Crystal Palace to roll out red carpet

13 April 2012

Britain's European Championship heroes will all be guaranteed a special homecoming celebration in London to mark their achievements in Munich.

All 12 of the team's individual medallists at the championships are expected to attend the Norwich Union Grand Prix at Crystal Palace a week on Friday for a night of athletics which organisers are confident will reflect the excitement generated during the last fortnight's action in both Manchester and Munich.

Most will be competing, including all four of the individual men's champions - Steve Backley, Jonathan Edwards, Dwain Chambers and Colin Jackson - while those who have no competition on the programme, including women's triple jump champion Ashia Hansen, will also be invited along to take a bow.

Organisers are also confident of persuading Paula Radcliffe - the biggest draw of all after her two extraordinary triumphs at the Commonwealth Games and the Europeans - to take a break from her French training camp at Font Romeu, where she is preparing for October's Chicago Marathon, to receive a hero's welcome.

The main racing attraction, though, will be the rematch over 800 metres between bronze medallist Kelly Holmes and Slovenia's new champion Jolanda Ceplak.

After the furore surrounding Holmes's pointed post-race comments about competing clean, it will doubtless be billed as the biggest grudge match at the Palace since Mary Slaney and Zola Budd crossed swords back in 1985, the year after their infamous Los Angeles Olympics collision.

Mozambique's Olympic, World and newly-crowned Commonwealth champion Maria Mutola could, though, end up beating both of them.

For some, the evening will be about trying to gain belated revenge. Bronze medalist Daniel Caines, for instance, will get another crack at his German 400m conqueror Ingo Schultz, while the great Jan Zelezny, so out of form that he slumped out of Munich with three no throws, is unlikely to be so accommodating in a rematch with Backley.

For others, though, a transatlantic invasion will bring new challenges.

Chambers will be up against the world's best, Maurice Greene, his US pretender Bernard Williams and Commonwealth champion Kim Collins, while Jackson - competing in what will be his last major outdoor competition in Britain - will bow out with a head-to-head against his oldest US foe, former Olympic champ Allen Johnson.

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Crystal Palace to roll out red carpet

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