Up and running / Osaka welcomes worlds back to Japan

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http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/os ... Y13001.htm

Up and running / Osaka welcomes worlds back to Japan
Ken Marantz / Daily Yomiuri Sportswriter

By his own design, when Japanese sprinter Shingo Suetsugu takes the track for the start of the men's 200 meters, it will only be his third competition of the year.

Still, Suetsugu probably summed up the feelings of everyone involved with the IAAF world championships in Osaka when he said recently of his pre-meet preparations, "When I'm at the ground, it's more frustrating that exciting. I want to get going soon."

The two-year wait between world championships finally ends when the 11th edition of the global meet opens Saturday to begin its nine-day run at Osaka's Nagai Stadium.

The meet will be broadcast to an estimated audience of 6 billion people in over 190 countries, with 85 percent of the action available on free-to-air television, according to IAAF president Lamine Diack.

"Only the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup are bigger than the IAAF world championships in terms of global reach and impact," Diack said.

For Japanese fans, it's been a 16-year wait to see the world's best gather in their homeland, the last time coming in Tokyo in a meet filled with memorable moments.

Few will ever forget the electricity that swept through the stadium, whether from Carl Lewis' world record-setting sprint in the 100 meters or his shocking loss to cloud-walking Mike Powell in the long jump.

Tokyo was also where Michael Johnson won the first of his record nine gold medals, and Japan won its first-ever world medals and established itself as a powerhouse in the marathon.

What new star will emerge in Osaka? What classic duel will be talked about for years to come?

The best place to start is the powerful U.S. team, which won 14 gold medals and 25 medals overall two years ago in Helsinki. Ten of those gold medalists will be competing in Osaka, courtesy of the wild card system that provides an automatic berth for returning champions.

One big name missing from the U.S. list is Justin Gatlin, the co-world record-holder in the men's 100 meters who achieved a 100-200 sprint double in 2005 but is now fighting to save his career amid a doping scandal.

So deep are the Americans in the sprints that Gatlin's absence will hardly be felt, thanks to the emergence of Tyson Gay.

Gay, who has the best times of the year in both the 100 and 200, will clash with Jamaica's Asafa Powell, who jointly holds the world record of 9.77 with Gatlin. Powell will be looking to end a world championships hex and earn his first global title.

When world and Olympic 400-meter champion Jeremy Wariner ran on the Nagai Stadium track for the Japan Grand Prix in May, he and coach Clyde Hart lauded the surface and predicted fast times ahead.

"The track was really fast," Wariner said after the Japan Grand Prix. "I was impressed with the way it is. I can't wait to come back here with more competition."

Perhaps it is significant that the last world record set at a world championships in a running event was Johnson's 43.19 in the 400 in 1999.

Along with the men's 100, a clash of the titans awaits in the women's 5,000 meters, where two Ethiopians with little love lost between them will battle it out.

Tirunesh Dibaba, the two-time defending champion, will renew her rivalry with Meseret Defar, who smashed the world record with a clocking of 14:16.63 earlier this year. In 2005, Dibaba completed the first-ever women's 5,000-10,000 double at a world championships--including outkicking Defar for the 5,000 title--and will be looking to repeat that feat in Osaka.

Two other high-profile world record-holders will be aiming to add to a growing collection of laurels.

Russia's Yelena Isinbayeva is favored to defend her title in the women's pole vault, although a change in coaches and a tweaking of her technique has left her short of her world record of 5.01 meters, set at the last worlds in Helsinki.

Chinese star Liu Jiang, the 2004 Olympic champion and world record-holder in the men's 110 hurdles, will be looking to pick up his first world gold as a stepping stone toward defending his Olympic title next year in Beijing.

Japan's top medal hopes lie in the burly arms of hammer thrower Koji Murofushi and the lean legs of its women marathoners.

Murofushi, the 2004 Athens gold medalist, has bronze and silver medals from previous world championships and will be looking to complete the collection with a gold on home soil. He will challenge long-time rival and two-time defending champion Ivan Tikhon of Belarus.

The women's marathoners are led by Reiko Tosa, the 2001 world silver medalist, who has returned from injuries to be among the world's elite again. Also expected to be in the running is Yumiko Hara, who was sixth in 2005.

(Aug. 22, 2007)