El-Bakkali smashes steeple meeting record before home crowd at Rabat Diamond League

Olympic and world champion Soufiane El-Bakkali stormed to victory before an enthusiastically vocal home crowd in the final event of Sunday’s Rabat Diamond League, the 3,000m steeplechase. The tall Moroccan ran 7:56.69, the eighth-fastest all-time performance in the event, only three seconds off the world record–and it’s still early in the season.

7:56.68 🔥

Hometown boy El Bakkali delivers in Rabat with a win in the men’s 3000m steeplechase.#DiamondLeague pic.twitter.com/yXfb6pS4XQ

— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) May 28, 2023

It was meeting records all round, almost, on Sunday in Rabat; they were also set in the women’s 1,500m (by Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay, who ran 3:54.03), the women’s 200m (by Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson, in 21.98) and the men’s 100 (by Fred Kerley of the U.S., in 9.94).

In other events, Edmonton’s Marco Arop finished fifth in the men’s 800m, in 1:46.34, which was won by Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya in 1:44.36.

Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen won the rather sedately-paced men’s 1,500m in 3:32.59, with the young American phenom Yared Nuguse three hundredths of a second behind him, in a PB of 3:33.02 and Australia’s Ollie Hoare third in 3:33.39. World bronze medallist and Commonwealth Games champion Mary Moraa of Kenya won the women’s 800m in 1:58.72.  

Never sleep on Gudaf Tsegay 😤

3:54.03.

Meeting record. World lead. #DiamondLeague pic.twitter.com/lv9fjCzJfX

— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) May 28, 2023

Shot putter Sarah Mitton of Liverpool, N.S., finished fifth in her event, with 18.56, the best of her five throws. Arop and Mitton were the only Canadians competing in Rabat.

For full results, click here. 

The Diamond League circuit continues with the next meeting, in Florence, Italy, on June 2.