World champion Mary Moraa and African silver medalist Amos Serem were crowned the 2024 Diamond League winners on day one of the Memorial Van Damme Diamond League in Brussels, Belgium, on Friday night.
Serem, the former world under-20 champion, finally made a 3rd successful attempt to trounce the Olympic and World Champion Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco in 3000msc, ending his unbeaten run since September 2021, leading from the 2,000m mark to the finish line in 8:06.90 minutes.
Bakkali finished 2nd in 8:08.60, ahead of Tunisia’s Mohammed Amin and Olympic silver medalist Abraham Kibiwott of Kenya in 3rd and 4th positions, respectively.
Moraa wound up her season in style, shaking off stiff competition from a star-studded field to clinch the 800m season’s victory with a seasonal best time of 1 minute 56.56 seconds.
Britain’s Georgia Bell followed in 2nd place, followed by Jamaican Natoya Goule in 3rd place.
Timothy Cheruiyot finished 2nd in 1500m in 3:30.37 behind world champion Jakub Ingebrigsten of Norway, who redeemed himself after missing out on the podium at the Paris Olympics.
Berihu Aregawi led Ethiopians to a clean podium sweep in 5000m as Kenyan Nicholas Kimeli finished 4th.
Reigning Olympic Champion Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia,once again trounced the World Champion Sha Carri Richardson of the USA to bag the 100m season’s victory in 10:88, ahead of Dinah Asher Smith of the UK and Marie Jose Talou of Ivory Coast who finished 2nd and 3rd positions, respectively.
The men’s race was won by Jamaican Ackeem Blake in 9.93, ahead of the American duo Christian Coleman and Fred Kerly in 2nd and 3rd positions in that order.
The championship ends today with 16 finals with Kenyans competing in 800m men, 1500m women, 3000m SC women, and 5,000 women.
Winners of each discipline will get a ksh 3.9 million prize money, a Diamond trophy, and earn direct tickets to next year’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan.
