Ver headlines Adidas Classic

Published: Wednesday | April 22, 2009



Campbell-Brown - File

CARSON, California (CMC):

Veronica Campbell-Brown will be the star attraction at the Adidas Track Classic on May 16 at the Home Depot Centre.

The reigning two-time Olympic 200-metre champion and 2007 World Championship 100-metre gold medallist from Jamaica will use the meet as part of her preparation for the World Championships this August in Berlin.

The 26-year-old Campbell-Brown is a five-time Olympic medallist and posted a sizzling 21.74 seconds in the 200m at last year's Beijing Olympics on her way to the gold medal.

Consecutive Olympic titles

She is only the second woman in history to win two consecutive Olympic 200m titles, having won her first gold medal at the 2004 Athens games.

Campbell-Brown also took gold in the 4x100m relay, as well as bronze in the women's 100m in Athens.

With five World Championship medals and three Olympic titles to her name, Campbell-Brown is the most decorated active Jamaican sprinter, male or female.

She is likely to face Allyson Felix, one of her biggest rivals over the last five years, in the one of the two short-sprint events at the meet.

Felix, a Los Angeles native and graduate of University of Southern California, where the stadium is located, won her first Olympic gold medal last year in Beijing as a member of the United States' women's 4x400m relay team.

The 23-year-old primarily competes in the 200m and is a two-time Olympic silver medallist and a two-time world champion in that event.

Her 200m personal best of 21.81 secs won her second World Championship gold medal two years ago in Osaka.

The other recognisable name attending the meet is 2004 men's Olympic 400m gold medallist Jeremy Wariner also of the United States.

Third-fastest in history

The 25-year-old Wariner captured silver and gold medals in Beijing in the 400m and 4x400m relay, respectively, and was ranked No.1 in the World at 400m after successfully defending his title at the World Championships in Osaka.

His personal best of 43.45 seconds, set at the 2007 World Championships, makes him the third-fastest 400m runner in history.

Other athletes competing in this year's Carson event include world 1500m and 5000m champion Bernard Lagat, Jennifer Stuczynski, the second highest women's pole vaulter in history and Ethiopia's 2009 World Cross Country champion, Gebre-Egziabher Gebremariam.