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367352
Thu, 05/14/2015 - 23:48
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IAAF Diamond League Athletics Championship Starts Friday

Doha, May 14 (QNA) - Contests between African middle distances stars come under focus at the sixth IAAF Diamond League Athletics Championship starting at the Qatar Sports Club here Friday. In this edition, men's 800 meters starting line-up will see Ethiopia's world champion, indoors and outdoors, Mohammed Aman and Kenya's world 1500m champion Asbel Kiprop, the latter making one of his rarer forays at the shorter distance. Aman this year has eschewed the indoor season and will be making his 2015 debut but rarely brings anything less than his best form to the starting line. Kiprop's gold medals, meanwhile, may have come over 1500m but he has already shown good early season form over two laps of the track with a 1:44.4 outing on home soil in Nairobi back in March. Qatar's Musaeb Abdulrahman Balla could challenge the top two African athletes. Balla, 26, is Qatar national record-holder with 1:43.94 from 2013. He was the fastest man in the world indoors this past winter at 1:45.48 and looks set to move up to another level. Mo Farah is the star attraction in the men's 3000m. During the first few months of this year, the world, Olympic and European 5000m and 10,000m champion demonstrated his astonishing range by lowering the European half-marathon record to 59:32, having earlier set a world indoor two miles best of 8:03.40. Already the holder of the European 1500m and 10,000m records, he will be looking to add the European 3000m record, which currently stands at 7:26.62 to Belgiums Mohammed Mourit from 2000, to his list of accolades. Regardless of what the clock finally says, he will also be looking to beat a strong field which includes the Ethiopian duo of Hagos Gebrhiwet, the world 5000m silver medallist behind Farah who also won the Doha 3000m that year, and Yenew Alamirew who set the Doha meeting record of 7:27.26 in 2011. The women's 1500m also sees significant European interest with Sweden's Abeba Aregawi and the Netherlands' Sifan Hassan set to clash. Aregawi is the world indoor and outdoor champion over the distance and the Diamond Race winner in the event in 2012 and 2013. Her 3:56.60 victory and meeting record in Doha two years ago was the fastest time in the world in 2013. However, Hassan, who speaks Dutch, English and Amharic languages like Aregawi having been born in Ethiopia, arguably world's top 1500m runner last year. She had a fine season that included winning at the IAAF Continental Cup, defeating Aregawi to win the European title, and running 3:57.00 in Paris for the fastest time in the world. Among the other names in the field are Ethiopia's world junior champion Dawit Seyaum and Ukrainian Anna Mishchenko, who had a good win in 4:02.47 at the Kawasaki IAAF World Challenge meeting on Sunday. Dropping down the distances, US superstars and Olympic champions Allyson Felix and Sanya Richards-Ross grace the womens 200m and 400m respectively. Felix, the Olympic 200m champion and the fastest woman in the world last year, certainly knows her way around the Qatar Sports Club and this year she will be chasing an 11th victory on the track; her tally currently standing at three wins in the 100m, two in the 200m and five consecutively in the 400m from 2007 to 2011. The three-time world 200m champion and 2012 IAAF world athlete of the year's main rival should be Ivory Coast's Murielle Ahoure, who won 100m and 200m silver medals at the 2013 IAAF World Championships. Richards-Ross has already shown she is in great shape, providing two outstanding 400m legs for US teams that won the 4x400m and distance medley relay at the IAAF/BTC World Relays, Bahamas 2015 two weekends ago. She followed those performances with a world-leading individual run of 49.95 in the Jamaican capital of Kingston on Saturday, her earliest sub-50-second clocking since 2006, the year she set the still-standing US record of 48.70. Leading the challenge to Richards-Ross will be world indoor champion Francena McCorory and Jamaicas 2014 Diamond Race winner Novlene Williams-Mills. The mens 100m features USAs Justin Gatlin, the fastest man in the world over the distance last year with 9.77 at the IAAF Diamond League final in Brussels, which contributed to him being the 2014 Diamond Race winner. Joe Kovacs, US 2014 shot put champion recently improved his personal best to 22.35m to move up to 12th on the world all-time list. His challenge is to throw a good distance again to win in a field which includes compatriot and two-time world indoor champion Ryan Whiting, and Germany's two-time world champion David Storl. Whiting holds the meet record with 22.28m from 2013, which helped him win that seasons Diamond Race. The men's pole vault has been deprived of the presence of IAAF world athlete of the year Renaud Lavillenie, who acquired a minor injury while competing in a French club meeting at the weekend, which gives the opportunity for the likes of Germany's world champion Raphael Holzdeppe and Greece's world indoor champion Konstantinos Filippidis to make a return to the centre stage. After winning his third straight Diamond Trophy last season, Olympic champion Christian Taylor may be the triple jump favourite by pedigree, but Cuba's prodigious 21-year-old world silver medallist Pedro Pablo Pichardo sailed out to a national record 17.94m in Havana on Friday and his feat has caught everyones attention. The formidable French triple jump duo of European champion Benjamin Compaore and world champion Teddy Tamgho are also in Doha. The women's discus throw event is likely to be more of an exhibition thanks to the presence of Croatia's Olympic, world and European champion Sandra Perkovic. Perkovic, who has won no fewer than 21 times at IAAF Diamond League meetings, is not unbeatable but she doesn't often lose only once in 2012 and 2013, and twice last year and has already thrown beyond the halcyon mark of 70 metres this year. Australia's Dani Samuels, the 2009 world champion, is possibly the best bet to inflict a rare defeat on Perkovic. The women's 100m hurdles field has the two most recent Olympic champions, USA's 2014 Diamond Race winner Dawn Harper Nelson and Australia's Sally Pearson. The mantle of being the favourite, at least on current form, rests on Jasmin Stowers. The latest US talent over the barriers has already run 12.40 and 12.39 this season, the latter in Kingston on Saturday. (END)

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