10 Jamaicans for Swedish Diamond League meet
WORLD Championships relay gold medallists Kerron Stewart and Schillonie Calvert will be among 10 Jamaicans taking part in today’s IAAF Diamond League meeting at Stockholm, Sweden, the first event following last week’s IAAF World Championships in Moscow, Russia.
Of the 10 taking part only two — male sprinters Rasheed Dwyer and Mario Forsythe — were not part of the Jamaican team in Russia.
Meanwhile, a few of the Jamaicans including horizontal jumpers Kimberly Williams and Damar Forbes and intermediate hurdler Kaliese Spencer will be hoping for better results in Sweden than they had in Moscow last week.
Despite a new lifetime best jump of 14.62m that has propelled her to the number four position in the world, Williams just missed a medal in the triple jump in Moscow by a scant three centimetres.
Today, she will be in another quality field that will also see Colmbian World Championships gold medallist Caterine Ibarguen and Ukraine’s bronze medallist Olha Saladukha.
Forbes, who made the final of a global championships for the first time, finishing eighth, will be seeking his second Diamond League title after winning in France in early July on his professional debut.
Spencer will be hoping for better luck in the one-off race after being disqualified from the first round in Moscow for not clearing a hurdle with both knees above the plane of the barrier.
Her Diamond league form this season has been spotty but despite the results in Moscow, looked in a much better form.
Czech Republic’s Zuzana Hejnova, the World Champion, will lead the event today along with Olympic medallist Natalya Antyukh of Russia.
Stewart, who was fifth in the women’s 100m final in Moscow, should start favourite to win the women’s 100m today that will also include the USA’s Jeneba Tarmoh and Alexandria Anderson, a finalist in Moscow.
Calvert had made it to the semi-finals in Moscow, and after two good runs in the relays, could be the surprise package today.
World Championships finalist Novlene Williams Mills, Christine Day and Rosemarie Whyte will line up in the women’s 400m, while Dwyer and Forsythe will line up in the men’s 200m.
