Bogdan Bondarenko in the high jump at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Monaco (© Philippe Fitte)
World champions in three different jumping events will compete at Monaco’s Herculis meeting, the next stop on the IAAF Diamond League circuit, on 15 July.
Bogdan Bondarenko, the 2013 world champion, will return to the scene of his 2014 victory when he broke the meeting record with a leap of 2.40m. Mutaz Essa Barshim, who finished second on that occasion, will be aiming for his first triumph at the Stade Louis II. The 2014 world indoor champion last month jumped a world-leading 2.40m in Opole.
World champion Derek Drouin and world champion Gianmarco Tamberi will also be in Monaco. They will be joined by Olympic silver medallist Erik Kynard and Syria’s Majd Eddin Ghazal, who improved his best to 2.36m earlier this year.
Aside from Drouin, three other world champions will compete in Monaco’s field events.
Caterine Ibarguen’s 34-meeting winning streak recently came to an end at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Birmingham, but the world triple jump champion’s spirits will be lifted when she returns to Monaco as it is where she set her lifetime best of 15.31m in 2014.
World pole vault champion Yarisley Silva broke the IAAF Diamond League record with her 4.84m victory in Birmingham. The Cuban will be making her third appearance in Monaco and will be vying for her first victory.
Germany’s Katharina Molitor leads the women’s javelin field and is returning to Monaco for the first time in seven years.
Elsewhere, the men’s 200m will feature a duel between leading French sprinters Jimmy Vicaut and Christophe Lemaitre. Vicaut equalled his own European 100m record of 9.86 last month and then followed it with a 9.88 victory at the French Championships. But 2011 world bronze medallist Lemaitre has beaten Vicaut in all four of their encounters over 200m.
Organisers for the IAAF
2016 IAAF Diamond League calendar
6 May – Doha, QAT
14 May – Shanghai, CHN
22 May – Rabat, MAR
28 May – Eugene, USA
2 Jun – Rome, ITA
5 Jun – Birmingham, GBR
9 Jun – Oslo, NOR
16 Jun – Stockholm, SWE
15 Jul – Monaco, MON
22-23 Jul – London, GBR
25 Aug – Lausanne, SUI
27 Aug – Paris, FRA
1 Sep – Zurich, SUI
9 Sep – Brussels, BEL
