Liu Xiang celebrates while sitting on his World record clock in Lausanne (© AFP / Getty Images)
With less than two months to go until the 32nd edition of Athletissima in the La Pontaise stadium, four reigning Olympic champions have declared their intention to compete on Tuesday 10 July.
Athletissima 2007, a Super Grand Prix status meeting, is part of the IAAF World Athletics Tour 2007.
“Almost everyone wants to come over, my only problem is money,” comments Jacky Delapierre, the meeting director. “I’m still waiting for the results from first competitions (of the season) before finalising entries.”
China’s Liu Xiang who sped to a World record last year in Lausanne to set the season alight will return to defend his meeting title.
The author of a marvellous 12.88 run in the 110m Hurdles, the Olympic champion is convinced he can run even faster. He likes this track because it is “really fast”. It was here that the Chinese star also set the World Junior record in 2002. As part of his build-up to a World Championship title challenge this summer Liu Xiang returns to Lausanne as the “date fits my planning perfectly.”
Jeremy Wariner, the World and Olympic 400m champion, already heads the world season list thanks to a 44.02 clocking in Osaka, Japan on 5 May on the World Championship stadium track. thbis run was only his second individual 400m race of 2007 and was the best time ever achieved in the world at such an early point in an outdoor season.
Wariner, 23, is predicted to be capable of threatening Michael Johnson’s World record (43.19) in this and coming seasons, and in Lausanne where his mentor in 1996 ran the 6th best time of his career of 43.66, that meet record must at least be in danger.
Another 2004 Olympic champion on show on 10 July will be Stefan Holm. The Swede has already high jumped 2.36m outdoors and 2.40m indoors during his career, and despite losing on home turf at the European championships in Gothenburg last summer showed he is very much still a force to be reckoned with thanks to his a superb 2.34m victory in Birmingham which took the continental indoor title this winter.
As for the women's 100m, the line-up includes another 2004 Olympic champion. Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell, the 200m winner and 100m bronze medallist in Athens will come up against the two women who sandwiched her into second place at the 2005 World Championships, the gold medallist Lauryn Williams of USA, and France’s Christine Arron who occupied the third step on the podium.
Pierre-André Pasche for the IAAF
