Warholm and El Bakkali centre stage as Rabat welcomes back Diamond League after three-year gap

Morocco is welcoming the Wanda Diamond League back for the first time since the pre-pandemic year of 2019 – and awaiting a momentous start to the season for Norway’s Olympic 400m hurdles champion and world record-holder Karsten Warholm and local hero Soufiane El Bakkali.

Warholm, who smashed his own world record in the Olympic final with 45.94, will begin his competitive route at the Meeting International Mohammed VI d'Athletisme de Rabat on Sunday (5) to what he hopes will be a second successful defence of his world title in Eugene, Oregon this summer.

The 26-year-old Norwegian, who last competed in September, has seen Brazil’s 21-year-old Olympic bronze medallist Alison dos Santos raise eyebrows this season with his defeat of Olympic silver medallist Rai Benjamin of the United States at the opening Wanda Diamond League meeting of the season in Doha, and followed it up with victory at the third meeting of the series, in Eugene last Saturday, in 47.23, the fastest run so far this year.

That will certainly be a marker for Warholm as he takes on a field that includes Turkey’s 2016 Olympic bronze medallist Yasmani Copello.

But it will be El Bakkali, whose long-awaited gold in the men’s steeplechase last year was Morocco’s only medal of the Tokyo 2020 Games, who will be the centre of attention for home fans.

The 26-year-old from Fez, whose Olympic gold came after missing out on a medal by one place at the Rio 2016 Games, will certainly be hoping to fare better than he did at that last edition of this meeting.

On that occasion he fell away to 11th place as Getnet Wale pressed on to win in an Ethiopian record of 8:6.01 – although three months later El Bakkali added world bronze in Doha to the world silver he had won in London in 2017.

The going, however, will be tough for Morocco’s Olympic poster boy, who became the first non-Kenyan to win the men’s Olympic steeplechase title since Poland’s Bronislaw Malinowski in 1980 and the first to win it at a Games where Kenya were contesting the title since Belgium’s Gaston Roelants in 1964.

He faces the two athletes who followed him home in Tokyo – Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma and Benjamin Kigen of Kenya – as well as France’s 2016 Olympic bronze medallist, Mahiedine Mekhissi-Bennabad, who hasn’t completed a steeplechase race since winning the European title in 2018.

Jamaica’s double Olympic 100m and 200m champion Elaine Thompson-Herah, who opened her Wanda Diamond League season with a 100m victory in 10.79 at last Saturday’s meeting in Eugene, will continue her preparations for what would be a first individual world title of any kind this summer.

Switzerland’s Ajla Del Ponte, Marie-Josee Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast, and Michelle-Lee Ahye of Trinidad and Tobago are likely to be her closest challengers.

Ukraine’s Olympic bronze medallist and world silver medallist high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh will seek to maintain her excellent form in a season where, despite a nightmare three-day trip – initially under shelling – from her native city of Dnipropetrovsk to Belgrade, she managed to win world indoor gold.

The 20-year-old faces strong opposition in the form of Australia’s Olympic silver medallist Nicola Olyslagers – formerly McDermott – and her Ukrainian compatriot Iryna Gerashchenko.

Olympic 800m champion Emmanuel Korir will take on the fellow Kenyan whom he beat to gold in Tokyo, Ferguson Rotich.

But other Kenyans will be in the mix given the presence of Collins Kipruto, a consistent performer last year, and the startling new talent of 17-year-old Emmanuel Wanyonyi, last year’s world U20 champion, who earned victory in the 800m at Wednesday’s Continental Tour Gold meeting in Ostrava in 1:44.15.

Also in the field is Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Amel Tuka, who has a personal best of 1:42.51, albeit from 2015.

The men’s 1500m also features huge Kenyan talent in the form of Abel Kipsang, who clocked a personal best of 3:29.56 as he missed out on an Olympic medal by one place, having set what was then an Olympic record of 3:31.65 in the semi-finals.

Kipsang reached a global podium earlier this year, however, as he took bronze at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade.

Mohamed Katir of Spain, with a best of 3:28.76 from last year, and Britain’s Olympic finalists Jake Heyward and Jake Wightman, who ran 3:29.47 in 2020, will challenge strongly.

In the men’s discus Kristjan Ceh will be hoping to maintain the startling form he displayed last month in Birmingham, where he set a Diamond League and Slovenian record of 71.27m, improving on his previous mark of 68.75m and moving up to 10th on the world all-time list.

The 22-year-old will be wary of the response, however, of Sweden’s world and Olympic champion Daniel Stahl, who could only finish third in Birmingham with 65.97m.

Stahl’s compatriot Simon Petterson and Austria’s Lukas Weishaidinger, respective Olympic silver and bronze medallists, will also be formidable challengers.

Greece’s Olympic long jump champion Miltiadis Tentoglou, who will seek to add world outdoor gold this season to the indoor version he already has in his possession, will be looking for an advance on the decent start he has already made to his season by registering 8.36m last month.

The 8.45m achieved by decathlete Simon Ehammer at last weekend’s combined events competition in Gotzis may be a motivating target for him – and the Swiss athlete will also be there in person.

Strong opposition will also be present in the form of Sweden’s Thobias Montler, who earned world indoor silver in March, and Jamaica’s world champion Tajay Gayle.

Burundi’s Diamond League 5000m champion Francine Niyonsaba will be favourite to win the women’s 3000m. The main opposition for Niyonsaba, who beat Kenya’s double Olympic 1500m champion Faith Kipyegon over 3000m in Doha, will most likely come from Mercy Cherono of Kenya, whose personal best of 8:21.14 is a couple of seconds slower than hers.

Sandi Morris of the United States, who put her injury-undermined Tokyo Olympic experience behind her to successfully defend her world indoor pole vault title earlier this year, remains on a high, having won at the Birmingham Diamond League with 4.73m, the best outdoor mark of the year so far.

She will face strong opposition in the form of Britain’s Olympic bronze medallist Holly Bradshaw, Slovenia’s world indoor bronze medallist Tina Sutej and Greece’s 2016 Olympic champion Katerina Stefanidi.

Olympic silver medallist Kenny Bednarek of the United States will feature in a men’s 200m that also includes Botswana’s 35-year-old Commonwealth champion Isaac Makwala and Canada’s Jerome Blake, who won over this distance at Wednesday’s Continental Tour Gold meeting in Ostrava in 20.14.

Ethiopia’s 21-year-old Freweyni Hailu, who ran 3:56.28 over 1500m in Monaco last year, is the fastest entrant for the metric mile in Morocco, although she faces strong opposition from four athletes who have also beaten four minutes in compatriots Axumawit Embaye and Hirut Meshesha, Kenya’s Winnie Nanyondo and Australia’s Linden Hall.

Patricia Mamona, who set a Portuguese record of 15.01m to take women’s triple jump silver behind the mercurial Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas at last summer’s Tokyo Olympics, will be favourite to win a contest where her most likely rivals will be Jamaica’s world silver medallist Shaniecka Ricketts, who has a best of 14.98m and Liadagmis Povea of Cuba, who has reached 14.93m.

The Dominican Republic’s Olympic silver medallist Marileidy Paulino will be the one to watch in the women’s 400m, with pressure upon her likely to be exerted by Jamaica’s Stephenie Ann McPherson.

Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics