By Luke Phillips
Helsinki - Veteran French sprinter Christine Arron heads to Helsinki with a lot to prove after missing out at two Olympics and three previous World Championships.
But the 31-year-old mother-of-one from the French West Indian island of Guadeloupe is currently setting the Golden League circuit alight, winning the first three 100m races in Paris, Rome and Oslo.
She also won the European Cup in Florence.
| Arron made only the semifinals of the Olympics in both 2000 and 2004 |
Arron made only the semifinals of the Olympics in both 2000 and 2004, and finished fifth in the last worlds in Paris in 2003.
She is best known as the star of the European Championships in Budapest in 1998 where she won her only individual championship medal and set a European record of 10.73sec which still stands.
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She went on to run an awesome final sprint relay leg in the 4x100m to bring France gold.
This season, Arron, has only once come across her main rival for the world title, Chandra Sturrup of the Bahamas.
That was at Lausanne and despite recording her season's personal best of 10.94sec, she was beaten by the 33-year-old Sturrup in a year's best of 10.84sec and American Olympic silver medallist Lauryn Williams.
The women's 100m has dipped below the radar since the allegations over Marion Jones has seen her form drop away dramatically and was highlighted with the Olympics victory of unheralded Belarussian Yuliya Nesterenko.
With her nowhere to be seen this term the stage is set for two of the nearly women of the past five years to battle it out.
Sturrup, a former training partner of Jones, took bronze in the 2003 championships five years after landing the Commonwealth Games title.
"Before there were a lot of girls who were much stronger," said Arron.
"Here we are at almost the same level, so it's more an open field.
"In my mind, I'm not favourite (in Helsinki) because I've also been beaten and in the championships, everything is zeroed.
"And I've not raced against all the girls," added Arron in reference to Nesterenko and Jamaica's Olympic bronze medallist Veronica Campbell.
Arron does head to Helsinki, however, "feeling better than in previous seasons".
"I think it will be good next week. Things are in place, and going well at both the technical level and in timings, so it should be good.
"I feel that things are coming together. If I had more time I would have done more sprinting but I've already recorded some not bad times without doing too much. - Sapa-AFP
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