By Fawad Hussain
DOHA: Top athletes including several world and Olympic champions will line-up at today’s season-opening IAAF Diamond League with one eye on the 2016 Olympic Games that are just three months away.
The Qatari capital, which is opening the 14-meeting series season for the seventh consecutive year, will stage eight competitions each for both men and women athletes at the state-of-the-art track inside the Qatar Sports Club Stadium.
Eleven reigning world champions will lead a field of 38 past and current champions besides 80 medal winners.
“It will be a big day for the athletes,” the Qatar Athletics Federation (QAF) President Dahlan Al Hamad, accompanied by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) President Sebastian Coe, told a crowded press conference in Doha yesterday.
“We have all witnessed the way the IAAF Doha Diamond League, a prestigious event held since 2010 in Qatar, has progressed over the years,” he added.
“We have set high standards in organising such an important and prestigious sporting event in previous years and we aim to continue at the highest possible level. As 2016 is an Olympic year, with the Games in Rio, we are confident that Doha Diamond League will offer the athletes an ideal start.”
The IAAF President was confident of another blockbuster start to the Diamond League season.
“Doha hosted the first ever Diamond League meeting in 2010 and has since held the honour to host the curtain raiser of the main international season,” said Coe, who replaced Lamine Diack as IAAF President last August.
“This year that curtain-raiser holds more significance than in some years because, as the athletes know all to well, the denouement of the season is the Olympic Games,” Coe said.
Reigning Olympic champions Christian Taylor, Aries Merritt and Ezekiel Kemboi will be among the stars in the men’s events today.
Taylor, also a four-time winner of the series’ Diamond Race Trophy in the triple jump was itching to kick off the season.
“I love competing, I love getting points, I love being on top of podiums so I try to do what I need to do to put me in that place,” the 25-year-old American star told reporters.
There will be a lot at stake for the home fans as well as Qatari hopes are high in several events.
After equaling his own 9.91 Asian record in the 100m last month, star sprinter Femi Ogunode will be among the favourites in the men’s 200m.
“I’m calm. I’m not anxious about competing here, I’m in my home country. I trust in myself and believe in myself, so there is no pressure,” said the Qatari sprinter who also holds the Asian record in the 200 at 19.97.
Besides Ogunode, London Olympic medallist Mutaz Barshim, also a 2014 world indoor champion will have the top position in his sights in the high jump competition.
In the 400m, local eyes will fall on latest hot prospect, 19-year-old Abdalelah Haroun who took silver at the World Indoor Championships in March.
A prodigious talent, Haroun set an Asian U-20 record last year clocking 44.29, the eight fastest performance of the year. In a non-scoring 800m race, two-time Asian champion Musaeb Abdulrahman Balla of Qatar is looking to kick off his outdoor campaign with a fast time to make amends for his unfortunate race at the World Indoor Championships final. The highlight of the women’s competitions is expected to be a clash between world champions Almaz Ayana and Vivian Cheruiyot.
Ayana, who raced to 5,000m gold at last year’s World Championships in Beijing, and Cheruiyot, the 10,000m victor, will face off in the 3,000m, traditionally one of the strongest events at the Doha competition.
Cheruiyot’s triumph in Beijing was the fifth at a World Championships for the 32-year-old Kenyan whose previous season-long consistency on the track was rewarded with Diamond Race Trophies in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
Another is Dafne Schippers, who won the world 200m title last summer with a sterling 21.63 run, a performance that elevated the 23-year- old Dutchwoman all the way up to the No. 3 position all-time.
“I’ve heard that it’s a very nice track, and it’s very nice to be able to compete against these very fast women,” Schippers said.
“We’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
The structure of the IAAF Diamond League follows the successful format of the first six seasons.
Athletes are battling for qualification marks and team places in the run-up to the Olympics, and will then look for revenge or defend their newly won reputations in their post-championship campaigns.
This year, the IAAF Diamond League has introduced a new points format for the 2016 season.
From 2016, the points system will be changed to state that athletes finishing in the top six will all win points. At the finals, all points will be doubled as usual.
In all six previous seasons of the series, athletes could win Diamond Race points at any given meeting by finishing in the top three in their Diamond Race discipline.
In the IAAF Diamond League Finals in Zurich and Brussels, points are doubled. The athlete with the most Diamond Race points at the end of the season wins the Diamond Trophy.
If two or more athletes are tied on points at the end of the season, the athlete with the most victories wins the Diamond Trophy.
With more points up for grabs this season, more athletes will find themselves in the running for Diamond Race glory.
“The Diamond League has achieved a lot since it was created in March 2009,” Coe said. “It is athletics’ most lucrative circuit with prize money totalling over $8m. The Diamond League is also broadcast annually to over 120 countries. It provides athletics with its most important focus outside of our major championships.”
The Peninsula
