Europe vs. USA 2019: the track meet you don’t want to miss
USATF and European Athletics have agreed to a dual track meet in the lead up to the Doha 2019 World Championships
It was announced on Tuesday that Europe and the USA will go head to head in a track meet in September 2019 in Belarus. The competition plans on including every event up to the 3,000m, excluding the 4x400m and including the 4x100m. The event will serve as a warmup for the World Championships in Doha that start on September 28th.
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“We welcome the opportunity for our athletes to compete in a team match leading up to the 2019 World Championships,” USATF CEO Max Siegel told European Athletics. “We look forward to visiting Belarus for this great competition.”
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The match will take place in the newly renovated Dinamo Stadium, which was reopened in June 2018. This is reminiscent of the USA versus USSR track meets that took place from 1958 through 1985. The dual meet happened 19 times, with the 1962 meet at Stanford in California attracting nearly 150,000 spectators.
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The prize money is quite generous. Positions one through eight will be awarded 7,000, 5,000, 4,000, 3,000, 2,000, 1,000, 500 and 500 euros respectively. Relay teams will receive 6,000, 4,000 and 2,000 euros for places one through three.
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Now the question becomes, can the USA take on an entire continent? With heavy hitters like Noah Lyles, Sydney McLaughlin, and Christian Coleman they will be a difficult team to beat, but can they take on all of Europe? Find out next summer.
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