Jackson and Richardson to meet for the third time over 100m
Jamaica’s Olympic Games and World Championships medallist Shericka Jackson and American champion Sha’Carri Richardson, ranked first and second in the world, will meet for the third time in the women’s 100m at Sunday’s London Diamond League meeting at the London Stadium.
The American has won the two previous races between the two this season and Jackson will be seeking a morale boosting win, with the Diamond League taking a break until the end of August after the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
Five Jamaicans are down to participate in the event, with national champion Janieve Russell and Rushell Clayton competing in the women’s 400m hurdles; Olympic champion Hansle Parchment facing off against two-time world champion Grant Holloway; and Natoya Goule-Toppin running in the women’s 800m.
All eight women in the 100m race on Sunday have run under 11.00 seconds this season and this could be one of the strongest line-ups so far this year.
Since she lost to Richardson at the Diamond League meet in Poland on July 16, Jackson has won back-to-back 200m races including a surprising 21.86 seconds in Monaco on Friday.
The Jamaican has run three races in three different countries in the past week coming into the London meet and will need to be near her very best in a race that will also see world number three ranked Marie-Josee Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast and American Aleia Hobbs.
Russell is coming off a win in Luzern, Switzerland and has lowered her season’s best in back-to-back races, but she faces world leader Femke Bol of the Netherlands and fourth ranked Shamier Little of the USA.
Clayton, who was third at the Jamaican national championships, will be hoping for a good showing as well.
Parchment has raced sparingly and, in London, will be running his fourth race this month. He takes on Holloway, Daniel Roberts and Japan’s Shunsuke Izumiya who ran his lifetime best and national record 13.04 seconds in June.
Goule-Toppin is coming off a season’s best 1:57.90 in Poland and faces a strong line-up that will include Great Britain’s Commonwealth champion Keely Hodgkinson, Uganda’s Halimah Nakaayi and American Sage Hurta-Klecker.
