Final Countdown to Annecy ’98
Monaco - 24 July, 1998 - Annecy(FRA), is making the final preparations for the 7th IAAF/Coca-Cola World Junior Championships, which will start on Tuesday 28 July and end on Sunday 2 August.
Of major interest during the first days of competition, where there are no finals, will be the men’s 800m heats and the qualifying round for the women’s pole vault, which will make its debut appearance at an IAAF outdoor World Championships in Annecy.
The men’s 800m should be of a particularly high standard, given the presence of William Chirchir (KEN), who ran a time of 1:45.2 in this year’s Kenyan men’s senior championships. The mark places him at the head of the junior rankings for 1998 and is the fifth best mark of all time.
Special interest will be generated by the women’s pole vault, with Monika Götz in competition. She is the world junior record holder in the event with a mark of 4.31m, achieved at just 17 years of age. Germany will have its sight on the men’s pole vault title too, thanks to Lärs Borgeling, the defending European junior champion. But Borgeling, who has a personal record of 5.62m - the German national junior record - will face stiff competition from the defending junior world champion, Australia’s Paul Burgess (5.60m). Burgess won his title in Sydney when he was just 17 and became a national hero.
Were the young Australian to successfully defend his title, he would be only the second male athlete ever to retain his title in an individual event, after William Kirochi (KEN), who won the 1500m title in 1986 and 1988.
Four women have achieved the exploit: Gillian Russell (JAM), who won the 100m hurdles in ’90 and ’92, Ilke Wyludda (GDR), in the discus in’86 and ’88, Svetlana Dimitrova (BUL), the heptathlon (’86 and ’88) and Irina Stankina (RUS) 5km walk in ’94 and 96.
The President of the IAAF, Dr Primo Nebiolo, will hold a press conference introducing the championships, on Monday 27 July, at 11.30 am in the Imperial Palace Hotel in Annecy.
ENDS
