Colin Jackson wants to win his last gold medal
Even he lost the final-race in Manchester at the Commonwealth Games against the South-African Shaun Bownes, Colin Jackson is the big favourite for the 110 Meter hurdles. The world record holder and two times world champion bumped in Manchester into the first hurdle and became "only" second, four hundreds of a second behind the South-African.
Colin Jackson (Photo: Chai)
"But I didn`t lose selfconfidence, the 35 years old athlete from Cardiff said. He knows, he could win the race in Munich anyway. It will be his last European Championships. "After the indoor World Championship I will retire", Colin Jackson, who is leading the European Top list 2002, together with Stanislavs Olijars from Latvia, said. Both ran already 13,15 seconds this season.A good chance to win a medal has the German runner, Mike Fenner, whow already was in a very good shape during the European Cup in Annecy in June, where he was running 13,33 seconds.
Four runners are between fourteen hundreds of a second in the 400 m hurdles
The situation in the 400 Meter hurdles before Munich is very exciting. Four runners are between fourteen hundreds of a second in the entry list. Stephane Diagana from France is the best of the year, running 48,11 seconds at the Golden League Meeting in Monaco, Chris Rawlinson, who won the race at the Commonwealth Games - is second in the list (48,21 seconds) and the italian, Fabrizio Mori, who is 33 years old and thus the same age as Diagana, is third, only two hundreds of a second behind the english guy.
And the polish runner, Marek Plawgo, follows as number four in 48,23 seconds. But probably Plawgo will prefer to run the 400 Meters instead the hurdles, even he is on the entry list. In any case the spectators can expect a thrilling race, like four years ago, when Pawel Januszewski from Poland won in 48,17 seconds, second was the russian Rulan Mashchenko, only eight hundreds of a second behind the gold medal winner. Both will run in Munich again, but it will be difficult for the reigning European Champion and the Vice-Champion to defend their medals.
Simon Vroemen could surprise everyone in Munich
Simon Vroemen from the Netherlands could surprise everyone in Munich. The 31 years old steeplechase runner became third at the Golden League Meeting in Monaco in 8:06,91 Minutes. Nobody ran so fast in Europe this year. The second fastest man at the moment is Bouabdallah Tahri from France, who reached 8:10,83 Minutes in Paris. The french athlete was the second best European, 2001 in Edmonton at the World Championship, when he became fifth.
One place better was Luis Miguel Martin from Spain, who will compete in Munich as well. Good chances to reach the final will have Vincent Le Dauphin from France and his countryman Denis Frederic and the Austrian Günter Weidlinger. Maybe the young German guy, Filmon Ghirmai could be in on the action for the first five places.
The European Champion from 1998, Damian Kallabis from Germany, had even problems to qualify, he didn`t reached the time, the federation wanted, but he was second at the European Cup, which legitimates him, to paricipate in Munich. But it would be a big surprise, if he could fight for a medal.
Ursula Kaiser
