By John Mehaffey
LONDON, July 28 - American sprinters, African
distance runners, Swedish jumpers and Cuban throwers give a
genuinely global dimension to the 10th world athletics
championships starting in Helsinki on August 6.
After 22 years the championships will return to the Finnish
capital where the first world championships were staged in a
radically different world.
In 1983 the cream of the world's track and field athletes
had not met on a global stage since the 1972 Munich Olympics
because of successive boycotts.
With the cold war at its frostiest, representatives of 153
countries arrived in Helsinki where the United States, the
Soviet Union and East Germany disputed the majority of the
medals.
This time nearly 2,000 athletes from more than 200 nations
will pour into Finland for the year's biggest international
event.
"We've been calculating that 205 different countries will be
represented," said Antti Pihlakoski, chief executive of the
local organising committee. "I don't know if there have ever
been as many representatives of so many countries gathered in
any event at the same time."
ABSENT CHAMPIONS
The championships have already been hit by some high-profile
withdrawals, including at least four gold medallists from last
year's Athens Olympics.
Hicham El Guerrouj, who won the 1,500-5,000 double in
Athens, will not race at all this season after suffering from a
virus.
Swedish triple jumper Christian Olsson is still feeling the
effects of a foot injury and 200 metres champion Shawn Crawford
of the United States will run only the 100 because of a similar
complaint.
Britain's 800 and 1,500 metres champion Kelly Holmes has
also withdrawn though injury.
In addition there are injury doubts over the new world 100
metres record holder Asafa Powell and 400 metres hurdles gold
medallist Felix Sanchez.
Powell, who has been troubled by a groin injury since
breaking the world record, failed to finish at London's Crystal
Palace last Friday.
The fight between the 22-year-old Jamaican and Olympic
champion Justin Gatlin had been shaping up as the race of the
championships. If Powell does not compete, Gatlin, who won the
100 and 200 double at the U.S. championships, starts as the
clear favourite.
Gatlin won the 100 metres during a cool evening in Stockholm
on Tuesday while his team mate Jeremy Wariner rebounded from his
unexpected loss at Crystal Palace with a composed victory in the
400 metres.
SWEDISH PROSPECTS
Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele, the male athlete of the year, has
been entered for both the 5,000 and 10,000 in Helsinki.
Bekele, whose teenage fiancee collapsed and died on a
training run last January, won the world cross country short and
long-course double for the fourth successive time this year.
Even with Olsson absent, Finland's Nordic neighbours Sweden
can be expected to punch well above their weight, particularly
in the high jump.
Stefan Holm is the men's Olympic champion and Kajsa
Bergqvist is the women's world leader.
Sweden will also field Carolina Kluft, the Olympic and world
heptathlon gold medallist.
Cuba have become a force in women's throwing with Yumileidi
Cumba and Osleidys Menendez winning the Olympic shot put title
and javelin gold medal respectively. Yipsi Moreno defends the
women's hammer title.
Soaring above them all will be Russia's Yelena Isinbayeva,
who took the world women's pole vault record to five metres at
Crystal Palace, the 17th world record of her career.
"It was my dream to be the first woman over five metres,"
she said. "I don't know how much higher I can go. Maybe 5.05
metres. Maybe further."