Top-class lineups set for 2022 Golden Spike in Ostrava

OSTRAVA, Czech Republic —— Sprint legend Allyson Felix, Olympic champions Jasmine Camacho-Quinn and Gianmarco Tamberi, world champions Nia Ali and Joe Kovacs, plus European champion Femke Bol headline the featured athletes down to compete at the 2022 Golden Spike in Ostrava on Tuesday (31).

Felix was recently added to the meeting schedule to replace Olympic silver medalist Christine Mboma of Namibia, who picked up an injury at a meeting in Nairobi, earlier this month.

The American multiple major championships medalist whose first and only appearance thus far in Ostrava came in 2014, will line up in the women’s 200m at the 2022 World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting.

Felix, who is the 13-time world champion, including three gold medals in the 200m, will take on Niger sprinter Aminatou Seyni, who recently set a national record of 22.43 secs and has posted three other times faster than 22.80 secs for the 200m this season.

Also on the track at the 2022 Golden Spike on Tuesday, Olympic sprint hurdles champion Camacho-Quinn will look to continue her fruitful form this season when she battles against a strong field in the women’s 100m hurdles.

The Puerto Rican who was outstanding during the 2021 season where she posted seven of her top 10 career-best times, is bang on form again this term and has already clocked 12.39 seconds for a world-leading time in 2022.

Camacho-Quinn, who has been working on her speed this season, was once again in top form when clocking 12.45 secs to put away a world-class field at the Prefontaine Classic 2022 Diamond League meeting in Oregon at the weekend.

The 25-year-old, who will race in the Czech Republic for the first time, is expected to be challenged in Ostrava by reigning world champion Ali of the United States, who has a season’s best of 12.59 secs, as well as Cyrena Samba-Mayela of France, Bahamian Devynne Charlton and Jamaica’s Megan Tapper.

Samba-Mayela is coming off a strong indoor season where she won the world indoor 60m hurdles title in Belgrade, Charlton finished second behind the Frenchwoman in the Serbia capital, while Tapper is the Olympic bronze medalist after finishing behind Camacho-Quinn in Tokyo last summer.

Meanwhile, Femke Bol is targeting a new world all-time best mark when she races against the clock in the women’s 300m hurdles. Read more: Femke Bol to attack world 300m hurdles best at Golden Spike Ostrava 2022?

Although there will be several other competitors in the field, the European Dutch star is aiming for more than just a victory as she looks to break Zuzana Hejnova’s nine-year-old world best of 38.16 in the event.

At the 2022 Golden Spike in Ostrava on Tuesday, Bol, who is the Olympic 400m hurdles bronze medalist, will line up alongside Ukraine’s fellow Olympic finalists Anna Ryzhykova and Viktoriya Tkachuk.

The women’s 300m field will also include Ayomide Folorunso of Italy and British champion Jessie Knight, who is coming off a personal best performance in the 400m hurdles over the weekend.

The men’s Shot Put event will feature two world champions when Tom Walsh and Joe Kovacs go head-to-head again.

American Kovacs, the 2015 and 2019 world champion, comes into this clash on the back of a strong season-best performance of 22.49m to finish second at the Prefontaine Classic 2022 on Saturday, while recording three other marks over 22-meters in Eugene.

World 2017 champion Walsh of New Zealand is ranked No. 4 in the world this season with his season-best mark of 21.96m, established when finishing third at Pre Classic.

Poland’s European champion Michal Haratyk and Italy’s Zane Weir, the No. 3 ranked thrower in the world this season with 21.99m, are also slated to compete in the competition.

The men’s javelin throw competition should also provide some of the meeting highlights with the in-form Anderson Peters of Grenada taking on home favorites Jakub Vadlejch and Vitezslav Vesely.

Peters threw a massive world lead and national record of 93.07m to win at the Doha Diamond League meeting on 13 May on his way to beating Vadlejch, with the Olympic silver medalist recording a personal best on the day as well with 90.88m in the runner up spot.

Vesely was third in Doha recently with a throw of 76.92m, but the Olympic bronze medalist will be aiming to use home advantage to challenge for the top spot in Ostrava.

Elsewhere at the 2022 Golden Spike in Ostrava, Jamaica’s Olympic finalist Candice McLeod leads a solid women’s 400m field where she will face Poland’s 2018 European champion Justyna Swiety-Ersetic.

The lineup also features Poland’s Olympic 4x400m medalists Anna Kielbasinska and Natalia Kaczmarek.

In the men’s 100m, Jamaica’s 2011 world champion Yohan Blake takes on former training partner Zharnel Hughes of Great Britain, South African record-holder Akani Simbine and Canadian Jerome Blake.

Hughes will also return for the 200m double alongside Jerome Blake, his Canadian teammate Brendon Rodney and USA’s Elijah Hall.

In other events, Italian Olympic high jump champion Gianmarco Tamberi headlines the men’s competition in that event, Sweden’s world indoor silver medalist Thobias Montler goes in the men’s long jump, while home favorite and world record-holder, Barbora Spotakova takes on Poland’s Olympic silver medalist Maria Andrejczyk, Croatia’s Sara Kolak, the 2016 Olympic champion and Czech Republic’s European silver medalist Nikola Ogrodnikova.