Greene ready for assault on record in Monte Carlo
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Your support makes all the difference.Typical! Three British records in eight days, then nothing for nearly a fortnight. There could be some making up for lost time in Monte Carlo tonight, where there is a possibility of British records coming along like London buses in the IAAF Diamond League.
Kriss Akabusi's 400m hurdles record, 47.82sec, set by the laughing cavalier of the one-lap barrier event in securing Olympic bronze in Barcelona on 6 August, 1992, has been living on borrowed time since Dai Greene's emergence as a world class act. Greene has a season's best of 48.20sec, ranking him only sixth fastest in the world, but the 25-year-old Welshman has proved himself to be the global leader in his event on merit.
Tonight, he faces all five men above him in the rankings: South Africans Louis Van Zyl and Cornel Fredericks and Americans Jeshua Anderson, Bershawn Jackson and Angelo Taylor. Given a fair wind – or, a lack of any – the Swansea Harrier, a mightily impressive winner ahead of Jackson in Birmingham a fortnight ago, could be pushed inside Akabusi's record.
"I want to get it," Greene said. "I'd love to get it, but I go into every race just concentrating on winning. I know that as long as I win the races the times will eventually come."
In all, there have been six British records so far this summer, two of them set by athletes who are in action in Monte Carlo tonight: Mo Farah and Tiffany Ofili-Porter. Having smashed Jon Brown's 10,000m record in Eugene in May, the in-form Farah is more than capable of revising the national 5,000m figures of 12min 57.94sec he set in Zurich last year. The 5,000m field includes the former world champion Bernard Lagat, who has mooted an attack on his US record of 12:54.12.
The line-up for the women's 100m hurdles features four athletes who have run 12.58sec or quicker this summer. In their slipstream, the American-born Ofili-Porter could be dragged inside the British record time of 12.77sec she clocked in May. Goldie Sayers, in the javelin, also has the potential to revise a national mark in a meeting in which Usain Bolt contests the 100m, seeking to improve his season's best of 9.91sec, and in which Phillips Idowu goes in the triple jump.
There is also a strong British contingent at the Reunion International meeting in Barcelona tonight – including Chris Tomlinson, who broke the British long jump record in Paris a fortnight ago.
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