Defending champion Shericka Jackson looking to match Allyson Felix’s record of three world 200m titles
Olympic champion Gabby Thomas out with achilles injury
Olympic 100m champion Julien Alfred among leading contenders for gold
At the World Championships two years ago, Julien Alfred narrowly missed a medal, placing fourth. One year later, she was one place shy of taking the Olympic title, earning silver in Paris just days after winning the 100m title. The 24-year-old now heads to the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 as one of the front runners in this discipline.
The St Lucian sprinter ran a national record of 21.71 in London in July, elevating her to ninth on the world all-time list and making her the fastest in the world this year by 0.13.
Gabby Thomas, the Olympic champion and world silver medallist, would have been one of Alfred’s toughest opponents in Tokyo, but the US sprinter recently withdrew from the World Championships due to an aggravated achilles injury.
The US will still be well represented as the sprints powerhouse aims to win its first world 200m title since 2009.
Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, the Olympic 100m bronze medallist, leads the US charge. Better known as a 100m sprinter, she displayed her versatility when winning the US title over both distances, clocking a PB of 21.84 over 200m.
Anavia Battle booked her slot to Tokyo with a second-place finish at the US Trials in a season’s best of 22.13. It will be her first World Championships but her second Tokyo appearance following her semifinal performance at the 2021 Olympics. Battle won at the Diamond League meetings in Xiamen, Keqiao, Rome and Paris.
Debutant McKenzie Long, Thomas’s replacement on the US team, is third on the season’s top list with 21.93. 2019 world silver medallist and Olympic bronze medallist Brittany Brown earned a wildcard after winning the Diamond League title in Zurich with a season’s best of 22.13.
Defending champion Shericka Jackson also cannot be overlooked. The Jamaican, who was forced to miss the Olympics last year through injury, has returned to action this year and has been improving with each race, most recently winning at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia with 22.17. The 31-year-old, who holds the championship record of 21.41, is looking to add to her World Championships haul of 11 medals.
The Jamaican team also includes national champion Ashanti Moore and NACAC bronze medallist Gabrielle Matthews.
Great Britain & NI fields a strong trio in the form of 2019 world champion Dina Asher-Smith, Amy Hunt and Daryll Neita. Asher-Smith and Hunt both clocked 22.14 – a season’s best for the former, and PB for the latter – at the British Championships.
Other contenders include 2017 world silver medallist Marie-Josee Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast, Spanish record-holder Jael Bestue and Liberia’s Thelma Davies, winner at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm.
Michelle Katami for World Athletics
AloJapan.com