Athletics News

Diamond League Doha Event by Event Preview

Diamond League Doha Event by Event Preview

The Seashore Group Doha meeting opens the 2023 Diamond League season in great style with one of the best-ever fields in its history. The line-up includes 15 reigning individual Olympic champions and world champions, including local star Mutaz Barshim in the high jump. The expected highlights are the women’s 100 metres with Shericka Jackson, 1500 metres with Faith Kipyegon, pole vault with Katie Moon, the men’s 200 metres with Fred Kerley and Michael Norman, 3000 metres with Soufiane El Bakkali and javelin with Anderson Peters and Neeraj Chopra.

Women’s 100 metres: 

Reigning 200 metres world champion Sherika Jackson will start her Wanda Diamond League campaign in the 100 metres in Doha against a star-studded line-up that also features former 200 metres champion Dina Asher Smith, Abby Steiner, Melissa Jefferson and Twanisha Terry, three of the members of the US World Championships winning 4×100 relay team, and 2019 NCAA champion Sha’Carri Richardson. 

Jackson has become the first athlete to win a full set of World Championships medals across three sprint disciplines (100m, 200m and 400m) and is the first Jamaican sprinter to have run under the 11 seconds in the 100m (PB 10.71), under the 22 seconds in the 200m (PB 21.45) and under the 50 seconds in the 400 metres (PB 49.47). She won the 200 metres world gold medal in Eugene in 21.45 missing Florence Griffith Joyner’s world record by just 11 hundredths of a second. She also won the world silver medal in the 100m and in the 4×100 relay on the Hayward Field and won five Olympic medals in her career. Most recently she won the gold medal in the 4×100 relay and two bronze medals in the 100m and in the 4×400 relay at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. She improved her 100m PB to 10.71 at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Monaco last August and won the Diamond Trophy in the 200m by claiming first place in Zurich in 21.80. In last year’s edition of the Diamond League she also won two more 200m races in Rome (21.91) and Chorzow (21.84) and the 100m in Brussels in 10.73 and finished second in last year’s edition of the Doha meeting in 22.07 and in the 100m in Zurich in 10.81. Jackson set the fastest time in the world in 2023 with 10.82 at the Velocity Fest meeting in Kingston on 22 April and clocked a seasonal best of 50.92m in the 400 metres. 

Shericka Jackson: “After starting my season with a 400 metres, I am excited to drop down in distance to race over 100 metres in Doha. I know I am in good shape…

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