Will Andre De Grasse turn it on at the Prefontaine Classic?

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The most important occasion on the worldwide monitor and subject calendar this 12 months is the world championships, taking place July 15-24 at Hayward Area on the College of Oregon campus. On Saturday, we’ll get a sneak preview of the worlds when a number of prime contenders compete on this week’s Diamond League meet on the identical venue.

Listed below are the highest three issues to look at on the Prefontaine Basic in Eugene, Oregon, which could be seen dwell from 4-6 p.m. ET on the CBC TV community, CBC Gem, the CBC Sports activities app and CBCSports.ca:

1. Andre De Grasse takes on a star-studded subject within the males’s 100m (5:52 p.m. ET).

The principle occasion of the meet options the reigning males’s 100m world champion (Christian Coleman of the U.S., who was banned from the Tokyo Olympics for lacking drug assessments) and the silver and bronze medallists from final summer time’s Olympics (American Fred Kerley and Canada’s De Grasse). Your complete 200m podium from the Tokyo Olympics can be represented with De Grasse and People Kenny Bednarek and Noah Lyles lining up for the 100 in Eugene.

Throw in American sensation Erriyon Knighton, who appears poised to personal the 200m for years after inserting fourth in Tokyo as a 17-year-old, and Trayvon Bromell, who was favoured to win the Olympic 100m earlier than flaming out within the semis, and that’s loads of huge names. The one evident absence is reigning Olympic 100m champ Lamont Marcell Jacobs of Italy, who withdrew earlier this week as a consequence of an harm.

De Grasse is the defending Prefontaine Basic 100m champion. He gained final 12 months’s race, held simply a few weeks after the Olympics, in a blistering (although wind-aided) 9.74 seconds. However the Canadian star is off to a gradual begin this season, inserting fourth in each of his Diamond League races. He opened with a disappointing 20.14 within the 200 two weeks in the past in Qatar (Lyles gained in 19.72), then ran a sluggish 10.24 within the 100 final weekend in England (Canada’s Aaron Brown won in 10.13).

We have seen this earlier than, although. Massive Race ‘Dre saves his finest for the brightest levels, and it is arduous to argue with the outcomes: he is reached the rostrum in all seven of the person occasions he is entered on the world championships or Olympics, together with his gold within the 200m in Tokyo. Query is, will Saturday’s elite subject deliver out the perfect in De Grasse, or does he maintain again for the a lot larger meet taking place at Hayward Area in a few months? Learn extra in regards to the athletes to look at within the males’s 100 on the Prefontaine Basic in this preview by CBC Sports activities’ Doug Harrison.

2. Elaine Thompson-Herah headlines the ladies’s 100m (4:33 p.m. ET).

Two-thirds of the 2021 Olympic podium are on this race. Thompson-Herah, who pulled off her second consecutive 100-200 double gold in Tokyo, is joined by fellow Jamaican Shericka Jackson, the bronze medallist. Additionally competing is Briana Williams, who helped Thompson-Herah, Jackson and the nice Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (not entered in Oregon) win the 4×100 gold in Tokyo. Finally 12 months’s Prefontaine Basic, Thompson-Herah gained the 100 in 10.54 — the second-fastest ladies’s time in historical past, and simply 0.05 of a second off Florence Griffith Joyner’s now 34-year-old world file.

One other attention-grabbing athlete within the ladies’s 100 is Sha’Carri Richardson, the 22-year-old American who was banned from the Tokyo Video games due to a optimistic take a look at for hashish on the U.S. trials.

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3. Moh Ahmed is among the many prime contenders within the males’s 5,000m (4:10 p.m. ET).

The Canadian, who gained silver on this occasion on the Tokyo Olympics and bronze on the final worlds, faces some stiff competitors. Ahmed’s opponents embody Ethiopia’s Selemon Barega, who took silver on the ’19 worlds, and the US’ Paul Chelimo, a two-time Olympic medallist. Olympic champ Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda isn’t competing.

Different Canadians competing:

Gabriela DeBues-Stafford will run within the ladies’s 1,500 at 4:49 p.m. ET. She completed fifth on this occasion on the Tokyo Olympics. Charles Philibert-Thiboutot and Will Paulson will run the distinguished Bowerman mile at 5:39 p.m. ET.

There is not any decathlon within the Diamond League, however Canada’s Damian Warner is competing within the extremely regarded Hypo Assembly in Austria this weekend. The Olympic gold medallist is making an attempt to win it for the sixth consecutive time and seventh in his profession.