Monaco HERCULIS NEWS

HERCULIS NEWS

Mondo Duplantis, 13 August 2020, Monaco DL presser, photo by Etienne Fiacre

MONACO (MON): Eleven reigning world champions from around the globe are converging on Monaco this week for the first Diamond League meeting that will resemble a regular top-flight international one-day meeting since the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic. Writes World Athletics. The Herculis meeting organisers have moved mountains, while observing strict health and safety protocols, in order to present what shapes as the strongest fields of a truncated international season for Friday night's meeting at Stade Louis II, which will have a reduced capacity of 5000 spectators to allow social distancing. Contingents of athletes from Africa and the United States arrived in Monaco on Monday, having undergone Covid-19 tests before departure and after arrival to prove they have not been infected with the virus.

Sifan Hassan, 13 August 2020, Monaco DL presser, photo by Etienne Fiacre

MONACO (MON): Stars like Noah Lyles, Sifan Hassan and Mondo Duplantis descend on Monaco during the week to compete on Friday. In the ranks of world champions Karsten Warholm, Donavan Brazier, Yulimar Rojas and Katharina Johnson-Thompson. Lyles will make his first appearance in Monaco since he broke the 200m meeting record here in 2018 and will 2017 World champion Ramil Guliyev and his brother Josephus. Record breakers at the Monaco stadium Hassan and Beatrice Chepkoech will go head to head in the women's 5000m, and while another world record may be too much to ask for, we can expect fireworks as the two history-makers face fellow long-distance superstar and reigning world champion Hellen Obiri. Duplantis will face Sam Kendricks. One of the surprises of the season in 2019, Uganda's Halimah Nakaayi will run the 1000 m with Laura Muir and Faith Kipyegon. The men's 1500m is an equally mouth-watering prospect, as world champion Timothy Cheruiyot reprises his duel with Norway's Ingebrigtsen brothers, following their cross-continental team battle at the Oslo Impossible Games in June. Ivorian star Marie-Josée Ta Lou stormed to victory in the 100m in Monaco two years ago, and she is out to repeat the feat this year in a race which will bring some of the finest sprinters from three different continents to the Stade Louis II track.

Yulima Rojas, 13 August 2020, Monaco DL presser, photo by Etienne Fiacre

MONACO (MON): World 10,000m champion Joshua Cheptegei, who is targeting the world 5000m record in Monaco on Friday, says breaking the world road 5km mark in the principality earlier this year, was the inspiration for his attempt. "I was encouraged with my 5km world record in Monaco, and I thought there is no better place or time to attack the world 5000m record than this year," he told NN Running. "In 2021 we now have the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics, followed by World Championships in 2022 and 2023 and the following year the Paris Olympics. I believe if there is a time to attack the world record, it is this year. It is now or never."

MONACO (MON): Last-minute efforts are being made by organisers to provide live coverage in Britain of Friday's opening Wanda Diamond League meeting in Monaco following Eurosport's decision not extend its athletics contract in 2020. Informs insidethegames. Petr Stastny, Chief Executive Officer of Diamond League AG, told insidethegames that IMG were still trying to arrange live coverage of the event in the United Kingdom. "It is something that could even be arranged at the last minute," Stastny said. "As of this morning we have already had more than 60 countries confirmed to provide coverage."

TURKU (FIN): European champion Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, world bronze medalist over 110 m hurdles in 2019, had to give up participating in the Turku meeting, feeling pain in his left thigh during the warm-up. He was also forced Herculis EBS Monaco DL on Friday. Similar fate for sprint star Christophe Lemaitre who in the final of the 100 m fel pain in his right adductor and did not finish. He is also out from Monaco 200 m. He was replaced by the fastest European in the 100 m this year German Deniz Almas.