media_artricles :: 2017

Walcott, Ahye ready for Rome Diamond League meet

T&T's Keshorn Walcott returns to action tomorrow resuming his rivalry with some of the world's leading javelin throwers at the fourth meeting in the IAAF Diamond League at the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea in Rome, Italy.

Featuring in the stunning field are Olympic champion Germany's Thomas Rohler, Olympic silver medalist and World Champion Julius Yego of Kenya and another German Johannes Vetter, who had outstanding throws at the beginning of the series in Doha.

In Doha, Rohler opened the Diamond League series in style setting a world lead and a Diamond League record unleashing the longest throw in 20 years when launching the spear 93.90 metres, the sixth best throw of all time. The throw broke Yego's Diamond League record of 91.39 set in Birmingham in 2015. Yego, the Olympic javelin silver medallist, has had a slow start to the season, throwing 81.94 metres to finish seventh in Doha while Vetter set a personal best of 89.68m.

Rio bronze medallist, Walcott enters after making a great start in his season-opener at the Golden Javelin meet in Vantaa, Finland, last month. The 2012 London Olympic champion won gold in the men's javelin with a best effort of 84.16m. Guardian Media spoke to the Toco-born athlete yesterday and he said: "Overall I'm feeling good and this is going to be a good competition for me. After this I have two competitions in Finland on June 13th and 17th which I am also looking forward to."

Walcott will have to come good to surpass these tough competitors which also includes former world champions Vitezslav Vesely of Czech Republic and Finland'sTero Pitkamaki as well as German Andreas Hofmann, who has thrown 88.79m this season and is sure to be in contention. Pitkamaki also competed in Finland and he nabbed silver with an 83.51m throw.

T&T's leading women's sprinter Michelle-Lee Ahye will face the starter in the women's 100m. She will challenge the likes of 2015 world 200m champion Dafne Schippers of the Netherlands and Tianna Bartoletta, Rio Olympic long jump champion. Schippers is the fastest this year, having clocked 10.95 seconds in California in April.

Olympic 100m and 200m finalist, Ahye, comes in with a bronze medal which she bagged in the dash at the third Diamond League meet, the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon, USA late in May, when she crossed in a wind-assisted 10.97. Earlier last month, the double national sprint champion opened her account in the series finishing fourth in the women's 100m at the Shanghai meet, in China. Ahye got to the line in 11.21.

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