Previews – Women’s sprints: Close contest on the cards in the 100m – European Athletics (EAA) – News

Alena Neumiarzhytskaya of Belarus, who clocked 11.05 in Grodno at the end of June to take her national championships, sits atop the European season leader board and will go in as the favourite for the women’s 100m in Barcelona. That time represents an improvement of 0.19, for the athlete who will turn 30 on the opening day of the 2010 European Athletics Championships, off her previous best from four years ago.

Not far behind on 11.11 personal best is Great Britain's Laura Turner. Coached by former Olympic champion, Linford Christie, Turner recorded her career-best time in Switzerland early in July.

Almost a tenth of a second back on 11.20 is France's Véronique Mang, but times mean little when it comes to competition and Mang demonstrated exactly that by creating the upset of the day one of the SPAR European Team Championships in Bergen in June, when she beat more fancied rivals with an impressive mid-race surge to win the 100m race.

After taking two years out of the sport because of her studies, a revived Mang has great hopes for Barcelona. In her national championships, she finished 0.11 ahead of former European champion Christine Arron to win in a windy 11.16.

Russia's Ana Gurova took her national title with Yuliya Katsura back in third though the latter has a marginally faster time to her credit this year than Gurova.

Others to watch out for are former European under-23 champion, Yeoryía Koklóni of Greece and Norway's Ezinne Okparaebo, who were respectively second and third to Mang in Bergen.

An open race in the 200m

European under-23 champion Aleksandra Fedoriva of Russia is fastest on paper and she has the pedigree to back it up. Two years ago in Beijing she formed part of the Russian gold-medal winning sprint quartet.

The Ukraine's Yelizaveta Bryzhina produced a stunning burst of speed off the bend in Bergen to overtake Russia's Yulia Chermoshanskaya to register an impressive win.

Bryzhina, daughter of the 1988 Olympic 400m champion, Olga Vladykina, set new personal figures of 22.71 winning that race. Her father also clinched gold in the men's sprint relay in Seoul.

Chermoshanskaya is a seasoned performer, having anchored the Russian sprint quartet to gold in Beijing, a year after picking up gold in the European under-23 championships. France's Lina Jacques-Sébastien broke through the 23sec-barrier at her national championships for the first time in her career, recording 22.86 in the heats before going on to clinch the title.

Her aim in Barcelona is no less than a podium place. Anastasia Kapachinskaya, second in the Russian championship in the 400m, will also participate in the 200m in Barcelona.

Russian women in pole position in the 400m

Russia has an embarrassment of riches over this distance. In the national championships in Saransk, Kseniya Ustalova clocked the second fastest European time of the year (50.33), holding off Anastasiya Kapachinskaya (50.52) and Tatyana Firova (50.88) for the national title.

But it is the 2003 world champion over 200m, Kapachinskaya, who owns the fastest time of the season of 50.16 set in the Moscow Cup, though she is only entered for the 200m in Barcelona. At the national championships in Saransk she was well beaten by Ustalova, who is also reigning European under-23 champion, the title she lifted in Kaunas last summer.

Completing a powerful Russian trio is Antonina Krivoshapka, double European indoor gold and world bronze medallist. She suffered a freak accident in January on the training track when a young boy ran across her when she was practising 60m sprints, but is now well on the mend.

Competing in the Moscow Cup, Bulgaria's Vania Stambolova, reigning European champion, could finish no higher than sixth in 51.25, though her fastest time so far this year stands at a more respectable 50.88 from her win in Kalamata.

Antonina Yefremova of the Ukraine and Denisa Rosolová of the Czech Republic are also in sub-51 shape. Rosolová is a converted long jumper and multi-eventer who dramatically reduced her one-lap best this season in Ostrava to a swift 50.85, in the process defeating a good field including Olympic champion, Christine Ohuruogu and Olympic silver medallist Shericka Williams of Jamaica.

 – European Athletics (EAA) – News