Hooker to Headline Paris Diamond League Meet

Published On: 15 July 2010

Steve Hooker will look to fly in Paris

World champion WAIS pole vaulter Steve Hooker and Dani Samuels will tomorrow night lead a three-pronged Aussie attack in Round 9 of the IAAF Diamond League series, the two world title-holders to be joined on the Paris leg of the 14-meet tour by comeback king Jarrod Bannister.

While Hooker will enter the meet with world, Olympic, world indoor and Commonwealth Games laurels to his name, Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie will step out as the indisputable crowd favourite to set up what should be an intriguing battle on the world championships bronze medallist’s home turf.

On their last encounter in Lausanne (SUI) in Round 7 of the Diamond League tour it was the Frenchman who prevailed, clearing 5.85m to inch Hooker out by just five centimetres and take home the Swiss spoils.

Adding to a star line-up set for the Paris runway is world championships silver medallist and local hope Romain Mesnil (FRA), who alongside fellow Berlin medallists Hooker and Lavillenie rounds out the 2009 world titles podium that will return to the stage tomorrow night.

Also stepping up to the challenge will be world championships finalists Damiel Dossevi (FRA), Giuseppe Gibilisco (ITA), Maksym Mazuryk (UKR) and Derek Miles (USA).

Hooker will participate in a live online chat session at 2:00AM tomorrow (Friday, July 16) Perth time. Click here for details.

World discus champion Dani Samuels will also resume her Diamond League campaign looking for her first win of the series after second and third-place finishes on the Doha (QAT) and Lausanne legs of the tour.

In Paris she will face fellow Lausanne place-getters Yarelis Barrios (CUB, first) and Becky Breisch (USA, second), as well as world championships bronze medallist Nicoleta Grasu (ROM) and Berlin finalists Stephanie Brown Trafton (USA), Zaneta Glanc (POL), Sandra Perkovic (CRO) and Aretha Thurmond (USA).

Rounding out the Australian charge and fresh from his Diamond League debut in Lausanne last week, Jarrod Bannister returns to the fold to face world championships gold and silver medallists Andreas Thorkildsen (NOR) and Guillermo Martinez (CUB), 2007 world champion Tero Pitkamaki (FIN)and Berlin finalists Ainars Kovals (LAT), Vadims Vasilevskis (LAT) and Teemu Wirkkala (FIN).

Placing sixth in Lausanne with a throw of 81.33m Bannister will no doubt be looking to continue his international comeback from the elbow injury he sustained at the 2008 Olympic Games with a strong showing in Paris tomorrow night.

On the track the race of the meet will be fought out in the men’s 100m, as world 100m and 200m record-holder Usain Bolt and fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell, the man whose 100m world record Bolt eclipsed to take the title of fastest man on earth, go head-to-head.

– Athletics Australia