26th April 2022
POZZI TO LINE UP AGAINST REIGNING AND FORMER OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS IN BIRMINGHAM
Former world indoor champion Andrew Pozzi (GBR) will line up against reigning Olympic champion Hansle Parchment (JAM) and former Olympic champion Omar McLeod (JAM) in the 110m hurdles at the Müller Birmingham Diamond League at the Alexander Stadium on Saturday 21 May.
Pozzi, who won the global 60mH title in Birmingham in 2018, finished seventh in the 110mH at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. A former European indoor champion (2017) and runner-up in 2021, he made it to the semi-final stage of the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Championships.
Parchment won a surprise Olympic title ahead of favourite Grant Holloway (USA) in Tokyo to better the bronze he won in 2012. The experienced 31-year-old, who has a best of 12.94 dating back to 2014, was the World Championships silver medallist in 2015 and finished runner-up in the 2018 Commonwealth Games. He clocked 13.20 in his season-opener in Kingston on 23 April, the second-fastest time in the world this year to date.
2016 Olympic champion McLeod – the Jamaican national record holder with a best of 12.90 – won the world title in London in 2017 and the world indoor title in 2016. The 28-year-old opened his season with a 13.27 clocking in Florida in early April.
Stratford-Upon-Avon’s Pozzi has overcome a number of challenges in recent times, but with a new UK-based training and coaching setup, he is focused on a return to the kind of form that saw him run a PB-equalling 13.14 in Monaco in 2020.
“We have a packed season of athletics ahead and I have big goals,” said the 29-year-old, who most recently clocked a wind-aided 13.46 in the final of the PURE Athletics Spring Invitational meeting in Florida (23 April). “I’ve been training well, and I know that the times I’m capable of can get me onto the podium, I just have to keep working hard until I reach those standards and at the right time.
“I was disappointed not to reach the final of the World Indoors in Belgrade, but I’m continuing to make progress as I build towards the start of the summer and the prospect of three huge championships to aim for. Having finished seventh in the Tokyo Olympic final, I want to improve on that in Eugene and I’m excited to do so. I was sixth in the final of the Europeans in 2018 so I’ve got unfinished business there, and of course the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham – which is so close to home for me – will be incredibly special with friends and family filling the stands. I have so much to look forward to and I’m excited to compete in the refurbished Alexander Stadium and to get things back underway at the highest level at the Müller Diamond League in Birmingham.”
Pozzi, Parchment and McLeod are joined in an impressive line-up by World Championships bronze medallist and reigning European champion Pascal Martinot-Lagarde (FRA) who was fifth in Tokyo and second at the 2022 World Indoors; Olympic finalist Aurel Manga (FRA), a former world and European indoor medallist; and Great Britain’s David King who was sixth in the final of the 2022 World Indoor Championships.
The Müller Birmingham Diamond League is the second meeting of the 2022 Wanda Diamond League series. The series comprises 14 meetings in total, starting with Doha on 13 May and concluding with a single final across two days in Zurich (7-8 September). Each meeting will be broadcast globally in a live two-hour programme.
To enjoy this 110m Hurdles battle and the rest of an exciting Diamond League programme book your tickets now: