Venezuelan President celebrates world record of athlete Yulimar Rojas/pl

Lievin, France, February 17 (RHC/PL)-- The athletic meeting in this city is the center of world sports attention on Thursday due to the presence of five Olympic champions for Tokyo 2020, among them, Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas, world record holder in the triple jump.

Rojas, winner of the 2021 Diamond League, will compete on this occasion in the long jump and will do so after finishing second in the Spanish Club Women's Indoor Championships Iberdrola Cup 2022.

In the men's triple jump, Cuban Lázaro Martínez will make his debut in a competition marked by the presence of top athletes such as Frenchman Benjamin Compaore and Algerian Yasser Triki.

Another of the attractions of the meeting will be the Italian sprinter Marcell Jacobs, Olympic titleholder of the 100 meters and the 4×100 relay of the Japanese event, although this time he will do it in the 60 meters.

The European continues with his European tour that has already taken him to Berlin, where he clocked 6.51 seconds on February 4, and to Lodz in Poland (6.49 on February 11) in preparation for the World Indoor Championships, to be held from March 18 to 20 in Belgrade.

Although the Italian sprinter's main objective is to confirm the level he showed in Tokyo at the outdoor World Championships scheduled for Eugene (USA), from July 15 to 24, and use the indoor season to improve his start, one of his weak points.

According to Jacobs, he wants to get as close as possible to the European record of the 60 meters held by British Dwain Chambers with 6.42 seconds, five hundredths faster than the Italian's best time.

Jacobs, 27, won the first major title of his career at this distance at the Torun-2021 European Championships.

His main rivals this Thursday will be the American Ronnie Baker, Olympic finalist, and the Frenchman Jimmy Vicaut.

In the 60m hurdles, the world record holder Grant Holloway (7.29 seconds), Olympic runner-up in Tokyo, and the French Pascal Martinot-Lagarde and Wilhem Belocian will be the main rivals.

Norwegian middle-distance runner Jakob Ingebrigtsen will participate in the 1,500 meters, distance in which he won the Olympic title in Japan, and the Ethiopian Selemon Barega, winner of the 10,000 meters in the same event, will participate in the 3,000 meters.

The double lap of the oval will also have a high level with the presence of Poland's Adam Kszczot, world indoor champion in 2018 and two-time outdoor runner-up (2015 and 2017).

Although the favorites for victory will be Britain's Elliot Gilles and Mariano Garcia, one of the promises of Spanish athletics, who 10 days ago achieved the best world record of the year by running in New York in 1.45.12 minutes.

In the women's pole vault, the American Katie Nageotte and the Russian Anzhelika Sidorova will meet again for a rematch of the Olympic final, in which the American beat the European.

Cuba's Yarisley Silva, London 2012 Olympic runner-up and Beijing 2015 world champion, will make her fourth start of the year in the pole vault and in the three previous ones she managed to be included among the winners, with highlights for the most recent one in Val De Reuil, where she jumped 4.65 meters.

Despite the absence of Sweden's Armand Duplantis, the great star of the discipline, the men's pole vault competition promises a great show, with seven of the finalists in Tokyo, including U.S. Olympic runner-up Christopher Nilsen and Brazil's Thiago Braz, gold medalist at Rio 2016 and bronze medalist at Tokyo 2020.