World athletics rivalry renewed in Zurich's Golden League meet
 

by Luke Phillips ZURICH, Friday (AFP) -

Rivalries between some of the biggest stars in athletics will be renewed in the fourth Golden League meeting of the season in Zurich on Friday, just days after the world championships ended.

American sprint king Justin Gatlin, who won the 100m and 200m in Helsinki, headlines a list of 16 newly-crowned world champions in the Weltkalsse, the fourth of this season's Golden League meetings.

Gatlin lines up against the second and third-placed finishers in the Finnish capital, Jamaica's Michael Frater and Kim Collins of St Kitts and St Nevis.

Also competing will be Maurice Greene, whose only outing in the worlds was reduced to watching his team-mates drop the baton in the 4x100m relay. But one notable absentee will be Jamaica's world record holder Asafa Powell, who also missed the world championships with a groin injury that has pestered him since he set the record of 9.77sec in Athens in June.

"I trained yesterday evening but at the end of the session I didn't feel ready because it hurt," Powell said.

"I asked the doctor and he recommended that I didn't run."

Gatlin said Powell's late withdrawal from the Weltklasse was "not good public relations" for the Jamaican or his fans.

"I'm a little upset," he said. "If you're hurt, you're hurt. You take some time out and come back when you're 100 percent fit." Gatlin added that while he felt a "little tired" after his exploits in Helsinki, he had targeted his personal 100m record of 9.85sec, set when he won the Olympic gold in Athens last year.

Gatlin aside, American athletes in Zurich also number Michael Johnson's 400m prodigy Jeremy Wariner, who stormed to a convincing world title.