Americans Christian Coleman and Shahari Richardson will try to make up for lost time due to their doping bans and a ban from the Tokyo Olympics as they compete starting Friday in Eugene to select the US track and field team for the World Championships in next month.
Coleman became the 2019 Doha World Champion in the 100m and therefore automatically qualifies him for the World Championships scheduled for July 15-24, regardless of his performance at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, where the World Cup competitions.
But the 26-year-old, who missed the Tokyo Olympics last summer due to an 18-month ban for three missed anti-doping tests, is determined to send a message to his fellow competitors this week.
“This season has taught me a lot and I feel like I need to compete in every possible race,” Coleman said on June 12 after winning the New York Grand Prix when he clocked 9.92 seconds in his best time of the year against all these runners. .
– “I’m trying to get better” –
Coleman’s time is not the best this season as his compatriot Micah Williams set the fastest time of 9.86 seconds, so the world champion is still far from the records he achieved three years ago when he dominated the race.
“But I’m the same guy. I just think that if you have a long stop, it affects you. I just race every race and try to get better.”
It is expected that his competitors in the American trials will be Trayvon Brommel, who won a meeting with Eugene at the Diamond League stages at the end of May last year, Fred Kerley, the silver medalist of the Tokyo Olympics, and Kenneth Bednarik, also the silver medalist of the last Olympics, but in the run at 200 m
In the women’s 100m, the spotlight will be Shahari Richardson, who made a splash last year at Hayward Field during the US Olympic Trials when she clocked 10.64 seconds (wind assisted) in the semi-finals before winning the final. . But she was denied the Tokyo Games due to marijuana use.
This weekend, 22-year-old Richardson will aim to finish in the top three in the 100m and 200m to qualify for her first professional world championship.
– the last Felix –
Her most dangerous opponent in the 100m will be her friend Alia Hobbs, who beat her in New York earlier this month, while in the 200m she will have to do better against this year’s top timers Abby Steiner (21.80) and Gabe Thomas (21.98). G).
If Richardson, Hobbs, Steiner and Thomas represent the future of American athletics, veteran Alison Felix, 36, has been queen for the past two decades.
The seven-time Olympic champion will run the 400m in hopes of taking part in the eighth World Championships of her professional career before retiring at the end of this year.
In the men’s 200m, 18-year-old Erion Knighton and world champion Noah Lyles are in a tight fight. The former set the fourth best time in history for the course at the end of April, when he clocked 19.49 seconds at the Baton Rouge meeting, while Lyles set the second fastest time this year (19.61 seconds).
Attention will also be drawn to Sidney McLaughlin, Tokyo Olympic champion and world record holder in the 400m hurdles, and Ating Mo, Olympic champion in the 800m, in addition to Devon Allen, who has a contract with the American football team Philadelphia Eagles. , who achieved a resounding result earlier this month: in a meeting in New York, he defeated the world champion in the 110-meter hurdles Grant Holloway, showing the third best time in history (12.84 seconds).
On the other hand, Delilah Mohammed, the 2016 Rio de Janeiro World and Olympic champion, was absent from the American Trials with a right hip sprain, knowing she was the guarantor of her presence at the world wedding.
Mohamed expressed her hope that she would recover in time to participate in the Eugene Mondial.
Source: El Iktisad