Wariner, Felix and Richards-Ross lead 400m fields in Eugene – Samsung Diamond League

Eugene, USA – A three-time World Championships gold medallist at 200m continues her step up to the 400m, favored even though the race contains not only the reigning World champion but also six of the top seven competitors in the world at 400m. Sound intriguing? That’s the attraction at the 37th annual Prefontaine Classic, the fourth stop on the elite Samsung Diamond League circuit.

 

Twenty-five year old Allyson Felix will bring her credentials as last year's 200m and 400m Diamond Race Trophy winner to Hayward Field on Saturday, 4 June to face Berlin 400m gold medallist Sanya Richards-Ross, and a heavyweight field that features the Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5 athletes from 2010 as ranked by Track & Field News magazine.

Felix, who won gold at 200m in the 2005, 2007, and 2009 World Championships and silver in the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games, took advantage of the absence of Richards-Ross last season to rise to the top of the 400m charts. Richards-Ross suffered a flare-up last year of Behcet’s disease, an inflammation of the blood vessels, and shut down her 2010 season.

Felix opened her season with a 50.33 400m victory in the Samsung Diamond League opener in Doha on 6 May, and followed up with a 22.38 win over the 200m in Daegu on 12 May, both early season world leaders. Felix and Richards-Ross will square off over both distances at Rome's Compeed Golden Gala, stop No. 3 on the Samsung Diamond League series, on Thursday (26).

There's much more to the Eugene field, too. Amantle Montsho of Botswana was the 2010 Commonwealth Champion and won a pair of Samsung Diamond League races in 2010, Debbie Dunn of the U.S. is the current World Indoor Champion at 400m, Tatyana Firova of Russia was the silver medallist at the World Indoor Championships, and Shericka Williams of Jamaica was the silver medallist at both the Berlin World Championships and the Beijing Olympic Games. And if that’s not enough, add in Kseniya Ustalova of Russia and 2011 USA indoor champion Natasha Hastings. As evidence of the quality in this race, every woman in the field has a personal best under 50 seconds!

Wariner the men's favourite

 

Despite the presence of three other athletes ranked in the top 10 in the world by Track & Field News, it is hard to see how any of them can be considered a threat to American Jeremy Wariner, the 2004 Olympic champion and 2007 World Championships gold medallist, and last year's inaugural Diamond Race Trophy winner.

He'll face supervet Angelo Taylor who just keeps on going. The Olympic gold medallist in the 400 Hurdles in Sydney and Beijing, the 32-year-old Taylor also has won a bronze in the flat 400 at the 2007 World Championships. Great Britain’s Michael Bingham, who finished fourth in the Beijing Olympic final, reigning European Champion Kevin Borlee of Belgium, 2008 Olympic bronze medallist David Neville, and former 400m Hurdles World champion Bershawn Jackson, round out the favorites. The field also includes Oscar 'Blade Runner 'Pistorius, who recorded a lifetime best of 45.61 in March, and the Prefontaine Classic will be his next race.

Including relays, entrants in the Pre Classic 400m have won an astonishing sixteen gold medals in Olympic and World Championships competition!

400 METERS (MEN)

Jeremy Wariner

Oscar Pistorius (South Africa)

Angelo Taylor

Michael Bingham (Great Britain)

Kevin Borlée (Belgium)

David Neville

Bershawn Jackson

Joshua Scott

400 METERS (WOMEN)

Allyson Felix

Sanya Richards-Ross

Amantle Montsho (Botswana)

Debbie Dunn

Tatyana Firova (Russia)

Shericka Williams (Jamaica)

Kseniya Ustalova (Russia)

Natasha Hastings

Samsung Diamond League