A star-studded 200 meters field will line up to test Jamaica’s reigning double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson at the Prefontaine Classice in Eugene, Oregon in May.
Thompson, will be tested by perennial rival and Olympic silver medalist Daphne Schippers and Tori Bowie of the US who won the bronze.
Also complimenting the field is the evergreen Allyson Felix, who holds the meet record at Eugene.
It will be the first time all four ladies will be in the same 200 meters event. The rivalry between Thompson and Schippers, who is the third fastest woman of all time over the distance and also the 2015 World Champion, is well documented.
The Dutchwoman is the world leader in the 100m and 200m (10.95 and 22.29) set two weeks ago in California, the same weekend when Thompson ran a wind-aided 10.75 in Jamaica.
Twenty-six-year-old Bowie has been staking a claim the past two seasons. She has won the last two Prefontaine Classic races at this distance, including last year’s first-ever matchup of eventual Rio’s Olympic medalists. In 2014, she won in a fast 22.18, running from Lane 1.
In 2012, Felix clocked one of the fastest times in history in winning the Olympic trials in 21.69.
Jenna Prandini, who edged Felix out of a qualifying spot for Rio in 2016, Marie Josee Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast, who was fourth in the 100m in Rio last year, Jamaican veteran, Simone Facey, who has so far clocked 11.00 in Florida earlier this month, and Ivett Lalova-Collie, make up the restr of the field.
