体坛英语新闻：Jamaica looks to confront USA in women's 100m final

DAEGU, South Korea, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- The final of the women's 100m at Daegu worlds will take place at 1245 GMT on Monday, when Jamaican sprinters are expected to challenge USA, to be exactly Carmelita Jeter.

The semifinals will be held at 1030 GMT at Daegu stadium, which witnessed the USA trying in vain to overturn formidable Jamaica in men's 100m final on Sunday night, despite Usain Bolt's unexpected disqualification.

Unlike the men's 100m, in which the Caribbean athletics power dominates, it is the USA which has a slight edge in the women's 100m thanks to Jeter, who is tipped to win the title in Daegu.

Jeter for a second successive season has proved herself the world's most capable 100m performer, and after finishing third at the last two world championships, she must feel this is going to be her golden year.

The 31-year-old Californian is the second fastest of all-time over women's 100m (10.64sec) behind fellow American Florence Griffith-Joyner, who set the current world record of 10.49sec in 1988.

Jeter's season best is 10.70sec, the fastest among the 24 sprinters who enter the semifinals.

She must feel this is going to be the big time occasion when she can finally trump her rivals and restore USA pride by becoming its sixth champion in an always hotly-contested event.

Her archrival from Jamaica is 29-year-old Veronica Campbell-Brown. The Jamaican sprinter's season best is 10.76, which she achieved in Ostrava on May 31.

Campbell-Brown, the reigning Olympic 200m champion, is just one less than the world leader under her belt. She has a very high profile in the 100m, with a third place at the 2004 Athens Games and a silver medal in the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki. In Osaka in 2007, she beat Jeter and her American teammate Lauryn Williams to win the gold.

Campbell-Brown also beat Jeter on May 15 of 2011 at the Shanghai leg of the Diamond League circuit, by 0.03sec.

Apart from Campbell-Brown, Jeter will also be confronted by other sprinters whose personal season bests are all below 11sec, should they all enter the final.

They are Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (10.95) and Kerron Stewart (10.87) of Jamaica, Marshevet Myers of USA (10.86), Oludamola Osayomi of Nigeria (10.99), Kelly-Ann Baptiste of Trinidad and Tobago (10.91), and Ivet Lalova of Belarus (10.96).

Defending world champion Fraser-Pryce, 25, won the gold in the women's 100m both at the Beijing Olympics and the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.

By all measures, it won't be an easy game for Jeter.