Usain Bolt has a third golden sprint treble on his mind while double amputee runner Oscar Pistorius is simply delighted to be there when the World athletics championships begin on Saturday.
The South African Oscar Pistorius will make history in Daegu when he becomes the first amputee athlete to compete at the World championships, one step towards running at the 2012 London Olympics.
The 13th edition of the championships is the biggest sporting event of the year with 1,945 athletes from 202 countries set to compete for 47 gold medals over nine days until September 4.
Daegu marks the first World championships in mainland Asia after two editions in Japan at Tokyo 1991 and Osaka 2007.
Meanwhile, Asafa Powell, the fastest man in the world this season over 100m and defending champion Bolt's biggest rival, will miss the event at the championships, his agent Paul Doyle confirmed on Thursday.
The 28-year-old Jamaican has failed to recover from a niggling groin injury that also saw him skip the London Diamond League meet earlier this month, Doyle said.
“He's out of the 100m but he hopes to be back for the 4x100m relay,” which will be held on the final day of competition on September 4, Doyle said.
The men's 100m kicks off on the opening day of the Daegu Worlds, with the final being run on Sunday night.
“He's still suffering groin pains from the Budapest meet (in July). He pulled out of the London meet (August 5-6) and has not recovered sufficiently to take part in the 100m,” Doyle said. “He now has nine days to get ready for the relay.”
Memorable
The Jamaican Bolt is the top attraction at any event since he made himself immortal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing with golden World record runs in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m. The same treble with World record runs of 9.58 and 19.19 seconds in the individual events followed at the 2009 Worlds in Berlin.
Bolt has been beaten since by American Tyson Gay and is only the sixth-fastest in the 100m this year with 9.88 seconds, but it would be foolish to count out “Lightning Bolt” who has been training in South Korea for a week.
After all, season leader Asafa Powell (9.78) appears to be out of the Worlds, Gay is injured, Michael Rodgers (US) and Steve Mullings (Jamaica) are suspended after failing doping tests, while the 2005 champion Justin Gatlin is in his return season from a four-year doping ban.
Bolt has played down expectations by saying that world records will likely not be happening in his return from an injury-plagued 2010 campaign, but anything else than another three gold medals one year ahead of the London Olympics would come as a surprise.
“I am not in 9.5-second shape but I can run fast,” Bolt said on Thursday. “The world championship is the first step to become a legend. I am working on it. I am very focussed to win.”
Lamine Diack, president of the ruling body IAAF, has hailed Bolt as “arguably the most famous sports star of any sport in the world at the current time ... To have a star of that stature has enormous promotional benefits for athletics.”
While Bolt is a blessing for the sport and the IAAF, Pistorius had to fight his way into major able-bodied events via the Court of Arbitration for Sport and qualified for Daegu with a 400m time of 45.07 seconds after failing to qualify in 2008 and 2009.
Proud moment
“I have dreamt for such a long time of competing in major championships and this is a proud moment,” the South African Pistorius said.
Diack's welcome message was mixed. While he said “we admire this young chap” he also pointed out that “We let him compete this time,” suggesting that the ‘Blade Runner' could face further investigations on whether his running blades give him an advantage or not.
Pistorius will get into the starting blocks on Sunday for the heats of an event which sees World and Olympic champion LaShawn Merritt return from a 21-month doping ban while his main rival Jeremy Wariner, a two-time World champion and 2004 Olympic gold medallist is injured.
Another South African, Caster Semenya, will also got a lot of attention as the 800m runner comes to Daegu as title holder who was suspended for almost a year over a gender controversy.
Semenya is not the favourite this time a round and there is also a question mark on Russian pole vault queen Yelena Isinbayeva.
Isinbayeva famously no-heighted in 2009, responded a few days later by bettering her World record to 5.06m before taking 2010 off to reassess her career.
Ethiopian distance runner Kenenisa Bekele is coming off injury to defend his 5,000m and 10,000m double. Bekele can win a fifth straight 10,000m title on Saturday which will move him out of a tie with his mentor Haile Gebrselassie.
Allyson Felix of the US will be seeking a fourth straight women's 200m gold, a third 4x400m title and also a first 400m success which would make her the first woman to get a 200m and 400m double at the Worlds.
Fellow-American season leader Carmelita Jeter seeks to end Jamaica's recent 100m dominance from Shelly-Ann Fraser while the men's 110m hurdles will see a mouth-watering clash of the three fastest men in history: World and Olympic champion Dayron Robles of Cuba, China's Liu Xiang and David Oliver of the US.
South Korea, meanwhile, has never won medals at the championships and also has modest expectations entering the home event at Daegu stadium which is almost sold out for the championships. “We are expecting to have 10 finalists in 10 events. That's our goal in this championships,” said team chief coach Moon Bong Gi.
Blood test
The championships are the first in which all starters are blood-tested and an additional 500 urine doping tests will be carried out on the medallists and others in the biggest IAAF measure to date to fight substance abuse.
