VCB, Felix clash to highlight Adidas Grand Prix
RANDALLS ISLAND, New York — The clash between two-time Olympic champion Veronica Campbell-Brown and IAAF world champion American Allyson Felix will highlight today’s Adidas Grand Prix at the Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island here in New York.
Campbell-Brown, who recently won her first ever IAAF World Indoor title when she took the 60m gold medal in Doha, Qatar in March, and Felix will be meeting for the first time on American soil in what will be their ninth meeting overall.
The Adidas Grand Prix is the fifth stop on the inaugural 14-meet, international IAAF Diamond League circuit and despite the withdrawal of double world record holder Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay from the men’s 100m, a host of world and Olympic champions are down to take part.
Six other Jamaicans will take part in the meet, sprint hurdlers Delloreen Ennis-London and Vonette Dixon, sprinters Yohan Blake and Nickel Ashmeade and intermediate hurdlers Danny McFarlane and Isa Phillips.
Jamaica-based IAAF World Championships 100m finalist Daniel Bailey of Antigua, along with several other Caribbean athletes will also line up before what is expected to be a jam-packed stadium.
With Bolt and Gay being forced to withdraw with injuries, the spotlight on the track will fall on the race between Campbell-Brown who is the world leader with 22.32 seconds set in April at a meet in Lawrence, Kansas.
Felix, who beat Campbell Brown in the IAAF World Championships in Berlin, Germany last year to complete a hat-trick of gold medals in the half lap race at that meet, leads the series six wins to two.
Americans Shalonda Solomon, who has a season-best 22.67 seconds and Bianca Knight (22.77 seconds) are also in the field, along with the veteran Bahamian Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie and Trinidad’s Kelly-Ann Baptiste.
The men’s 100m field is thrown wide open with a trio of Caribbean athletes — Richard Thompson of Trinidad, the 2008 Olympic 100m silver medalist; Bailey and Blake, the National Junior Record holder and 2006 World Junior 100m bronze medallist.
Thompson came close to his PR at the ExxonMobil Bislett Games, the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Oslo on June 4, when he finished second in the 100m in 9.90 seconds.
Neither Bailey nor Blake has demonstrated this level of fitness this year — Bailey placed fifth in the 100m (10.13) at Grande Premio meet in Rio de Janeiro, and Blake ran 10.20 to win the 100m at the GC Foster Classic.
Olympic silver medallist, the ageless Danny McFarlane and Phillips are both seeking their first win here and will go up against world leader Javier Culson of Puerto Rico, American Kerron Clement, the exciting Trinidadian teenager Jehue Gordon and Olympic champion Felix Sanchez.
World Championships medallist Ennis-London and Dixon will take part in a 100m hurdles race that could steal the spotlight.