Zango and Taylor in Ostrava head-to-head

Hugues Fabrice Zango, Christian Taylor and Jacob Kiplimo will be among the athletes competing in front of a 1500-strong crowd when the Golden Spike, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting, takes place in Ostrava on 19 May.

Burkina Faso’s Zango made triple jump history earlier this year when he became the first athlete to jump beyond 18 metres indoors with his 18.07m world indoor record in Aubiere. He started his outdoor season strongly, too, leaping a world-leading 17.40m in Montpellier on 8 May.

In Ostrava he will again take on the USA’s two-time Olympic and four-time world champion Taylor, who sits second on the world triple jump all-time list with his 18.21m leap from 2015.

Taylor, who set the Golden Spike meeting record of 17.57m in 2017, won at last year's event, leaping 17.46m to beat Zango by just 4cm.

“Triple jump will be the event to watch this summer. I feel it!” wrote Taylor when announced for the meeting in the Czech Republic.

Racing on the track for the first time in 2021 will be Uganda’s world half marathon champion Kiplimo, who will be aiming to secure the Olympic 10,000m qualification mark of 27:28.00. He last raced the distance on the track in 2018, with his PB of 27:26.68 set when claiming world U20 bronze as a 15-year-old in 2016. At last year’s Golden Spike Kiplimo won the 5000m in a PB of 12:48.63.

 

 

 

 

 

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Joining them in Ostrava will be local favourite Tomas Stanek, who won the European indoor shot put title in March, and he will face the two athletes who joined him on the podium in Torun – Poland’s Michal Haratyk and Croatia’s Filip Mihaljevic.

Other athletes to have previously been confirmed for the meeting include world pole vault record-holder Mondo Duplantis, 2017 world javelin champion Johannes Vetter, world hammer record-holder Anita Wlodarczyk and Joshua Cheptegei, who last year set world records over 5000m and 10,000m and this time will race over 3000m.

Due to pandemic restrictions a full crowd is not possible, but a maximum 10% of spectator capacity has been approved, meaning around 1500 fans will be able to watch in person at the 60th edition of the event.

World Athletics