Mary Moraa and Beatrice Chebet are among the Olympic medallists who will light up the Zurich Diamond League on Thursday, September 5, 2024.
The last leg of the Diamond League campaign before the grand final in Brussels has attracted 14 gold medal winners from last month’s Paris Olympics, according to World Athletics. These include four athletes who have gotten in on the world record fest since Mondo Duplantis kicked off the season with a new men’s pole vault height of 6.24m in Xiamen on April 20.
A fierce contest is expected in the 1500m, where Jakob Ingebrigtsen will face his usual top rivals. The Norwegian destroyed Daniel Komen’s 3000m world record with a jaw-dropping 7:17.55 in Silesia, and in Zurich, he will take on Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse of the US and Josh Kerr of Britain, who swept past him to claim Olympic 1500m gold, silver, and bronze in Paris.
Kerr has established himself as one of the key participants in the race given that he outkicked Ingebrigtsen to land the world title in Budapest last year and did the same to win the Bowerman Mile in the Eugene Diamond League meeting in May. However, the Norwegian has not lost a 1500m race on the Diamond League circuit since he finished runner-up to Kenya’s Timothy Cheruiyot in Zurich three years ago.
Just for the record, there has only been one global mark for the men’s 1500m made in Zurich: in 1979, when the long-time Weltklasse promoter Res Brugger famously barred Steve Ovett from facing Sebastian Coe because he didn’t want the rivalry to interfere with the latter’s shot at a third world record in 41 days, which Coe duly achieved in 3:32.1, as reported by World Athletics.
Chebet eyes glory
Meanwhile, Chebet, who bagged two Olympic golds in five days in Paris – her 5000m and 10,000m successes, the only individual double in the French capital – will be chasing a second global mark in four months in the women’s 5000m in Zurich.
In the Eugene Diamond League 10,000m in May, the 24-year-old Kenyan clocked 28:54.14, becoming the first woman to crack 29 minutes for 10,000m.
Chebet stands third on the all-time list at 5000m with the 14:05.92 she clocked in the wake of Ethiopian Gudaf Tsegay’s world record 14:00.21 at the Diamond League Final in Oregon a year ago.
However, only two other women on the Zurich start list have broken 14:20.
World 10,000m bronze medallist Ejgayehu Taye, who finished sixth in the Olympic 5000m final, has a best of 4:12.98. Fellow Ethiopian Tsigie Gebreselama, second to Chebet in the 2023 World Cross Country Championships, has run 14:18.76.
Finally, Moraa will also be in Zurich chasing more glory. She is fresh from her 600m world best of 1:21.63 in Berlin on Sunday and will take on Tsige Duguma, the Ethiopian who claimed Olympic 800m silver one place ahead of her, and Britain’s 1500m bronze medallist Georgia Bell.
