Sprint champions to battle for glory in Ostrava

On Tuesday, the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava will feature an exciting lineup of global sprint champions, promising a thrilling day of athletics.

The World Athletics Continental Tour Gold event will see the three individual men’s Olympic sprint champions face off in a series of highly anticipated races.

Italy’s Lamont Marcell Jacobs, the Olympic 100m champion, and Canada’s Andre De Grasse, the 200m Olympic champion, will compete against each other in the 100m.

De Grasse will also compete in his specialist 200m event later in the evening. Joining the action, Olympic 400m champion Steven Gardiner will compete against world indoor champion Alexander Doom over one lap of the track.

In the field events, the spotlight will be on Mondo Duplantis, the world and Olympic pole vault champion.

Duplantis, who recently broke his own world record with a jump of 6.24m, will aim to surpass his previous meeting record of 6.12m set in Ostrava last year.

Ernest John Obiena, who took silver behind Duplantis at the World Championships, will also be a formidable contender.

The javelin contests promise high drama, with world champion Haruka Kitaguchi and multiple global medallist Jakub Vadlejch competing.

Vadlejch, a home favorite, recently won in Doha with a throw of 88.38m, just one centimeter ahead of European champion Julian Weber.

The women’s sprints will be equally competitive. Ewa Swoboda from Poland and Italy’s Zainab Dosso, both medalists from the World Indoor Championships, will clash in the 100m.

Swoboda will be competing in her first individual race of the outdoor season, while Dosso recently set a new Italian 100m record. Additionally, European 200m champion Mujinga Kambundji of Switzerland and Gina Bass, a double African Games sprint champion, are set to participate.

In the women’s 100m hurdles, European champion Pia Skrzyszowska will take on European leader Ditaji Kambundji. Meanwhile, world silver medallist Natalia Kaczmarek is the favorite in the women’s 400m.

The men’s shot put will see Italy’s Leonardo Fabbri, who has recently achieved a series of impressive throws, facing strong competition from New Zealand’s Tom Walsh, a two-time world indoor champion.

Elsewhere, world indoor champion Molly Caudery will compete against Slovenia’s Tina Sutej and Greece’s Katerina Stefanidi in the women’s pole vault.

On the track, world silver and bronze medallists Djamel Sedjati and Ben Pattison will clash over 800m, while the women’s 1500m will feature an Ethiopian trio up against Ireland’s Ciara Mageean.

With such a stellar lineup, the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava is set to be a spectacular showcase of athletics talent.