A dual in Rio between Schippers and Bowie for 100m and 200m glory.

After recording the third fastest time in history over 200m, a time only eclipsed by American athletes, Florence Griffith Joyner and Marion Jones, Dafne Schippers became an almost overnight sensation since her transition from the heptathlon.

Schippers is perhaps the fastest woman over 200m ever if you discard the fact that Marion Jones was found to be using  performance enhancing drugs  and while Griffith Joyner was not a convicted drugs cheat, many suspicions arise over the women’s world record holder in the 100m and 200m, marks of 10.49 s and 21.34 s which have not even been challenged since 1988, but Griffith Joyner is a story for another day.

In athletics, some seem to have reached a conclusion that an amazing athlete is guilty until proven innocent. Cynics can be forgiven. At the 2015 World Championships, four of the seven heat winners in the men’s 100m were found guilty of drug doping offenses: Asafa Powell, Femi Ogunode, Tyson Gay and Justin Gatlin.

Naturally, the track and field community was cynical of Dafne Schippers, who at last year’s World Championships, was narrowly defeated by Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce for the gold medal position with Tori Bowie being pushed into the bronze medal position.

Though a dip at the end ensured Schippers claimed first place against Fraser-Pryce’s Jamaican teammate, Elaine Thompson in the 200m who still came through the line in an impressive time of 21.66.

This year, Schippers was able to run down Thompson again with a dip at the end but Schippers’ kick in the closing stages was not enough to see off Torie Bowie who commanded the race right from the start recording a new world leading time of 21.99, a perfect response and psychological victory against Schippers’ previous world lead of 22.02, though Schippers commented on Twitter:“Happy with my 22.02 in typical Dutch weather” implying that in better weather conditions she would have gone even faster, especially as she was easing up into a slight headwind.

However in the 100m, Schippers’ 10.83 s clocking was narrowly defeated at the 2016 Doha Diamond League by Tori Bowie’s 10.80 s a personal best time which Bowie holds since her Monaco Diamond League victory in 2014, just a hundredth of a second faster than Schippers’ best.

This season Bowie now leads the way in both the 100m and 200m, while English Gardner leapfrogged Schippers in the 100m with a 10.81 s at the Eugene Diamond League.

At this stage, it is difficult to predict who will come out on top, because there are still more battles to be fought before the queen of sprints is crowned champion in Rio, but it promises to be a mouthwatering dual between protagonists Dafne Schippers and Tori Bowie.