Tianna Bartoletta at the 2015 IAAF Diamond League meeting in Eugene (© Kirby Lee)
Every major international championship gold medallist since 2009 is confirmed for the women’s long jump at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Eugene on 28 May, the meeting organisers of the Prefontaine Classic announced on Monday (28).
Tianna Bartoletta won gold last summer at the IAAF World Championships Beijing 2015 with a lifetime best of 7.15m, her second world title outdoors after the one she won as a teenager in Helsinki back in 2005.
Bartoletta, winner of last year’s Pre Classic long jump, has claimed the past two Diamond Race titles in this event.
Brittney Reese won her seventh global gold medal at the recent IAAF World Indoor Championships Portland 2016. It marked a return to the top for Reese, who struggled last year with a back injury.
Already the only US woman other than Jackie Joyner-Kersee to have won an Olympic women’s long jump gold medal, a win at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games would see Reese would join German great Heike Drechsler as the only two-time gold medallists.
France’s Eloyse Lesueur won the 2014 world indoor title and 2014 IAAF Continental Cup. The two-time European champion will return to action this summer after missing the 2015 outdoor season with a knee injury.
Shara Proctor became Great Britain’s first seven-metre jumper with her silver medal in Beijing last summer, jumping 7.07m, and she was the 2013 Diamond Race winner.
Canada’s Christabel Nettey is the youngest in the field at 24. She won the Pan American title last summer in Toronto, then finished an agonising fourth at the 2015 IAAF World Championships.
Ivana Spanovic of Serbia already owns four major medals, topped by her silver at the IAAF World Indoor Championships Portland 2016 with a national record of 7.07m. She was the bronze medallist at the past two outdoor World Championships as well as at the 2014 World Indoor Championships.
Janay DeLoach is the third US woman in the field and finished fourth at the IAAF World Indoor Championships Portland 2016. She is the Olympic bronze medallist and 2012 world indoor silver medallist.
Organisers for the IAAF
2016 IAAF Diamond League calendar
6 May – Doha, QAT
14 May – Shanghai, CHN
22 May – Rabat, MAR
28 May – Eugene, USA
2 Jun – Rome, ITA
5 Jun – Birmingham, GBR
9 Jun – Oslo, NOR
16 Jun – Stockholm, SWE
15 Jul – Monaco, MON
22-23 Jul – London, GBR
25 Aug – Lausanne, SUI
27 Aug – Paris, FRA
1 Sep – Zurich, SUI
9 Sep – Brussels, BEL
