Armand Duplantis and Letsile Tebogo headline a stellar lineup of Olympic champions heading to Lausanne for the first Diamond League meeting since the Paris Games.
Tomorrow’s event will see 18 current Olympic and world champions compete in the Swiss city, just 12 days after the final track and field action at the Stade de France.
Duplantis, who defended his gold medal at the Paris Games and set a new world record of 6.25 meters, will participate in a City Event on the esplanade by Lake Geneva on Wednesday.
This will be held a day before the main competition at the Stade Olympique de la Pontaise.
In Lausanne, Duplantis will face American Sam Kendricks, the silver medalist from Paris, and Renaud Lavillenie, the 2012 Olympic champion and former world record holder who missed out on the Paris Games.
“It’s the only pole vault event next to a lake,” Duplantis said. “I love to have it scenic, fun, more like a show. It suits us well. I jumped 6.10m in Lausanne last time and have felt well rested since Paris.
“I think there are still some good jumps in my legs,” said the US-born Swede, who left Paris the day after the event for a “much-needed vacation with my girlfriend to chill as much as I could”.
Botswana’s Tebogo will race the 200m tomorrow , the event he won in Paris when he outstripped a Covid-hit Noah Lyles.
The American, a three-time world champion in the distance and the 100m winner in the French capital, has called time on his season.
Tebogo will be up against Fred Kerley, the triple world champion (100m and relay) and 100m bronze medallist in Paris, and his US teammate Erriyon Knighton.
The 21-year-old Batswana raced to victory in an African record of 19.46sec, a time that took him to fifth on the all-time list.
He also became the first African to win the Olympic 200m metres. The men’s 800m race in this 11th stage of the Diamond League circuit also promises to be a thriller.
Four men in the Olympic final dipped under the 1min 42sec mark for the first time ever.
And four of the top five finishers from the Games will run in Lausanne: Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya, the third fastest man in history, Olympic silver medallist and world champion Marco Arop of Canada, and the fourth and fifth-place finishers in Paris, American Bryce Hoppel and Spain’s Mohamed Attaoui.
Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen will bid to put the disappointment of his 1500m outing at the Paris Games behind him when takes on a strong field in Switzerland.
American Cole Hocker stormed to an upset victory in Paris, outsprinting world champion Josh Kerr of Britain, American Yared Nuguse and Ingebrigtsen.
The Norwegian finished fourth, left ruing an insanely fast opening 400m that left him vulnerable to a late attack.
Ingebrigtsen did, however, rebound to win the Olympic 5,000m title and now has an immediate chance of redemption over the shorter distance, with Hocker also listed.
There is also a high-quality field assembled in the women’s high jump, Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh up against Australia’s Paris silver and bronze medallists Nicola Olyslagers and Eleanor Patterson.
Mahuchikh set a new world record of 2.10m at the Paris Diamond League meet and while not reaching those same heights at the Olympics, seems in unbeatable form.
Femke Bol is another athlete on show, competing in the 400m hurdles, in which she won bronze in Paris behind record-setting Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Anna Cockrell.