Parchment can stop Holloway at Diamond League finals

OLYMPIC Champion Hansle Parchment and World Champion Grant Holloway of the United States will feature in a mouth-watering clash in the men’s 110-metre hurdles on Sunday, day two of the Wanda Diamond League final in Eugene, Oregon.

Holloway is the defending champion while Parchment will be hoping to go two places better after his third-place finish a year ago behind the American and Jamaica’s Rasheed Broadbell.

Holloway got the better of the slow-starting Parchment to win the world title in Budapest, Hungary last month. Parchment, despite another slow start at the Xiamen Diamond League in China, turned the tables on the American to post a season’s best 12.96 seconds at the September 2 meet.

The American has dominated this event over the past three years and only Parchment and Broadbell have been able to stop him during this time, and Parchment will be hoping to do so once again and have bragging rights ahead of his Olympic title defence next year in Paris.

Both have contrasting styles. Holloway is an extremely fast starter while Parchment is known for his excellent top-end speed after a slow start, and usually finishes like a runaway train .

In his last race at the World Continental Tour series in Croatia, Parchment showed some improvement with his start where he got the better of American Daniel Roberts, the bronze medallist in Budapest. Another start like that, or better, will definitely give the Jamaican the edge as, once he is close to Holloway early in the race, he should win as the American is a very poor finisher.

Holloway will definitely need to get a big lead early if he hopes to hold off the strong-finishing Parchment.

The event is expected to be a thriller as Holloway, the three-time world champion who was second to Parchment at the Tokyo Olympics, will want to avenge his last defeat to the Jamaican.

With both athletes showing good form in the event, it is too close to call. On the very fast Eugene track, Broadbell’s world-leading time of 12.94 seconds, set in Jamaica in July, is in danger here, and a sub 12.9 time is possible.