Previews07 Aug 2003


Norwich Union London Grand Prix preview

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Bernard Williams wins the 2003 US National 100m (© Getty Images)

London, UKWhatever Maurice Greene is up to on Friday night, it must be good. With the World Championships in Paris starting in just over two weeks time, just about all of Greene’s main rivals for his 100m crown will line up at the Norwich Union London Grand Prix - IAAF SGP - on Friday (8 Aug), seeking to stamp their authority on an event that’s becoming increasingly unpredictable the more this topsy turvy season unfolds.

In years gone by, Greene’s absence would have hovered like a spectre over the sprinting feast at Crystal Palace but now many of the combatants who will be present on Friday look much more confident bets for Paris gold than the reigning champion.

Alongside the three Britons – Dwain Chambers, Mark Lewis-Francis and Darren Campbell – the men’s 100m will feature the world record holder Tim Montgomery, the US champion Bernard Williams, the Commonwealth champion Kim Collins, and this year’s surprise package Deji Aliu of Nigeria. And that’s without mentioning the World Indoor champion Justin Gatlin. Having missed out on selection for the USA’s Paris team, Gatlin is returning from injury with a point to prove.

Greene apart, it is a field worthy of the World Championships final itself. But then, the London Grand Prix is that sort of meeting, as a skim through its half dozen headline names confirms. With Haile Gebrselassie, Jonathan Edwards, Zhanna Block, Gabriela Szabo, Derartu Tulu, and Svetlana Feofanova in action, even the absence of injury-struck Brits Paula Radcliffe and Ashia Hansen, and the late withdrawal of Hicham El Guerrouj, can’t take much gloss off a meeting that’s shining with quality, despite continuing uncertainty over the future of the stadium.

El Guerrouj pulled out of the 50th anniversary edition of the Emsley Carr Mile this week because of rheumatic back pain, a precautionary measure which robs the current World record holder of a chance to prove his prowess in front of former winners John Walker, Said Aouita and Sebastian Coe. Not that they’ll be without world class distance runners to watch.

And they don’t come much classier than Gebrselassie. The Olympic 10,000m champion competes in the men’s 5000m, an event at which, amazingly, he’s ranked just seventh in the world this year. With the Commonwealth gold and silver medallists, respectively the Kenyans Sammy Kipketer and Ben Limo, and his own protégé Assefa Mezgebu, in the field, the Ethiopian emperor will be hoping his legions of London-based fans are out in their usual full and colourful voice.

The women’s 5000m line-up is no less impressive, even without Radcliffe. Tulu, twice the Olympic 10,000m champion, will take on Szabo, the tiny Romanian who’s hungry for a fifth successive global gold medal in Paris. Add the former double World Cross Country champion Sonia O’Sullivan of Ireland, Morocco’s Zahra Ouaziz, twice World bronze medallist Ayelech Worku of Ethiopia, and Britain’s fast-improving Jo Pavey, and there’s quite a race in prospect.

Indeed, many events are virtually World Championship pre-runs. Take the men’s 400m, for example, in which World champion Arvard Moncur of the Bahamas meets Jamaica’s Commonwealth champion Michael Blackwood, and the fastest man in the world this year, Tyree Washington of the United States. Britain’s former World Indoor champion Daniel Caines will be striving to provide some home cheer, while his compatriots Du’aine Ladejo and Ian Mackie seek the Paris qualifying standard of 45.55.

Then there’s the Shot Put, in which Britain’s newest medal hope, Carl Myerscough, faces his sternest test of the season. Myerscough’s British record 21.92m, at the NCAAs in June, puts him second in the world rankings to USA’s Kevin Toth, who competes here, as does World and Olympic silver medallist Adam Nelson.

“This is the best shot put line-up I have ever thrown against,” said the six foot, 10 inch Myerscough. “All the major players will be at Crystal Palace and it’s a chance for me to show them what I can do.”

Having thrown 21.55m at the World Trials and AAA championships less than two weeks ago, Myerscough believes the UK record he took from Geoff Capes could be improved again. “I’m preparing for it and I’m in the shape to give it a go,” he said. “When I beat Geoff’s record it came as a bit of a surprise because I wasn’t feeling my best on the day. This time though, I feel ready.”

Quality is no less in evidence in the women’s events. New mum Marion Jones may not be around this year, but Ukraine’s World champion Zhanna Block, hoping to improve on her sluggish performance in Stockholm, will test herself in London against a trio of likely Americans – Kelli White, Chryste Gaines and Torri Edwards – plus the double Commonwealth sprint champion Debbie Ferguson of the Bahamas, and France’s former European champion Christine Arron.

After leaping 2.06m in Germany last month – the best since 1992 – Sweden’s Kajsa Bergqvist believes Stefka Kostadinova’s High Jump World record of 2.09m is now within her sights. “All the factors will need to be right on the day,” she says. “But I am definitely capable of going that high now in way that I wasn’t a couple of years ago.”

If she’s to claim the £50,000 bonus in London, however, she’ll have to jump better than she did in Stockholm this week, where she could manage no better than 1.95m, for fourth place. South Africa’s Hestrie Cloete won that event, with six first time clearances up to 2.01m, and Cloete plus Ukraine’s Inga Babakova will be Bergqvist’s main rivals here.

In fact a World record in the High Jump would break with what’s fast becoming a British tradition – the setting of women’s World Pole Vault records at UK meetings. Less than a month after she set a new world mark in the evening gloom of Gateshead, Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva returns to Britain on Friday for a competition that boasts her compatriot Svetlana Feofanova, who broke the indoor record three times in Britain this winter, and the World and Olympic champion Stacy Dragila. With such a field, and temperatures set to stay hot into the night, there’s every chance the organisers will be paying out again. The question is, who to?

No doubt the Cuban-born triple jumper Yamile Aldama would dearly love it to be her. Now resident in the UK, the year’s leading jumper will compete in London without the incentive of the World Championships to come, nor of facing Hansen, the World Indoor champion, on her home turf. Not that that’s held her back so far this year. With five competitions over 15m in 2003, Aldama will be a big favourite to beat Russia’s world champion Tatyana Lebedeva.

Jonathan Edwards makes one of his rare appearances this year in the men’s event. The world record holder finished third behind Christian Olsson in Stockholm this week, and will face Americans Tim Rusan and Kenta Bell in London as he tries to gear up for a defence of his World crown.

Among the other Britons who’ll be out to raise a bit of home crowd cheer are Julian Golding, Christian Malcolm and Marlon Devonish in the men’s 200m, Chris Rawlinson in the men’s 400m hurdles, Steve Backley in the men’s javelin, Kelly Holmes and the recovering Jo Fenn in the women’s 1500m, Natasha Danvers in the women’s 400m hurdles, and Lee McConnell in the women’s 400m flat.

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