Zoe Hobbs has the exciting prospect of racing new women’s 100m world champion Sha’Carri Richardson and legendary Jamaican sprinter Elaine Thompson-Herah at the Zürich Diamond League in Switzerland on Friday morning (NZT).
Richardson, 23, blitzed the field in a world championship-record 10.65s to win gold in Budapest last week.
The Kiwi lined up against the American in a “stacked” heat of the world championships last Tuesday, which also included Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson who ran the second-fastest 200m in history at the meet.
With a heat time of 11.02s, Hobbs was just 0.01s away from making New Zealand athletic history, as the first Kiwi athlete, male or female, to ever make a world championships 100m final. She ended Budapest 23 as the 10th fastest woman in the world. Hobbs, 25, has a personal best time of 10.96s recorded in Switzerland in July.
Richardson and Thompson-Herah are the main drawcards in the women’s 100m in Zürich.
The 31-year-old Jamaican’s 10.54s in 2021 is the second-fastest women’s 100m ever, behind American sprinter Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 10.49 in 1988.
Thompson-Herah is the first woman to win the sprint double at consecutive Olympics, winning gold in the 100m and 200m at Rio in 2016 and Tokyo in 2020.