Fraser-Pryce, Jackson clash in Monaco 100m
Jamaica’s World Athletics Championships gold medallists Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson will clash over the 100m at today’s Wanda Diamond League meeting in Monaco as both women put their winning streaks on the line.
Eleven Jamaicans — including Olympic hurdles champion Hansle Parchment who missed two championships finals in the last few weeks, Commonwealth Games gold medallists Janieve Russell and Shanieka Ricketts — are down to compete.
The Monaco meeting is the 10th in the series that started in May and athletes will be hunting points to qualify for the individual event finals.
The women’s 100m will be one of the main events of the day and will see Fraser-Pryce, who has run the six fastest times of the season so far, expected to win and extend her season-long winning run to nine.
The five-time World Champion ran the world lead 10.66 seconds in Poland last weekend and has run 10.67 seconds four times and is expected to be challenged by Jackson who was third in Eugene, Oregon, where she ran her life time best 10.73 seconds, second fastest this year, and her only loss in her last five 100m races, was to Fraser-Pryce in the World Championships finals
American relay gold medallist Twanisha Terry, Marie-Josee Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast, and Daryll Neita of Great Britain will also line up in what is expected to be a competitive event.
Russell, who won the Commonwealth Games gold medal last weekend, is coming off a second-place finish behind world record holder Sydney McLaughlin in the 400m hurdles in Hungary on Monday.
Today she will face compatriot Rushell Clayton, Panama’s Gianna Woodruff and the Ukrainian pair of Anna Ryzhykova and Viktoriya Tkachuk.
Ricketts is having one of her best seasons and is coming off a gold medal performance at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, two weeks after winning the silver medal at the World Championships.
The Jamaican National champion is ranked number one in the Diamond race, but today she faces world and Olympic champion and world record holder Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela.
Grenada’s Thea Lafond who won the Commonwealth Games silver medal, American Tori Franklin and Portugal’s Patricia Mamona should make the competition exciting.
Parchment has faced some injury challenge in the last month, being forced to pull out of the final of the World Championships after trying to take his warm-up runs and then skipping last weekend’s Commonwealth Games final “out of an abundance of caution” on a cold night in Birmingham.
World champion Grant Holloway and Daniel Roberts, who lost to Jamaican Rasheed Broadbell on Monday, World Champs silver medallist Trey Cunningham and France’s Pascal Martinot Legarde are expected to be the main protagonists in the event.
World Championships 4x400m medallists Candice McLeod, Stephenie Ann McPherson and Junelle Bromfield will line up in the women’s 400m that will see World champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo of The Bahamas and Commonwealth champion Sada Williams of Barbados.
Coming off back to back finals, at the World Championships and Commonwealth Games, Natoya Goule will hope for a good finish in the women’s 800m while less than a week after lowering her personal best, Adelle Tracey lines up in the 1500m.
