Shanghai, China - The outdoor track and field season moves to Shanghai this week after last weekend’s successful World Cup in Athletics, Athens, Greece, and the World Athletics Final, the week prior to that in Stuttgart, Germany.

The second Shanghai Golden Grand Prix will be held on Saturday evening (23 September), at the Shanghai Stadium (Shanghai Tiyuchang).

Last year’s meeting, the first IAAF one-day meeting to be held in mainland China, featured hometown hero Liu Xiang winning the 110m Hurdles race, the final event of the evening. This year Liu’s marquee value is even greater, as he comes into the meet as the newly-crowned sole World record holder in the event. Liu is arguably the most visible Olympic athlete in China today, and an appearance in front of his hometown crowd alone will guarantee a full house of 40,000 spectators ready to see him face off in person against the world’s best hurdlers.

World stars set to make the headlines

In addition to Liu, the meeting features a foursome of top 2006 performers: overall world number two Tyson Gay and number three Jeremy Wariner on the men’s side, and overall world number two Meseret Defar and number three Tirunesh Dibaba on the women’s side.

The star-studded field also includes many current and former World and Olympic champions including Kenenisa Bekele, Allen Johnson, Shawn Crawford, Dwight Phillips, Yuriy Belonog, Svetlana Feofanova, Joanna Hayes, Michelle Perry, Lauryn Williams, Allyson Felix, Merlene Ottey, and Tonique Williams-Darling.

14 disciplines…

The fourteen events to be contested include seven each on the men’s and women’s sides. Men’s events include the 100m, 400m, 1500m, 110m Hurdles, High Jump, Long Jump and Shot Put. The women will compete in the 100m, 400m, 5000m, 100m Hurdles, 400m Hurdles, 3000m Steeplechase, and Pole Vault.

Coming on the heels of the 11th IAAF World Junior Championships last month in Beijing, in which China placed second in the gold medal haul to Kenya (5 to 6 victories) – but actually accumulated more medals than anyone (17 to Kenya’s 15) - the Shanghai meeting will feature two Chinese entrants per event. Included in the Chinese entry list are two of the five World champions from the Beijing meeting, Xue Fei in the women’s 5000m and Zhou Yang in the women’s Pole Vault.

The following event-by-event preview is based on the published entry lists that were made public by meet organizers on August 30 and additional news published up until 20 September -

Event Previews

100m: Tyson Gay stunned everyone with his 19.68 clocking in the 200m, the third-fastest ever at that distance, at the 4th World Athletics Final in Stuttgart two weeks ago. He’ll be hoping for similar success in the 100m race in Shanghai. He’ll face reigning 2004 Olympic 200m champion Shawn Crawford, France’s Ronald Pognon, who placed sixth in Stuttgart in the 100m, and American Marcus Brunson. China’s entries in the event are Yang Yaozu and Liu Yang.

400m: Jeremy Wariner, the world number one in this event and undefeated in the 2006 outdoor season, is the one to beat after his win in Stuttgart. Gary Kikaya, Lashawn Merritt, and Alleyne Francique, who are currently ranked 2-3-4 in the world, will take the starting line against Wariner, as will France’s Leslie Djhone.

1500m: The field has deepened considerably since the entrant list was first published on the event website on August 30. As of September 20 the race was to include world number one Alex Kipchirchir, World 5000m/10,000m record holder Kenenisa Bekele, world number two Daniel Kipchirchir Komen and multiple World and Olympic medallist Bernard Lagat. Abraham Chebii, Nicolas Kemboi, Kevin Sullivan and David Krummenacker are also among the entrants in the 20-man field. China’s entries are Gu Ming and Ma Jifu.

110m Hurdles: The marquee event of the meeting brings together Shanghai native Liu Xiang, the world record holder who snagged the IAAF number-one ranking for this event last week in Athens, and Allen Johnson, who beat him in Athens last week for just his second loss this year. China’s second entry is Shi Dongpeng, China’s number-two hurdler. American stars Dominique Arnold and Terrence Trammell were scheduled to compete but withdrew due to injury earlier this week.

High Jump: A pair of Russians headline this event in Shanghai – Andrey Silnov, the European champion and 2006 world leader (2.37m in Monaco), and 2006 World Indoor champion Yaroslav Rybakov, ranked third in the world in the event. 2006 U.S. outdoor champion Tora Harris is also in the field. Despite having won World junior gold in Beijing, Huang Haiqiang, China’s highest-ranked athlete in this event, will not be in the field. China’s entrants are Xu Xin and Zhang Shufeng.

Long Jump: Olympic gold medallist and World champion Dwight Phillips is the headliner. He’ll be challenged by world number one and two, Irving Saladino of Panama and Ignisious Gaisah of Ghana. Miguel Pate and Salim Sdiri are also among those slated to compete.

Shot Put: The man to beat is American Christian Cantwell, who has posted nine of the top fifteen marks of the year, including his world-leading 22.45m in Gateshead in June. He’ll be challenged by Rutger Smith, the 2005 World Champs medalist, and 2004 Olympic champion Yuriy Beonog

Women:

100m: A star-studded field will compete for top honous, including 2005 world champions Lauryn Williams (100m) and Allyson Felix (200m), world indoor champion Me’Lisa Barber, and the ageless Merlene Ottey, another former world champion. Christine Arron, Torri Edwards, Cydonie Mothersill, and Chinese entrants Qin Wangping and Wang Jing round out the field.

400m: 2005 World and 2004 Olympic champion Tonique Williams-Darling faces off against world number two Vanya Stambolova of Russia and world number three Novlene Williams of Jamaica.

100m Hurdles: The 2004 Olympic champion, Joanna Hayes, will face 2005 World champion Michelle Perry in this race. World number four Damu Cherry and number five Lolo Jones are entered, as is the 2004 Olympic favourite who faltered and did not finish that competition, Canadian Perdita Felicien.

400m Hurdles: World number one Lashinda Demus, who owns seven of the top nine performances of 2006, is the one to beat. Most of the rest of the best will be in Shanghai to challenge her, including world number two Tiffany Ross-Williams (second in Stuttgart), number three Tetyana Antipova, number four Anna Jesien, and number five Sandra Glover.

5000m:World number one and two Meseret Defar and Tirunesh Dibaba will go head-to-head in this race, and will be challenged by a strong field of Kenyan and Ethiopian runners including World cross country champion Gelete Burika Bati. Look for newly-crowned world junior champion Xue Fei of China to be a crowd favorite.

3000m Steeplechase: The women’s steeple, which makes its Olympic debut in 2008 in Beijing, will be contested here for the first time at the Shanghai event. World leader Wioletta Janowska (9:17.15) will face world number four Lyubov Ivanova of Russia and Kenyans Salmoe Chepchumba and Gladys Jerotich Kipkemoi, the fifth- and eighth-ranked athletes in the world, respectively.

Pole Vault: World number two Monika Pyrek, the 2005 world outdoor silver medalist, and former World record holder Svetlana Feofanova are the headliners. China’s entrants, Asian record holder Gao Shuying and World junior champion Zhou Yang, are sure to get the lion’s share of the cheers from the partisan crowd.

Mary Nicole Nazzaro for the IAAF