byRBR Admin
Tori Bowie, photo by PhotoRun.net
Elaine Thompson, photo by PhotoRun.net
There are going to be some amazing events at the 2018 Prefontaine Classic this weekend. This meet kept European style track alive in the US for nearly two decades when no one else was. I have missed two years since 1990, and this is one of my missed years. Watch for a fine piece by David Hunter on Saturday and key updates.
BOWIE AND THOMPSON TOP STRONG 100M FIELD IN EUGENE – IAAF DIAMOND LEAG
Bowie has won the 200m three times at the Prefontaine Classic and last year set an IAAF Diamond League record of 21.77 in Eugene. Having won her first national 100m title at Hayward Field and then set her lifetime best of 10.78 on the same track one year later, this year she will be vying for her first Pre Classic 100m victory.
Olympic champion Thompson may have been beaten out of the 100m medals at last year’s World Championships, but she rebounded to win her second Diamond Trophy. The Jamaican is the only woman since Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988 to win Olympic gold in the 100m and 200m in the same year, claiming both in Rio.
Thompson clocked a world-leading 10.71 last year, just short of the 10.70 Jamaican record she shares with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.
Schippers retained her world 200m title in London last year. The Dutch former heptathlete was the 2016 IAAF Diamond League winner at that same distance.
Ahoure won the world indoor 60m title in March in a world-leading 6.97, breaking her own Ivorian record. She holds the African 100m record of 10.78 and picked up silver medals in both the 100m and 200m at the 2013 World Championships.
Following world silver medals at 100m and 200m last year, compatriot Marie-Josée Ta Lou earned another medal of the same hue in the 60m at this year’s World Indoor Championships. She set a world-leading PB of 10.85 in her first 100m race of the year, winning in Doha.
Blessing Okagbare-Ighoteguonor has a 100m PB of 10.79, but she opened her 2018 campaign with a wind-assisted 10.72. The Nigerian, who also happens to be one of the world’s best long jumpers, set an African 200m record of 22.04 at the end of March.
European 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith will be returning to Hayward Field for the first time since winning the 2014 world U20 100m title. The British 100m and 200m record-holder has finished in the top five in the 200m at the three most recent global championships.
Javianne Oliver won the US indoor 60m title earlier this year in a PB of 7.02 and will be making her Prefontaine Classic debut.
Organisers for the IAAF
2018 IAAF Diamond League calendar:
4 May – Doha, QAT
12 May – Shanghai, CHN
26 May – Eugene, USA
31 May – Rome, ITA
7 Jun – Oslo, NOR
10 Jun – Stockholm, SWE
30 Jun – Paris, FRA
5 Jul – Lausanne, SUI
13 Jul – Rabat, MAR
20 Jul – Monaco, MON
21-22 Jul – London, GBR
18 Aug – Birmingham, GBR
30 Aug – Zurich, SUI
31 Aug – Brussels, BEL
