Stars hunt final glory
Published: Saturday | September 12, 2009
Bolt is an overwhelming favourite for the 200 metres tomorrow, having opted out of today's 100-metre showdown that features a clash between in-form Jamaican Asafa Powell and former world champion Tyson Gay of the USA.
return of the champions
All five of the CARICOM individual gold medallists - including the Barbadian sprint hurdler Ryan Brathwaite - from last month's IAAF World Championship in Berlin, Germany, will appear at the meet that will see each winner picking up a prize of US$30,000.
As many as 30 athletes with gold medals in Berlin last month will be on show and any world record performance at the meet will be awarded US$100,000 bonus.
Today's schedule will be headlined by the 100, 400-metre and 400-hurdles men's finals and the women's 200 and 100-metre hurdles finals.
Powell, who defeated Gay at the Brussels Golden League last week, bids to repeat his win over the World Championship silver medallist.
Gay will be chasing his first WAF title and Powell his fourth consecutive and fifth overall.
Powell's training partner Michael Frater and Churandy Martina, of the Netherlands Antilles, are the other Caribbean starters in the field.
In the 400 hurdles, veteran Danny McFarlane and his rising Jamaican colleague, Isa Phillips, will face American World Champion Kerron Clement.
Bahamian Chris Brown tackles American Olympic and World Champion LaShawn Merritt in the men's one-lap event.
Caribbean runners proliferate today's women's 200-metre field with Jamaicans Kerron Stewart and Shericka Williams slated to face American three-time World Champion Allyson Felix with Bahamian Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie, the 2001 World Champion, Cayman's Cydonie Mothersill and the US Virgin Islands' LaVerne Jones-Ferrette also in the line-up.
Jamaica's new sprint hurdles World Champion Brigitte Foster-Hylton puts her recent unbeaten record on the line in a tough field that includes her consistent team-mate Delloreen Ennis-London, Olympic champion Dawn Harper, and Canada's Berlin silver medallist Priscilla Lopes-Schliep.
big players
CARICOM performers will also appear in field events at the meet that features straight finals, with Olympic bronze medallist Leevan Sands, of The Bahamas and Grenadian Randy Lewis, listed for today's triple jump.
The women's triple jump field tomorrow includes former World Champion Trecia Smith of Jamaica.
Sunday's main event is the men's 200 metres in which world record holder Bolt has a relatively tame field to contend with - American Wallace Spearmon and Antiguan Pan American Games champion Brendan Christian among his rivals.
The women's 100-metre line-up tomorrow is a quality list that includes Jamaican Olympic and World Champion Shelly-Ann Fraser, the world leader at 10.73 seconds and the in-form American Carmelita Jeter, who is coming off wins at the Zurich and Brussels Golden League events where she beat Fraser.
Jeter also won at the Aviva British Grand Prix on August 31.
Ferguson and her Bahamian teammate Chandra Sturrup, Stewart and fellow Jamaican and 400-metre specialist Shericka Williams, Jones-Ferrette and Trinidad and Tobago's Kelly-Ann Baptiste, are all on the 200-metre start list.
the rematch
Brathwaite, who created history by becoming the first Barbadian to win a global senior gold medal with his win in Berlin, has a rematch with Jamaican Dwight Thomas in the 110-metre hurdles, the closing event of the meet tomorrow evening.
The 21-year-old Brathwaite lost to Thomas in Zurich on August 28 but beat him in Brussels a week later.
Dexter Faulk, the leading American this year, is one of the threats to the Caribbean pair.
Jamaica's Olympic and World Championship 400-metre hurdles queen Melaine Walker is favoured for victory tomorrow.
Her Berlin win last month came in a career-best 52.42, just 0.08 seconds outside the world record and placed her in the No.2 position on the all-time list for the event.
Walker's teammate Kaliese Spencer, who upset her at the Zagreb International in late August, is also in the field, along with American Lashinda Demus and the vastly-improved Trinidadian Josanne Lucas.
Jamaica-born American Sanya Richards is a hot favourite to win tomorrow's women's 400 metres and put the lid on a fine season in which she won gold in Berlin and copped a share of the US$1 million Golden League jackpot.
Richards' rivals in the one-lap run will include British Olympic champion Christine Ohuruogu and Jamaicans Shericka Williams and Novlene Williams-Mills.
