NEW DELHI(PTI): Michael Johnson, Mike Powell, Butch Reynolds and Gwen Torrence are new additions in the star studded pack of athletes to be seen in action at the ITC Intemational Athletic meet to be held at Jawaharlal Nehru stadium here this week.

Pole vault superstar Ukranian Sergei Bubka and Jamaican sprint queen Merlene Ottey have already confirmed their entries for the two-day beginning on Sept.13.

Michael Johnson, who dominated the 200m event in the past, tumed his attention to 400m in the recent 1993 world athletics meet at Stuttgart to clinch the gold. He also anchored the 4x400m U.S. relay squad to a new world record.

Johnson was also one of the five athletes who won their events at the Golden 4 Grand Prix this year.

Mike Powell, who broke Bob Beamon’s 8.90m long jump record set in the Mexico Olympics in 1968 with a stupendous 8.95m leap at Tokyo in 1991, again confirmed his numero uno status at the Stuggart meet.

Star quarter Miler Butch Reynolds, who claimed the silver in the 400m at Stuttgart and Gwen Torrence, who won four medals there complete the galaxy of stars coming for the meet.

 

A classy field is developing in many of the events in the ITC International meet as World 800m Champion Paul Ruto.and Olympic Champion William Tanui joined the galaxy of superstars for the two-day athletics show here.

However, there are some doubts over world 200m champion Merlene Ottey’s participation in the meet here on Sept.13 and 14, as she might pull out of the Grand Prix finals in London due to injury.

Tanui, who won the 800m in the Barcelona Olympics last year, and Ruto, who crowned the title in Stuttgart recently, are expected to mesmerize the stars crazy Indian fans here.

While Paul Vault legend Sergei Bubka might be the greatest attraction, world champion Michael Johnson and world record holder Butch Reynolds may make the meet one of the best seen so far in the national capital.

The huge Jawaharlal stadium here had been lucky to see many of the super stars, including Carl Lewis, his Santa Monica team and said Oita two years ago.

Teams started arriving for the meet Friday morning, the first batch being 10 athletes and officials from Seychelles and five from Mauritius.

Indian athletes, preparing for the Asian track and field meet at Manila and Asian games at Hiroshima, can test their skills as there are strong squads from Belarus, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

The Belarus team will be led by ‘91 400m hurdles champion Tatyana Ledovskaya with the best time of 53.11 secs.

Besides Ledovskaya, there are an array of top grade discus throwers ~Vasily Kaptyukh, who finished seventh in the Stuttgart world championships (61.58m) and Victor Baraznosky (63.9m). Indian ace shiny Wilson can look forward to further bettering her national mark of 2:01.90 in 800m with By lorussians Natalya Duchnova and Oksana Miemikova, both of whom have timings below two minutes. Malaysian team includes M.Ramachandran, a leading distance runner in the south eastem region for some time who set a new national mark in the world championships in 10000m (29:38.97).

While P. Jayanti, who also created new Malaysian record (9:18.42) in Stuttgart, will be a strong contender for 3000m title, in the 400m Josephine Mary may give the Indians a strong challenge.

Article extracted from this publication >>  September 17, 1993