Olympic champions Mahuchikh, Benjamin and Holloway ready for Paris return

Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Rai Benjamin and Grant Holloway are among the six reigning individual Olympic champions who will be returning to Paris to compete at the Meeting de Paris, this season’s eighth Wanda Diamond League meeting, on Friday (20).

They will be joined by Marileidy Paulino, Valarie Allman and Soufiane El Bakkali, plus multiple other global gold medallists including Lamecha Girma, Nicola Olyslagers, Katie Moon, Neeraj Chopra and Yomif Kejelcha, looking to secure more success in the French capital.

Mahuchikh and Olyslagers will go head-to-head in the high jump, back in the city where Mahuchikh broke the world record and became an Olympic champion last year.

The first of those achievements came at the Stade Charlety, which again hosts this year’s Diamond League meeting. By clearing 2.10m, the Ukrainian 23-year-old broke one of the longest-standing world records on the books, and she won Olympic gold at the Stade de France the following month, clearing 2.00m to win on countback ahead of Australia’s Olyslagers. Australia’s Eleanor Patterson, the 2022 world champion, gained bronze and all three Olympic medallists will renew their rivalry in Paris on Friday.

Mahuchikh is the world leader thanks to her 2.02m clearance in Doha in May, while two-time world indoor champion Olyslagers recently won in Stockholm with 2.01m. Their head-to-head record so far this year stands at 2-2, while Patterson finished between the two at the World Indoor Championships and the Diamond League meeting in Xiamen. Poland’s Maria Zodzik will be looking to build on her third-place finish in Stockholm.

"I’m obviously glad to be back in Paris, this is a very special place and a great memory to me," Mahuchikh said at the pre-event press conference. "I hope that something special is coming on Friday. I still have work to do until the World Championships, the most important competition this year. Every competition is a way to know what we should do better for the future."

A number of other big field event clashes are also on the cards. Germany’s Julian Weber and India’s Chopra both surpassed 90 metres in the javelin during the Diamond League meeting in Doha in May and they meet again in Paris. That Doha contest was just the seventh time in history that two men have thrown beyond 90 metres in the same competition, Weber improving his PB to 91.06m and world champion Chopra taking his PB to 90.23m.

USA’s two-time Olympic champion Allman, who threw a North American record of 73.52m in Ramona in April and is unbeaten this year, headlines the discus field against Yaime Perez, who was runner-up to Allman in Xiamen and Rome, plus world champion Laulauga Tausaga and multiple global gold medallist Sandra Elkasevic.

The men’s triple jump, which kicks off the evening’s Diamond League action, features respective world indoor gold and bronze medallists Andy Diaz Hernandez and Hugues Fabrice Zango, plus joint Diamond League leader Jordan Scott, while the women’s pole vault stars USA’s two-time world champion Moon and two-time world indoor gold medallist Sandi Morris, who are separated by a single centimetre on season’s bests, against home star Marie-Julie Bonnin, the world indoor champion.

Benjamin and Holloway headline hurdles

USA’s Olympic 400m hurdles champion Benjamin continues his Diamond League campaign, five days on from his win in Stockholm and eight days after finishing second in the 300m hurdles in Oslo. Racing over one lap again in Paris, he doesn’t have his fellow Olympic medallists Karsten Warholm and Alison dos Santos to contend with, but his competition will include Abderrahman Samba and Matheus Lima as Benjamin looks to build on his strong season start.

While Benjamin competes for the third time in just over a week, his US compatriot Holloway returns to the track for the first time since April. The three-time world 110m hurdles champion last lined up in Xiamen and Friday’s meeting gives him the opportunity to test himself in a heat and final, up against the likes of his fellow US hurdlers Trey Cunningham and Freddie Crittenden, plus Switzerland’s Jason Joseph and Japan’s Rachid Muratake.

Grace Stark and Ackera Nugent are separated by just 0.01 in the 100m hurdles so far this season – 12.33 to 12.34 – and they renew their rivalry after finishing 1-2 in Stockholm. They will be joined by the next three athletes in that race: Nadine Visser, Devynne Charlton and Keni Harrison.

Dominican Republic’s Paulino makes her Diamond League season debut in a 400m featuring USA’s Isabella Whittaker, who won in Oslo and Stockholm, plus Dutch sprinter Lieke Klaver. The 200m will pit Anavia Battle – winner in Xiamen, Shanghai/Keqiao and Rome – against Dina Asher-Smith.

Rather than racing his specialism, Morocco’s two-time Olympic 3000m steeplechase champion El Bakkali forms part of a 5000m field also featuring Kejelcha, Jacob Krop and Nico Young, who won in Oslo.

The men’s 3000m steeplechase is not a Diamond League discipline in Paris this time but it is set to see Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma return to the scene of his 7:52.11 world record from 2023. The multiple global silver medallist has not raced since the Paris Olympics, where he suffered a heavy fall.

"After falling in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games final, my feelings were very hard. My head was hurting for a long time, even in training. It took three to four months for me to recover," said Girma. "I was scared at some point that I would not be able to run anymore. I took it slowly and I was improving progressively. I’m proud to have come back from this shock."

In the women’s steeplechase, Kenya’s Olympic and world bronze medallist Faith Cherotich races world U20 champion Sembo Almayew and Tokyo Olympic champion Peruth Chemutai.

Racing on the track where Faith Kipyegon set a world record last year, the women’s 1500m features outdoor world leader Nelly Chepchirchir, who ran 3:58.04 to win in Rabat, plus Rome winner Sarah Healy, Susan Ejore and Linden Hall.

Home favourite Gabriel Tual, who sits sixth on the world all-time list with the 1:41.61 he ran at the Stade Charlety last year, clashes with Mohamed Attaoui, Bryce Hoppel and Tshepiso Masalela in the 800m.