Event Previews – WOMEN

100m

Fraser-Pryce pulled out of last year’s Shanghai 200m contest with a last-minute injury leaving Okagare to claim her second victory of the night with a meeting record. Without the long jump to distract her this year, the Nigerian will be hoping for another sprint triumph over her Jamaican rivals.

Fraser-Pryce’s goal is to get back on track after an injury-hampered campaign in 2014. The Olympic champion will want to put on an strong display in her first 100m of the year as she builds towards her world title defence in Beijing this August.

Campbell-Brown will have her own ideas, though. The former world and Olympic champion finished fifth over 200m 12 months ago but went on to clinch the Diamond Race 100m trophy in Zurich and added another late-season win at the IAAF Continental Cup in Marrakech. She’s already on form in 2015 having run 11.04 in Rio last month before anchoring Jamaica to gold at the IAAF World Relays in Nassau.

Michelle-Lee Ahye has also started 2015 with a bang. The Trinidad and Tobago athlete was the surprise package last year, winning Diamond League contests in Lausanne and Glasgow and dipping below 11 three times in three races during a purple patch last June. The 23-year-old has gone sub-11 twice this year already and will be looking to take some senior scalps again.

The US challenge is headed by Tori Bowie whose 10.80 victory in Monaco last July made her the quickest woman in the world in 2014 while she also enjoyed impressive DL wins in Rome and New York.

Muna Lee is the other US sprinter out to knock the Caribbeans off their perch while Asian Games champion Wei Yongli flies the flag for China.

800m

All eyes will be on world champion Eunice Sum in the two-lap race where all but one of the 12 starters has broken two minutes.

Sum lost just three of 17 races over 800m last year when she not only won the Diamond Race by 13 points, but picked up golds at the Commonwealth Games and African championships before finishing her season with another title at the Continental Cup in September.

The consistent Sum is joined by fellow-Kenyan Janeth Jepkosgei, the 2007 world champion in her 15th season as an international, plus Uganda’s 21-year-old Commonwealth bronze medallist Winnie Nanyondo, in her third.

A strong European contingent includes Russia’s Olympic bronze medallist Yekaterina Poistogova, and the woman who beat her to the European title last August, Maryna Arzamasova of Belarus, plus Britain’s former European indoor champion Jenny Meadows and last year’s world indoor silver medallist Angelika Cichocka of Poland.

Molly Ludlow comes fresh from World Relay triumph with the USA’s area record-breaking 4x800m team in Nassau, while China’s hopes rest with Zhao Jing who broke two minutes for the first time to win a bronze medal at last October’s Asian Games in Incheon.

5000m

Agnes Tirop makes her first track outing of the season just two months after being crowned world cross country champion in Guiyang at the age of 19.

Twice a world junior bronze medallist at the distance, Tirop has low-key Diamond League experience from Rome last year, but will find herself the focus of attention here when she’s be pitched against two of the best of 2014 in fellow-Kenyan Viola Kibiwot and Ethiopia’s African champion Almaz Ayana.

Kibiwot was third here two years ago when Genzebe Dibaba outkicked Meseret Defar to take the points, and the World Championship finalist faces another strong Ethiopian challenge this time from Ayana and Gelete Burka.

Ayana was a world bronze medallist in Moscow two years ago and dipped below 14:30 when second to Dibaba in Monaco last July, a place ahead of Kibiwot. Burka already leads the world this year over 10,000m and has world cross country and world indoor titles to her name.

The field contains six other Kenyans, while the Ethiopian presence is boosted by Sentayehu Ejigu, who’s twice finished fourth at World Championships, and last summer’s world junior champion, Alemitu Haroye, another 19-year-old stepping up to the big time.

China’s Ding Changqin will hope to improve the personal best she set when winning bronze at last year’s Asian Games.

400m hurdles

Kaliese Spencer aims to pick up where she left off in 2014 when she enjoyed a near-perfect season, racking up 12 wins out of 13 one-lap hurdles races to win the Diamond Race by a massive 23 points and bag both the Commonwealth Games and Continental Cup titles.

She also stood head and shoulders above the rest on the world list thanks to her 53.41 performance at the Jamaican championships in Kingston.

Spencer’s one hurdles defeat last summer came in her first race at the Doha Diamond League when she was beaten by Kemi Adekoya. The Bahraini athlete ran a national record that day and will be looking to steal a victory over the world No.1 again in Shanghai. The former Nigerian went on to double success at the Asian Games in Incheon, winning gold at 400m flat as well as over the barriers.

Last year’s world No.2 Kori Carter is one of five US hurdlers out to knock the Jamaican off her stride. The others are 2011 world champion and Olympic silver medallist Lashinda Demu, world and Olympic finalists Tiffany Williams and Georganne Moline, and world indoor relay champion Cassandra Tate.

Pole vault

Two high-flying Greeks are expected to feature in a pole vault contest that also includes last year’s world indoor champion Yarisley Silva from Cuba, Australia’s two-times Commonwealth champion, Alana Boyd, and Germany’s multiple world and Olympic finalist, Silke Spiegelburg.

Katerina Stefanidi and Nikoleta Kiriakopoulou spent the recent indoor season swapping their national record, Kiriakopoulou eventually getting the upper hand thanks to her 4.80m vault in Birmingham. But Stefanidi won two European silver medals in the last nine months and has now carried her good form outdoors, setting a new personal best of 4.71m to take an early lead in the world rankings.

Of the rest, Mary Saxer will have good memories of Shanghai. The US vaulter was second here two years ago when Yelena Isinbayeva took maximum points.

China’s Li Ling leapt a PB to finish fourth that day and has since gone on to break Asian records indoors and out, and claim both Asian championship and Asian Games titles. She took her first global honour at the Continental Cup in Marrakech last September, and now has her sights trained on a first Diamond League victory.

Triple jump

The multi-talented Colombian Caterine Ibarguen starts as overwhelming favourite after winning every contest she entered in 2014, including the Continental Cup.

She won the Diamond Race for her discipline by 20 points, and moved to fifth on the world all-time list with her winning leap in Monaco of 15.31m, a South American record and longer than anyone else in the world by more than 40cm.

The world champion has a good record in the Shanghai Stadium having won here in 2013 when she beat Olha Saladukha, Ukraine’s 2011 world champion who will be one of her main rivals again.

Olga Rypakova could also be a threat to the Colombian’s dominance. Kazakhstan’s Olympic champion had a disrupted season in 2014 but she ended on a high with gold at the Asian Games in Incheon, a winning platform to launch her 2015 campaign.

Kimberly Williams took advantage of Ibarguen’s rare absence to win the New York Diamond League contest but the Jamaican jumper has been forced to pull out of Shanghai with an injury.

Ibarguen’s will have close company from her compatriot Yorsiris Urrutia, the Ibero-American champion, while Irina Gumenyuk, Russia’s European bronze medallist, and Li Yanmei, a two-times world indoor finalist and former Asian junior champion, will also be in the hunt for points.

Javelin

Almost every athlete who counts in women’s javelin will be vying for victory in the Shanghai Stadium, including the current world champion, Christina Obergföll, who makes her first competitive appearance since giving birth to her first child last year.

The German has chosen a tough assignment for her comeback as she’ll face Mariya Abakumova, the Russian she displaced as world champion, plus Sunette Viljoen, the four-times African champion from South Africa who has already gone beyond 66m this year, and Kim Mickle, the Australian she beat to take world gold two years ago who became Commonwealth Games champion in Glasgow last summer.

China’s Asian record holder Li Lingwei will have home crowd support, while Canadian record holder Elizabeth Gleadle, the only woman to beat Diamond Race winner Barbora Spotakova last year, will have her eyes on another unexpected Diamond League victory.

Shot put

A women’s shot competition without Valerie Adams is a rare thing at this level, but the New Zealander’s absence following elbow surgery allows Christina Schwanitz a chance to make it two from two at the Shanghai Stadium.

The German was the only woman to breach 20 metres when she won here two years ago, and the European champion will be relishing the opportunity to pick up a Diamond League victory having finished runner-up to the all-beating Adams on four occasions last season.

Those trying to stand in the German’s way include China’s own world and Olympic medallist, Gong Lijiao, who was second here in 2013, the Glasgow Commonwealth Games silver medallist, Clepatra Borel from Trinidad and Tobago, and Yulia Leantsiuk of Belarus, a silver medallist at this year’s European indoor championships.

There’s a also a trio of American throwers who’ll be trying to upset the odds, including Moscow world finalist Tia Brooks, plus two young Chinese putters getting their first taste of the big time – 19-year-old Guo Tianqian, who won the world junior title last year, and Gao Yang, a world junior silver medallist three years ago.