A total of 45 Olympic and world championship medallists will be in action when the Wanda Diamond League returns in Doha this Friday. Here are five things to look out for at the Qatar Sports Club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fraser-Pryce returns<\/strong> Tebogo takes on the 200m<\/strong> Olympic rematch in the steeplechase<\/strong> Chopra launches title bid<\/strong> Triple jump showdown<\/strong> via diamondleague.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce returns to action while Letsile Tebogo takes on his first 200m of the...","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":2144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"city":[],"class_list":["post-2143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wanda-diamond-league-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monaco.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monaco.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monaco.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monaco.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monaco.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2143"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/monaco.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2152,"href":"https:\/\/monaco.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions\/2152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monaco.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monaco.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monaco.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monaco.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monaco.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=2143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
With 25 victories and five series titles, Jamaican sprint legend Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is one of the most successful athletes in Diamond League history. In Doha, the 38-year-old superstar will be hoping to add to that tally when she lines up in the 100m against the likes of Mujinga Kambundji and compatriots Natasha Morrison and Tia and Tina Clayton. Victory would be her first in the Diamond League since 2022, and would be a potential first step towards a record-equalling sixth Diamond Trophy in 2025. She knows how to do it, having won in Doha twice before in 2014 and 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having become the first African ever to win gold in the men\u2019s 200m at the Olympic Games in Paris last season, Botswana sprint star Letsile Tebogo announced he would switch his focus to the 100m in 2025. After openng his Diamond League campaign with 100m appearances in Xiamen and Keqiao, however, Tebogo will be back on familiar territory when he takes on his first 200m of the campaign in Doha. Canada\u2019s Aaron Brown and Liberia\u2019s Joseph Fahnbulleh will provide tough competition, but the Olympic champion remains firm favourite as he eyes a first Diamond League win of the season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Distance events are always a raucous affair at the Qatar Sports Club, as Doha\u2019s proud contingent of Kenyan and Ethiopian fans get fully behind their favourite athletes. This time, it will be the women\u2019s 3000m steeplechase which takes centre stage, with all three Olympic medallists from 2024 on the starting line. Bahrain\u2019s Winfred Yavi won gold in Paris, while Uganda\u2019s Peruth Chemutai and Kenya\u2019s Faith Cherotich took silver and bronze. All three will be making their first Diamond League appearance of the season, while for Cherotich, this will be her first appearance as reigning series champion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another athlete who is hoping for some crowd support in Doha is javelin star Neeraj Chopra. The 2021 Olympic champion made history in 2022 when he became the first Indian athlete ever to win the Diamond League title and he will be hoping to take a first step towards regaining that crown when he launches his 2025 campaign on Friday. \u201cI\u2019m always overwhelmed by the support I get from the Indian people in Qatar \u2013 there aren\u2019t enough words to thank them,\u201d said Chopra ahead of his fourth career appearance at the Qatari meeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There will be another Olympic rematch in the women\u2019s triple jump, as Paris gold medallist Thea LaFond goes up against Jamaica\u2019s silver medallist Shanieka Ricketts. There is little to separate the two women, who are ranked two and three in the world at the moment and both have a personal best of more than 15 metres. Ricketts has the slightly better Diamond League record, having won six victories to LaFond\u2019s one and claimed the title in 2019. They will be joined on the runway by a familiar but surprising face in five-time Diamond League long jump champion Ivana Spanovic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n