Busy weekend for Fani Halkia - 400 victory in Munich (© Getty Images)
Athens, Greece The opening 400m Hurdles race of the season for Greece’s Olympic champion Fani Halkia should be one of the highlights of the Tsiklitiria 2007, a Grand Prix status meeting as part of the IAAF World Athletics Tour 2007 to be held on Monday (2 July).
A myriad of global and area champions have been assembled for what should be a spectacular night's action in Athens Olympic Stadium.
Halkia takes on the might of Russia
Fani Halkia, 28, who won the flat 400m at the European Cup in Munich last weekend begins her season at her Olympic gold medal winning discipline tomorrow in Athens Olympic stadium.
As well as Halkia’s 400m flat win in Munich, she also set a PB when coming fourth in the 200m (23.30) and so couldn’t be in much better shape but then her task could not be much stronger for her hurdles opener.
On the track which Halkia won her laurels three years ago, Halkia races Yevgeniya Isakova, the Russian who beat her to the European title last summer in Gothenburg, and her compatriot Yuliya Pechonkina, the World champion and World record holder whose 54.04 when winning the European Cup hurdles for Russia was the third quickest in the world this year.
However, it should be noted that Pechonkina DNF'd behind Isakova’s 55.31 win in Moscow on Friday night (29). She was trying a new stride pattern out in that race and when she got into trouble approaching one of the barriers decided not to risk injury and to stop her race.
Another epic Jackson vs Sanchez encounter?
The men’s 400m Hurdles race should also be anything but routine for the crowd to marvel at, as the winner of the European Cup and the reigning European champion Periklis Iakovakis of Greece also takes on the reigning World champion.
Iakovakis, who like Halkia is now 28-years-old is the fastest European hurdler so far this year thanks to his 48.35 second win in Munich, and is seeking further improvement in his quest in Osaka this summer to at the very least repeat the World bronze medal which he took in Paris 2003.
Again, the home hero’s task couldn’t be much stiffer as both USA's World champion Bershawn Jackson and World silver medallist James Carter, who currently tops the world list this year with 47.72, are among his opponents.
The presence of reigning Olympic champion, Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic will add another dramatic dimension to the race. As we witnessed at the IAAF World Athletics Tour meet in Ostrava midweek, neither Jackson nor Sanchez is prepared to be easily defeated by each other and are prepared to run to exhaustion to prove who is the best of the two global title holders way before they set foot on a plane to Osaka.
South Africa's Louis Van Zyl who beat both men in Ostrava is also in the field.
Both European double sprint champions on parade
The fastest woman sprinters of the year, the reigning Olympic 200m champion Veronica Campbell (10.89) of Jamaica leads the 100m line-up. The winner of both sprint titles at the European Championships in Gothenburg Belgium’s Kim Gevaert will be a strong rival for her, as will be USA's Me’Lisa Barber and the Bahamas' Debbie Ferguson, the 2004 Olympic 200m bronze medallist. The Greek champion Maria Karastamati has a chance to improve her season’s best of 11.39, which she set in the national championships, and to meet the standard for the World Championships.
The Athens GP men’s 100m race for much of the last decade has held a prestige above all other events on the card because two World records have been beaten - Maurice Greene (9.79) in 1999 and Asafa Powell (9.77) in 2005 - in the process of winning at this meeting in the course of that period.
This year’s standout entrant is Portugal’s Olympic 100m silver medallist Francis Obikwelu, who took both European sprint titles in 2006, and who has a season’s best at 10.06. Nigeria’s Olusoji Fasuba, the African champion and record holder (9.85) who has a season’s best of 10.16, and Britain’s Jason Gardener (10.28), the former World Indoor 60m champion, will be his Obikwelu’s main rivals.
Lebedeva’s season debut in the Triple Jump
Russia’s Tatyana Lebedeva, who has so far concentrated on the Long Jump this year, the event at which she is the reigning Olympic champion, will make her opening at the Triple Jump in Athens. While she has had three indoor competitions the 30-year-old Russian has had only one competition outdoors so far this summer winning a Long Jump with 6.84m on 9 June.
The former two-time outdoor World Triple Jump champion will take on reigning World champion Trecia Smith of Jamaica, World runner-up Yargelis Savigne of Cuba, the current world season leader (14.99m), and Greece’s reigning Olympic silver medallist Hrysopigi Devetzi. Russia’s Anna Pyatykh, the World and European outdoor bronze medallist, and Sudan’s Yamile Aldama, who respectively took silver and bronze medals behind Lebedeva’s victory at the 2006 World Indoor championships are also on the starting list.
Menendez takes on Obergföll
There have not been many occasions in recent years when Osleidys Menendez of Cuba, the World and Olympic champion and World record holder in the women’s Javelin Throw has found herself as the outsider in a competition but this will be the case tomorrow.
Germany’s Christina Obergfoll, the only woman aside the Cuban to have broken the 70m barrier with the new spear, improved her European record to 70.20m last weekend in Munich. The young German star had thrown 70.03 to take the World silver medal behind Menendez’s World record of 71.70m in Helsinki two year’s ago.
The Cuban has had injury problems this year and can currently only muster one competition of just 58 metres on 11 May as the summit of her year so far. In fact it could be a one-two for Germany in Athens as Steffi Nerius, the reigning European Champion and Olympic silver and World bronze medallist is also in the field.
Tsatoumas, Howe, Gaisah in the Long Jump
The current Long Jump world leader, Greece’s Luis Tsatoumas participates in the meeting, probably his last appearance in Greece for this season, as he intends to enter a series of international meetings to be held around Europe in the coming weeks in his build-up to the World Championships in Osaka.
In a short statement Tsatoumas announced his participation in the Grand Prix - “I’m very glad to participate again in this classic international meeting that is being organized for the last 9 years in Athens. I am in a great shape and I look forward to jumping over 8.40m. After achieving 8.66m this year I feel more relaxed and ready for a great jump.”
The presence of Italy’s Andrew Howe, 8.25m this year, the European champion indoors and out, Jamaica’s 'back in form' James Beckford (8.37m), Ghana’s Ignisious Gaisah, the World Indoor champion (8.08m), and Ukraine’s former European champion Olexiy Lukasyevich (8.11m) indicate a very deep competition.
Alekna and the Estonians ready for another rematch
In the last few years, double World and Olympic Discus Throw champion Virgiljius Alekna has been used to sharing the podium at almost all major championships with at least one of the top Estonian duo of Gerd Kanter and Aleksander Tammert.
Alekna is over 70 metres this year but Kanter who took the European silver medal behind him last summer and the World’s runner-up spot in Helsinki 2005 currently leads the season’s standings with 72.02. Tammert who is the Olympic and European bronze medallist is currently way off his usual form with a best so far in 2007 of 63.01m.
Robles up against the Americans
Dayron Robles of Cuba faces an intriguing match-up with USA’s Dominique Arnold in the men’s 110m Hurdles, which in total contains much of the USA’s ‘A’ stream with the exception of national champion Terrence Trammell. On Athens fast track, we may just see the 13-seconds barrier challenged again. Currently Robles and Arnold have the same season’s bests of 13.17 seconds but USA’s Ryan Wilson USA (13.02), Anwar Moore (13.12) and David Payne (13.12) are all currently faster this season.
Fast steeplechase and two great 800m races expected
It was at the 2004 edition of the Tsiklitiria meeting which was held in Iráklio because of refurbishment of the Olympic stadium ahead of that year’s festival, that Russia’s Gulnara Samitova-Galkina set the current World record of 9:01.59. She returns to the meeting this year with a season’s best of 9:14.37, and will face Belarussian Alesya Turava, the European champion, and Poland’s Wioletta Janowska, who took the bronze in Gothenburg last summer.
The women's 800m is expected to be an exciting race due to the participation of the Russia’s European champion Olga Kotlyarova, and the Morroco’s Olympic silver medallist Hasna Benhassi.
Yet the star of the two-laps though could well be Kenya’s Janeth Jepkosgei, the African and Commonwealth champion who twice improved the Kenyan record last year with a best of 1:56.66, the fastest time in the world in 2006. Second at the 2006 World Athletics Final and World Cup, the World Junior champion of 2002 has yet to reach her top level in 2007 with 2:00.21 her season’s best so far.
Yuriy Borzakovskiy is the standout entrant in the men’s 800m, with Asian record holder (1:43.11) Youssef Saad Kamel of Bahrain, the former Kenyan Gregory Konchellah, the Olympic champion’s main threat in a classy field.
The men’s Pole Vault entry list brings together three 6m performers. Olympic Champion Tim Mack from USA, Germany’s Tim Lobinger the winner of the European Cup last week, and USA's Brad Walker, the World Indoor Champion of 2006 all compete, with Walker who vaulted 5.95m on March, the current best performer in the world this season.
13 men with PBs of over 2.30m contest the men's High Jump including World Indoor champion Yaroslav Rybakov of Russia who is also World outdoor silver medallist.
Michalis Nikitaridis and Chris Turner for the IAAF
