Hestrie Cloete on her lap of honour after jumping 2.05m in ISTAF Berlin (© Getty Images)
The 'who’s who' of world athletics has once again convened at the Intercontinental Hotel Zurich, in order to celebrate another edition of the 'Weltklasse' which will take place at the adjacent Letzigrund stadium today, Friday.
As the penultimate stage of the IAAF Golden League 2003, Zurich takes on particular significance as the world’s elite under goes a high pressure gauge of form, just a week before the opening of the 9th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Paris 2003 Saint-Denis (23 – 31 August 2003).
Cloete and Ayhan to headline again
Hestrie Cloete and Süreyya Ayhan were the undoubted stars of last Sunday’s ISTAF Golden League meeting in Berlin, and the South African World High Jump champion and the Turkish European 1500m gold medallist are sure to be headlining again in Zurich.
Cloete with a practically unblemished score card up to and including her 2.05m African record in Berlin, will have a World record 2.10 clearance in her sights once more today. Wearing the ‘210’ bib number on her vest last Sunday was perhaps too weighty a burden to carry as her three heavily failed attempts proved but that height is surely within the South African's compass.
Ayhan in only her second run of the season with pace making assistance battered out a relentless 1500m pace in Berlin which took her under the 4 minutes barrier, the first woman to do so this summer. Today the enigmatic Turk will face Tatyana Tomashova (4:01.19) who stands third on the season's list, as she makes her final preparations to face the 39 year-old American sensation of the indoor season Regina Jacobs in Paris. Jacobs' World Indoor record (3:59.98) was the first time any woman had run under 4 minutes indoors, and with the World Indoor crown already under her belt this year is one of the few runners with both the talent and the desire to beat Ayhan to the world crown.
Mutola - firm bet to remain on Jackpot path
As the sole surviving contender for the US$1 Golden League Jackpot Mozambique’s Maria Mutola who has bestrode the world of two lap running for over a decade ever since winning both the World Indoor and outdoor titles in 1993, is set for the biggest pay day of her life if she can win both here and in Brussels on 5 September. After her tactical master peice last Sunday in Berlin and having run 1:55.55 in Madrid (19 July) few will bet against her completing her challenge. In Zurich, Mutola will once more face arch rival Stephanie Graf, and the relatively unknown challenge of the Russian Svetlana Klyuka.
Click here for link to earlier Mutola story
In the women’s Triple Jump, battle is rejoined between two of this season’s three 15 metres performers, Yamile Aldama of Cuba (15.29m) and Cameroon’s African champion Francoise Mbango (15.03m), both of whose season's bests are new Area records.
Hurdling quality
The four Hurdles events re-emphasise, if a reminder was necessary why the Weltklasse organisers claim Zurich is the ‘Olympics in one night’. Every in-form hurdler with the exception of Russia’s new World record breaker in the Women 400m Hurdles, Yuliya Pechonkina will be present.
In the women’s 100m Hurdles, three time World champion Gail Devers (12.49) will face current world lead and Pan Am champion Brigitte Foster (12.45).
The world of women’s 400m Hurdles which has been stunned by Pechonkina’s new marks (52.34 sec) at the Russian championships last Friday (8 Aug) presents the best of the rest her today – Jana Pittman (AUS) the Commonwealth champion, the double European gold medallist Ionela Tirlea (ROM), and Sandra Glover of USA.
America’s Allen Johnson, whose 12.97 leads the world this year was orginally on today's line up in the men’s High Hurdles but as a precautionary measure reflecting a minor foot injury he has now withdrawn. Latvian record holder Stanislav Olijar (13.08) who beat the World champion convincingly in Berlin, will now contend with Duane Ross who was second there, and US Paris duo Larry Wade and Chris Phillips.
Around the one lap of barriers the peerless Felix Sanchez (DOM), the newly crowned Pan Am winner, takes on most of his usual pursuers who will shortly vie to prevent him retaining his World 400m Hurdles title in Paris.
For ' Cherono' read - Saif Saaeed Shaheen
Former Kenyan Stephen Cherono now qualified to compete for Qatar, and running for the first time under his new name of Saif Saaeed Shaheen aims to give his new country their first World record in any event. The world season’s leader at both the 3000m Steeplechase (8:04.75) and the 5000m (12:48.81), will tackle the former event in Zurich’s Letzigund Stadium. Among others he will be harried by Kenya’s former World record holder, 1997 World champion and reigning Olympic silver medallist, Wilson Boit Kipketer.
Click here for link to previous Cherono story
If Kenya senses that their dominance of the Steeplechase, so long their national parade event is under threat from the newly established Qatari, then they are taking no chances in attempting to conquest the men’s 5000m. In Zurich, an impressive phalanx of eleven Kenyans will be led by their newly arisen distance running messiah Abraham Chebii, who restored some much needed national pride when vanquishing the hierarchy of Ethiopian distance running in Rome on 11 July. On that occasion Chebii out-played and out-sprinted both World record holder Haile Gebrselassie, and cross country king Kenenisa Bekele at 5000m.
El Guerrouj - injury scare
Aiming at an audacious 1500m and 5000m double at the Paris World Championships is three time World 1500m champion Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco.
However, after pulling out of last Friday’s London meeting with a suspected back injury, currently the talk is more about his ability to race at all rather than the number of gold medals he might expect in Paris. The Moroccan World 1500m record holder was said to be suffering from a rheumatic problem but what ever the cause of his London withdrawal, his form will be tested to the full by the Kenyans Bernard Lagat and William Chirchir.
El Guerrouj would hope to replicate the speedy recovery of world season 800m lead Wilfred Bungei. Reportedly taken to hospital at the Kenyan trials at the end of last month with a suspected attack of malaria, Wilfred Bungei the World silver medallist in 2001, made a miraculous recovery and raced very strongly in Berlin last Sunday, where he was denied only by South Africa’s Mulaudzi Mbulaeni. Both men contest the 800m here too, a race which will particularly hold the attention of the Letzigrund stadium crowd, as it features the athlete who beat Bungei to the World championships gold in 2001, Swiss hero Andre Bucher.
In the women’s 3000m, we have the prospect of a fine duel between Olympic 5000m champion Gabriela Szabo (14:41.35), and the equally shining star of Africa, Kenya's Edith Masai (14:50.78), the double World cross country champion who trounched the Romanian in London last week.
The two throwing events on the programme, the men’s Discus and Javelin, and the men’s Pole Vault have start lists which would grace any World or Olympic final.
In the Discus, Olympic champion Virgilijus Alekna of Lithuania, meets five-time World gold medallist Germany’s ‘Mr. Discus’ Lars Riedel, and European champion Robert Fazekas, the world season’s leader in the circle.
Zelezny to make Paris decision
Three time World and Olympic Javelin champion Jan Zelezny, the greatest thrower of all-time will based on his performance today, decide whether he will compete in Paris or save himself solely for one more Olympic Games, next year in Athens. If he wins, even with a small margin the answer should be an equivocal YES, as the Czech’s pponents, Russian Sergey Makarov and the Germans Boris Henry and Raymond Hecht are currently the most consistent throwers in the world.
The Pole Vault brings together the Olympic, World outdoor and Indoor, European and World Cup winners. In Nick Hysong (USA), Australia’s Dmitriy Markov and Tim Lobinger (GER), Israel’s Alex Averbukh, and South Africa’s Okkert Brits, you have the modern hierarchy of vaulting, with the equally impressive talents of USA’s Paris squad – Jeff Hartwig, Derek Miles and Tim Mack – in support.
Without Sweden’s Christian Olsson the World Indoor and European outdoor champion, in the line-up for the men’s Triple Jump the contest should be between Romania’s Marian Oprea, who is the second furthest jumper in 2003 (17.63m), and American champion Kenta Bell (17.59m).
After their impressive 100m victories in London last week which were seen by many pundits as unofficial dress rehearsals for Paris, the absence of Britain’s European record holder Dwain Chambers and double USA champion Kelli White, casts a shadow over both the men’s and women’s dashes. White’s subsequent victory over Golden League Jackpot aspirant Chandra Sturrup in Berlin, further emphasises how much in particular the American will be missed.
That said both 100 metres races still boast formidable fields of talent. Nigeria’s Deji Aliu, St Kitts' Kim Collins and US champion Bernard Williams head the men’s 100m, while this season’s resurgent European record holder Christine Arron of France, double Commonwealth champion Debbie Ferguson (BAH), USA’s Chryste Gaines, and of course Chandra Sturrup are in the vanguard of the women’s field.
Guevara warms up for Fenton clash in Paris
That brings us to the women’s 400m which will be the penultimate flat sprint race tomorrow night. Having just travelled acroiss the Atlantic after last week’s Pan Am Games win in Santo Domingo, Mexico’s Ana Guevara, will be anxious to regain her European legs quickly before she has to face Jamaica’s Lorraine Fenton, the World and Olympic silver medallist from Jamaica, at the Paris World Championships. In 2001 it was Fenton who beat Guevara to the silver medal, and with three sub 50 second clockings this summer the Jamaican should not just be written off as just an outside bet for 400m gold.Guevara's opposition in Zurich is headed by Senegal's Ami Mbacke Thiam (50.67), the reigning World champion who is beginning to show a glimmer of form.
IAAF
