A total of 19 freshly crowned Olympic champions will take to the track at the ninth Wanda Diamond League meeting of the season next Thursday, as the series hurtles towards a climactic, two-day final in Zurich on September 8th and 9th.
400m hurdles star Karsten Warholm broke his own world record on the way to Olympic gold in Tokyo, but he will have his sights set on a different target in Lausanne. The Norwegian will be competing in the 400m flat, with a view to breaking Thomas Schönlebe’s 34-year-old European record.
Fellow Norwegian and 1500m Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen will return to the 3000m, a discipline in which he set a new national record at the Rome Diamond League last season. Yet the youngster will face a stern test in Ethiopia’s Selemon Barega, who claimed gold in the 10,000m in Tokyo.
Mutaz Essa Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi enchanted the world when they decided to share the gold medal in the men’s high jump in Japan, and both will be back in action in the city event next Wednesday evening. The women’s high jump, which is part of the main programme on Thursday, will also feature all three Olympic medallists in Mariya Lasitskene, Nicola McDermott and Yaroslava Mahuchikh.
There will also be a full podium in the men’s 800m, where Kenyan champion Emmanuel Korir takes on Ferguson Rotich and Patryk Dobek, and in the men’s shot put, where US gold medallist Ryan Crouser meets compatriot Joe Kovacs and reigning Diamond League champion Tom Walsh.
Sweden’s pole vault superstar Mondo Duplantis will also be in action, as he looks to add a Diamond Trophy to his Olympic gold medal in the remaining weeks of the season, while there may be some scores to settle in the men’s javelin.
Neeraj Chopra is now the man to beat after winning gold in Tokyo, but will no doubt face fierce competition from world champion Johannes Vetter, who will be out to put his Olympic heartbreak behind him after missing out on the podium in Japan.
Click here for more information on the Lausanne Diamond League.