Eugene (United States) (AFP) – Faith Kipyegon’s return to the 1,500m, Armand Duplantis’s bid for a 13th pole vault world record, and 100m fields featuring Kishane Thompson, Julien Alfred, and Sha’Carri Richardson promise fireworks at the Eugene Diamond League meeting on the Fourth of July weekend.
Kipyegon will be back on track in the 1,500m in the wake of her unsuccessful bid to become the first woman to break the four-minute barrier in the Mile in Paris last week. The 31-year-old Kenyan is slated to compete for the first time this season over 1,500m — the event in which she is a three-time Olympic gold medallist and triple world champion. She’s undefeated in finals at the distance for 20 races — a streak stretching back to June 2021 in Rome. In Oregon, she’ll take on a loaded field that includes the top-four finishers from the 2024 Paris Olympics — Kipyegon herself, Jessica Hull, Georgia Bell, and Diribe Welteji.
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Sweden’s Duplantis, meanwhile, will target another world record three weeks after lowering the pole vault world mark for the 12th time with a clearance of 6.28m in Stockholm. Duplantis has set two world records at Eugene’s Hayward Field, claiming his first outdoor world title there in 2022 (6.21m) and again at the 2023 Diamond League Finals (6.23m). “It would mean a lot, for sure,” he said. “It’s going to be pretty stacked, like it usually is, super historic meet, super historic track, special meet for me and my family — my father won the Prefontaine Classic back in 1992.”
The women’s 100m will see the first reunion of the Paris Olympic podium featuring gold medallist Alfred of Saint Lucia, silver medallist Richardson, and bronze medallist Melissa Jefferson-Wooden. The showdown will help gauge the progress of Jefferson-Wooden, who clocked a world-leading 10.73sec at a Grand Slam Track meeting in New York in June. Alfred was a convincing winner in Stockholm in 10.75 while Richardson has raced just once this season, posting an 11.47 in Tokyo in May, and will be aiming to sharpen up before the US trials for the World Championships — which will be held in Tokyo on September 13-21.
In the men’s 100m, all eyes will be on Jamaica’s Olympic silver medallist Kishane Thompson, who clocked a blistering 9.75sec at the Jamaican trials to become the sixth-fastest man in history and the quickest in the last decade.
© 2024 AFP
