Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - The presence of five Beijing Olympic champions will especially mark out the “2009 Grande Prêmio Rio/Caixa de Atletismo” which takes place in the landmark Brazilian city on Sunday 17 May at the “Estádio João Havelange”, also known as “Engenhão”.

Nélson Évora, Maurren Maggi, Valerie Vili, Irving Saladino and Primož Kozmus along with a field of other stars are set to make this Sunday's meeting a spectacular affair.

The 2009 Grande Prêmio Rio/Caixa de Atletismo is one of a select group of Area meetings at which points can be acquired by athletes to qualify for the IAAF / VTB Bank World Athletics Final, to be held on 12-13 September in Thessaloniki, Greece.

The Rio de Janeiro meet will continue the series of four events in Brazilian soil that began on 10 May in the northern city of Fortaleza, and shall end with the classic “Grande Prêmio Brasil Caixa de Atletismo” in Belém on 24 May, a Grand Prix status meeting as part of the IAAF World Athletics Tour 2009.

Évora to face on form Cubans

One of those Olympic champions to compete in Rio will be Portugal’s Nélson Évora, the Triple Jump winner from Beijing. The 25-year-old, also the 2007 World champion will make his outdoor seasonal debut against a strong Cuban contingent. David Giralt, Alexis Copello, Osniel Tosca and Yoandri Betanzos, are all coming off great performances at the “Juegos del ALBA” in Havana on 25 April, form they showed again in Fortaleza on 10 May.

Copello won the event held in the Cuban capital with a windy 17.69m, followed by the legal jump of Betanzos (world season lead 17.65), and Giralt’s PB of 17.62, and then in Fortaleza, Giralt took the victory with his first and only jump of 17.61, followed by Copello with 17.41/-1.0, while Betanzos was relegated to the third place with 17.40/-1.1. Brazilian Jefferson Sabino was fourth with a SB of 17.09/-0.6, while Tosca was also over the 17m barrier (17.04/-2.8).

On top of the strong competition between Évora and the Cubans, Rio will also mark the 2009 debut of Brazilian Jadel Gregório, and Grenada’s Randy Lewis. Gregório was fifth in Beijing 2008, silver medallist at the 2007 World Championships, and also the South American record holder with 17.90 (2007).

Lewis placed sixth in the 2008 World lists with a NR of 17.49 set in the Brazilian city of São Paulo on 22 May 2008. Évora’s PB/NR is 17.74, mark achieved at Osaka when winning the 2007 World title.

“I know I will have a tough competition, and beating such great rivals will be difficult task”, said Évora, born in Ivory Coast, but formerly a Cape Verde representative.

Maggi has rematch Reese

The 2008 Olympic Long Jump champion, Brazil’s Maurren Maggi, will also be featured in Rio, with the goal of avenging her defeat at the IAAF Super GP of Doha on 8 May to American Brittney Reese.

The 22-year-old American – fifth in Beijing 2008 – won in Qatar with a world season lead and PB of 6.99m, while Maggi was third with 6.90 in her first event of the season. Also Brazilian Keila Costa, American Grace Upshaw, and Cuban Yargelis Savigne will be among Reese and Maggi’s rivals.

The 33-year-old Upshaw was eighth in Beijing, has a PB of 6.88 (2008), and has reached 6.80 (Berkeley, 25 April) this season.

Costa was eleventh in Beijing, and silver medallist of the 2007 Pan-American Games which was held in the same venue as the Rio GP. She has jumped 6.68 in 2009, while fifth at the Super GP of Doha, and also has a 6.88 PB (2007).

Savigne is currently the Triple Jump world season leader with 14.73m, a mark recorded at the Fortaleza meet. The Cuban, takes the Long Jump as her second event in which she earned the bronze medal at the 2007 Pan-American Games behind Maggi and Costa, has a 6.77 PB (2005). This season Savigne has jumped 6.57 indoors.

Vili vs. Mikhnevich

The third Beijing Olympic champion to compete in Rio will be New Zealander Valerie Vili, so far the 2009 world leader with a 20.25m mark obtained in Waitakere on 20 February. Belarus’ Natallia Mikhnevich (nee Khoronenko), the 2006 European Champion, and silver medallist of the Beijing Games should be Vili’s strongest rival on Sunday.

Mikhnevich will be making her seasonal debut and has a PB of 20.70 set in 2008, a performance that placed her second in the year lists behind compatriot Nadezya Ostapchuk (20.98). Vili’s PB and Oceania record is 20.56, a result recorded when winning at the Beijing Olympic Games.

Cuban Misleydis González, fourth at the Beijing Games, as well as her compatriots Mailín Vargas and Yaniubis López, and Trinidad & Tobago’s Cleopatra Borel-Brown, will be quality opposition for Vili and Mikhnevich.

Vargas comes from a victory in Fortaleza with a SB of 18.82, while González has putted a SB of 19.05 on 6 March in Havana at the “Memorial Aurelio Janet”.

Saladino starts over in Rio

Panamanian Irving Saladino, the 2007 World and 2008 Olympic Long Jump champion is hoping for another glorious season as he starts his 2009 campaign in Rio de Janeiro. The 26-year-old “Canalero” (which means “from the Canal”, as the Panamanians are known in its region) returns to the city and event where he obtained one South American record (8.56m in 2006), and further victories in 2007 (8.53) and 2008 (8.39).

Saladino, aka “El Canguro de Colón”, will face the 2008 Olympic bronze medallist, Cuba’s Ibrahin Camejo as well as his compatriot Wilfredo Martínez, the 2008 CAC Champion, and runner-up to Saladino at the 2007 Pan-American Games.

Kozmus takes on Ziólkowski

The Hammer Throw provides the fifth Beijing Olympic champion of the Rio meet, Slovenian Primož Kozmus, who will be encountering Poland's Szymon Ziólkowski, the 2000 Olympic champion, and seventh at the Beijing Games.

The 29-year-old Kozmus is coming from a 75.10m performance and a fifth place at the “Kamila Skolimowska Memorial” in Warszaw on 2 May. Kozmus will be hoping to get closer to his 82.30 PB and NR, set in 2007. Ziólkowski also competed in Warszaw, where he was seventh with 73.49.

Last – but not least – Cuba’s Osleidys Menéndez, the 2004 Olympic Javelin Throw champion, will be returning to the venue where she won her last major medal: the 2007 Pan-American Games. In a new attempt to regain part of her old glory, Menéndez will have to overcome her 21-year-old compatriot Yanet Cruz. The younger Cuban beat Menéndez 59.47 to 58.07 at the “III Juegos del ALBA in Havana on 25 April, and later repeated in Fortaleza: 58.38 to 56.69.

The rest of the events to take place are: Men: 100m, 200m, 800m, 3000m Steeplechase, 110m Hurdles and 400m Hurdles. Women: 100m, 200m, 400m, 400m Hurdles, Pole Vault and Discus Throw.

Eduardo Biscayart for the IAAF