by Justin Lagat
Some much-anticipated rematches will happen on Sunday, the 17th of September, at the Hayward field: Mary Moraa against Keely Hodgkinson and Athing Mu in the women’s 800m, Marco Arop versus Emmanuel Wanyonyi in the men’s 800m, and Beatrice Chebet against Gudaf Tsegay in the women 5000m will be some of the battles expected to thrill the fans in the stadium.
There have often been talks about some runners being good championship runners and others being good diamond league runners. It will be interesting to see whether Marco Arop of Canada will be both a championship and diamond league racer in the men’s 800m final on the second day of the Eugene Diamond League meet.
The Canadian will be running against Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi for the sixth time this year, with the latter having finished ahead of him in three races out of five. In the last two races, Arop won the world title in Budapest, while Wanyonyi replied with a win at the Xiamen Diamond League earlier this month.
But, while the eyes will be on the two main protagonists, Algeria’s Djamel Sedjati is showing good form, having just won the latest Diamond League race in 1:43.60. However, he did this in the absence of the two.
Beatrice Chebet will be the only medalist in the distance from Budapest lining up in the women’s 5000m race. But she will be up against the world champion, Tsegay Gudaf, and bronze medalist, Ejgayehu Taye, from the 10,000m event.
The three women have personal best times under 14 minutes and 13 seconds, with Tsegay having the fastest seasonal and personal best of 14:12.29, a time she ran to win the London Diamond League. While Tsegay will draw her confidence from having the fastest time, Chebet will draw hers from beating Tsegay in their latest race, which was at Budapest’s world championship final last month.
All the reigning world medalists in the women’s 800m race will be back for a rematch. Kenya’s Mary Moraa has been extremely impressive this year, with ten wins out of the ten 800m races she has run this year. In her victories, Keely Hodgkinson has finished 2nd behind her two times, and Mu has finished 2nd and 3rd behind her in two races.
Given the closeness of the 3000m to the two-mile distance, Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen appears to have the upper hand in the men’s 3000m race on Sunday after having set the 2-mile world best in Paris and the 2000m world record in Brussels. This will be the season’s last race for him before he goes out to plan a wedding with his girlfriend. Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei, Ethiopia’s Berihu Aregawi, Selemon Barega, and Yomif Kejelcha are among the other big names to watch out for in this race.
