throws, but the Czech athlete got it together in the final round, her throw of 63.30m placing her in fourth.
Dibaba Dominant
The women’s 5000m, which was not an IAAF Diamond League discipline, produced a commanding display by Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba, who won in 14:25.22 from Kenya’s Lilian Kasait Rengeruk (14:36.80) and Sifan Hassan (14:41.24).
Dibaba had been on the hunt for the world record of 14:11.15, held by her sister Tirunesh, but after passing 3000m in 8:39.21, the wheels slowly began to fall off. Nonetheless, she fought to the finish to clock the second-fastest time in the world this year.
In the women’s national 800m, Charlene Lipsey took command of the race early in the second lap and ran the legs off her competitors, powering home to victory in 1:59.87 from Chrishuna Williams (2:00.62) and 17-year-old Samantha Watson, who was third in 2:01.47. Gabriele Stafford took the women’s national 1500m in 4:07.79.
