Mondo Duplantis in Silesia (© Matthew Quine)
The post-Paris 2024 roadshow moves on to Silesia on Sunday (25) with a host of Olympic medallists set to entertain an expected 40,000-plus crowd at the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial meeting – the 12th Wanda Diamond League meeting of the season.
Three days after lifting himself to joint second place on the world 800m all-time list with a time of 1:41.11 – exactly matching the former world record set by Denmark’s Wilson Kipketer – Kenya’s 20-year-old Emmanuel Wanyonyi will go again against a stellar field that includes Canada’s world champion Marco Arop and world indoor champion Bryce Hoppel of the United States.
Having settled a score in Lausanne with Cole Hocker of the United States, the man who dispossessed him of the Olympic 1500m title in Paris, Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen – who consoled himself with Olympic 5000m gold – will face a new set of rivals in the 3000m.
They include the potent Ethiopian trio of Selemon Barega, the 2021 Olympic 10,000m champion, Olympic 10,000m silver medallist Berihu Aregawi and Yomif Kejelcha, along with double Olympic bronze medallist Grant Fisher of the United States.
“I’m excited about the race,” Ingebrigtsen said. “3000m is a very good distance for me, and everything is lined up for something big.”
For a man who, by his own admission, had not trained for eight days before his 200m in Lausanne, Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo looked exceedingly perky as he won easily in 19.64. He will glide on to Silesia where he takes on field that includes USA’s Erriyon Knighton, who followed him home in Lausanne in 19.78, and Olympic silver medallist Kenny Bednarek.
Four days after raising his own meeting record to 6.15m in Lausanne, double Olympic pole vault champion and world record-holder Mondo Duplantis will once again take on his main rivals.
These include Olympic silver and bronze medallists Sam Kendricks of the United States and Emmanouil Karalis of Greece, as well as France’s 37-year-old former world record-holder Renaud Lavillenie, who equalled his season’s best of 5.72m in Lausanne.
The Swede’s 2022 meeting record of 6.10m, at least, looks vulnerable.
Meanwhile world and Olympic 110m hurdles champion Grant Holloway will have an early chance to restore business as usual as he faces the Jamaican rival who beat him in Lausanne, Rasheed Broadbell.
Another non-scoring but high interest event, the men’s 100m, will include Jamaica’s Olympic silver medallist Kishane Thompson, Olympic bronze medallist and 2022 world champion Fred Kerley and Italy’s 2021 Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs.
Dina Asher-Smith will be strongly fancied in the women’s 100m having won in Lausanne in a season’s best of 10.88. Once again she will face her fellow Briton Darryl Neita, while home sprinter Ewa Swoboda will bring her talent into the mix.
Olympic 400m bronze medallist Natalia Kaczmarek will be the focus of home attention as she takes on the respective gold and silver medallists Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic and Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser, with four other Olympic finalists involved.
European champion Kaczmarek will have encouraging memories of this meeting, where she has previously beaten Paulino.
Two of Poland’s other high-performing athletes in Paris, 100m hurdler Pia Skrzyszowska and javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk, will also face fields that all but replicate those from the French capital.
Skrzyszowska, who has this year earned bronze at the World Indoor Championships and European Championships, will be able to test herself again versus the world’s best as she takes on a field that includes the Olympic gold, silver and bronze medallists in Masai Russell of the United States, Cyrena Samba-Mayela of France and defending champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico.
Andrejczyk, the 2021 Olympic silver medallist, will contest the home honours with Olympic silver and bronze medallists Jo-Ane Van Dyk of South Africa and Nikola Ogrodnikova of the Czech Republic. Also in the field will be Austria’s European champion Victoria Hudson and Colombia’s world silver medallist Flor Ruiz Hurtado.
Femke Bol of the Netherlands, who returned to 400m hurdles action in Lausanne by setting a meeting record of 52.25, will now face a field that includes three high-performing US athletes in Olympic silver medallist Anna Cockrell, 2016 Olympic champion Dalilah Muhammad and double world silver medallist Shamier Little.
“My shape is still there from Paris, although I am a bit tired,” said Bol, who is targeting the 2021 meeting record of 54.18 set by Ukraine’s Viktoriya Tkachuk. “It will be the first time I have run 400m hurdles in this stadium, and I hope to get it.”
The men’s high jump will bring together New Zealand’s Olympic champion Hamish Kerr and the Italian who shared the previous Olympic title, Gianmarco Tamberi.
Kerr, who also won the world indoor title this year, equalled his personal best of 2.36m in an Olympic final where he eventually shifted Shelby McEwen of the United States into the silver-medal position.
Tamberi, who cleared 2.37m to win the European title in Rome before illness and injury undermined his Olympic challenge, will hope to return to his normal level of performance in Poland.
Ryan Crouser of the United States will make his return to action having won a record third Olympic shot put title in Paris. The world record-holder will face Olympic silver medallist and compatriot Joe Kovacs, and Italy’s European champion Leonardo Fabbri, whose personal best of 22.95m this year put him fifth on the all-time list.
Speaking ahead of what will be his first Diamond League meeting of the season after a succession of injuries severely limited his preparations for Paris, Crouser recalled the challenging circumstances in which he set the meeting record in 2020.
“I arrived the night before,” he said. “To get off the plane, sleep a little bit and then throw 22.70m was quite something. I’d like to beat that tomorrow.”
Norway’s Olympic silver medallist and world record-holder Karsten Warholm will return to action in the 400m hurdles.
The women’s 1500m will see the convergence of Diribe Welteji, winner over 3000m in Lausanne, and Britain’s Olympic bronze medallist Georgia Bell, who sharpened up in Lausanne by taking second place in the 800m behind Kenya’s world champion Mary Moraa in 1:58.53.
Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali, who became the first man to make a successful defence of the Olympic 3000m steeplechase title in Paris, will run again versus Kenneth Rooks of the United States, who improved his personal best by nine seconds to earn a surprise silver in the French capital, and Kenya’s bronze medallist Abraham Kibiwott.
Shaniecka Ricketts of Jamaica, the Olympic silver medallist, will contest the women’s triple jump against a field including USA’s Jasmine Moore, who earned bronze at this event and the long jump in Paris.
The Polish passion for hammer throwing will be accommodated in two non-Diamond League competitions, with five-time world champion Pawel Fajdek and 2021 Olympic champion Wojciech Nowicki contesting a men’s event involving world and Olympic champion Ethan Katzberg of Canada, while the women’s event features Olympic silver medallist Annette Echikunwoke of the United States and her compatriot Brooke Andersen, the 2022 world champion.
Organisers said 40,000 tickets had already been sold, matching the record set at the stadium in 2018, and were confident the record would be comfortably broken.
Meanwhile, there will be a new reward on offer, as the meeting’s most valuable athlete – as judged by the World Athletics points system – will receive a 14-carat gold, diamond Champion Ring worth $10,000 and an additional cheque for the same amount.
Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics
