Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Ewa Swoboda race at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Paris (© Chiara Montesano / Diamond League AG)
Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Poland's Ewa Swoboda are to star in a 100m head-to-head when the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Silesia welcomes athletes for Wanda Diamond League action for the first time on 6 August.
Multiple world and Olympic champion Fraser-Pryce broke the meeting record at last year's event, clocking 10.81. That followed her 10.60 PB set just over a week earlier, a time that places her third on the world all-time list.
Home favourite Swoboda, meanwhile, improved her PB to 11.05 in Paris and also ran a wind-assisted 10.99 (2.4m/s) last month. She is a two-time winner at the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial, having triumphed in 2018 and 2019.
"I feel proud to have my name mentioned alongside Shelly-Ann's. She is an icon," said Swoboda. "Each athlete dreams of achieving at least half of what Fraser-Pryce has and to stay at the top for this long.
"I hope it will be the best women's 100m race ever to take place on Polish soil. On 6 August I would like to finish as close to the legend as possible."
Fraser-Pryce currently leads the world top list with the 10.67 she ran in Nairobi in May and she won't be the only world leader in action in Silesia, which hosts the first Diamond League meeting after the World Athletics Championships Oregon22.
Sweden's world pole vault record-holder Mondo Duplantis has already been announced for the Poland event and is fresh from achieving the highest ever outdoor vault with 6.16m in Stockholm on Thursday (30).
In Silesia he will be joined by Poland's multiple world medallist Piotr Lisek, USA's Olympic silver medallist Chris Nilsen and France's 2012 Olympic champion Renaud Lavillenie.
Over in the men's hammer, the three Olympic medallists from Tokyo – Wojciech Nowicki, Eivind Henriksen and Pawel Fajdek – will renew their rivalry.
Poland's Olympic champion Nowicki leads the world top list with the 81.58m he threw in the Silesian Stadium last month, while his compatriot Fajdek – the four-time world champion – has thrown 80.56m and Henriksen has a season's best of 80.17m.
Organisers for World Athletics
