ATHLETICS – Bahrain's elite athletes Salwa Eid Naser and Birhanu Balew are set compete tomorrow night in Athletissima Lausanne – a star-studded Wanda Diamond League meeting in Switzerland.
The Wanda Diamond League is the premier one-day meeting series held annually under World Athletics, track and field’s international governing body. Athletes vie for points in their event’s select number of races in a bid to qualify for the series’ final, where they will vie for Diamond Trophies – the sport’s most prestigious yearly accolade.
Naser will be running in Lausanne in the women’s 400 metres, while Balew will be hitting the track in the men’s 5,000m.
Both athletes are taking part as part of their lead-up to the World Athletics Championships 2025, scheduled to take place next month in Tokyo, Japan.
Prior to that, they are slated to compete in the Weltklasse Zurich meeting, also in Switzerland, on August 27 and 28, which marks this year’s Wanda Diamond League final.
On the current Wanda Diamond League standings for this season, Naser is in prime position to qualify as she is in second place for the women’s 400m tied on 22 points with Lieke Klaver from the Netherlands. They are just two points behind reigning world and Olympic champion Marileidy Paulino from the Dominican Republic, who has already secured her spot in Zurich.
Balew, on the other hand, has already punched his ticket to the final. He is also second in the men’s 5,000m standings with 19 points, one behind first-placed Kuma Girma and two ahead of third-placed Yomif Kejelcha, both from Ethiopia and both also already qualified.
Naser is set to be the favourite in her eight-athlete race tomorrow in Lausanne. Paulino is not running, but there is still a top-quality field that includes Klaver, 2023 world championships silver-medallist and Paris 2024 Olympics bronze-medallist Natalia Bukowiecka from Poland, 2023 worlds bronze-medallist Sada Williams from Barbados, Henriette Jaeger from Norway, and the American trio of Alexis Holmes, Isabella Whittaker, and Britton Wilson.
The women’s 400m is scheduled for a 9.04pm start, Bahrain time. Naser heads into the run with a season’s best of 48.67 seconds, as she inches closer to matching her personal best of 48.14s.
Balew, meanwhile, will be amongst a large 22-runner pack boasting the world’s best distance-running specialists. The men’s 5,000m entry list includes Paris 2024 Olympics bronze-medallist Grant Fisher from the US and 2023 worlds bronze-medallist Jacob Krop, along with world number four Hagos Gebrhiwet from Ethiopia and his countryman and world number seven Telahun Hailer Bekele.
The men’s 5,000m is scheduled for a 9.55pm start, Bahrain time. Balew has so far run a season’s best time of 12 minutes 48.67 seconds, which is also his personal best.
Bahrain have claimed five Diamond Trophies in past seasons. They were won by Naser in back-to-back campaigns in 2018 and 2019, Winfred Yavi in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase in 2023, and by 2016 Olympic champion Ruth Jebet, also in the steeplechase, in 2016 and 2017.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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