The 2022 Diamond League tour held in the Swiss city of Lausanne on Friday night promises top action with several Kenyans looking towards positive outcomes in several races.
Stiff competition is expected especially in the 100m when the Jamaican trio of World Champion Shelly Anne Fraser Pryce, Shericka Jackson and Elaine Thompson-Herah go head to head.
While the race will be the headline act in Lausanne, the Kenyan eyes will be on several other races.
Top Kenyan athletes are also expected to be in action on Friday night, with athletes competing in the Men’s 1500m, Women’s 3000m and Men’s 3000m steeplechase.
Women’s 3,000m
Newly crowned Commonwealth Games champion Beatrice Chebet and World Championship bronze medalist Margaret Chelimo will lead Kenya’s hunt in this race.
Chebet clinched silver in the 5,000m at the Worlds and upgraded it to a gold at the Commonwealth Games, adding it on to the African title she won in Mauritius. This will be her third Diamond League race, having finished 16th in Doha and second at the Prefontaine Classic.
Chelimo will be on a Diamond League race for the first time, having only raced at the HBK Games in Hengelo, a World Athletics Continental Gold Label Tour, where she finished fourth in the 10,000m.
Men’s 3,000m steeplechase
Having lost the Olympic title and World title, Kenyan’s will try come out and reclaim the global dominance at the Diamond League.
In Lausanne, Kenya will be represented by recently crowned Commonwealth champion Abraham Kibiwott, 2021 World Under-20 Champion Amos Serem and Leonard Bett.
The race is deemed to be a tough one as Moroccan Soufiane El Bakkali, who has won the Olympic and World titles, will also be in the race.
Men’s 1500m
Former World Champion Timothy Cheruiyot and Abel Kipsang will be competing for the first time since the Commonwealth Games.
Cheruiyot was narrowly beaten to gold by Australian Oliver Hoare in Birmingham, but he took it as a positive step after missing out a medal at the Worlds.
Kipsang, a world indoor bronze medalist, started the season well winning the Kenyan Championships, Kip Keino Classic, Diamond League races in Doha and Birmingham, won the African title and was fourth at the Prefontaine Classic.