Bolt in 100m heats, a trio of Canadian women in the 1,500m and Farah goes for gold : London 2017 Day 1 Preview

The IAAF World Championships in London are set to start this afternoon. Here's who's up on the track for day one:

Dan Way August 4, 2017

The 2017 IAAF World Championships kick off today in London, England and the first day promises to be a dandy.

Although one of Canada’s pre-competition favourites–100 and 200m speedster Andre DeGrasse–has pulled out due to injury, the men’s 100m heats will see some of the world’s fastest men start their quest for gold at one of track’s preeminent races. Jamaica’s Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake and infamous American Justin Gatlin are certainly among the favourites and will run heats starting at 3:20 p.m. EST.

Canadian Brendon Rodney will run in heat one of the preliminary round (starting at 2:00 p.m. EST) and as such will be among the very first competitors to take to the track. He’ll look to advance to the subsequent heats and must finish top three in his heat or run one of the next two fastest times to do so. After DeGrasse’s unfortunate omission, the only other Canadian entered in the event is Gavin Smellie who will run in the heats.

Three Canadians will be on the track for the women’s 1,500m heats that start at 2:35 p.m. EST. Nicole Sifuentes, Sheila Reid and Gabriela Stafford are each in separate heats, of which the first six finishers (plus the next sixth fastest) go through to the semis. All stand a reasonably good chance of advancing but will face stiff competition from all sides.

The pre-race favourites include current world record holder Ethiopian Genzebe Dibaba; Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands who trains with the Nike Oregan Project and Faith Kipyegon of Kenya who won gold at last summer’s Rio Olympic games. But local Laura Muir, American Jenny Simpson and controversial 800m specialist Caster Semenya of South Africa will certainly make things interesting.

Off the track, two Canadians–Kelsie Ahbe, Alysha Newman and Anicka Newell–will compete in the qualification round of the women’s pole vault starting at 2:45 p.m. EST.

In the evening’s signature event–the men’s 10,000m–it’s Britain’s Mo Farah against the world (or at least the Africans) as he looks to win (and potentially double) his fifth consecutive major competition in five years. Farah is among the most decorated athletes in history and has won gold in each the 10,000m and 5,000m at both previous Olympics–in Rio and London–and World Championships–in Beijing and Moscow–as well as won gold at 5,000m at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu (where is only managed to take silver in the 10,000m).

Trying to end Farah’s reign and with the best odds of doing so will be two Ethiopians–Jemal Yimer and Abadi Hadris–who come into the race with seasonal bests, 27:09.08 and 27:08.26 respectively, better than Farah’s as well as a trio of Kenyans with personals bests under 27 minutes. Canadian Mohammad Ahmed is also entered and will look to improve upon his less than spectacular finish in the same event at the Rio Olympics (where he finished dead last). Ahmed is also running the 5,000m which takes place a full week later and is by-far his stronger event.

The race is scheduled to start at 4:20 p.m. EST and has 24 starters.

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