Triple Pleasure in Pre Classic Women’s Triple Jump

            Eugene, Oregon – They were 1-2-3 on the podium at the 2013 World Championships.  They were 1-2-3 in the Track & Field News world rankings in 2014. And 1-2-3 are ready to take off in the Prefontaine Classic this Saturday.

            Caterine Ibarguen of Colombia is the reigning World Championships gold medalist.  In addition to winning the last two IAAF Diamond Trophies, Ibarguen was No. 1 in the last two year’s Track & Field News world rankings.  The most recent Pre Classic winner (2013) is a multi-talented athlete, high jumping jumped 6-4 (1.93) ten years ago and scoring a heptathlon total of 5742 in 2009.  Ibarguen has an early Diamond League lead by winning the Shanghai meet earlier this month. Most mpressively, she has the longest winning streak in the sport--23 straight--dating back to the last meet of 2012!

            Russia’s Yekaterina Koneva won gold last year in the World Indoor Championships.  She was ranked No. 2 in the world the last two years by T&FN and is set for her first competition on U.S. soil.  Koneva won the European Indoor title in March and silver in last summer’s European Championships.

            Olha Saladukha of Ukraine was No. 3 in the T&FN world rankings the last two years.  She was also No. 1 in 2011, the same year she earned gold at the World Championships and won the Pre Classic in a meet record of 49-1¾ (14.98) as part of season resulting in the IAAF Diamond Trophy.  The 2012 Olympic bronze medalist also claimed bronze at the 2013 World Championships.  She won her third consecutive European Championships title last year in Zurich.

            Amanda Smock has won a U.S. title (indoors and/or outdoors) every year since 2011 for a combined total of seven championships.  She will be competing in her first Pre Classic.

            China’s Yanmei Li, a 2012 Olympian, will be competing in the U.S. for the first time.  At 25, she is the youngest in the field and won the 2008 Asian Junior Championships.

            Keila de Silva Costa of Brazil is a three-time Olympian whose best international finish is in the long jump – a bronze medal in the 2010 World Indoor Championships.

            Yosiris Urrutia is a four-time Columbian long jump champion. Her best triple jump of 47-10 (14.58) is second only to Ibarguen in Columbia.

            Two jumpers – Ibarguen and Saladukha – are looking for an additional IAAF Diamond Trophy.  Ibarguen holds a 15-4 head-to-head record.
 

            Fans can follow the event lineups as all announced fields are posted at  <link http: www.preclassic.com _blank>PreClassic.com.  The direct link to current start/entry lists is <link http: preclassic.runnerspace.com _blank>HERE and will include updates to all announced fields.
 
            Tickets for the 41^st annual edition of the Prefontaine Classic, to be held May 29-30 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., are available now from goducks.com and from 1-800-WEBFOOT.  Sponsored by NIKE continuously since 1984, the Prefontaine Classic will be shown live to an international audience and by NBC Sports from 1:30 till 3:00 p.m. PT on Saturday, May 30.

            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 four years by All-Athletics.com, the official data partner of the IAAF Diamond League.

            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.