Thompson headlines stellar 200m in ZurichRarely can a women’s 200m race headlined by recently crowned double Olympic sprint champion Elaine Thompson be seen to boast such a stellar field as the one gathered for today’s Zurich Diamond League meet.
Lining up alongside Thompson are world champion and Olympic silver medallist Dafne Schippers of the Netherlands, American Allyson Felix, who won 200m gold at the 2012 London Games and is also a three-time world champion in the distance, and Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown, Olympic champion in 2004 and 2008.
Between them, the quartet have dominated the women’s 200m since 2004, reaping seven of the 12 available medals in the last four Olympics and 10 of the 18 in six world championships over the same period, including nine individual 200m gold medals.
They will be joined in the Weltklasse field by European champion and Olympic bronze medallist Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and three-time Olympic finalist Michelle-Lee Ahye of Trinidad and Tobago.
Aside from Thompson, there will be 14 other Olympic champions on show in Zurich, which is the first leg of the two-event final of the Diamond League, the second leg coming next week in Brussels.
Schippers is the runaway leader for the Diamond Race in the 200m, guaranteed to leave Switzerland US$40 000 (N$578 000) better off as one of the 16 discipline winners on the night.
In what is guaranteed to be a high-quality meet, Renaud Lavillenie goes head-to-head with Brazilian Thiago Braz da Silva, in the pole vault.
The Brazilian had beaten Lavillenie to gold in Rio amid widely-condemned jeering of the Frenchman.
No matter the result today, Lavillenie will leave with a cheque as he, like Schippers, is guaranteed victory in the Diamond Race and will become the first athlete to win the trophy for the seventh consecutive time.
NAMPA/AFP