Tall order for Dina and KJT to defend their world crowns
IT HAS been 19 years since the British team failed to strike gold at the World Athletics Championships, but a repeat of that blank from Paris in 2003 looks a real possibility as the competition gets underway in Oregon over the next 10 days.
This is the first time the championships will be staged in the US and Hayward Field has undergone a suitably lavish facelift.
Nike co-founder Phil Knight has poured eye-watering sums into the University of Oregon over the years, and the crown jewel on campus is its athletics stadium, renovated at an estimated cost of £228m.
The concern for the Brits is whether any of their athletes will stand atop the podium. They arrive with two defending champions — Dina Asher-Smith and Katarina Johnson-Thompson — but it will come as a huge shock if either strikes gold.
Asher-Smith — who won 200m gold in Doha in 2019 — was fourth over 100m on this same track in May, and she will get a busy week underway in the women’s 100m heats at 1.10am tomorrow night.
Jamaica looks to hold all the aces there with Olympic champion elaine Thompson-Herah and world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce seemingly a class apart, and teammate Shericka Jackson could make it a clean sweep.
Asher-Smith will need something much faster than her season’s best of 10.98 to make an impact.
She is also competing in the 200m and the 4 x 100m relay.
Johnson-Thompson, meanwhile, arrives on shaky footing, having parted ways with her coach Petros Kyprianou last month after falling well short of her 6,400-point target in Austria, recording just 6,174.
Crucially, though, she’s healthy again and has put together a consistent block of training. The heptathlon starts on Sunday.
The middle- distance events could throw up Britain’s best medal chances, with Olympic silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson taking on American duo Athing Mu and Ajee Wilson over 800m.
Laura Muir will get underway in the 1500m at 2.10am tonight, though gold looks destined for Faith Kipyegon of Kenya.