San Juan, 17 Mar Ten Olympic champions from five continents will compete on May 12 in the first edition of the Puerto Rico International Athletics Classic, to be held in Ponce (south), the organizers reported this Thursday. Among those champions are American Ryan Crouser, with victories in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 and world record in bullet throwing; Puerto Rican Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, gold in Tokyo in the 100 meter hurdles, and Bahamian Steve Gardiner, Olympic champion of the 400 meters. “I am very excited to return to Puerto Rico and ready to achieve a world record,” said Camacho-Quinn, who in addition to winning the gold medal in Tokyo also set the Olympic record of 12.26 seconds. Camacho-Quinn will be among the nearly 100 athletes who will participate in the event, which will be held at the new athletic track of the Francisco “Paquito” Montaner stadium. “In Ponce we will have athletes from virtually every continent,” said the event director, Victor Lopez, who mentioned that in addition to the ten Olympic medalists, another 15 Jamaicans with Olympic experience will also compete in the event. Other outstanding runners who will participate are American Christian Taylor, two-time Olympic champion in triple jump, and Marileidy Paulino, Dominican silver medalist in the 400 meters and 4 x 400 meters combined in Tokyo 2020. Also competing will be the gold, silver and bronze medalists of the shooting of the bullet in Tokyo, Americans Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs, and New Zealand's Tom Walsh, as well as Dutch Sifan Hassan, who holds the 10,000-meter world record. “The Ponce event is going to make an incredible impact,” said López, who is the second vice president of the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee and chaired the Athletics Association of North America, Central America and the Caribbean from 2013 to 2019. The competition will be dedicated to Puerto Rican Javier Culson, bronze medalist in the 400 metres hurdles at the London 2012 Olympic Games, and twice world runner-up (Berlin 2009 and Daegu 2011). Lopez said he felt “rejoiced” that a competition of this magnitude returns to Puerto Rico, especially in Ponce, where a similar event took place for ten years and in 2010 Culson set a Puerto Rican record by running 47.72 seconds in 400 meters hurdles. In addition, the organization intends to leave a clear lane for Puerto Ricans who are at the level of this competition, including the Tokyo 2020 Olympians in the 800 meters Wesley Vazquez, Ryan Sanchez and Andrés Arroyo. “We are in a moment of development,” said López, who explained that the event will cost 1 million dollars and will be broadcast for about two hours live on the ESPN2 channel. The event is part of the World Athletics Continental Tour - Silver Level -, organized by the Puerto Rican Foundation for the Development of Athletics Sport (Fuppda), which owns the franchise of this competition. CHIEF jm/mv/apa (photo)
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