 | « Back to article | Print this article |
World record holders Stacy Dragila and Regina Jacobs and former Olympic champions Allen Johnson and Gail Devers headline the U.S. team that will compete in next week's world indoor athletics championships.
USA Track and Field announced the 52-member team on Thursday for the March 14-16 event taking place in Birmingham, England.
Olympic gold medallist and world outdoor record holder Dragila regained the world indoor pole vault record at 4.78 metres at the U.S. championships last weekend.
Her duel with former record holder Svetlana Feofanova of Russia is expected to be one of the highlights of the championships.
At 39, Jacobs set the indoor 1,500 metres world record of 3:59.98 earlier this winter.
She will only run at that distance in Birmingham despite qualifying for both the 1,500 and 3,000 metres
Johnson, the 1996 Olympic hurdles gold medallist, ran the fastest 60-metre hurdles in the world this year when he clocked 7.39 seconds at last weekend's U.S. championships.
The 36-year-old Devers, a two-time Olympic 100-metre champion, has twice broken the U.S. women's 60-metre hurdles record this season, clocking a season's best of 7.74 seconds in the U.S. semi-finals last weekend.
Four other U.S. team members also have the best performances in the world this season.
Justin Gatlin paces 60-metre sprinters at 6.45 seconds; John Capel leads the 200 metres at 20.39 seconds; Tim Rusan has the best triple jump of the year at 17.45 metres; and Kevin Toth leads shot putters with a best of 21.70 metres.
Sprinter-hurdler Terrence Trammell will also attract a lot of attention as he tries to defend his 60-metre hurdles title and win the 60-metre sprint championship.
Shot putter John Godina and 200-meter sprinter Shawn Crawford also will defend world indoor titles in Birmingham.
