Wallace Spearmon in the 200m heats at the 2007 IAAF World Championships (© Getty Images)
US sprinters Lauryn Williams and Wallace Spearmon will make their European season debuts in the Luzern Spitzenleichtathletik meeting on 16 July. World 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu of Britain runs her specialist distance.
The Spitzenleichtathletik EAA Permit meeting in Luzern is one of a select group of Area meetings at which points can be acquired by athletes to qualify for the IAAF / VTB Bank World Athletics Final, to be held on 13-14 September in Stuttgart, Germany.
Spearmon, the World 200m bronze medallist in Osaka, has already competed in Luzern missing the meeting record by just one hundredth of a second by running 20.30. He was later to crown his year with a sensational 19.65 in the half-lap race in Daegu. This year Spearmon made the US Olympic team for Bejing by finishing third in 19.90 at the US Trials in Eugene on 6 July. The US sprinter is ready to attack this meeting record on the fast Luzern track.
Another US sprint star who will test her form in Luzern is last year’s World 100 metres silver medallist Lauryn Williams who book her berth in the US Olympic team for Bejing with her third place in 10.90 sec at the US Trials in Eugene.
Williams, the 2005 World champion and 2004 Olympic silver medallist, will face a strong opposition led by the Bahamas’ Debbie Ferguson McKenzie, Olympic 200m bronze medallist, who was the 100 and the 200m winner here last year, and Chandra Sturrup who took second place in Athens last Sunday in 11.14 secs.
The Luzern meeting has also attracted reigning World 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu from Great Britain (49.61 PB) who will run her gold medal distance in an attempt to impove her season’s best of 51.06 set in Ostrava last month. This year the young Briton has shown an improvement in the 200m where she set a new PB of 22.94 in Oslo on 6 June.
Damu Cherry, second in the 100m Hurdles at the US Trials, comes to Luzern with the second fastest time in the world in 2008 of 12.47 set in the Trials semifinals and is looking for a second win in the Swiss meeting after finishing first in 2006.
The women’s 400m Hurdles features US Trials champion Tiffany Ross Williams who is currently second in the 2008 world list with her 54.03 set in the Eugene US Trials final.
Luzern will be the last chance for the Swiss 4x100 relay team to qualify for the Olympic Games in Bejing. The home team, who set a 38.99 national record in Madrid on 5 July, is currently 17th in the IAAF relay ranking and needs an improvement to their fresh swiss record to keep the chance alive to join the top-16 countries which will be eligible to take part in the Olympic Games. In Luzern Switzerland will take on Brazil, Canada, Holland and Ghana.
Diego Sampaolo for the IAAF
