Biggest ever participation at IAAF World C’ships

Dinesh Weerawansa reporting from Japan

ATHLETICS: A record number of 203 countries will compete at the forthcoming IAAF World Championships in Japan. Of the 212 member Federations of the IAAF, athletes from 203 countries, including Sri Lanka, have qualified to field athletes for the mega event.

This betters the previous record for the highest number of participating nations - 202 at the 1999 IAAF World Championships in Seville, Spain. Athletic fever is catching up as Osaka gets ready to host the eleventh edition of the IAAF World Championships on Saturday.

With only two days to go for the world track and field extravaganza, Osaka heard the sad news of an early withdrawal. The Swedish Athletics Federation announced yesterday that triple jump Olympic champion Christian Olsson sustained an injury during a training session in the team’s training camp in Marugame.

Reports said the 27-year-old Olympic gold medallist injured his left hamstring, the identical injury he sustained at the IAAF Golden League meeting in Rome in July. He will be forced to withdraw from the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics here in Osaka.

Olsson, an IAAF Golden League Jackpot winner in 2004 and the reigning Olympic champion, won the 2003 World Championships in Paris as well as two European Championships.

The third best jumper of 2007 with his 17.56m performance at the Paris Saint Denis Golden League meeting, Olsson was tipped to be in contention for a medal in Osaka after he missed the Helsinki World Championships through injury.

Nevertheless, the sprint events of the IAAF World Championship are going to be the showpiece as usual and is likely to generate much excitement. Here too, Sri Lanka has a particular interest as Olympic medallist Susanthika Jayasinghe would be competing in both the women’s 100m and 200m events.

The 32-year-old veteran Lankan sprinter arrives here after a fresh stint in the United States, hosted by former Sri Lanka Asian Games gold medallist Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam.

Ethirveerasingam said Jayasinghe’s workout will not change with the reduction of one race. Though Jayasinghe originally trained for women’s 100m heats, the women’s short sprint would now be a direct quarter final.

Jayasinghe will come out with her first work out in today. Her husband cum coach Dhammika Nandakumara will work on the training schedule given to Jayasinghe by her new American coach.

Ethirveerasingam said Jayasinghe is in good spirit and form. He added that the Lankan sprint queen is capable of spinning a surprise and aiming to clock her best time ever in both races.

In the women’s 200m, attention will focus on a brewing rivalry between defending champion Allyson Felix and Sanya Richards, the world’s top 400m runner. Falling short at the recent US trials, Richards shifted the Osaka focus of her season on the half-lap, and has since performed admirably - 22.43 and a recent 11.05 personal best timings.

Felix though is the season’s fastest at 22.18 seconds, and has produced impressive 11.01 and 49.70 career bests this summer; with the latter she illustrated her pre-Osaka strength with a surprise victory over Richards in the Stockholm 400 Olympic champion Campbell will play a leading role. The 25-year-old has clocked 22.39.

Meanwhile, Ukraine will field a strong team of 44 athletes to compete in Osaka. Heading the team will be Ukraine’s lone medallist from the last World Championships in Helsinki in 2005, Yuriy Krymarenko, who is the reigning World High Jump champion.

Other names to look out for are the World Indoor 1500m champion Ivan Heshko, and 2.32m high jumper Dmytro Demyanyuk, and on the women’s side the combined eventers, Lyudmyla Blonska and Nataliya Dobrynska, and 2006 European XC Champion, Tetyana Holovchenko.

The team arrived here after a training camp in South Korea, which has similar climatic conditions to these which they will face in Japan.