Wallace Spearmon, Jr., speeds to 19.97 clocking in Mt SAC (© Kirby Lee)
Helsinki, FinlandIn a land of throwing and distance running legend it perhaps strikes as strange that the men’s 100m and Long Jump will be two of the most eagerly awaited events at Monday evening’s GE Money Grand Prix in Helsinki’s Olympic stadium (25 July).
The IAAF Grand Prix is the dress rehearsal event for the 10th IAAF World Championships in Athletics (6 – 14 August) which will be staged in the same venue next month.
Man of the moment
Wallace Spearmon Jr, is one of the men of the moment in the sprinting world following on from his world season leading 19.89 seconds 200m win in London’s IAAF Super Grand Prix on Friday night (22). The 20-year-old has now produced three of the four fastest 200m performances over the distance this season, with 19.91 (11 June) and 19.97 (17 April) also to the credit of the IAAF World Ranked number nine for the 400m, a position which is surely set to change dramatically for the better in the coming weeks.
The news was broken this morning by Bob Ramsak of Track Profile that Olympic champion Shawn Crawford had withdrawn due to injury from the USA 200m trio for the World Championships (he will run only 100m and relay). Therefore, Spearmon, who finished fourth in the American Championships, now has a team place. On Monday, in preparation for that appearance he will get to test the newly laid Mondo surface in Helsinki for the first time, with the 100m his Grand Prix event of choice.
The stars of the shorter sprint though will surely be Trinidad and Tobago’s sub-10 second double act of Marc Burns and Darrel Brown, respectively 9.96 and 9.99 performers this season. In a deep line-up they will face the Nigerians Uchenna Emedolu, the World Cup winner, and Olusoji Fasuba, and Germany’s Tomas Unger, an Olympic 200m finalist.
Two Olympic champions face home hopes
From Spearmon to spearmen, and of course the Javelin Throw will take centre stage – women’s event was held tonight – with the men’s contest pitching Athens Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway into the home den of Finland’s world season leader, Tero Pitkämäki, in what should be a crowd rousing classic. World silver medallist Andrus Värnik of Estonia will also be very much in the mix for the win
In the Hammer Throw, it is Poland’s Sydney Olympic winner who faces Finland’s finest, in the shape of World Athletics Final winner Olli-Pekka Karajalainen, who he beat in a close contest in the EAA meet in Lappeenranta last Thursday night (21). Croatia’s Andras Haklits, the European Under 23 silver medallist last week, with a season’s best of 80.41m which he threw in May, could well surprise them both.
Phillips is the favourite of course
The organisers have precisely planned the start of the men’s Long Jump some two hours before the traditional parade event of any Finnish meet, the men’s Javelin Throw, so that there will be no possible overlap. Usually the throwers hold centre stage in the Finnish public’s affections but at the moment the exuberant and colourful character of long jumper Tommi Evilä has also become one of the main stars of Finnish athletics.
An 8.27m (+2.4m/s) win over American Champs third placer Brian Johnson and then a third place in the TDK Golden League meeting in Rome, have conjured up World Championship hopes for the 25 year-old Finn, who was fourth this winter in the European Indoors.
So for once the rhythmic clapping of the back straight crowd in Helsinki will not just be confined to the accompaniment of anyone of a half-a-dozen 80m+ javelin throwers that Finland can exhibit at any given time, but will also offer support to Evilä as he strides down the runway.
Dwight Phillips, the IAAF World number one, 14 places ahead of the Finn in the Ranking, will no doubt still win, nothing else would be expected of the World and Olympic champion, and season’s leader (8.47). But the hopeful stadium crowd will also rise to urge on potentially the country’s greatest long jumper since Jorma Valkama who took the Olympic bronze medal way back in 1956!
“Evilä…who?”
Yet the whole plot of this story was largely lost on Phillips today. The American in front of a packed room of local journalists honestly confessed - ”I’d never heard of him (Evilä) until arriving in Helsinki, and didn’t know I had competed against him in Rome.” And quite frankly, why should a jumper of Phillips’ quality and capability have known. So now the next move rests firmly with the Finn to make a more indelible impression on the World and Olympic champion's memory.
John Moffit, the Olympic silver medallist behind Phillips last summer is one of the other class acts on show but he has yet to get past 8m this summer. French champion Salim Sdiri who has a season/personal best of 8.25m is also a contender.
Campbell faces stiff opposition
After losing her long winning streak at 200m on Friday night in London, Olympic 200m champion Veronica Campbell contests the 100m event in Helsinki. At this distance the Jamaican was the bronze medallist in Athens last summer. A move down in distance though still finds her facing 2005 USA Championship silver medallist Muna Lee, and 2004 USA champion LaTasha Colander, the Olympic 8th place finisher.
The only woman in the 400m field who has gone under 50 seconds this summer is USA Champs silver medallist Dee Dee Trotter (49.88) but she too will face strong opponents. The newly crowned European Junior winner, Olga Zaytseva of Russia (50.06), and 2001 World champion Ami Mbacké Thiam of Senegal, who was also the World Bronze medallist in 2003, are the main challengers.
Other highlights expected…
In the men’s 400m, Zimbabwe’s Young Talkmore Nyangani (44.96) heads the entrants, while over the one lap barriers it should be Olympic fifth placer Bayano Kamani of Panama, the overall quickest in Lausanne, to star.
In the women’s 100m Hurdles, it looks set to be between Jamaicans Vonette Dixon (12.67) and Lacena Golding-Clarke (12.68), and the Pole Aurelia Trywianska (12.77) as they have quickest times from this season among the starters. The sprint Hurdles (100m) also has a Polish favourite, Anna Jesien, the European Cup champion, who was second in the Paris TDK Golden League in a national record of 53.96. However, Americans Sandra Glover, the World silver medallist, and Sheena Johnson, 4th in the Olympics, have a better big time pedigree.
In the men’s 800m, it should be South Africa’s Olympic silver medallist Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, up against a resurgent 2001 World champion André Bucher (SWI), with USA’s inform Khadevis Robinson, and Saudi’s remarkable 19-year-old Mohammed Al-Salhi (1:44.39 national record this year), pushing them both to the line.
Olympic silver medallist Toby Stevenson takes on European champion Alex Averbukh of Israel and Australia’s 2001 World champion Dmitri Markov in the men’s Pole Vault.
Selection battle
In both the Pole Vault and the Shot Put there will be a fierce battle for Finnish team places for the World Championships. Three ”B” qualified athletes will be battling (unless they are all inspired and break the 5.75 A grade) for the one available team slot in the vault. In the Shot, 2000 Olympic champion Arsi Harju is one of three 20m+ athletes with a credible chance of joining the already selected Ville Tiisanoja on the Helsinki team, so long as they make the A standard qualifier of 20.50m.
Not that the Finnish putters don’t have chances to win Monday night’s contest but moving away from national hopes, The Netherlands’ Rutger Smith, who has thrown 21.41m this season, and USA’s Reese Hoffa (21.29 in 2005), the winner in London on Friday with 21.11m, are the men in the field who have more realistic hopes of victory.
There is also a…
Women’s 1500m - 2003 World silver Hayley Tullett (GBR) vs Jen Toomey (USA) vs Carmen Douma-Hussar (CAN) vs Nacy Langat (KEN)…
Women’s High Jump – three 2m performers at their very best, Monica Iagar (ROM) , Venelina Veneva (BUL), Viktoriya Seryogina (RUS)…
Women’s Triple Jump – Sudan’s Yamilé Aldama is the star, Athens Olympic fifth placer, World Indoor silver medallist and African champion, with a season’s best of 14.55m
Chris Turner for the IAAF
