The Prefontaine Classic in Seattle, a Grand Prix status meet as part of the IAAF World Athletics Tour has assembled a mouth-watering field for the men’s 200m for Sunday 10 June 2007.
Last year, USA’s Xavier Carter (19.63) and Wallace Spearmon (19.65) ran themselves onto the world’s all-time lists as respectively the second and third fastest 200m runners in history. It’s a duo that any meeting would be happy to headline as is the Prefontaine, but the organisers of this IAAF Grand Prix have also attracted the world’s fastest man at 100m, Asafa Powell, and Olympic and World 400m champion, Jeremy Wariner, to do battle on sprinting’s ‘middle ground’ the 200m.
And it doesn’t end there as Shawn Crawford, the reigning Olympic 200m champion, will also line-up!
Joining these super-stars are three other top-world class performers: Kelly Willie, the NCAA runner-up at 200m, Rodney Martin, the 2006 USA Championships bronze medallist; and Jamaican veteran Chris Williams, who won the Doha Super Grand Prix 2007 last weekend at the age of 35.
It’s a field rarely seen at any time, anywhere in the world. “There may have been other 200 fields with more talent,” says meet director Tom Jordan, “but I guarantee you that the tickets to those meets had
‘Olympic Games Final’ written on them.”