Venue: Letzigrund Stadium, Zurich Dates: 7-8 September |
Coverage: Watch live on BBC Two and BBC Red Button on Wednesday and BBC Two and BBC Three on Thursday |
Jamaican world champion Shericka Jackson says she is targeting the 34-year-old 200m world record set by American great Florence Griffith-Joyner in Thursday’s Diamond League final.
Griffith-Joyner won Olympic gold at Seoul 1988 in 21.34 seconds.
“I’m very great at the 200m,” said Jackson with a smile. “I am definitely looking for a fast, fast time.”
“At the World Championships I had a lot in my legs and was still able to run 21.4 seconds so to come out here, I expect to perform at my best.”
Jackson played down fears that the timetable for the season finale in Zurich may hamper her.
She is also competing in the 100m final, 80 minutes before she runs in the longer distance.
“That recovery is enough for me. I want to challenge myself and I think here is the best place to do it,” she added.
Jackson revealed that she set her World Championships-winning time as a goal earlier in the season and has since revised it downwards.
“Before this season I wrote that exact time on a piece of paper,” she said.
“I left it on my trophy stand so every time I step in my house or go to training I know I have that target…. I wanted it so badly.
“I went back home [after the Worlds] and I wrote another time because I definitely want to go faster and I think I am capable of doing that.
“If it is not done tomorrow then definitely I come back next year and work even harder.”
Asked if her new goal would break Joyner-Griffiths’ world record, she replied that it was “definitely round about there”.
Fraser-Pryce saved by school email
Jackson will take on her friend and compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in the 100m final, with Great Britain’s Daryll Neita also in the field.
Fraser-Pryce, 35, believes she can end her season by improving on the 10.60-second personal best she set in Lausanne in 2021.
Only two women have ever run faster. Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah clocked 10.54 in the wake of her win in Tokyo, while Griffith-Joyner’s 10.49 world record has remained out of reach since July 1988.
Fraser-Pryce may not have matched last season’s best but she has hit new levels of consistency. She has run six of the 18 fastest times in history this year.
“What drives me is that I am at this point of my career, is that I have dreamt of running 10.6 seconds and now being able to do that consistently, I want to challenge myself every time I step to the line,” she said.
“I am definitely chasing a personal best.”
Fraser-Pryce also revealed that she is only taking part in Zurich after her five-year son Zyon’s return to school was delayed.
“It was going to be his first day and Zurich was not going to happen,” she added.
“I was ready to go home and it was like divine intervention in that I got an email from his school saying they were postponing, so that is why I am here.”