10 Things To Watch At The Monaco Diamond League Meet
A preview of the famed Herculis Meeting in the Principality of Monaco, this Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET.
Hello, again! It’s David Melly here. The excitement of the World Athletics Championships may be behind us and half the world may be on vacation right now, but most of your favorite track and field stars are still hard at work putting on a show for you in the remaining Diamond League races of the 2022 season. The Herculis Meeting in the picturesque and insanely wealthy principality of Monaco is basically the Met Gala of track and field, a glitzy, star-studded event where the world’s best come together to flex on us mere mortals. The site of 5 world records (4 of which are still standing), this meet promises - and delivers - blazing-fast times, astronomical jumps, and mind-boggling throws.
11 of the 15 events on the schedule feature the reigning World champion, Olympic champion, or both. The meet is so stacked that, when we narrowed things down to 10 event to watch, we had to leave off a stacked steeplechase featuring Emma Coburn, Courtney Frerichs, and Courtney Wayment. With a ton of action packed into a 2-hour TV-window, you’ll want to drop everything Wednesday afternoon and tune in.
Full entries and live results can be found here. American viewers can watch the meet from 2pm-4pm E.S.T. on Peacock and many other territories can stream the meet live on the Diamond League YouTube page.
Men’s 200m: Clash Of The Titans
What’s better than a Noah Lyles-Kenny Bednarek-Erriyon Knighton rematch? A rematch, with 400m world champion Michael Norman thrown in to spice things up. In fact, with Eugene 4th-placer Joe Fahnbulleh in the race and seven men with season’s bests of 19.93 or faster, this race is arguably more stacked than the World Championship final.
It’s hard to bet against Noah Lyles, the two-time world champion and newly-minted American record holder. But sometimes the release of pressure caused by delivering on the biggest stage can lead athletes to relax a little too much (deservedly so!) and their hungry rivals who left Eugene with something left to prove may not be coasting along so easily. Either way, you won’t want to miss it.
In case you want to get hyped for this race specifically, you should listen to Lyles’s fantastic episode of Out of the Blocks with Jasmine Todd and Katelyn Hutchinson. At 76 minutes, it’s probably one of the most in-depth (and funniest) conversations with the star out there now.
Women’s 100m: How Low Can Shelly-Ann Go?
It’s hard to fault consistency and excellence, but you can argue that Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce has been “stuck” in the 10.6s since running 10.67 in Nairobi way back in May. If she’s stuck, she’s stuck at the top, however: she’s the only woman under 10.70 this year and she’s now run 10.67, 10.67, 10.67, and 10.66 (the latter just this past weekend in Poland). It would be great to see her take down her PB of 10.60 from last summer and become only the third woman ever under that monumental barrier.
She’ll have good competition pushing her to a fast time as her compatriot Shericka Jackson is entered as well along with Americans Aleia Hobbs, Tamara Clark, Melissa Jefferson, and TeeTee Terry. Speaking of barriers, we haven’t seen an American woman run a wind-legal time under 10.80 yet this year, and this could be the race to do it.
Men’s 1000m: World Champions Match Up In Off Distance
World 800m champion Emmanuel Korir and World 1500m champion Jake Wightman meet in the middle in the men’s 1000m, a favorite of American indoor racers but a rarely-run outdoor distance in the pro ranks. No one has been within a second of Noah Ngeny’s world record of 2:11.96 in this century, and we don’t expect that to change on Wednesday, but it will still be interesting to see how differing tactics play out among middle-distance runners with a wide range of strengths.
Americans Clayton Murphy and Bryce Hoppel are well-suited to the 1k distance, so expect them to outperform expectations a bit compared with the more “pure 800” runners in the field like Marco Arop and Ferguson Rotich. It will also be fun to see if 1500m specialist Josh Thompson can be in the mix late enough for his trademark 100m kick to make him a threat.
Women’s Triple Jump: We Are Always On WR Watch
When you’re already the indoor and outdoor world record holder and still in the prime of your career, any time you enter a meet, you’ve got a shot at making history.
Such is the case with Yulimar Rojas, whose 15.47m victory (#5 jump in history) was almost seen as an underperformance simply because she didn’t set a world record. The question, as always, with Rojas isn’t whether or not she’ll win, but just how far she can go, and perhaps *not* having broken any records since March 2022 (a whole 5 months ago!) means she’s hungry for more. Her personal best stands at 15.74m (indoors), but watching her inch closer and closer to 16 meters over the next few years will surely be thrilling for the fans.
Men’s 110H: The Duel We Missed In Eugene
Grant Holloway’s second 110m hurdles world title certainly felt like a bit of a Pyrrhic victory this time around, as several of his primary rivals didn’t make it to the finish line for a range of reasons. Olympic champ Hansle Parchment tweaked a muscle in warmups and had to withdraw, U.S. champ Daniel Roberts fell in the prelim, and of course, who could forget the false-start heard ‘round the world as Devon Allen was robbed of a shot at gold by reacting to the gun 1/1000th of a second too quickly.
No Allen in this one, but Holloway will get a proper showdown with Parchment this time in hopes of turning the tables on his rival from Tokyo. We’ll also get to see silver medalist Trey Cunningham in international action as the newly-signed adidas pro dips his toes into the post-NCAA world. Given that he’s already got a World medal and a free trip to Monaco, it seems to be going well for him so far.
Women’s Javelin: Eugene Podium Rematch
All three women from the World Championships podium are back and throwing in Monaco, including beloved American vet Kara Winger as she takes a well-deserved farewell tour around Europe. A few days ago in Poland, Japan’s Haruka Kitaguchi, who took bronze in Eugene, set a season’s best of 65.10m and won that Diamond League meet, so we’ll see if she can take down World champion Kelsey-Lee Barber, who was too busy winning gold at the Commonwealth games to compete in Silesia.
We’ve also got to tip our hats to another longtime veteran, Barbora Špotáková of the Czech Republic. The 41-year-old double Olympic champ wasn’t in Eugene but she’s still throwing, notching her season’s best of 62.29m for second place in Poland. Here’s hoping she can keep the momentum going and finish out her long career on a high note.
Men’s 3000m: Americans Out For Redemption
The men’s 3000m is a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure for revenge plotlines. There’s Grant Fisher, who was tripped up with 100m to go in the World 5000m final and (possibly) denied a medal as a result. There’s his teammate Woody Kincaid, who was knocked to the track in the prelims and not advanced to the final. And then there’s Paul Chelimo, who missed a U.S. team for the first time since 2015.
They’re all entered against some of the world’s best, including World silver medalist Jacob Krop of Kenya, Pre Classic 5000m champ Berihu Aregawi of Ethiopia, and 7:28 man Stewy McSweyn of Australia. The man to beat, however, may be Domnic Lobalu of South Sudan, who competes internationally as a refugee but was not in Eugene. Lobalu won the 3000m at the Stockholm Diamond League meet in 7:29.48, the world-leading time outdoors this year. Whether he proves his 3k prowess was not a fluke or one of his challengers takes him down, the field should be well-prepared to run some seriously fast times.
Women’s 800m: MacLean Moves Down
The sole non-Diamond League event on the program looks on paper to be a bit watered down, with no Athing Mu, Keely Hodgkinson, Mary Moraa, or Ajee’ Wilson on the entry list, but one intriguing name stands out among the usual suspects who’ve run plenty of 800ms already this year: American Heather MacLean, fresh off a 4:01 PB in the 1500m in Silesia this weekend.
MacLean has only officially run 1:59.80 this year, but if the rumors are to believe, she time-trialed a solo 1:58 shortly after USAs in practice - with no pacer. That suggests she’s capable of mixing it up with the best 800m runners in the world, and with Jamaica’s Natoya Goule in the race and always a reliable bet to take it out hard, a big PB could be in the works.
It could also help Australia’s Abbey Caldwell, who showed her federation the error of their ways by taking bronze in the 1500m at the Commonwealth Games after being unjustly left off the Worlds team, improve upon her 2:00.03 personal best and sneak under that 2-minute barrier. Or demolish it, based on how she’s been running lately.
Men’s High Jump: Barshim Keeps Going
One month ago, you would’ve never thought Mutaz Essa Barshim was the man to beat in the men’s high jump. The injury-prone Olympic champion had only competed twice in 2022, his season’s best of 2.30m well below the sensational World Indoor champion Sanghyeok Woo. But Barshim is the definition of clutch, and just as he did in 2017, 2019, and 2021, he performed big when it counted most, clearing a world-leading 2.37m to remind everyone why he’s got a gold-heavy medal shelf.
Woo is back to challenge him in Monaco, along with the likes of New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr, American JuVaughn Harrison, and Italian co-Olympic champ Gianmarco Tamberi. If Barshim is still jumping like he was in Eugene, no one can touch him, but can he keep the playoff mojo going into August?
Women’s 1500m: Who Will Be The Next American Sub-4? And Are We On World Record Watch?
At this year’s Prefontaine Classic, eventual U.S. 1500m champ Sinclaire Johnson made quite the splash by becoming the 10th American woman under 4 minutes in the 1500m. She’s back for more Diamond League action in Monaco, and given the historically-fast nature of 1500m races in the Stade Louis II, we could see even more American women under 4 as Elise Cranny, Cory McGee, and Allie Wilson are entered as well. McGee in particular has to have her eye on the clock as she’s run 4:00 twice in the last 14 months. If there was a betting line, I’d personally set the over/under on American sub-4s at 1.5 for this one.
The trickier question is whether the world record will be under threat as well. Faith Kipyegon, now the 4-time global champ at 1500m, is the woman to do it, but even for her and her 3:52 PB, 3:50.07 is a tall order and absolutely everything would have to go perfectly for her to get it. That being said, Monaco is famous for its fast 1500s, and if there’s ever a time and place where everything could go perfectly, it’s Kipyegon in this stadium in the prime of her career. Her rival Gudaf Tsegay appeared to take a crack at the record in Poland last weekend, but the hot early pace took its toll and she ended up not even taking the win. The eternally consistent Kipyegon is less likely to overshoot her capabilities, but it’s just a tough damn record to take down. It’ll be fun to watch her try, though.
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