Asafa Powell's 9.77 in Zurich (© Getty Images)
A programme topped and tailed with national heroes and heroines, with a high quality IAAF Golden League workout neatly sandwiched in between, should conjure up the required atmosphere to make tomorrow afternoon’s DKB-ISTAF Berlin, a 65th anniversary to remember for Germany’s most famous athletics spectacle (Sun 3 Sep).
$1 Million in prize money ready for distribution!
The six meeting IAAF Golden League series and the $1 Million Jackpot which interlinks it comes to a conclusion in Berlin. For six athletes, four men and two women, everything hinges on one last IAAF Golden League 2006 series outing in the atmospheric 1936 Berlin Olympic stadium.
Four athletes have already secured five victories so far - Asafa Powell (100m), Jeremy Wariner (400m), Sanya Richards (women’s 400m), and Tirunesh Dibaba (women’s 5000m) - and so have a definite slice of a $500,000 purse (for five wins). They will try and snatch something from an additional $500,000 which is on offer for those achieving a perfect series of sixth wins.
Two other athletes, Kenenisa Bekele (5000m) and Irving Saladino (LJ), completed their fourth wins of this Golden League summer last week in Brussels, and should they also win in Berlin will take a share of the first $500,000 which is already split four-ways.
For all the possible Jackpot financial computations click on the following link -
IAAF GL Jackpot 2006 – who is set to win what!
But remember, as in all previous years, no Jackpot contender qualifies for any prize until they have also competed in next weekend’s IAAF World Athletics Final in Stuttgart, Germany (9 – 10 September).
So what’s the opposition like?
Skimming quickly through the main athletic barriers to the aspirations of these six Jackpot hopefuls…
Asafa Powell after a rain soaked outing midweek in Warsaw will be hoping the skies remain clear in Berlin and he can get back into sub-10 territory. The World 100m record holder is already having the greatest ever sprint season on record by that criterion -
Powell, the greatest sub-10 season all-time, aims for more in Berlin – IAAF Golden League
- and he will be equally hopeful of a better start than the sleeper he got in Brussels just over a week ago. Tyson Gay of the USA is in the line-up and with 9.84 to his name this season, if Powell is sluggish out the blocks, a possible upset would be on the cards.
In the two 400m races, Wariner and Richards have looked unapproachable on the track all season, and it would be a great shock if either were to be defeated in Berlin. That said, in the women’s 400m while everyone - Richards included - looked a little jaded a week ago at the last Golden League meeting in Brussels, two days later in Rieti, European champion Vania Stambolova of Bulgaria improved her national record to 49.53. If she can replicate that form tomorrow she could give the World silver medallist a real run for the money.
Dibaba for her part has a friendly national season long rivalry to continue in the German capital over the women’s 5000m. Can Olympic champion and World record holder Meseret Defar finally find a sprint to match her colleague, the World champion? The evidence this season would suggest, no, and so Dibaba’s path to the Jackpot should be decided by her usually devastating final 400m burst.
Dibaba, fame not fortune her motivation in Berlin – IAAF Golden League
Bekele and Saladino, slightly less secure?
Bekele and Saladino, who have hopes for a fifth Golden League win, have perhaps the hardest of tasks. The Ethiopian World record holder might not have to face his Oslo conqueror Isaac Songok here but his tormentor from the London Super Grand Prix, USA’s Bernard Lagat will be racing the 5000m, and so Bekele’s grip on a Jackpot pay day is not yet secure.
The same can be said about Panama’s Irving Saladino, who has been stunning throughout the summer and leads the season’s lists (8.56m) in the Long Jump. Yet with World Indoor champion Ignisious Gaisah, and Saudi Mohammed Al-Khuwalidi who pushed him so close in Zurich, both competing tomorrow, Saladino for all his talent and good form shouldn’t plan any Jackpot funded shopping trips quite yet.
The rest of the Golden League line-up
Of the other Golden League events which fill a two and a half hour section of the programme in the Olympic stadium, we should again be delighted by the usual Andreas Thorkildsen versus Tero Pitkämäki duel in the men’s Javelin Throw, while World Steeplechase champion and record holder Saif Saaeed Shaheen looks for a little excitement over 1500m, and given his stature, even below distance, is quite likely to scare the specialist milers witless in the process.
In the women’s events, the pre-eminent female sprinter in the world this year, Sherone Simpson of Jamaica, a training partner of Asafa Powell, will headline the women’s 100m. Europe’s highest flyer Kim Gevaert, the double Gothenburg gold medallist, must have hopes of challenging her personal best of 11.04 in pursuit of the Jamaican.
If Gevaert has her hands full with Simpson, then her fellow Belgian and European champion Tia Hellebaut seems to have the measure of her international opponents in the women’s High Jump. Tired legs were no barrier to her fine competition in Brussels a week ago in which she again saw off Gothenburg minor medallist, Venelina Veneva and Kajsa Bergqvist, and why not again here in Germany?
In the sprint hurdles, it looks like Michelle Perry, the World champion, with three Golden League wins to her credit this summer will have the edge. Brigitte Foster-Hylton, Oslo winner and second behind Perry in Zurich and Brussels, will be sure to argue with that prediction. Sweden’s Susanna Kallur, who took wins in Paris and Rome - at the time of writing - is not on the starting line-up.
National celebrations
Germany had a successful European Championships in Gothenburg, and acknowledging this fact three of its four gold medallists, 10,000m winner Jan Fitschen (3000m), Ralf Bartels (Shot Put) and Steffi Nerius (women’s Javelin Throw) have had competitions built around them on Sunday.
The Shot (Bartels vs Hoffa, Smith...) and Javelin (Nerius vs Spotakova, Obergföll...), along with another popular event for Germany, the Pole Vault, will take place in the pre-programme which starts just before midday.
The Vault has double European champion Aleksandr Averbukh of Israel up against Australia's Paul Burgess and Steve Hooker, World Indoor champion Brad Walker of the USA, the only man over 6m this summer, and Germany's Tim Lobinger to name but a few.
The post-Golden League show gets underway with another German heroine, World champion Franka Dietzsch, who will throw the Discus, competing against the surprise winner of the European title Dara Pishchalnikova of Russia.
The men's 800m is placed among the 'second half' German tribute events, and it will be interesting to see what Mbulaeni Mulaudzi of South Africa, the season's fastest, can do after his 1:43.09 win in Rieti last Sunday, against that meet's 'B"race winner Gary Reed of Canada (1:43.93 rec) among others.
Finally, the men’s 3000m will close out the entire day at just before 4pm with a hoped for German celebration for the most unexpected of all the German winners in Gothenburg, Jan Fitschen.
Chris Turner for the IAAF
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