4th International Athletics PSD Bank Meeting Duesseldorf 2009 – Indoor elite to be guest in the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia – Lolo Jones

4th International Athletics PSD Bank Meeting Duesseldorf 2009 – Indoor elite to be guest in the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia World Championship; gold, silver and bronze medallists to start in the women’s hurdles sprint

She is not only one of the regular guests in the 60m hurdles event at the “International Athletics PSD Bank Meeting Duesseldorf”. This year, US athlete Lolo Jones moreover travels to the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia boasting her most important title.

Lolo Jones – winner of the 60m hurdles event in 2007 and 2008

At the 2008 World Indoor Championships in Valencia, the 26-year-old won the gold medal in her favourite event, clocking 7.80 seconds, being 13 hundredths of a second faster than her compatriot Candice Davis. Jones also defeated Cuba’s Anay Tejeda (7.98 seconds), of the training group of Olympic hurdles champion Dayron Robles.

The „4th International Athletics PSD Bank Meeting Duesseldorf 2009“, that will again be promoted by “sportAgentur” Duesseldorf and with PSD Bank Rhein-Ruhr eG in its fourth year as sponsor of the meeting, will thus see the revenge of the Valencia medallists on February 13. “This will definitely be a top-class race”, Meeting Director Marc Osenberg is already looking forward to the women’s hurdles event.

Jones will participate at the Duesseldorf Indoor Meeting for the fourth time, she won the 60m hurdles event in 2007 and 2008 (meeting record in
7.87 seconds). Only in 2006, at the meeting’s first edition, she had to bow to Susanna Kallur of Sweden. After her first international success – the World Championship gold medal last year in Valencia – many experts considered the US athlete among the top favourites for the 100m hurdles event at the Olympic Games in Beijing. In the final – being in the lead – she crashed the penultimate hurdle and eventually had to settle with the seventh place.

With her personal best time of 7.77 seconds, Lolo Jones held second place on the 2008 World indoor ranking behind the new World record holder Kallur
(7.68 seconds). Her opponents in Duesseldorf, Candice Davis and Anay Tejeda, both held sixth place (7.90 seconds).

Thus, the three hurdles specialists join the long list of top-class athletes signed-on by Meeting Director Marc Osenberg to compete at the “4th International Athletics PSD Bank Meeting Duesseldorf 2009”, such as, for instance Olympic champion Dayron Robles (60m hurdles), 2004 Olympic champion Yuri Borzakovsky (800m) and European 800m champion Olga Kotlyarova in the 600m event.

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The past two editions of the meeting at the Arena Sportpark have both been assessed as the seventh-best indoor meeting world-wide. The 2008 PSD Bank Meeting even ranked higher than events in New York, Boston or Athens. As Germany’s highest-ranked meeting, boasting the coveted “EAA status” of the European Athletics Federation, it still figures among the top three meets.
In 2009, numerous athletes will surely benefit of the event as an important indicator for the upcoming World Championships in Athletics in Berlin on August 15-23. TV station Eurosport will broadcast live (20:00-22:00 hrs) on the competition day.

Tickets for the Duesseldorf indoor meeting are available at www.athletics-meeting-duesseldorf.de. Children and young adults under the age of 18 pay eight euros, adults 14 euros. The ticket price includes arrival and departure via the public transport system, ÖPNV. The third edition of the indoor meeting in 2008 was sold-out to crowd capacity with a total of 2,000 spectators.