With twenty-four hours to go till the last leg of the IAAF Diamond League before the finals in Zurich and Brussels, and one month away from the Worlds in Doha, the tension is mounting and the athletes are reaching peak performance. And even though the majority of the headline acts refused to pass comment about predictions for their upcoming performance at the Charl\u00e9ty Stadium, all of them were evidently keen to get down to business on Saturday evening.
\u201cThe track is brand new and it\u2019s a real honour for us to christen it. It\u2019s the same make as the one used at the Olympic Games in Beijing, so it should enable us to be quick\u201d, commented French hurdler Pascal Martinot-Lagarde<\/b>, in a thinly veiled reference to the world records set by Usain Bolt in 2008.
\u201cI got up early to try the track on Friday morning, explains Karsten Warholm<\/b>. It\u2019s bouncy and quick, just the way we like it. I don\u2019t want to commit myself, but I think there will be some nice surprises on Saturday\u201d, concluded the Norwegian, who\u2019ll be competing in the 400m hurdles.<\/p>\n
A dream bill<\/b><\/p>\n
In addition to having a brand new track, the athletes will be able to count on a very high turnout in nearly all the events that make up the competition. In this way, American triple jumpers Will Claye<\/b> and Christian Taylor<\/b>, long-standing friends, are delighted to get the opportunity to spur one another on to bring their A game. \u201cI won in Paris last time, but there were only a few centimetres in it, recalled the double Olympic champion. It\u2019s a real pleasure to be here each time. We\u2019re going to be gunning for 18m. This mindset is just what the triple jump needs to ensure we perform well and pull something spectacular out of the bag.\u201d
And when you put on a show, the performance is never far behind, as American Grant Holloway<\/b>, this year\u2019s best performer in the world in the 110m hurdles, explains. \u201cI think that all the guys on the start line have the ability to take the win and run a sub-13\u2019\u2019 time. When you have a line-up of this quality, the key is to focus on the execution and do what we know best, and it\u2019s the person who runs the cleanest race who will be the first to the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n
The public will have a role to play<\/b><\/p>\n
Making her debut performance in France, Venezuelan triple jumper Yulimar Rojas<\/b> is expecting great things from the Parisian audience, which is set to exceed 16,000 spectators once the party is in full swing. \u201cI\u2019m very happy to be making my debut here; it\u2019s a fantastic city. Since the Pan American Games where I jumped 15.11m, my aim has been to do better with every attempt I make. I\u2019m hoping for the same atmosphere as in Lima, namely a great crowd and a great stadium.\u201d
Much more experienced, American pole vaulter Sam Kendricks<\/b> cannot deny how pleased he is to be competing in Paris. \u201cIt\u2019s my tenth competition here, indoor and outdoor events combined, and I always get such a lovely welcome. As such, I come along every time I\u2019m invited! On top of that, there\u2019s always something amazing going on, so much so that I could write a book on everything that happens to me here. Us boys are not in the Diamond League so we\u2019re going to try to warm up the atmosphere for the girls\u2019 competition, which will be the highlight of the evening.\u201d Fans of the other sports are allowed not to agree with the reigning world champion, but given the line-up, one thing for sure is that all athletics fans will have a ball on Saturday evening at the Charl\u00e9ty Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The athletes attending the press conference for the Meeting de Paris on Friday all proclaimed...","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"city":[],"class_list":["post-1443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paris"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paris.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paris.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paris.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paris.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paris.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paris.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paris.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paris.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paris.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1443"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paris.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=1443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}