Alison dos Santos and Karsten Warholm in Diamond League action (© Getty Images)
World 400m hurdles champion Alison Dos Santos will return to action at the Herculis EBS Meeting on 21 July when he will face Olympic champion and world record-holder Karsten Warholm. Dos Santos is one of six world champions recently announced to take part in the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Monaco.
Dos Santos enjoyed a remarkable 2022 campaign in which he went undefeated in the 400m hurdles. He won the world title in that event, setting a championship record of 46.29 – the third-fastest time in history. He capped his season by winning the Diamond Trophy in 46.98.
Earlier this year, the Brazilian injured his knee, putting his season in jeopardy. But the 23-year-old – who last raced on 12 September last year – is now ready to toe the start line again.
He hasn’t exactly chosen an easy race for his return, as he’ll be up against Warholm, the Norwegian who has returned to form this season to run a world-leading 46.52 in Oslo. Warholm also holds the Herculis meeting record at 47.08.
Five other world champions have been added to the field for the Herculis meeting.
Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson returns to the track where she set her 100m PB (10.71), but this time she will contest the 200m – the discipline at which she is the world champion. So far this year she has a season’s best of 21.98, but she’ll likely target improving on the world-leading time (21.91) or even the meeting record (21.77).
In the women’s high jump, world champion Eleanor Patterson will take on world and Olympic heptathlon champion Nafissatou Thiam. Patterson hasn’t yet opened her outdoor season, but is a 2.02m jumper at her best. Thiam, whose PB is the same as the Australian’s, has an outdoor season’s best of 1.91m.
World and Olympic steeplechase champion Soufiane El Bakkali will be seeking a fourth victory in Monaco. He set a Moroccan record of 7:56.68 earlier this year and was sat watching at home as Ethiopian rival Lamecha Girma set a world record of 7:52.11 in Paris. This will be El Bakkali’s chance to respond to that.
Two-time world champion Anderson Peters will also be in action in Monaco. The javelin thrower from Grenada, who last year set an area record of 93.07m, will be making his Herculis meeting debut.
