TNT Sports
Will Arron choke?
By
Published 08/08/2005 at 20:20 GMT+1
French sprinter Christine Arron genuinely has the chance to confound her critics, winning her 100m semi in 10.96s on Monday. She enters the women's 100m final of the World championships as favourite, having established herself as form runner this season
Eurosport
Image credit: TNT Sports
Arron, 31, has never won a major championship medal and doubts persist about her mental strength coming into the big races. She qualified for the final on Monday with a superb 10.96s run in awful conditions, followed by Veronica Campbell, Muna Lee and MeLisa Barber.
"If I were fragile, I wouldn't be here today," Arron said in an interview before the championships.
"If I were mentally fragile, do you think I would have come back after every single injury, every failure, every setback and after having a baby?"
Arron won convincingly in the last European meet in Oslo and her Golden League times, 11.03s (twice) and 11.06s outline a consistency she has failed to achieve in the past and leave her one of only two athletes still in the hunt for the million dollar jackpot.
The elegant 31 year-old matched this 11.03s time to be fastest qualifying in Helsinki, but can she convert her circuit meeting form into a big-race performance?
TOUGH ASK
Her work will be cut out for her. Rapidly improving Olympic silver medallist Lauryn Williams is in confident mood:
"There is no other reason to be going for anything but gold .
"When you work really hard you should be going for the best and anything else"
Williams set a personal best of 10.94 this season at Lausanne, a race won by Chandra Sturrup in 10.88s. Arron came third in that race.
The experienced Bahamian Sturrup, who ran 11.10s in qualifying, is the fastest woman in the world this year with her aforementioned Swiss run, and is slowly turning it on when it counts.
Americans MeLisa Barber and Muna Lee are also looking good, and while she's been stragely absent since her Olympic title, Yuliya Nesterenko cannot be discounted.
Arron had built up a similar run of form going into last summer's Olympic games, unbeaten until her semi-final low-out - however, the media and athlete rounded on controversial psychological coach Fanny Didiot-Abadi.
So with Fanny summarily despatched, will Arron finally realise the undoubted potential that saw her set a European record of 10.73s as a 24 year-old, or will she choke again?
The semi-finals of the women's 100m are live on Eurosport & Eurosport.com/uk from 17:50cet with the final scheduled for 20:35.
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