World record-holders ready to clash in Hengelo

Five world champions, four Olympic gold medallists and two world record-holders are set to compete at the FBK Games – a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting – in Hengelo on Sunday (6).

Pole vault world record-holder Mondo Duplantis will be raring to go after his 23-meet winning streak came to an end at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Gateshead at the end of last month. Battling tough conditions, the 21-year-old from Sweden gave the bar a slight nudge on his final attempt at 5.80m – what would have been a winning height – and it came down, meaning victory went to two-time world champion Sam Kendricks.

Kendricks won’t be in Hengelo, but Duplantis will have one eye on the US vaulter’s meeting record and Dutch all-comers’ record of 5.91m.

Olympic champion Thiago Braz and Dutch vaulter Menno Vloon, who set a national indoor record of 5.96m earlier this year, are also in the line-up.

Double world champion Sifan Hassan will return to the track on which she set a European 10,000m record of 29:36.67 last year and will again contest the 25-lap discpline. The Dutch distance runner has tested her form over a range of distances this year, clocking 8:33.62 for 3000m indoors, followed by 14:35.34 for 5000m and 2:01.54 for 800m outdoors.

Kenya’s Daisy Cherotich, New Zealand’s world finalist Camille Buscomb and Canada’s Andrea Seccafien will all be hoping to emerge from the race with lifetime bests.

World 800m champion Halimah Nakaayi will open her 2021 campaign over her specialist distance. The Ugandan middle-distance runner takes on a quartet of Britons – Laura Muir, Kelly Hodgkinson, Jemma Reekie and Adelle Tracey – as well as Norway’s Hedda Hynne and France’s Renelle Lamote.

In the men’s event, indoor sensation Elliot Giles lines up for his first outdoor 800m of the year, taking on fellow Brits Max Burgin – who set a European U20 record of 1:44.14 in Ostrava last month – and Daniel Rowden. Tony van Diepen, one of the Netherlands’ top performers at the World Athletics Relays Silesia 21, is also in the field.

Recent Montreuil winner Abel Kipsang goes in the men’s 1500m where he’ll take on Uganda’s Ronald Musagala and Britain’s sub-3:30 performer Jake Wightman.

Asher-Smith, Kerley and McLeod set to produce sprint highlights

Although she has raced there only once before, world 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith has fond memories of racing in Hengelo.

It is where, as a teenager back in 2015, she set her first senior national record over 100m, clocking 11.02. Six years on from that performance, and having bagged many more records and medals, the world 200m champion will be hoping for a sub-11-second clocking to improve on the 11.35 season’s best she recorded when winning in Gateshead, running in heavy rain and into a -3.1m/s headwind.

Nigeria’s world and Olympic medallist Blessing Okagbare, who has a season’s best of 10.90, and two-time world 200m champion Dafne Schippers are also in the line-up.

World 4x400m champion Fred Kerley has so far this year produced his most impressive performances at 100m, clocking 9.91 and 9.96 in recent weeks. In Hengelo, however, he’ll step back up to his specialist 400m discipline and will aim to improve on the 44.60 season’s best he recorded in Doha last week.

posted Friday June 4th
by World Athletics