Expected highlights in the women's and men's 3000m steeplechase.

Fresh from her heroics at the FBK Games in Hengelo, world record-breaker Sifan Hassan will again take centre stage at the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea, a Wanda Diamond League meeting, in Florence on Thursday (10).

Over the past few years, people have taken note of the rise of Ethiopian steeplechasers.

Thirty-two athletes who earned medals at the World Athletics Championships Doha 2019 – including 12 champions – will return to the Qatari capital on Friday (28) for the second Wanda Diamond League meeting of 2021.

Competing in the stadium which will host Olympic athletics action this summer, Kazuki Kurokawa and Ryuji Miura were among the athletes to rise to the occasion at the Ready Steady Tokyo meeting, part of the World Athletics Continental Tour Gold series, on Sunday (9).

Three of Kenya’s world champions – Timothy Cheruiyot, Hellen Obiri and Beatrice Chepkoech – were triumphant at the Kip Keino Classic World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting on Saturday (3) as Nairobi hosted its first ever global one-day meet at the newly-refurbished Nyayo National Stadium.

For Moses Kiptanui, it was just a matter of time.

When Ron Davis started out in athletics, he probably never dreamed that he would get to travel the world doing what he loved best – much less that it would lead to him laying down roots half way across the world in Tanzania.

Successful and versatile throughout her youth, Argentina’s Belén Casetta pushed her own limits and found extraordinary inspiration at the 2017 World Championships.

If one fact was gleaned from the world of men’s steeplechasing in 2019 it was that Ethiopia is no longer prepared to play second fiddle to their great East African rivals Kenya.

This time last year, few people in the athletics world had heard of Lamecha Girma.

Our end-of-year reviews continue with renowned statisticians A. Lennart Julin and Mirko Jalava taking a look back at 2019’s key action on the middle and long distance track events.