Chorzów (Poland) (AFP) – Olympic champion Noah Lyles will renew his rivalry with Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson when the pair take to the track for what promises to be a 100m race to remember at the Diamond League meet in Chorzów on Saturday. As athletes continue to fine-tune their form ahead of September’s world championships in Tokyo, Lyles headlines a raft of stars from track and field on show in southwest Poland.
Here, AFP Sport looks at four talking points at the 12th meeting of the 15-event Diamond League circuit at the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Silesia:
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– **Lyles v Thompson in Paris rematch** – Lyles sealed Olympic gold in the blue riband event in Paris last year by the closest of margins, pipping Thompson by just five-thousandeths of a second for victory. It remained a remarkable result for the Jamaican, who missed the cut for the 2023 world championships in Budapest. This year, however, he clocked a world-leading 9.75sec at the Jamaican trials in June, a time which puts him sixth on the all-time list.
Lyles will be keen to bounce back after his surprise 100m defeat to another Jamaican, Oblique Seville, at the London Diamond League meet. The American will have to compete not just with Thompson, but also a quartet of tested US teammates in the shape of Kenny Bednarek, Christian Coleman, Lindsey Courtney, and Trayvon Bromell, as well as South African Akani Simbine. There is some added spice after Lyles and Bednarek clashed in the US trials after the former won the 200m in a world lead time of 19.63sec. Bednarek accused Lyles of “unsportsmanlike” conduct after he turned his head to stare down his rival as he took the tape.
– **Coleman and Richardson on the card** – While Coleman bids to upset Lyles, also running in the women’s 100m is his partner Sha’Carri Richardson, the reigning world champion and Olympic silver medallist. Richardson found herself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons after being arrested for domestic violence after shoving Coleman at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last month. Both competed days later at the US championships in Eugene, Oregon, where Coleman, who reportedly did not press charges, said she should not have been arrested. Richardson duly apologised, saying that she held herself “accountable”.
The women’s 100m sees the presence of Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, who won a sprint double at the US trials, as well as Briton Dina Asher-Smith and the Jamaican Clayton twins, Tina and Tia.
– **Unstoppable Duplantis** – Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis bettered his pole vault world record by a centimetre on Tuesday, clearing 6.29 metres in Budapest. It was the US-born Swede’s 13th time he had set a world record as he soared over the bar at the second attempt to improve on his 6.28m from Stockholm in June. He first broke the world record in 2020 with 6.17m. It was also the 25-year-old’s third record of 2025 having initially raised the bar to 6.27m in Clermont-Ferrand in February. His rivals in Poland will be hoping for a rare off-day to get anywhere near topping the podium given that at last year’s Diamond League meeting in Silesia, it was none other than Duplantis who stole the headlines with a then-world record of 6.26m.
– **Kipyegon eyes WR, Chebet races 1500m** – Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon will have a tilt at a world record in the 3,000m, a non-Olympic event. Kipyegon, a three-time Olympic gold medallist over 1,500m, has an incredible track record. Her new 1,500m world record of 3:48.68 in the Eugene Diamond League was her fifth at a Diamond League meet in the last three seasons. The Kenyan came up short in her specially arranged attempt in June to become the first woman to smash through the four-minute barrier, clocking 4min 06.42sec in Paris.
Kipyegon’s teammate Beatrice Chebet will instead race the 1,500m, her first over the distance since 2023 and her first-ever time at a Diamond League. Chebet has notched up three victories over 5,000m on the circuit this season, but it remains to be seen whether she’ll have the speed over the shorter distance against a field that includes Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell and Ethiopian duo Gudaf Tsegay and Diribe Welteji.
© 2024 AFP
