What we know – I think: A Column By Len Johnson

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A fit Sally Pearson can win the 100 metres hurdles at the world championships in Daegu.

Tyson Gay cannot win the 100 metres. Asafa Powell can. Usain Bolt probably will.

David Rudisha is back on track to win a world championships gold medal to sit alongside his 800-metres world record plaques.

If timing is everything, Allyson Felix appears to have picked precisely the right time to attempt, or at least seriously consider, a 200/400 metres world championships double.

If Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibaba or Steve Hooker is to defend the titles they won in Berlin they will have to hit the ground running, or falling from a great height, pretty soon. Likewise, Olympic champion and world record holder, Yelena Isinbayeva.

Mid to late-June brought the European Team championships, the US and Jamaican championships and the resumption of the Diamond League in Lausanne.

Let the last be first. Despite its sometimes-wild early summer weather, Lausanne usually produces a slew of outstanding performances. Remember Usain Bolt running 19.59 in pouring rain in 2009 and Steve Hooker sending plumes of water spraying in all directions when he hit the landing bags on his winning vault?

This year it was chilly and windy, but that didn’t deter Sally Pearson one little bit. The Beijing 2008 silver medallist was having her first start in Europe and she stamped her authority immediately, with a 12.47w win over Danielle Carruthers of the US.

US champion Kellie Wells was back in sixth place and there were decidedly sub-par performances from Jamaican pair Delloreen Ennis-London, eighth, and 2009 world champion Brigitte Foster-Hylton, a non-starter in the B-race.

It seemed likely 2009 would be Pearson’s year as she continued on from her Olympic silver. It was not to be, however, as an ill-timed back injury cut her down and she finished fifth in Berlin – good, but not as good as it might have been.

Perhaps 2011 will be the year it all goes right.

As always, championships answer some questions and pose others. The US championships are brutal in the events in which the US has depth. One-2-3 are in, the rest can please themselves. So when Tyson Gay was not able to take his place in the semi-finals of the 100, that meant he was out of the Daegu team. (He is apparently out for the season, too, meaning no Bolt-Gay-Powell clash for another year.)

Across the north American continent, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, Asafa Powell was coming into the Jamaican championships beset by doubts. Actually, the former world record holder was beset by the doubts of others after pulling up in a race in Morocco a few weeks earlier with a hamstring cramp/strain. The man himself was insisting all was well.

For once, Powell turned out to be the best judge of his physical, and mental, health. Despite a clash of arms with Steve Mullings as they came off the blocks, he came through to beat Bolt’s young training partner Yohan Blake and Mullings to take the title.

Now, in Lausanne, Powell has run the year’s fastest to date of 9.78 – the eighth sub-9.80 of his career, one more than Gay, two more than Bolt. (Thanks to Ken Nakamura, I can tell you he also has 68 sub-10s and 33 sub-9.90s.)

Can he convert this into one world championships gold medal. Hard to say, but it seems clear that he, Gay and Bolt still stand clear of the rest. Gay is out, Bolt’s physical shape is equivocal (albeit heading ominously in the right direction), so maybe, just maybe, this could be Powell’s year.

In March, it seemed it certainly would be David Rudisha’s year. Having set two world record in the 800 in 2010, the young Kenyan opened 2011 with yet another 1:43 in Melbourne, followed by a further win in Sydney. Injury then struck, however, a dodgy ankle threatening to bring it all undone.

Now, Rudisha has returned with two excellent results within a week. First, he ran a world-leading 1:43.46 in a low-key French meeting and now he has run 1:44.15 to win in Lausanne. He doesn’t appear to be in the same awe-inspiring shape as last season but, like Bolt, if he is back healthy then time is on his side.

Allyson Felix is not yet confirmed as a 200-400 doubler in Daegu, but as defending champion in the former and US champion in the latter, is eligible for both events at the world championships.

If she does attempt the double (previously done by Michael Johnson at the 1995 worlds and Johnson and Marie-Jose Perec at the 1996 Olympics), Felix may find the timing is just right. Olympic champion Veronica Campbell-Brown will be tough at 200, but the 400 looks more open with defending champion Sanya Richards-Ross slow to return to top form from injury.

At least Richards-Ross is back on the track. Berlin champions Bekele, Dibaba (5000 and 10,000) and Hooker and Olympic champion Isinbayeva are yet to get there.

Hooker is slated to return at Monaco on 22 July and may compete before that. Bekele is said to have several months training behind him after a persistent calf injury and to be returning sometime this month.

Dibaba is an unknown quantity at this stage and Isinbayeva competed twice in the indoor season, but has yet to appear in outdoor competition.

Of course, you would write any or all of these champions off at your peril, but the clock is ticking. There are more questions to be asked and answered yet.