Stefan Holm of Sweden clears 2.33m to win the World Athletics Final (© Getty Images)
MonteCarloStefan Holm, Andreas Thorkildsen, Francoise Mbango, and Tatyana Lebedeva. Four Olympic champions competing in three TDK Golden League events on the infield of the Stade de France, what a show!
In assessing who might be in contention for the $1 million Jackpot across the 12 TDK Golden League disciplines, we examine three more events, the men’s High Jump and Javelin Throw, and the women’s Triple Jump, using the provisional start list of the Meeting Gaz de France, Paris St Denis on Friday 1 July, the opening of the TDK Golden League 2005, as our guide.
The entire top-10 for the men’s High Jump event in the IAAF World Ranking is listed as competing. Stefan Holm (SWE), Athens Olympic winner, triple World Indoor champion, and European Indoor gold medallist, hopes to reconfirm his top position. Joining him in Paris are the rest of the Athens Olympic podium, Matt Hemingway (USA) and Jaroslav Baba (CZE), as well as Jamie Nieto (USA), Andrey Sokolovskiy (UKR), Yaroslav Rybakov (RUS), Mark Boswell (CAN), and Svatoslav Ton (CZE), who made up the next five placed athletes in Athens.
Then there is reigning World champion Jacques Freitag (RSA), injured last summer, who leads this season’s outdoor list with 2.38m, and the well known talents of Dragutin Topic (SCG), Grzegorz Sposob (POL) and Aleksey Dimitrik (RUS). There is no doubt that the TDK Golden League is THE place to be seen in the world of high jumping.
The men’s Javelin Throw also boasts an impressive starting card, with 7 of the top eight throwers from the current IAAF World Ranking. World gold medallist Sergey Makarov (RUS), Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen (NOR), and American Breaux Greer lead that pack. The second longest thrower of all-time Aki Parviainen, and the currently fifth ranked Tero Pitkämäki, lead the traditional Finnish challenge, with Alexander Ivanov (RUS), World silver medallist Andrus Värnik (EST), Latvian Erik Rags, and Peter Esenwein (GER) completing the field.
The women’s Triple Jump calls upon two reigning Olympic champions, Francoise Mbango (CMR) and Tatyana Lebedeva (RUS). The former won the discipline in Athens, while the latter came away with the bronze, securing her Olympic laurels on the Long Jump runway. Lebedeva, as the World Indoor champion and twice World outdoor gold medallist, is sure to want to reestablish her authority.
Yet it is Sudan’s Yamile Aldama who tops the IAAF World Ranking for the event, in a competition in Paris which has attracted seven out of the top-8 World Ranked athletes. Trecia Smith (JAM), Anna Pyatykh (RUS), Magdelin Martinez (ITA) and Kene Ndoye (SEN) are among these other big names.
TDK Golden League 2005
2005 Dates
Paris- Friday, 1 July
Rome- Friday, 8 July
Oslo- Friday, 29 July
Zurich- Friday, 19 August
Brussels- Friday, 26 August
Berlin- Sunday, 4 September
2005 Events
There will be seven events for men and five for women:
Men - 100m, 800m, 1500m or Mile, 3000m or 5000m, 110m Hurdles, High Jump, Javelin Throw.
Women - 100m, 800m, 3000m or 5000m, 400m Hurdles, Triple Jump.
IAAF
