Olympic champions Emmanuel Wanyonyi and Letsile Tebogo will be the star attractions at the Lausanne Diamond League where epic battles are in the offing.
Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi will have an opportunity to assert his authority against world champion Marco Arop when they clash at the Lausanne Diamond League on August 22.
Wanyonyi got his revenge against Arop at the Paris 2024 Olympics when he held off a challenge from him to emerge victorious and the Canadian will be keen to right those wrongs, setting up the stage for an epic battle.
The Kenyan clocked 1:41.19, beating Arop by the finest of margins, as he managed 1:41.20 for second place.
It was the third fastest time in history and the 20-year-old is now seen as the man to possibly lower David Rudisha’s world record of 1:40.91 that has stood since the 2012 London Olympics.
Lausanne is one of the venues where that could happen although besides Arop, the field will not have some of the fastest runners as Algerian Djamel Sedjati, the Olympic bronze medallist, will be missing in the Swiss city.
Frenchman Gabriel Tual, sixth in Paris, will also provide stiff competition with his compatriot Ludovic Le Meur also in the race, same as Spaniard Mohamed Attaoui, American Bryce Hoppel, Catalin Tecuceanu from Italy, Swede Andreas Kramer, Belgian Pieter Sisk as well as Neil Gourley from Great Britain.
Meanwhile, Kenyan Olympians Reynold Cheruiyot, Brian Komen and Timothy Cheruiyot will also be in Lausanne for the 1,500m, coming up against Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who shockingly failed to win a medal over the distance at the Olympics.
Ingebrigtsen finished fourth and will want to make amends, same as Timothy Cheruiyot and Komen, who were 11th and 12th in Paris, while Reynold Cheruiyot did not make it to the final.
However, American Cole Hocker, who claimed a surprise gold at the Games, is also in the race, seeking to show that his win was not a fluke.
The other epic battle will be in the 200m where newly-crowned Olympics champion Letsile Tebogo is the star attraction in a race that also has Americans Fred Kerley, Olympics 100m bronze medallist, and Erriyon Knighton.
Africa’s fastest woman Marie-Josee Ta Lou-Smith will seek to make amends following her disappointing Olympics after signing up for the 100m but it will not be easy against Britain’s pair of Dina Asher-Smith and Daryll Neita, Swiss Mujinga Kambundji, Jamaican Tia Clayton and Tamari Davis of the United States.
