Another name has been added to the star-studded field of the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea. The women’s 800 metres will feature a very young runner Cuban Sahilly Diago, born in 1995, who has risen to World Number 1 in the world seasonal list in the last couple of weeks. The 18-year-old runner, who will turn 19 on 26th August, first clocked 1:58.14 in the two-lap event on 10th May and went on to improve this time to 1:57.74 15 days later on the track of the Panamerican Stadium in Habana setting the National and Central American Junior record and, above all, the world seasonal best time. On 5th June she will make her debut in an International meeting and her third appearance in Europe after the 2011 World Youth Championships in Lille (France) where she did not get through the semifinal and the cap as reserve for the Cuban Olympic 4x400 team. Cuba has found a new star in the 800 metres in the discipline where such athletics legends like Alberto Juantorena (double Olympic champion in the 400m and in the 800m in Montreal 1976) and Ana Fidelia Quirot (two world gold medallist, one silver and one bronze at the Olympic Games) made the history of world athletics.
Diago will face a hard-fough battle between two generations of Kenyan runners: experienced Janeth Jepkosgei (a gold, two silvers and a bronze at the Olympic Games and the World Championships) against young Eunice Sum, who won the world title in Moscow and won the opening leg of the Diamond League in Doha. South-African Caster Semenya, who upset the world winning the World title in Berlin and confirmed this win with two silvers in Daegu and London, will return to Rome. Other athletes to watch are three US runners Ajee Wilson, Brenda Martinez (world bronze in Moscow) and Chanelle Price, world indoor champion last March in Sopot. An outsider could be Cuban Almanza, who returns to Italy five years after the fourth place at the World Youth title in Bressanone. In the head-to-head clashes Jepkosgei leads over Sum 4-3, Semenya edges Jepkosgei 5-4 and Semenya and Sum are 2-2 level.<link http: www.ticketone.it>
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02 June, 2014
