Revenge is in the air as the world athletics championship approaches with three defending champions desperate to set aside sour memories of last year's Olympics and regain their mantle as best in the world.
Evergreen 110m hurdler Allen Johnson, Mexican 400m runner Ana Guevara and men's 100m champion Kim Collins are all looking to prove a point -- that they are not over the hill.
Johnson will bid to deny Liu Xiang from adding the world crown to his Olympic title and land his fifth world championship -- though both aren't in the best of form.
Johnson has been nagged by injury during the season while Liu has admitted he hasn't been feeling in the same form since he equalled the world record in winning the Olympic title in Athens.
Johnson, who says that even at 34 he feels he could make the 2008 Olympic team, is determined to become the first person to win five world titles.
"It'll be tough but in Helsinki my focus will be on a fifth world championship title. I'd like to be the first athlete to go beyond four and win five titles," the 1996 Olympic champion said.
"Going out early in the Olympics was tough to take especially when I saw what Liu achieved in the final and I thought right if we both had made the final what the time could have been so hopefully in Helsinki we will have a chance to take the event that stage further -- with me winning of course!" Johnson said.
While Johnson has a good chance of achieving that goal given Liu's lack of confidence, Guevara must hope that Olympic champion Tonique Williams-Darling just has a bad week.
The Bahamian has had the hex sign over the muscular Mexican for most of the past year and crushed her in the Olympic final but Guevara is keen to restore her reputation as the best of her generation and has not raced as often as she has in previous seasons.
"The Olympic defeat left me feeling really flat and depressed," she said.
"To have won the world title the year before should have propelled me to the Olympic crown because while it is nice to be world champion -- they come around every two years while the Olympics is only once every four and it makes it harder to take the defeat as the likelihood of being around and at the top is not that good. Tonique is still the one to beat but I feel that I am running well and can stake my claim for the title," she said.
Collins, though, still entertains hopes of a medal and at the height of optimism the gold.
"I will not give up my world title easily. I don't lay down for anyone," Collins said.
The Olympic champions have been warned.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS