Of all the big athletic stars in the world, a good number of them will turn up for the 2023 Doha Diamond League tomorrow in the capital city of Qatar in what promises to be an amazing event.
Besides yearning to garner early points toward the final Diamond League meeting in Eugene, athletes will also be pushing hard to meet the qualifying standards for the upcoming World Championships in Budapest, and also for an opportunity to hold world-leading times early in the season.
There will also be an interesting competition between the experienced and the emerging stars, like Wycliffe Kinyamal and Noah Kibet in the men’s 800m race, among others.
Below is my preview on the 2023 Doha Diamond League for Run Republic.
Distance stars at the 2023 Doha Diamond League
The event that will arguably attract most of the attention from the fans at the 2023 Doha Diamond League meeting will be the men’s 3000m flat race, loaded with some of the world’s best middle-distance runners.
The battle for supremacy between Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali and Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma will begin early in the season. Interestingly this will happen outside their specialty event of the 3000m steeplechase.
The fastest man on the start list is Ethiopia’s Berihu Aregawi, with an impressive 7:26.81. Aregawi has shown that he is in good form this year, having won the World Cross Country silver medal in Bathurst, Australia, on 18th February.
2019 1500m World champion and 2021 Olympic silver medalist Timothy Cheruiyot will be the other big name to watch out for as he moves up to a longer distance.
Most of the Diamond League meets have often saved the best for the last. The last event on the schedule of the 2023 Doha Diamond League will be the women’s 1500m featuring Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon, the two-time Olympic and two-time world champion over the distance.
In her build-up to the outdoor track season, Kipyegon easily won the senior women’s 10K Sirikwa Classic cross country event in Eldoret in February. This World Athletics Continental Tour, Gold level event, invited some of the best middle-distance and long-distance runners, but in a show of great form, Kipyegon made a statement on what we should expect from her this year.
She will face formidable opponents, mostly from Ethiopians, including Freweyni Hailu, Deribe Welteji and Hirut Meshasha. The other Kenyan on the start list is Winny Chebet. Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen has been training in Kenya with Kipyegon’s group, and it will be interesting to see what she learned.
Kenyan-born Bahrain runner Winfred Yavi will be one of the stars to watch out for in the women’s 3000m steeplechase race. The 23-year-old winner of last year’s Diamond League Trophy hopes to start the season on the same high note that she ended it last year.
However, there will be strong competition from Kenya’s world record holder, Beatrice Chepkoech and the two young and upcoming stars; 18-year-old Faith Cherotich, the 2022 World U20 champion and 19-year-old Jackline Chepkoech, the 2022 Commonwealth Games Champion.
Ethiopia’s Abebe Mekides, Uganda’s Olympic Champion, Peruth Chemutai and USA’s Emma Coburn are the other big contenders in the competitive women’s field.
The men’s 200m race with USA’s Fred Kerley, Kenneth Bednarek and Michael Norman, and Canada’s Adre De Grasse and Aron Brown promises to be one of the most anticipated races of the evening at the 2023 Doha Diamond League.
Read the full preview from Run Republic: Doha opens the diamond league season with incredible star-studded fields
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