Sollentuna, Stockholm - After a string of mostly chilly and rainy conditions last summer and at the first meet this year (Gothenburg, 9 June) the Swedish Folksam Grand Prix series was blessed with good weather at Sollentuna – a northwestern suburb of Stockholm – on Wednesday evening (25) - Blue skies, temperature around 25 degrees in the shade (if one could find any) and light breezes.
Ismail and Kaki lead Sundan's night of success
So it was perhaps not surprising that the runners from Sudan really seemed to thrive winning the men's 400m, 800m and 1500m as well as the women's 400m and 400m Hurdles and picking up another four second places. Most impressive of them Olympic silver medallist Ahmed Ismail who was in total control in the men's 800m running an evenly split 1:46.65 winning comfortably.
His compatriot Abubaker Kaki this time had stepped up to the 1500m which unfortunately suffered from very erratic pacing. A much too eager first pacemaker blasted a 25sec opening 200m and Kaki ended up with first two laps in 54.7 – 61.3. At that stage any chance for a great time was lost and Kaki just focussed on winning the race.
That, however, turned out a little bit tougher than he probably expected as Ireland's Dave Campbell not only hang on but also tried to challenge in the finishing straight. But as handling such battles is Kaki's real forte he of course prevailed – 3:39.89 vs 3:40.15. The gutsy Campbell, however, cleared indicated that his 3:39 PB could be significantly – i.e. by some seconds – improved if he just gets into a suitable race.
The same could be said about Australian Kaila McKnight in the women's 1500m. Here the pacing was much better (67+67) but McKnight struck already with 450m to go and finishing with a solo lap of 65.1 she won by almost six seconds in the new PB of 4:10.01. A 4:05 could happen anytime now for McKnight who had 4:19 PB before this year!
A group of young and unheralded Kenyans dominated the men's 3000m. It was finally won by Mike Tuiny in 7:53.23 after opening up a two second winning margin with an impressive finishing sprint. Other names worth watching for the future was Moroccan Malika Akkaoui (won women's 800m by 1آ½ second in 2:02.18 PB) and Sudanese teenagers Alaywia Mak (17 years) and Amina Bakhit (19 years) who grabbed second places in women's 800m and 1500m respectively.
El Ghazaly – over 66m
But despite this action on the running oval it was the field events that produced the top performances this evening:
Egypt's Omar El Ghazaly displayed impressively consistent 65m discus throwing despite lack of any significant wind assistance. It appears that El Ghazaly very well could be a finalist in Berlin, just as he was in Osaka (when he finished 6th). The Egyptian's winning mark of 66.34 now was just 24cm from his PB set in much more favourable conditions two years ago.
"Mr Consistency" Rybakov
Yaroslav Rybakov notched up another 2.30m-clearance in the men's High Jump. With Stefan Holm retired the Russian is the undisputed "Mr Consistency" in this event. This year he had four indoor meets and this was his second outdoors and his string of marks reads 2.30i – 2.31i – 2.31i – 2.30i – 2.31 – 2.30!! With the 2.30 – which he made on third attempt with a couple of centimeters between himself and the bar – he also equalled the arena record set by Holm five years ago.
The spectators at Sollentunavallen had hoped for a thrilling match-up between Rybakov and Linus Thأ¶rnblad, but the latter is still missing the necessary consistency and exited the competition already at 2.26 having to be content with 2.22 as his mark of the evening.
Briton Greg Rutherford probably would have liked the men's Long Jump to have many more rounds than six. Because Rutherford – the 2006 European Championships silver medallist – in his outdoor debut had six legal jumps improving in each and every round: 7.82 – 7.83 – 7.87w – 7.91 – 7.92 – 7.98. At least a 7th round and we would probably have seen an 8-metre performance by Rutherford!
From the Swedish perspective the "Sollentuna Grand Prix" of 2009 will be best remembered for the return to form of hurdler Philip Nossmy. The European 2001 Junior champion has had more than his share of injuries not being able to compete in the hurdles for almost exactly three years. Still visibly rusty technically Nossmy battled with veteran Robert Kronberg all the way finally winning by 0.01 in 13.80 into a slight headwind. 13.80 is actually Nossmy's fastest time since 2004!
Lennart Julin for the IAAF
