News24 Jul 2009


Kaki and Perry brave weather conditions to win in Karlstad

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Abubaker Kaki in Karlstadt (© Anders Sjogren)

When the international meet in Karlstad celebrated its 10th edition in the "modern era" there were two traditional ingredients missing: A men's High Jump competition featuring local hero Stefan Holm – and the sunny weather. Holm has retired and unfortunately the sun had taken a major timeout this afternoon and evening.

Instead rain had started already at midday and poured on for hours with increasing intensity effectively drowning the Tingvalla arena – and all hopes of top class performances despite the presence of athletes such as Abubaker Kaki, Michelle Perry, Sherone Simpson, Darrel Brown and Toby Stevenson.

Kaki in his competitive comeback after the dramatic hamstring injury (later diagnosed as only a major cramp) at the Bislett Games three weeks ago took no risks in the wet and chilly weather. The Sudanese runner was content with a pace in the 1000m race that was decent in the first lap (55.3) but dawdling in the second (59.1). He actually didn't apply full pressure until the last 50 metres and still won by almost a full second in 2:20.18.

Following the 1000m race from the stands with great interest was Dan Waern. The energetic 76 years old had been invited as a special guest of honour because he on this very arena 50 years ago (21 August 1959) set a 1000m World record of 2:17.8. The World record status was of course lost many years ago but Waern's mark has remained both the track record and the Swedish national record for half century. And it still does after this evening!

Perry defies wind to take convincing win

Kaki has had his European training base this summer in the Stockholm suburb of Sollentuna and also Michelle Perry has spent quite a lot of time recently training in Sweden. The double World champion has had her "camp" set up in Carolina Klüft's home town Växjö in the southern part of Sweden.

Pouring rain and a considerable headwind (-1.2 mps) held Perry's nominal time down to 13.02 but it still was the most impressive performance on the home straight this evening. And Perry was philosophical when asked about the weather: "It could very well rain also in Berlin so it was still a valuable experience."

The flat 100m races were won by Darrell Brown and LaShauntea Moore in 10.61 and 11.43 respectively. In the women's race the pre-race focus was on Olympic silver medallist Sherone Simpson who recovering from injury had missed even advancing to the final in the Jamaican championships (and Berlin trial). Simpson is still hoping to secure a place in the relay team but her 3rd place today in 11.69 did not strengthen her case.

In the men's 110m Hurdles American Jeff Porter ran his 11th meet on his personal European tour this summer which so far has visited 8 different nations. However, based on the 13.37 PB ran just 6 days ago Porter had to fight surprisingly hard to defeat the Swedish duo of Philip Nossmy and Robert Kronberg as well as fellow American Fred Townsend (his 14th European meet this summer!).

Weather ruins vaulters’ chances

Of the field events the vertical jumps suffered noticeably from the rain: In the men's Pole Vault ten out of twelve jumpers – i.a. Toby Stevenson – failed to clear a height and a mere 5.01 was sufficient for the win. In the women's High Jump five jumpers had yearly best marks in the interval 1.85-1.91 but still the competition was decided already at 1.76 when Norway's Stine Kufaas was the only jumper to make that height.

The picture was quite similar in the men's Long Jump. Three jumpers had surpassed 8 metres previously this year but Sweden's Michel Tornéus was the only one of them managing to get beyond 7.50 this evening. Tornéus won in 7.66 with the US duo Bashir Ramzy and Trevell Quinley at 7.48 and 7.38 respectively.

The top throwing event results-wise was the men's Shot Put with Latvia's Maris Urtans, Estonia's Taavi Peetre and USA's Russ Winger surpassing 19 metres despite throwing from a slippery circle and into a landing sector which lay to a rather large extent under water! Also the top female discus throwers impressed in the pouring rain: Becky Breisch (USA) 57.26 won ahead of the Swedish duo Anna Söderberg (57.08) and Sofia Larsson (56.16).

One can only speculate what kind of results there would have been in these and the other events with just decent weather rather than the late-October version experienced this year. A return of Stefan Holm to competition will never happen but hopefully the traditional sunny weather will return to the Tingvalla arena for the 11th edition of the "Karlstad GP" in 2010.

Then the 2.300 spectators that braved the rain and the cold today will have most likely more than double.

Lennart Julin for the IAAF

 

 

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