Showdown set for Monaco

The Meeting Herculis EBS Wanda Diamond League event in Monaco has always been one of those prestigious athletic competitions when some of the world’s top stars meet in one place to go up against each other.

This year appears to be no different as a number of global champions and medalists have confirmed their participation for the July 9 meet which takes place annually at the Stade Louis II in the Fontvieille district of Monaco.

The women’s 200 meters (m), in particular, is shaping up to be like an Olympic final, with three of the world’s top stars already confirmed. Shaunae Miller-Uibo, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Gabrielle Thomas, the Bahamian, Jamaican and American national champions respectively, are set to clash in Monaco.

Miller-Uibo is only eighth on the world’s top performance list for 2021, but hasn’t lost a 200m race since the world championships final in London, England, in 2017 – a span of 16 races. Fraser-Pryce has been running the best times of her career this year, recording lifetime bests in both the 100 and 200m. She’s number two on the top performance list for 2021 behind Thomas in the 200m.

What a season Thomas is having!

The upstart American had three sub-22 second races at the US Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, climaxed by a stunning 21.61 run for the gold and national title in the final – making her the second-fastest of all-time behind world record holder the late Florence Griffith-Joyner.

Miller-Uibo said she has seen what’s been happening in the women’s 200m around the world but is just focussed on what she needs to do when the time comes. The battle in Monaco on July 9, a day before The Bahamas’ Independence Day, is the first meeting between the pre-race favorites for the Olympic title this year. It’s likely a prelude of what’s to come at the Olympic Games.

“I’ll be ready when the Olympics come around,” said Miller-Uibo at the 2021 BAAA (Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations) National Junior and Senior Track and Field Championships this past weekend. “Those girls (Americans and Jamaicans) are running really well, and I think it’s going to be a very good race at the Olympics. The competitor that I am, I’m just going to go there and give it my all and hope for the best.”

Six women, four Americans and two Jamaicans, have run under 22 seconds in the women’s 200m this year. Miller-Uibo has a modest season’s best of 22.03 seconds, but has run just three races, including the heats and final at nationals, and hasn’t been pushed. She has gone as fast as 21.74 seconds in her career, done for the Diamond League title at the Weltklasse Zürich Diamond League Meet at Stadion Letzigrund in Zürich, Switzerland, in 2019.

Miller-Uibo seems to rise to the occasion when she needs to and is hungry for her first global title in the women’s 200m. She has the most sub-22 second races in the trio of herself, Fraser-Pryce and Thomas, and her 16-race winning streak will be on the line in Monaco come July 9.

Fraser-Pryce is one of the all-time greats in track and field and seems to have had a resurgence this year – at 34 and after mothering a son. She won her sixth individual world title in 2019, but first as a mother, and moved to number two on the all-time list over 100m this season, clocking a personal best (PB) of 10.63 seconds.

Thomas has really blossomed this season – taking more than half of a second off her previous best time in the 200m. One got the feeling that she was in for a great season when she cracked what was a personal best run of 22.17 seconds right out of the gate, winning the women’s 200m at the 93rd Texas Relays at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas, in March. At the US Olympic Trials at Hayward Field in Eugene over the weekend, she took it up another level, running a trio of sub-22 second races, climaxed by that stunning 21.61 time in the final.

Thomas has never run against Fraser-Pryce in a women’s 200m race, but each time she faced off against Miller-Uibo, she came out on the losing end.

Not to be overlooked among the entrants so far for Monaco is 2013 World bronze medallist Blessing Okagbare, of Nigeria, who ran a personal best of 22.04 seconds in 2018 and clocked a wind-assisted 10.63 seconds over 100m earlier this month.

Also set to meet in Monaco are World No. 2 and No. 3 all-time in the men’s 400m hurdles, American Rai Benjamin and Karsten Warholm, of Norway; and American world leader in the men’s 100m Trayvon Bromell will be challenged by fellow Americans Ronnie Baker, Fred Kerley and Lamont Marcell Jacobs, Canadian Andre De Grasse and Akani Simbine, of South Africa, who have all run under 10 seconds this year.

In the men’s 400m hurdles, World silver medallist Benjamin is the second-fastest 400m hurdler of all-time, having missed Kevin Young’s world record by just 0.05 seconds with his stunning 46.83 run at the US Olympic Trials in Eugene on Saturday. Two-time World Champion Warholm ran 46.87 seconds in Stockholm, Sweden, last August, a time which places him third on the all-time list behind Young and Benjamin.

In the men’s 100m, Bromell leads the world rankings with a 9.77 seconds personal best time he set in Miramar, Florida, earlier this month and he won the US title in 9.80 seconds, beating Baker (9.85 PB) and Kerley (9.86 PB), who will join him on the US team for the Tokyo Olympic Games which is now just three weeks away.

For Bahamians, all eyes will be on Miller-Uibo though. What a treat it would be for her to give Bahamians something to cheer about during Independence!

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