Star-studded fields ready to line up in London

Deep fields full of global medallists and world record-holders will light up the Novuna London Athletics Meet when Wanda Diamond League action continues in the UK capital on Saturday (18).

Emmanuel Wanyonyi races the 800m a week on from becoming the fastest 1000m runner in history. His fellow world record-holder Ja’Kobe Tharp headlines the 110m hurdles and Josh Kerr goes on the hunt for a world record of his own.

Julien Alfred, Mondo Duplantis, Keely Hodgkinson, Femke Broeders-Bol and Yaroslava Mahuchikh are among the many other world and Olympic champions who will be in London as the race towards the Diamond League Final in Brussels and the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest in September intensifies.

Kenya’s Olympic and world 800m champion Wanyonyi improved the world 1000m record by 0.13 during the Diamond League meeting in Monaco, running 2:11.83. Great Britain’s 2022 world 1500m champion Jake Wightman chased him home in 2:12.77 to move to fifth on the world all-time list and they both run in London.

Their strong opposition includes Canada’s Marco Arop, who beat Wanyonyi to the world title in 2023 and secured Olympic silver behind him in Paris. Britain’s Max Burgin also lines up, having handed Wanyonyi one of his two Diamond League 800m defeats this season in Rabat. Arop holds the world lead of 1:41.84 set during the Paris Diamond League and more recently ran 1:42.13 to win in Edmonton. Mark English, Peter Bol, Bryce Hoppel and Ben Pattison are also in action. 

“I don’t want to talk about the world record in the 800m,” Wanyonyi said after his Monaco performance, referring to David Rudisha’s mark of 1:40.91 set in the same London stadium almost 14 years ago. “I first want to run fast and improve my personal best. Let me keep quiet, actions speak louder than words.”

Olympic champion Hodgkinson targets her first win of the season in an 800m that pits her against her British compatriot and training partner Georgia Hunter Bell, the world silver medallist. Ethiopia’s Olympic silver medallist Tsige Duguma also lines up, along with Dutch star Broeders-Bol as she continues her journey from the 400m hurdles to the 800m.

Hodgkinson sits second on this season’s world top list with the national record of 1:54.33 she ran during the Diamond League in Stockholm and she clocked 1:56.73 in Eugene despite feeling the effects of a fall she suffered the day before she flew to the US. World 400m hurdles champion Broeders-Bol ran 1:55.60 in Paris and Hunter Bell 1:55.93 to win the British title in Birmingham.

Kerr has made no secret of his plan to attack the long-standing world mile record on home soil. The 2023 world 1500m champion and two-time Olympic medallist will be paced by his training partner Brannon Kidder as he targets 3:42 as part of ‘project 222’ – the number of seconds he hopes to complete the distance in to improve on the world record of 3:43.13 set by Hicham El Guerrouj in Rome in 1999.

Kerr currently sits sixth on the world all-time list with the British record of 3:45.34 he set in Eugene in 2024 and in London he will line up alongside the athlete two places ahead of him on that all-time list – USA’s Olympic medallist Yared Nuguse who ran 3:43.97 in 2023. Joining them in the field are Mohamed Abdilaahi, who ran a world lead of 7:25.77 to win the 3000m in Shanghai in May, and his German compatriot Robert Farken, plus Ethan Strand.

The 3000m pits Australia’s Olympic 1500m silver medallist Jessica Hull, fresh off pacing Agnes Ngetich to the third-fastest performance in history (8:08.95) in Monaco, against her compatriots Linden Hall and Georgia Griffith, Ethiopia’s Medina Eisa and Hirut Meshesha, and Great Britain’s Megan Keith and Laura Muir.

Tharp in sharp form

The 110m hurdles stars three of the seven fastest men of all time as world record-holder Ja'Kobe Tharp renews his rivalry with his compatriots Jamal Britt and Cordell Tinch.

Tharp set a surprise world record of 12.75 during last month’s NCAA Championships semifinals and backed it up with 12.90 in the final. He then won at the Continental Tour Gold meeting in Budapest on Tuesday in 12.85 – the fifth-fastest performance in history – despite celebrating ahead of the finish. In that most recent race he beat Britt, the winner ahead of Tharp at the Diamond League in Eugene in a PB of 12.86, and world champion Tinch, who clocked 12.87 last year. 

Adding further strength to the field are world silver medallist Orlando Bennett and 2022 world silver medallist Trey Cunningham, who won the Rome Diamond League in a PB of 12.98.

Another world record-holder leads the entries for the 400m hurdles as Norway’s Karsten Warholm returns to the scene of his first world title win in 2017. He seeks his first Diamond League win of the season after runner-up finishes in Oslo, Shanghai and Xiamen where he ran 46.82. Only Alison dos Santos has gone quicker than that in 2026 and while the Brazilian won’t be in London, Warholm does face Emil Agyekum, who won in Budapest on Tuesday, as well as Ezekiel Nathaniel, Trevor Bassitt, Matheus Lima and Caleb Dean.

Saint Lucia’s Olympic 100m champion Julien Alfred blazed to third on the world 200m all-time list with 21.51 in Monaco. USA’s Olympic 200m champion Gabby Thomas also impressed there with 21.84 for third place, following her 21.70 run in Texas. They raced separately in Budapest earlier this week – Alfred winning the 100m in 10.87 and Thomas the 200m in 21.83 – but they clash again in London, Alfred as the meeting record-holder thanks to her 21.71 from last year.

They will line up for the 200m alongside Great Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith and Amy Hunt as well as Bahamian two-time Olympic 400m champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo.

Jamaica’s Oblique Seville returns as the world champion to defend his 100m crown. The world leader, who ran 9.82 in Kingston in June and 9.88 to win in Monaco last week, again takes on USA’s world indoor 60m champion Jordan Anthony, who was the runner-up in Monaco, as well as NCAA champion Kanyinsola Ajayi, who beat Seville in Eugene in 9.84, plus Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo and British record-holder Zharnel Hughes.

World 400m hurdles champion Rai Benjamin continues to focus on the flat event as he races the 400m against home star Matthew Hudson-Smith and Jacory Patterson, while Olympic champion Marileidy Paulino heads the women’s field against Henriette Jæger and Yemi Mary John.

Duplantis makes London return

Swedish pole vault star Mondo Duplantis returns to compete in London for the first time since 2018. In that time he has become a 15-time world record-breaker, taking the mark to 6.31m, as well as a two-time Olympic, three-time world and four-time world indoor champion. He has surpassed six metres in seven of his eight competitions this year, suffering a rare defeat to Kurtis Marschall during one of them, in Stockholm. Marschall also competes in London, as does Emmanouil Karalis who cleared 6.17m to move to second on the world all-time list in February.

Both Ukraine’s world record-holder Yaroslava Mahuchikh and Australia’s 2022 world champion Eleanor Patterson have cleared 2.00m so far this outdoor season and they clash in the high jump against Patterson’s compatriot Nicola Olyslagers, the world champion, as well as Iryna Gerashchenko and Morgan Lake.

World and Olympic discus champion Valarie Sion will want to maintain a Diamond League win streak that dates back to 2023, while Larissa Iapichino leads the long jump field following her 7.12m Italian record set in Eugene.

Jess Whittington for World Athletics