Hestrie Cloete of South Africa qualifies for the high jump final (© Getty Images)
Nine days of spectacular competition, in front of near capacity crowds in the Stade de France, which have produced an electric atmosphere throughout the 9th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Paris 2003 Saint Denis, come to a conclusion today.
Women's Marathon
The women’s Marathon which starts the competition programme looks set to be a Kenyan, Ethiopian, and Japanese tussle. The East Africans are led by former holder of the world best Catherine Ndereba (2:19:55), and Joyce Chepchumba (2:23:22), a London and New York winner, both of Kenya, while Ethiopia can count on the newly wedded Elfenesh Alemu (2:24:29), whose husband Gezhagne Abera was dethroned from his men’s Marathon title yesterday.
The Japanese challenge is led by Misuki Noguchi with a time of 2:21:18 in Osaka, and the whole squad has the extra motivation, that the first Japanese home with a medal will gain automatic qualification for the Athens Olympics.
Quality 800m
The men’s 800m looks set to be a class act as was pointed out by our columnist Jim Dunaway yesterday morning –
“The best field in the Championships is, I think, the men's 800 metres. On Thursday's start lists, I counted 24 entrants with personal bests under 1:45.00 - and thirteen of them had PBs under 1:44.00. After eight cut-throat races that night, and three more even more cut-throat semi-finals on Friday, eight men have advanced to Sunday's final, eight men with an average PB of 1:43.17. And if you exclude the two relative unknowns - Osmar dos Santos and Justus Koech - the average PB of the other six 'veterans' is only 1:42.03! Hey, I'm not saying that dos Santos or Koech can't win (remember Nils Schumann in Sydney three years ago), but they sure are moving into fast company. I love the 800; it's my favourite race.”
Doubles
The men’s track race which has had all the hype is the men’s 5000m. Uniquely, we find ourselves with two men campaigning for golden doubles at these World championships. Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco is looking to compete the longer leg of a 1500/5000m combination, while Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele wants to add 5000m gold to the 10,000m title he won last Sunday.
Which ever man succeeds tonight, both doubles are part of athletics folk lore. The 1500m and 5000m has only once been achieved at a global level, way back in the Paris Olympic of 1924 by Flying Finn Paavo Nurmi.
The 5000m and 10,000m titles have never been successfully taken at the World championships but have been achieved by Kolehmainen (1912), Zatopek (1952), Kuts (1956), Viren (1972 and 1976) and Yifter (1980) at the Olympics, names who evoke everything that is great about distance running.
If either El Guerrouj or Bekele wins tonight it will be one of the great feats of athletics history.
Ayhan
Sureyya Ayhan of Turkey, the European champion and World Cup winner is the outstanding favourite in the women’s 1500m.
The world season’s leader with a 3:55.60 national record run in Zurich just prior to Paris 2003, the 24 year-old presently seems without any peers in this event. In fact no other woman has yet to go under 4 minutes this summer, and the one athlete who did break this barrier, indoors last winter, Regina Jacobs of the USA went out in the semi-final stage here.
Zelezny
With just 77.24 metres good enough to gain a place in the final, the qualification round in the men’s Javelin was the weakest ever in World championships' history since the new spear was introduced prior to the 1987 Worlds in Rome.
However, forget the qualification results they should be of little significance in the final because the throwers were being cautious as the runway on Friday was wet due to the rain which had fallen earlier in the afternoon.
With three-time World champion Jan Zelezny in the competition we can always expect fireworks, and the great Czech has the world season’s leader Sergey Makarov, Germany’s European bronze medallist Boris Henry, and four times European champion Steve Backley of Britain in the final, which should be enough to light his competitive touch paper.
86 metres plus should be the distance required for a podium finish, though the bronze could be taken a little more cheaply.
Women's High Jump
The High Jump will be the most keenly contested of events, which statistically indoors and out is the stongest ever concentration of 2.00m plus jumpers in a major championships final. Hestrie Cloete of South Africa defends her title, against another eight competitors who have a season's best of 2 metres or more.
At 2.06m Kajsa Bergqvist is the best in the world but on 2.05, Cloete is the next best, and has consistency in her jumping which the Swede can only dream about.
Relays
The most unpredictable finals tomorrow will of course be the Relays, and there seems little point in making detailed predictions given the possibility of faulty baton chnages, lane and boz infringements etc.... The process would be as meaningful as throwing all the team names into a hat, and picking the winners out at random.
In the men’s 4x100m it seems to be a clear Britain versus USA battle, Russia will take on the Americans over the women’s 4x400m discipline, and the championships after two French golds yesterday could be brought to an even greater crescendo if the host’s men’s team can upset the USA in the men’s 4x400m relay, the final event of the 9th IAAF World Championships in Athletics.
IAAF
