Doha: With arguably its best fields ever, the Seashore Group Doha Meeting will open the 2023 Wanda Diamond League season in style at on Friday, May 5.
Fifteen reigning individual Olympic and world champions - including Qatar’s Olympic and world high jump champion Mutaz Barshim - plus a host of major championship medallists, will compete at the Suheim Bin Hamad Stadium where five world leading performances, two meeting records, and three area and national records were set 12 months ago.
Mohammed Al Fadala, Qatar Athletics Federation president, said Qatar is looking forward to welcome the best of the world.
“We are proud to host the opening meeting of the 2023 Wanda Diamond League and I believe that this year we have put together the highest quality fields we’ve ever seen in Doha,"Al Fadala said.
“As an ambitious nation, we must continue to grow the reputation of the Seashore Group Doha Meeting on the global circuit and to build on the positive momentum generated as a result of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Sport is important to our country and we have a big part to play. We once again look forward to welcoming the best athletes in the world to the Qatar Sports Club and to enjoying their inspiring performances.”
Among the stars who will be descending in Doha, the reigning world 200m champion Shericka Jackson (JAM) will open her Diamond League campaign over 100m, in an exciting line-up that includes former world 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith (GBR).
Jackson is the first athlete in history to win a full set of World Championships medals across three sprint disciplines (100m, 200m, and 400m). She is a five-times Olympic medallist, most recently winning 4 x 100m relay gold and 100m and 4 x 400m bronze in Tokyo. At the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, in addition to winning 200m gold in a Jamaican record (21.45) - the second-quickest of all time - she took silver in the 100m and 4 x 100m. Her 100m best is 10.71 from the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Monaco in August 2022.
Asher-Smith, who won world bronze over 200m in Eugene 2022, is the British 100m record holder with a best of 10.83 set at the World Athletics Championships in Doha 2019, where she finished second. She also holds the British 200m record (21.88). Twice an Olympic 4 x 100m relay bronze medallist, she won the Wanda Diamond League 100m crown in 2019.
Jackson has won four of the five previous meetings between the two over 100m.
Meanwhile, in an intriguing match-up over 200m, Olympic 200m champion Andre De Grasse (CAN) will go up against world 400m champion Michael Norman (USA), world 100m champion and Olympic silver medallist Fred Kerley (USA), and Olympic and world 200m silver medallist Kenny Bednarek (USA).
QAF President Mohammed Al Fadala
De Grasse, a six-time Olympic medallist with a national record best of 19.62, had an interrupted build-up to the World Athletics Championships in Eugene last summer after injury and illness hampered his preparations.
At last year’s Wanda Diamond League meeting in Doha, Kerley - who has a legal best of 19.76 for 200m - clocked a windy 19.75 to finish runner up to eventual world champion Noah Lyles, with De Grasse in fourth. At the 2021 event, Bednarek, who has a best of 19.68, got the better of De Grasse with the pair finishing first and second respectively. Norman, a former world under-20 200m champion, has a best of 19.70 from the Diamond League meeting in Rome in 2019. The versatile sprinter won the Doha 400m in 2021, with Kerley third.
The Olympic javelin champion and world silver medallist Neeraj Chopra – the Indian national record holder with a best of 89.94m – will also be seen in action at the Suheim Bin Hamad Stadium, joining world champion Anderson Peters (GRN) and Olympic silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch (CZE) in a much-anticipated javelin competition.
Chopra is an inspirational figure and has blazed a trail for Indian athletes throughout his career to date. He was the first Indian track and field athlete to set a world record (under-20) when he threw 86.48m to win the 2016 World U20 Championships, which was also the first time an Indian athlete had won a global track and field title.
He won javelin gold at the 2018 Asian Games, the first Indian athlete to do so, and made history in Tokyo when he became the country’s first Olympic gold medallist in track and field. He won Commonwealth Games gold in 2018 and was crowned 2022 Wanda Diamond League champion.
Due to injury, Chopra missed out on the incredible javelin competition at the 2022 Doha Meeting where two national records were broken, including the fifth-longest throw in history by Grenada’s two-time world champion Peters (93.07m), a mark only just outside Thomas Röhler’s 93.90m impressive meeting record from 2017.
Peters returns for the 2023 edition of the Doha Meeting, alongside Olympic silver medallist Vadlejch – European silver medallist and bronze medallist in Eugene - who also recorded a PB in Doha 2022 with his first ever throw over 90m (90.88m).
Meanwhile, two-time Olympic and world 1500m champion Faith Kipyegon (KEN) headlines the women’s 1500m.
In pole vault which will see an incredible field that reunites the podium trio from the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Olympic and world champion Katie Moon (USA) will take on Sandi Morris (USA) and Nina Kennedy (AUS) in Doha.
Reigning Olympic and world 3000m steeplechase champion Soufiane El Bakkali (MAR) will headline an impressive men’s 3000m.
He will be joined by Ethiopia’s Olympic and world 3000m SC silver medallist Lamecha Girma, the world indoor 3000m record holder who clocked 7:23.81at the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais in February to improve a record that had stood for 25 years.
In addition to those reigning champions listed above, the impressive list of reigning individual Olympic and world champions also includes Olympic and world triple jump champion Pedro Pichardo (POR); Olympic discus champion Daniel Stahl (SWE); world discus champion Kristjan Ceh (SLO); Olympic 3000m steeplechase champion Peruth Chemutai (UGA); and Olympic 100mH champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (USA).
The 2023 Wanda Diamond League comprises 14 meetings in total, starting with Doha and concluding with a single final across two days in Eugene (September 16-17).
