Brussels (Belgium) (AFP) – Swiss star Audrey Werro and Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo, along with newly-minted world record holders Masai Russell and Alison dos Santos, headline the second half of the two-day Diamond League finals in Brussels on Saturday. The final night in the Belgian capital gives the Diamond League winners in events contested at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship automatic qualification to the $10 million showdown next week.
AFP Sport looks at four stand-out events to watch in Brussels:
Related news
**Women’s 800m**
Britain’s Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson is not competing in Brussels, but Werro will face stiff competition from Femke Broeders-Bol. The Dutch athlete is steadily improving as she transitions from the 400m hurdles, an event in which she was twice a world champion. “I never expected to go this fast in the first season,” Broeders-Bol said. The 26-year-old expressed hope that she and her rivals “can push the event further together.” “We are in an era where there are so many amazing girls to run against.” Werro has been the form athlete at the distance, going third in the all-time list with victory in Zurich pushing her to within 0.42sec of Jarmila Kratochvilova’s 43-year-old world record — the oldest in track and field.
**Men’s 200m**
Tebogo heads to Brussels with a best time this season of 19.84sec, some way shy of his personal best of 19.46sec. American Kenny Bednarek is the fastest this year in what looks like a rapid field. Bednarek leads the rankings with a time of 19.62sec, while other threats come from South Africa’s Sinesipho Dambile and Makanakaishe Charamba from neighbouring Zimbabwe. Tebogo has won two Diamond League 200m races, including the most recent in Lausanne, and finished second in two others in what has been a long season for the Botswanan. “Now it’s about enjoying every race in this final part of the season so that it doesn’t take a toll on my mental health,” he said.
**Men’s 400m hurdles**
Brazil’s Dos Santos, like Russell, set a new world record, running 45.80sec in Zurich, smashing Karsten Warholm’s previous best mark in some style. Warholm is absent from Brussels, leaving Dos Santos a potential procession. His teammate Matheus Lima, with a season’s best of 47.26sec, is the closest to Dos Santos, more than a second-and-a-half off the pace. “I have been showing a great form throughout the season – that I am fast, I am strong,” said Dos Santos. “We changed a lot of aspects of my training and racing in the preparation for this. I’m starting faster, I’m finishing stronger, and that is what I have to do to be able to break a world record.”
**Women’s 100m hurdles**
Russell touches down in Belgium fresh from setting a world record in Zurich where she clocked 12.09sec to better Nigerian Tobi Amusan’s previous best by 0.03. She almost immediately turned her attention to becoming the first woman in history to break 12 seconds. “I knew that the field was going to be pretty hot,” she said of Zurich. “I felt the temperature outside. It was perfect sprinting weather.” “I didn’t really have any expectations. I guess everyone else around me did. They were like, ‘Tonight’s the night’. They didn’t tell me that!” Russell added: “When I heard that Alison broke the world record, in the back of my mind, I was trying to focus and lock in, but I knew the track was hot. I got a lot of motivation from him for sure.” Among those aiming to stop her on Saturday is the woman she usurped as world record holder, Amusan, world indoor champion Devynne Charlton of the Bahamas and Nadine Visser of the Netherlands.
© 2024 AFP
