The best athletes of the world met together in Barcelona

The Meeting Ciutat de Barcelona will be celebrated tomorrow Saturday 19 July, from 19:00 hours in the Olympic Stadium of Montjuic. As it normally happens, today, there have been a press conference with the participant athletes in order to know their feelings about their participation in tomorrow's events.

Here, there is a summary of their declarations:

Carolina Kluft (Sweden, Triple Jump): “Changing Heptathlon for Triple Jump was a very difficult decision, but I did not have any motivation. That decision implied a lot of inspiration. I am very happy now. This is going to be my sixth competition in Triple Jump, discipline that is a big challenge for me. There is no reverse. I have already forgotten Heptathlon. I am so happy of participating for the very first time in this city”.

Rosa Morató (Spain, 3000m Steeplechase): "I am in top form, but this race is going to be very fast. There will be pacemakers for rhythms under 9:20. My personal best, the Spanish record is 6 seconds over that so, I will try to follow the best, specially Marta Dominguez”.

Veronica Campbell-Brown (Jamaica, 200m): "I would be so happy if I could repeat the victory of Athens in Beijing. My training has been aimed to get that objective. Jamaica could win all the sprint competitions in the Olympic Games. We have an excellent team".

Reyes Estévez (Spain, 1500m): “My training has been very good. I have been in the Atlas mountains and in that altitude everything works so well. This winter I had the best season in cross country in all my career long and in Huelva, in my first race on the track, I got the standard qualifying. I hope to improve it in Barcelona, with my people, and get a time of 3.34 approximately".

Marta Domínguez (Spain, 3000m Steeplechase): "I had been thinking of Steeplechase for long time. Two years ago I was about to participate in one competition in this discipline but at the end I changed my mind and decided to do it later. The idea is to look for new motivations. The training on the 5.000m or 10.000m was too hard for me. I am in very good shape. In Beijing, being in good shape implies being with the best".

Abubaker Kaki (Sudan, 800m): "I feel really comfortable in Barcelona, where I´ am training for the Olympic Games. I have everything I need and the training sessions are very well too. The world record is one of our objectives but not this year. I am more interested now in getting the Golden medal in Beijing”.

Calvin Smith Jr. (USA, 200m): " I am a student right now, my father keeps on telling me that I should be concentrated  my energies on the books and the university and not on Athletics, but I think we can successfully combine both activities”.

SIX LEADERS OF THIS SEASON

They are some of the stars of the International Athletics Meeting Ciutat de Barcelona, but not the only ones. Yeimar López, the Cuban athlete who has made this year 1:43.07 in the 800m race and who is going to compete for the first time against the Sudanese Kaki, came to the appointment with the media as well.

Besides the Olympic champions and the World champions already registered to participate in the Meeting, amongst the competitors it could be mentioned six athletes who are the number one this year in their specialities. They are: Kaki (800m), Moses Masai (5000m), Campbell-Brown (200m), Lolo jones (100m Hurdles), Eunice Jepkorir (3000m Steeplechase) and Hrisopiyí Devetzi (Triple Jump).

Two competitions deserve special attention amongst the 18 scheduled in the event: The 5000m men and the Triple Jump women. In the first one there will be two groups of pacemakers, one for Masai and the rest of the African athletes (five of them have personal records with less than 13 minutes) and another one for the Spanish athletes whose aim will be to run between 13:15 and 13:20. Masai, on the contrary, has asked for a rhythm of 12:45; with it he could improve the best world this year. The hard work will be over the shoulders of the Ethiopian Tihalun Regassa (with a personal best of 13:12.40), the Eritrean Ali Abdalah (13:10.71) and the Kenians Benson Esho and Moses Barmasai.

In Triple Jump, besides the Swedish Kluft, there will be a new confrontation among the three best athletes of this season, The Greek Devetzi, the Cuban Yargelis Savigne (the only ones who have jumped over 15 metres in 2008) and the Slovenian Marija Sestak. Furthermore, Yamile Aldama, a Sudanese athlete with Cuban roots who also have a personal best of more than 15 metres (although not this year) and the Cameroonian Francoise Mbango, current Olympic champion who has been registered at the last time.

SPANISH DEBUT OF SEAN WILLIAMS

The debut of Sean Williams will be done in the 400m race competition. This young 400m Hurdles athlete was born in the United States. He has a Spanish mother and he has just got the Spanish citizenship. His best personal record in the plain distance is 47.19 and of course he will be in the heat B.