Elaine Thompson and Dafne Schippers will continue their rivalry this season when the pair meets over another 200m at the Oslo ExxonMobil Bislett Games – an IAAF Diamond League meeting on Thursday.
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The pair have been busy this season preparing for the possibilities of competing at the Rio Olympics in August and will be using the half lap in Oslo to work on a few things ahead of their next respective big challenges.
For Thompson, it will be her last race before the Jamaica National Championships later this month, while Schippers is readying for the European Championships in Amsterdam.
The Jamaican and Netherland sprinters last met over 200m at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, where the latter clocked 22.11 seconds to finish ahead of her rival who ran 22.16. Both were beaten by American Tori Bowie.
Schippers, the third fastest woman ever over the 200m with a PR of 21.63 secs, has a season’s best of 22.02 secs and she is hoping to have some fun and be pushed to a faster year best in Oslo.
“I hope to set my best time this season and have a nice race,” she said.
“I think a fast race is possible. We’ll see. We’ll have some fun.”
Meanwhile, Thompson, who is coming off a seasonal best time of 10.87 seconds when winning the 100m at the Rome Diamond League meeting last week, will also explore the possibility of running faster this term.
“I’d like to have a season’s best before going into the (Jamaican Olympic) trials,” she said. “That’s most important.”
Also listed in the event are Great Britain’s Jodie Williams, Jamaica’s Simone Facey and Bulgaria’s Ivet Lalova-Collio who are all chasing seasonal bests on Thursday.
In the meantime, Olympic champion Sally Pearson of Australia will try and improve on her last performances when she competes in the women’s 100m hurdles.
Pearson returned to competition at the Diamond League meeting in Birmingham at the weekend to race for the first time since suffering a nasty wrist injury in a heavy fall in Rome, last year.
She clocked 13.25 to finish seventh behind American Kendra Harrison, who was almost a second ahead of the Australian.
The 29-year-old returned to the track again two days ago to run a wind-aided 12.92 at a meeting in France and she hopes those early races helped to dust off the rust of not competing for over a year.
In other events, Kim Collins, Andre De Grasse and Ameer Webb start as the men to beat in the 100m, while Diamond League leader Levern Spencer of St. Lucia takes on a solid field in the women high jump and Renaud Lavillenie and Shawn Barber go head-to-head again in the men’s pole vault.
