Track and field season heads into the home straight

After a month-long hiatus that included the Commonwealth Games, the Diamond League track and field circuit resumed today with a special men's pole vault "city event" in the heart of Lausanne, Switzerland. Swedish star Armand Duplantis, winner of back-to-back Olympic gold medals and three straight world championships, won it with a meet-record vault of 6.21 metres before failing on his crowd-pleasing attempts at 6.32m, which would have broken his own world record by one centimetre.

Today's festivities kicked off the final stretch of the global track and field season, which features the Diamond League Final and the brand-new World Athletics Ultimate Championship.

Only three regular-season meets remain before the Diamond League champions are crowned at the Final in Brussels on Sept. 4 and 5. And two of them take place over the next few days. 

Today's pole-vault competition was an amuse-bouche for Lausanne's main event on Friday at Stade Olympique de la Pontaise.

The menu there includes a delicious men's 800m matchup between all three medallists from the 2024 Paris Olympics: Kenya's Emmanuel Wanyonyi, Canada's Marco Arop and Algeria's Djamel Sedjati. The 200m races feature reigning Olympic men's champion Letsile Tebogo of Botswana, two-time women's world champ Shericka Jackson of Jamaica and Great Britain's Amy Hunt, the silver medallist at last year's worlds.

You can watch the meet live from 2-4 p.m. ET on CBC Gem or catch a replay on the CBC TV network from 3-5 p.m. ET. The men's 800 is at 2:40 p.m. ET, and the 200s go at 2:15 p.m. ET (women's) and 3:41 p.m. ET (men's). Here's the full schedule. 

On Saturday, the action shifts to Poland's massive Silesian Stadium, which will host some of the biggest names in the sport over two days of competition.

Day one brings a handful of field events — including the women's shot put. Canada's Sarah Mitton, coming off her second consecutive Commonwealth Games gold medal and ranked No. 3 in the world, takes on reigning world champion Jessica Schilder of the Netherlands and two-time world champ Chase Jackson of the United States.

Previewing the women's 100m matchup at the Silesia Diamond League

Then things really get going on Sunday. It features Canada's twin Olympic and world hammer throw champions Ethan Katzberg and Camryn Rogers, who both won gold at the Commonwealth Games, while Andre De Grasse competes in a super-sized men's 100m. Unlike most Diamond League races, this one has a qualifying round and is stuffed with 18 competitors, including reigning world champ Oblique Seville of Jamaica, back-to-back Olympic silver medallist Kenny Bednarek of the United States and former world champ Christian Coleman of the U.S.

Among the other attractions on Sunday is Norwegian distance-running star Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the men's 1,500m. The two-time Olympic gold medallist made a triumphant return from Achilles surgery at this month's European championships, winning his fourth consecutive 5,000m title. There's also a tasty men's 400m hurdles matchup between Norway's Karsten Warholm and American Rai Benjamin, the last two Olympic champs.

But the race that has track nerds buzzing is the women's 100m. The Olympic-calibre field (a rarity on the Diamond League circuit, where the top sprinters often duck each other to maximize their prize money) includes Saint Lucia's Julien Alfred, American Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and New Zealand's Zoe Hobbs — the reigning Olympic, world and Commonwealth Games champions, respectively. Oh, and throw in American star Sha'Carri Richardson (the 2023 world champ and 2024 Olympic silver medallist) and Jamaicans Shericka Jackson and Tina Clayton, the runner-up at last year's worlds.

Here's more on the high-wattage women's 100m and what it means for the sport from CBC Sports contributor Morgan Campbell. And here's a breakdown from Perdita Felicien and Aaron Brown on the latest episode of CBC Sports' Trackside.

You can watch Sunday's action live on CBC Gem from 10 a.m. ET to noon ET or catch a replay on CBC TV at 2 p.m. ET. The men's 100m final is at 11:11 a.m. ET, and the women's 100 closes out the meet at 11:53 a.m. ET. Here's the full schedule. 

A season-long points chase decides the qualifiers for each event at the Final in Brussels, where the points go out the window and a one-off competition determines who hoists the Diamond Trophy and collects the top cash prize (either $30,000 or $60,000 US, depending on the event).

Source: Read the original article on www.cbc.ca