A host of Sydney Champions join
Energizer Euroseries
Chris Turner
31 January 2001 - The Energizer Euroseries, the self styled "Golden League" of the indoor season, has today announced an impressive men’s 60 metres hurdles line up at all four meetings - Stockholm, Birmingham, Gent and Lievin - which comprise the series. Britain’s World indoor and outdoor champion Colin Jackson who also holds the world’s best time for the 60m hurdles (7.30sec), will face Sydney Olympic champion Anier Garcia of Cuba and Atlanta Olympic champion Allen Johnson of USA.
The second of their four clashes will take place at The Norwich Union Indoor Grand Prix in Birmingham on 18th February, the day of Jackson’s 34th Birthday. There is little doubt that Garcia, who dominated the high hurdles event throughout last season, will be eager to spoil any celebrations which might also signify a comeback by Jackson, who finished outside the medals in Sydney.
Also in the Birmingham field will be USA’s former Olympic silver medallist Tony Dees, Germany’s World Cup winner German Falk Balzer, Latvia’s European indoor gold medallist Stanislav Olijars and British youngster Dominic Bradley who won the British AAA title last weekend.
Another magnificent head to head at the same meeting will occur in the women’s 800 metres where Mozambique’s Olympic champion Maria Mutola will be challenged by silver medallist Stephanie Graf of Austria.
Three other Sydney Olympic champions have already confirmed their participation in Birmingham, women’s 5,000 metres gold medallist Gabriela Szabo - who will be attempting to break the world best for 3,000 metres which she so narrowly missed on this same track last year -, men’s 1,500m champion Noah Ngeny of Kenya and triple jump gold medallist Jonathan Edwards.
The Energizer Euroseries kicks off with the GE Globen Galan in Stockholm on Thursday 15th February. The Swedish capital will host a classic men’s high jump field including Olympic champion Sergei Klyugin, Sweden’s own stars Stefan Holm (4th in Sydney) and Staffan Strand (6th in Sydney), and Canada’s World championship silver medallist Mark Boswell.
