Faith Kipyegon and Emmanuel Wanyonyi are set for 2024 Olympic Games rematches when they participate in the Brussels Diamond League circuit on Saturday, September 14, 2024.
The Kenyan duo will come up against the athletes who joined them on the Paris podium, as they are among the 25 Olympic gold medallists who will be in action in the Belgian capital.
Kipyegon, a gold medallist in Paris, goes to Brussels motivated given that she has never been beaten in the 1500m finals since June 2021. Olympic silver and bronze medallist Jessica Hull and Georgia Bell will be Kipyegon’s top rivals on Saturday.
World indoor champion Freweyni Hailu, world road mile champion Diribe Welteji and their fellow Ethiopian Birke Haylom will also feature.
Wanyonyi, on the other hand, will face four of the men who this season have come within one second of the world 800m record. The Olympic champion will face off with world champion and Olympic silver medallist Marco Arop, Olympic bronze medallist Djamel Sedjati, and European champion Gabriel Tual.
All of Wanyonyi’s top rivals have bettered 1:42 in recent months, some of them more than once, according to World Athletics. Wanyonyi will have the company of two-time Commonwealth champion Wycliffe Kinyamal, while world bronze medallist Ben Pattison is another contestant worth watching.
Double Olympic gold medallist Beatrice Chebet will also be in action. She recently came close to a world record when she ran 14:09.52 over 5000m in Zurich, the seventh fastest performance in history. Going to Brussels, she should be all too aware that the current world record was set in last year’s Diamond League final.
Ethiopian trio Tsigie Gebreselama, Ejegayehu Taye, and Medina Eisa will be Chebet’s top rivals.
The women’s 3000m steeplechase will also have the full set of Olympic medallists in action. World and Olympic champion Kenyan-born Winfred Yavi will take on 2021 Olympic champion Peruth Chemutai and Olympic bronze medallist Faith Cherotich.
The last clash between the trio resulted in Yavi clocking a world-leading 8:44.39, just 0.07 shy of the world record, with Chemutai moving to third on the world all-time list with 8:48.03. With the world record now within touching distance, there’s a chance they could attack it again in Brussels.
