Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen - 91.59m - in Oslo 2006 (© Getty Images)
The presence of Asafa Powell (JAM) and Sanya Richards (USA), the 2006 World Athletes of the Year, guarantees a sure fire start to the IAAF Golden League 2007 at the ExxonMobil Bislett Games in Bislett stadium, the Norwegian capital’s famous sports cauldron on Friday evening (15 June).
Yet Powell and Richards will be but two of Athletics' global A-list celebrities on show in Oslo. Joining them across a range of ten IAAF Golden League Jackpot disciplines at the start of a season long campaign to claim at least a share of a $1 Million Jackpot Prize- which goes to anyone who wins their event at all six meetings in the series - is a host of World and Olympic title winners and World record holders.
Counting all the various attractions of the international programme there are 23 competitions to be savoured over the course of four hours. The concentrated focus of the IAAF Golden League, at least with respect to the track events, has been slotted into the last 1hr 45 minute section of the meet. As is tradition in Bislett, the hallowed ground for so many memorable middle distance classics, the Dream Mile will conclude proceedings.
NOTE - Over the course of the last week the IAAF website has been extensively previewing the line-ups in all ten jackpot events, and links to these detailed 'event by event' previews can be found at the foot of this story.
Aiming to get straight back into their 2006 groove
Powell and Richards have had a relatively late-start to the season due respectively to injury and illness. While the World 100m record holder has run a few times he has had just one outing in his specialty (9.97 sec in Belgrade, 29 May), with his most recent race being a 200m (20.55) last weekend at the IAAF World Athletics Tour meeting in Eugene (10 June). Richards has been even more inactive with her only competition of any sort this year coming in Eugene where she won the 400m (50.74).
Given the proximity of the USA Championships which begin next week, and on which hangs national qualification for this summer’s World Championships in Osaka, Japan, Richards is one of the few US athletes prepared to risk an outing to Europe at this time. And if there is any general weakness in the Oslo starting fields, albeit an unavoidable one given the meeting's position in the calendar, then this is it.
So can the two best athletes of last year coax their bodies to further heights of athletic prowess in 2007?
Those who viewed Powell’s run in Belgrade recounted that he looked a bit stiff but if a 9.97 season opener is an example of rigidity then we are going to see some real 100m fireworks when the Jamaican becomes relaxed this season. The 24-year-old’s prodigious talent, his run in Belgrade was his 26th sub-10 second performance of his career, has made sub-10 look common place. Powell has the all the hallmarks of a champion if no silverware yet to prove it. As a result of his efforts this summer to step for the first time onto a global medal podium, we can surely rest assured that Powell will be near to his World record best throughout the Golden League series.
Tendonitis was the cause of Powell’s slow start to the year but with Richards it has been illness which has delayed her preparations. Unlike Powell, Richards already has a World silver medal in her trophy cabinet but that won’t dampen her enthusiasm to also push for the top rung over 400m in Osaka.
In Oslo, if both athletes find their usual groove then their opponents will see only the sight of their heels once the gun is fired. Jamaica’s Michael Frater the World championship silver medallist, Trinidad’s Darrel Brown, double European sprint champion Francis Obikwelu of Portugal, and African record holder Olu Fasuba of Nigeria will be in the mix.
2001 World 400m champion Amy Mbacke Thiam of Senegal is running back into form and could be Richards’ toughest draw.
World Sportswoman is here too
In the case of the women’s Pole Vault, it will be the World Sportswoman of the Year rather than the World Athlete of the Year centre stage in Oslo. Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva who was honoured with that Laureus Foundation award this spring is the chief draw. At the age of 25, Isinbayeva already has all the global championship accolades that Powell and Richards could dream about.
The World, Olympic and European champion, and World record holder is on paper still a class apart from the rest of her opponents. The only woman in history to clear 5m, she has been peerless for the best part of three years. However, her World record of 5.01m has now stood since the World Championships in 2005, and with a change of coach in the winter of 2005/2006 we seem to have been left asking the question of when that new set-up will garner even greater heights for what seems a very long time.
Brazil’s Fabina Murer and Poland’s Monika Pyrek who are each are advised by Vitaly Petrov who also trains Isinbayeva, should be the ones to push the Russian tomorrow.
90m club gets set for a party
It is with every effort that the editor of the IAAF website with his lifelong passion for javelin throwing regularly attempts to find every possible excuse to get that discipline onto the home page. But there are no excuses necessary in the case of Oslo. The tradition of spear throwing is strong here as it is in the neighbouring lands of Sweden and Finland.
Back in 1964 it was in Oslo that Norway's Terje Pedersen took the 'old' spear past 90m (91.72m) for the first time in history, and in more recent times Jan Zelezny - and Trine Hattestad in the women's event - have also produced World records here.
Reflecting that history, the ExxonMobil Bislett Games has pulled together a tremendous field of talent which includes five of the world’s 90m throwers. Why is that so special? Well, so far in the history of the ‘new’ specification spear only twelve athletes have ever broken 90 metres. Of the seven others who are not here, four have officially retired and another three are giving a good impression of the same by their lack of form or silence.
Leading the line-up is of course Norway’s Olympic and European champion Andreas Thorkildsen but perhaps the favourite is USA’s Breaux Greer, who is the newest member of the 90m elite thanks to his world season leading American record of 90.71m (20 May). The others from the club competing are Finland’s Tero Pitkämäki, Sergey Makarov of Russia, and Latvian Vadims Vasilevskis…all of whom have too many plaudits associated to their names to mention here.
High heights expected
The participation of the nearly the entire world elite of women’s High Jumping will be another reason why binoculars remain trained on Bislett’s infield on Friday.
Unlike the vault where the World, Olympic and European titles are the monopoly of one athlete, the keener competition of the much longer established discipline of women’s High Jumping means that these honours are respectively split three ways - Kajsa Bergqvist (SWE), Yelena Slesarenko (RUS), and Tia Hellebaut (BEL). That these three athletes also hold the World indoor record, World Indoor title and the European Indoor titles respectively underline the quality of the show that awaits Bislett.
Joining them and perhaps the favourite for the win is Croatia’s Blanka Vlasic, whose national record of 2.04m came on 11 May in Doha, with near misses at a 2.10m would be World record. There are a number of other 2m competitors too, the most notable of which is Italy’s Antonietta Di Martino who set the national record of 2.02m in Turin last week (8 June) when losing out to Bergqvist on count-back.
Swedes to the fore
Mentioning Bergqvist reminds us that Norway’s neighbours are well represented with top talent in a number of events in the meeting. As well as the aforementioned star, the women’s High jump will also be graced by the appearance of another Swedish ace, the World, Olympic and European Heptathlon champion Carolina Klüft (1.94m PB).
In the men’s Triple Jump, Sweden’s Christian Olsson, the Olympic and European champion takes on a line-up which includes USA’s World outdoor and indoor champion Walter Davis, Brazilian giant Jadel Gregorio, who recently threatened the 18m barrier, and Britain’s European Indoor champion Philips Idowu.
In the women’s 100m Hurdles, Susanna Kallur, Sweden’s European champion faces amongst others World champion Michelle Perry of the USA who has been the world’s fastest in this event for the last two seasons. Less good news is that overnight, the men’s sprint hurdles has been denied the presence of Cuba’s 20-year-old marvel Dayron Robles (13.00 PB) who is in good form already this year (13.17).
Defar - destined to improve her World record?
Only last week Meseret Defar, 23, was pleased to confirm that her next two races on the IAAF World Athletics Tour, the Golden League here in Oslo and the Grand Prix in Ostrava were key elements in building confidence prior to her assault on the World Championships 5000m title. Two year’s ago in the Helsinki Worlds she took the silver.
The question is does that preparation include a serious attack on the Ethiopian’s own World 5000m record here tomorrow?
The reigning Olympic 5000m and double World Indoor 3000m champion broke the 5000m record in New York last year with 14:24.53, and it is a distinct possibility that that mark will come under pressure again this year. Though she has yet to make her 2007 outdoor track debut at 5000m, Defar, 23, has been in magnificent form this year already, setting a World Indoor record at 3000m (8:23.72) in Stuttgart, Germany on 3 February, and a world best at Two Miles (9:10.47) in Carson, USA on 20 May.
Also on the women’s distance programme are a 1500m, and a 3000m Steeplechase.
At the former distance, no woman has yet broken 4mins this season, and the two quickest in the line-up here are Ukraine's Nataliya Tobias (4:05.41) and Kenya's Viola Kibiwot (4:05.43), respectively the fourth and first fastest of the summer.
The steeple is headed by the second fastest of the year Eunice Chepkorir of Kenya (9:25.84) but in this still young event predictions are difficult. Jamaican record holder Korene Hinds who was fourth in the 2005 World champs maybe one to watch. Her best so far this year is 9:37.01. The crowd will surely get behind Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal. The 17-year-old (birthday today) Norwegian took the European Junior XC silver last December and ran a national record and European Junior record of 9:33.19 for the 3000m Steeplechase on 2 June.
Mottram vs Africa at the Mile
The Dream Mile is the traditional classic event in Bislett, and particularly in a quartet of Kenyans – Augustine Choge, Alex Kipchirchir, Daniel Kipchirchir Komen and Isaac Songok – the organisers have brought together the cream of east African Mile and 1500m running. The ace of that distinguished pack is currently Alex Kipchirchir, 22, who won the African title, the World Athletics Final and the World Cup last season but any of the four could end up the winner tomorrow.
It must be remembered that the versatile Isaac Songok sprinted away to an epic 5000m victory over World record holder Kenenisa Bekele here last year.
Another man with such champion slaying qualities is Australian Craig Mottram, the World 5000m bronze medallist, who also took Bekele’s scalp when retaining his World Cup 3000m title last year. The Mile might be under-distance for the gutsy Australian but he has all the determination to take the fight to the Africans.
Simpson returns
Powell’s training partner Sherone Simpson, 22, who was the fastest female sprinter of last year in both 100m (10.82) and 200m (22.00), has made a tentative start to 2007 with a few relays, a couple of individual 400s, with a 22.76 200m her last race back on 5 May. It will be interesting to see how the Jamaican will manage diving straight back into the deep end of Golden League action after over a month away from competition.
At the 100m, Simpson takes on the likes of double European sprint champion Kim Gevaert of Belgium, Olympic 200m bronze medallist Debbie Ferguson (BAH), and the fast emerging Stephanie Durst (USA) who has been notching-up wins all over the earlier season circuit with her best for the year so far of 11.13w and 22.74 (last night on Prague).
Tough line-up for Alekna
There is also an extraordinarily high quality men’s Discus Throwing line-up in which double World and Olympic champion Virgilijus Alekna of Lithuania, will try to remain dominant. His closest rival Gerd Kanter is here. The Estonian who has taken silver behind Alekna at the last World and European championships, and leads the season with 72.02m. Alekna is the only other man this year to pass 70m (70.01m). Olympic silver and bronze medallists Zoltan Kovago and Estonian Aleksandr Tammert add to the distinguished line-up.
The third and fourth best of the current season so far, the Americans Jarred Rome (68.37m) and Ian Waltz (67.98m) are also here and will be seeking better form than in Poland last Sunday, when Waltz best was 62.38m and Rome’s was 60.07m.
A men's 800m and 1500m, a number of 'B' races and national competitions make-up the rest of the night.
Chris Turner for the IAAF
Click here for ENTRY LIST and RESULTS
Click here for ATHLETE BIOGRAPHIES
PREVIEWS
(NB. There have been changes to the entry lists since these previews were written last week).
Sprints
http://www.iaaf.org/GLE07/news/Kind=2/newsId=39068.html
Jumps and vaults
http://www.iaaf.org/GLE07/news/Kind=2/newsId=39047.html
Hurdles
http://www.iaaf.org/GLE07/news/Kind=2/newsId=38980.html
1500m / Mile
http://www.iaaf.org/GLE07/news/Kind=2/newsId=38979.html
Javelin
http://www.iaaf.org/GLE07/news/Kind=2/newsId=38978.html
