Event Previews

200m
World champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce takes on her fellow-Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown over 200m after starting her 2014 Diamond League campaign with a 100m victory in Doha last week. Fraser-Pryce produced her first sub-11 time of the year in Shanghai last May to take an early lead in the world rankings and went on to add three World Championship golds to her two Olympic 100m crowns before bagging the world indoor 60m title in Sopot this March. That win deprived Cambell-Brown of a third successive world indoor victory but the experienced former Olympic champion seems to be working her way back to sharpness after an enforced lay-off last year with a drugs suspension. World bronze medallist Blessing Okagbare chased Fraser-Pryce home in the 100m here last year and the Nigerian sprinter-long jumper is likely to be hard on her heels again after another second place in Doha last Friday. Double world junior champion Anthonique Strachan shouldn’t be overlooked either. The 20-year-old Bahamian sprinter has already run swiftly this year and will be looking to take some senior scalps. Moscow world finalists Charonda Williams and English Gardner are two of four US athletes out to knock the Jamaicans off their perch. The others are Kimberlyn Duncan and Tiffany Townsend while Asian 100m champion Wei Yongli flies the flag for China.

400m
Multi-medalled sprinter Allyson Felix will be keen to make a winning start to her 2014 campaign when she races over 400m on her Shanghai debut in an enticing head-to-head against 2011 world champion Amantle Montsho. Felix is aiming to get back on track in 2014 after she crashed out of the Moscow world 200m final with a hamstring injury last August. The US star won three Olympic golds at London 2012 to go with her eight outdoor world titles and one Olympic relay gold from Beijing 2008. She won the Diamond Race for 200m and 400m in 2010, but triumphed at only one DL meeting in 2013. By contrast, the Botswana athlete had an impressive year, breaking 50 seconds six times and lowering her national record to 49.33. But Montsho missed out on retaining her world title in Moscow by four thousandths of a second when she was pipped on the line by Britain’s Christine Ohuruogu. The 30-year-old is looking for her first Shanghai victory after she was second in 2012 behind Novlene Williams-Mills, the perennial world finalist who joins Moscow fourth-placer Stephanie Ann McPherson and 400m hurdler Kaliese Spencer as Jamaica’s representatives.Felix, meanwhile, has fellow-Americans Francena McCorory and Natasha Hastings for company. China’s interest lies with Chen Jingwen, the 2011 Asian one-lap champion.

1500m
All eyes will be on Swedish star Abeba Aregawi in the women’s 1500m, the event she has dominated for the last two years. The former Ethiopian not only won world indoor and outdoor titles in the last 12 months, but set national and European records indoors and out, and went unbeaten over 13 races throughout 2013. Aregawi will be looking for her first victory in Shanghai after she was second here two years ago behind Genzebe Dibaba when both dipped under four minutes. Those hoping to put the pressure on the Swede this time include USA’s 2011 world champion Jenny Simpson, who took silver behind Aregawi in Moscow last August, and Kenyan Viola Jelagat Kibiwot.

3000m Steeplechase
Milcah Chemos’s victory at last year’s World Championships was a welcome change after two world bronze medals but the Kenyan faces a tough start to her 2014 campaign against the four women who followed her home in Moscow. Lydia Chepkurui was the first of those, the Kenyan winning a silver at her first championships in front of three Ethiopians, Sofia Assefa, Hiwot Ayalew and Eteneh Diro. Chemos beat Assefa to the line by more than a second on her last Shanghai apperance two years ago, with Chepkurui third and the leading trio are likely to fill the podium places again. Assefa went to win an Olympic bronze in 2012 ahead of Chemos before placing third again at last summer’s Worlds.

High Jump
Russia’s world champion Svetlana Shkolina has withdrawn from the meeting leaving Spain’s Moscow bronze medallist Ruth Beitia and USA’s former world indoor champion Chaunte Lowe as the main contenders. Beitia has been in medal-winning form in recent years, picking up European outdoor and indoor titles in 2012 and 2013 to go with her world outdoor bronze from Moscow and indoor silver from Sopot earlier this year. Lowe shares the early world lead of 1.96m with another American Inika McPherson and St Lucia’s Moscow finalist Levern Spencer, both also in the Shanghai field. Other world finalists in the line-up include Justyna Kasprzycka of Poland, Russian Irina Gordeyeva and China’s Zheng Xingjuan, the last a world junior silver medallist back in 2006.

Long Jump
Blessing Okagbare demonstrates her versatility yet again as she seeks Diamond League points in the long jump well as the 200m. The Nigerian was second in this event at the Worlds last year and will face a number of other Moscow finalists in Shanghai, including Serbia’s surprise bronze medallist Ivana Spanovic, Britain’s Shara Proctor and the Russian pair Olga Kucharenko and Darya Klishina, the latter an early leader of this year’s world list. Proctor, led the qualifiers in Moscow but could only finish sixth, while Spanovic became the first athlete representing Serbia to make a World Champs podium and then repeated the trick at the World Indoors at Sopot with another bronze. Sopot finalist Tori Polk is one of three US jumpers while Chinese interest focuses on 2009 world youth champion Lu Minjia and Jiang Yanfei, who’s been beyond 6.50m this year.

Discus Throw
There will be few bigger favourites for victory in the Shanghai Stadium than world and Olympic discus champion Sandra Perkovic. No athlete had a better Diamond League season in 2013 than the Croatian who collected maximum points from an unbeaten run, matched only by the Czech Republic’s 400m hurdler Zuzana Hejnova. She set a national record when she won here two years ago, and with a 70m-plus Croatian record already in the bag this year, the affable 23-year-old looks set to continue in winning vein in 2014. Those hoping to halt her progress include Moscow silver medallist Mélina Robert-Michon of France and Australia’s 2009 world champion Dani Samuels who improved her best to 67.99m just last weekend. The field includes five other Moscow finalists in Gia Lewis-Smallwood of USA, Tan Jian of China, Lithuainia’s Zinaida Sendriute, Cuba’s Yaimí Pérez and Rocío Comba of Argentina.