2023-09-15 22:30:00
The international athletics season ends Saturday and Sunday with the Diamond League finals at the prestigious Hayward Field stadium in Eugene, Oregon, where Jamaican Shericka Jackson has another opportunity to break the 200m world record. Florence Griffith-Joyner. One year and two months following the 2022 World Championships, international athletics returns to “Tracktown USA”, nickname of Eugene, a small town in the forest state of Oregon (northwest), for two busy days.
This record is coming, I’m getting closer
In July 2022, the Jamaican Shericka Jackson triumphed in 21”45 (0.6 m/s wind) and shook the old 200m world record of the controversial American Florence Griffith-Joyner (21”34 in 1988). In 2023, the 29-year-old sprinter confirmed that she might become the fastest in history on the double lap. In the final of the World Championships in Budapest at the end of August, she achieved the second best time of all time (21”41, 0.1 m/s wind) to retain her title, before running in 21”48 ( 0.2 m/s) last week in Brussels. “This record is coming, I’m getting closer,” estimated the double world vice-champion in the 100m, who shone in the 400m at the start of her career.
The sun is forecast in Eugene to help the Jamaican in her quest, even if the maximum temperature is expected to drop slightly on Sunday (around 26 degrees) following several days at more than thirty degrees.
27 recent world champions present
Besides Jackson, the weekend promises to be busy in the lair of legendary cross-country skier Steve Prefontaine, where 27 world champions from Budapest are present for 32 events bringing together the athletes who qualified during the first thirteen Diamond League meetings. The winners of each discipline pocket a check for 30,000 dollars (approximately 28,167 euros).
In the 100m, American sensation Sha’Carri Richardson, new queen of the straight, can finish the first successful international season of her career with a bang, but will have to dominate Jamaican Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah who is benefiting from late form following missing an individual selection for the Worlds. Noah Lyles, author of a resounding 100/200/4x100m triple in Hungary, hopes to confirm in the 100m, without either his compatriot Fred Kerley or the Italian Olympic champion Marcel Jacobs.
The men’s world records in the mile, Saturday, then the pole vault, Sunday, might be broken with the Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen and the Swede Armand Duplantis.
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