Michael Frater (JAM) (© Getty Images)
The joint World record holder in the men’s 100m* Asafa Powell of Jamaica, who confirmed last month that he would open his 2006 European campaign in the 100m at the Exxon Mobil Bislett Games on 2 June, will be given all the motivation he requires by the presence of fellow Jamaican Michael Frater and Olu Fasuba of Nigeria in the Norwegian capital.
The Oslo meeting marks the opening of the IAAF Golden League 2006 which this year kicks off in the famous and newly re-built Bislett Stadium which reopened last year.
Click here for Powell’s original Oslo announcement
Powell who last season established a World 100m record in Athens (9.77), before injury decimated the rest of his season has undergone an extensive rehabilitation programme since last year & has combined this with progressive levels of competition.
Powell, an easy winner of Commonwealth Games 100m in Melbourne in March where he ran an impressive 10.03 despite easing up over the last 30 metres, more recently clocked a summer season opener of 9.95 in Kingston, despite a start which he described as being one of the worst of his life.
The 100m race in Oslo will probably be Powell’s next opportunity to regain the sole right to the World 100m record that he lost to USA’s Justin Gatlin, and such an assault will be made all the more possible by the attendance of his training partner Michael Frater, the World 100m silver medallist from 2005.
And both men can count on a further push from the new African 100m record holder Olu Fasuba of Nigeria, who broke Frank Fredericks’ decade old 9.86 (Lausanne 3 July 1996) mark with his 9.85 second place just behind Gatlin’s World Record 100m in Doha.
Maurie Plant for the IAAF
*Subject to Gatlin’s mark going through usual World record ratification process