Kenenisa Bekele (ETH) - 10,000m triple (© Getty Images)
With all the 47,500 available seats in the King Baudouin Stadium sold for the eleventh consecutive year and even some of the VIP packages appearing on the auction site Ebay such is the demand for tickets, the 31st edition of the Memorial Van Damme - IAAF Golden League - tomorrow evening, Friday 14 September, is a sure fire success a day before the first starting gun is even triggered.
A Million remains at stake
The penultimate stage of what could be a US$1 Million payout from the IAAF Golden League Jackpot will be played out by the last two contenders, USA’s Sanya Richards in the 400m and Russian Yelena Isinbayeva in the Pole Vault. So there is plenty at stake even considering the US$7 Million that was won in prizes at the recent Osaka World championships.
With the traditional fireworks display and a musical finale set to close out the evening of 18 individual events and two sprint relays, the organisers are hopeful that the currently good autumnal temperature of 16C and clear skies in the Belgian capital will hold until the weekend.
Bekele faces a Supreme solo challenge
Appropriately, The Supremes, the highly successful Tamla Motown singing group of the mid to late 1960’s are the ‘act’ which will close a night which promises to provide athletic action of the highest rank.
Immediately proceeding the group who produced a string of 10 number one hits in the US charts, will be three-time World champion Kenenisa Bekele who will be hoping to make his own history. The Ethiopian’s ‘10’ involves 25 laps of the track and is aimed at bettering his 26:17.53 time which is the current World record, and the athlete, his manager (Jos Hermens) and the meeting director (Wilfried Meert) seem to be singing the same tune when it comes to predictions.
The only slight record doubt surrounds the fact that “there are not too many runners capable of pacing the 13:10 required for 5k, especially in a season when only one runner so far has been able to go sub-13 in an individual 5000m race,” confirmed Meert.
Bekele not surprisingly also cautions that if he has to go solo for most of the race that “it’s hard to stay concentrated for 25 laps.” But Hermens is convinced of his athlete’s enhanced strength since his disappointment at the World Cross in Mombasa in the spring. “It is fantastic to see how he (Kenenisa) has been fighting back since then. It (he ‘did not finish’) made him tougher mentally…He has had time to rest since his win in Osaka and has a lot more to give this season,” confirmed Hermens.
Kenenisa’s brother Tariku who played a major role in pacing the current World 10,000m record set by Kenenisa at the Memorial Van Damme in 2005, has declined similar employment in his brother’s attempt this time, preferring to concentrate on a sub-13 run of his own in the 5000m. The World Junior champion should start as one of the favourites, along with Kenya’s 2003 World champion Eliud Kipchoge, the silver medallist from Osaka, and Ethiopia’s Sileshi Sihine so often the major championship runner-up who took that spot again in Osaka at 10,000m behind Kenenisa.
Defar aims to do her ‘best’
The 10,000m is not the only flagged World record attempt tomorrow, though that should more accurately be described World ‘best’ because the Two Miles distance is not an official IAAF record distance. Yet such linguistic and rule nuances mean nothing to World and Olympic women’s 5000m champion Meseret Defar who will be attempting to improve the 9:10.47 ‘World best’ which she ran in Carson, USA on 20 May this year.
Having sliced most of eight seconds off her own 5000m World record also earlier this year the 23-year-old Ethiopian feels that the Two Miles offers her the greatest chance of improvement in Brussels. Russia’s Olga Komyagina, who was on hand to assist with that 5k run in Oslo on 15 June is also expected to take on the pacing responsibilities tomorrow too, leading Defar through 1000m and 2000m in 2:50 and 5:40 respectively.
A cocktail of entertainment
After the Zürich IAAF Golden League meeting’s newly adopted policy of removing pacemakers from its competitions altogether had its first trial last Friday, didn’t Meert and the Brussels’ organisers feel there was too much concentration on World record attempts here?
Answered Meert - “Some of our Belgian sportswriters have asked exactly that question already this week but my answer has been and remains in 18 (individual) events on the programme we have just two record bids. Which one of those do they want me to cut, and why?”
“The crowd wants a cocktail of entertainment. They want to see sprints, (distance) races, jumps, throws, World record attempts.”
“We should never try and compare ourselves to championships. We have a sport to sell to the public and perhaps only 8 to 10% of those 47,000 spectators in the stadium are die-hard athletics fans, the rest just love to watch great sport, and that’s what we must provide.”
49 Osaka champions on view
There is little doubt that Brussels’ entertainment recipe is a proven one, and with 39 individual and 10 relay World champions included in the final start list which was presented this evening the Memorial Van Damme has another blue chip commodity to sell.
“Unless we have a terrible change in the weather we will have a fantastic level of performances tomorrow night. Athletes are rested again and are eager for success.”
At the time of the season when many stars are tired meetings thrive on “frustrated athletes who need to show something special after a poor Olympics or World Championships,” concluded Meert.
Sprinters out to prove their worth
One man with a lot to prove was World 100m record holder Asafa Powell, and that was confirmed when he demolished his own best for the dash by 3/100ths of a second in Rieti last Sunday. 9.74 seconds is now the aim for the Jamaican who was disappointed to only finish with the World bronze medal in Osaka. His conqueror Tyson Gay might have flown back to the USA tired after his three World Championship victories (100m, 200m and relay), but Powell might not even have reached his comeback peak in Rieti. Tomorrow he lines up against the 2004 Olympic silver medallist Francis Obikwelu (POR), 2005 World runner-up Michael Frater (JAM) and African recordholder Olu Fasuba (NGR), who was fourth in Osaka.
Like Gay, World 100m silver medallist Derrick Atkins of the Bahamas is also absent. He attended a Kids’ Athletics clinic arranged by the meeting yesterday in Brussels but then citing tiredness informed the organisers that he had to end his season and fly home.
Gay will also be missed in the 200m, but aside the champion ‘everyone’ is here. World silver and bronze medallists Usian Bolt (JAM) and Wallace Spearmon (USA) will battle with Xavier Carter, the third fastest man of all-time, who missed Osaka due to injury sustained at the USA champs. Carter is another of the ‘frustrated’ end of season athletes, and that was clearly demonstrated by his emphatic victory in Zürich last Friday.
Felix ‘grounded’ by her studies
The women’s World 200m champion Allyson Felix is missing from Brussels. Parental pressure is said to have played its part in ensuring that the 21-year-old remains in the USA to concentrate on her studies. Felix was to have challenged Golden League Jackpot contender Sanya Richards in the 400m which would have provided a little extra spice to the women’s one lap. Britain’s World 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu is also absent due to fatigue, though will return in Berlin on Sunday. Do not discount her countrywoman Nicola Sanders, the Osaka silver medallist or even third placer Novelene Williams, though the latter was one of those blown away by Richards’ 49.36 in Zürich last week.
Christine Arron, the European women’s record holder for the 100m, took a fine win in Zürich like Richards, and has a 34th birthday also to celebrate today (13 Sep). Perhaps, though the first post-Osaka run of World champion Veronica Campbell (JAM) will be just that little bit too hot for the Frenchwoman to expect the party to continue through to the end of tomorrow.
USA’s Torri Edwards embarks on a 100m/200m double in Brussels. Just 30mins after the dash she will line-up for the longer sprint but it is fair to say in the 200 that Belgium’s European champion Kim Gevaert will be the centre of the crowd’s attention. Gevaert also has a double sprint outing tomorrow, running with her fellow Osaka bronze medal team-mates in the women’s 4x100m which sets the evening track programme off.
While Sanya Richards was majestic in Zürich, Yelena Isinbayeva, the other contender for the US$1 Million Jackpot, was technically ragged in the women’s Pole Vault a week ago. If the World Sportswoman of 2006 wants to stay in-line for the prize then she will need to be at the top of her game to fend off both the Osaka silver and bronze medallists, Czech Katerina Badurova and fellow Russian Svetlana Feofanova.
Whisking quickly through the rest of the programme highlights…
The men’s middle distances offer a quality 800m in which Kenya’s senior and junior World champions, respectively Alfred Yego and David Rudisha, will try to fend off South Africa's world season leader Mbulaeni Mulaudzi (1:43.74), the Olympic silver medallist who is another of those with a lot to prove after coming seventh in the Osaka final. The 1500m is also wide open. World silver medallist Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain has his first run since Osaka, and we know no more about his current form than we did in Osaka when he appeared there for his first race of the year. Look out for the prodigiously talented Kenya junior Asbel Kiprop, the World Junior XC champion, who was fourth in Osaka at the tender age of 18.
The women’s Mile plunges Osaka 1500m gold and silver medallists, Maryam Yusuf Jamal of Bahrain and Russia’s Yelena Soboleva, into another confrontation. Soboleva’s world season best of 4:13.63 should fall as a result.
Hardly a grudge match but after being knocked off the Jackpot path by Sweden’s European champion Susanna Kallur in Zürich, another athlete with a lot of frustration to vent is possibly double World champion Michelle Perry (USA) in the women’s 100m Hurdles. In the men’s High Hurdles with China’s World and Olympic champion back in his homeland, and silver medallist Terrence Trammell back in the USA, Osaka third placer David Payne is the standout. Watch-out for a resurgent Allen Johnson, the former four-time World 110m Hurdles gold medallist, and possibly even 2005 World champion Ladji Doucouré of France, yet another of the ‘legion of the Osaka disappointed’ battling to recapture their reputations.
Having been denied a place in the Kenyan 3000m Steeplechase squad for Osaka despite so far being the only man under 8 minutes this season, Paul Kipsiele Koech is another with a lot of angst to let go. World champion Brimin Kipruto and Olympic gold medallist Ezekiel Kemboi, second in Osaka, will also be looking for sub-8 too.
In the infield in Zürich, the Triple Jump’s and the Javelin Throw’s newly crowned World champions, respectively Portugal’s Nelson Evora and Finland’s Tero Pitkämäki, took a beating. Expect both gold medallists, who have had very solid seasons and another few days rest since Osaka, to blast back at their vanquishers USA’s 2005 World champion Walter Davis and Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway.
Possibly the Supreme happening
In the High Jump, Croatia’s Blanka Vlasic who hasn’t lost a competition since her second place finish in the opening IAAF Golden League of the season in Oslo (15 June) seems peerless at the moment. Many times Vlasic has tried a would-be World record of 2.10m this season, and if she was to succeed at that height tomorrow, to return to our ‘Supremes’ theme, that really would be “The Happening” of the night.
Chris Turner for the IAAF
