(Sports news) The 60 metres indoor race at the Orlen Copernicus Cup was a head to head battle between an established sprinter and the top 60 metre runner of the year. Elaine Thompson-Herah is certainly on top over the 100 and 200m sprints but Ewa Swoboda has been the fastest athlete in the 60 metres this season.
The five time Olympic champion has a personal best of 6.98 secs at the event, it is the joint 8th fastest in history but was recorded in 2017. Swoboda had run 7.00 secs two weeks ago which is the joint 10th fastest timing overall, the 24 year old holds the junior record of 7.07 secs and ran it while she was only 18.
The 2019 European indoor champion in the event had the top two fastest timings of this season and was only hundredth of a second away from breaking the 7 second barrier. So far only 9 women have run under 7 seconds with Murielle Ahoure being the last one to do it in 2018. The Jamaican hadn’t run the event in 3 years until this year and had won in Birmingham last week with a timing of 7.08 secs.
Thompson has not been able to bring out her best in the 60 metres, she picks up speed a bit slow but has been almost unbeatable in the 100m. In the shorter events, the athletes who have got the best start can hold onto the momentum as it is almost impossible to make a comeback in the 60m event with only so much time on the clock.
Thompson was in lane 5 and right next to her was Swoboda in lane 6. The Polish sprinter had the best start to the race as Thompson was placed third in the beginning, Pia Skrzyszowska had a terrific start as she was behind her country mate. Towards the end of the race, Thompson was ahead of Skrzyszowska and was almost caught up with Swoboda when they leaned in towards the finish. It was clear that the Olympic champion was defeated and the results showed her finishing a hundredth of a second behind Swoboda who had a timing of 7.03 secs.
“What will be, will be,” she added, with Thompson-Herah still undecided as to whether she will head to the global event in Serbia. “Belgrade is going to be good, for sure,” said Swoboda. “I think we can fight for a great result there.”
Skrzyszowska came in third with a timing of 7.14, the 20 year old was the youngest in the final. There were four Polish athletes in the final, Marika Popowicz-Drapała was the oldest among the 8 finalists as the 33 year old was placed 7th with a timing of 7.34.
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