The Prague Post - Brussels Diamond League finals Day 1 - five events to watch

AFP Sport looks at five stand-out events to watch:

Men's pole vault

Double Olympic and triple world champion Duplantis, with 15 world records to his name, continues to dominate the world of men's pole vaulting.

But the US-born Swede conceded after victory at last week's Diamond League meet in Zurich he would have to continue giving his A-game to fight off Greek rival Emmanouil Karalis.

Duplantis won in Switzerland with a best of 6.25 metres, while Karalis set a new personal best of 6.20m in what transpired to be a real contest.

"This is the highest level of competition that there's ever been," said Duplantis.

"Manolo's jumping is amazing right now, so I have to jump my A-game."

Karalis added: "Hopefully, in the future we are going to have amazing battles. Hopefully, I can get a win one day."

Men's 100m

Seville motored to victory at the Silesia Diamond League, holding off Americans Kenny Bednarek and Christian Coleman for a meet record of 9.83 seconds as all nine sprinters went sub-10 seconds.

While Bednarek focuses on Saturday's 200m in Brussels, Coleman and Trayvon Bromell will be in the field for the blue riband event, along with Nigeria's Kayinsola Ajayi, Cameroon's Emmanuel Eseme, and the dangerous South African duo of Gift Leotlela and Akani Simbine.

"There are great things ahead of me," said Seville. "For the rest of the season I would like to keep winning and the next win should be in Brussels."

Women's 200m

Olympic champion Julien Alfred heads a deep field for the longer of the women's sprints.

Alfred touches down in Brussels fresh from gaining a degree of revenge on world gold medallist Melissa Jefferson-Wooden with a scorching victory in the women's 100m in Zurich.

Jefferson-Wooden might be missing from Brussels, but four of her US teammates are in the starting line-up: Anavia Battle, Jenna Prandini, Cambrea Sturgis and Kayla White.

Newly-crowned European champion Amy Hunt is also included.

"My only goal is to win on Friday and lift that Diamond League trophy. I want to win as many titles and trophies as possible in my career," said Alfred.

Men's 800m

World and Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya stormed to victory in Zurich ahead of Algerian Djamel Sedjati in what he dubbed an "amazing" time of 1:41.76.

"This result shows that my body is coming up," said Wanyonyi.

"When I see the world records being broken, I know my time will come. There is time for everything."

The 1:40.91 world record in the men's 800m was set by Wanyonyi's compatriot David Rudisha when he won Olympic gold in London in 2012.

Wanyonyi, who set a 1km world record in Monaco last month, has said that going for Rudisha's mark was like running a marathon under two hours.

Wanyonyo, Canada's Marco Arop -- his predecessor as world champion, Sedjati and France's Gabriel Tual -- who failed to make the European final -- make up the four fastest active 800m runners in history and all will be present in Brussels.

Men's 1,500m

Jakob Ingebrigtsen again puts himself to the test against a loaded field that includes a host of strong Americans: Olympic champion Cole Hocker, Yared Nuguse, Hobbs Kessler and Ethan Strand -- a shock winner at the Silesia meet.

Ingebrigtsen's outing in Poland was his first over the distance at a Diamond League in two years as he works back from an achilles injury that required surgery.

After a fourth in Silesia and fifth in Zurich, the Norwegian -- with a remarkable 20 Diamond League victories under his belt between 2020-24 -- has shown he can now mix it with the best in one of the most demanding events.

V.Nemec--TPP