Star-studded field set for Diamond League return

The Monaco Diamond League event will be the first of 2020, and although COVID-19 has prevented the world’s best athletes from competing together for many months, many high-profile track and field stars have said they will be racing on August 14. It was announced on the Diamond League website that American 200m world champion Noah Lyles will compete in Monaco, along with 5K world record-holders Joshua Cheptegei and Sifan Hassan. These are just a few of the many names on the start lists for the event, and the packed lineup of some of track’s biggest stars will likely make for a fun day of racing. 

It's getting closer and closer. 4 more athletes confirmed their wish to compete in #Monaco on August 14th!#KonstanzeKlosterhalfen @LylesNoah @mondohoss600 #HalimaNakaayi #HerculisEBS #Monaco #DiamondLeague #MonacoDL @Diamond_League pic.twitter.com/V1wChcvBcW

— Herculis (@MeetingHerculis) July 7, 2020

First in-person event 

The Monaco event, also known as the Herculis EBS Meeting, will be the first in-person Diamond League event of the season. There have been two Diamond League exhibitions so far in 2020: the Impossible Games in Oslo and the Inspiration Games, which were run in place of the Zurich event. These exhibitions were extremely entertaining to watch, and some of the world’s best track athletes competed in them, but with their limited and spread out fields (both events saw athletes competing in multiple stadiums and countries), they can’t be counted as official Diamond League events. If everything goes as planned, Monaco will be run as an official meet. 

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Big names 

In 2018, Lyles set the 200m meet record in Monaco, running 19.65, and he’ll line up in the same event come August. He’s coming off a heartbreaking and head-scratching run in the Inspiration Games, where he (and everyone else watching the race) thought he had broken the 200m world record with a time of 18.91 seconds. As it turned out, he was in the wrong lane and only ran 185m, but for a short while, Lyles was on top of the world of track and field. Maybe we’ll see a legitimate record from the young American in Monaco. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCDeNiMnyh1/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

World 800m champion Halimah Nakaayi will join fellow Ugandan Cheptegei, who will run the 5,000m. Cheptegei ran his 5K world record of 12:51 in Monaco in February, so maybe he can reproduce that magic and take a stab at Kenenisa Bekele‘s 5,000m record of 12:37.35. His PB on the track is 12:57.41. 

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The women’s 5,000m race will feature Hassan, who, like Cheptegei, set her 5K world record in Monaco, where she ran 14:44 in 2019. Hassan is the reigning world champ in the 1,500m and 10,000m. Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen will line up against Hassan. Klosterhalfen, the German 5,000m record-holder, won bronze in the 5,000m at the 2019 world championships, and she has a PB of 14:26.76. 

Track is back! These last few months have been challenging but we’re thrilled to announce the events of this year’s #HerculisEBS edition. #Monaco #DiamondLeague https://t.co/q5O9YLTFUV pic.twitter.com/Is9eYJnGkL

— Herculis (@MeetingHerculis) June 10, 2020

The event program is set, but the start lists have yet to be finalized. Regardless of who else shows up to compete, it looks like the Monaco Diamond League will be one of the best events so far in 2020.