Fraser-Pryce Eyes Unique Treble On Day 2 Of Olympic Athletics

Tokyo, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jul, 2021 ) :The second day of athletics at the Tokyo Olympics takes place on Saturday. AFP Sport looks at five stand-out events: Women's 100m - final Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce continues her bid to become the first woman to win a single individual Olympic athletics event three times, to add to the 100m victories she claimed in 2008 and 2012.

The competition is set to be fierce, with a raft of fast times in Friday's heats.

Her compatriot Elaine Thompson-Herah is the defending champion in both the 100 and 200m, and likely to be pushing for another medal.

Also in the running will be Britain's Dina Asher-Smith, the world 200m champion and silver medallist in the 100m in Doha in 2019, and Ivory Coast's Marie-Josee Ta Lou after the latter equalled the African record of 10.78sec in the heats.

Mixed relay - final This was to have been the race in which Allyson Felix, the elder stateswoman of US track, became the most decorated female track and field athlete in Games history.

Her hopes were dashed when the US quartet was disqualified in the heat of an event that is making its Olympic debut.

Instead Felix will have to wait for the individual 400m and the 4x400m relay to add to her nine medals, a dazzling haul that includes six golds and three silvers. The 35-year-old is currently tied on nine medals with Jamaican legend Merlene Ottey.

Men's 100m - heats The Tokyo Olympics are the first since Athens in 2004 to take place without Jamaica's Usain Bolt, winner of eight golds.

Bolt retired after the 2017 world championships in London, after taking three consecutive Olympic 100m titles in Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro, as well as three straight 200m crowns.

Among those attempting to follow in his footsteps in Japan will be Trayvon Bromell, who ruptured his Achilles during the 4x100m relay in Rio, where he had earlier finished eighth in the 100m final.

He owns the fastest time this year, having run 9.77sec in June in Florida, the seventh-fastest time in history.

US teammates Ronnie Baker and Fred Kerley are sure to offer some decent competition alongside South African Akani Simbine.

Women's 400m hurdles - heats American star Sydney McLaughlin takes to the track in the 400m hurdles, fresh from setting a world record and beating reigning world and Olympic champion Dalilah Muhammad in the US trials.

McLaughlin made her Olympic debut in Rio in 2016 where she finished fifth in the semi-finals, but insists she is a different person now.

"My goals are different now," she said. "A lot of my life was trying to prove something, which is an endless cycle that will never fulfill you." Men's pole vault - qualification Armand Duplantis, one of the pin-ups of track and field, will make his Olympic bow.

Aged just 21, the world record holder from Sweden known as "Mondo" has been hyped up as one of the new faces of athletics.

One of his main rivals, two-time world champion Sam Kendricks will be absent after the American tested positive for Covid-19 and was ruled out of the Games.

"If you were to say that, I don't think you'd be too wrong," Duplantis said when asked whether Kendricks would have been his biggest rival.

The American was "somebody that was definitely going to push me in the entire final and qualifying", he said.