Kipyegon and Wanyonyi face Olympic rematches on second day of Diamond League Final in Brussels

Olympic middle-distance champions Faith Kipyegon and Emmanuel Wanyonyi will be up against the athletes who joined them on the Paris podium when they line up for the second day of the Wanda Diamond League Final in Brussels on Saturday (14).

The first 16 of the 32 Diamond disciplines will be contested on Friday at the Allianz Memorial Van Damme, while the rest will take place on Saturday in the Belgian capital. Kenyan duo Kipyegon and Wanyonyi are among the 25 Olympic gold medallists who’ll be in action in Brussels throughout the two days of action.

Multiple world and Olympic champion Kipyegon has been unbeaten in 1500m finals since June 2021, but many competitors in the discipline – such as Olympic silver and bronze medallist Jessica Hull and Georgia Bell, both of whom will be in Brussels – have started to adopt the same fearless approach to racing that the world record-holder possesses.

Along with the three Olympic medallists, Saturday’s race also features world indoor champion Freweyni Hailu, world road mile champion Diribe Welteji and their fellow Ethiopian Birke Haylom.

Four of the men who this season have come within one second of the world 800m record will toe the line once more in Brussels in what could be the final opportunity to record a super quick time this year.

Olympic champion Wanyonyi will be joined by world champion and Olympic silver medallist Marco Arop, Olympic bronze medallist Djamel Sedjati and European champion Gabriel Tual, all of whom have bettered 1:42 in recent months, some of them more than once. Two-time Commonwealth champion Wycliffe Kinyamal and world bronze medallist Ben Pattison add further depth to the field.

Like the women’s 1500m and men’s 800m, the women’s 3000m steeplechase will also have the full set of Olympic medallists in action. World and Olympic champion Winfred Yavi will take on 2021 Olympic champion Peruth Chemutai and Olympic bronze medallist Faith Cherotich.

The last clash between the trio resulted in Yavi clocking a world-leading 8:44.39, just 0.07 shy of the world record, with Chemutai moving to third on the world all-time list with 8:48.03. With the world record now within touching distance, there’s a chance they could attack it again in Brussels.

Double Olympic champion Beatrice Chebet also recently came close to a world record. The Kenyan ran 14:09.52 over 5000m in Zurich, the seventh fastest performance in history, and she’ll be all too aware that the current world record was set in last year’s Diamond League Final.

In Brussels she’ll face Ethiopian trio Tsigie Gebreselama, Ejegayehu Taye and Medina Eisa.

World and Olympic champions Crouser and Kitaguchi highlight throws

There may only be six competitors in each field event in a Diamond League Final, but what they lack in quantity they certainly make up for in quality.

The six men in the shot put are the same athletes who filled the top six places in the Olympic final. World and Olympic champion Ryan Crouser is yet to surpass the 23-metre line this year, but he came close in Zagreb last week (22.93m). With the likes of Olympic silver and bronze medallists Joe Kovacs and Rajindra Campbell in the field, as well as European champion Leonardo Fabbri, the meeting record of 22.61m looks to be on borrowed time.

The women’s javelin features the top four athletes from the world rankings, led by world and Olympic champion Haruka Kitaguchi. She’ll face Australia’s Mackenzie Little, world leader Flor Denis Ruiz Hurtado, Serbia’s Adriana Vilagos and European champion Victoria Hudson.

In the men’s javelin, meanwhile, world champion Neeraj Chopra takes on two-time world champion Anderson Peters as well as Germany’s Julian Weber.

Tebogo and Richardson ready to light up the track

Since winning the Olympic 200m title in Paris, Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo hasn’t lost an individual race. He notched up victories in Lausanne (19.64), Silesia (19.83), Zurich (19.55) and Brescia (20.66), as well as winning over 100m in Rome (9.87).

The 21-year-old will target one more triumph on the track in Brussels in a field brimming with leading US sprinters, including Olympic silver medallist Kenny Bednarek, world silver medallist Erriyon Knighton and 2022 world 100m champion Fred Kerley.

To put into context how loaded the women’s 100m hurdles field is, two-time world champion Danielle Williams enters the race with a season’s best of 12.37, which would be good enough for 23rd place on the world all-time list. But in this race it also happens to be the slowest season’s best of the entire field.

Olympic silver and bronze medallists Cyrena Samba-Mayela and Jasmine Camacho-Quinn will clash once more, along with Jamaica’s world leader Ackera Nugent, a 12.24 performer at her best.

In the women’s 200m, Olympic bronze medallist Britanny Brown takes on world 100m champion Sha’Carri Richardson, Britain’s Daryll Neita and Marie Josee Ta Lou-Smith.

Earlier in the evening, Olympic 400m hurdles champion Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone will contest the same distance in a pre-programme invitational race where she’ll come up against African champion Gina Bass Bittaye.

The two women who followed McLaughlin-Levrone across the line in Paris – Anna Cockrell and Femke Bol – will contest their specialist discipline, the 400m hurdles, in what will be the final race of the weekend. USA’s Shamier Little and Jamaica’s Shiann Salmon, both of whom have broken 53 seconds this year, should also feature.

In the men’s event, 2022 world champion Alison dos Santos takes on Jamaican duo Malik James-King and Roshawn Clarke, as well as Qatar’s Abderrahman Samba.

Kennedy aims to cap standout season

World and Olympic pole vault champion Nina Kennedy will head to Brussels in the hope of wrapping up a stellar 2024 campaign with one more big victory.

But the likes of Olympic bronze medallist Alysha Newman, European champion Angelica Moser and world leader Molly Caudery will also want to go out on a high – quite literally.

Elsewhere in the jumps, world champion Hugues Fabrice Zango takes on 2021 Olympic champion Pedro Pichardo and 2022 world indoor champion Lazaro Martinez in the men’s triple jump. European champion Gianmarco Tamberi faces Olympic silver medallist Shelby McEwen and 2022 world indoor champion Woo Sanghyeok in the men’s high jump, while Olympic bronze medallist Jasmine Moore lines up against Italy’s Larissa Iapichino in the women’s long jump.

Jon Mulkeen for World Athletics