World Athletics Champs upon us

23 Aug, 2015 - 00:08 0 Views

The Sunday News

THE IAAF World Championships in Beijing 2015, the leading competition of the IAAF World Athletics Series and the most important event on the sport’s 2015 calendar, is upon us. As usual, the iconic event will be viewed in more than 200 territories. It is anticipated that the nine days of action which started yesterday and ends on Sunday will reach a cumulative audience of six billion TV viewers.

YES this IAAF’s premier competition, which is dubbed the World Cup of Athletics, has rapidly grown in terms of participants and profile since the first edition of the championships in 1983.

Approximately 1 900 athletes representing national teams from more than 200 IAAF member federations, including Zimbabwe will compete in the Chinese capital, with record figures anticipated in both categories.

Zimbabwe will be represented by five athletes, Cuthbert Nyasango, Gilbert Mutandiro, Cephas Pasipamire, Olivia Chitate (marathon) and United States-based sprinter Tatenda Tsumba.

The marathon runner will set the ball rolling for Zimbabwe when they take part in marathon events today while Tsumba will start his account on Tuesday when he takes part in the 200m race.

But for Zimbabwe, it looks a tall order in the marathon where Kenya, as usual will be strong favourites to win the first gold medal of the championships.
In Dennis Kimetto and Wilson Kipsang they have the current and former world record holder, but we will be content if either one of our representatives breaks the long standing record of 2:10,57s set by Tendai Chimusasa in Hamburg.

Over nine days, the iconic Bird’s Nest hosts the last major outdoor athletics meeting before next year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Jamaican sprinter Bolt, 28, is seeking to retain his 100m and 200m titles.

Gatlin, who has the quickest times of the year over 100m and 200m, is unbeaten since 2013 in a total of 27 races in both sprints.
Usain Bolt comes to the world championships in crosshairs of controversial rival Gatlin in what promises to be one of the closest fought sprint rivalries seen in a long time.
Bolt has dominated sprinting over the past seven years since he claimed a golden treble at the 2008 Olympics held at the same Bird’s Nest stadium.

The towering Jamaican went on to claim an unprecedented second treble at the London Games in 2012 and has won every world sprint and relay title on offer, bar a hiccup in the 100m in the 2011 Daegu worlds in South Korea when he was disqualified after a false start.

Bolt, who has held the 100m and 200m world records since Berlin 2009, last month roared back from an early season pelvic injury that saw him miss six weeks of competitive action with back-to-back 100m times of 9,87 seconds at the London Diamond League meeting. On 100m times recorded this year, Bolt is ranked number six. Gatlin tops the list with a personal best of 9,74sec set in Doha in May, having also clocked 9,75sec twice and 9,78sec. However, Gatlin cuts a controversial figure on the track scene, readily admitting that a four-year doping ban served between 2006-10 after a positive test for testosterone had been both “a gift and a curse”.

The Florida-based sprinter has since hit the peak of his form at the age of 33 and has established himself as firm favourite in both the 100 and 200m on the back of an unbeaten streak of 27 races dating back to August 2013.

With Bolt’s early-season injury concerns and the loaded schedule of races to be run in the Chinese capital, the American is confident of adding to a medal haul that includes 2004 Olympic 100m gold, 2005 world sprint double golds, 2012 world 60m indoor gold, London Olympic 100m bronze and Moscow world silver.

In 2009, at the 12th IAAF in Berlin which I attended, Bolt had then, just like now, the class to make history, even before he set foot there, there was talk about the impeding showdown with another American Tyson Gay in a hyped 100m race that was expected to be the highlight of the championship on the second day of the competitions.Ahead of the Championships, then three times defending world champion Gay led the 100m world list with 9,77 seconds and 19,58 sec over 200m, with Bolt on 9,79sec and 19,59sec for the year.

But Bolt was cool enough to withstand the pressure knowing well that his world record of 9,69s was under threat in what promised to be a “very special’’ race.
After all, he has been a star of the sport ever since the astonishing three-world record runs for Olympic Gold in Beijing the previous year. True, Bolt emerged the outstanding athlete of Berlin 2009, establishing world records at 100m, in which he took Gay to the cleaners, and the 200m, which Gay was conspicuous by his absence. Usain lived up to the moniker, Lightning Bolt.

Athletics has always needed Bolt, but never has its need been as great as this week. Should Justin Gatlin be crowned world champion after two doping bans, in the biggest of all its finals today.

For Bolt, the pressure and expectation is both enormous and, on the two men’s respective form so far this summer, possibly unrealistic, too. I will keep you posted from the Birds’ Nest Stadium in China.
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