Some of the world’s best sprinters will line up in the men’s 100m at what is set to be an electrifying Friday night of athletics at the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games. The event at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park includes a two-day Diamond League meeting on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 July, with the Sainsbury’s IPC Athletics Grand Prix Final taking place on Sunday 26.
Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s European 100m champion James Dasaolu and world and European indoor 60m champion Richard Kilty will take on an international line up that will include former world champion Kim Collins, Commonwealth champion Kemar Bailey-Cole and Americans Michael Rodgers and Marvin Bracy, who was victorious at the Sainsbury’s Birmingham Grand Prix earlier this month.
The Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games takes place just four weeks before the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Beijing and the meeting will provide an important yardstick Britain’s top athletes as they prepare to battle for medals in China.
Dasaolu’s only previous appearance at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park came at the 2012 Olympic Games, where he reached the semi-final of the 100m, and he is looking forward to returning at the end of July.
Dasaolu said: “I can’t wait for the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games, it’s a great event and an iconic stadium so it will be amazing to compete in front of such a big British crowd again. I’m sure the atmosphere under the lights on the Friday night will be a great experience for all of the athletes.
My training is going well and this will be a great test for me a month out from the World Championships. I will do my best, a good race will set me up perfectly for Beijing.”
Kilty, who ran a personal best of 10.04 at the Sainsbury’s Birmingham Grand Prix earlier this month, now has a first sub-10 second clocking in his sights and is hoping the Friday night atmosphere in the Stadium will help him to break that barrier.
He said: “The Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games will be a massive reception which will be amazing, it would be great to run sub-10 there. I’m very confident at the moment.
British sprinting is absolutely amazing at the moment and everybody is buzzing to be part of it. The attitude in our sprinters has improved and we all want to achieve higher things on the world stage, so I think that’s why it’s brought it forward. Once you have one or two guys running really fast times the rest of us realise we can do it and everyone steps up and it’s a domino effect.”
