Chinese stars Gong Lijiao, Liu Shiying and Feng Bin will ensure plenty of interest as World Athletics’ flagship competition gets underway on Saturday
The 2024 Diamond League season kicks off on Saturday (April 20) with the first meeting staged in Xiamen. It is the first of two early-season Diamond League events in China and could prove a livelier start than you might imagine.
All eyes will be on the TCS London Marathon on Sunday, but the track and field season has been bubbling into life in recent weeks and along with the Xiamen Diamond League there is the Kip Keino Classic in Kenya.
The Xiamen meeting last year attracted almost 30,000 spectators and this weekend an even bigger crowd is anticipated at the Xiamen Egret Stadium due to a number of top Chinese athletes being in action.
They include reigning Olympic champions Gong Lijiao (shot put) and Liu Shiying (javelin), plus 2022 world discus champion Feng Bin.
Gong Lijiao (Mark Shearman)
Gong takes on reigning world champion Chase Jackson of the United States and reigning world indoor champion Sarah Mitton of Canada.
In the non-Diamond League women’s javelin, meanwhile, Liu is up against fellow Chinese thrower Lyu Huihui, a three-time world medallist, and Australia’s Kathryn Mitchell and Colombia’s Flor Denis Ruiz Hurtado.
The women’s discus sees Bin taking on two-time Olympic champion Sandra Elkasevic (née Perkovic) of Croatia, reigning Olympic and Diamond League champion Valarie Allman of the United States, in-form Yaime Perez of Cuba and reigning world champion Laulauga Tausaga of the United States.
The event will be shown for UK viewers on the BBC and some of the sport’s biggest stars have made the trip to China. Mondo Duplantis faces American trio Christopher Nilsen, Sam Kendricks and KC Lightfoot in the pole vault. The men’s triple jump sees reigning world indoor and outdoor champion Hugues Fabrice Zango of Burkina Faso against the reigning Olympic champion, Pedro Pichardo of Portugal.
The men’s high jump will see reigning world indoor champion Hamish Kerr of New Zealand take on Barshim, the three-time world outdoor champion who will bid to win his second Olympic title in Paris.
Devynne Charlton (Getty)
The women’s 100m hurdles features a stacked line up with the last two world outdoor champions in Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan and Jamaica’s Danielle Williams, the last two world indoor champions in France’s Cyrena Samba-Mayela and Devynne Charlton of the Bahamas, along with the…
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