Karlstad, Sweden – The western Swedish city of Karlstad is Stefan Holm's hometown and even though Holm himself now is a "retired elder statesman" he has not lost his interest in the sport and especially not in his own event. Instead he was very much involved in recruiting a top quality field to what was billed the "Holm Invitational" at the "Karlstad Grand Prix" on Thursday (15).

With the current top-two in the High Jump in the Samsung Diamond League’s "Diamond Race" in the event - Linus Thörnblad and Jesse Williams - plus the resurging 2007 World champion Donald Thomas as well as three more jumpers with 2.30+ PBs the quality certainly was there.

With Holm himself acting as the ultimate expert commentator from the infield the event still started a little hesitantly. When the bar had reached 2.22m four jumpers were remaining – and surprisingly all four failed their first attempts! Williams and Thörnblad redeemed themselves quickly while Thomas and Jamie Nieto – who won ahead of Holm himself in this meet seven years ago! – were eliminated.

The Williams vs Thörnblad dual was on. At 2.25m Williams got slightly ahead by clearing in first attempt while Thörnblad needed to try twice. At 2.28m Williams sealed the win by another first time clearance while Thörnblad missed out, although his third and last attempt was quite close. As were Williams's three concluding tries at 2.31m, a height one cm above his yearly best.

The men's High Jump was not the only event which was highly anticipated by the fans. The men's 200m with Johan Wissman vs .Berlin finalists Alonso Edward and Ramil Guliyev was another such event. For both Edward – the No 2 in Berlin that nobody really saw as the No 1 ran a 19.19 WR - and Guliyev it would effectively be their first races of the summer as injury woes had delayed their season starts.

While Guliyev lost a close battle for the win against Zimbabwe's Brian Dzingai the Berlin silver medallist Edward slowed down halfway down the finishing straight walking past the line in almost 27 seconds. Obviously Edward was not yet race-fit after his injury. For Dzingai the race capped a perfect evening as he about an hour earlier had also taken the 100m ahead of the specialists.

Sprint super power Jamaica of course collected some wins this evening too: Talented teenager Carrie Russel handled Nigeria's Oludamila Osayomi in the women's 100m (11.35 vs 11.40), Stephanie McPherson dominated USA's Monica Hargrove and Moushaumi Robinsin in the women's 400m with her start-to-finish win in 52.26 and Darrion Bent and Nicholas Maitland went 1-2 in the men's one-lap event.

One win Jamaica did miss was the 100m Hurdles where Vonette Dixon had to succumb to the strong finish of Norway's Christina Vukicevic (13.02 vs 12.99). The scenario was somewhat similar in the men's race with the difference that the favourite and early leader – Jeff Porter – managed to prevail over the impressive closing rush of Sweden's Philip Nossmy (13.64 vs 13.67).

For the "Travelling Hurdles man" Porter it was his 18th race in 14 meets in Europe since 27 May (also finding time to fit in one trip back home to compete in the US Championships). And it is not just volume, it is also consistent quality: All those 14 finals in Europe Porter has completed in times between 13.52 and 13.74.

Also the two 3000m Steeplechase winners have been very busy lately despite still being juniors who last year won the World Youth titles: The 9:46.56 of Korahubish Itaa of Ethiopia was her third steeple race in seven days and the 8:25.83 (despite almost stumbling to a fall at the last water jump) by Hillary Yego of Kenya came just five days after his 8:19 PB in Heusden-Zolder.

The middle distance races were all tightly contested and having slightly surprising outcomes:
In the women's 800m favourite Laura Januszewski (USA) was surprised by Sweden's Charlotte Schönbeck who won in a negatively split PB of 2:03.23.

In the men's 800m Mukhtar Muhammed (GBR) defeated favourite Alex Sang (Kenya) but with his 1:46.92 himself just barely held off quickly finishing Joni Jaako (Sweden) who lowered his PB by over a second.

And in the men's 1500m David Torrence of the USA sprinted past Cornelius Ndiwa of Kenya in the last 50 metres to win in 3:37.73 to 3:38.39.

The women's Long Jump featured another comeback from injury for Carolina Klüft who strained a calf muscle in the New York Samsung Diamond League about a month ago. She was visibly not yet fully recovered and had to be content with 6.34m and third place behind ex-World champion (2005) Tianna Madison (6.44m) and Jana Veldakova (6.40m) of Slovakia.

The throwing events were won by Russ Winger (19.59m men's SP), Gabriel Wallin (78.31m men's JT) and Anna Söderberg (58.71m women's DT).

A. Lennart Julin for the IAAF

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