Liu gets another shot at Robles in 110 hurdles

(AP)
Updated: 2007-07-10 09:09

GENEVA, Switzerland - Liu Xiang will get another chance to race Dayron Robles in the 110 hurdles, and it will be on the same track that the Chinese athlete set the world record last year.

Liu, the Olympic and world champion, ran 12.88 seconds at last year's Athletissima Grand Prix. This year's meet is Tuesday.

Liu finished third at the Gaz de France meet last Friday, behind Robles and Anwar Moore of the United States. Liu ran 13.15, well off his season best of 12.92. Four-time world champion Allen Johnson will also race.

The men's 200 features three athletes who have run under 20 seconds in Lausanne last year.

Tyson Gay, who ran the second-fastest time in history (19.62) at the U.S. trials last month, will take on Wallace Spearmon, who has three sub-20 times this season. Usain Bolt, who set a Jamaican record of 19.75 in June, has also run under 20 seconds three times in 2007.

The Athletissima race will be the first time all three have run together this season.

The 100 will be without world record holder Asafa Powell, but organizers said he will anchor Jamaica's 4x100 relay team against the United States, France, Italy, Britain and Switzerland.

The women's 100 will be a showdown between Olympic 200 champion Veronica Campbell of Jamaica - who ran 10.93 in New York - and European champion Kim Gevaert of Belgium.

In the women's 100 hurdles, European champion Suzanna Kallur of Sweden will take on world champion Michelle Perry, who ran 12.43 last year.

The long jump was added to the program at the request of Olympic and world heptathlon champion Carolina Kluft.

Making her first appearance at Athletissima, Kluft will compete against rival Eunice Barber, the 2003 long jump world champion. The 24-year-old Kluft has beaten Barber in the heptathlon at the last world and European championships.

The men's 400 hurdles will have world champion Bershawn Jackson, James Carter and European champion Periklis Iakovakis of Greece.

Also, Tatiana Lebedeva will compete in the triple jump, and Olympic and world 400 champion Jeremy Wariner will race in the 200.



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