The Best Performances From The Lausanne Diamond League

Now that championship season is behind us, the Diamond league resumed action on Friday at La Pontaise Olympic Stadium in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Here are my five favorite performances of the day…

5 – This was a star-studded field and you could’ve texted friends that it was a “must-watch” but it did not turn out that way at all. 100m world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce withdrew from the meet due to discomfort in her hamstring over the past few days. She wrote on Instagram: “As a precaution, my coach decided not to risk racing at this point. And I’ll have a few days to get some treatment before Brussels.”

Then, the race took another hit as Elaine Thompson-Herah was disqualified due to a blatant false start.

When we finally got underway with the race, Aleia Hobbs took the win in 10.87 ahead of Olympic bronze medalist Shericka Jackson in 10.88. This was Hobbs’ first 100m Diamond League win since the Shanghai Diamond League meet in May 2019. 

4 – France’s Renelle Lamote held on for a 1:57.84 win in the 800m over Atlanta Track Club Elite’s Allie Wilson, who ran a personal best of 1:58.09 for second place. Wilson is coming off a silver medal finish at the NACAC Championships. It was a good day for the Americans in the race as U.S. 1500m champion Sinclaire Johnson lowered her best of 1:59.90 to finish sixth

3 – The bad part about the summer track season winding down means that there are only a few more editions of The Noah Lyles Show. Friday’s Diamond League meet brought us a friendly clash between the 200m world champion and the 400m world champion Michael Norman. It did not disappoint. Norman got off a great start that forced Lyles to chase him down. It was no problem for him as he’s got one of the hardest closes in track and field history. He managed to run 19.56 for the win. Norman smiled across the finish line in second in 19.76.

Jareem Richards took third in 19.95. It was an off day for world championship bronze medalist Erriyon Knighton who ran 20.13 for sixth and Joseph Fahnbulleh, who ran 20.33 for seventh.

2 – Jakob Ingebrigsten did his thing to win 1500m and 5000m gold medals at the European Championships. He used Friday as an opportunity to further assert himself as the best 1500m runner in the world. He sat patiently behind Olli Hoare and the pacemaker for the early parts of the race but took over the race as soon as the pacemaker dropped out. In typical Jakob fashion, he controlled it and never relinquished the lead. The Norwegian star closed hard enough to take the world-leading time from Jake Heyward, who beat him at the world championships. Ingebrigtsen’s 3:29.05 is the third-best performance of his career.

Kenya’s Abel Kipsang, who walked away from the world championships and Commonwealth Games medal-less, took second in 3:29.93. Stewart McSweyn’s third place finish in 3:30.18 was a season’s best and a good sign of his fitness after early-season struggles with COVID. Eight total men broke 3:34.

1 – Alicia Monson’s fearlessness to hit the front of races and push has been thrilling to see develop against U.S. competition but she brought it against the likes of Francine Niyonsaba, Sifan Hassan and Beatrice Chebet on Friday evening. She came .01 seconds away from taking the Lausanne Diamond League win in the 3000m but was just caught at the finish line by Niyonsaba 8:26.80 to 8:26.81. The time puts Monson at No. 2 on the U.S. all-time list behind Mary Slaney’s 8:25.83 record from 1985.

More results from the meet…

– World champion Soufiane El Bakkali dominated the men’s 3000m steeplechase in 8:02.45, which was just a second off of Brimin Kiprop Kipruto’s meet record from 2010. He won the race by 10 seconds as Hailemariyam Amare of Ethiopia took second in 8:12.07. American record holder Evan Jager clocked a season’s best of 8:16.99 back in eighth place.

– Femke Bol continued her hot streak and won in a 400m hurdles meeting record of 52.95 for her sixth sub-53 performance of the season. Dalilah Muhammad looked like she would challenge her but faded in the final 100 meters following a crash by Jamaica’s Rushell Clayton all the way back to seventh in 56.03. 

– Jamaica’s Rasheed Broadbell dipped under 13 seconds for the first time in his career and won the men’s 110m hurdles in 12.99. World champion Grant Holloway got out to a good start but ended up third in 13.11 behind world championship silver medalist and compatriot Trey Cunningham. This is the second time Broadbell upset the two-time world champion this month.

– World championship silver medalist Marileidy Paulino won the women’s 400m in 49.87 just ahead of a hard-closing Sada Williams of Barbados in 49.94. Fiodaliza Cofil of the Dominican Republic took third in a personal best of 50.13 from Lane 8.

– Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn took down world record holder and world champion Tobi Amusan 12.34 to 12.45 for a new meet record. Tia Jones (12.47 PB) and Nia Ali (12.59) went 3-4 for Team USA.

– Cuba went 1-2-3 in the men’s triple jump with Andy Diaz Hernandez going 17.67m.

– Slovenia’s Tina Sutej won the women’s pole vault with a 4.70m leap. No Americans competed in Lausanne.

– Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra of India won the men’s javelin with an 89.08m throw that came on his first toss of the day.

– Ukraine’s Andriy Protsenko won the men’s high jump with a 2.24m jump over Olympic champion Mutaz Barshim, who was making his debut with PUMA.

– World champion Yulimar Rojas won the triple jump with a 15.31m leap over Jamaica’s Shanieka Ricketts (14.64m) and Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk (14.31m)

– World championship silver medalist Joe Kovacs defeated world champion Ryan Crouser in the men’s shot put for the first time since the 2019 World Championship final. Kovacs threw 22.65m while Crouser’s best on the day was only 22.05.

The next stop on the Diamond League schedule is the Brussels Diamond League meet on September 2 before the final is contested over two days in Zurich on Sept. 7th and 8th.

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