More key clashes as Diamond League continues in Paris

Sweden’s Olympic pole vault champion Mondo Duplantis, who suffered a rare defeat in the blustery conditions at Thursday's meeting in Lausanne, will hope to return to business-as-usual on Saturday (28) when the Wanda Diamond League moves on to the Stade Charlety in Paris.

The 20-year-old world record-holder, who could only finish fourth with a best of 5.62m at the Stade de la Pontaise, will once again face the winner, his old US college rival Chris Nilsen.

The Tokyo 2020 silver medallist secured top billing in Switzerland on countback from his US compatriot, double world champion Sam Kendricks, after both had cleared 5.82m.

The ever-amiable, but ever-competitive Kendricks still has things to prove this season after being kept from the Olympics by an untimely positive Covid-19 test.

The planned action replay in the women’s 100m between Jamaica’s double Olympic champions Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, two days after their latest meeting in Lausanne, will not come to pass as the latter has withdrawn.

The 34-year-old, who ran 10.60 for the third fastest time ever in beating Thompson-Herah at the Stade de la Pontaise, is reportedly suffering from some understandable fatigue.

Thompson-Herah will still need to be in her sharpest form, however, to withstand the challenge of a field that will include Britain’s world 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith, who was unable to run that event in Tokyo following a severe hamstring injury earlier this season but did come away with a bronze medal as part of the British 4x100m relay team.

And Jamaica’s 400m specialist Shericka Jackson, third in Tokyo, Eugene and Lausanne behind her two compatriots, has also moved on to this part of the concluding European leg of the Diamond League season.

Jamaica’s Olympic 110 metres hurdles champion Hansle Parchment, who beat the favourite for the title in Tokyo, the United States’ world champion and world indoor record-holder Grant Holloway, saw the other side of life in Lausanne as he finished last in 13.58 in a race win by Devon Allen of the United States in 13.05.

The latter US athlete will be there again in Paris, as will home athlete and European champion Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, third in Switzerland, and France’s Tokyo 2020 finalist Aurel Manga.

In the men’s 200m the two US sprinters who finished first and second in Lausanne in the hugely impressive times of 19.65 and 19.77 respectively – the Tokyo silver medallist Kenny Bednarek and Olympic 100m silver medallist Fred Kerley – will do battle again.

They will be joined by Josephus Lyles, younger brother of world champion and Olympic bronze medallist Noah, who will be seeking to improve on the best of 20.03 he set in Eugene.

Having cheered himself up after a miserable Tokyo performance by winning the Lausanne javelin competition with 88.54m, Germany’s 2017 world champion Johannes Vetter may be in the mood to get closer to the 97.76m effort of last year that put him second in the all-time list.

His rivals will include the Czech Republic’s Olympic silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch, who was second in Lausanne with 85.73m.

Canada’s Marco Arop, who beat Kenya’s men’s Olympic 800m gold and silver medallists Emmanuel Korir and Ferguson Rotich to win in Lausanne, will only have the latter to deal with in Paris, although the Tokyo bronze medallist Patryk Dobek of Poland and fourth-placer Peter Bol of Australia will also be in contention again.

In the women’s high jump, Olympic champion Mariya Lasitskene, competing as an authorised neutral athlete, will seek to maintain her winning momentum having won on countback in Lausanne with a clearance of 1.98m.

She will have Australia’s Tokyo silver medallist Nicola McDermott and Ukraine’s world silver medallist and Olympic bronze medallist Yaroslava Mahuchikh for company.

Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali, who in Tokyo became the first non-Kenyan to win the men’s Olympic 3000m steeplechase title since Poland's Bronislaw Malinowski at the 1980 Moscow Games – which Kenya boycotted – will be favourite to record another victory in Paris.

But El Bakkali will have serious Kenyan opposition in the form of the Olympic bronze medallist and the returning Rio 2016 Games gold medallist and double world champion Conseslus Kipruto, who dropped out of the Kenyan Olympic trials after two laps following a troubled build-up to the event.

Despite Kipruto’s outstanding success in major championships, El Bakkali is the fastest runner in the field with a best of 7:58.15. Kipruto, surprisingly, has never bettered 8 minutes, with a best of 8:00.12. Ethiopia’s challenge will be headed by the 20-year-old Tokyo and 2019 world silver medallist Lamecha Girma, who has run 8:01.36.

The women’s 3000m event will feature Rio 2016 800m silver medallist from Burundi, Francine Niyonsaba. Niyonsaba was celebrating reaching the Olympic 5000m final earlier this month only to learn that she had been disqualified from her semifinal for a lane infringement. She laid down a big marker in response at last Saturday’s Prefontaine Classic in Eugene as she won a two miles race that was not on the Diamond League programme in a national record of 9:00.75, finishing ahead of Ethiopia’s world 5000m and 10,000m record-holder and Olympic 10,000m silver medallist Letesenbet Gidey and Kenya’s double world 5000m champion Hellen Obiri.

Niyonsaba has yet to record an official 3000m time – and her first mark could prove spectacular. Meanwhile Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen, with a best of 8:20.07, and Ethiopia’s Fantu Worku, who has run 8:32.10, will also be likely to figure prominently.

Burkina Faso’s Olympic triple jump bronze medallist Hugues Fabrice Zango, based in France and coached by the host nation’s 2013 world champion Teddy Tamgho, is favourite in an event that includes the Tokyo surprise package, Yasser Triki, who finished fifth in an Algerian record of 17.43m.

Also in the mix will be Donald Scott of the United States, who has a best identical to Triki and finished seventh in the Tokyo final.

The exuberant Zango, who has an outdoor best of 17.82m, set a world indoor record of 18.07m earlier this year.

Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic, who won in Lausanne in 50.40, and Allyson Felix of the United States will be the favourites in an intriguing women’s 400m race. Also involved will be the 21-year-old Dutch Olympic 400m hurdles bronze medallist Femke Bol, switching back to the flat event at which she won the European indoor title earlier this year having set a Lausanne meeting record of 53.05 in her specialist event.

The field also includes three other Tokyo 400m finalists in Jamaica’s Candice McLeod, Britain’s Jodie Williams and Quanera Hayes of the United States.

Meanwhile the women’s 400m hurdles, while lacking Bol, looks likely to feature a strong contest between Shamier Little of the United States, who has run buoyantly on the tour since failing to earn an Olympic place, and Ukraine’s Anna Ryzhykova.

The absence of a women’s discus event at the Eugene Diamond League meeting last Saturday prevented Tokyo gold medallist Valarie Allman from making a triumphant return to competition on home soil. But Allman will have her moment in the French capital, where she will face a formidable field that includes Croatia’s Sandra Perkovic, whose ambitions of earning a third consecutive Olympic title in Tokyo fell just short as she finished fourth with a best of 65.01m.

The Olympic silver and bronze medallists, Kristin Pudenz of Germany and Cuba’s world champion Yaime Perez, will also be in the field, as will home thrower Melina Robert-Michon, the Rio 2016 silver medallist, who will be seeking a happier competitive experience following her failure to reach the Tokyo final.

Jamaica’s Olympic bronze medallist Megan Tapper is one of three women’s 100m hurdlers with a best of 12.53 in a race that includes the Nigerian who missed a medal by one place in Tokyo, Tobi Amusan, who has a best of 12.48, and her fellow Jamaican Britany Anderson, eighth in the Olympic final, who is the fastest in the field with a best of 12.40.

Also in the mix will be Christina Clemons, a semifinalist in Tokyo who has a best of 12.51.

Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics