World Champs Murer, Cantwell headline field events at 104th Millrose Games
Christian Cantwell
NEW YORK – Two of the world’s most talked-about field event athletes will ply their trades when reigning World Indoor Champions Christian Cantwell and Fabiana Murer contest the men’s shot put and women’s pole vault, respectively, at the 104th Millrose Games. Although two of the biggest stars of the meet, they will also face some of the fiercest competition of the night.
The 104th Millrose Games will be contested Friday, January 28, 2011 at Madison Square Garden. The first event of USA Track & Field’s Visa Championship Series, the Millrose Games will be televised live from 8-10 p.m. Eastern Time on ESPN2.
Murer vs. Suhr in PV
One of the break-out international track and field stars of 2010, Brazilian icon Fabiana Murer out-dueled world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva to win the 2010 World Indoor Championships gold medal in Doha, Qatar. Outdoors, the South American record holder posted the second-highest height of the year, 4.85m/15-11. Coming off such a spectacular year and making her Millrose debut, Murer in 2011 will grace the cover of the event program for the 104th Millrose Games.
The woman who topped the 2010 performance charts, 2008 Olympic and World Indoor silver medalist Jenn Suhr of Rochester, N.Y., returns to Millrose searching for her second victory at the Garden. The American record holder indoors and outdoors, Suhr was the 2009 Millrose champion and led the world in 2010 with her winning height of 4.89m/16-0.5 at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Des Moines, Iowa.
2004 Olympian Jillian Schwartz, competing for Israel, as well as Americans Melinda Owen and Becky Holliday, will complete the Millrose field.
Past, present and future in men’s shot put
The three-time defending World Indoor Champion and 2009 World Outdoor gold medalist in the shot put, Christian Cantwell enjoyed an utterly dominant year in 2010, in which he was ranked #1 in the world and won the 2010 Indoor Visa Championship as the top male performer of the Visa Championship Series. He threw farther than 70 feet in 20 different meets and won the Diamond League title in the shot.
As is customary at Millrose, Cantwell will face the very best the U.S. and the world has to offer in a field of four men. Two-time Olympic silver medalist and 2005 World Outdoor Champion Adam Nelson, the owner of no fewer than seven Olympic World Indoor and/or World Outdoor medals, is joined by 2007 World Outdoor and 2006 World Indoor champion Reese Hoffa, as well as recently graduated six-time NCAA champion Ryan Whiting of Arizona State. With his third straight NCAA Indoor victory in 2010, Whiting became the first man in 35 years to win three consecutive NCAA indoor titles in the event and signaled that he is a future force. Whiting also is a two-time NCAA outdoor champion in the shot put and the 2010 discus champ.
