Jamaican Olympic champion, Elaine Thompson-Herah will take on Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith in a headlining 100m race at the Birmingham Diamond League on May 21, reports BBC Sports.
The giant British media house noted on May 5 that Thompson-Herah, who defended her 100m-200m sprint titles in Tokyo last summer, is the second fastest woman of all time.
Britain’s Daryll Neita, a 100m finalist in Tokyo, has been added to the field, BBC Sports said, with American Gabrielle Thomas and Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson also part of a star-studded Alexander Stadium line-up.
Thompson-Herah ran 10.54 seconds in August, just five hundredths of a second short of the world record set by American Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, BBC Sports said.
“I’m obviously very proud of what I’ve achieved in my career so far, but there are more goals I want to achieve in the sport,” it quoted the 29-year-old Thompson-Herah as saying. “So, I’m now motivated to work even harder.”
“How Thompson-Herah bounced back to defend double Olympic crown
World 200m champion Asher-Smith pulled out of her Olympic individual events after a torn hamstring in the build-up to the Games hampered her preparation,” BBC Sports said. “However, the 26-year-old finished 2021 by running 10.87 seconds in Zurich in September, just four hundredths short of her 100m personal best.”
Thompson-Herah won that race in 10.65 and has beaten Asher-Smith in eight of their previous nine meetings over the distance, BBC Sports said.
It said Asher-Smith’s sole victory came when claiming silver at the 2019 World Championships in Doha.
