28.08.2009

Wroe to fly the flag in Zurich

As the dust continues to settle on this month’s world track and field titles, the stars of the sport return to action tonight in the penultimate round of the Golden League series.

Bronzed Aussie Sean Wroe will fly the flag for Australia when he lines up in the men’s 400m, joining a raft of newly crowned world champions at the Zurich meet.

With 14 of the 15 events on tonight’s program featuring world championships gold medallists, the action is set to be fast and furious all night long.

Following his bronze medal win in the men’s 4x400m relay and semi-finals appearance in the individual event at the Berlin titles, Wroe will tonight line up alongside a star cast of one-lap specialists including world title-holder LaShawn Merritt (USA), silver medallist Jeremy Wariner (USA), bronze medallist Renny Quow (TRI) and finalists Chris Brown (BAH) and David Gillick (IRL).

But the action doesn’t stop with Wroe and the men’s 400m.

Hitting the track and taking to the field tonight will be world champions Usain Bolt (100m, 200m), Blanka Vlasic (high jump), Anna Rogowska (pole vault), Kenenisa Bekele (5000m, 10,000m), Mbulaeni Mulaudzi (800m), Yusuf Kamel (1500m), Ryan Brathwaite (110m hurdles), Maryam Jamal (1500m), Ezekiel Kemboi (3000m steeplechase), Sanya Richards (400m), Brigitte Foster-Hylton (100m hurdles), Andreas Thorkildsen (javelin throw), Allyson Felix (200m) and Shelly-Ann Fraser (100m).

Usain Bolt – how fast can he go?

At the IAAF daily briefing on the night of the 200m final in Berlin, Michael Johnson, now an IAAF Ambassador, told the media he thought an improvement to the world record that he once owned was unlikely because Usain Bolt would be tired after his 100m record earlier in the week. Yet a few hours later we were all marvelling at the 19.19 on the clock.

Bolt running tired over 100m would mean a national record performance to all but a few of his competitors. He has moved the goalposts of what speed means, and as long as weather conditions in Zürich are good – currently 26C and sunny - we should expect sub-9.90 at least to send the spectators home happy.

Four continue race for $1m jackpot

As an AF Golden League meeting, the other main topic of conversation at the track tonight is the $1m jackpot up for grabs. At the penultimate stop of the six-meet tour, four athletes remain in the hunt for the prize; six wins from six meets the criterion to at least share in the prize.

Kenenisa Bekele, now the first man in history to secure the world and Olympic 5000m and 10,000m double, is the only male athlete still standing in the context of the jackpot. By holding off the determined challenge of defending world champion Bernard Lagat in Berlin to win the 5000m crown, the Ethiopian has reasserted his claim to be the greatest track distance runner in history.

In the absence of Lagat, who very creditably came away with two medals in Berlin when defending his 1500/5000m double from Osaka, Bekele looks to have a fifth Golden League victory sewn up. James Kwalia and Moses Masai, the Berlin 5000m and 10,000m bronze medallists respectively, will also race.

Kerron Stewart, who holds jackpot contender status in the women’s 100m, will have her work cut out as her compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser, who added the world title to her Olympic crown when narrowly out-running Stewart in Berlin, is also in the Zurich line-up.

In the 400m, Sanya Richards, who has won a slice of two previous jackpots (2006, 2007) is perhaps the unluckiest of the four remaining contenders for this year’s prize as she finds compatriot Allyson Felix, the three-time world 200m champion, in her race. Both world champions are in scintillating form but over the one lap we would still expect Richards to prevail. Richards’ PB is 48.70, while Felix has a career best of 49.70, and over 400m they have a win/loss career record of 4:1 in Richards’ favour.

Yelena Isinbayeva, the 2008 World Athlete of the Year is no stranger to counting the jackpot cash (2007) but this year, having no-heighted in the world championships final, the 27-year-old suddenly needs to reassert her authority.

In reality the Russian world record holder has nothing to prove to the media or viewing public or even her opponents, who still regard her as the best vaulter in the world, but a second mess-up would be damaging to her reputation. Zürich needs to see ‘Issy’ flying high and remaining in the hunt for the Million.

Vlasic vs Friedrich

Much can be said about the women’s high jump line-up, a repeat of the Berlin start list. The silence that fell over the 56,000-strong crowd when Friedrich, with the simple movement of her index finger to her lips called the Berlin faithful to be quiet before her jumps, was pure theatre; the noise that followed her third time success at 2.02m was a moment of magic no one will forget.

What the German knows is that she was beaten by defending champion Blanka Vlasic with 2.04m and by Anna Chicherova on count back at 2.02m.

The battle will recommence on Friday and the supporters of the Croatian dual world champion will be expecting another triumphant trademark dance on the landing mat from their heroine as they witnessed in Berlin.

2.06m is Friedrich’s world season leading height and is likely to be challenged now the medal tension has been removed.

Thorkildsen without equal

Few victors produced a more peerless performance in Berlin than double Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen in the men’s javelin throw. True, the defending champion and arch-rival Tero Pitkämäki was below par, suffering from a high temperature and an ear infection, but there would be few even in the Finnish camp who would deny that the Norwegian with 89.59m would still have won, even if their best man had been well.

Thorkildsen has now achieved what no other javelin thrower has done; hold world, Olympic and European titles simultaneously and most of the defeated Berlin field, including silver medallist Guillermo Martinez of Cuba, return to seek that illusive dent in the steely armour of the champion.

In the other men’s field event, defeated 2007 world triple jump champion Nelson Evora will be looking to recapture some of his aura of invincibility. Portugal’s Olympic gold medallist, who had to settle for world silver last week, will not face his Berlin vanquisher Briton Phillips Idowu, but the fourth and fifth placers from that final, Leevan Sands (BAH) and David Giralt (CUB), will be on show.

Hurdles… it’s a generation game

Were there two more unexpected gold medallists in Berlin than the sprint hurdles winners, Ryan Brathwaite (BAR) and Brigitte Ann Foster-Hylton (JAM)?

The men’s 110m hurdles was the closest ever in a global championships, just 0.01 separating first from third. With Olympic champion Dayron Robles not making the final due to injury it was an open race and Brathwaite, 21, made the tape first to become the youngest ever world champion in this event.

While just 0.01 covered the medallists in the men’s event there couldn’t be more contrast with the women’s 100m hurdles, where winner Foster-Hylton, who had considered retirement after a below-par Olympics, became world champion after previous silver (2003) and bronze (2005) medals.

Olympic medallist David Oliver's return from injury is the challenge for Brathwaite, while Olympic champion Dawn Harper will be looking for an upturn to her season after placing seventh behind Foster-Hylton in Berlin.

Merritt to remain in charge?

In Berlin, Olympic champion LaShawn Merritt proved that his Beijing 400m victory was no one-off. The era of Jeremy Wariner’s unchallenged supremacy is now gone but can the former world and Olympic champion counter attack? Their season’s bests tell the story so far: Merritt’s 44.06 to Wariner’s 44.60 shows Wariner has a lot of ground to make up.

Making the one-lap mix even more interesting are world 400m hurdles champion Kerron Clement and two-time Olympic hurdles gold medallist Angelo Taylor.

Steeplechase showdown

With the exception of the Ethiopians, who finished in fifth and sixth in Berlin, the men’s 3000m steeplechase brings the main protagonists back together. Will this be an all-Kenyan affair or can European record holder Bob Tahri perhaps break up the east African stranglehold again and even duck under eight minutes? The Frenchman’s bronze medal performance in Berlin was 8:01.18, and at that pace world champion Ezekiel Kemboi could be under threat.

Middle distance… time for revenge

The men’s 800m and 1500m are wide open. Going into the world championships few, despite the impressive pedigree of the two eventual gold medallists, would have confidently put their money on Mbulaeni Mulaudzi and Yusuf Saad Kamel. The South African rests 17th place on the world season list for the 800m, and Kamel eighth on the 2009 tally over 1500m.

It seems this is time for previously favoured runners to show what might have been in Berlin, especially the 20-year-old Kenyans David Rudisha, running the 800m, and Asbel Kiprop, the Olympic silver medallist over 1500m. The latter’s tactics seriously let him down in both the Berlin 800m and 1500m. Look out too for their compatriot Alfred Yego, the 2007 world 800m champion, who did everything he could in defending his title but was simply beaten by the better man on the day.

Last but not least, with national emotions still running high in both Ethiopia and Spain over the women’s 1500m incident that left Gelete Burka prostrate on the track with half a lap to run and Natalia Rodríguez ultimately disqualified - neither runner is in the invitational field in Zürich -  this is perhaps the best moment for dual world champion Maryam Jamal of Bahrain to show why she is the world leader this year.

With the IAAF