Newcomers Challenge Gatlin, Veterans in Pre Classic 100

            Eugene, Oregon – Four former winners of the Prefontaine Classic 100 meters will be challenged by four relative newcomers to the world stage as all prepare for the most famous century race of them all – the Olympics!

            The four previous Pre Classic champions collectively have won five of the six IAAF Diamond League titles and 17 individual major medals, including seven golds, while the newcomers have but one medal, a bronze, and just one previous appearance at the Pre Classic.

            Still, the Pre Classic 100 figures to be a thriller as all but one has run sub-10 and the field includes the two fastest of the early season.
 
            Justin Gatlin, 34, had his fastest season ever in 2015, earning the No. 1 world ranking by Track & Field News for the second straight year – the first American to do so since Maurice Greene took four in a row in 1998-2001.  He narrowly lost the gold in Beijing at the World Championships in August in his only loss of the year at this distance.  Gatlin ran 9.78 or faster five times last year – the most by anyone in one season.

            Gatlin is the last American to win Olympic gold in this event, winning the 2004 Games in Athens and then the 100/200 double in the 2005 World Championships.  He has won the IAAF Diamond League each of the last three years.  Gatlin is a five-time Pre Classic winner – four in this event (including the meet’s fastest with a wind-aided 9.76w in 2014) and one in the 200 (last year with a meet record 19.68).
 
            Asafa Powell, 33, of Jamaica is the king of sub-10 clockings, amassing 100 of them (93 wind-allowable, 7 wind-aided).  He has had at least one every year beginning in 2004 (all sub-9.90, in fact) and is looking for his first of 2016 after an impressive 10.04 season-opener.  Along with Carl Lewis, Powell’s name appears the most on the world record progression, setting or tieing the WR four times.  A two-time former No. 1 by T&FN, he was ranked No. 4 last year – his highest since a No. 4 in 2012, the year he made his third-straight Olympic final.

            Powell is coming off his best individual performance in a major, earning silver at the World Indoor Championships in Portland in March, where he twice ran a Jamaican record 6.44 in the 60 meters.  He is the Pre Classic winner from 2006 and won the Diamond League trophy in 2011.
 
            Tyson Gay, 33, is the American record holder at 9.69 in 2009 and owns the fastest time ever seen at Hayward Field, a wind-aided 9.68 at the 2008 Olympic Trials.  He also holds the Hayward Field record, having run 9.77 in '08. He has set the American record three times, the most since Carl Lewis’ four in 1987-91.

            Gay won last year’s Pre Classic 100 and U.S. title in a season that saw him end up No. 3 in the T&FN world rankings – his only appearance since 2010, when he was No. 1 (matching 2007).  Winner of the first Diamond League title in 2010, Gay was inches behind Gatlin for the bronze medal in the 2012 London Olympics.  In 2007, Gay won World Championships gold medals in the 100 and 200.
 
            Mike Rodgers, 32, extended his streak of T&FN world rankings to seven last year – the most by an American since Maurice Greene’s eight in 1997-2004.  Rodgers is aiming for his first Olympics, missing joining Gatlin and Gay on the U.S. 2012 team by just 0.01 seconds.  He did, however, make the last two World Championships finals and in 2010 earned silver in the 60 at the World Indoor Championships.  Rodgers is the only American to run sub-10 in each year since 2009.
 
            Andre De Grasse, 21, of Canada moved to world class last year, winning the 100/200 double at the NCAA Championships for USC at Hayward Field with wind-aided times of 9.75 and 19.58.  He won double golds last July at the Pan-American Games, then delivered a jewel in August with a PR 9.92 to earn bronze in Beijing at the World Championships.  He finished the season with his first T&FN world rankings, No. 5 in the 100 and No. 6 in the 200 – the only other Canadian man to rank in both events in the same year was Oregon alum Harry Jerome, who did it three times in the 1960s.
 
            China’s Bingtian Su, 26, finished 3^rd in last year’s Pre Classic, becoming the first from China to run sub-10 at 9.99.  It was a time he equaled in August in the semfinals at the World Championships in Beijing, qualifying him for the final to the crowd’s obvious delight.  He later ran on the silver medal 4x100 team.  This year indoors he set an Asian record 6.50 in the 60, making the final of the World Indoor Championships in Portland.
 
            Qatar’s Femi Ogunode, 25 is the world’s fastest this year at 9.91, equaling the Asian record he set last year when he ranked No. 9 in the world by T&FN.  He won the 100/200 double at last year’s Asian Championships after Asian Games doubles in 2010 (100/200) and 2014 (200/400).  His range includes PRs of 19.97 in the 200 and 45.12 in the 400.
 
            American Ameer Webb, 25, is a former NCAA 200 champ indoors and outdoors while at Texas A&M who has been the find of the early season.  He has run sub-20 twice with the fastest at 19.85 to win the Doha Diamond League meet.  In the 100, he has lowered his PR to 10.03, plus cracked the 10-second barrier at the Mt. SAC Relays with a wind-aided 9.90, equaling Gatlin for the fastest time of 2016 under any conditions.
 

            Fans can follow the event lineups on eugene.diamondleague.com.  The direct link to current start/entry lists is posted HERE and will include updates to all announced fields.  Additional news, photos, and videos may be found on PreClassic.com, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
 
            Tickets for the 42^nd annual edition of the Prefontaine Classic, to be held May 27-28 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., are available now at www.GoDucks.com as well as from 1-800-WEBFOOT.

            The Prefontaine Classic is the longest-running outdoor invitational track & field meet in America and is part of the elite IAAF Diamond League of meets held worldwide annually.  The Pre Classic’s results score has rated No. 1 or No. 2 in the world in each of the last five years by All-Athletics.com, the official data partner of the Diamond League.  Sponsored by NIKE continuously since 1984, the Prefontaine Classic will be shown live to an international audience and by NBC and NBC Sports Network.

            Steve Prefontaine is a legend in the sport of track & field and is the most inspirational distance runner in American history.  He set a national high school 2-mile record (8:41.5) while at Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, Oregon, that is the fastest ever in a National Federation-sanctioned race.  While competing for the University of Oregon, he won national cross country championships (3) and outdoor track 3-Mile/5000-meter championships (4), and never lost a collegiate track race at any distance.  As a collegiate junior, he made the 1972 U.S. Olympic Team and nearly won an Olympic medal, finishing 4^th in the 5K at the 1972 Munich Olympics, at age 21.  After finishing college in 1973 and preparing for a return to the Olympics in 1976, he continued to improve, setting many American records.  His life ended tragically on May 30, 1975, the result of an auto accident, at age 24.  The Pre Classic began that year and has been held every year since.