byStuart WeirThe Herculis Monaco Meeting is my favorite stop of the summer. I normally stay in Menton, France for the week preceeding, walk on the beach, have hummus at a local restaurant and have breakfast at Le Big Boss, a wonderful cafe with vines protecting one from the sun, and the beach across the street.
Shaunae Miller-Uibo, Salwa Eid Naser, with amazing announcer, Jean-Pierre SCHOEBEL, Director of the Meeting Herculis EBS
As I am still ensconced in Wisconsin, Stuart Weir is covering the meet for RunBlogRun, and we thank him profusesly. It is a busy weekend of sports, with Monaco on Friday and London on Saturday and Sunday.
Here’s Stuart Weir’s very deep thoughts!
Preview
The event media handout tells me that there are five unmissable events – so that must be right! The first one and certainly the event of the day – OK the only event of today – is the shot put. Tom Walsh usually wins but if he doesn’t there are Ryan Crouser, Olympic champion 2016, David Storl, World Champion in 2011 and 2013 and Diamond League Champion, Darrell Hill to fight for first place. In the women’s event Olympic champion. Michelle Carter, goes against World Champion Lijao Gong with Valerie Adams, double Olympic Champion and quadruple world champion also in the field. The shot put is not in the stadium but by the harbor.
Last year’s women’s 800m race was possibly the greatest race I have ever seen. Caster Semanya won in a World Lead, a Meeting Record and a Diamond League Record of 1:55.27 but she only won by 0.2 of a second. Francine Niyonsaba ran a national (Burundi) record, Ajee Wilson ran a US record of 1.55.61. In fact, the top seven were under 1:58.50. Semanya, Niyonsaba and Wilson are back to race again. The men’s 800 field includes Pierre-Ambroise Bosse and Nigel Amos.
The men’s 110h field includes Sergey Shubenkov, Orlando Ortega, Hansle Parchment, Aries Merritt and Pascal Martinot-Lagarde. But who will win?
The final unmissable is French athletes – who are almost competing on home soil. Not quite sure how 9 French athletes in different disciplines constitutes an unmissable but let’s not split hairs! The ones to look out for are:
Pascal Martinot-Lagarde (110m hurdles) and Pierre-Ambroise Bosse (800m). Kevin Mayer and Frédéric Dagée (shot put), Ophélie Claude-Boxberger (3000m steeplechase) Ninon Guillon-Romarin (pole vault) Harold Correa and Jean-Marc Pontvianne (triple jump), Floria Gueï, (400m).
My own top five would certainly include the women’s 100m with Marie-Josee Ta Lou, the star of the season going against Elaine Thompson.
