Short of the gold standard
BRITS LOOK TO BE OFF PACE FOR TOP PODIUM
IT’S been 19 years since the British team failed to strike gold at the World Athletics Championships, but there’s a very real fear it could happen again as they take to the track in Eugene, Oregon, over the next ten days.
This is the first time the biennial championships will be staged in the US, and Hayward Field has undergone a suitably lavish facelift. Nike 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 $270million (£228m).
But the concern for the Brits is whether any athlete will stand atop the podium on this splendid stage. They arrive with two defending champions — Dina AsherSmith and Katarina Johnson-Thompson — but it will come as a huge shock if either strikes gold.
Asher-Smith was fourth over 100metres on this same track in May, and she will get a busy week underway in the women’s 100m heats tomorrow evening. Jamaica looks to hold all the aces there with Olympic champion Elaine ThompsonHerah and world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce seemingly a class apart, while team-mate 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. 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 Götzis, Austria, recording just 6,174. Crucially, though, she’s healthy again and has put together a consistent block of training.
The middle-distance events and relays could throw up Britain’s best medal chances, with Olympic silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson taking on formidable US duo Athing Mu and Ajee Wilson over 800m. Laura Muir will get her championships underway in the 1500m heats tonight and she could win a medal in Monday’s final, though gold looks destined for the all-conquering Kenyan, Faith Kipyegon.
There’s an air of mystery around the men’s 100m ahead of tonight’s heats. US star Fred Kerley is the favourite, but Olympic champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs comes in with major injury doubts.
The race of the championships could be the men’s 400m hurdles final on Tuesday, where Norway’s Karsten Warholm is trying to maintain his dominance despite a recent hamstring tear. He hasn’t finished a race since last September, but as he told the press this week: ‘My first race in 2021 was a world record.’