The Europeans are still fresh in the memories of athletes and athletics fans: Two British athletes ruled the sprints, taking the title in the 100m (Dasaolu), the 200m (Gemili), and the 4x100m (Gemili with \u201cTeam GB\u201d). And Gemili delighted the crowd with his powerful 19.98 run in weather conditions, which were less than ideal.<\/p>\n
Now, the two are back in Zurich, determined to prove that they are well rested and ready for the new challenge ahead. \u201cI am always fresh, coming into a race. My coach is very good and makes sure I am ready,\u201d Adam Gemili said. They will both have to be, as they will be lining up against very strong opponents, including Tyson Gay (USA) and Asafa Powell (JAM). James Dasaolu is happy to be able to work with a team he can count on: \u201cI joined up with a new coach, Steven Fudge, in 2012. He and the team he has built keep me fit and healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dafne Schippers is a very versatile athlete. Until last year, she had been known as a national record holder and a world championship bronze medallist in the heptathlon. In 2014, she vaulted to fame in the sprints. She lowered her lifetime bests to 11.03 (100m) and 22.03 (200m), breaking her national records in the process. And then she went on to top off her season by taking the titles in both sprint events. Her success as a sprinter will not necessarily put an end to her career as a heptathlete, however. \u201cI have done training for all events. And I will compete in G\u00f6tzis again, next year,\u201d she said. Her next appearance will be at Weltklasse Z\u00fcrich, however. Schippers just spent a couple of days in Italy to rest. \u201cI was home in the Netherlands for only one day. But I am doing fine.\u201d In her race on Thursday, Schippers will be facing three opponents who have run sub 11 seconds this season.<\/p>\n
Sandra Perkovic contributed the throwing highlight to Z\u00fcrich 2014. Her best attempt (71.08m) not only earned her the gold medal, it also represented the only world leading result of the championships and a new national record. It will be very hard to beat her at Weltklasse Z\u00fcrich. Her strongest opponent is Dani Samuels, but the Australian\u2019s personal best is currently 67.99m, more than three metres less than Perkovic\u2019s new record. The Croatian star likes competing at Letzigrund Stadium: \u201c The atmosphere is great, and the circle is perfect for me. I hope it will be sunny tomorrow, and the girls will push me to throw 71m.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The European Athletics Championships Z\u00fcrich 2014 at Letzigrund Stadium came to an end just over...","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"city":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zurich"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}