•Olympic 1500m silver medallist, Timothy Cheruiyot who has been out of form for the past two seasons, will seek to kick-start his season with a win in his specialty.
•Chebet, who bagged the World Cross Country Championships senior women's title in Serbia in March will be up against a 10-man Ethiopian contingent in the 12-and-a-half lap race.
Image: XINHUA
World silver 5,000m bronze medallist Beatrice Chebet faces a stellar field at the Doha Diamond League meeting on Friday.
Chebet, who bagged the World Cross Country Championships senior women's title in Serbia in March will be up against a 10-man Ethiopian contingent in the 12-and-a-half lap race.
Taye Ejgayehu will be the one to beat in the Ethiopian line-up which also boasts of Wudu Melknat, Mebratu Aynadis, Hambese Gela, Amare Elsabet, Aschal Wubrist and Dagnachew Ayal among others. The other name to look out for includes Tanaka Nozomi of Japan.
Olympic 1500m silver medallist, Timothy Cheruiyot who has been out of form for the past two seasons, will seek to kick-start his season with a win in his specialty.
He finished sixth in Eugene in 2022 and has a lifetime personal best of 3:28.28 set in 2021. He ran a 3000m personal best of 7:36.72 in Doha last year.
While he admits his race fitness isn’t quite where he’d like it to be at this time of year, he opened his season with a 1:46.56 800m at the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi on April 20 after recovering from a knee injury that was affecting his performances last summer.
He’s looking forward to putting down an important marker as he builds towards the Kenyan Olympic Trials.
Reynold Cheruiyot, the World Under-20 1,500m champion and a finalist at the 2023 World Championships, has made headlines over the past 12 months.
He set a world age-group record in the mile (3:48.06) at the Prefontaine Classic in September 2023 and more recently won 1500m in 3:31.96 during the Kip Keino Classic.
Other notable names include Abel Kipsang, two-time world indoor 1500m champion and Ethiopian indoor record holder, Samuel Tefera; Spain’s 1500m indoor record holder Adel Mechaal, who was fifth in the Tokyo Olympic Games.
World 800m champion Mary Moraa highlights the two-lap race. Moraa is the Kenyan record holder over 400m (50.38) and won the All-African Games 400m title in March 2024.
In recent years she’s become a dominant force in the 800m, lowering her personal best from 2:03.27 in 2020 to 1:56.03 with victory at the World Championships in Budapest last year.
In 2022, the charismatic 23-year-old, who has become known for her dancing celebrations, finished third at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon, won Commonwealth Games gold in Birmingham and was crowned Wanda Diamond League champion.
She faces a tough test from World Indoor Championships silver medallist Jemma Reekie of Great Britain. The field also includes World Indoor Championships bronze medallist Noélie Yarigo (Ben); Olympic finalist and Jamaican record holder Natoya Goule-Toppin and 2019 world champion Halimah Nakaayi (Uganda).